JRE MMA Show #25 with Michael Chandler

00:02four three two boom and we're live how are you brother I'm great man livin great in here man thank you I've been oh yeah you know I want to have you on for a long time man I've been following your career forever and I've been a big fan forever so it's nice to be able sit down with you I know man this is awesome this is uh I've been a big fan of yours obviously in the podcast for a long time so to be in here get the tour check out you're awesome man warehouse this is dream this is an elaborate plot to convince me to get you to join the UFC straight do it okay all of this could be yours I appreciate Rory MacDonald going over there I know he did what he had to do but even that one bums me out you know I just I wanted to I want to see you fight the best guys in the world and I think right now over in Bellator you have very good competition but I don't think you

00:58have the best guys and I think you're one of the best guys I think I think I wake up every morning think I'm the best guy in the world - that's the way I've been thinking for a while and not always in my career I mean I've had some losses where I've you know had temporary lapses of confidence and whatnot whether it be my training or my abilities in myself or my thoughts of my abilities myself but I mean where I'm at right now firing on all cylinders I feel like everything's working so do you feel like those moments where you haven't been at your best where you've had lapses and then you felt those dark moments to those motivate you to never let that happen again yeah I mean I think I actually went through for those the people that don't know I went through three losses in a row I mean that's that's rough I mean the first loss to Eddie Alvarez was a tough split decision a lot of people

01:46thought I won so you kind of get this you know Oh what was me attitude which I'd never had really had before and all of a sudden it's like why did this happen to me then had a back injury and then fought will Brooks when I shouldn't have on one week basically one week of training which led to another loss which led to another lack of confidence and then another law so I went through that tough dark time you know and I think there were certain aspects of it that was it was me taking taking the sport for Graham it was me taking my abilities for granted and also just not taking extreme ownership of my mental state like realizing that I might be the hardest worker in the gym I am the hardest worker in the gym every gym I go to him the hardest worker I live life right I do the right things but if you're not constantly taking extreme ownership of your mental state

02:32of your confidence your self-image I think a healthy self-image is the the most important component of being successful in life and I just I wasn't taking care of that aspect of life so you were doing all the right things physically but you weren't doing what you needed to do mentally yeah I mean I think I had never visualized until after that I mean honestly I mean I come from a I come from a hard-working background my mom and dad both worked two jobs my dad was a union carpenter I woke up at 5:00 in the morning every single morning pulled himself up by his bootstraps mom the same way working two three jobs both of them to make sure that me and my brothers had every every single advantage in life to be whether it be wrestling camps football camps this that the other thing but we weren't exactly taught that hey you can go out in the world and do great things you can go out

03:19and you can be not just good but great and be a champion and I think I went into college wrestling and I might I might have told the coaches I wanted to be a national champion I might have told the reporters all the people that I was supposed to that I wanted to be a national champion but in my heart of hearts I didn't truly believe it you know and I think and I was I mean you you asked Tyron you asked Ben those guys took me under their wing because I was a hardest worker in the room you know and they said man this guy could be good but I didn't exactly believe in myself and now it's taken me almost till I'm 30 years old to really truly believe that I was put on this earth to do some amazing things and that there is no limits on myself and that there is no limits to my capabilities and my abilities so I mean I think we underestimate how important and how mental life is and not just in

04:04not just in athletics not just in fighting not just in sports but I mean in anything in business and and just being a good person just believing in yourself and having a healthy self-image yeah I couldn't agree more I think that's one of the most important things to life but it's also really difficult to cultivate no it is well well I think too I mean I'm very hard on myself you know I mean I think anybody who's is at least relatively hard on themselves and I I think I got to the point where I just started calling myself lazy you know I wake up every morning you know and I think Michael you're being lazy if you don't do something today listen to this podcast or watch this YouTube video or read this book or spend ten minutes five minutes 30 minutes visualizing yourself in a cage or on a podium or having loads of wealth or having loads of influence having loads of impact having having

04:54ridiculous amounts of success because until you actually see it in your mind's eye you can't actually achieve it or we are gonna get to the point right on the cusp of about to be achieving it and you're gonna have that cognitive dissonance where something something pops up where you have the opportunity to break that barrier but you're gonna find a way to sabotage yourself because you don't truly believe that you deserve it and I did that numerous times in college there was times where I was beaten top-ranked guys in the country and would somehow find a way to lose because winning to me being crazy successful to me wasn't exactly it didn't exactly mesh with how I truly saw myself you know I think it's and I think I can look back on that not with regret but with that kind of edge now they just educate myself and I look back and I could put myself at national duels

05:41against CP Sh later US vs. Minnesota my team needed me to win he was ranked top five in the country I wasn't supposed to beat him I was up by two takedowns and somehow in the third period the match and I can go back and and see that in my mind and realize okay that was a time let's say let's let's let's respect that for what it is and let's use that as fuel for the future I mean my loss to Eddie Alvarez was was a lot of technical a lot of technical dissing things I did wrong technically losses the will rooks were things I did wrong technically but mentally I wasn't there as well and then I came back with a vengeance and then won and I've know I've won six of my last seven the only loss was a you know crazy freak injury and now we can continue to move forward and just kind of look at it from as an adult instead of take the emotion out of it and look at it a plus B equals C you know and so

06:31it's really kind of helped me I think for a lot of people who don't test themselves in such an extreme manner I mean I think MMA is probably one of the most extreme things you could do for JA other than being a soldier mmm or a fireman or a police officer or something like that but it's that this idea that you sabotage yourself because you can't imagine yourself winning Chael Sonnen talked about that quite a bit about his fight with Anderson Silva how he was you know kind of dominating him not kind of but was dominating him was very close to being the UFC middleweight champion found a way to fall into a triangle and he had done that with Paulo figlio when he fought him and that there was this thing that he would do where he would find a way to it up yes even though you're there doing it the pressure of possibly pulling it off was all too overwhelming that you didn't believe

07:20some ways you know you didn't believe it and and and it's not even I mean we're all I think we're all victim to our so our subconscious sometimes - I mean like we said I mean we're in there fighting you think okay that's that's a man and they're fighting he he has control of his body but you you do but you don't I mean like when when Shay was getting caught I mean I I know exactly what you're talking about it for everybody know it remembers that fight because we're all sitting there watching thinking holy cow I can't believe Kayla's here's a couple minutes away from being the world it's horrible you know and all of a sudden I think we all saw the triangle come into you know Anderson that seemed like he'd put push the arm down real slow and then all of a sudden II threw the leg over a roll like what are you doing and then you know then 30 seconds later he's you know 10 seconds later the

08:01fights over and I think it's the the your views or your beliefs not matching up with the reality and all of a sudden there's that fine line between breaking that barrier and unless you have been there before unless like I said visualizing yourself extremely successful extremely wealthy someone to be looked at someone to be admired someone to be fun to follow unless you see that you're gonna get to the point where you tell everybody you want the success but you're not going to get it unless you 100% truly believe in it and it took me 30 years to figure it out so anybody who's done that before you know it's okay it'll come a time but you really have to like I said take extreme ownership of inside your brain between your ears is the most important part of life as we've already said and and you can continue to work hard and then I go back to the I'm talking about being lazy you know I

08:51literally call myself lazy and you know shame myself you know like Michael why didn't you do this today why didn't you work on your mental you know your mental health today your self-image today why didn't you visualize why didn't you do that because that's just just like flexing a muscle in the gym just like throwing a thousand repetitions whether it be on the punching bag or drilling a wrestling move or or a takedown it's all the same stuff and arguably more important on the mental side of things and it is in the physical side of things well you keep saying extreme ownership did you read Jacko's book I I have it I have it's one of those ones where I have it and I haven't read it yet but I I love that that word extreme ownership yeah it's an awesome word it's an awesome book too and it's from a guy who's actually lived it you know it's a lot like you know there's a lot of

09:32wisdom in his life experiences that you can get something out of I ask because you you obviously are a guy who seeks out knowledge right you you work on your mind what what was it was it a book or is a series of books like what what got you thinking differently well honestly for me what got me thinking differently was honestly just going through the most trying time of my life I mean I had just gotten married now it's time to be a man now it's time to step up now it's time to provide and all of a sudden I go through this loss tree where after my third loss I went home to San Diego with my wife we sat on the couch and we sit there and we just cried who was the third loss third boss was will Brooks the second time oh that's right so so I lost to him twice Eddie once and then now the Mets were garden one but we went home we sat there and it was almost like what do we do now

10:24his Bellator gonna cut me am I did I work this hard to now you know be where I'm at now yeah I mean I was at I mean I was at two years or year and a half removed from being one of the top three guys in the world I just beaten Eddie Eddie and you know all that kind of stuff and now here I was three fights in a row lost but it was it was that time where I realized right I was actually starting to change my kind of mental training and stuff I was starting my mental training as I was going into that third fight or that that third loss that second fight with world Brooks but I just hadn't been there yet and honestly that well that one was more just like I got caught you know but that that was really what kind of set the trigger and I really think it just started to realize Michael why you know you sit there and you tell people you want to be the best you your your

11:11actions speak louder than your words you work harder than everybody else you show up first you you're the last one to leave you take care of your body you do all the right things at the end of the day somebody has to be the best why shouldn't it be you and I kept asking myself that question and I'd the only answer I could come up with was I deserve to be the best I really do you know I and I can say that with humility to say I really do deserve to be the best guy in the in the entire world at lightweight now nobody works harder than I do nobody takes care of themself better than I do nobody has made the sacrifices that I have and nobody lives the clean lifestyle like I do and has has a calling on their life like I do yet when it came down to it it has taken years and years and decades to almost erase the small-mindedness that I've had in my past and we're all just a constant

11:56work in progress and I think I just I came up with work hard good things might happen but most likely would be mediocre you know that's kind of that was kind of my mindset what did you do different like what what did you change for me if you got reading books like what specifically do you remember what triggered it or what helped you there's a there was a book called mind gym you're out of it no mind gym and they talked about he talks about making a mental highlight reel and since that day I've made mental highlight reels every couple months and even even right now to this day there's on my mental highlight reel right now is beating Kyler Sanderson at Mizzou on senior night when him and I were ranked at the same we were ranked like fourth and fifth in the country you know and not that I wasn't supposed to beat him but the manner in which I beat him almost majored him and

12:43it was one of those breakthrough moments where I gave myself permission in front of everybody to just go out there and beat a guy handedly it was a wrestling match it was a wrestling match you know so when you say make a mental highlight reel this is of your past accomplishments past accomplishments and I think the biggest detriment the the biggest detriment to the people that work hard and expect a lot of themselves is when you have achievements you don't take time to smell the roses you don't take time to pat yourself on the back you feet you think that okay well if I if I if I stop and I say you know I am good oh my gosh I did do a great job holy cow I was dominant you're not supposed to do that because that's prideful and that's that's that's conceited and that's narcissistic but really if you're not your biggest fan who's going to be you know and I think

13:26that's what I always did I would accomplish something I'd say okay well I'm supposed to accomplish that I was I won this tournament well I was supposed to you were there's a balance right there's a balance between patting yourself on the back too much and kissing your own ass and believe in your own and we see what happens with those guys that's almost worse exactly one day and I think and I think we've all seen those cases do you know we've all seen those cases where you see you see one guy pride comes before the fall and then all sudden the fall happens you say okay well I don't want to do that right but there is that fine line that that middle ground where it's like oh it's okay to love yourself it's a great look at yourself in the mirror and say that man right there standing in front of me in the mirror is a badass and you or you deserve to be extremely

14:06successful but then when you go out in the world that you don't walk around like you're better than people you don't walk around like you know so I mean there's there is no you know finite a plus B equals C type of way to live but there is that middle ground between being your biggest fan taking time to stop stop and pat yourself on the back and realize your accomplishments which which the mental highlight reel thing is something great because you can go through ten things in your past and just continuing to remember those times where you you were in your flow state where you absolutely performed at a ridiculous level that you didn't that you kind of surprised yourself almost and I think that continues to happen step by step and brick by boring brick you make these little bitty accomplishments and as long as you continue to remember them you can continue to increase that confident

14:52capacity that you had that you should have and start to go from man I didn't know I was capable of this to now the confident expectancy of okay I said I deserve it but now I really am starting to believe that I deserve it and then once you actually believe then you get in those scenarios where it's you versus him and someone's got to win so it's you more most of the time now so this flow state thing so like when you're in a state where you feel like everything is just clicking do you try to how do you try to recreate that in your mind to remember that state I think it's I think it is writing down after a practice or or honestly sometimes what I like to do is you do that you like come in Journal training journal yeah try write things down I mean and that's that's things too that can be added to them into a highlight reel you know like don't like having a really great sparring day and then

15:41remembering what you had for breakfast remember and how your how your day started remember whether you did or did not watch the TV before at practice or you know those little things and then and then I always talk about working extremely hard and surround yourself with the best people possible and that's why I've you know I moved out to Las Vegas right when I started fighting and then moved to San Diego and then move and then move my training camp to Arizona and then now Florida and now you know so I've moved all over the country to find the best guys I possibly can so when you have a great day like that sit down with the coach and say hey coach you know I'm talking to Henry or Evan or commie or or one of these guys that has coached me right now and talked about it like almost overly talked about it which that those guys are always annoying to me or they always used to be like hey I

16:23did this right and I did this right and it did this right because I always thought well you should just work you shouldn't rock just work but you could I've started to realize that those things need to be vocalized or they get swept under the rug and you forget that you had a great day so now we sit down and we talk and we say hey man that that three two was really really working great off the faint and we worked that we worked out yesterday as we were hitting mitts and now you're continuing to show yourself that this thing really actually does work you're not just working to work you're working smart and then you see you see that the working smart actually turns into results and then you're you're you're like a lab rat in the gym working on these little experiments that you're that you're making and you're actually collecting the data and seeing the results now when you're talking

17:05about doing a mental highlight real thing is this sort of a rebuilding exercise of rebuilding confidence exercise or is this just a solidifying skillset and understanding your potential because you've already done things before like because you were in a bad spot and he started doing this and you is this when you started constructing this highlight reel thing that's what yeah that's when it that's when I really I actually read the book in college and then found it on my shelf one day do you know who wrote it mind Jim so you find it Jimmy Gary Mac Mac Gary Mac yeah and then there was just a bunch of and there was another book to remind to remind me it's called how champions think but it was just a bunch of a bunch of instances where we talk about Tiger Woods they were talk about this guy or that guy you know and then one of the chapters was doing a mental

17:54highlight reel and I think it can be used for both I mean no I mean you should do one today we should all do one today whether you're in a great place whether you're just you just close the biggest business deal you ever possibly could or you just are down in the dumps because you feel like the biggest loser on earth you do a mental highlight reel to just it's it's just like going to the gym and then it changes you know maybe maybe this month is different than next month maybe you wipe off an old one and you put on a brand new one that you just remembered because sometimes we forget successes that we have it takes it takes me going to my wikipedia page or me you know going on some old interviews or somebody telling me on Twitter hey remember that time you did this for me to actually remember the successes that I've had because I've been conditioned

18:33to pull myself up by my bootstraps every single day and forget about all my accomplishes in my past because those don't matter those are stumbling those what I used to look at stumbling blocks because what got you here isn't gonna get you where where you want to go and we have that some sort of that mentality but you have to take the time to remember and almost look at yourself the way other people see you because we all are all our biggest critics you know the way my fancy me the way you watch me fight is in the the way you see my abilities it's probably even better than I have seen myself a lot in my past from an outside perspective it's so much easier to look at someone outside perspective because of our own inner monologue of our own and and our own self image dummies down who we are and how much we want to accomplish not all of us I mean there's a lot of people out

19:21there who are cocky narcissists it narcissistic people who think they are that you know those people have the hardest time coming back from losses the big time like when they get head kicked or something and then they realize they're human it's like whoa you see it with a lot of those guys where yeah they don't instead of facing their demons what they've done is create this delusion of delusional self-image and when that delusional self-image gets shattered and it's an undeniable reality that there's people that are better than them it's very very difficult for them to bounce back yeah well and I mean I think I am by known means the poster child for for that I mean it took me a loss that carried me into another loss and another loss it was a I went 688 days without a win and I'll never but when I write a book someday if somebody's gonna be called 688 days and that's how long it took me

20:09to go from loss to win and that's a long time long time a long time to be to question yourself every single day to wake up in the morning wondering if you were gonna have a paycheck wondering if you were gonna get a phone call from your manager wondering if you really wanted to open up your phone and see all the negative comments that I told you Michael Chandler wasn't as good as we all thought he was but I mean not even you know not even just the fans it was you know the media wrote me off and everybody you know the your you're just you get written off and it's it shapes the reality when really the reality was man I was put on this earth to do some great things but it just took me I look look at it now and I think you know if bad things happen to you but good things come things comes from it was it really a bad thing and I look at it and I say everybody's got losses it's not a big

21:01deal you know I remember the sting I remember the pain I remember the embarrassment I mean what we also remember too is this is embarrassing you lose a fight that's embarrassing yeah it's a hard pill to swallow yeah you know so it's it's tough especially when you were a former champion and then you're going these 600-plus days without a win and that's it really highlights the difficult nature of fighting as opposed to any other sport where you know there's there's times where it's entirely likely that you're gonna go a long time without competing again yeah you could go six months without competing again you can go eight months guys go a year if you get injured that's a long time any other sport if you lose a baseball game you know you drop a ball yeah like you're back at it next day the next day same thing with wrestling you know wrestling wrestling

21:51was great because you know you lost you lost a match on Saturday you were able to to come back in the duel on Wednesday or even the next Saturday seven days you had to go you know I mean a lot of times yeah I mean barring injuries or whatnot I mean it could be a year before you get to get to step back in the cage again and then every single day you spend questioning and every single day you also just end up putting so much pressure on yourself I mean my the biggest thing that I did wrong was I came into the sport I wasn't and literally 18 months after starting the sport I was in a cage with Eddie Alvarez top five guys in the world beat Eddie Alvarez then it was like okay now you have to perform that was that soon after starting the sport August of 2009 I had my first fight and then I fought him in 2011 that's crazy yeah and he finished him and finished him but but

22:40then but then now the now the real game starts now it's like okay hey you're there you're ranked in the top three top five you know your whole future depends on every single fight and then instead of think about every single fight you think about every single practice and instead of think about every single practice you think about every single round in practice and not not just every round but every minute in practice so you hit me with it you hit me with a one-two immediately that's a loss in my mind so now I have to come back and get it you know so instead of just focusing on success I was focusing on perfection so every single day I was trying to be perfect you can't be perfect the greatest athletes in the world will tell you they are not perfect you know they fail time and time and time again but I put all this pressure on myself to where I put myself in this prison of Michael

23:24you suck because you just lost to this guy who's not even signed to it any organization at all and you just lost him in in this in the sparring round in my my view of what the loss was was different than my coach who watched it he said no you did all right you didn't lose horribly but in my mind I lost horribly I would've got finished Bubba ball that kind of like crazy stuff you know so that's the thing too as I started focusing on success and not perfection you know stop putting so much pressure in yourself to be perfect just focus on being successful now I'm focusing on the big picture of being successful instead of these little bitty instances where I'm trying to be perfect now when you look at yourself and you look you overall MMA skill set do you do you try to look at it almost like as if you're managing yourself not managing yourself like a fight manager but like

24:08like a project like looking at it like okay this is what we need to work on this is how I need to tighten this up and tight do you look at it as like an overall long-term project like how do you how do you visualize it yeah I mean in and I get that question a lot too is like well hey how much how much how do you prepare for an opponent and honestly mmm I'd say almost 90% of my training is focusing on myself I mean because if I if I put the right systems in place if I get the right SIL skill sets as sharp as they can be for fight night there's not a guy in the lightweight division in the entire world that I think can beat me that last 10% 90% focus on myself the last 10% focus on the little intricacies the little habits the little the little tendencies that my opponents might have I mean Eddie did a great job with it in the second round they knew if they ran from

24:54me in the second fight yeah they ran for me and they circled and circled and circled crazy maniac robot come forward like a reckless abandon Michael Chandler's gonna come he's gonna eat a thousand you know eat a thousand jabs and you can keep him off you long enough to hopefully maybe win a decision they did a good job at that I wasn't cutting off the I wasn't cutting off the cage I wasn't using my faints I was starting trying to throw big shots because why we had that epic battle in 2011 I wasn't a hundred percent confident in my training so that led me to just fight like a barbarian rather than a skillful veteran that has the skills and the abilities to be able to go out there and beat any lightweight in the world you know so I think it's still relatively new with your fighting experience to write well at a time your second fight yeah but I was still very

25:37young and I had changed I I had moved to a training camp where I wasn't getting we all we all need to look at ourselves too or not I'm not telling people how to live their lives or train but I needed to focus on a certain path to victory find the easiest path to victory Bruce Lee you know water be like water you know I mean adapt but also just say okay I'm a not along not a long guy not a tall guy I'm a shorter powerful wrestler who can take anybody down who's not gonna get taken down who has an overhand right that can knock them knock anybody out in the entire world and a gas tank that can that can come that will surpass any 25 minutes that I need to fight so I needed to focus on these certain five elements to be successful and not a thousand stuff I mean training with Dominick Cruz and working on footwork and doing this and doing that and rollouts and all that kind of stuff that

26:26just it wasn't the right path to victory for me therefore I found myself almost out training myself I was training much.when if I were to really just want to train to basics and good cardio go strengthen conditioning good boxing good wrestling good grappling that's easy to say now it is the fact yeah right like it snuck in that yeah what where were you training at the time were you training our alliance yeah yeah and so you felt like you were trying to mimic like Dominic's crazy movement and I think it's just I mean the good thing about that training camp is they have they have opened themselves up to a lot of different techniques you know I mean I I I feel like I'm pretty athletic I feel like I catch on pretty quickly but really to be successful like if I was gonna step into the cage with khabib tomorrow I'm going to focus on the basics that win I mean you can win a

27:16whole fight with a one-two and good takedown defense some takedown offense and some good grappling you know and that's it that's all you need and in my mind the more I try to make this an intricate sport in a in a complicated sport the more you're gonna find yourself having incremental defeats you know like when I'm when I'm sparring outside of my element all of a sudden I find ok I tried this this round I got beat up like great you know and got beat up which messes up your confidence and all that stuff do you feel like and this is something that I struggle with too when I'm trying to analyze fighters performances in their future and what what you can and can't do do you feel like you go into MMA with a certain skill set you you start out as a wrestler and you know you're not going to be like a karate expert Yeah right you're not gonna be a wonderboy you're

28:06not gonna be jujitsu expert which you are is a powerful wrestler with great striking that's your that's your skill set you're strong and got great cardio if you tried to add a bunch of stuff to that it expand your skill level do you feel like there's enough time in a career to really achieve the type of proficiency with say like kickboxing or something like that that a real world-class kickboxer has you almost are better off not doing that yeah I mean that I mean I think I am the how-to manual for that you know and but but I also try to do different I mean just two too many too many angles too many different combinations many too many calls I mean you can also a coach can out coach too you know I mean a coach can out coach and say tell you seven different combinations in one minute when really it should have just been focused on cutting him off focus on

29:00focus on feints focus on touch on a leg which is going to set up the set up the the punches and focus on the punches are gonna set up the takedown you know I mean I also would say now say my coach Henry hoofed awesome kickboxing awesome kick boxing coach has amazing techniques but it's very very very basic we we focus on being very very proficient and very violent with the basics you know I mean you're not gonna see us throwing a bunch of crazy combinations or a bunch of crazy stuff so that works very well for me I started out with Gil Martinez in Vegas just wrestling just boxing you know and then I went to Alliance and then now down in Florida with Henry and you live in Florida now now I live in Nashville but my last three camps I've done down in Florida I'm opening up my own gym in Nashville so I will be doing training at both places but I mean the

29:50the killers that I get to spar with and train with down in Florida it can't be matched and those coaches are amazing down there so yeah I'm a big fan of Henry who've yeah it's good I like him as a person and I really like his coaching style he's an animal he is and the funny thing is he coached against me in that second Eddie Alvarez fight mm-hmm you know so like we talked about that and that's why I will always I want to fight Eddie against so bad I want to have that one I had was ready so bad but I have so much respect for him because not only that I you know spend I spent 50 minutes inside the cage with the guy we have both have our face bloodied and battered and stitches I mean I got stitches in my lip we both have stitches in our lip and our eyes and eyebrows from each other but it's funny because when I sit there and I talk to people that I train and I basically train in

30:35his training camp that he used to train in and everybody always said there's only one guy compared your work I can can compare your work ethic to your dedication to your love for your family your love for the sport this that any other thing and that's Eddie so I mean me and Eddie have spoken a couple times I went up and trained with Frankie Edgar for two weeks a couple years ago and he was out there training so we like it's always just funny between me and him because we you know have fought and you know but it's funny but it's not like we have so much respect we don't hate each other you guys hang out and go to dinner or anything no we never done that but I mean we saw each other practice and I asked him to spar and he's like nah man I want to get knocked out but but we were the same we are at the same thing and same practices and stuff and it's common but you also get it's cool to get

31:20compared to a guy that you have fought because that immediately gives you that a much more respect for somebody because because I know how hard I trained I know I show up early and I'm always doing a little bit of extra and everybody knows what I'm fighting for and I think him and I are very similar in that kind of in that respect so it's kind of cool yeah I would imagine no one knows each other better than you guys do after something like that it's pretty nuts yeah I mean in man yeah they were both knock-down drag-out Wars they were crazy I was I would still say I won second second fight that's very close fight I will say but like I said I mean I ran into too many punches you know it was it was kind of crazy too I think I actually spoke to one of the refs one of the refs you who called the fight for Eddie or not one of the rest one of the judges like a couple months after I was at some

32:08event and he's like oh yeah well he rocked you in the second round I was like I didn't Rock me in the second round I tripped I basically like tripped and it looked like I got rocked Bryan so it's just funny that kind of stuff to this this sport is left up to the percentage necessarily know what their deal that - yeah that's a real problem with me I go crazy like I remember you talking about a couple fights ago you can say the one yeah you're like we're not gonna say that lady alone yeah it's a nice lady but look man it's it's just a disgrace that you have people that really don't know anything about martial arts and they're judging martial arts competitions I mean if could you imagine if you had like an Ultimate Fighting Championship eight-man tournament with all the judges yeah and have them fight each other right maybe like know anything about fighting at all well they take what do

33:00they take a test I don't know one test you know I mean a lot of them and certain commissions come from boxing so they're they're boxing judges which even in were they boxers or did they - that's Russian boxing a lot of them oh no I me but I think like I don't know if Harold Lederman can box it does a great job of judging though I mean I agree with a lot of his assessments but I think boxing is more straightforward it's two hands yeah you know there's no elbows knees takedowns you don't have to understand jiu-jitsu you don't have to understand wrestling you don't you don't have to understand when a guy's in trouble versus the guys not in trouble in a certain position like how close was that submission you know what how many leg kicks is that guy eating why did he switch his stance he switched his stance because he does that all the time or is his left leg chewed up you

33:46know right they don't know they really don't know stuff that you're saying that that people who have seen the sport are thinking but the judges are have you know may may or may not have any idea what's going on with them a lot of them don't have tonight it's a disgrace yes it really is a disgrace it's crazy to think that we have sports been around for 20 years now 25 years now and we're still having this conversation boxing has questionable judgments like there's there's some questionable calls but nothing like MMA yeah I think MMA is lazy ones it's disgraceful it's really what's the worst you know the worst one in your opinion I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to say uh worst one because there's been so many terrible ones sometimes it's like a split decision yeah well you'll hear one you agree with one you agree with and one you're like what the yeah and

34:37we'll like look at each other like I'll look at an ik and I'll look at DC and you're like Jesus Christ yeah how the did someone think that person won that fight yeah it's just bad man it's just really really really bad and for a god like you who you know you have a win bonus and a show bonus in the UFC so if you're in there and you do everything right and you get robbed you didn't just get robbed of a decision and on your record it goes to the lock and you could you know you could protest until the cows come home nobody ever gets anything reversed yeah well the last time anybody got a decision reversed yeah I can't even remember no I mean so I don't really think it happens did they rob you of your win bonus I mean it could cost you tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars it's a terrible terrible disgrace yeah I mean in in also - I've never

35:25even thought about the financials of it I never really thought it was always to me it was like a wrestling match it was a loss it was a loss of my record and then now I look back and I think dang man if I would have fought just a little bit different here then where that judge would have solved this with a little bit different we're talking a lot of money that I could have in my pocket or would have won you know so it's we've discussed this many times and I think first of all the idea of three judges is ridiculous why why only three are they expensive like how you you could get some of the best martial arts practitioners in the world to judge fights and have ten of them and I bet you would have a correct outcome way more often than you would with three yeah you know and I just think we need to overhaul that and for whatever reason they're reluctant to do so we talked about before this

36:11podcast started we talked about weight classes I think that's another giant issue yeah I think every ten pounds is a legitimate compromise yeah and I think what we have now like the 185 to 205 pound gap is just bananas 20 pounds in between World Championship weight classes like yeah it's just nuts you're dealing with two different size humans it's just so different completely yeah I mean and yeah I mean obviously closer to home for me would be that 165 issue you know yeah I mean and there's so many competitors or so many just the average human being is between you know 150 and one right you know I mean right there's the big guys there's a small guys but we're kind of in that mid-range you know and I think a 165 weight class for a lot of us at 155 I mean I would always probably stay at 155 I would love some some cool matchups at 165 and be able to try to go for different belts and all

36:57that kind of stuff obviously that would great but yeah 155 is great for me but there's definitely I know some guys who were missing weight so I'll Kevin lead two weeks ago miss weight yeah khabib is obviously missed weight numerous times well khabib is you know he's a big guy when he gets down to 155 that is quite a cut and since he's been I believe he's with george lockhart right yeah I think so what wasn't him and Tony weren't him and Tony both with Lockhart and the fight I don't know I'm not sure what that was I think that's the case I mean there's a lot of great experts Mike Dolce of course there's a lot of great experts in getting you down to the the proper way but the bottom line is when you're coming down from 200 pounds and you're getting down to 155 that's a struggle it is live yeah and in like we talked about - it depends on you know cuz everybody

37:49that's always the question I get from all kinds of people hey what weight do you walk around at and it's not really the weight it's the body composition how am i right you know how much body fat are you holding you know I mean I get a DEXA scan every couple months when I'm down in Florida or whatnot we always try to split the DEXA scan how's that so you basically it's the one where you lay down that's the one they have with the blades Institute in the UFC probably it's just the thing that goes awry 4 5 7 it does everything from from water to bone density to muscles to tendons to ligaments to organs like all that kind of stuff and the cool thing is my bone density has continued to go up like over the last couple of years you know yeah how much I mean it's it's point point zero one percent or whatever but that's that's a lot when you're talking about bone density intercept from strength

38:33training I think so I mean I put I put out a post a couple months ago where I really think you know I've been extremely blessed to have a throughout college wrestling I mean I've seen so many talented guys careers ended because of injuries yeah I had none you know I had a couple sprains here and there I had a meniscus tears whatnot those are like six weekend here he's no big deal same thing in in mixed martial arts I haven't really had any really bad injuries and I really do think it's because I keep my body in great shape and I do a lot of strength training like my body is constantly overcompensating for the weights that I'm throwing around the Med bones and I'm throwing around the the comfort zone getting my skidding my body outside of my comfort zone in and day in and day out that my body is just kind of bullet-proofed itself to you know a lot of serious injuries

39:18obviously it's fights I mean it's a fighting and you know you're jacking up little limbs and hands and feet and all that kind of stuff here and there all the time but nothing serious cam Haynes went and worked out with you yeah and one of your strengthen conditioning workouts who was your strength coach for that that was Todd Durkin in San Diego Fitness West End so that was uh that was something he had just guided he was doing skydiving that morning yet with Andy stump yeah and he he wanted to come in for a workout and yeah we went through I mean a lot of my stuff is not crazy heavy but it's just a lot of reps a lot of cardio a lot of a lot of moving stuff around a lot of fun what kind of stuffs are you doing now I love med ball stuff I love med ball slams med ball rotations I love anything what I always focus on is strength Plus speed equals power so we'll do one

40:04strength movement whether it's a whether it's a deadlift whether it's a you know a trap bar deadlift or a squat straight into a speed movement which would be like just a plyometric squat jump so you got the strength plus the speed and that's how you continue to gain power hmm in super sets you know so then so that maybe we're doing a bench press you know bench press isn't the greatest work out but it's focusing on the punching power just three reps of something a little bit doing dumbbells or barbells barbells and dumbbells right to a plyometric pushup so now you got another strength plus a speed equals power so plyometric push-up meaning you explode up yeah yeah and you you clapping at the top like how you you could yeah you could you don't have to I mean a lot of times it's just exploding as hard as you can and catching yourself exploding as hard as you can and we do a

40:50lot of that kind of stuff whether it's you know squats to hurdle jump source deadlifts to med ball slam to jump you know I mean we're always and that also gets your heart rate up it's also just getting your body moving like crazy so I mean a lot of the stuff we're doing at my at my new gym a lot of that programming is very similar to that where we have like a ripped class where it's resistance interval power plyometric and is there an endurance and we're focusing on all those things everybody likes to do that they like to make it an acronym yeah people love doing that was my boy PJ that's my boy PGH I need Kym and I loved it that was like ripped what it's at and then I was like wow all right pped I love it so yeah about that yeah people like that because you can remember it right yeah now when you are going into a camp who organizes your training like how do you

41:36how do you decide when you're doing strength and conditioning when you're doing skill work when you're sparring when you're recuperating it's uh it's always a little bit different I mean out and the last couple camps down in Florida we've had pretty much the same kind of schedule you know we're Monday morning is always a drill Tuesday is sparring Wednesday was wrestling Thursday was Thursday was grappling Friday was sparring and then at night we go more individual weather individual with one of the one of the kickboxing coaches one of the mid and one of the MIT coaches with you either Henry or Evan or maybe it's a one-on-one with comi Barzini or maybe it's a one-on-one with greg jones or it's a one-on-one with a grappling coach or it's your strengthing auditioning a lot of times i couple them where i'll do an hour with i do an hour of strength work with 30 or 45 minutes of pads as well

42:26you know where it all depends on the recovery you know I mean if ice if I feel myself getting overworked I will cut one of those out and focus on which one's more important for that particular fight you know I mean if I if I was fighting gotiya Muji who's a big time grappler big time submission artist so I focused a lot more on escapes defense submission defense and all kind of stuff I was still focused on strengthening and striking but I really threw in an extra couple grappling sessions there you know so it's so who's managing all this though do you have a head coach that decides when you're gonna do what and they look at you and say you know today we're gonna take it easier today we're gonna do this I think I mean it's it's that kind of loose schedule that we always have but Henry Henry said that Henry and comi Barzini has come in and really helped helped manage some of that

43:16stuff we've made a couple of different changes but I mean yeah they come in and they say here's here's what we're gonna do but then every now and then it's like hey tonight instead of you know instead of an hour-long we're gonna do thirty with thirty with me and then thirty with comi or Henry here would do thirty with thirty minutes of the pads 30 minutes of economy so it's it ebbs and flows and I think one of the biggest things about mixed martial arts is it's an individual sport right we're all grown men and we all have our coaches that we're supposed to listen to but I don't have to I don't have to do it cook I don't have to do what any of these guys tell me to but I think that's why wrestlers are so successful because they show up they shut up and you tell me what to do and you ask me how how high to jump and I just jump you know yeah I've always said

43:55that I think there's two aspects of wrestling that make it the most important skill set to have an MMA and one of them is the ability to take a fight to the ground or stand back up like just to have that to have the ability to dictate where the fight takes place is gigantic but two's might may be just as important is the mental strength wrestlers are always dehydrated they're always exhausted they're always pushing and there they take pride in being the most miserable person yeah you know there's something about that like it having the ability to push through discomfort which is just something that you cultivate in amateur wrestling yeah yeah I mean you just get I think you just get so comfortable being uncomfortable yeah your life sucks for a five year straight especially a Division one college wrestling I mean and it's it's an emotional roller coaster I mean

44:45with that mental toughness that you're talking about you don't just get mentally tough from-from working hard you get mentally tough from working hard and losing and then winning and then losing and then having coach riding your butt because of this and then you got a final and you got a test and you got this and you got all this whole this whole life that you're trying to manage and figure out while you're still trying to become a national champion so you're getting thrown into the hardest sport in the entire world physically the hardest sport mentally plus trying to do it you know have a college career actually get your degree the whole reason you went to college and then really just being coachable and understanding delayed gratification I think so many people can come into an MMA gym and they have a great boxing coach and it's like they expect after the first mid session if

45:28they're gonna look like Roy Jones jr. whereas when I showed up to MMA I realized okay I went to Vegas and I was training with gray Manor didn't Mike pile and J here on and Tyson Griffin and Evan Dunham and all these all these great guys I knew I was gonna take my licks for a long time it might have been a year before I went around I was okay with that you have to be okay with the delayed gratification of life and that's and now even at a thirty two-year-old a two-year-old I understand that any aspect of life that I'm going into that's new it's okay if I'm the gup-e it's okay if I'm the lowest guy on the totem pole even though I've accomplished so many great things and I'm you know and I and I've done some great things in life I still I'm still a guppy and a lot of a lot of aspects of life you know it's a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow it is what boxers never learned

46:12you Jitsu they they hate getting tapped and I love getting tapped it's never happened actually but seen it I mean we've all seen it dinosaur fantastic kick boxers yeah for whatever reason they just try to try to concentrate only on defense and that's all they want to do yeah I mean I'm I'm not one of those guys that I get tapped and I'm like man good job man I'm freakin sick dog piss but boy that doesn't mean I'm not gonna show up the next day that doesn't mean I mean the funniest thing is you go to any gym or around the country if they have I bet you ask DC this at aka he's running the wrestling practice I bet the amount of guys that show up for sparring day and grappling day is different than the guys who show up on wrestling day the same thing in our gym left 28 guys 30 guys sparring on on you know Tuesday all sudden Wednesday rolls around we're doing a wrestling practice and there's

46:58like seven guys that show up you know it's a it's hard you know bucking harder you have to embrace the suck you have to understand that you don't get anything in life without getting yourself outside of your comfort zone right every single thing that you want to accomplish is waiting for you right outside of your comfort zone and that's what I've really started to realize and you just take ownership extreme ownership of of it and say stop me and stop being a and just go push yourself to your puke have you ever puked have you ever passed out no you haven't you know or you haven't passed out you know I rarely puke so I want to just continue to try to get myself there and if I can I'm doing something right now when you say visualization you say you visualize how do you do it and what do you schedule a time like hey but you know 8:00 p.m. tonight after training

47:45I'm gonna sit down and I'm going to visualize for an hour yeah there needs to be a time I mean first of all you all you always want to try to set a time you you can never say I'll definitely do it tomorrow you need to say okay well have I practiced here I have practiced here I need to eat here I have an interview here I have this here that they're color out it doesn't need to be a crazy amount of time I mean you know five five minutes is long enough that's a long time to be I mean that's all round you ever you ever grapple around two minutes goes by you look at the clock and there's three minutes left can't believe holy cow like you know five minutes is a long time because you can get a lot done mentally because because visualization knows no time there's not a clock ticking you know there's things happening there's so you close your eyes like this and where are you sitting

48:29you sitting in a dark room like how do you do this sometimes it's I mean the hard part with me is I'm a very good sleeper like I've tried to be like I'm gonna wake up in the morning and I'm gonna keep laying in bed and visualize don't fall asleep you know like so you got to know yourself you know that he's good though that you're getting sleep for sure yeah you gotta I mean you gotta have the self-awareness to know where where you're on where you're off you know right so for me I mean a lot of times it's sitting up sitting on a sitting on the couch sitting on a chair but I think the biggest thing is is is seeing seeing the lights I mean the other day for instance like I was just we were just talking about Fuji and putting in the mats and so we just we just installed a bag rack system in my gym and something there I don't know if it was the rubber the cage panels or what it was and it's

49:11it smelled exactly like the Bellator cage and I started to get I got like I literally my heart heart rate started going up and I got goosebumps because of a smell you get triggered yes exactly and I know exactly what that smell is it's like weird house smells do that hundred-percent and I've almost I've actually asked Bellator hey can I have a piece of that cage I want to cut off just my 8 inch piece of that cage the canvas or whatever it is to bring and just just sit in a huff cage just off cage but but you got to get your set you got to get yourself to there you know and and be in there in the space in the arena I can see the cage and after I started doing it I mean it was the patria pitbull fight the the knockout where that was the first time that I had really really gotten I had really made that hit that breakthrough where I walked into the cage I mean Joe I hated

50:04fighting I didn't really like it that much because I I wasn't myself I wasn't present I was literally a caged animal and I hated the way I felt I was peeing blood after fights because I was just going so crazy and I was just happen and I was at I gained a lot of fans because people loved the way I fight but they didn't exactly care about my well-being that much but right but it wasn't until that fight where I got into the cage and I just started smiling because I I thought Michael this is your home like this is your home because I had visualized it so much because the problem with we talked about earlier is you only get to compete every six months every one so you don't know what that actually feels like and you can you can show up to the venue early and you can walk around you can smell the smells but it's there's nothing like competing in the cage there's nothing you can't

50:45recreate it and sparring you can't recreate it in the gym the only really place you can recreate it is in your mind if you if you just continue remember I can't remember my last fight like it like it was yesterday because I've actually gotten better at the skill of visualization because I think that's one thing that happens to is you sit down and maybe you're listening to this podcast okay I'm going to smell the smells of if they see the sights of this and then you have a really not great visualization session you're like man that was stupid that guy's an idiot you know but it really does take it really does take a second and let us take actual practice to to see and smell and hear and and feel like you need you need to see yourself getting put in compromising situations and and then see yourself getting out of it you know you need to see you need to see yourself performing at a

51:34ridiculously high level and how that's going to feel and how and how how your brain is a hundred percent bulletproof and how your how your heart rate is where it needs to be and how you are somehow confidently composed during that during those fights you know because it used to be I would the bell would ring and I would go a thousand miles an hour and the times that you've seen me exhausted in fights I mean I passed out literally passed out and a fight before right at the route right at the end of the round thank God I was at the end of the round Henry hoof came picked me up my feet were like pigeon-toed I couldn't he was like dragging me back to my corner i sat down in the cage because I watched the video and all sudden my coach out here woke me up I heard his voice and I turned around and I it was a it was the Benson Henderson fight Wow I literally thought the fight was over

52:20and I asked him I said did I just get finished as his fight over and he said no man you gotta go the going you know what happened did you get hit what was it was with it was in the Benson Henderson fight going into the fifth round we were in that weird like I had this thing where I actually liked to get you know that one that one move where you're basically like this and he can they catch your arm with the leg and then crucifix yes and mounted that one where remember the old school where that guy's got help what enabled him but I do a backflip over top in it and I always land on top and it's something that I set up and I probably shouldn't put myself in a bad situation but a lot of times I get it so I like to go there so you mean like a crucifix were the guys behind you yeah like he's he's he's on here on top of him yeah he know he's on his back like this okay mm-hmm right and

53:08then I did a backflip and I crunched myself up so I think I oh Christ myself put yourself to sleep yeah almost and he had one kind of a halfway choke but it wasn't I wasn't really in the communities right here oh my gosh come on now how for young Jamie yeah how do you do that he knows what he's doing oh this was Ben's first fight yeah in the UFC after course cough right excuse me in the Bellator so he fought chorus cough at 70 which is crazy mm-hmm he did not belong in that weight class mhm and then right to this position and I do this backflip I always end up on top so he's got kind of a choke and then I crunch myself boom and then hopefully hopefully they'll see you you've got a tire here and I believe it shows my dead eyes oh wow that's so crazy cuz you look tired like I'm sorry but we're brawling there was there's another one on that you can find on the internet that you can just

54:00look into my eyes look look look dead glazed over eyes and I looked down at my feet I looked down at my feet my feet aren't moving my feet were like dragging my feet though what what happened in this the fight where you lost the title where your leg gave out I stepped back rolled the ankle pinched that nerve and then my foot just went straight so from rolling the ankle that's what that's what did it that's what pinched a nerve did you see where I step back yeah I thought like something had broken like a ligament had given out or something like that I had no idea I wish I wish I would have had the hindsight to just not chase I mean I have this thing where I love to hit people and run at them and like go in for the kill which is which has worked very well for me in my career but in that instance if I would just if I would have either number one switched to

54:49southpaw because I could push off of it I just couldn't lift it so I wish I would have switched to southpaw or I would have just planted myself in the middle of the cage and waited for him to keep throwing kicks and I would have kept him I mean I only one punch really got landed in that entire fight and that was me dropping him now when when that happened how long did it take before your legs started working again I mean it was scary man I mean two two weeks later or seven days later I ran five miles so seven days seven days that are but for about three days I would look down at my foot and my brain was telling me to lift my foot and nothing was happening man I thought it was it was a scary time I got they were wondering whether or not you had permanent nerve damage in your foot yeah and I had and I got a great a great staff around me I mean we my my

55:33manager has hooked all of us up with the Sanford Medical up in Sioux Falls South Dakota dr. Reeves orthopedic surgeon dr. Troy Gus neurosurgeon I went in there looked he he just said you just have you just have pinched basically yeah basically a pinched nerve whenever you did that and it just get that is crazy I've never seen that before yeah it was it was unfortunate it was it was horrible you know but it was just one of those things and that was my yeah I'm on a six six out of seven and that was my one loss so yeah that was our here's one two because it was a fight where you know it was kind of just getting going mm-hm and oh yeah when your foot started doing that I remember watching it going whoa is his ankle broke look what's going on here this is weird I mean it's one of those things to where you know I've talked to Big John about it I've talked to her Berean about it I've

56:20talked to all these guys I'm like man would you have stopped that fight and then they're both like man it looked really bad you know it looks bad but but you're still up and you're conscious I still up and conscious and I wasn't taking damage right I I could imagine like you know I mean what's his name O'Malley hurt his foot and he was like he couldn't even walk and he was up falling down and he was about to start getting beat up like I was still on my feet I was still fighting did it look really bad that look like a wounded deer out in the middle of field you know like of course but you know III always say like if this was back in the Viking days and you know you chop one of my legs off and it's me versus him to the battle of the death I'm still one of that fight turns out 10 times out of 10 so you wish the fight kept going hundred percent yeah it's a weird way to stop a fight to

57:03when a guy's not taking damage he's just got a leg that's not working properly well the problem was to you know he almost he basically called timeout and asked for the doctors to come in once you've done that the fights over I think I think the ref literally thought you know he should have just called the fight right your leg was broken or something like what did it was his thought process I guess and then and then the doctors came in and then they started feeling around and they're like you know they're like right here I think his tibias fractured I can feel the bone I'm like doc I promise you just get out of here let me let me fight I got a current I got a ank a calf cramp or something I was like I don't just lie into him I just get out of here let me let me go I promise it's fine I don't feel a thing it's not hurt good and then they stopped the fight and they pulled

57:45the stool to pull the stool from me too so remember that oh yeah that's right what was that about that was my Commissioner that was that was New York Athletic Commission at its best like pull the stool then I fell in and then a bunch of people were like hey man did they call the fight because they thought you couldn't stand and I said no I hope not because that would've been very unfortunate because I fell on national TV got Charlie Brown he felt like all Three Stooges Moe Larry Curly thanks for nothing doc yeah why did they pull a stool it was I don't know I see some mistake I think I stood up I think I stood up I was like hey maybe if I get the crowd into it maybe these guys will get out of here and let the fight go so I like stood up and I was like let's go you know and I'm sitting on the stool and I'm freaking looked at him just and I was like you better hope they don't

58:25let me off this stool boy so I'm gonna come break your face you know and then I stand up and then he pulls the stool and then a second later I'm on my butt now why didn't the rematch take place man I asked for it in October I asked for it November I asked for in December and then finally I'm like man this is stupid I'm gonna go ahead and take it take a fight against the scariest guy in lightweight division Yamauchi and then then he got injured so then I fought Brannon Gertz so it's like I've never once pulled out of a fight I've went into many fights injured I've never once not answered the call I've always stepped up and have always been the most exciting guy in Bellator will forever be the most excited guy in Bellator so it's unfortunate that these things happen to me but it's just part of it man it's all my time though to go without a rematch mm-hmm you know I mean

59:11to be clamoring for it and he hasn't defended the title correct no he's a part-time fighter part-time part-time what does he do full-time I don't know I think he's got a job kids do Jitsu or something I don't know okay I don't know what he does I mean honestly it's it's it's baffling but well does Bellator even have a heavyweight champ I don't know that's crazy how the photo you not know I don't I don't I don't you know it would take me a second to think about all the champs in the in the sport they've got a stacked welterweight division yeah welterweight division right now with Rory MacDonald and Lima and you know Paul Daley and I mean lorenz larkin I mean it's a stacked division that stuff that wash cough mm-hmm yeah yeah that was I was asking for the Paul de Leeuw fine I was trying to get that fight were you really I mean I just want to get some big fights he's terrifying down

59:59yeah okay yeah for about a minute in half and then then use your break as well well his his grappling has always been his Achilles heel but goddamn that left hand as a missile yeah that uh lorenz larkin fight where he really like knocked him on his feet and he was just kind of like yeah there but not really there Paul Daley could do that to anybody his that left hand he has that to me was a crate that was one of the most frustrating ones when he fought Josh Koscheck and threw that punch afterwards and he got kicked out of the UFC basically forever and now you see like Conor throwing dollies through windows how this about dailies got to be going what the yeah I got kicked out forever for this I even throw a punch that landed yeah he's like I wish I wish I was in it when it was the entertainment business you know I got him though are very interesting where

60:48he's such a specialist you know he's such a striking specialist yeah I watched him I watched him kick box actually because you know Bellator does those yes those kickboxing and in May any kick box Fernando Gonzalez I believe and it was it was he's good he's really good especially in that kickboxing right when he knows there's no takedowns there's yeah there's no threat of and there's a different distance there and he's really good at that kickboxing range you know and unless you're there to be able to really threatened threatened with the takedown he's gonna be on his game one of my favorite fights of his for forever will be that fight with Nick Diaz which was just one round of chaos just chaos until Nick Diaz overwhelmed them yeah but Nick just puts that crazy triathlon pace on you where you just can't keep up with them I know it doesn't give you any break I know

61:37and in those guys those guys have both Nick and Nate have done a very good job of not being afraid to take some damage let guys yeah that guy's really swarm them and they do have that car deal but I think they have that I just kind of that Stockton just confidence and almost just like that I've actually the funny thing is like me and Michael Johnson sparred numerous times where we're kind of like talking to each other because that's against mine that was again my nature like that that cocky braggadocious talking during a fight type of deal I mean once again that's practice of of almost an alter ego almost a little bit different in my last couple fights you've seen me be more presents talking a little bit almost kind of egg and egging them on like not being afraid you should just be like business business business got a fight now it's like hey man I'm in here you're

62:19fighting you're fighting somebody who's cognitively here my two feet are planted firmly on this ground right you're not only well by the moment I'm a hundred percent there in the zone hundred percent present and in the zone like in the zone ready to die in they're not afraid to but also willing to willing to fight a very smart fight smart sharp composed missing shots taking taking shots are taking takedowns when I want to and need to and not being afraid to to just fight like an extreme extremely talented veteran rather than just a vessel of violence you know yeah a vessel of violence that's interesting way to put it to like to think of yourself as a professional like doing your best to execute your skillset in such an extreme circumstance and how many fights have you had now 22 how many fights do you think it took before you felt that comfortable 17 and that crazy

63:14yeah I'm not joking it's it's it's ridiculous I mean I wonder what now I know why so many people just they have a short MMA career and then they're done yeah it's hard it's hard and then you know and then and that's what my career going really well I've signed some good contracts and had and been able to do some really good stuff and it had some big fights and had some you know had some good success but and I can imagine these people going through the grind and then all of a sudden you get injured or all sudden your manager screws you over and all of a sudden this yeah and I've had a really relatively not easy road I mean but but I've had a really good path but I can see how people are like man I'm done with this you know and and I think going back to your point to where you talk about fighting like a veteran I mean I think it's all based on the confidence to and I see it time and time

64:01again guys guys guys only have one option and that's to fight like a crazy madman because they don't have a hundred percent confidence in their skills and I think that's why you saw early in my career I fought like a madman because I wasn't a hundred percent confident in my skills I was a hundred percent confident my cardio my heart my willingness to just take damage my willingness to die inside the cage I was I was confident in that there was I stood I stood against Eddie Alvarez 16 18 months removed from a college wrestling room and said I'm gonna beat that guy I'm not supposed to beat him on paper not supposed to beat him record wise I'm not supposed to beat him in any other any other universe besides right here in my mind I said I'm gonna beat that guy and I did it just by sheer toughness so I believed in my toughness in my cardio my heart and all that kinda

64:44stuff but I didn't hundred percent believed in my skills so then all of a sudden you start to mature a little bit you start to realize that you have these skills you have these bag of these bag of tools to use and you can use them not just effectively but you can use them efficiently and smart you know she's under pressure under pressure yeah and it's I mean and there's still times where you got to cut you you got a gut check you know there and that's that's a good thing that I know I have in my back pocket is is I get in in a fight with one of these guys and he's out matching me he's outclassing me he has better technique to me he's on that night and I'm off he's he's technique wise he's not tougher than I am he doesn't have better cardio than I do he's not willing to literally take as much damage I as I am and keep coming forward he's not willing to do that and

65:28that's what I've always had the confidence in but now I have the confidence in my skill sets as well when you see a guy like he's one of my favorite examples just engaging who's just a savage but you see him go undefeated in world series of fighting what do they call it now professional fighting me is that what they call it a fight oh yeah is that it yeah so he goes undefeated in world series of fighting one of the most interesting and intriguing contenders to enter into the UFC has spectacular debut against Michael Johnson in a war I mean just a war and then loses to Eddie Alvarez in spectacular fashion and then loses to Dustin Poirier in spectacular fashion but just in those three fights has taken so much damage it's just crazy to watch his style when you know that he's a very good wrestler he's a smart guy and I mean his Trevor Whitman his coach his striking coach

66:28this is the same coach that Coach thug rose and you look at her footwork and move mentality machine a technique machine sliding away from things entering in you know like constantly moving presenting angles and different looks and justin is just hands up high moving in on you and just leg kicks from close distance and brawling and that guy can't do that very long crazy that he admitted that like he that interview just came out there he said I only have five fights left in me I want them to be good ones you know what like is that what he said yeah I mean I could be wrong but I mean I'm pretty sure he had an interview that said I only had I only have five fights left in me and it's it's crazy to see that because when you're already I mean he's younger than I am he's like 29 any 28 I think you someone barely I don't even know if he's thirty you know I guess and and this might be I didn't he

67:22start late didn't he didn't he wrestle in college so yeah I think he started even striking until he was 21 yeah so he's only been fighting for eight years yeah and and I think I think it goes back to when I look at him you know it's not a knock on him or whatever I just don't think he has the confidence in his abilities I think but you there's a fine line between having confidence in your abilities a confidence interest in your in your striking techniques your ability your ability to win any other way than a brawl because I've had these thoughts - man I've sat and I've thought and the thought of me just outclassing somebody and piecing them up and the whole world watching and hearing the announcer saying oh my god Michael Chandler striking is on another level look at this and then and how he strings together his punches with his kicks in that felt foreign and it felt

68:09uncomfortable to me because I didn't a hundred percent truly believe in that stuff until recently and you start in and I think he has he only has he only has the capacity to believe in himself as a brawler therefore that's the only way he knows how to win therefore in his sparring rounds he's not I bet you and I could go watch him and he's the same guts just engage he and those sparring rounds as he is in the cage sighs is that because the hears no regrets I five lights left like that's a tough spot to pin you know that's just his mentality though I wonder if you're right about that because I think he likes that kind of fighting well that's the thing too I mean I think that's what he enjoys he likes breaking people like when he broke Michael Johnson he just broke it hey man the fans love it you want some fan you want some fans you have a couple of those and I mean he's

68:57he's got a great following now after like you said just to come to fights well people believe in him maybe people still right now they see this like cyborg robot step into the cage like that's what they think he they don't even look at him as a man they don't look at him isn't like he has a heart a spirit in his brain they just look at a guy he was go doubt he who goes out there and he's gonna just freakin try to break somebody just through sheer not beautiful technique but just pressure and punch count and leg kicks and that kind of stuff and he's gonna step in the cage it gets whoever he steps in the cage against even though he lost his last two fights and he's still gonna be the favorite I believe well I just want the best leg kickers in the sport yes just crazy they started striking so late yeah everybody gets their legs up with that guy and he leg kicks his out of people

69:40from close range to literally be in the clinch and he's whipping down on your legs you know I just think he loves chaos I just think he loves it he embraces it when it when gets crazy that's when he's at his most comfortable and yeah and maybe that's me speaking from experience because I saw I mean I see a lot of my early career very similar to that just brawling you know like that's know that's what I did and then I then I decided I have these physical gifts in the speed and the power and the ability the the mental capacity to to pick things up I mean I have been blessed with very the ability to pick things up very very quickly and to practices I'm like holy cow this stuff's working just after a couple min session so you know Justin's show no indication that he even enjoys doing any other kind of fighting I know that's you using a lot of footwork and movement you

70:31slide in now the tricky pit bull fight was a great example that you slid in and drop that right hand on them and there's a perfect closure of distance and you want to missile on them kgs just here comes here comes now coming in that summon and that's scary man I mean is somebody in the lightweight division is lying when they're not a little bit shaken like dying I got a freaking fight that dude yeah like he's that guy in the bracket you know wrestling wrestling and there's the guy who's not really ranked you know he's bring thyn you know he's seeded number eight or he's not even seated but you know he's a goer you know he stuff you know he's strong you know he's not that good but he's gonna be in your face for seven minutes and you could lose to him because he's that good he's not the guy you want to draw first round if I was AG I would say take some time off and

71:15really reconsider your approach because that chaos is always gonna be there the chaos is always gonna be there he's always gonna be able to do that he's always gonna love that he's always gonna have the some of the best leg kicks in the sport yeah she's a little more footwork movement how about some faints how about every now and then a little bit of this a little bit of takedowns throwing it take to touch the leg just touch it like make him make make him think make yes you know so but and then the other part of me says shut the up Rogan let him fight like that is it's awesome I mean that's just that's his thing that says that Poirier fight was amazing you know and the Michael Johnson fight was to me even the Eddie Alvarez fight it was chaos it was not put - the moment Eddie landed that knee and Eddie's leg was in trouble bad he was in trouble I thought

72:05I was waiting for Eddie to go to go down well head he's got that that boxing stance and he gets low and he puts a lot of weight on his legs and he's got a lot of confidence in his hands but Donald took advantage of that and his first fight in the UFC and you know I mean just when you saw Eddie beat ha failed dos Santos and win the title what was that feeling for you knowing that you shared all those rounds with him just too crazy Wars was that feeling like that could be me yeah I mean that was that I mean that's kind of the yeah that was that was when I watched it I was in Salt Lake City actually or no Park City Utah I was at a wedding and so we were all just hanging out and I was like the fight zone and I was watching it I couldn't hear it but I was watching and he was just throwing that that flurry and everybody I was with was like holy cow like that you know you beat

72:54that guy twice you know and that's once twice agree now I've just I've just yet I don't you know this is that's the sport and I love ya but fought that guy twice - - very - very close fights and you know it's kind of one of those things where it's like man yeah I mean it but I knew it I knew he was gonna go over there and he was gonna do extremely well I didn't know he was gonna come in and I mean he beat and he lost it lost Donald Cerrone beat Gilbert V Gilbert he beat Pettis he mean no guy I believe it was just those two are those two and I think it was just those two and then he got the title fight I think I might be wrong says he would pull up his records but either way what I admire about Eddie is the same thing that I admire about you is that he does thrive on those wild fights yeah you know I mean he's just just an unbelievably tough guy and the

73:46gaijin fight was a perfect example that I mean he got hurt in that fight man his leg was chewed up bad as his I don't know what was going on with his face you guys were yeah okay Gilbert Pettis and then dos Santos yeah it was just those two yeah and then the loss to Donald but those two fights were you know Pettis was a champion you know at lightweight and was you know at that time still thought to be in the mix had beaten Gilbert you know it submitted Gilbert and Gilbert of course from the Strikeforce fights mad respect for Gilbert it's one of the best in the world yeah I mean it's just when you really stop and think about how tightly matched that lightweight division is and how many killers are in that division that is a crazy division in the UFC right now you got kebede you got Tony Ferguson you might have max Holloway I mean it's crazy that max Holloway got

74:44pulled from the New York card because he wasn't having charted making white yeah he's the 145 champion it just just he's a tall boy he's a big fella too tall boy he's a tough - holy is he tough she just got this incredible wealth of talent in this one division you know and then Kevin Lee how good did he look against Barbosa though holy he did look really good I mean stud so it's you've got so many fighters in this one division you know and this is why we got to bring into the UFC that kind of contract do you have it 32 men you're gonna be 33 then you'll be 35 then you'd be 40 never be over yeah I'm 50 trust me it happens that just happens I hope I get when I'm 50 it just comes you will you won't pass any drug day right now yeah we gotta get you in here man no there's just no there's no other way to do it well we're we're trying to figure everything you're not

75:47no disrespect Bellator yeah crossing for some people how cool would that be I would love that I really would I mean I think I said when Rory went over to fight in Bellator up said he very well might be hears shout out the powerful that's very well might be the best 170 pound fighter in the world that's very possible it's very possible he is I mean if he's not he's certainly in the mix yeah and he might be on any given day I mean this is the thing like you just really don't know but if you look at his fight with tyron woodley I mean he essentially shut Woodley's main offense down and used a brilliant strategy to beat him by decision if you look at his fight with Maya he got in the worst possible position with Maya Maya mounted on him in the first round when they're not even that sweaty yet and he was able to survive that and then pick my apart he's one of

76:38the best in the world because Lima who I think is extremely underrated yeah I think Lima is one of the very best fighters on the planet Earth and just people don't know because for whatever reason Bellator just has not been able to capture the public's imagination this is the way the UFC I mean they I mean they've definitely grown em yes this is big-time you know what's fight car was incredible yeah and it's cool I mean it's cool because I've been there for the maturation of the whole thing I mean I fought my first fight was on ESPN Deportes that that was on that finally aired it like 2:00 in the morning after like a couple girls high school softball games time to deal you know right like that was our slot and then it moved to him mtv2 and then spike and now paramount network and now it's both simulcast now on CMT and paramount Network so it's cool to see the growth it's cool to see

77:25I mean it's growing you know and it's been it's been cool to be a part of the growth I mean I will forever probably be in the biggest fights or the the most exciting fights in Bellator history you know so it's yeah I'm not a Bellator hater by any stretch of the imagination and even though I've obviously been working for the UFC for a long time I'm a fan of fights yeah and I like I'd like high-level fights I don't I mean obviously I'm loyal to the UFC but I don't want Bellator to fail I want them to succeed I like the fact that they have Rory MacDonald so there is a there's an argument yeah like you look at he go hey these this might be the best 170 pound fighter in the world he's not neo Saint yeah like this is all good I felt the same way when phaidor was fighting in Pride I was like look that might be the best heavyweight on the planet Earth and he's not here and I

78:12tried very hard to try to figure out a way to get him over there but they were super unreasonable back then now a UFC Fedor's management they would be crazy unreasonable they wanted co-promotion they wanted a 50/50 split this ain't happening man and then and they were also saying look this guy is one loss away from losing all of his value you have to understand this yeah and then when breezy over doom caught him with that triangle oh yeah the UFC was like we told you we told you and then Bigfoot Silva smashed him and then Dan Henderson kod him and the US he's like look we told you yeah you had an opportunity to bring him over here and that was you know is a different time it was in fate overs in his prime you know is when you know phaidor was smashing people and pride it was just a different human being than what you're seeing today at 41 but I I'm a fan of

79:06the best fighters in the world getting together and whatever we have to do to facilitate that that's what I want to see happen mm-hmm you know I mean I you know I just think that there's got to be a way to make this happen there's got your way what are you talking about here I'm just um I'm going we're going day by day you know I mean I'm enjoying the process I mean we we're in talks right now things are going things are going smoothly things are going things are moving forward we'll see we'll see what happens I mean you have to say all this I know you have to say all this no I mean that's but that that is true I mean I want to fight the best guys in the world I know you know there's not a day there's not a day that goes by that I don't get I mean shoot you posted that thing this morning and there was 287 likes and 30 comments and you know five minutes and it was all

79:56like finally hey when are you gonna do when he's like and I get that every single day so there's not a day that goes by that that I don't it doesn't get talked about a thought about but especially after anyone over there and became the champion yeah right and everybody knows about I mean that's one of the things that I talked about when Eddie first came over to the UFC was go I was telling people go watch the wars that he had with Michael Chandler and then I've said that also too when I've seen you coaching people or being in someone's corner I'm like that right there is one of the best lightweights in the planet yeah and I just really would love to see you I mean I don't want to undercut Bellator I don't want that or you know no I mean it's at the end of the day I mean there's there's it's a competition between the two you know the two organizations there's guys in both

80:37organizations that are great like you said Limon and and all these guys interests off I mean there's you know in the pitbull brothers or whatever I mean there's there's some great talent in both and you saw it back in the day with Strikeforce and now all of a sudden a lot of these Strikeforce guys are you know UFC champions as well you know it's just weird the way fighting is today as opposed to the way boxing is like a perfect example is like like the Gennady golovkin fight this weekend you know we went to see him and you know you go to you're basically going to see one of the best boxers on the planet you're not going to see him because he's you know the WBC guy or the IBF guy or the WBO got yeah people don't really give a about that he's a world champion but the worth of one but it's versus Bellator versus the UFC it's a big difference in the way people look at

81:30it like the average public the people don't give a if you're the WBA champion in boxing or the WBC champion they don't give a they just want to know who's a bad look is it you know is it Deontay Wilder is it Anthony Joshua these are heavyweight champions let's see them fight they don't look at it that way when it comes to Bellator in the UFC I don't know why I have my speculations first of all because UFC's been around forever and it's like the NFL it has that name value like you tipsy they've done a good job of building the name value yeah you know it's also a really good name yeah UFC is a great name the Bellator is a shitty name it just is it's just you know you go to the the average person like you like oh I'm gonna watch Bellator tonight they're like the is this a litera they don't know what a Bellator is but Ultimate Fighting Championship makes sense make sense yeah I just call it

82:21paramount MMA I think yeah I mean I think there I mean there was all kinds of new branding going on with a whole new Paramount story and all that kind of stuff I mean there if there was ever a time it would have been now but I mean I think they're they're stuck to it they like it I mean it's kind of one of them things they should get their money back from Spike Lee and when they had to pay Spike Lee did they yeah they paint him off yeah he was chasing smoke know you suit he sued them he said that you stole the name from me and they're like what the is basically just one of those frivolous lawsuits you have to settle they're fine like want some cake this - take this money I wonder how much they gave them how much do you think they gave them let's say guess how much think they gave Spike Lee 3.2 million really that much no I don't know a million 50-game a million I bet they gave him I

83:06bet you're right I better I'm gonna go with 1.2 I'm gonna be in the middle I'm gonna be the middle guy let's see how much the guy could leave do you think they disclosed it you think yeah I did he like actually trademark Spike TV like someday he will actually have his own TV channel I think his his thought was what about Spike Jonze see like where's my money yeah I think he just was felt like his name was not like the name spike was synonymous with him know what it means spike was a dog right wasn't a spike yeah okay well because the UFC was the Ultimate Fighter razón Spike TV yeah yeah yeah 2005 Stephan Bonnar Forrest Griffin yeah forever in debt to those guys they made the sport that one crazy fight literally was like probably one of the big pushes to us by undisclosed undisclosed disclosed him howl at me spike tum which guy let us know let us know spike the joint public statement

84:01did they settle their differences yeah entry greenback yeah a lot of people are mad bike for that Spike Lee yeah when he tripped that referee I actually don't know if he did it he tripped the referee I don't know I was in the jay-z song really I have never even saw a spike Lee trip to referees he set up being in the NBA like a lot of Knicks games yeah trip the referees mostly well that's what jay-z said he said I'm spiked out I could trip a referee and I'm like ow Spike Lee must have tripped a referee one time because he is always courtside at the Knicks is that suppose is there video of this I think he's saying it because he sits court said I'll take it actually like a trip a rapper could trip a referee yeah well isn't that weird like the basketball like you can get like right up to the house was so close you could literally get you could trip a referee yeah you know where I was like

84:51you know football you're pretty far back yeah yeah 20 feet 50 feet I mean I've talked about this so many times people get angry at me but what would you think about the idea of fighting in a big open area without a cage like a big open area like a basketball ring yeah I mean a basketball or arena like a basketball court like that size if you had like wrestling hats where you have boundary lines yeah could you actually go out of those boundary islands and they'll stop the bass stop the action we'd have to bring you back in there have to be some reason it would be like a collar it'd be like the Coliseum exactly so big that you're all mode that they're almost are no barriers well yeah because I think that there's something about a cage that presents an artificial boundary and that artificial boundary can be used both to contain someone and to get out to get up like

85:40you could obviously wall walk and get up out I just think it makes takedowns much more difficult when there's not a cage because you know you're not gonna press someone against cage just scoop their legs out from under him you have to get a legitimate takedown like an open area takedown and it makes getting up much more difficult yeah when you're when someone does take you down smash you can't just cage you can't just scoot your back up to the wall and get back up you're gonna have to figure out a way to actually get up now yeah well that was one of the things too I mean going back to become you know being a wrestler I mean wrestlers coming in should not just expect that they're going to be able to take guys down and not get taken down I used to get taken down all the time off the cage I'm like man I'm a Division one wrestler why am I getting taken down but

86:19it is completely different I mean obviously I know a lot about maneuvering the body and in you know scrambling out and all that kind of stuff but adding the cage wall is a lot different you know yeah deep when you first started training did you immediately start training in a cage uh I think at Xtreme Couture yeah there was there was a cage so we would spar in a cage but now I don't I don't really spar engage anymore you don't not really how come I don't know I've been down in down in Florida there we don't have one and we just spar in the open there's there's cage walls who's cage walls that like if you're in training camp you know if you've got a fight coming up soon you'll spar in this certain area where they might put some some Thai pads on the floor like don't go past this and then there's your other barrier type of dude right my gym we don't have a cage we just have a cage

87:08wall and then a padded wall - so the cage wall just so to work on wall walks and things like that you get chewed up on those things - that's why that's why we I just I like to use the padded wall you know I mean the only difference is there's a little bit of a give to a little bit of a give to the cage wall there's not on the padded wall but man yeah if you're not wearing gloves yeah elbow I mean I've busted a bursa sac in my elbow before or it just takes a week to heal yeah you know or you look at you and you look you're back in the mirror and it just looks like a bunch of hickeys all of you Maggie your head is cut open yeah like I'd actually go gotten cut open like nicked I'll just a little bitty one on my from the fight yeah yeah by Johnny Cage because it's metal you know it's not yeah it's one of those things that I think is a legacy idea I just don't it's hard to see too

87:56when you're in the audience and you're looking at it like there's often and those pillars get in the way yeah you know be cool it'd be cool if there was just just a single cage that didn't have to be bolted together therefore there was no there was no no post no posts opinion right you know you'd have to have a top post right have to have a top post and a bottom post and then the the cage would have to be so rigid that it held everything together yeah how the would you do that it would be almost impossible because it's or maybe it's if you lure them in there maybe it's too - exactly just the guys just stand there and then they just get locked in and then yeah there's no door spartans just like lock this thing down and yeah there's like elevator that was like the the the big UFC you know back the day what was it got heart davy yeah when they started talking about the all the ideas where

88:43they were talking about putting a moat around the cage and sharks and alligators and like we're really gonna do this thing big he's the same guy that brought us x arm wrestling or whatever the it was oh yeah the armor you know what is the are they tied your arms together and you beat the out of each other really yeah like the Michael Jackson bad video no the MMA arm wrestling event oh he's actually a man yeah well you literally tied the guy's arm together so you're in the arm wrestling situation you sit down and you taped your arms together and then you punching each other and kicking each other you stance yeah with the arm wrestling podium in front of you here it is I'm sorry I have no idea how you find these things hits us cuz we made fun of this like a week ago it was so stupid let's go there they taped their arms together and these guys first of

89:32all don't ever throw that kick yeah look at this this guy's got an armbar oh my goodness I mean which is crazy cuz your arm can get snapped yeah I mean you have a table that you're doing his arm bar over you know you know they have time to tap and they can't separate you once you do tap look at this hey no look at how crazy that is they're stopping the fight but even though they stopped the fight Pena's arm hit his arm if you can win by getting an arm like or knock him out it was so stupid this is one of the dumbest ideas that humans have ever come up with oh man look at this attitude but it's entertaining I would watch it I guess I would watch it I would watch it but look if that was on tonight I'm watching it hundred percent but the arms are taped together which is just crazy I love how they I love how they the ref comes out and does the tape job to while

90:21everyone's watching and you oh that guy's a hotel cold hanging off and then you're connected to him you should just like run and start dragging him around well it's just a danger too it's such a dumb dumb idea yeah but see it what was it like was that online was that pay-per-view how was that I don't know it's one of those things that just it was just it just existed for a while it happened first yeah it happens that knocked out there like okay is there a commission do you have a commission yes they probably did that on some island somewhere sounds good to national waters on a boat or something like that got away with that thing that was our debut huh yeah yeah though didn't he just get inducted to the Hall of Fame yes I did I yes he did brother um wasn't there a Frank Shamrock had a good idea where they were doing one in like it was like a pit okay sort of a thing which

91:21would be cool because you couldn't really climb out yeah yeah yeah and I know they have something similar to that now with this karate thing that boxes off with Florida yes Luke Luke Rockhold is has gone to a couple live events I think yeah they're doing that now will it take like real high-level karate guys and they were MMA gloves and yeah I think there are Lars yeah I'm padded like kind of walls to have a deal yeah well it's like a slanted area where you know you know you hit the barrier and yeah it's weird like you could punch a little bit on the ground it's very strange yeah like bas had it in you're allowed to punch on the ground for five seconds like you take a guy down and you could punch him on the grabs I've got to stand up yeah we had a little beat his face in come on man well it's like that this idea needs a little bit of work yes a little bit show you think it's gonna

92:07make it you think they got the bas Rutten thing I mean hopefully I look I think more the more stuff we can have the better but I just think they need to iron out the rules like I love glory I love kickboxing I love lion fight when it was on but I think now it's only online I should like that yeah you know it's hard to find good high-level muy Thai good high-level striking that's not just boxing yes it's really hard to find well that's yeah exactly well that's why you've seen all these organizations come and go or these you know kind of crazy ideas nothing is sticking yeah in a lot of instances but it's so that's why it's cool to see the growth of MMA you know and that's why it's a cool time to be a part of this you know this generation of in May as MMA grows and and like you talked about asking about myself I mean you see in all kinds of guys having success with

92:54Rowdy style and and like kind of on your toes bouncing kickboxing yes I'll shoot you know a point kickboxing style and you're seeing a lot of people come in because it's cool its flashy the fans love it the promoters love it Michael Page Michael Page exactly you know I mean he's a perfect example of a guy who was a real high level point karate fighter who's now the real tough puzzle to solve in MMA yeah who is he fighting next he's fighting 170 right fighting 170 I don't think he has a Bellator I don't think he has a fight scheduled he I know he had a fight in October but that was you had a boxing match yeah yeah I was I knew won by KO months ago yes a long time ago May and I know they were trying to set up a fight with him and Paul Daley which would be yeah but Paul Daley was just saying something I read an article I just read the headline said Bellator thinks I'm a

93:43fool and I ain't one yes Milan Paul Daley yeah Paul Daley was not very happy for a second that's why I was very interested or I was surprised to see him who do you just he just signed to fight uh who is he fighting I don't know because this is I read this he's fighting someone in London I believe it was yesterday see he was find out it says Paul Daley Oh John that's right he's coming back to fire John Fitch's coming back that's terrible fight for him though John Fitch's all wrestler have they fought yet ready to fight John Fitch I don't think everyone's try no days I don't believe they did coming off impressive second-round knockout of federal yeah fellow UFC veteran lorenz larkin so he's been he's been out for a while too cuz that fight with Lorenz I want to say was six months ago plus I was right I was on my card in September September yeah September but yeah I mean oh I know

94:35he came out he wasn't very happy about some stuff so that was eight months since his last fight so is that what he's upset about that he hasn't gotten to fighting along some no I mean I think it's it's like you said belt or thinks I'm a fool bla bla bother mmm he said he basically said he was walking there you go yeah Bellator is playing me for an idiot and I ain't an idiot idiot when you say that wouldn't he his British accent even better Bennett oh yeah but that's a that's interesting I ain't happy with what you guys finally a fight that make sense hold on a scroll back up what does he say Bellator wanted him to fight John Fitch Beltre $1.99 this Saturday one thing went through his mind I thought finally a fight that makes sense Daly said in case you couldn't tell I've had great times of Bellator okay so they just they just um they just take it a quote out of context to making it the

95:26title which what they always do write it play me for an idiot just be done with all the let me fight I love how they bull expletive just write a you it's easy let me fight let me go or you treat me like you want me to be here okay yeah well that's a good fight though the the John Fitch fights a good fight because striking wise obviously has he has a giant advantage but if Fitch has been around a long time he knows his and he's a brutal wrestler and this is his first fight in Bellator yeah yeah just came over from pro fight League mm-hmm well there was it what they're calling it World Series back then yeah and Fitch fought paja res and that was when Paul haar was got disqualified right yeah who's a heel hook it he held on Tim yeah yeah that was bad for a couple fights in a row har as will do that man all Harold's yeah people called Paul Harris Oh Paulie who's Paul Harris I didn't know

96:25you know like okay it's yeah he holds on yeah bad but refs like rip it wha yeah well which is actually awesome it's kind of crazy it's terrible if it's your knee yeah it's terrible if the journey but it's like awesome for fans but then the fans are like have one more ticked off having more pumped up like what you're seeing the leg locks now you know you really seen them in MMA you're seeing them a shitload of them in jiu-jitsu professional submission matches you've seen the leg lock game because of like the Danaher death squad and a lot of those guys just seeing it dominate competition I almost got my leg ripped off like a lot of things would be a lot different if I would have not if I would have tapped it in that fight that first fight against Marcin held first was another tournament phenomenal jihad you had it so deep man and like sprained my hamstring a little bit like pulled it

97:14popped it and then I had to fight three or four weeks later again Wow but man almost almost RIT Medina do you train a lot of leglock submissions do you train defense like I don't know what to do in a situation like that I mean I think there's a couple you know there's a there's a couple like basics you know if you get in if you get in a heel hook roll with it or if you get caught in a knee bar pop the legs open right but do you work with like high level leg lock guys now to really understand the whole chain of events though happens no not I mean it's hard to find good leg lock guys I mean it's it's it's almost like throwing elbows and knees and practice and guys guys don't throw them or practice them as much because it's it's hard to practice them without putting people in really bad danger you know you're actually accidentally hit someone with an elbow cuz you were you know

98:02simulating it you catch an eyebrow and it's over right I got 12 stitches same thing with leg locks I mean people will get it I actually got caught in a leg lock by Mario Sperry this last training camp now that I think about it Mario Sperry is still rolling oh he's still rolling man he's like you Chandler come here no I know what does he know he's the man man he's he's awesome really really nice guy ideal veteran man and a real pioneer jiu-jitsu and MMA yeah we were it was a wrestling day was a wrestling day and we went to the ground and we just kept going I had wrestling shoes on Dean caught me it I like what ok I give the old tap real quick I'm like man you get wrestling wrestling shoes on Oh Joe you ain't getting out of nothing else so it's like yep got me yeah thanks coach let's go again yeah it's that the whole leg lock game has evolved scary man that's especially like heel

98:50not a heel hook but when they take them the ankle like just like bend it right well you know what it's Don Dennis's yeah did this week so that's what happened to old told there you go I got caught in a knee bar got out of the knee bar and then he switched to the toehold felt my ankle pop pop pop and just what um what inspired you to talk a bunch of about Dylan dannis after his limits I don't know I don't think he looked very good you don't think it's just to look good oh he's all right I mean he he was deep you know I went there in an transition grab grab the leg but I mean he looked like a fish out of water on the feet of which of course he first entered a fight but I think it's I mean do I respect what you know in the window I respect what he's done in him and baby BJJ that's cool but it's not mixed martial arts and it's just it's funny how much he's getting called out

99:36for being literally just a you know I want to be Conor with all the same exam the exactly the same exact stuff well he realizes how it gets you paid exactly no he's doing a good job with it but he also said he's the highest paid fighter in Bellator I mean there's all kinds of silly stuff you know it's just like dude is that what he said no he's Chael Sonnen and a little a he's a dork man just huge dork so just like it but when the guys making his debut yeah you are a world champion or a former world champion at this point what what what inspires you to call a guy like that out just because I mean doesn't it help him yeah I guess I guess it does but it also I mean I also woke up to a hundred and fifty mentions on Twitter so it's like well these people are talking you know at least people you know people are talking I mean that's the other thing too is is always

100:23navigating the the narrative and talking about you know getting people to to talk yeah getting people to talk about I mean over the last couple months the amount of times our students could be before the amount of people that were just talking like hey you're the only guy that can match could be addressing you're the only guy that could nullify is wrestling I mean to get yourself in the conversation that's what it all is it's a whole well styles definitely make fights and that was what what became very interesting after the au Iaquinta fight where people were looking at okay what about high level wrestlers who have more refined striking yeah and how do they line up and Kevin Lee was a big one that people kept talking about but you were a big one that people kept talking about to because you were saying that you think you could beat him and him you know having that fight with

101:07Iaquinta who he was a prohibitive favorite over but it went to full five rounds and you know Iaquinta although never one around showed some chinks in the armor so chinks in the armor showed and showed what happens when khabib can't take you down I mean it's it's tough whenever the one thing that you've always been used to dominating with isn't working and then you're stuck right you know you're stuck throwing punches and you're and you know you know he just he's he's a little bit behind in the striking aspect dude we've got a ton of respect for the guy mauler I mean at certain times he looks unbeatable he has looked unbeatable where I've looked at it and other people have looked at it people that have fought him that have talked that I've liked the Barboza fight yeah oh just mauled Barbosa and it's and it's just it's a battle of wills man inside of a cage and it's just

101:55like we talked about I knew I could outpace people I knew I could out out cardio them I could out tough them you know certain people get to that breaking point and they break and they concede and they go into their show and they say I did a good job but this one's on him guys who don't have that deep deep wrestling background and they face a guy who does there's moments in the fight where you see that where you saw that thousand-yard stare and Barboza's eyes were just lock I can't keep doing this like he goes into defensive survival mode yeah and you know when a guy does have a deep background in wrestling and also can strike that's what makes it interesting that and this is why MMA is such a complex sport because there's so many variables there's so many techniques you can use there's so many situations where you might have an advantage or your opponent might have an

102:46advantage and it's just we live for these matchups these stylistic matchups so when something like that happens and a guy like khabib has a fight where all these questions get presented that's where a guy like Michael Chandler comes into the mix yeah well I love like after that fight too because I said something and I posted a video do you see the video me scrambling with Kumar yes yeah crazy laughs that was awesome and I said if all he has his wrestling how do you beat a man it can't be taken down you know right and and I got so many messages from you know Russian guys that you just said khabib time khabib time you know of course you know and it's like yeah I mean it's uh it's one of those things man where I mean that that fight with Eddie I mean the fight with could be it's exciting tomorrow loose maan has got to be going crazy right now seeing colby

103:35covington getting the shot interim title he's like you yeah I know yeah he's what he wants to fight that dude no oh no I wouldn't I mean that dude is I mean he is he's a specimen he's got wrestling he's got striking I mean you you watch him spar are you watching hit mitts or you watch his composure and his confidence while he's sparring and do all that kind of stuff you'd think he's been striking since he was 11 years old you know he just started after after college you know well he's gonna fight with with Meek Mill yeah Mill meek or whatever Emil meek but I think that Emil meek is extremely underrated extreme and I mean he's a tough guy very physically strong very very strong I was I was email meek a couple times I was like trying to mimic him but were you in training camps but yeah we're aware that at same time he's done that him and I train a ton together and it

104:27works out well for me because he's a bigger guy I'd like to go with a little bit bigger guys so I can just continue to get stronger and emulate bodies that are bigger than mine you know yeah and a lot of people were criticizing him for not being able to finish meek but I'm like you're crazy yeah that is a animal it's it's it's nuts the amount of people you know armchair quarterbacks that are literally out there saying you should have finished this game we are all professional like professional fighters training day in and day out it's not easy to finish a guys of that well I was saying you got to stay the away from you especially for a guy like you if you do have something like an ankle injury like that that one fight and then you gotta stay offline yeah for a few weeks for sure I mean I still get it to this day what are you training are you working on your rubber ankles are

105:13you stop okay it's good I looked at Michael said man that is a well enable ankle murder to kick somebody head with it so you didn't suffer any ill effects of it once it the nerves came back now once I came back I mean I've done a lot of rehabbing and I think I think my legs or my feet in general have it's something that I've continued to work on I mean you got to look at each each individual joint from hands to wrist elbows knees to ankles I mean and all of my strength and conditioning work a lot of it is very very hard very very tough very very violent and then some of some of my stuff is stability stuff core stability stuff hip flexibility hip hip strengthening stuff because that's where all your power and all that comes you doing a yoga at all I do yoga I've done I've done hot yoga in the past and we just opened up my gym in Nashville has 900 square foot yoga

106:04studio that actually opened up this morning at 6:00 a.m. oh so there you go what a great my oh yes I'm going to show up and just show up and uh work on that course two billion is that a hot yoga place or regular yoga regular yo temperature to keep the room um it'll be right around that 80 that's fine yeah right yeah I mean that hot yeah we had training the other day and we had about 12 people in there is shooting some content and had some training and and we had to bring towels back there because people were coming out they're like hey you got any towels because people were sweating their butt off so right and I think we're gonna get some cool infrared panels to hang on the ceiling that can kind of add add a little bit of heat to where it's not hot yoga but it's definitely warm enough when you're going through your flow as you're you're definitely opening up the

106:45muscles in your opening you know getting that sweat out so yeah so how often you work on your flexibility you work on stretching and I bro I'm on my roller every day so I mean I believe in roller roller lacrosse ball I just found this really cool cross balls or Ross Cross ball yeah have you used those do we have one in here Jamie no those mobility wads from rogue those come on I think the blue the blue is he called it star something star the does he call it I thought it was a wad the bean yeah well why does a workout of the day yeah supernova supernova yeah why'd supernova that's what he cuz it flat at the bottom and then no it's all right we got one out there I'll show it to you after the thing but it's about the scythe and softball but it's got all these like little knobs on its hardest track there it is right there I love that goddamn thing over two point oh

107:40that seems like the smaller one right there's two of them he has Kelly start yeah there you go you have a small one or a larger one i whatever for ever reason I think I prefer the larger one my my soft-tissue guy down in Florida has one of those things already man I just shot this thing called a so right look up the so right yes Donna PSO RIT II I love you know what the soaz is yes here I mean that's always been one of my big one of my big things you literally lay on that thing and if you know what it feels like to get your your so has worked on you just kind of wobble and wiggle until it hits it and then you can lift your legs this guy does all kinds of videos where he's hitting so as he hits the hits the glutes he hits the quads it's the literally everything and he's got the so as many that's I've been playing on that the last couple months David Goggins was saying that his the

108:33tightness in his psoas muscles was like crippling is running its d it's it's literally the in my like you ever see people with the wrestler back where their butts out and just and it takes a second to stand up that's also as pulling everything down being bent over or throwing throwing kicks I mean for whatever reason I've had horrible horrible problems with my so as and and and every single kind of in my armor has gone back to the psoas muscles the so has which is connected to the spine down to the iliac crests I believe and then there's something called the iliopsoas where the iliacus and so hazard can i play that Jamie this is a PEC thing to do so those with a two so it's not just the psoas muscle she uses it to loosen up your pecs and man it's it's incredible how much that relieves like sometimes I get like some hip tighten its tightness and I'll get that

109:24supernova out and I'll roll on that and however my hips and my no or else I see better hounds every single day gets worse and worse and worse and and also to just lengthening everything yeah your diaphragm all of that just continues to get crunched and crunched and crunched and you can't breathe you look at them have a good time over there man easiest wall he's got a he I mean he held it his whole body with he actually has the exact same thing in a mini it's like literally like only three inches long this is feels underscore PSO underscore good lol that's on Instagram yeah so what did you diet like diet man embrace the monotony that's what that's what my desk man is chicken and broccoli I got mega Fit meals and that's and that's what I make my own meals throughout all training camp when it's chicken and broccoli or it's beef and broccoli or its chi always broccoli I

110:16love broccoli I mean I don't love I don't love broccoli actually I do love broccoli but I love the fact that a couple weeks after I look in the mirror I say dang man I'm getting down veins are starting to pop out I mean that's and that's one of the biggest problems with people's fitness journeys they focus on the weight on the scale are they focused or not seeing the results that they want to see but you just got a the problem is the whoop the work that you put in this week and next week you're not gonna see for two or three weeks right that that delayed gratification but I mean I get my meals it's six ounces of chicken cup of broccoli two or three times a day or I go beef and broccoli or now do you supplement ice essential fatty acids or yeah I take I take like seed oil or I take fish oil officials in the morning and then yeah I mean I mean when it comes to supplementation I do protein

111:07and amino is every single day that's been that's been my biggest thing I mean you branch changed aminos after exercise to having ties BCAAs 50/50 blend they have the like a 2-1 1 to 2 of the loosing two of the leucine one of the veiling one of the isoleucine how long you take that right after training I usually drink one blender bottle want one serving of it as I'm going into practice and then I'll have another one going into the next practice and I'll have a protein shake after are you throwing up no I don't throw I don't I try to get myself to throw up but I don't and I drink that Dymatize I saw 100 protein which is like it's the big it's it's like the cleanest and like almost lightest proteins it was based on what is it a whey protein yeah but it's a weight weight protein isolate okay so something in the way it breaks down or you know exactly all all the specifics

111:58of it but I mean when it comes to bodybuilding a lot of those bodybuilders use that because of the fact that it's isolate right so um and what about multivitamins things along those lines I mean I we we go I do like an athletic nutrients which is basically just like a an extended version of a multivitamin um I have this daily detox one that I take that has a fish oils and a little bit of taurine a little bit of other stuff in it multivitamin tumeric honestly I mean with with great amount of inflammation I have sure try to do a lot of tumeric throughout the throughout training camps if I do I try to stay away from the leaves and the tylenols and that kind of stuff unless I'm that's great in pain you know it's terrible for you know I want to try to get tumeric and drinking juices and that kind of stuff mmm tumeric ginger shots cayenne pepper did you do that every day yeah it's one of

112:51those things where it's like every day but Loosli that's us phenomena I did this morning yeah yeah and what about do you do cryo or do you get massages or I sauna or anything like that I do I do soft I try to do a soft tissue massage or a sports massage kind of Rolfing Arte almost every week I mean like I was saying I'm on my roller every single day before practice and that's that's when I really see you know like these these times after a fight when I'm kind of not working out as much or I'm not you know not everything is on because you can't be on all the time you know everybody acts like they're on 365 but they're 365 days a year but they're really not you know after a fight I kind of go less robot mode you know break my diet a little bit enjoy staying up late enjoy just doing whatever and then that's when I really realized holy cow but I'm my roller in four days and that's why my

113:43back is you know I'm hunched over and stuff so right you just get too busy and just don't know the time yeah get it in there so I'm hitting my roller and then I like to get a massage every single week chiropractic often so yeah I saw something on Russian wrestlers where they were getting massaged every day after training and I was like wow yeah I mean I I mean I do the roller every day so I mean I imagine some sort of soft tissue work could be very I mean man we beat the crap out of our bodies you know it's nothing like it I mean other than football I guess and in terms of the amount of abuse your body takes and cons I mean you're basically in a sport where your desire is to break someone's body yeah and in just the little things man I was sparring with Nik Lentz to training camps ago and I threw it I threw a leg kick as he lifted his his opposite leg up and literally just dead

114:35leg to me like Charlie Horst me with his knee it wasn't even supposed to happen he didn't mean to do it I didn't I was trying to throw the leg kick and I got the worst deep muscle like bone contusion in the middle of my like where where your quads meet right between the muscles and I could not walk I fell right to the ground practice was over hey you know this was like three weeks before the fight and I had to go see my my guy CK in Florida and he just had to work the heck out of it man and that's I think that's one of the biggest things and I just talked to one of the guys at mark probe when we talk about injuries we used to think rice you know rest ice compression elevation and that kind of stuff is there's some conflicting kind of knowledge on all that kind of stuff whereas instead of resting it get in there right away and start moving it moving it and mobilizing it with certain

115:24things obviously got a broken leg it you need to get it set and get it you know get it rested but did you cry out there appeal I don't I mean I started a couple times I've done it I've done that a couple times I haven't done ice baths really I mean a lot of times it's just you almost got a pick and choose there's only so many hours in the day to know so it's like you know you're waking up and you got you got only so much time before you go to practice and then then you only have so much time to recover before the next practice and it's and it's one of those things where I'm always getting a massage I'm always working on you know maybe I'm doing massage and chiropractic during one camp you know it's it's almost like you got to pick and choose your battles if you know if you have an awesome man warehouse like this where everything's in one spot we're going to

116:02do it all every day but if you're down in Florida and this is you know cryo is 45 minutes away and your massage is 20 minutes the other direction it's and you're fighting Florida traffic you really gotta pick and choose your your recovery methods you know right now your gym in Nashville this is your gym and I was following you on social media where you're putting up pictures you're putting everything together how satisfying is that been it's awesome and I think I think the what it's satisfying now that it's open I mean obviously there's a lot of work that goes and tell people how they can find out about it where you go we are training camp Nashville calm and follow us on Instagram at training camp Nashville now that we're open I mean my big thing is you know I'm very active on social media we want to we want to start doing a ton of videos a ton of kind of cool

116:45similar workout so that like I do and pump out a bunch of information out there I mean my my biggest thing is I wouldn't be where I am today without surrounding myself with great people great coaches and be important too and I just wanted to I had this vision 17 years ago and I was like I told my dad I said dad I want to open up a gym and he said well if you're gonna open up a gym I'm gonna build it with my bare hands and my dad now just finished my gym with his bare hands Wow so you know that's cool so he I mean every every screw every nail in that place was was put in by my father you know so it's it's cool and it was and it was when I was you know 15 years old or whatever very similar to my wife's vision of adopting a child and like that came to fruition same exact year so it's like just the changes yeah a lot of changes you know but I mean it's it's cool I wanted four

117:34walls on a roof where people can walk in and say you know they're they're looking for a change and they're looking to eat whether it's get stronger get faster get you know lose that weight that they finally won't have been putting off you know I wanted a place where people can say because of that guy or those people are that Coach I was able to enrich my life I was able to become a better person I was able to increase my self-confidence or you know just so do you rich life classes for like just general fitness classes for martial arts beginners classes do you have like the full range and then also professional yeah so I mean we we have a lot of a lot of stuff going on I I've almost been fighting a decade now I've been started out in Missouri went to the West Coast now I'm training on the East Coast and I've been to Canada up in to numerous training camps in between and the gym is

118:20called training camp and the reason is because my life is always revolves around training camp you know and there's a difference between like we just talked about in training camp and out a training camp how'd you settle on Nashville oh my wife and I just love the city we're both great city isn't it great city yeah we're both from we're both from Missouri so it's closer to you know home where we grew up we were living in San Diego together and wanted to just move back closer to the Midwest we'd love the city you have a bunch of friends in the music industry so we you know had some friends there already and visited and went to a couple of Ward shows and said man this place is cool and I was just there a couple weeks ago like four or five weeks ago whatever it was I loved it it's an amazing city it really is from from top to bottom too and we met so many people and you know you kind of

119:05prod and ask questions and they just said man it's a great place to raise a family it's a great great school systems great you know the weather's is better than Missouri but it's you know it's you know you get all four seasons it's a great place to raise a family and that's kind of what we knew we were about to start a family so we wanted to want to do that and love the city and and now and I saw an untapped mmm a market there too you know I mean there was there was a couple MMA gyms there but there was no there was no legitimate Pro fighters that were there I mean Sanders is from there in the UFC he went out to California Dustin Ortiz was there both of those guys were born and raised there they both went other places I said you know what I want to go to Nashville and I'm gonna make it the premier place or my gems gonna be the premier place to do mixed martial arts training in

119:48Nashville and we're gonna put Nashville on them on the map now you're gonna have wrestling classes kickboxing classes the whole all of it so we have we have so back to that we have a lot of stuff going on we have 3,000 square foot of just fitness area where it's rolled rubber flooring turf plate loaded machines squat racks dumbbells group fitness area right next to that we have 3,000 square foot a mat space where we're gonna have a youth wrestling club that has four kind of four a half wall around it we start on youth wrestling club this week coupled with another 1,500 3,000 square foot of mats 1,500 there 1,500 of the fuji tatami mats for boxing kickboxing BJJ MMA all that kind of stuff and then that 900 square foot yoga studio plus we have our recovery recovery area that we have a guy named Scott duniway akairo strengths so he's a chiropractor a RT and corrective

120:35exercise guy plus we're trying to bring in another massage therapist that's gonna be there three days a week and then I'm also going to talk to a cryo guy as well who has a an extra tank that I'm gonna try to set something up with I think so then when everything's under one roof then then we're like hey Joe I've been doing cryo man 45 minutes away you know yeah well that is the thing rights time management when you're and you're training how many times a day and when you're in Kip well twice usually you know but the but then there's always there's always something to you know and then there's the mediation of media obligations or I mean just even even with your nutrition stuff it's like oh man I gotta go you know gotta go get gotta go make a whole foods around to get my almond milk and my avocados because I make my own breakfast but the rest of my stuff is in mega fit meals

121:16containers you know so there's always a grocery store to go to or there's always a media obligation of there's always something and it's all time management you know I always I always it was always interesting when I heard people like yeah I trained ten hours a day and I'm like really how do you train ten hours today without your body falling apart you know yeah people exaggerate right and I'm like for sure I trade two hours in the morning balls to the wall and I train two hours in that and at night balls the wall and then a baton and I'm like pass out wake up do it all over again ground hogs day embrace the monotony chicken broccoli eggs avocado let's do it for eight weeks and make weight well listen Michael I'm glad we finally got a chance to get together and have this conversation and let people know what you're all about man and I'm a big fan and I really appreciate you coming in

122:00here and I hope one day I can commentate one of your fights that it won't be in Bellator so thank you Michael Chandler ladies and gentlemen