Mark Kerr on Fighting, Addiction, Redemption & The Smashing Machine

0:00 I could tell my son, I go,

0:00 "You didn't sign a contract that says life will be easy." You

0:03 sign the other contract that says life's going to be reallying hard.

0:06 It's going to hand you a bunch of at times

0:08 you don't want to do, but you know what?

0:10 You're going toinging suck it up and you're going to do it.

0:13 That duality is my strength cuz I can

0:16 harness stuff from that emotional part of me.

0:19 People watch me beat the out of somebody and then

0:22 watch me in a totally different format and go,

0:25 "Is that the same dude?" What this is and what

0:28 you are outside the ring are completely two different things.

0:31 You can be this inside the ring, but when it's over, it's over.

0:34 You leave it there.

0:36 Every single thing I did had to have intention.

0:39 And that intention when it's all focused

0:41 and driven in one direction, it's powerful.

0:46 You seem like a nice guy coming in here with a smile and everything,

0:49 but your nickname is the smashing machine,

0:54 right?

0:54 What's the deal with this nickname?

0:55 Oh gosh, man.

0:57 So the m I tell makina devor the Portuguese

1:00 they said it's the you're the machine that smashes.

1:04 And when the reporter looked when the so so when the reporter looked at it,

1:08 when you looked at my fight uh third fight that night against Fabio Gajelle,

1:12 it was it was it was a beating, you know,

1:17 like like sometimes it's even hard for me

1:19 to watch it because it's one where I'm like,

1:21 "Oh god, like like I know that hurt." And he just the dude wouldn't give up.

1:29 And you you know this like when you're when you're competing

1:31 and grappling and doing jiu-jitsu like trying to take somebody's will.

1:36 Yeah.

1:36 It's sometimes somebody just doesn't[ __] them want to give it to you.

1:39 But fighting and competing in jiu-jitsu are like different

1:41 different things.

1:42 Different things.

1:43 Same objective though.

1:44 I'm trying to take your will, right?

1:46 Just at a different a different mechanism, right?

1:48 Different mechanism, right?

1:50 But but that intensity of what you're trying

1:53 to do because when you're competing against me,

1:57 um I don't want to I don't want to give you that.

2:00 Yeah.

2:00 I don't.

2:01 So this is uh I think is this in the movie?

2:04 This this this is uh Yes.

2:07 This fight in particular

2:08 because I remember people talking about this fight and this is um Oh, it's I I'm

2:13 headbutting him and

2:14 Oh, I I break his orbital.

2:16 I fracture his orbital.

2:17 Um, you ever think about how people are doing now?

2:21 So, I ran I ran into him uh when they

2:24 did the first class of induction in ADCC um in Vegas.

2:28 I got uh and I ran into Fabio, nicest dude in the world.

2:34 I got a I got a great story.

2:36 So, you imagine this, right?

2:37 Like this is like 15 minutes Yeah.

2:41 of of me just and and literally I'm going just give up in my head.

2:47 And I'm like, at some point I'm like, just give the[ __] up, dude.

2:51 But everybody in that crowd is there to support him.

2:55 Mhm.

2:55 Right.

2:55 They're from his dojo.

2:56 He's the sensei at the dojo.

2:59 Yeah.

2:58 So there's no way.

2:59 He would rather he would rather get choked unconscious,

3:02 break a leg, break an arm, fractured f.

3:05 It doesn't matter.

3:06 So I mean, you see here, it's just like like I'm I'm like mauling him.

3:13 Yeah.

3:13 Yeah.

3:14 Right.

3:14 Mhm.

3:15 So they it's supposed to be no time limits.

3:19 And so the referee looks at sees his orbitals broke and stopped the fight.

3:24 They award the victory to me.

3:25 And then the next day his wife calls me.

3:29 He doesn't speak English back then.

3:31 Speaks perfectly English now.

3:32 And so

3:34 his wife's like, "Um,

3:35 Fabio wants to have you up to the house for lunch." This is the next day.

3:39 Yeah.

3:39 And I'm like,

3:42 "No, thank you." like like thinking he's going to have like

3:45 20 of his boys just camped out just waiting for me going,

3:49 "Oh, when he gets here, boys, we're gonna"

3:52 And um I finally agree.

3:55 I said, "Okay, I'll go." And so I go up there and I

3:58 sit down with him and it was the coolest experience in the world.

4:03 Um because it sets the standard of like what this is

4:06 and what you are outside the ring are completely two different things.

4:10 Yeah.

4:11 You can be this inside the ring, right?

4:14 But when it's over, it's over.

4:16 You leave it there.

4:17 And that's the message that Fabio gave to me

4:20 and gave me this just great insight at the beginning

4:24 of my fighting career to know that there's a distinct

4:28 difference between that and when you're outside the ring.

4:32 You mentioned no no time limit.

4:35 Yeah.

4:35 Oh god.

4:35 How do you prepare?

4:38 You know what?

4:38 being 250 260 lbs.

4:41 How do you prepare for no time limit?

4:44 Um, is there any breaks at all or?

4:46 No.

4:47 Just you fight until somebody gives up.

4:48 They don't give you like 30 seconds.

4:49 Take a sip of water or something.

4:51 I mean, you can't even do the fake poke in the eye.

4:53 Like, hang on, hang on a second.

4:55 Hang on.

4:55 There's no It's like, oh, poke you in the eye.

4:58 Keep going.

4:59 I think you even get in Pride, you'd get like fined or something, right?

5:02 You do

5:03 get like docked pay like if you're not.

5:05 Yeah, they give you like in soccer they give you a yellow card,

5:08 give you yellow card and they give you a red card.

5:11 First yellow card I think is like I think it was like 15% of your pay.

5:15 Second one it goes to 25.

5:17 A red card 50% of your pay.

5:19 Yo, that's

5:20 Oh, it's it's not right.

5:22 You're not fighting hard enough.

5:23 You're being lazy.

5:25 That's Oh my god.

5:26 Holy crap.

5:27 Yeah.

5:27 Pride.

5:29 I mean, it turned in like I was saying earlier,

5:31 it's like when you have in Pride, it was a 10minute first round.

5:36 10-minute.

5:37 That's a diminished product after five minutes.

5:39 You're not getting you're getting two dudes just kind of hanging out because

5:43 it's just like you don't you don't have the cardiovascular system to do that.

5:48 So, that's when they started doing the carts.

5:52 I'm like I'm like,

5:54 they're only making it worse.

5:55 Oh, making way worse.

5:57 way worse.

5:58 What's your cardio training look like though?

5:59 Like how did you I mean I know you have a long history of being

6:02 a wrestler and wrestlers are always in great

6:04 condition but in wrestling you get breaks.

6:06 You do you do like it's uh in collegiate it was

6:09 a three minute first period 2 minute second two minute third

6:13 you know and there was always that kind

6:14 of break in between like once the first period was

6:17 over there was like this lull that you had

6:19 to to get your to get your bearings right.

6:25 Um, so cardiovascularly, uh,

6:29 the the closest system that mirrored what I wanted was was hockey.

6:35 And that's where TR Goodman came in.

6:37 That's where the whole pro camp thing came in.

6:39 That's where he was taking these hockey players cuz it's burst,

6:42 recover, burst, recover, burst, recover, burst, recover.

6:46 And so, um, the whole point was like,

6:48 how do I like I didn't know this language back then,

6:51 but I like how do I increase my capacity?

6:54 how to increase my my cardiovascular so my V2 capacity and then

6:58 my heart rate capacity to be able to carry that hockey

7:02 player burst recover burst recover and that's one where you can get

7:07 through like the training camp of that and not be beat up

7:13 that was the other one like you

7:14 could you could get people that could cardiovascularly

7:17 train for a five minute round fiveminute rounds

7:20 just they couldn't get through the training am.

7:24 That was the whole thing.

7:25 It's like because you you it was this puzzle that needed to be solved.

7:29 You know who else actually started solving the puzzle?

7:31 Frank Shamrock.

7:33 Frank Shamrock and I had conversations 25 years ago

7:36 about heart rate training and all this other stuff.

7:39 And he was the only person I could talk to about it.

7:42 He he realized he can't just redline the No.

7:45 Because there's too much different types of training.

7:47 I mean, you're in the gym, you're lifting,

7:49 you're doing cardiovascular training on bikes,

7:52 you're probably doing a little bit of running.

7:53 I mean, a little bit.

7:55 What's that?

7:56 Did you do some bro?

7:57 So, I did.

7:58 So, I did.

7:59 It was limited cuz it was just It was It was really hard on my You're big.

8:06 You're like gravity and my joints just don't agree.

8:08 Sprints though, probably, right?

8:09 Sprints a ton.

8:11 sprints, hills, inclines, bleachers.

8:14 Like ASU on the track and field has got bleachers

8:18 that are like I I think it's probably a 30% grade.

8:23 Damn.

8:23 And literally they go, "Okay, run the bleachers." And I go, "I ain't running.

8:26 I'm just walking them.

8:28 I'm walking.

8:28 There's plenty.

8:29 I'm good.

8:30 I'm just good walking them because you spiked your heart

8:33 rate." And then on the way down, you could recover.

8:35 And on the way up, you spiked it again.

8:37 And on the way down, you recover.

8:39 Mhm.

8:39 And it was this up, down, up, down, up, down.

8:42 Same thing cardiovascularly.

8:44 It's this, but you know, I mean, at the end of the day, too,

8:47 um I was talking about this a couple weeks ago,

8:50 how many calories I had to take in per day.

8:52 So, I wasn't catabolic.

8:55 It was like one of those things where it's like

8:57 now I still have food issues because I had to force.

9:02 So, I had to do I had to do four I called them soft meals and four hard meals.

9:08 That was a minimum.

9:09 Minimum in the movie I see you making shakes all

9:11 the time and I was like a blender's always going

9:13 because I couldn't I couldn't physically eat like going, "Oh my god,

9:17 I need to eat again." But I had to, right?

9:19 So food became this this thing where I still get hangups of that.

9:24 You know, going all the way back to wrestling

9:25 and cutting weight and doing all this stuff.

9:27 It was one where, you know, like still this day I just have food issues.

9:33 You were doing like what, two, three workouts a day though, right?

9:35 That's Yeah.

9:36 Yeah.

9:36 Makes sense.

9:37 Yeah.

9:37 No, I was going to say in the morning I it would get up

9:39 and I would do my first soft meal like get right up and and have

9:43 a soft meal is like a blended meal.

9:44 A blended meal.

9:45 Yep.

9:46 And that would be first and then it would be like okay get in my routine.

9:50 Sometimes we would lay back down, get up, eat a hard meal, right?

9:53 Then head to the gym

9:55 and then another meal,

9:56 either a hard meal or soft meal depending on what the day looked like.

10:00 And then it would be just repeating all day long.

10:04 Wow.

10:03 Get up, repeat.

10:04 Get up, repeat.

10:04 Get up, repeat.

10:05 Yeah.

10:06 you know, going back to what you were mentioning here with um how

10:09 like he was really good at separating the the fight from, you know,

10:14 just being a chill human being.

10:16 Did you all were you good at that the whole uh

10:19 before or did it take you time to be able to like

10:22 compartmentalize?

10:23 No, it this was this was what I was talking to Mark about earlier.

10:28 Um no, like I didn't know what a professional mixed martial artist looked like.

10:34 Nobody did.

10:35 Yeah.

10:35 Nobody did because look at the early UFC.

10:37 You you had a boxer walking one glove on, one glove off, right?

10:41 That's that's the confusion.

10:44 Yeah.

10:45 So, like the worst decision ever.

10:46 My god, man.

10:47 Can you imagine this corner guy going, "All right, Bill, it's a good thing.

10:50 One glove on and one off." You like

10:54 like And after afterward, I guarantee he goes, "You don't like me, do you?

10:58 Cuz if somebody like me would tell me to take the other glove off, too."

11:02 Right.

11:04 Yeah.

11:03 It's so like such a handicap.

11:05 Oh my god.

11:06 It's like I can't imagine the thought process that went into that.

11:10 So because somebody thought of that, you know,

11:12 so that gave you an idea at the beginning

11:15 like what a mixed martial artist was like.

11:18 Nobody knew.

11:18 Yeah.

11:19 Nobody knew.

11:20 So where Fabio helped me in this direction was

11:24 to understand like this is this is how you carry yourself, right?

11:31 And so, you know, for me, it made it clear like, you know,

11:35 if a guy fouled me and kicked me in the nuts and poked me in the eye,

11:38 I'm not going to be friendly with him outside

11:40 the ring because there's just no there's no reason to.

11:42 But I'm not going to go after him.

11:44 I'm not going to be an antagonist.

11:45 I'm not going to be an it's just that's who you are.

11:48 That's fine because I'm going to carry myself at a much higher level.

11:53 Yeah.

11:53 You know, because up here is a professional.

11:56 Down here is everything else.

11:58 Like I told you, I wanted to be paid like a professional.

12:01 So if I looked like, and I've said this in interviews before,

12:06 like if you look at like one of the Pride interviews,

12:08 you'll see everybody in a sweatuit, tracksuit,

12:11 and you'll see me.

12:12 I couldn't afford a $1,000 Calvin Klein suit, right?

12:16 Cuz I'm like, I'm going to be paid.

12:20 You're going to pay me.

12:23 Yeah.

12:22 You know, it was this whole narrative that I didn't

12:25 I didn't like in retrospect, I can look back on it and go,

12:28 I understood what I was doing, but I didn't understand what I was doing.

12:33 You mentioned having like food issues.

12:34 Uh what are the issues that you still have with food?

12:37 You have like a battle about like what's

12:38 healthy and what's not healthy kind of thing.

12:40 Because you know, a lot of it a lot of it turns into like most people,

12:44 you know, food of convenience, right?

12:47 low no low nutritional low density nutritional food quick grab easy you

12:54 know where I know that that those choices are the worst thing

12:57 I can do right instead of just taking the time because food

13:03 it was it was a tool you know it was a tool

13:06 to be able to get to where I wanted to get to so

13:09 you know a lot of times I go ah it's just easy

13:11 I'm going to grab a[ __] Twinkie it's even though my glycemic

13:14 index goes through the[ __] roof all this other[ __] and I go,

13:18 "Man, I can't why do I feel like[ __]

13:20 huh?" Cuz you're you're just you're missing uh like Casey Means and Cody Means,

13:26 right?

13:26 Like the book Casey means

13:28 Casey they wrote a book she wrote a book called Good Energy.

13:32 Okay.

13:34 Right.

13:33 And so the book talks about like if your phone required 20 volts, right?

13:40 And you were putting nine volts in it every day and going,

13:43 "My phone's not working right.

13:46 It would make sense.

13:48 Yeah.

13:47 Your body, she goes, "Your body's the same way.

13:50 If your cells require a certain amount of energy and you're feeding

13:54 it this crap and your body's not responding, it's not a mystery.

14:01 It's still calories, but it's maybe not efficient calories.

14:03 They're not efficient." Exactly.

14:05 And she talks about I mean,

14:06 the book is it's it's interesting because the the first like three,

14:10 four chapters of it are are are scientific.

14:12 Mhm.

14:13 So I'm like, "Okay, if I can just get some of these and then

14:16 you get to the point where it's like the whole thing,

14:18 she's actually went through a nomination process." Um, she was brilliant.

14:24 She she did a bunch of stuff with like RFK, I think, and she helped

14:27 partner.

14:28 I think she's actually trying to she was at the University of Stanford and I

14:32 think she was very upset with her education from there because she was like,

14:36 I didn't really learn anything about nutrition.

14:37 So So she Exactly.

14:39 you know, part part of her story, and I might might get a lot of this wrong,

14:42 but she like graduated high school when she was like 15, 16 years old,

14:46 graduated premed when she was like 18,

14:49 done with medical by the time she was in her mid20s,

14:52 done with her residency by the time she's like like done.

14:57 Like brilliant.

14:58 Brilliant.

14:58 And her brother is a a doctor as well.

15:01 And she walked away.

15:04 Wow.

15:04 In her 30s.

15:06 Yeah.

15:05 She just goes, I quit.

15:08 medical system does not want anybody to get well.

15:11 You know, she would see in the book she talks about seeing a patient every six

15:15 months and it's just repeat and she goes

15:17 she got rewarded for billing not for results.

15:22 Mhm.

15:21 And she was just like I can't do this.

15:23 I can't good conscious I just can't do it.

15:26 When you were fighting it seemed like you were eating pretty clean.

15:29 I was eating really clean.

15:30 Really clean.

15:31 Obsessively clean.

15:33 I mean, you see in the movie, it's like,

15:35 "No, that's I'm not eating half a banana anymore.

15:38 It's a whole banana." And dumped the whole[ __] shake out because it was like,

15:42 it was like it was like my like I had I had my plan.

15:45 Yeah.

15:46 Right.

15:46 You're[ __] with my plan.

15:48 Like I can't have those extra[ __] potassium g, you know?

15:51 It's like just because I mean I was trying to do it the right way.

15:55 I was I w and you know what?

15:57 You know this that the internet wasn't the internet.

15:59 This was like talking to nine guys

16:02 at the gym and picking out the big ones going,

16:04 "What you doing?" Like, "What what you doing?" Okay,

16:08 you're how many sets and you're eating how much?

16:10 Okay, good.

16:11 Hang on a second.

16:11 Let me write that down.

16:12 You're also a wrestler, too.

16:13 That wrestling background of like coach said to do it this why

16:18 why would I do it the wrong Why would I

16:19 do what the coach just told me the wrong way?

16:21 Oh my The guy that actually like changed

16:25 my whole life um was a guy named Chris Campbell.

16:29 Um he was uh uh Dan when Dan Gable became a coach at Iowa,

16:35 Chris Campbell was Dan Gable's first NCA champ.

16:41 Wow.

16:41 A black brother, right?

16:42 Yeah.

16:42 Yeah.

16:43 And just unbelie make made the 19 I think he was a he was a two-time NC champ.

16:52 He made the 1980 Olympic team that was boycotted.

16:56 Won the 1981 world championship.

16:58 voted as best clinician and that's voted on by your peers.

17:04 Uh gets injured, walks away from wrestling,

17:07 decides at some point he's going to come back and wrestle

17:10 and then starts training for the 92 Olympics like in 1989.

17:18 Wow.

17:18 And made the Olympics at 37 years old and won a bronze medal.

17:22 Chris Campbell.

17:23 Chris Campbell.

17:24 Yeah.

17:26 And so he was meticulous because he had he had no margin for error.

17:32 He had no margin for error.

17:34 Like what he did was so deliberate.

17:36 I I call he created in me um intention.

17:42 Like every single thing I did had to have intention.

17:48 Like when you went to the gym, you trained for this.

17:50 You did this.

17:51 When you drilled in wrestling, you drilled like this.

17:55 like this like this very intentional and that intention when it's all focused

18:00 and driven in one direction is powerful.

18:02 question about Chris because you've worked with so

18:05 many people but you know winning at 37

18:07 or getting a bronze at 37 a lot of guys are like at that age nah

18:10 like a lot of guys may be run down etc outside of maybe the intention is

18:15 there any things that Chris did in training

18:17 that you think were also separators that people

18:20 Tai Chi

18:21 that's awesome okay please

18:24 so seriously so so so me I'm I'm young he's 14 years

18:28 older than me and I'm watching him go And I'm like like Chris,

18:35 what the[ __] are you doing, man?

18:37 And so he would do Tai Chi.

18:39 He would meditate.

18:40 He was a vegetarian.

18:43 He was vegetarian.

18:44 Vegetarian.

18:44 Now he's a vegan.

18:46 Now he's a vegan.

18:49 Wow.

18:48 In in and back then that was like like it wasn't like it is now.

18:53 And so it was like this beacon of like of of like whoa like what are you doing?

18:59 Like, but it was just it was

19:03 it stuff everybody's into now.

19:06 Yeah.

19:06 Right.

19:06 Like he was teaching me Tai Chi and and and it was

19:10 like one of those things where I'm like, "Okay, I get it.

19:12 Energy, internal shifting motion, you know,

19:16 all these different things." And I'm like,

19:17 it would come in into play when we would wrestle.

19:20 like you would see like this whole flow

19:23 and this whole int was like okay all right

19:27 spending time spending time with yourself you know even just

19:29 that right and spent and and practicing particular movements seeing

19:33 how you feel with particular movements maybe he's flowing real

19:36 well and maybe you got to do it and you go

19:38 ah my knee kind of hurts when I'm doing this right

19:41 and you got to learn how to flow better move

19:43 he turned me on to so much uh Khil Jabbrron you know book uh called the prophet

19:49 you know like just turned me on to this deeper thinking as a human being.

19:53 This introspective part of like searching for stuff.

19:57 Yeah.

19:57 You know, internally, you know, not an external search, right?

20:01 Like like a search internally.

20:03 And um you know, I look at it and I'm like he was so far.

20:08 He introduced me to Dave Schultz.

20:10 Who's Dave Schultz?

20:11 I'm sorry.

20:11 I should probably know.

20:12 No, no.

20:13 Dave Schultz was murdered by John Dupont Demir,

20:16 right?

20:16 Fox catcher.

20:17 Yeah, Fox catcher.

20:18 So after the 92 after the 92 Olympic run, uh Chris was going to retire.

20:24 And so Chris said, um I've taken you as far as I can take you.

20:28 The next person he handed to me was handed me to was Dave Schultz.

20:32 Introduced me to Dave.

20:34 Introduced me to Fox Catcher.

20:36 Um I started wrestling for Fox Catcher in 1993

20:39 9495 and then January 96 is when Dave was murdered.

20:44 And yeah.

20:46 Yeah.

20:46 There's me and Kurt.

20:47 What was that like uh being part of that?

20:50 Cuz like that was like all paid for and stuff, right?

20:53 Yeah.

20:53 Yeah.

20:53 So that's kind of nice cuz like

20:55 wrestling doesn't really have much money behind it.

20:58 So back then you were so um desperate.

21:02 I was so desperate to have a club team

21:04 pick me up cuz cuz when you're under scholarship,

21:06 things are taken care of, right?

21:08 And then you get done and you want to wrestle Olympic style,

21:11 freestyle wrestling, nothing's paid for.

21:13 And so you have to hook up with the club team.

21:16 And so, um, when I started talking to Dave in 1992,

21:20 Dave was like, "You know how you make Fox Catcher?

21:22 You beat everybody that's at your weight on Fox Catcher." And that that year,

21:26 90 the from 92 to 93.

21:29 Um, at the World Team trials, I beat everybody on Fox Catcher's team.

21:35 Wow.

21:34 To make my first world team in 93.

21:36 And then you and Kurt Angle.

21:38 Yeah.

21:38 Yeah.

21:38 This You're right.

21:39 Kurt Angle is fast as[ __] Oh, he's quick.

21:41 Quick quick quick.

21:42 like he he could change levels and he could explode.

21:46 So I and so here I still had a a little bit more horsepower than him.

21:52 Um he had a little bit better conditioning

21:54 and at the end in 95 when he beat me in 96

21:58 he had he had a combination of the power

22:01 he missed and the conditioning just was off the charts.

22:04 He could just wear you into the ground.

22:06 He's a little lighter than you.

22:08 Yeah.

22:08 Yeah.

22:09 He's So he wrestled heavyweight all his years in college.

22:11 Yeah.

22:12 all his years.

22:15 Yeah.

22:14 He wrestled this guy uh I think his senior year.

22:18 I think it was Sylvester Tarqu.

22:20 I know Sylvester.

22:21 Yeah, Sylvester's like 6 foot six.

22:24 He's got hands that lap my hands.

22:26 They're ginormous.

22:28 Bring up some video Sylvester.

22:29 He's massive.

22:30 See, he's ginormous.

22:31 I I mean ginormous.

22:33 So Kurt beat him.

22:34 And so Kurt Kurt against the heavyweights, Kurt just was so much faster.

22:40 So much faster.

22:40 That was like part of his advantage.

22:42 Oh, huge advantage.

22:44 Huge.

22:44 You You wrestled Sylvester as well, right?

22:46 Yeah, I did.

22:47 My jaw.

22:49 I wrestled Sylvester my uh my senior year.

22:51 I didn't cut down to 190 until the end of the year

22:56 and he he got on top of me and just he just mowed me over.

22:59 He's just wrench in that guy's face.

23:03 I don't It's a second time in college I had been pinned was was by him.

23:08 You know, this makes me wonder since we're on the topic of like wrestling,

23:12 you you mentioned that the way a lot of the way

23:15 you learned when you were younger was that right foot in front,

23:18 right shoulder in front.

23:19 Um, do you think that there's merit to a level of symmetry

23:23 in in getting young athletes to like maybe lead with the other foot sometimes or

23:27 Oh, there like Kurt was a Kurt was a left leg lead.

23:32 Okay.

23:31 And it just is an anomaly.

23:32 It wasn't it's it I don't know how common it is now.

23:35 I know when I was wrestling, it's just how it was taught.

23:39 Yeah.

23:38 It was taught that goofy foot, right leg forward, your dominant leg forward,

23:42 and then all your attacks, you know, would be out of that leg forward.

23:48 Um, you know, I see guys now that actually can wrestle both both legs,

23:52 you know, cuz square stance usually doesn't work, you know,

23:55 because you can't you can't generate um I call them power generators.

23:59 Mhm.

23:59 Like if I if I'm stagger stagger step,

24:01 I can I can skip step and I can generate power

24:04 close and like I call it fighting in the foam booth.

24:08 Yeah.

24:08 Right.

24:08 Like these power steps by grabbing and pulling and shucking and you

24:12 know so you know some guys do it now I it's interesting.

24:15 I wouldn't even know like now I haven't looked at at that level.

24:20 I got you.

24:21 Yeah.

24:21 Wrestling wrestling um you know it's a sport

24:24 that's been around for a long long time, right?

24:27 Yeah.

24:28 And uh people get exposed to it in high school and some people wrestle,

24:31 some people play football, some people play basketball and so on.

24:34 But fighting is like a whole different category thing.

24:37 And I realize fighting has even been around forever too.

24:40 And there's even been organized fighting has been around.

24:42 And I know in Japan uh it's been popular for many years and then

24:45 here in the US we had the UFC uh that that popped up.

24:49 But what was the jump?

24:50 What was the leap like into like now

24:53 I'm going to like be punching and kicking and all?

24:58 I mean I at first it you got

25:02 to feel confident you can protect yourself really well.

25:04 You so that I that I had I had that like the confidence

25:07 I had was I know that I was going to be well conditioned, right?

25:11 Um I know that like with with wrestling what it allows you to do what

25:15 it allowed me to do is you you can conserve energy in certain spots, right?

25:20 like standing on my feet kicking and punching.

25:22 I don't know where I can conserve energy because

25:24 I just haven't done it for 20 years, right?

25:27 I wrestle for 20 years.

25:28 I know where I can need to apply pressure

25:30 and I know where I can relax in the PL.

25:33 So, I knew those are some of the advantages.

25:36 Everything else was just like I I didn't know what

25:39 I was going to do when I got in there.

25:40 How was you going to react?

25:42 uh because training and and in an actual event,

25:48 but it's one where it's like it was just

25:49 this natural transition of like of like not thinking about it.

25:54 It's like, "Oh, his face is there.

25:55 I'm going to knee it." Oh,

25:56 somebody like, "Hey,

25:57 we're going to go to this go to this thing and it's going to you get if you win,

26:00 you get like five grand or something." Was Oh, no.

26:02 The first This is what enticed me like 25,000.

26:04 The first fight.

26:07 Wow.

26:06 But they were like, "Hey, listen.

26:07 We're going to go down to Brazil." And then I didn't

26:09 hear anything else after the 25,000 cuz it was cuz it's like,

26:13 "Oh yeah, you're going to fight three times one night.

26:16 Oh, there's going to be no time limits.

26:19 There's going to be it's going to be bare knuckle.

26:21 It's going to be in the basement of a hotel

26:24 and uh we're going to slot where where

26:27 one side is we want this guy Fabio in the finals and uh are you good with it?"

26:35 Wow.

26:35 All I heard was 25,000.

26:37 Yeah.

26:37 and everything else I didn't hear.

26:40 I didn't hear any of that.

26:42 How'd that go?

26:43 I won.

26:45 That's the fight, you know.

26:46 That's that's the incredible part about like

26:50 And you didn't have much striking back.

26:52 Like how much How much did you train for?

26:55 Couple weeks, months, couple months.

26:56 No, I trained probably like three months.

27:01 But three months of like Still You're not going to pick up much in three months.

27:05 Maybe maybe just to hold your hands up and move your head a little bit.

27:08 That's it.

27:09 And and understand like there's so many

27:11 other different ways that you can strike,

27:13 you know, with my knees,

27:14 with my elbows, with my head, you know,

27:16 and things like that because it's all legal, you know.

27:18 So, it's just one of those where um you know,

27:22 those elements were brought out like I was saying earlier.

27:24 It's like I feel way more comfortable kneing or kicking you

27:27 because I can just feel I feel like I can just generate Don't kne or kick me.

27:31 Oh, try it on in Sema.

27:33 And Sema, I think he can handle himself, too.

27:36 I know.

27:38 I think you can I mean, there's a big age gap here.

27:43 So, let me ask you this.

27:44 Like, as you were progressing as a fighter,

27:46 when was it that like you you met Boss Ruten and then all of that?

27:50 Oh gosh, man.

27:51 How that's a godscent.

27:53 I mean, so I did, let's see, it' be UFC um 14, which you won that.

28:03 I won that.

28:04 I won UFC 15.

28:06 After UFC 15 is when I met Boss.

28:09 And it's just this really weird connection of um a friend of mine saying, "Hey,

28:16 there's this guy in Beverly Hills who has a jiu-jitsu school called Beverly

28:21 Hills Jiu-Jitsu and he wants you to come out to do a wrestling clinic." Mhm.

28:28 I'm like, "Okay." Because back then you were trying

28:30 to pick up as much money from his little things.

28:32 I think it was like 250 bucks to come out.

28:35 He'd fly you out.

28:36 And I was like, "Okay, for a weekend." Yeah.

28:39 And then it changed from that to like, hey,

28:42 he wants you to come out and teach

28:44 wrestling like a like on Fridays and Saturdays,

28:47 like Friday evening and Saturday morning and then you can fly home on Saturday.

28:52 And I'm like, okay, we can talk about it.

28:55 This guy's his name's Avi Rubin.

28:59 Yeah.

28:58 And um I'm like, okay.

29:01 So I go out there.

29:01 I don't know boss is there.

29:03 I don't I don't know.

29:04 Yeah.

29:04 I don't know.

29:04 Marco Huaz is there.

29:06 Pedro and Ole Tarov.

29:08 Oh[ __] Yeah.

29:09 Ended up being like one of those like I wouldn't be here if it if

29:13 it was anything different cuz boss took

29:15 an interest immediately boss took an interest in in in me and uh

29:21 I mean that's lit literally it was like this.

29:24 Oh my god.

29:25 And boss is aging well man like he's playing I know.

29:32 And this is uh Rico.

29:33 That's Rico Rodriguez.

29:34 Yeah.

29:34 Yeah.

29:35 And he I think he won uh

29:37 he won he beat Randy Couttor.

29:41 Yeah,

29:39 he beat Randy Couttor to win.

29:42 Uh uh

29:43 it's amazing when you watch some of this stuff and you're like, "Oh,

29:45 that guy did this and this guy did that cuz

29:47 cuz all you guys are around each other all the time."

29:49 Yeah.

29:49 It's small small circle, right?

29:51 You know, the first time I met Ra Rodriguez, he was 320 pounds and fat.

29:58 He was his his uh instructor is uh Higmachado.

30:02 Yeah.

30:02 And so he's got his black belt from Higgy Machado.

30:07 Wow.

30:06 And so he's 20 years old.

30:08 I'm like 30 at the time or 28.

30:11 And uh you know he comes in, he's just this round.

30:16 And it was just one of those weird things where I was like, "Okay,

30:20 you want to wrestle?" And he know he knew a little bit of wrestling.

30:23 So we start wrestling.

30:24 I'm like, "Oh,

30:27 okay." And so we start training together and I literally say to him, I go,

30:32 "You can tell you this." I go, "Probably two years,

30:36 maybe a year and a half." And he goes, "What?

30:39 A year and a half?" I go,

30:40 "Before you can take me down." And he's like, "No, fuck." Like,

30:45 "Fuck you." I'm like, "No,

30:48 maybe two years." And it was probably two years before he[ __] took me down.

30:52 I didn't care if I[ __] was running across the mat.

30:55 He wasn't going to take me down.

30:56 I don't care if I had to like take a rip a leg off.

31:00 It's like it was this like war of attrition some days.

31:04 Yeah.

31:05 Yeah.

31:05 Because it was like I just go you're not going to until your technique

31:09 is up to a level where you're not going to be successful at it.

31:13 Just not.

31:14 Well, you had a lot of like accelerated learning

31:16 with all the different people that you were around.

31:19 It seemed like even in your wrestling career,

31:20 it was difficult for anyone to even get a point on you,

31:23 much less be able to beat you.

31:24 Yeah, that was all that was Chris.

31:26 I mean, that was part of what what he enabled me to do

31:30 because part of the understanding is like with my mentor Chris Gamble, right?

31:35 Like him saying almost the same thing to me like

31:38 saying it without words like like it's going to be

31:42 a it's going to be a minute before you

31:44 and understanding like my technique had to rise to this level

31:49 of like take the pebble, right?

31:52 And it was like, you're not going to get

31:54 it until you actually put the work in, right?

31:58 It's not just going to you're not just going to take it.

32:01 And so it was like this understanding of like when I finally got it,

32:06 it was like that belief that like, oh, like I can do this.

32:12 Yeah.

32:11 At a very high level.

32:12 Very high level.

32:14 So let me ask you this too.

32:16 Like what else do you think kind

32:18 of separated you in terms of from other fighters?

32:20 because everyone trains.

32:22 Yeah.

32:22 Right.

32:22 Uh I don't know if it's common for a lot

32:24 of guys to watch a lot of tape, but maybe that.

32:26 But what else do you think were the things

32:28 that really kind of put you at a different level

32:31 that maybe other guys weren't doing enough?

32:33 Yeah.

32:33 Yeah.

32:33 Yeah.

32:34 And you know, part of part of part of the continuation was meeting TR Goodman.

32:39 And being at that forefront of understanding like what functional

32:42 training was and what heart rate training was and and it

32:45 wasn't just like before it was just like I don't know

32:48 go punch the bag until the you hear the bell ring.

32:51 Yeah.

32:51 You know it didn't have this intention of like

32:54 no this is what we're going to do.

32:55 We're building a thousand foot building.

32:57 We got to make sure it's level at the bottom right.

33:00 Or it's or it's off 10 feet at the top.

33:02 Right.

33:02 we're going to do we're going to do

33:04 this this and this and this and understanding like like I believed him

33:09 I because it was different.

33:10 It was just just different than anything cuz before it was just like I don't

33:14 know lift that and lift that, squat that, pick that up, do this, do this.

33:17 You said first couple times you trained with him, you were like,

33:20 "Oh god, man." We were doing like rotator like my arms shaking

33:24 like like and getting up from the bench and going that that's

33:27 just that I don't what is that like like doing hip movements,

33:32 you know, and open up your hips and you're like

33:35 like at first you're like why is my leg shaking?

33:39 Yeah.

33:38 Like why?

33:39 Because my quads are this big, right?

33:42 But everything internally just isn't[ __] working.

33:45 Yeah.

33:45 Yeah.

33:46 you know, and going, "We're building a thousand foot building, bro.

33:50 We need to get all that little stuff.

33:52 We need to get it working." Because otherwise, all this muscle is just useless.

33:58 What is it, what it means to be a pro

34:01 is like so different than maybe what you expected.

34:04 Um, being a pro means like Yeah.

34:08 actually paying attention to like where your heart rate is in these particular

34:11 uh in these particular training sessions so you can actually recover.

34:14 Yeah.

34:15 Like I think that people don't realize that side of it.

34:17 You know, being a professional means you're going to go to bed at 9:00 p.m.

34:20 Yeah.

34:21 Being a professional means you're going to wake up at 6 a.m.

34:23 or whatever the

34:24 Yeah.

34:24 Whatever the protocol is, right?

34:25 What whatever the prescription of like what you're doing at the time frame.

34:31 Um

34:30 it's not just the stuff you like.

34:31 It's it's a lot of stuff you don't.

34:34 It's all of it, you know?

34:35 Exactly.

34:36 It's you know, it's one where it's like you can't pick and choose, right?

34:40 Going, oh, I'm going to do this and I'm not going to do that.

34:43 Like I'm the smashing machine.

34:44 I'm just going to keep wrestling and keep lifting

34:45 and I'm going to be bulky and throw people around.

34:48 Yeah.

34:48 It's like if that worked that would be the protocol, right?

34:53 But it was just something totally contrary.

34:56 Like my first first fights I was too big obviously.

34:59 I mean 275, you know, 6%.

35:02 I thought you looked amazing.

35:03 I know, right?

35:04 For a pose off, right?

35:08 For literally a pose off.

35:09 I was like, but

35:10 you got done with one of your fights and you're like walking in the back.

35:13 No, no, no.

35:14 It was a waddle.

35:15 It was a waddle.

35:16 It was not a walk.

35:18 That's for sure.

35:20 Hey, The Rock did a good job getting some uh traps popping for that movie.

35:24 God, man.

35:24 He He secluded himself, you know.

35:28 He So, seemed like he had a lot of uh realizations.

35:32 He did.

35:32 He he did.

35:33 So, you know, um, a lot of it was shot in Vancouver, uh,

35:38 just because there's a a for a lot of different reasons,

35:40 but there's also a huge, um, uh, Asian population.

35:44 And so, a lot of the fight stuff was in Japan, so it was shot in Vancouver.

35:48 And so DJ, um, went up and, you know,

35:52 rented a house and didn't bring his family up,

35:56 didn't bring his daughters up, just treated it like it was a training camp.

35:59 Like, period, like a training camp.

36:02 got up, would get his morning workout,

36:04 do all that because days where shoot worries me,

36:07 it was a three-hour process of putting makeup on.

36:11 So, it was like you you get up, you do your thing, work out in the morning.

36:18 I mean, it took him three hours cuz he's all, you know, he's sleeved, right?

36:22 And so, tattoos.

36:24 Yeah.

36:24 just to get the tattoos to where and then he's got

36:27 my little cheesy tattoos and my two little spiders and my little kanji,

36:31 you know, and this is one where it's like so I gave him major props,

36:36 man, just for, you know, the commitment that he made.

36:40 He was all in.

36:41 He like he like broke his nose

36:43 or something almost like right off the bat, right?

36:45 Oh my god, man.

36:46 He's asking these guys to do something

36:47 that no production schedule wants to hear.

36:50 It's like, "Punch me in the face." It's like because

36:52 if you break something and production has to shut down,

36:54 it's it's hundreds of thousands of dollars a day.

37:00 Yeah.

37:00 And so he's he's telling Usyk, this is Alexander Usyk, right?

37:04 Undisputed heavyweight champ.

37:05 Undisputed.

37:06 Four belts held at one time.

37:09 You know how many rounds he trained to fight uh the Gypsy?

37:12 How many?

37:14 600[ __] rounds.

37:15 Oh my god.

37:16 With three different training partners.

37:17 So he had first round partner,

37:20 second round partner, third round, repeat, first round.

37:23 So he had a fresh person coming on him every third round.

37:29 Wow.

37:28 Yeah, that's what I said.

37:29 I'm like, okay.

37:31 Cuz he's not want that guy to punch you in the face.

37:33 Oh my gosh.

37:34 No, you don't.

37:35 So he had he said he had to do rounds

37:38 he had days where he wasn't allowed to punch back.

37:42 Wasn't allowed to punch back.

37:43 Only defensive fighting.

37:45 Wow.

37:45 like he would do I don't know how many rounds of just defensive fighting.

37:49 I'm like because he's not he's not the biggest dude in the world.

37:55 Yeah.

37:54 And you look at him like like there has to be some you're like work.

38:02 Mhm.

38:01 That's just straight up work.

38:03 How how did you like first I I my understanding was there was a screenplay

38:08 and there were some ideas about Smashing Machine

38:11 the the theatrical movie for like a while, right?

38:14 Yep.

38:14 Yep.

38:14 It was actually it was actually sold way back in 2006.

38:19 Oh wow.

38:20 And so it just kind of originally Johns who's the director

38:25 of the original documentary his father has

38:29 produced a bunch of stuff in Hollywood.

38:31 His father was working at the time

38:33 with JeanClaude Vanam and Jean Claude Vanam's production company.

38:38 So, um, one of his associates acquired the rights and was

38:42 going to make it with John Claude Vanam way back then.

38:46 As in John Vanam playing you.

38:49 Yeah.

38:49 Yeah.

38:50 Okay.

38:53 Okay.

38:51 And so, um, you had everything moving forward

38:57 and for whatever reason everything just fell apart.

39:02 And so, uh, the original screenplay, which is crazy,

39:07 ends up with this guy named Musha, and I'm going to butcher his name,

39:12 Musha Mahaiden, uh, who's this retired 75-year-old Israelian tank

39:18 commander who's been in Hollywood forever and a day.

39:22 Okay.

39:23 And um so in 2019 uh Brad Slater,

39:28 who's Dwayne's agent, his office reaches out to me.

39:32 I'm like, I think it's a prank.

39:34 It's like July 29.

39:36 I'm And put it this way, this is even crazier.

39:39 I'm I've been sober for like 10 months, right?

39:42 Not even a year of sobriety from alcohol, right?

39:45 And um so I think I I'm like, okay, like whatever.

39:49 I like looked the number up.

39:51 I'm like, "Oh, I'm like, this is actually to call it." Brad gets on the phone.

39:57 He's like, "You're not going to remember this." And I'm like, "Okay,

40:02 not going to remember what." He goes, "You and I have met before." And I'm like,

40:06 "We have?" And he goes,

40:09 "We had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory next to the Beverly

40:14 Hills Mall when I was just out of school.

40:18 He went to UFA and I was working in the mail room at William Morris.

40:27 Wow.

40:26 And a friend introduced me to Brad.

40:29 Yeah.

40:31 And this is what Brad looks at me.

40:33 He's like, I'm in the mail room.

40:35 Like, what do you want me to do?

40:38 He still sets a meeting up where I sit in front of a bunch of agents.

40:42 This is like in 2000.

40:45 Yeah.

40:44 And explain to them what I do for a living.

40:47 All of them.

40:50 Like you do what?

40:51 Yeah.

40:51 Like hang on, hang on, hang on.

40:54 So you got hot pants on and you go

40:57 out and you and you and you fight another dude.

41:02 Does he have hot pants on too?

41:05 Like that's that's the like that's the filter of like Yeah.

41:10 of like everybody in the room going h.

41:14 So fast forward the clock.

41:16 Brad says it to me.

41:17 I'm like, "Fuck you." Like, "Oh my god, dude." Like,

41:23 like, "You're kidding me." And he pauses and he goes,

41:25 "I told you one day I would be able to help you.

41:30 This is your day." I'm like, he goes,

41:33 "Do you know who who has your rights?" I said,

41:35 "Here's where I think they are." Thinking, you know, probably three,

41:39 four, five months before he calls me back like a month later.

41:42 He's like, "We got the rights.

41:44 We're moving forward with this." I'm like, "Okay." He goes,

41:48 "Dwayne's going to call you over the weekend."

41:51 DJ reaches out to me, says, "Hey, listen.

41:52 Here's what we're going to do." Um,

41:55 and we we have this like 45minute conversation on the phone.

41:59 He makes the announcement

42:01 and November 2019, pandemic happens.

42:07 Yeah.

42:07 Right.

42:07 So, it goes away.

42:08 Like my wife, she's like, um, this is what's crazy.

42:14 So, so it goes 2020, 2021, 2022,

42:22 and then you end up with a writer strike in 23, right?

42:28 And it's like one of those things at the end of 2023, I go,

42:32 the running joke for me was I had Dwayne's cell phone number for four years.

42:35 I didn't text or call him once.

42:37 Right.

42:39 Yeah.

42:38 Cuz it's because I'm not going to affect anything.

42:41 I'm not going to call him.

42:42 I go, are we making it yet?

42:43 Are are we making it now?

42:44 Are you making it now?

42:47 Now?

42:48 You know, it's like Dwayne, yeah, hurry up, DJ.

42:50 You know, it's like nothing.

42:51 It's like this whole thing of like So, so the fall of 2023,

42:59 u my wife goes, I think you ought to call Brad.

43:03 And I'm like, okay.

43:06 You know, I think you're right.

43:07 It's like October.

43:09 Call Brad up.

43:10 And it's literally like one of those things where you're like,

43:13 you know, I call him up and he goes,

43:14 "Bro, your ears must have been ringing." I'm like,

43:18 "What?" And he goes, "I can't say anything.

43:20 You're going to have to talk to Dwayne." I'm like,

43:24 "Okay." Like, "Okay." He goes,

43:26 "Dwayne will call you over the weekend." I'm like,

43:28 "Okay." So, it's like, I think it was like a Thursday.

43:31 Dwayne texts me the next day and says, "Hey,

43:33 I'll call you over the weekend." So, it's like Saturday, Sunday, no call.

43:39 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, text me again.

43:44 I'll call you over the weekend.

43:45 Now, now you imagine like waiting that whole entire time like,

43:50 bro, like what the[ __] So, it gets to that Friday, then it's like Saturday,

43:57 and then it's Sunday, and I get a text, hey, you available?

44:02 And we we have this conversation not understanding for the last six weeks he's

44:07 had a team of 300 people working to get production in line to get

44:12 everybody in line that wants to work on it that he wants to work

44:15 on it that the whole production team wants to work on it all this and

44:18 and he's like hey listen this thing's moving

44:20 forward he goes when the train leaves the station

44:24 leaves the station and so that was November 2023

44:30 uh we talked through that whole month you know,

44:32 and then he's like, Emily's on board, Benny's on board.

44:37 Um, Benny's going to reach out, you know, in January.

44:41 And it's this whole thing of like it was like full steam ahead.

44:46 It was like it was like one of those experiences like, God,

44:50 I wish I would have enjoyed it more because it happened so quick, you know?

44:54 It felt it's like it's like

44:55 it took so long, but then it happened.

44:57 It's so quick.

44:58 Yeah.

44:58 You know, it's like it's like foreplay and then

45:00 you get to the actual act and it's like, "Oh my god, I'm sorry.

45:04 I'm like, "Excuse me, sorry about that." You know,

45:07 it's like norally, no, it's I'm usually perform better than that.

45:11 I mean, it's like this whole thing, right?

45:13 Like it's this craziness of like all of a sudden it's like

45:18 cuz I I I wrote it off and I said, "My life,

45:22 I need to just live my life." When it

45:24 was first when I first talked to Brad Slater,

45:26 I go, "I'm going to live my life.

45:28 And if that becomes a part of it, that's awesome.

45:32 But if it doesn't, I'm good with it, too.

45:35 Right.

45:37 Yeah.

45:36 Because I because there's nothing else I can do.

45:39 Yeah.

45:40 Right.

45:40 So, just living my life, living my life.

45:42 So, when all this stuff came together, it's like, oh my god,

45:44 it just happened so quick and it

45:49 was this experience that, you know, it's indescribable.

45:54 you know, I was talking about um you know,

45:56 part of that whole like healing process was um uh so the UFC said, "Hey, listen.

46:05 We want to have you out to Newark, New Jersey.

46:09 Um as a soft reintroduction to the UFC fans, you know,

46:13 as this thing progresses and moves forward,

46:15 we want the UFC community to embrace it." Yeah.

46:18 Right.

46:18 And like, "Okay, awesome." So I fly out

46:21 with my son and uh one of his friends and uh

46:25 we have this great like meet and greet picture

46:28 taking and all this stuff and get into the arena.

46:30 sitting there and um John the announcer uh gets

46:35 on the mic and the camera comes over and I'm like,

46:38 "Oh, this is unusual." Like, and they go,

46:42 "Now this Hall of Fame induction d" and it was like, "Oh my god,

46:48 you didn't know you were about to be." No,

46:50 that's great.

46:51 Total false premise, man.

46:52 Yeah.

46:52 Yeah.

46:53 Like totally loaded me up.

46:54 Like I'm sitting there, I'm like like it was so like I was telling Mark,

46:59 I go, you know, I didn't I didn't know I needed that, you know,

47:04 like genuinely like it's one of those things

47:07 that you never compete with the idea

47:09 that you're competing because you want to be in the Hall of Fame.

47:12 You're just competing like I was competing to be the best at what

47:15 I was doing and to raise the standard of what it was.

47:18 Mhm.

47:19 Um and it was like one of those things

47:21 when it was announced it was like this, you know,

47:25 it hit me that night and um and then Dwayne's like, "Hey, listen.

47:29 I'm going to do your induction speech." I'm like, "Oh,

47:34 like if all the people in the world that I want

47:36 to try to follow a speech with is probably not you, bro." But, you know,

47:42 so it was like it was so it was so cool because they

47:45 had um it's international fight week in Vegas and they had it was me,

47:50 my brother, uh my other brother, my wife, my sister-in-law, um my son,

47:58 um Emily Blunt was there, um Dave Copelan, the producer, and Dwayne.

48:04 And it was it was it was freaking awesome

48:09 having your son there like does that um

48:14 you know like with my own son you know I share certain things with them.

48:17 I try to expose him to as many different uh people as I can.

48:21 Yeah.

48:21 Especially the people in my life that are like on on a good path.

48:26 Um and then sometimes you get like a little validation

48:29 of some of the things that you mentioned to your kid.

48:31 Like do you feel like

48:32 you feel like that week was kind of like that?

48:34 Not that not that you need validation like that from but like it's a lot

48:37 of it's a culmination of so many things

48:40 you talked about having a championship mindset and

48:43 and going and doing things and and trying new things.

48:45 I'm sure there's a lot of things you've

48:46 shared with your son over the years that probably

48:49 you know part part of it and this is just part of my story

48:52 you know it's like I've this year will be eight years of sobriety.

48:55 So, it was like one of those days where

48:58 my mom died September 3rd, uh, 1996, you know,

49:01 it was like my son was like 14 and and, uh, he's like, "Hey, Dad, you know what?

49:06 I I know today's a bad day for I know you need to drink,

49:09 but would you stop tomorrow?" Yeah.

49:13 Heavy.

49:14 That's a big one.

49:16 Yeah.

49:16 So, um, it still hits me.

49:22 And um so it's like one of those things where um you know

49:32 all the other times it had been this like this empty promise, right?

49:35 Like sure.

49:36 Yeah.

49:36 Yeah.

49:36 I gota

49:38 Yeah.

49:38 Why is he gonna Yeah.

49:39 Maybe you're thinking sometimes why is he going to listen to me?

49:41 He's seen me he's seen me not doing well.

49:43 Not doing well.

49:44 And so, so it's like one of those things where I'm like, "Yeah,

49:50 yeah, I'll stop tomorrow." And the next day came around and you know,

49:54 at that point I probably had not I had drank probably every day for 10 years,

49:59 you know, every day.

50:01 And um excessively and uh next day came and it was like I'll try.

50:10 It was eight years ago,

50:12 you know.

50:13 So you know this was the like these this every

50:18 event and everything that's happened has helped um

50:23 bridge that gap of you know as a kid and you know this like like the the thing

50:31 that you're trying like the innocence of my my son

50:34 he grew up way too fast because he

50:36 had to face a lot of adult topics

50:38 at a young age right dysfunction between me and his mom,

50:44 you know, addiction, you know, all these other things.

50:46 So, so I had to grow up too fast.

50:48 So, you know, what it creates is it creates

50:51 this um environment where he doesn't trust he doesn't trust me.

50:56 So, through all these um through this and through

51:01 the process of everything that he went through, you know,

51:03 it helps build that bridge back, you know,

51:06 where I I talk to my son sometimes two, three times a day.

51:10 Awesome.

51:11 you know, so it's it's a good thing.

51:16 Yeah.

51:16 I think um maybe he's, you know, h has seen you at your worst, right?

51:23 But he's also seen you be able to like

51:25 still hang on and still persevere and still

51:28 I guess still make an attempt.

51:29 Yeah.

51:29 You know, maybe I I don't you know,

51:31 I don't know the relationship 100%, but maybe he'll just look back and be like

51:36 he was doing the best he could.

51:37 He ran into an addiction.

51:38 an addiction.

51:39 Oh, addiction crushes people.

51:40 It does.

51:41 It's it's

51:42 it's a scourge, you know.

51:44 It's one of the reasons now it's like,

51:47 you know, like me personally now,

51:49 like the causes and the things that I'm involved in.

51:53 Um, you know, like my story is redemption and resiliency, right?

51:58 It's just it's part of it, you know, and it's life, you know?

52:02 I I could tell my son, I go, "You didn't get you didn't exit the womb,

52:06 get get born, and sign a contract that says life will be easy.

52:10 You sign the other contract that says life's going to be really[ __] hard.

52:13 It's going to hand you a bunch of[ __]

52:14 at times you don't want to do, but you know what?

52:18 You're going to[ __] suck it up and you're going to do it.

52:20 I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health.

52:24 All they want to do is put you on pills." Really well said there by Dana White.

52:28 Couldn't agree with him more.

52:29 A lot of us are trying to get jacked and tan.

52:30 A lot of us just want to look good, feel good,

52:33 and a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older.

52:36 Some of the things that we might have,

52:38 uh, high cholesterol or these various things,

52:41 it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood

52:44 work as you're going through the process,

52:46 as you're trying to become a better athlete,

52:49 somebody that knows what they're doing.

52:50 They can look at your cholesterol.

52:52 They can look at the various markers that you have,

52:55 and they can kind of see where you're

52:56 at, and they can help uh guide you through that.

52:58 And there's a few aspects too where it's like,

53:01 yes, I mean, no, no shade to doctors,

53:03 but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication.

53:05 A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this.

53:08 Uh, Merrick Health, these patient care coordinators are

53:11 going to also look at the way you're living

53:12 your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you

53:14 might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom,

53:17 you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone.

53:20 And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like,

53:23 "Hey, should I do that?" They're very curious.

53:26 um and they think that testosterone is going to all

53:28 of a sudden kind of turn them into the Hulk,

53:31 but that's not really what happens.

53:32 It can be something that can be really

53:34 great for your health because uh you can just

53:36 basically live your life a little stronger just

53:39 like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s.

53:41 Mhm.

53:41 And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys.

53:44 When you get your blood work done at a hospital,

53:46 they're just looking at like these minimum levels.

53:49 At Merrick Health, they try to bring you

53:51 up to ideal levels for everything you're working with.

53:54 Whereas if you go into a hospital and you have

53:56 uh 300 nanogs per deciliter of test, you're good, bro.

54:00 Even though you're probably feeling like[ __] At Merrick Health,

54:03 they're going to try to figure out what things you can do

54:05 in terms of your lifestyle and if you're a candidate, potentially TRT.

54:09 So these are things to pay attention to to get you to your best self.

54:13 And what I love about it is a little bit

54:15 of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator.

54:18 They're dissecting your blood work.

54:20 It's not like uh you just get this email back and it's just like, "Hey,

54:23 try these five things." Somebody's actually on the phone

54:26 with you going over every step and what you should do.

54:30 Sometimes it's supplementation, sometimes it's TRT,

54:33 and sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes.

54:35 All right, guys.

54:36 If you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help

54:39 from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels,

54:42 head tohealth.com and use code power project for 10%

54:45 off any panel of your choice cuz it's life.

54:49 Yeah, it's just the challenges of of of the human condition, right?

54:54 And we all experience it in a different way.

54:58 So, you know, through the process of watching me,

55:01 you know, get just one step further down the road,

55:05 you know, like a saying for myself is

55:07 just what a difference sometimes a second makes.

55:12 like a thought I could have just a second ago

55:14 and get one more second down the road and I'm like,

55:18 "Okay, I'm better, you know, I'm better." You know,

55:21 and then you then you just keep multiplying

55:23 out what a difference a minute can make,

55:25 what a difference an hour can make or a day can make or a week or a month.

55:31 You never[ __] know, you know?

55:33 So, just, you know, for me it's like I just

55:35 at moments it's like just holding on for one more[ __] second.

55:41 There's not a lot of MMA movies.

55:43 No.

55:44 Um, there's I guess handful.

55:47 Yeah, there's a couple.

55:49 Um, and two of them are you,

55:52 you know, a documentary and a feature film.

55:54 Um,

55:56 why you thought about that?

55:58 You ponder that one.

55:59 Oh, man.

55:59 I haven't chewed on that nugget.

56:04 Um, I mean, you watched the smashing.

56:05 I mean, PE hopefully people have already seen it,

56:07 but yeah, you know, spoiler alert.

56:08 Yeah.

56:09 you know, uh, Mark Coleman ends up winning

56:11 that tournament that's filmed in Japan and stuff.

56:13 And yeah, what do you why do you think

56:17 you know, I think that there's always been this level of of, you know,

56:22 what I discovered through the whole entire process of, you know,

56:28 I've always looked for connection.

56:30 It I didn't understand it like it it was a thing that I was missing.

56:35 like um you can try to connect with things, right?

56:38 Like buying a house, buying a car, buying fancy this, buying jewelry,

56:43 buying watch, but that's not connection because it's an inanimate object, right?

56:47 It's not the connection.

56:48 So what I've understood my whole life is that the human connection is the thing

56:52 that I've tried to and that requires though

56:56 it requires a certain amount of honesty for me,

56:59 emotional honesty to be able to be vulnerable,

57:02 but knowing I can be vulnerable and still kick

57:05 the living[ __] out of you if I needed to.

57:08 Right?

57:08 But it's but it's having that knowing that that that duality is my strength.

57:14 It's my secret sauce.

57:15 It's my superpower.

57:17 Right?

57:18 because I can harness stuff from that emotional part of me

57:22 that other people when they're not in touch with it,

57:24 they can't dig into it, you know, and so just understanding like that.

57:30 Um because because that's part of me.

57:34 It's it's compelling because people watch me beat the[ __] out

57:38 of somebody and then watch me in a totally different format and go,

57:42 "Is that the same dude?" And I so I think that's part of like

57:49 just really digging into like just the just

57:52 the condition of being human being you

57:54 know you know going going back

57:58 to the the alcohol addiction that you were mentioning

58:01 you've dealt with different aspects of addiction

58:03 during you know during fighting with pain etc.

58:06 What have you because there's a lot of people that are dealing with things

58:08 and they can't figure out the way to kick it you know what I mean.

58:12 So, what have you learned about yourself in terms of the things

58:15 that have helped you be able to overcome these consistently?

58:21 H, you know, as far as a recovery tool,

58:23 this is going to get a little bit deep, but so, so you have like AA, right?

58:28 AA, you know, 12step recovery program and stuff like that.

58:32 What I figured for for myself that has helped with long-term

58:36 recovery is that I dug into my family of origin, right?

58:41 it there's another uh program it's called AC adult child of an alcoholic

58:45 and dysfunctional family and understanding like

58:49 the root of like how I'm built why

58:53 I react the way I react why I respond emotionally the way I respond

58:58 um how I grew up because as a child your parents are your gods

59:05 right as an addict you're usually the one that's inflicting

59:09 and perpetrating and the one that's causing all this stuff.

59:13 As a kid, you're just involved in a family system.

59:16 My parents did the best they could do.

59:19 I know that like my parents didn't have me and go,

59:22 "All right, let's see how bad we can[ __] this one up." Right?

59:25 I know they did, right?

59:27 So, understanding my family of origin,

59:30 understanding like why I'm built the way I'm built,

59:34 why I react to the things I do,

59:36 it's helped unravel some of those things that, you know, that alcohol, you know,

59:43 I used to cover up because I don't want to feel

59:45 those things like some of those deep deep things like h you know,

59:49 inadequacies and feeling less than, you know,

59:53 it's like I like I I've said before, it's like, you know,

59:56 like how I was built is I didn't even

59:58 want to feel I didn't even feel better than you.

1:00:01 I wanted to feel at least equal to you.

1:00:04 Like I always felt like I just wasn't smart enough.

1:00:09 Yeah.

1:00:08 You know, wasn't you my didn't have the right skin color,

1:00:12 you know, didn't have I always felt less than.

1:00:15 So all my efforts were to try to feel equal to.

1:00:18 I didn't want to be better than, you know,

1:00:20 understanding those complexities and and digging

1:00:23 into like the roots of that stuff.

1:00:25 And it's just some of that stuff is like oh it's

1:00:27 deep like it's just deep and you know like it it you

1:00:34 know um realistically what I figured out is is I'm either

1:00:38 a six-year-old or I'm just agreeable

1:00:41 right this non-confrontational yep I'll do it non-confrontational

1:00:45 non-confrontational yep I'll do it you know like people pleaser right like

1:00:48 uhhuh yep yep even though I have no intention to doing it

1:00:51 like Mark go hey you gonna go lift yep

1:00:54 going to be there on Tuesday.

1:00:55 Oh, yep.

1:00:56 Yeah, yeah, yep.

1:00:57 I don't want the conflict, right?

1:01:00 Or I'm a 13-year-old where I'm like, you know what?

1:01:03 __] you.

1:01:03 I'm not going to lift on[ __][ __] you.

1:01:06 I'm not doing I go if I can understand I'm in those two

1:01:09 states of mind most of the time when I'm in conflict, I'm good.

1:01:14 Okay.

1:01:16 Right.

1:01:15 Yeah.

1:01:15 Yeah.

1:01:15 So, it's like it I mean that's oversimplified,

1:01:18 but it's just one of those things where it's

1:01:19 like those are your two my two reactive states,

1:01:23 you know, and understanding like I don't want

1:01:25 a six-year-old or a 13-year-old running my life.

1:01:29 So, I need to be an adult about it and I need to look

1:01:32 at those aspects and understand when I'm reacting

1:01:35 to stuff in my in my ecosystem, right?

1:01:37 Like going, "Oh, man.

1:01:39 Okay, I got it." You know?

1:01:41 So,

1:01:42 having this uh measure of like doing better or being better.

1:01:45 Yeah.

1:01:45 In like a sport, do you think that helped fill in gaps?

1:01:49 Because maybe maybe ultimately what you're trying

1:01:51 to do is just be a better person,

1:01:53 but you didn't really know that.

1:01:54 I didn't, you know, I think some of that's true.

1:01:56 I think some of that um you know, I mean,

1:02:00 it's always and again it goes back to where I looked at connection, right?

1:02:04 Because because in order to connect with another human being,

1:02:06 you got to be a good human being.

1:02:08 you know, you you can't have this, you know,

1:02:11 agenda that's just so far off on one side because

1:02:14 it's just like then you're not a good human being, right?

1:02:17 You know, it's like understanding like, you know, like, you know,

1:02:20 my willingness to be vulnerable or express

1:02:23 myself emotionally and and have that connection.

1:02:25 It's always been something that um you know,

1:02:30 at times I thought it was a weakness, so I'd hide it.

1:02:35 You know, it's like, yeah, I cry a lot.

1:02:38 So what?

1:02:39 You know, it's a good thing, right?

1:02:41 I get emotional.

1:02:42 It's a good thing, right?

1:02:44 I don't pack them and wait until they explode, right?

1:02:48 It's like, you know, if I tell you I love you, I love you.

1:02:52 You know, if I go, "Hey, I'm a hugger.

1:02:54 I'm not a handshaker." You know, it's like it's just who I am, you know?

1:02:58 And it's one of those, like I said,

1:03:00 because on the other side of that, I can drag you out

1:03:02 to the parking lot and I can beat the[ __] brakes off of you.

1:03:08 And I'm okay with that, too.

1:03:10 Smile afterward and ask if you're okay.

1:03:12 Ask if you're okay.

1:03:12 Going, "Do you need a band-aid for that?" I know how to wake you back up,

1:03:16 too, if you need that.

1:03:21 It's It's It's just interesting.

1:03:23 I mean, life life has brought like,

1:03:27 like I told you, I mean, watching Bigger, Faster, Stronger, right?

1:03:29 And that whole thing like it was like a bootleg.

1:03:32 I think it had a bootleg copy.

1:03:33 Sorry about that.

1:03:34 I'll give you a lot of those.

1:03:35 I'll give you 12 bucks when I get out here.

1:03:37 But you know what I mean?

1:03:39 So it was one of those where it's like because there we

1:03:41 talked about there wasn't that information out in the general public, right?

1:03:46 You know, and I told you like going into Gold's gym,

1:03:48 you just sit there and go, "Oh,

1:03:51 that's the guy I need to talk to." Like

1:03:53 the guy that's like squatting red in the face,

1:03:55 you know, in the corner like that's the guy I need to talk to.

1:03:58 Right?

1:03:59 It's like then you go have these conversations of like, "Hey,

1:04:02 what are you on?" You know, like are you taking protein shakes?

1:04:07 You know, because back then it was like it was like and then it' be like,

1:04:10 "No, I got some sauce.

1:04:11 You know, I got some debris talking about it,

1:04:16 right?

1:04:16 It was underground.

1:04:17 That's why they wrote the underground steroid handbook

1:04:20 handbook." Yeah, I had a copy of that

1:04:23 in seemingly the uh I think uh Bill Phillips might have been part of it.

1:04:27 I can't remember who uh wrote it,

1:04:28 but Bill Phillips later went on to uh create EAS

1:04:31 and he's brought the first we've had him on the podcast before.

1:04:34 He brought the first batches of creatine to the country and stuff

1:04:37 like that and made creatine famous and all this, but him

1:04:40 and somebody else wrote the underground steroid handbook and they they

1:04:43 just printed it like in their like parents' basement or something.

1:04:48 Yeah.

1:04:47 And they were like, "How many people are on steroids?"

1:04:50 Like just make like I don't know 10,000 copies or something.

1:04:53 They end up selling like 250,000 copies or something.

1:04:56 something like absolutely insane.

1:04:58 It might have been over a couple years, but they had no idea how many people

1:05:02 were interested or on steroids.

1:05:04 It just, you know, explaining it to my son,

1:05:07 I go, I always say this, the internet wasn't the internet,

1:05:11 right?

1:05:11 you know, there is there is no there's no information out there um

1:05:18 to be able to to understand like what what you were doing, you know,

1:05:23 cuz I I literally ex it was like when I first started fighting,

1:05:27 I didn't know what I was getting into, but I knew one thing.

1:05:31 Um a friend said, "Hey, it's a gunfight.

1:05:33 You're not bringing a knife, so gear up." You know, I'm like, "Okay,

1:05:39 what is it?" many different ways as you can.

1:05:41 Yeah.

1:05:41 Yeah.

1:05:42 And so we're going to give you some armor.

1:05:44 I'm like, "Okay." You know,

1:05:46 and it's just one where it's like at that point when when I started fighting,

1:05:50 I was coming off an Olympic uh testing cycle,

1:05:55 you know, so there was like zero tolerance for anything.

1:05:58 And so literally my body's 27 years old when the first time

1:06:01 I tried anabolics and it was like my body goes about time.

1:06:06 Like, bro, like you've been training so hard you

1:06:09 like about time, you know?

1:06:11 It's like literally it's like my body just went

1:06:14 and it was like it it literally did like It's crazy.

1:06:20 Question for you about that.

1:06:21 Do you like you know, you gain all this size.

1:06:24 Were there any for cuz you were a wrestler who was fast dynamic and you

1:06:28 were still fast dynamic as a fighter but were there any drawbacks to all of that

1:06:33 game besides the card besides the cardio pool it you know there was you know

1:06:39 um I had lost some of the flexibility that I had which I which you

1:06:43 need you need it's not like a like an option like there's certain certain things

1:06:50 uh competing where you where you need to be uh you have to have flexibility.

1:06:55 Yeah.

1:06:56 To be able to do that.

1:06:57 So, some of that loss of flexibility um and the cardiovascular

1:07:02 part of it because as I as I progressed in fighting,

1:07:04 I eventually thinned out to where I was

1:07:06 like my ideal fighting weight was like 240.

1:07:10 Mhm.

1:07:10 Like I knew like I had this barometer like if I was close to 250,

1:07:14 I didn't train hard enough.

1:07:16 If I was under 240, I overtrained, right?

1:07:19 It was like this whole like this is the sweet spot.

1:07:23 Yeah.

1:07:23 you know, 238 to 243.

1:07:26 That was

1:07:27 We were watching a documentary last night, my wife and I, and uh

1:07:30 when you went with Boss Rutin,

1:07:32 he had you lose a bunch of weight, it looked like.

1:07:34 Yeah.

1:07:34 And she goes, "Holy cow, he got ripped."

1:07:37 Yeah.

1:07:37 And I was like, "Yeah, cuz Boss Rut was like,

1:07:38 he's kind of fat last time he fought." He's like,

1:07:41 "I don't want him being fat on my watch." Yeah.

1:07:45 His definition of fat's different.

1:07:47 I know.

1:07:47 Cuz I was like, I He doesn't look fat to me.

1:07:50 Have you seen Boserin recently, by the He looks great, man.

1:07:54 Yeah.

1:07:55 Unbelievable.

1:07:55 It's just I I don't like He's one of those where

1:08:00 normally you would age out where they couldn't cast you in the Smashing Machine.

1:08:04 And so one of my first conversations,

1:08:06 one of my first conversations with DJ was at the end of it, he goes, "Hey,

1:08:11 uh, what's Boss doing?" And I just reconnected with Boss and I'm like,

1:08:16 "Uh, he's good." Kind of like where like where's this going?

1:08:20 Right.

1:08:20 And and he goes, "Uh,

1:08:21 just kind of like uh do you think

1:08:24 you'd want to be involved?" I'm like, "Uh, yeah.

1:08:29 As as what?

1:08:30 Like a consultant?" He goes, "No, playing boss.

1:08:32 We already decided no, we can't cast anybody as him." Like, and it was like,

1:08:38 "Okay." Immediately I hung the like when we got done with the call,

1:08:41 I immediately called boss and I'm like, "Okay,

1:08:43 dude." He was so like, "Oh my god, he was so excited.

1:08:48 so excited.

1:08:49 You know, he look he does look amazing.

1:08:51 He

1:08:52 does.

1:08:54 Yeah.

1:08:54 Earlier you mentioned um you didn't necessarily

1:08:57 want to feel better than somebody else.

1:08:59 You just wanted to feel as good as.

1:09:01 And I find that to be interesting because

1:09:03 you got no idea how someone else feels.

1:09:06 Yeah.

1:09:06 Right.

1:09:06 Yeah.

1:09:06 Yeah.

1:09:07 And I've heard this before and somebody said, you know, if you went, you know,

1:09:10 like uh in your neighborhood and just had

1:09:12 everybody come out on the street and you put all your problems out in the street

1:09:16 and everyone could see all the different problems,

1:09:19 you probably walk back to your house with the problems I had versus like,

1:09:24 you know, somebody else has like these, you know,

1:09:26 life-threatening diseases and all these different things.

1:09:29 Yeah.

1:09:29 So, it's an interesting thing because we are

1:09:30 it's like it's impossible not to compare yourself to other people.

1:09:35 But I am curious about like did you feel like did you feel like the stuff

1:09:39 that you were doing wasn't that big of a deal when you were doing it.

1:09:42 Did you feel like like I I know you probably

1:09:44 knew you were good because you won all the time.

1:09:47 Yeah.

1:09:48 Yeah.

1:09:48 But did you kind of

1:09:49 I think there was a a a feeling of like it wasn't significant.

1:09:54 you know, the only and I and I know this the ADCC stuff I did

1:10:02 um that I knew was significant because

1:10:05 at that point there wasn't an elite wrestler involved.

1:10:10 Mhm.

1:10:11 And I I consciously was like,

1:10:16 I'm going to show them what an elite wrestler can

1:10:19 do to a black belt jiu-jitsu guy without a ghee.

1:10:26 Yeah.

1:10:26 Right.

1:10:27 And against every other discipline out there.

1:10:30 And uh that was like my determination of like I'm going to show them

1:10:35 cuz they had like like TA was involved but he's not elite elite wrestler.

1:10:41 Um you had Mike Van Arsdale I think did

1:10:44 one year he was a great wrestler but not elite.

1:10:48 Then you had um Jeff Mson not elite.

1:10:53 Um you had you know a couple other Did Dan Sever do it?

1:10:57 No.

1:10:57 No.

1:10:57 No.

1:10:58 It's just one of those where it's like I'm

1:11:00 I'm going to I'm like was determined to demonstrate like

1:11:06 this is the[ __] This is like one of these things

1:11:10 where I don't I don't care what you know.

1:11:12 I'm I'm going to turn you into I'm going to make you wrestle me.

1:11:16 Were you able to submit people?

1:11:18 Um I did actually with just like

1:11:21 No, I did.

1:11:22 So the first first year there's no first year is no.

1:11:26 second second second year and still to this day he hates it.

1:11:31 Uh Josh Barnett, I got him in a a kamura lock and pissed.

1:11:35 Oh, he's legendary.

1:11:37 Oh, he was pissed.

1:11:38 He was piss but he was young.

1:11:41 Yeah.

1:11:40 And so I'm so I know this I competed against him both years,

1:11:43 my first and second year.

1:11:45 And uh my uh my first year I go, "Oh, fuck." Like this kid had potential.

1:11:52 I could feel it.

1:11:52 I knew that he knew what he was doing.

1:11:55 And the second year I'm like, I do not want to face him two years down the road.

1:12:00 Yeah.

1:12:00 I just don't I just know that from one year to the next year I'm like,

1:12:04 "Oh, he just made a silly mistake." Mhm.

1:12:06 Silly mistake.

1:12:07 He po literally I'm on him crossbody on him and he posted up.

1:12:10 Take it.

1:12:11 Posted up on his arm and all his body weight was on his arm.

1:12:14 He posted it and it was like, "Dude, it was like too easy."

1:12:18 And once I got it away from him, it was like it was like, "Dude,

1:12:22 yeah." you know, because he didn't have the physicality, physique, you know,

1:12:26 he had flexibility, he had quickness,

1:12:28 he had conditioning, but he didn't have the horsepower.

1:12:30 And Sema, can anybody do that now?

1:12:31 Or is jiu-jitsu too far along, you think?

1:12:34 What do you mean?

1:12:35 Can uh somebody come into uh jiu-jitsu or can a wrestler just

1:12:38 go into jiu-jitsu and win the way that he was able to win

1:12:42 with a ghee?

1:12:43 No way.

1:12:44 With a ghee?

1:12:44 No.

1:12:45 Gee, no.

1:12:46 No ghee.

1:12:47 Yeah, a ghee gives you too many points of control.

1:12:49 It does.

1:12:50 But like noi nogi a wrestler will still give jiu-jitsu guys a lot of issues

1:12:55 but a lot of jiu-jitsu guys that are

1:12:58 like do noi jiu-jitsu get some levels of wrestling

1:13:01 they have to that's what I mean like is maybe it's

1:13:04 a too advanced at this point for someone to come in

1:13:06 it's oh it's come along because when I was doing it

1:13:09 there was that like there was like to give you an idea

1:13:13 Beverly jiu-jitsu when I went out and taught wrestling you had all

1:13:17 the jiu-jitsu guys sitting on the outside of the mat not participating

1:13:23 right the second the class was over this is no[ __] they would

1:13:28 go pull the blinds lock the door and they would go show me

1:13:33 show us the forbidden fruit show me show me the forbidden fruit right like

1:13:36 that's great

1:13:37 like it because if they got caught showing me how to defend like a kamar locka

1:13:41 or an armbar a triangle they would be barred

1:13:44 from their from their dojoos this is no[ __] wow

1:13:48 it was that archaic back then.

1:13:51 And so there was guys going, "Okay, how do you sh how do you do double?

1:13:54 What's the finishes?

1:13:55 What?" They just wanted a little bit a little bit because you can

1:13:59 take that little bit of information and they can make it their own.

1:14:04 Yeah.

1:14:04 Right.

1:14:04 And so still there was like this whole thing about

1:14:06 defending elite jiu-jitsu guys like how do you not get caught?

1:14:11 M that was the big like how do you how do you at that level not get caught

1:14:18 in an arm bar or not get caught

1:14:20 in this sequence of chess moves where it's like slip here,

1:14:24 move here, hip here, slide here, push here, triangle choke.

1:14:28 It's like cuz you could see the elite

1:14:30 guys just move this fluidity of like pull here,

1:14:34 push here, pull here, push here and all of a sudden you go,

1:14:37 "What the[ __] just happened?

1:14:40 like you you know it's like it's this it's

1:14:43 this chain in wrestling they call it chain wrestling like

1:14:46 it's these chain movements of like everything they're doing is

1:14:50 deliberate because it leads you to the end they want

1:14:55 it was just it was like one of those things where like

1:14:58 looking at it going okay I need to try to understand this

1:15:03 remember like early UFC people would tap and like

1:15:06 the ref barely knew what was going on I I was saying earlier here.

1:15:10 It's like uh what

1:15:11 I think the ref maybe wasn't in position and the guy's

1:15:13 like tapping and he's like I like the I'm done.

1:15:15 And I watched I watched that VHS tape with Dan Sever getting triangle choked.

1:15:20 Yeah.

1:15:20 I don't know probably 50 times rewinding it.

1:15:22 And I I still was like because the camera angle sucked.

1:15:25 Yeah.

1:15:26 Right.

1:15:26 It was like, okay, I still don't understand what he did.

1:15:29 Like I like you looked at it in real time and you

1:15:32 go because he was beating the crap out of him to that point.

1:15:35 He was just manhandling him, right?

1:15:37 And so when Hoist caught him in the triangle show,

1:15:39 everybody was like, "He he t Why did he tap?"

1:15:44 Yeah.

1:15:44 What?

1:15:44 Like what was he doing?

1:15:45 Because his ghee was covering a lot of the stuff up so you couldn't see.

1:15:48 Right.

1:15:50 Mhm.

1:15:49 And it was like, damn.

1:15:51 Just quit at all.

1:15:52 Yeah.

1:15:52 Quit.

1:15:53 Like, dude, I I wouldn't have quit.

1:15:55 You know, it's like, no, you were getting choked the[ __] out.

1:15:58 You would have you would have tapped out or you would have blacked out.

1:16:01 I remember Ken Shamrock when he lost to Hoist Gracie.

1:16:05 He when he actually said, "I need to learn this." Yeah.

1:16:09 Like he goes, "Obviously, I don't know.

1:16:11 I don't understand what jiu-jitsu is." I thought that was

1:16:14 really awesome that he said that rather than being like,

1:16:17 "This is[ __] Guy caught me in something weird

1:16:18 and I'm going to fight him next time." He was like, "No, I need to learn this."

1:16:21 Oh gosh, it was

1:16:23 Yeah.

1:16:23 There there's so much.

1:16:25 And they made it deliberately.

1:16:26 They made it where it was like mysterious,

1:16:30 you I was like, it's a magic art

1:16:33 of choke them out, you know.

1:16:35 It's like, okay, you know,

1:16:38 but they made it deliberately where it had this mystique behind it.

1:16:42 It had this like I need to look into this, you know, and

1:16:47 and it also had like that that goal of a martial

1:16:50 art where like a guy that doesn't look the part.

1:16:52 Yeah.

1:16:53 Right.

1:16:53 Is able to bit beat somebody huge or something.

1:16:56 You know what I mean?

1:16:56 Wow.

1:16:57 It it it had a uh Yeah.

1:17:00 I I think this like one of the stories I've heard um was Hixon who looked apart.

1:17:07 Yeah.

1:17:08 Right.

1:17:09 Yeah.

1:17:08 So his his dad said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

1:17:11 We're not we're not putting you out there

1:17:13 putting skinny little hoist out there." You know,

1:17:18 because the idea behind it is they wanted to sell more instructional tapes.

1:17:21 Yeah.

1:17:22 Right.

1:17:22 So like we show this skinny guy beating these bigger guys.

1:17:27 It's like, well, I want to learn that, right?

1:17:30 And so that's that's I've heard that story a bunch of different times.

1:17:34 Um like that like um like like you're looking at it going,

1:17:37 "What the he he tapped

1:17:39 tapped and like no he tapped in and and the ref Yeah.

1:17:42 The ref's like um did they say he was This is how strange this is." Yeah.

1:17:50 And Hoist was like yelling at him.

1:17:51 He's like, "You effing quit." Yeah.

1:17:53 You You tapped or whatever, I think he's saying.

1:17:55 Yeah.

1:17:56 And he did.

1:17:56 Yeah.

1:17:57 I mean, he tapped three times on the mat.

1:18:02 Yeah.

1:18:02 And then I guess nowadays in the UFC,

1:18:04 these guys are taught don't let go until the ref like pulls you.

1:18:07 Oh, yeah.

1:18:08 There are people who try to like fake tap.

1:18:10 Yep.

1:18:11 Kind of weird stuff going on.

1:18:12 They'll do they'll do like this.

1:18:14 Yeah.

1:18:14 I was I was trying to get different position like No, you

1:18:17 like No, you were you were you were out.

1:18:20 Yeah.

1:18:21 I mean, this is such classic stuff.

1:18:23 It It's incredible that you were undefeated in the UFC.

1:18:29 Yeah.

1:18:29 Yeah.

1:18:30 Why didn't you uh fight more in the UFC?

1:18:33 Did you get pulled over?

1:18:34 So, I did.

1:18:35 So, I mean, this is again one of these unheard stories.

1:18:38 So, um so I signed originally

1:18:41 with the with the UFC for three tournaments, right?

1:18:46 It was supposed to be 14, 15, and then it was supposed to be another tournament.

1:18:51 And so after 15, the Japanese saw my tapes from Brazil

1:18:55 and they saw my tapes from UFC and they're like, "Hey,

1:18:57 we want to make you um we want to make you huge here,

1:19:01 right?" And so they brought me over um they signed me to fight Hoist.

1:19:06 My original contract with Pride or wasn't Pride at the time, it was called KRS.

1:19:12 Okay.

1:19:12 Um was to fight Hoist.

1:19:14 So, him and I have a fight poster that I signed a couple years ago.

1:19:17 Everything made up, ticket prices, all of that.

1:19:20 When I got back to the States about um maybe a week,

1:19:26 10 days after the press conference we did in Japan and the pictures and all

1:19:29 that, um I got a knock on the door and open the door and you've been served.

1:19:34 Open it up.

1:19:35 You've been sued by the US for breached contract.

1:19:39 And jurisdiction was There it is.

1:19:42 That's a fight poster I signed and I'm like so[ __] I go I want one of these.

1:19:47 I don't have one.

1:19:49 That would have been that would have been the fight.

1:19:53 Yeah.

1:19:52 That cuz he was still peak.

1:19:54 He was still peak.

1:19:57 Mhm.

1:19:56 And I was I was I was just got to the point where I'm like,

1:20:00 "Okay, I'm comfortable."

1:20:03 Yeah.

1:20:02 Right.

1:20:03 I'm comfortable with what I And that comfort allows me to train deliberately.

1:20:07 Right.

1:20:08 Like going, "Okay, it's not a mystery anymore." okay, what he's trying to do.

1:20:13 So, I get back, they they sue me and um thankfully I went to school

1:20:19 with a guy at Syracuse who was an attorney

1:20:21 in New York City because that's where jurisdiction was.

1:20:24 So, it it stayed in court from November.

1:20:27 It stayed in court from November till um till my I

1:20:34 I did March 1998 was my first fight in Japan.

1:20:39 So it stayed November, December, January, February.

1:20:43 UFC asked for my passport, so I couldn't go over.

1:20:49 Wow.

1:20:48 They said, "Your skills are so unique

1:20:51 that the amount of monetary damages can't be quantified

1:20:56 cuz your skills worldwide are so unique." Yeah.

1:20:59 We can't find them anywhere else.

1:21:01 And because you're breaching the contract,

1:21:03 that means it's just an insurmountable amount of money.

1:21:06 They were suing me for like 10 million bucks.

1:21:08 Jesus,

1:21:09 it was ridiculous.

1:21:12 Wow.

1:21:12 It was rid.

1:21:12 But it was under the old old regime.

1:21:14 It was Bob Meerwitz.

1:21:18 Mhm.

1:21:17 In Art Davies, the original.

1:21:19 And so um they eventually So the free threeight deal

1:21:24 that I did with with the UFC was 25,000 for 14,

1:21:28 25,000 for 15, and 25,000 for a third.

1:21:32 And so in February, I ended up buying out

1:21:36 that last event on the contract for 25 grand

1:21:40 and that freed me up to go fight in Japan.

1:21:44 But I mean, it was crazy cuz um I didn't have money.

1:21:48 Yeah.

1:21:48 So when they sued me um That's That's cold.

1:21:51 Oh, it was cold.

1:21:52 It was really cold.

1:21:54 It was really cool because it's just one

1:21:55 where it's like the first motion that uh

1:21:59 the law firm filed as a counter to what the UFC said uh was $35,000.

1:22:08 And Frank, his name's uh Frank Ryan.

1:22:10 His his brother is the head coach of Ohio State wrestling.

1:22:13 Actually, I went to school with him.

1:22:14 Yeah.

1:22:15 Tom Ryan.

1:22:17 Yeah.

1:22:16 And so um um Frank's like, "Hey, listen.

1:22:19 I'm gonna have the parallegal do as much

1:22:22 as she can." She's like $150 bucks an hour.

1:22:26 He goes, "I'm $375 an hour and my boss is $1,200 an hour."

1:22:33 Damn.

1:22:32 So he goes, "I'll try to keep things on my desk and my parallegal's

1:22:36 desk and right." And so it's this so the first motion I get sent.

1:22:41 It's like this thick.

1:22:43 Damn.

1:22:43 And it's like one of those things where it was

1:22:45 like it was it was one of those odd times.

1:22:47 Um, so as it ends up progressing,

1:22:50 I end up going to the literally going to the Japanese and going,

1:22:53 "How how like how bad do you want me?" And they're like,

1:22:56 "We we want this fight to go off." And so I said,

1:22:59 "You need to indemnify me against any legal action." They're like,

1:23:03 "Okay." So I get a hold of Frank and he's like,

1:23:06 "Have him wire this amount over." And they wired

1:23:09 that amount over and that was the retainer they needed.

1:23:11 It was like 65,000 bucks.

1:23:13 Yeah.

1:23:13 To start the case.

1:23:14 Wow.

1:23:15 to start ended up being like a hundred $175,000 in legal fees.

1:23:23 Geez.

1:23:22 And that's that's on my side.

1:23:24 So I can't imagine what they spent on the other side.

1:23:27 I just can't imagine.

1:23:28 But it was prior to Dana's involvement,

1:23:30 prior to, you know, TKO's involvement, prior to all that.

1:23:33 And again, this is one of these things at the very, very beginning nobody knew.

1:23:37 But at that point, the UFC was starting to run

1:23:39 out of gas because they did um after 15,

1:23:43 they did a fight in Japan, and that's what they wanted me for.

1:23:47 But the Japanese pride goes, you come over and you fight for them,

1:23:51 you'll never fight for us because we need

1:23:54 to introduce you to the Japanese fans through us.

1:24:00 Yeah.

1:23:59 Not through them.

1:24:02 And it was like, okay.

1:24:05 And so the rest is history.

1:24:07 What was that like going to Japan?

1:24:08 I mean I know in the UFC like you know

1:24:10 it built up and by 14 15 and stuff like that.

1:24:13 It's it's kind of popular here but whole different world when you went to Japan.

1:24:18 I saw like in the movie uh it it shows you you know walking

1:24:21 towards the crowd and everyone just goes absolutely bananas.

1:24:24 istic.

1:24:25 It's

1:24:27 um th this this gave me so um at the peak of my popularity in Japan,

1:24:35 if I stood they had an area which was uh called Rapungi,

1:24:39 which is like Time Square, if I stood on a street corner for 15 minutes,

1:24:45 I'd probably have 50 to 100 people.

1:24:49 Wow.

1:24:49 Standing there.

1:24:50 Like my first couple times over, it was small stuff like this.

1:24:53 It was like they had an electronic district, right?

1:24:56 And I remember walking going to the electronic district.

1:24:59 They were like three years in front of us electronics.

1:25:02 There's only a couple that were compatible with the United States.

1:25:04 So everything was on a different and so I go into this electronic store.

1:25:08 I'm probably in it for an hour.

1:25:09 And I come back out and there's this two

1:25:11 kids standing with a disposable like Kodak camera, right?

1:25:16 And he's holding it there.

1:25:18 And he explains like, "Hey, we've been waiting here.

1:25:22 can we take pictures with you?

1:25:23 And I'm like, for what?

1:25:25 I'm like, you've been waiting here.

1:25:27 Well, they didn't want to go in and bother me.

1:25:30 They wait they waited outside the door till I finished shopping and then said,

1:25:34 "Please, can you have even when you were sitting down eating,

1:25:37 nobody bother you wait till you get up and went outside?" It was just

1:25:39 a different kind of respect and reverence and and uh you know over there I've

1:25:44 been in you know arena 65,000 people and boss talking this loud harder left

1:25:52 right left quiet and then you do something in the ring you'd hear ah quiet

1:26:01 crazy like first time you're in it you're like this is weird

1:26:06 but but it's it's this reverence some respect they had, you know.

1:26:12 Oh, go ahead.

1:26:13 I was going to say, did you uh make some good money?

1:26:15 I did.

1:26:16 They paid me cash.

1:26:17 Yeah.

1:26:18 You know, um so that happens in professional wrestling.

1:26:20 I mean, not not with the obviously the the big names,

1:26:23 but um I had a couple stints with doing some

1:26:26 stuff with WWE and and doing some stuff with 01.

1:26:29 And in uh WWE, they just they just had a a briefcase.

1:26:33 Yeah.

1:26:33 It was just full of $100 bills and and they would just, you know,

1:26:37 I think I made like 500 bucks or something just for showing up.

1:26:40 And if I did a match, I think I made like 700, 800 bucks, something like that.

1:26:45 U and they just give you like this tiny little stack and you're just looking

1:26:47 at all the other stacks like holy[ __]

1:26:50 And you know how many briefcases they have, but I think it's from the gate

1:26:53 from like the night before or something like that.

1:26:56 So, you had um with uh with like my first contract

1:27:00 I got paid on, they even though that hoist didn't participate,

1:27:03 they still um gave me the dollar amount.

1:27:06 It's quarter million dollars, $250,000 back then.

1:27:10 That was unheard of.

1:27:12 Yeah, that's so cool.

1:27:13 Right.

1:27:13 And so, like like going to 10 times the amount the UFC gave you for each

1:27:19 Oh, yeah.

1:27:19 Isn't it crazy?

1:27:22 Wow.

1:27:21 And it guys don't really make that now.

1:27:24 No.

1:27:25 No.

1:27:26 And it was like a totally different It was a different different feel.

1:27:30 There's no Pride Fighting Championships anymore.

1:27:32 No, sir.

1:27:33 No, they have um I think it's one and then

1:27:37 they have and it just they they screwed the pooch.

1:27:41 I mean, they really did.

1:27:42 I mean, Pride Pride screwed up a contract they had with Sky Perfect TV.

1:27:47 Sky Perfect TV is Rupert Murdoch, you know, the Fox Corp and all that.

1:27:52 and they they screwed it up.

1:27:55 I mean, it's it's one where um you know,

1:27:58 it was the Japanese Yakuza involved in it.

1:28:03 Mhm.

1:28:03 From the very beginning, like my my handler,

1:28:05 like the guy that he it was a request,

1:28:09 but it was a demand like for me to go over

1:28:12 after my first time over there uh for Pride 2, um Mr.

1:28:16 Xi Jacques, it was his name,

1:28:18 uh would request that I come over a couple days earlier.

1:28:21 So if I so if I needed like five days to to you

1:28:24 know so I'm not jetlagged and stuff he would say come

1:28:27 over eight days before because the first couple days he'd want

1:28:29 to have dinner with me hang out with me and stuff like that

1:28:32 probably treating you really well meals everything

1:28:35 incredible incredible I mean everything was like

1:28:37 okay what do you want it's like oh tanyaki that one place it's like not

1:28:40 knowing that sitting down was like $10,000 dinner

1:28:43 you know like for six of us to sit down you know it's like

1:28:46 California wines you know Kobe beef there's

1:28:49 like you know there's melon that you got, which is a special Japanese melon.

1:28:53 It's like a hundred bucks a slice.

1:28:56 Wow.

1:28:56 It's crazy.

1:28:57 That's crazy.

1:28:57 You can look it up.

1:28:58 It's the craziest stuff in the world.

1:28:59 It's a Japanese uh I always forget the name of it, but it's like one of those

1:29:04 stuff like that's so cool.

1:29:05 I mean, you you grew up in what Ohio kid that loves wrestling and

1:29:10 blue collar.

1:29:10 My dad was a pipe fitter, you know,

1:29:12 Bari King or something.

1:29:13 Yeah.

1:29:13 Yeah.

1:29:14 It's cra it's crazy that it's a specialty.

1:29:16 It's growing.

1:29:18 It's like I knew nothing about it.

1:29:20 And then you eat it and you you don't chew it.

1:29:22 It you just put it in your mouth.

1:29:23 Yeah.

1:29:24 And it just melts and it has this texture.

1:29:27 Got to get a hold of some of this stuff.

1:29:28 Oh, dude.

1:29:28 It's it is absolutely just off the charts,

1:29:32 you know.

1:29:32 But it was it was experiences like this, you know.

1:29:35 It was things like this.

1:29:36 And um so at some point they end up

1:29:40 end up installing um like real figureheads to the company.

1:29:46 Um, Saki Kabara was one of the guys

1:29:48 and I don't remember the president but the president um

1:29:51 hung himself in a hotel room supposedly over

1:29:55 a mistress and that was the beginning of the end.

1:29:58 that was a downfall.

1:30:00 And so, um, pride doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately.

1:30:05 You know, seeing how like I'm I'm curious your thoughts because

1:30:10 fighters I when I think about like the violence of that sport,

1:30:13 it's like maybe football is something that is somewhat comparative,

1:30:18 but it's not because it's it's not getting

1:30:20 struck in the face and getting knees, etc.

1:30:22 And when you when you look at like how fighters get paid,

1:30:26 it's one of those things where do you think that there

1:30:29 can be improvement in how fighters being taken care of?

1:30:32 So there's two things that have come up

1:30:34 where it's changed the perspective that I've had.

1:30:40 Okay.

1:30:39 Okay.

1:30:39 So um back in January,

1:30:41 I sat on a fireside chat at the Consumer Electronic Show and I was

1:30:46 put together by a company that I'm a brand ambassador for called Ultra Human.

1:30:50 They do wearables.

1:30:51 Oh yeah.

1:30:52 Yeah.

1:30:52 The rings.

1:30:53 Okay.

1:30:53 Rings.

1:30:53 Right.

1:30:55 And um it had Heather and Roman.

1:30:58 Heather and Roman are the head doctors for the UFC Performance Institute.

1:31:03 Okay.

1:31:02 Okay.

1:31:02 Forest Griffin was on the on the panel, too.

1:31:05 And so, um the UFC is going to be the first major

1:31:10 organization to have a cognitive center for their athletes during and post,

1:31:21 right?

1:31:21 Mhm.

1:31:22 Like you figure football would have had this 30 years ago.

1:31:27 Yeah.

1:31:26 Right.

1:31:26 So that's one.

1:31:28 The driving force behind a lot of that is forced.

1:31:32 The driving force behind the performance institute has been a lot of forced

1:31:37 driving to try to get the best of the best of the best.

1:31:41 So if you're under contract with the UFC,

1:31:43 you have access to that facility year round as long as you're under contract.

1:31:48 training camp in, out, rehabilitative, nutritional, medical, um,

1:31:53 doing all kinds of state-of-the-art things training wise to try to really

1:31:58 bring everything up to a level that it's never been before.

1:32:02 That's one.

1:32:03 So, that was kind of like a, okay, they're in the right direction.

1:32:06 Pay is the other one.

1:32:10 It's not It's not equivalent to the market.

1:32:13 It's just not you.

1:32:14 I mean, I I just looked at it and I don't I don't know what the books look like,

1:32:17 but I just seen an article the other day where they're supposedly going to take

1:32:22 this year 1.5 billion dollars in cash and it goes back into the business,

1:32:26 meaning the fighters, which I hope and that's new thing, right?

1:32:31 They haven't done that before.

1:32:32 haven't haven't.

1:32:34 So, a lot of like and you probably know this like WWE contract like pay-per-view

1:32:39 events like if your main card you know like I don't know what they call it

1:32:44 like if you're and broadcast or not broadcast

1:32:47 you know like they have so there's like

1:32:50 profit share that they do with some of the buy rates and all this other stuff.

1:32:53 Yeah.

1:32:53 If you make it to a pay-per-view you're making pretty good money.

1:32:56 Yeah.

1:32:56 Yeah.

1:32:57 Because you participate in profit, you know.

1:32:59 It's like if Dwayne's going out and he's the main

1:33:01 event and they have a buy rate of like,

1:33:03 you know, 10 million households, you know, at 100 bucks a household,

1:33:07 it's like, okay, yeah, you're going to participate.

1:33:09 So, I think the UFC had some of that.

1:33:12 I, you know, all the way around,

1:33:14 I believe they're heading in the right direction.

1:33:16 I hope because it's such a big dollar amount when

1:33:19 you're talking like somebody buying your broadcast rights for $7.7 billion.

1:33:25 You better invest in your product.

1:33:27 Yeah.

1:33:27 and what they put their bodies through.

1:33:29 It's like

1:33:30 it's that it's the hardest[ __] in the world.

1:33:32 There is not another equivalent

1:33:34 because it's you.

1:33:37 It's not a team of you.

1:33:38 It's you.

1:33:40 That's that's it.

1:33:42 It So, I mean, it's it's

1:33:44 it's one of those where I really hope they're heading in the right direction.

1:33:52 Yeah.

1:33:54 Because the sport is unique.

1:33:55 It's unique in what it's been able to create,

1:33:57 its fan base, its following, you know, everything that it's opened up.

1:34:02 Like right now, women's wrestling is

1:34:04 the fastest growing thing in the United States.

1:34:06 It saved men's wrestling.

1:34:09 It saved men's wrestling.

1:34:10 How did it save men's wrestling?

1:34:12 Men's wrestling was going to be X from the Olympics.

1:34:16 Oh.

1:34:15 Like I think eight years ago, they said, "Here's why.

1:34:19 The Olympic Committee decides they want one and one." So,

1:34:23 if you have a women's volleyball team, you have a men's volleyball team.

1:34:26 If you have men's swimming, you have women's swimming.

1:34:29 If you have men's wrestling, you have women's wrestling.

1:34:33 But they didn't have it.

1:34:35 Oh, they didn't have it.

1:34:37 Yeah.

1:34:38 Right.

1:34:39 Yeah.

1:34:39 So, if you don't have an equivalent to it, it goes bye-bye.

1:34:44 Okay.

1:34:43 Because it cuz the Paris Olympics apparently were the first one

1:34:46 where it was equal equal all the way across all the sports.

1:34:52 Mhm.

1:34:50 First time.

1:34:52 And so, um, so they cut a couple weight classes

1:34:56 from men's freestyle wrestling and Greco Roman and added women's wrestling.

1:35:03 And so that's that's the the makeup.

1:35:06 But again, when you start at a senior level and you

1:35:10 don't have all these bitty root feeder programs, it's hard.

1:35:15 And so now they're starting to build those back in.

1:35:18 And that's why it's fastest growing is because

1:35:20 they have all these all this base needs to be built because now there's a place

1:35:24 for these women to go compete at a high level.

1:35:28 Yeah.

1:35:27 Besides UFC, besides Ronda Rouseies and stuff like that, right?

1:35:31 It it's so there's there's a lot of really cool stuff

1:35:35 that the UFC has helped uh that whole ecosystem.

1:35:40 Yeah.

1:35:41 And it's like you I go you you wanna you want to make life a little easier.

1:35:46 Russell because it it it redefes what hard is.

1:35:54 Yeah.

1:35:53 Right.

1:35:54 Like going, "Oh my god, I had to go to work eight hours today." Yeah.

1:35:57 Well,[ __] Come to wrestling practice, bro.

1:36:00 Like come come to wrestling practice and see which one you're going to pick.

1:36:03 See which one you're going to pick.

1:36:04 You're like, "I'm going to work, man.

1:36:06 I'm You want 14 hours, bro?

1:36:08 I'll give you 14 hours." Right.

1:36:10 I'm serious.

1:36:11 It just redefineses[ __] right?

1:36:14 And so, you know, and whether it's the right thing or wrong, I go,

1:36:19 if we'd have a completely different United States,

1:36:21 completely different thinking if you went, hey,

1:36:23 you got to wrestle from seventh grade to 12th grade

1:36:27 or combat sports or you got to do jiu-jitsu or you got

1:36:30 to do sombo or you got to do judo or you

1:36:32 got to do something of that physicality because it develops character.

1:36:38 wrestling is going to force you to be like

1:36:40 kind of in shape at least a little bit, right?

1:36:43 And that's a mechanism.

1:36:44 Yeah.

1:36:45 Right.

1:36:46 That's a mechanism.

1:36:47 Like I didn't,

1:36:48 you know, when I was going through all the[ __] I was going through,

1:36:50 that mechanism was missing and it had been such

1:36:53 a huge part of my life for so long.

1:36:56 Without it there, it's this void.

1:36:58 And I'm trying to dump all this stuff into it to to figure out how to fill it.

1:37:03 And it's like there's only one thing that fills it.

1:37:05 is getting out there and doing something about it.

1:37:08 Getting in the gym, getting on a mountain bike,

1:37:11 getting on a road bike, getting into whatever it is, you still push yourself.

1:37:16 Still Yeah.

1:37:17 Yeah.

1:37:17 You saw you saw my arm.

1:37:19 Yeah.

1:37:20 Your spill that you had on your mountain bike.

1:37:23 You know, I need I need a little bit of challenge, right?

1:37:25 like like my this sounds so silly,

1:37:27 but um like I have these loops that I do like a 12 mile loop

1:37:32 or a 10 mile loop and then my watch

1:37:34 through my earbuds I can hear a split, right?

1:37:37 Like so I so like I know where I am on the trail when it

1:37:40 gives me my split time and I know like miles per hour it's like I'm like,

1:37:45 you know, like I'm not like I didn't hit the beginning of this hard.

1:37:48 I like and it's just one where it's I still enjoy it.

1:37:50 I can still ride like two miles an hour

1:37:52 and enjoy it because it's beautiful scenery, right?

1:37:55 But there's this thing in me that goes, you know,

1:37:59 like my my motto is like once I start, I'm not allowed to stop.

1:38:03 Like it's not like a like a mountain bike tour.

1:38:05 It does suck too, to get done with a workout and to go,

1:38:08 that wasn't that good of a workout.

1:38:10 So I'm there.

1:38:11 I'm there.

1:38:12 It's It's different if you're like newer

1:38:14 with something like But sometimes you're like I Yeah.

1:38:18 But if you're trying something, you know,

1:38:19 that's you maybe that something you're not used

1:38:21 to, but you've been mountain biking for a little while.

1:38:23 Yeah, I've been doing it for for a minute.

1:38:25 I mean, I've so on like I it has an app with a specialized

1:38:30 bike that I can track it like I'm uh like uh up to 1,600 miles,

1:38:36 you know, and it's it's like 10 miles, eight miles at a time.

1:38:39 Like mountain bike is not road bike.

1:38:40 I mean, you road bike 100 miles in a day and you're,

1:38:43 you know, and it's not a huge deal.

1:38:45 Not a huge deal.

1:38:46 This is like like I've climbed, you know, 70,000 feet in elevation.

1:38:51 Damn.

1:38:52 you know, like up but it's like up one day you have 300 feet, you know,

1:38:56 or 500 feet and then down up and it's just like it all adds up.

1:38:59 Like in a week if I'm out about five times a week,

1:39:02 it's like all that little incremental stuff just adds up

1:39:05 and it's one where it's like I really it's like my catharsis.

1:39:10 It's my meditation.

1:39:12 What about when the 70-year-old guy passes you?

1:39:14 Oh, dude, I've had it.

1:39:15 I like it.

1:39:16 All right, Mark, you're getting leaner and leaner,

1:39:18 but you always enjoy the food you're eating.

1:39:21 So, how you doing it?

1:39:22 I got a secret, man.

1:39:24 It's called Good Life Protein.

1:39:25 Okay, tell me about that.

1:39:26 I've been doing some Good Life Protein.

1:39:28 You know, we've been talking on the show

1:39:29 for a really long time of certified Pedmont beef.

1:39:32 And you can get that under the umbrella of Good Life Proteins,

1:39:35 which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops,

1:39:41 uh all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia.

1:39:45 Uh the website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of.

1:39:48 Lamb is another one that comes to mind.

1:39:50 And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some

1:39:53 different strategy kind of depending on the way that I'm eating.

1:39:56 So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat and that's where I might get

1:39:59 the sausage and I might get their 8020 grass-fed grass-finish ground beef.

1:40:04 I might get bacon.

1:40:06 And there's other days where I kind of do

1:40:08 a little bit more bodybuilder style where the uh fat is,

1:40:11 you know, might be like 40 grams or something like that.

1:40:13 Then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Pedmont beef.

1:40:17 This is one of the reasons why like neither of us find it

1:40:19 hard to stay in shape because we're always enjoying the food we're eating.

1:40:22 And protein, you talk about protein, leverage it all all the time.

1:40:26 It's satiating and helps you feel full.

1:40:28 I look forward to every meal and I can surf and turf.

1:40:31 You know, I could cook up some uh you know,

1:40:34 chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp with it.

1:40:36 Or I could have uh some steak.

1:40:39 I would say, you know,

1:40:39 the steak it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorites.

1:40:43 So, I it's hard for me to lock one down, but I really love the Bavet steaks.

1:40:48 Yeah.

1:40:47 And then I also love the ribe eyes as well.

1:40:50 You can't go wrong with the ribe eyes.

1:40:51 So, guys, if you guys want to get your hands on some really good meat,

1:40:55 you can head to goodlife proteins.com and use code power

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1:41:11 This is the best meat in the world.

1:41:14 I tell you, you know what's funny?

1:41:17 So, I've been out I've been out like there's a couple there's

1:41:20 a couple climbs where it's like rock rock and the first time I

1:41:25 this is this goes back a little bit in when I first

1:41:28 moved to Arizona where you had this guy that would get past um

1:41:33 it it looked like it was a Huffy bike like a like a Target, you know,

1:41:38 mountain bike like and he just And he's going up like

1:41:41 this like guys are walking their bikes up and down it.

1:41:45 They're getting Oh no, I'm getting off.

1:41:46 And this guy little belly on him straight up.

1:41:50 It was just it was the strangest stuff in the world.

1:41:52 Like like I've looked at him and go,

1:41:55 "Yeah,[ __] you." You know, that's not fair.

1:41:59 Like we're fighting, dude.

1:42:00 That's Yeah.

1:42:00 Like bro, like put your put your bike down, you know?

1:42:04 And and again, it's and on other times I've seen,

1:42:08 you know, guys in the desert, you know,

1:42:10 going and going by him and thinking this, not saying it out loud,

1:42:12 going, "Hey, you're taking your bike for a walk again, huh?"

1:42:17 It's like, is it just one?

1:42:20 That's your trash talkinging in my head.

1:42:22 Like, you taking that $10,000 bike for a walk again, huh?

1:42:26 There you go.

1:42:27 Good for you.

1:42:28 Yeah, you look great in those tights, too.

1:42:30 you know, like but just one more sometimes that's a nature of me

1:42:34 that I have to just okay I got to do my own thing

1:42:39 tone it down tone it down a notch every once in a while.

1:42:41 Yeah.

1:42:42 Yeah.

1:42:42 It's all you're still lifting and stuff like that here and there.

1:42:44 I know you said your knee and my hip and shoulder.

1:42:48 So, I mean, that's one of those where rehabilitative lifting,

1:42:51 lifting functional for, you know, hips open, shoulders open.

1:42:56 Um, all of that stuff I'm getting back to, uh, next month.

1:43:01 Um, and it's just one of those I needed a little bit

1:43:03 of a pause for my body to just do a little bit of a reset.

1:43:05 I needed to actually uh drop a few more pounds.

1:43:09 I mean, walking around, I'm still 260.

1:43:12 Oh, you know.

1:43:12 Yeah.

1:43:13 Okay.

1:43:13 And so I mean it's it's one where it's like it's it's one

1:43:17 of those where it's like I need a little

1:43:18 cuz my bones just they need they need a little

1:43:21 bit of you know it's one where it's like

1:43:23 okay like and now you know I told my trainer

1:43:26 I go yeah I went away 235 and he's like

1:43:31 why like because there's where are we going to get it from?

1:43:35 You know so it's just one where it's like I I have this just map

1:43:39 in my head and it's not so I can wear skinny Calvin Klein jeans, right?

1:43:43 It's It's You're not going to fit in skinny.

1:43:44 No, I'm not.

1:43:46 I've tried, bro.

1:43:47 I tried.

1:43:47 It's just like muffin top, you know, comes up.

1:43:50 I'm like I'm like, "What the[ __] This This is not a good look." So,

1:43:56 it's all good, though.

1:43:58 Uh, toughest opponent.

1:44:02 Myself.

1:44:02 By far.

1:44:04 By far.

1:44:04 Toughest.

1:44:05 Still fighting with that bastard.

1:44:06 I know.

1:44:07 God, sometimes you just won't let go, you know.

1:44:10 Who's the greatest fighter of all time?

1:44:12 Um, man, you know what?

1:44:15 I I pound-for-pound there's two that come up.

1:44:18 Sakuraba.

1:44:21 Oh, okay.

1:44:23 Okay.

1:44:22 And Hoist.

1:44:24 And they did.

1:44:27 Hoist had to fight him four times before he finally beat him.

1:44:31 And I'll tell you a quick story.

1:44:32 So the Grand Prix that's in the dock and all that, right?

1:44:36 So, I'm warming up.

1:44:40 The fight in the ring at the time is Hoist Gracie and Sakaraba.

1:44:47 Hoist demanded that the rounds be 15minute rounds.

1:44:51 No time limit.

1:44:53 15 minutes.

1:44:54 And then at the end of that 15 minutes,

1:44:56 if it was a draw, you fought for another 15 minutes.

1:45:01 So Sakaraba and Ho fight for one hour and 30 minutes.

1:45:08 My god.

1:45:09 So I have a small little TV in my warm-up in my locker room and I'm watching

1:45:16 and Sakuraba gets him in a knee bar at the end of the first round and I'm like,

1:45:20 "Okay,[ __] let's get ding ding." Some batch sit down.

1:45:26 Another 15 minutes goes by.

1:45:27 Hoist almost gets me.

1:45:28 Arsakar Rob almost gets again.

1:45:30 Ding ding.

1:45:30 Round ends.

1:45:31 So I warm up three, four times and you get an adrenaline and then a dump.

1:45:35 Adrenaline and a dump.

1:45:36 Adrenaline and dump.

1:45:38 Hour and a half later, Hoist couldn't answer the bell for the sixth

1:45:46 round or seventh round or whatever it was.

1:45:49 __] Yeah.

1:45:49 If you get a chance to look at it, it's like Kasakaraba uh hockey jerseys him,

1:45:56 pulls a ghee all the way over Hoist's head, got him in the corner.

1:46:00 Was his nickname Gracie Killer, I think.

1:46:03 Yep.

1:46:05 Yep.

1:46:04 Hoist fought him I think the fourth time Hoist fought him.

1:46:09 Hoist beat him.

1:46:12 Wow.

1:46:11 But he he had beaten Hoist.

1:46:13 He had beaten Henzo.

1:46:15 Helia, he beaten like every Gracie that was at it at the time.

1:46:20 He was just crazy.

1:46:21 He just threw both fists the same time.

1:46:23 Oh my god.

1:46:24 He did it again.

1:46:27 Yeah.

1:46:26 He did a baseball slide.

1:46:29 So you'd have like somebody Watch this.

1:46:32 Took his ghee, pulled it up.

1:46:34 Yeah.

1:46:34 Oh, he's got it like like a hockey like you do it up top, right?

1:46:38 Except reverse, right?

1:46:43 Unbelievable.

1:46:43 just figures out really good leverages.

1:46:47 Yep.

1:46:49 Yeah.

1:46:49 Who was the other fighter?

1:46:50 You said Sakarabu.

1:46:51 Sakarab and Hoist.

1:46:52 And hoist.

1:46:53 So I mean mo modern modern modern like now fighters.

1:46:56 I mean, arguably Jon Jones, you know, um, you know, Pereira, you know,

1:47:04 I don't know what Alex's ground skills are like,

1:47:07 but I know like when I met him in person and, uh,

1:47:10 gave him like a bro hug going, "Dude,

1:47:13 God made you for one purpose." One purpose,

1:47:16 lean, lean, long muscle where you're like, "Dude,

1:47:24 cuz he doesn't Oh, solid." and he does things.

1:47:27 So if you look at his kicks, he doesn't load.

1:47:29 So there's no tell like he's he's in a standing position.

1:47:32 Like normally you have a tendency to want to[ __] You're you're none.

1:47:37 And he he going to generate so much.

1:47:39 No idea.

1:47:40 So his front leg just goes foot flip.

1:47:42 You're like whoa.

1:47:43 Like he does stuff when you look at it and break it down, you go,

1:47:46 oh that's unique.

1:47:48 I mean very unique, you know, incredible.

1:47:53 Just quick.

1:47:54 It's just like little snaps.

1:47:56 Watch.

1:47:56 Watch his front leg lead.

1:47:57 Boom.

1:47:58 That's his back.

1:47:59 That's no load.

1:48:00 He doesn't load.

1:48:02 There's like zero load on it.

1:48:06 He'll do it.

1:48:07 Boom.

1:48:09 Dang.

1:48:08 He takes that little step.

1:48:09 Boom.

1:48:09 And I'm just telling you, it inflicts so much damage.

1:48:13 Would some of the guys So much damage.

1:48:15 Would some of the guys from your era, would they

1:48:18 cause some major problems for some of the guys

1:48:20 of today or or has the sport advanced in a way?

1:48:23 It's it's to where they would be able to uh

1:48:26 it's it's leap it's quantum leap got it it really has because I mean back then

1:48:31 a fighter you can get away you're talking

1:48:33 about like being strong you can get away

1:48:34 with a lot of stuff right back then as as just a you can have a fundamental

1:48:39 foundation understanding of like wrestling or just you

1:48:42 can get away with a lot of stuff

1:48:43 because a lot of the guys who are fighting didn't have that depth

1:48:47 now like I've watched even a couple years difference

1:48:50 you look at and go oh my god man.

1:48:53 Like, and the couple years advance down the road, you're like, "Wow,

1:48:56 these guys are like advancing the sport at a rate,

1:48:59 which is incredible because again, it goes back to the original thing.

1:49:03 How do you solve the problem?

1:49:04 How to get through a 10-we training camp or 8week

1:49:07 training camp at the end of it and be whole, that problem's been solved, right?

1:49:13 Now, it's adding all the other components in there and polishing them." Yeah.

1:49:17 Prayer of the dog.

1:49:19 Just straight up dog.

1:49:20 Yeah.

1:49:20 Yeah, it sounds like him and Jon Jones might fight.

1:49:23 Oh, I hope so.

1:49:24 I hope so.

1:49:26 That's like one of those where it's like um

1:49:28 cuz they they show Jon Jones against Ciro or um Sir Gone.

1:49:32 Sir Gone.

1:49:33 Yeah, that's a that's the card they announced on Saturday night.

1:49:37 Really?

1:49:39 Yeah.

1:49:38 They announced the full White House card on Saturday night.

1:49:41 I didn't see that.

1:49:44 Yeah.

1:49:43 It's June 14th, which is Trump's 80th birthday.

1:49:47 Mhm.

1:49:48 Okay.

1:49:48 Right.

1:49:48 And the 250th birthday of the United States.

1:49:50 That's all celebrated that night.

1:49:52 And Jon Jones is scheduled to fight already against Yeah.

1:49:54 Zero again, didn't he?

1:49:56 He Yeah.

1:49:57 And he just like beat him like in a minute or something.

1:50:00 Choked him out.

1:50:01 Choked him out.

1:50:02 Yeah.

1:50:03 Yeah.

1:50:03 Yeah.

1:50:03 Maybe it'll be a little different this time.

1:50:05 Oh, wait.

1:50:05 It's It's Pereira gone, right?

1:50:08 It says Pereira versus Gone.

1:50:11 Okay.

1:50:10 Oh, maybe maybe that's it.

1:50:13 Okay.

1:50:12 Yeah.

1:50:12 Cuz I don't think Jon Jones said who he's fighting quite yet.

1:50:16 Okay.

1:50:16 Maybe I just looked at it wrong.

1:50:17 It's like one of those things where I was like,

1:50:19 it looked like a card where my son was standing next to me and he goes,

1:50:23 "Oh my god." Like, "Oh my god." I'm like, "What?

1:50:27 What?" I'm like running every fight's going to be loaded up.

1:50:31 Yeah.

1:50:31 It's like, "Oh my god." It's And again,

1:50:33 that's one of those where it's like it should be.

1:50:35 Tell me more about this uh ring

1:50:37 that you're uh tracking some of your fitness stuff.

1:50:39 And then tell me about these patches.

1:50:40 I got one on my neck right now.

1:50:42 So, Al Ultraum, they do um you know, there's wearables out there.

1:50:47 I mean, Samsung does one, Aura does one, all that.

1:50:50 Ultra Human does a little bit different because they um it's nonsubscription,

1:50:54 so you don't have to be a month monthly subscription.

1:50:57 It does the interface and biometrics it does is is awesome.

1:51:01 It it's really cool.

1:51:02 Like my big thing I use it for is is sleep sleep tracking.

1:51:06 Like um it has a little module that you can use uh

1:51:10 that my alarm won't go off until I'm through five REM cycles.

1:51:15 Nice.

1:51:15 And then my alarm will wake me up.

1:51:17 Oh, cool.

1:51:18 Right.

1:51:18 Or I can set it for six or I can set it for whatever I want.

1:51:22 And so that's the big deal is me looking at that.

1:51:25 Then they do another thing where they

1:51:26 do vision which is a hundred different biomarkers.

1:51:30 So they send a phabotamist to your house.

1:51:32 That's an additional cost.

1:51:34 I think it's like 500 bucks.

1:51:37 Okay.

1:51:36 But they send a flotamist to your house, draws the blood,

1:51:39 and they give you a hundred different biomarkers and it breaks them down.

1:51:44 So you can click on like if your cholesterol is high,

1:51:47 you can click and it'll give you studies to say,

1:51:50 "Hey, in this study when you add this to your diet,

1:51:53 it helps with and they usually have a couple different references uh

1:51:57 for each one." So you can click on a lot of it

1:51:59 and it opens up like a just to follow because my big

1:52:02 deal for me is is taking control of my health, right?

1:52:06 Not you got all this blood work now.

1:52:07 What the hell are you doing?

1:52:08 Right?

1:52:09 It's like okay, yeah, I got the information.

1:52:11 And it's like cuz I want I want the information to be to me,

1:52:14 not to my doctor and then to me.

1:52:16 And if I have questions medically, I can ask my doctor.

1:52:20 Mhm.

1:52:19 But I want to be able to look

1:52:21 at it because nowadays there's so much information out there.

1:52:25 You know, it it this allows you to just compartmentalize it.

1:52:28 And then they also have something called it's a home unit.

1:52:30 So it's a unit that monitors like my blue light at home.

1:52:34 It monitors my noise, my uh volatile organic compounds.

1:52:38 tells you like how much blue light blue light and all that and whatever.

1:52:41 All that.

1:52:42 Yeah.

1:52:44 Yeah.

1:52:43 It's not just a ring, it's also that.

1:52:45 Yeah.

1:52:45 It's vision.

1:52:46 It's vision and then it's um home.

1:52:50 And then they're adding some other elements to it.

1:52:52 They're coming out now.

1:52:53 Um they have a new ring.

1:52:54 It's called ultraum uh pro.

1:52:57 And so that's being released right now.

1:52:59 It should have been released at the beginning of the year.

1:53:01 This is a diesel design.

1:53:02 Um they partner with diesel and so it's a diesel design ring.

1:53:06 Um sick.

1:53:07 Yeah, Diesel Brothers.

1:53:09 Um, yeah.

1:53:11 So, uh, don't know if it is or not, but it's one where it's it's one where um

1:53:17 Gotcha.

1:53:16 they're they're they're really um allowing you to actually have access.

1:53:24 What's crazy?

1:53:25 Um, like with medical records, right?

1:53:28 Like we don't own our medical records.

1:53:30 Like if you want your medical records right now,

1:53:31 I think in the state of California, I think in 20some states, a pain in the ass.

1:53:35 Yeah.

1:53:35 Well, in 20 something states, you don't own it.

1:53:37 It's either owned by your doctor or by the hospital,

1:53:40 but they're your personal medical records.

1:53:41 Yeah.

1:53:42 Right.

1:53:43 And so, like there's there's technology out there that not this company,

1:53:47 but another company I'm working with called datavolt.

1:53:49 They're trying to get where they have you

1:53:51 can have on your phone all your medical records.

1:53:53 So, if you go in doctor, go, hey, here's my last three MRIs.

1:53:57 Uh here's my last here's the last time I went to the dentist.

1:54:00 Here's the because it allows you to take

1:54:02 personal responsibility for your health because a lot

1:54:04 of times people like I was thinking health is

1:54:06 just something I need to go to the professional.

1:54:09 Yeah, you can go to professionals and consult with them

1:54:11 but you have the ability to take control of your personal health.

1:54:16 Yeah, you do.

1:54:16 It's not some monumental thing.

1:54:18 It's you have the ability with all the technology that's out there.

1:54:23 Take control of it.

1:54:23 when you go down the rabbit hole of trying to uh find out what uh medications,

1:54:29 prescription medications help with your heart,

1:54:31 what prescription medications help with um mental illness.

1:54:35 There there's really not much.

1:54:37 I mean, depending on what data you're looking at.

1:54:39 Well, I didn't even get into it,

1:54:40 but but I ended up um uh doing therapeutic plasma exchange where I had all

1:54:48 my plasma removed from my body because it

1:54:50 has towel protein which is a byproduct of concussions.

1:54:54 It has microlastics in it.

1:54:55 It has heavy metals in it.

1:54:57 It has all this.

1:54:58 Do a plasma exchange.

1:54:59 Uh it's called TPE, therapeutic plasma exchange.

1:55:02 But prior to that, I did something called TMS,

1:55:05 transcranial magnetic stimulation.

1:55:07 So they mapped all 19 parts of my brain, my executive brain.

1:55:11 I had brainwave functioning of less than 5% in my executive.

1:55:15 Was that because of fighting or was that some just

1:55:17 they don't want to draw that correlation,

1:55:19 but there's there's you can draw that correlation.

1:55:22 Okay.

1:55:23 Okay.

1:55:24 Right.

1:55:24 You can go okay.

1:55:26 So um this is a little bit deeper,

1:55:28 but so your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, right?

1:55:31 Like you train one like I train my sympathetic

1:55:35 nervous system to be reactive like like somebody go,

1:55:37 "Oh, you're in a flow state." Yeah.

1:55:40 That's because I'm not thinking about anything and my body's

1:55:42 just reacting because I train my nervous system to do that.

1:55:46 Right.

1:55:47 And so when they tested my nervous system, there's no variation between the two.

1:55:53 So when you're supposed to engage now, now I'm confused.

1:55:55 Sympathetic, what's your what's your autonomic?

1:55:57 Parasympathetic.

1:55:58 Parasympathetic is rest and relax.

1:56:00 Okay.

1:56:00 Sympathetic is your fight, flight, and[ __] right?

1:56:04 Yes.

1:56:04 So sympathetic, right?

1:56:05 So my sympathetic nervous system,

1:56:06 there's no variation between that and my parasympathetic.

1:56:11 Wow.

1:56:11 No variation.

1:56:11 So for the last 20 years, I've been locked in this.

1:56:15 And that's really normal for people that train hard.

1:56:17 Yep.

1:56:17 It is.

1:56:18 But I didn't understand like the analogy I use.

1:56:22 It's like being comfortable walking with rocks in your shoes.

1:56:28 Oh.

1:56:28 Because I just got used to it, right?

1:56:30 like understanding like underneath me there's this irritation,