JRE MMA Show #173 with Benny "The Jet" Urquidez & William "Blinky" Rodriguez

Joe Rogan, one cast, check it out. The Joe Rogan, experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcasted my night all day. Gentlemen, what's happening? Oh, he Joe. Where did we begin? Where did he begin? Let me tell you, when I first came to Los Angeles in 1994, there was two places that I had to go. One of them was the comedy store and the other one was the Jet Center. And I started training the Jet Center in 1994 before you guys shut down because you had the earthquake and you had the roof damage. So I was there before that happened. And I took your classes. I took your kickboxing classes because our member was very scary because he had a bunch of gang members in there because we were doing that like sort of outreach program where you're helping young gang members. So I had a spar with gang members. So I was training at the Jet Center until it shut down. And then I went briefly when you guys reopened in North Hollywood, I went to that place for a little bit too. Just Jim. Yeah. But then I started training at Magiro Jim, which is in the valley. But legends. You guys are legends, man. Well, thank you, Jill. True pioneers in martial arts. For you to remember was really humbled in me. You remembered, you mentioned my son and why I was starting that. Yes. And you don't even know what it's grown into since that day that you've seen. What's that story about your son and how that whole thing started? Well, you know, unfortunately in some communities, drive-by's aren't uncommon. And so when it becomes a generational curse, you know, and kids are getting killed sometimes randomly, that happened to me. It came knocking on my door in a valley that's got 2 million people, knocking on my door. And I was just, I was, I'm going to put it this way. I had a calling on my life to do something about it because it became a situation where families and community was like, well, yeah, well, that's what happens in our community. And I was saying that is not what happens in our community. This is our community. And so I begin to move, I begin to move ironically with some churches that had that kind of ministry in their ministry and peace marches, et cetera. But my son got shot while he was learning how to drive a stick shift. Wow. And it took his life. And that's not normal. That's not, that should not be common. And so I'm still at it. You're still doing that. Still going 36 years later, put an organization together and wrote some of the real lived experience others with the trees and really put together a whole nonprofit that speaks directly to it where it's at. And so at the end of the day, yeah, it's over when we say it's over, you know what I mean? And and and ironically, what led the charge for me at least Joe was forgiveness. The forgiveness that only got can give. I got to tell it the way it is. And that forgiveness ended up taking me to the neighborhood. They killed my son. And we had a huge meeting in that neighborhood in the park and a piece where he kicked into place. No mother's crying, no babies dying. So to this day, I still continue to press in with a whole different, I would say integrated service delivery, but keeping fighting in the middle of it and dealing with it. That's awesome. But yeah. And it's awesome that you brought them to a place like the Jets Center where they can learn discipline, learn how to fight, build real confidence, you know, learn real martial arts skills and also real martial arts mentality, especially when it's coming from guys like you, you know, I mean, I remember when you knocked out Johnny Efterio, Johnny Efterio was the fucking man. He was the man. Everybody was terrified of that guy. And you I believe you knocked him out of left hook. Is that correct? Right leg left hook. Yeah. The combo of them all tradition shoulder con sweeps. Yeah. You turn it over with the end step and you know what I'm talking about. Yes, sir. And you reset and come back with the money. Yeah. But it was and he's a bad dude. He went on to have a great career. Amazing career. Yeah, I mean, he's one of the all-time greats and capable. Yeah. And you know, it's just I think it's important for people to recognize the the real pioneers. And Benny, you are a real pioneer. I mean, there was no one like you when you emerged when you emerged in the kickboxy scene, the karate scene, there was no one like you. And you know, you went undefeated and you took on people of all sizes. And to this day, there's amazing highlights of you on the internet that people still bring up because, you know, you were I mean, you were fighting ties when you had no training like that. You know, you were getting low kick by those dudes and still found out a way to win. It was pretty crazy. Well, you know, I tell you it was when my brother asked me, would you want to fight tie? You know, and I said, what's that? He said, Muay Thai. And I said, I'll fight him. I honestly, I thought that was his name. I had no idea when Muay Thai was at the time. And so we took it on. Where was the first Muay Thai fight that you had? It matter fact, it was at the Olympic auditorium. We first fought at the Olympic auditorium. Yes, Ernest Hart fought the first Thai champion. And that was a main event. And I tell you what, when I first got kicked in the legs, my eyes bowed out of my forehead. I said, I mean, I have strong legs, but I've never had anybody try to break my legs. And so it was rude awakening, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me because he took me to the streets. He really did because when he started abbling, kneeling to my face, and I said, oh, you want to fight that way? Okay. I didn't understand it. I just thought that. All right. Did you know what the rules were? No. That's crazy. So you didn't know they were going to use elbows or knees. No. That is crazy. All I knew is Muay Thai. No wrong noise. No wrong noise was the guy that he fought that night. He was a great champion as well. Oh, that's so crazy. That you didn't even know what you were in for. Who was the promoter that set that up? You know, actually, believe it or not, my brother Arnold was asked, he says, he was calling me the world champion because in 73, it was called full contact karate. And Blink and I, we went to Hawaii, and no rules, no weight division, no nothing. So for the... How much did you weigh back then? 145. Wow. And so I ended up being actually 160. And Blinky, there was four of us left after we fought five, six times on Friday, and then we fought a couple more times on Sunday. You fought two days? Yeah. There was that many normal, it was just weight division. I mean, there was no weight division. It was just brackets. That's it. So Blinky ended up fighting. There was four of us. I fought Burnus White and I told Blinky, I said, you know what? This guy, now he's, you know, he's 245 pounds, Dana Goodson, six foot three, and I said, Blinky, they don't want to see you and I fight. They want to see David and Goliath. They want to see me fight him. And I said, so if you don't knock him out, you're not going to win because this guy, they're kind of, you know, wanting to keep him up and show enough. Then I said, Blinky, if you don't knock him out, you don't, you know, hurt him. He hurt him for me so that I knew I was going to fight him next. That's what it was. So he was 240 pounds? Yeah. 245 pounds. I was 145. Yeah. Wow. You could pick him up and throw him around. So I got him tired. So what were the rules? There was no rules at all. So could you stomp on the ground? Could you soccer? Can't you do all that? There was no rules. I actually threw him. I pinned him on the ground. He started to roll me over. I spit my mouth. He said, I beat him on the chest. Oh my god. He pumped right by face and we got up and my teeth, my son, he said, you beat me. I said, I was getting tired. So did they have submissions? Did anybody know submissions back then? No. Well, you know what? We we we we we we in Judo. We're you know, we're Black Pals and Judo Man. Back in back in 60, we were already doing Judo and we're now already boxing back then. So we had a good idea of the contact. There was no rules at the time. No rules, no weight divisions. It was just elimination. So that happened for almost two years from 73 to 75 and then it started. That's when I first heard of Moitai. Are there any of those no rules fights available on video? Can people watch any of those fights? Absolutely. Are they online? No. Where are they? Actually, there's some but you know what? We're doing it. Actually, I'm doing a documentary and we're bringing a lot of I have film from 69 to 96. I'm two millimeter Miller. Yeah, I mean, I'm talking about being out and they're actually putting together old fights. So you'll see, Blik and I, way back then, fighting Black and White and then this is some available online that are so this is you again. So how do you say that guy's name? Kayaat Bandit, Nagaroni, Kayaat Bandit. So is this another Moitai guy? Yes. Yes. So was this after you had fought Moitai already previously? Yes. Because I started to recognize what it was about. So how many Moitai fights had you had before you fought this guy? Two. Two. So when you trained in this, like when, so after the first fight, did you bring in a Moitai guy to train with and explain you elbows and show you how they're throwing their techniques or how did you, how did you learn how to deal with these guys? Basically, somebody had Black and White with filming and I kind of looked at it and I went to an old gentleman that used to do actually do clothing and shoes and so forth and this leather shop and I asked him, I said, I want to protect my shoes. You're old, older man and I said, I want to protect my shoes. You have something and he brought out some pad and I said, yeah, and I told him I want to put it around my shins. So I created the first shingards. You were the guy who invented the shingard? Yeah. Oh, that's great. And I told him, how do we keep it together? And he said, and he's when they brought out the Velcro. And so he put on, he, he sold on Velcro on it. And so I ended up asking him, can you make more of them? And I started giving it to him. That's how, because we were doing, we were doing lake checking because we were watching them but it was hurting us like, what the heck? You know, how did they do it? And so you guys were doing a bear shin. So bear shin, like kicking, training hard. Yeah. That's what we didn't know any other way. So what were the ties doing back then? How were they protecting their shins? Well, you know what they had for spray, numbing spray? They were spraying their shins. Yeah, they were putting stuff that kind of like you couldn't, they couldn't feel it. They couldn't feel the impact. So after you invented shingards, is that how shingards made their way to Thailand? I put it this way, when I went to Thailand and to work with some of the ties, I looked at him, I said, oh, they're finally, because they didn't have them. I said, oh, you got shingards here and I was surprised. But a lot of them didn't even use them still. And some of these high up in the hills, the way they trained, they didn't train with shingards. They just sprayed their shins and oh my god. Kid banana trees. Yeah. I've seen that. I've seen bull cow kicking banana tree and cutting half. Yeah. See, the problem with that is I was talking to Blinky, I said, you know, we got a lot of a nurse on her shins and I said, and so we had a we had a doctor that was one of our students and I asked him about that. He says, when you break, you know, you tear all the tissues and the nerves of your shin, he said later on, he'll affect you. This is the reason why I started designing so we can, and I mean, these were like homemade shingards. So did you ever work out with a Thai man, like a Moitai fighter who was showing you how they do the techniques or did you only learn it from film? I only learned from the film. Wow. That was, are any Thai guys in LA at that time? No. Wow. Not that time it was, there was none. When was the first Moitai gym started opening up in LA? Wow. I started to remember because we weren't tracking with them. We were just figuring out how to fight them. Right. And give them, whoops, give them like lateral movement because everything was linear. Right. Everything was linear. So the American side of kickboxy, that's what, you know, obviously you had more hands. Mm-hmm. And but they would clinch once they clinch and nullify that. So we were just making adjustments along the way. Especially in Japan, this is basically when we really started because they started bringing us back there one right after another. They started bringing us back there after, you know, I took their belt and they couldn't believe Americans just went in there and took their belt from them and they didn't, they didn't like it. They didn't want it and they kept having us come back taking that, trying to take that belt back. In Japan. In Japan. Never happened. Wow. Wow. And you gotta realize like back then, this is like post-Brucely movies. So martial arts had exploded, karate exploded worldwide. Everybody wanted to learn martial arts. And Japan was kind of at the forefront of the kickboxing movement, right? Because they had had a bunch of Moitai guys fight Japanese guys and the karate guys lost to the Moitai guys and then they had to adjust and then they got rid of elbows and created kickboxing because they wanted more excitement. They wanted to get rid of the clinch and get rid of the elbows. And so and then K1 was formed out of that. That's right. It's like you're like really like patient zero. You know what I'm saying? Like the real mixed martial arts movement really began with you guys. Two. You know I was going to say you know there was a there was a phase there because you mentioned Chuck Norris earlier that he raised money and Detroit and he had done into the dragon. So you had that notoriety and he had a cattle call. So fighters came from all over southern Kel to his dojo in Santa Monica and it was it was single eliminations to the knockout to see which five guys would represent L.A. And the same was going on in New York. The New York dragons Detroit the Detroit dragons DC the DC Dynamo's and and then the the Texas Gladiators. Those were the teams people were vying for and we we participated. I ended up becoming the middleweight starter and it was the lightweight and then Steve Sanders who was the own name in traditional karate three of his guys from the Black karate Federation Ernest Madman Russell, Danny Ferguson, Sugar Bear or you were the L.A. team and that what's crazy is that you won as a team. If you went out there and knocked the guy out or you got knocked out they got 25 points. And so the accumulation of points that you would get $1,500 but the losers got 700. So that took off and the last tournament or fight show that they had was at the end Detroit. And after that that's when things started going in another direction but it's just interesting the way that it evolved. Have you ever heard of the P.K.A? Yes sure. Okay so the P.K.A. started with Dunquine and Judy Coindade but only that was from the waist up right and only because they were protecting Bill because he didn't like getting kicked in the legs super foot. Yeah exactly. Yeah and so in that. So that's why they decided not to have the legs kick because Bill only had one good knee right. He had one knee that was messed up which is why only through like left kicks. Yeah that's pretty sad. This episode is brought to you by Paramount Plus. The new era of UFC on Paramount Plus comes out swinging. Show stopping highlight machine Justin Gachi collides with Liverpool Fennon patty the batty Pimble it's a must see main event plus sugar Sean O'Malley faces off against Song Yudong in a stand up war filled with high level striking stream UFC 324 Saturday at 9 p.m. Eastern only on Paramount Plus visit Paramount Plus dot com slash UFC to get started. Yeah but I don't know it was nasty though. Yeah it was just predicated upon that but it just waist down see the fight with Johnny's terryl. He was a you know you know waist down no kicks but there was a sanctioned by the WK that allowed leg kicks leg sweeps and that's how was able to set them up with that but but at the end of the day I mean yeah I mean so we said leg sweeps you were allowed to kick below the knee. Yes interesting you could kick and I would set them up with the kick between the ankle and the calf. Well what's interesting now is like that is one of the primary weapons of MMA now is the calf kick it's interesting right like because people kind of slept on the calf kick for a long time. Well people that are dancers they like to dance in the ring you win for the calf and they were flatfooted and they couldn't dance no more. Yeah so you want to stop somebody that was dancing we go right for the calf and they become flatfooted but if you you had some people that were had good right hands you kick them in the thighs they couldn't lean on that front leg to hit with the right cross. So there was there was a really a method of combat of worship in there that we we develop over the years that we knew how to take power from the from our opponent. It's just crazy that it took so long for MMA to recognize the potency of the calf kick because you know I talked to Daniel Cormiere who was a two division world champion I talked to Michael Bisping. Michael Bisping became a mid-away world champion never got calf kicked his entire career because the calf kick kind of emerged after he became a champion. Now what's really interesting is what's happening right now. So in kickboxing and in Muay Thai people thought oh the calf kick doesn't work there because the ties know how to block it. Well the Japanese fighters the kiokushin guys are now dominating some of the Thai guys because they kick calves. This is bad motherfucker from Japan named Yuki Yosa and this you know who he is. That dude is lightnings people on fire because he's just constant combinations and chopping at the calves and chopping from the inside and the outside with every combination he needs crippling ties to the point where they can't move and they get beat up and knocked out. This is another guy Masaaki Nori and he's doing the same thing and he beat just beat towing chai who's like one of the best Thai guys and the way beat him was brutalizing his calves just kicking the inside of the calf the outside of the calf stopped all the movement and then caught up with a left hook. Yeah and that's why for me at least going into that fight with Bill Wallace it was like if you're not kicking calf thigh body and head it's not international because everywhere else in the world that's what they're doing. Because you guys had had experienced that. Where's a lot of the karate guys they had they had they had an experience. So the fight with Bill and I was the first live broadcast on CBS Sports Spectacular the air. Wow yeah so and and the irony you know and it is what it is look it I get it. I think any any fighter any champion just a fighter period rather you know get knocked out then get robbed. Right. Knocked me out if you know you do it more power to you but but so then you know that that was kind of a lingered lingered within there and there was a time we were almost going to rematch and it didn't happen but at the end of the day the fight with Joe excuse me what's his name oh my god I'm having a senior moment Joe you don't have those those days. Yeah well Johnny's terriol you know I mean that was the difference in that fight that I could kick the calf and so when you got a money move that you've developed over the course of time because we were a couple short of conn at first and you know camp oh yeah it's a little flash but with the shorter con it was front kick it was right lay sweeps like that and so I was able to utilize that technique and it worked for me to come back with the hook the way I did but at the end of the day man it's been a long journey from there really well we got to see some glimpses of guys who were skillful with leg kicks fight guys who didn't know what to do with them and then their progression because a good example is Don the Dragon Wilson when he fought Dennis Alexio right Dennis Alexio was a scary man who's his destroyer and back in the day when Dennis Alexio was fighting it was all above the waist stuff and then he agreed to a below the waist kick with Don Wilson and Don Wilson just took his legs away he just kept kicking I mean Dennis Alexio was a tank man that guy was a powerhouse with Don Don just kept chopping those legs chop out those legs and eventually Dennis could barely move yeah actually Dennis ended up fighting one of our fighters well no no no it was not not tennis it was I anyway used some of Australia and Stan Lunge need us Stan Jay you know Stan the man Lunge need it yeah I remember that dude yeah yeah yeah and I think he broke Dennis Alexio's leg his femur yeah he broke it with a leg kick which is not he did yeah there it is boom right there he I think it was even Hawaii I think it was his lower leg was it seemed like it was his lower leg yeah right there boom yeah he checked it oh yeah you see a buckling oh god was that Dennis Alexio's last fight that's the last time I've seen because I mean how do you most guys when that happens it's over that's crazy so Stan the man came to stay at the jet center for a while so he lived he lived in town with us for quite a while yeah my friend Shuki Ron from Majuro Jim said that he was training with Stan Lunge need us and he said he got a hip replacement because Stan Lunge need us was kicking his leg so hard with the pads know with the hold the shield yes he said he had to get a hip replacement from getting kick that hard how crazy is that you know back then it was not how hard you hit it was how right you were hitting sure and that and you yeah man when he hit he hit that target right on the money well it looked like Dennis was trying to check it and he did it yeah well I mean yeah yeah even the impact it was the way he shot the impact just she got out too I mean just right on that what I'm not a doubt right on that shin bone crazy yeah I mean it's but the thing is unfortunately what happened was pk a karate became a thing was remember you had to get a minimum amount of kicks yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but it's also I'm sorry a lot of the guys were not good kickers and so what it became is guys weren't that good a kicker and then they would box and it was kind of sloppy boxing and so it lost a lot of the appeal to the American public which was unfortunate because if they just allowed low kicks from the beginning and we got to see the guys from Japan we got to see the guys from Thailand we got to see you guys do all your thing it would have probably flourished in America and been as big as MMA because this is something that I've been trying to push with the UFC because you know one championship fight they do a real good job with it where they have they'll have moiety fights they'll have kickboxing fights and they also have MMA and they also even have grappling competitions but I've been trying to say to the UFC like if you like a lot of times people boo when people go to the ground well here's a solution have some fights where it's just stand up fights have some fights MMA gloves moiety rules you know where you don't go to the ground like have that I mean it would be incredibly exciting and have you know like or you could even do a whole promotion of it but in America unfortunately kickboxing because of the pk a in what they call it the kick of the 80s remember back then they call the right pk karate the kick of the 80s that Brad Brad Brad Brad haveton yeah yeah yeah oh there was there was a lot of guys that were really good Jerry Trimble he was really good I met him once on a set I think we'd be like commercial together some shit I forget what it was but I met him when he's been doing a lot of acting but those guys were really good of course Rick Rufus Rick Rufus was outstanding and he changed the course of his life from fighting a tie to well he got broken down by that one tie dude right and had to learn leg kicks and how to learn what that's all about but if they had allowed that on TV from the beginning I think pk a karate would have been hugely successful you know the in the pk a because of be Wallace it was from the waist from the waist yeah and so my brother and Howard Hanson started the wk a world karate and that's well we went to Japan and we started saying everything went because in Japan elbows and knees and so forth because they're more tie fighters over there and I figure okay yeah then to me there's no rules let's go it's interesting because in k1 they eliminated the elbows that's right they just wanted less cuts there were like too many people are getting cut and fight fights are getting stopped from cuts that's right and we just want more action but you know the really purpose of that is because you know the insurance behind it I mean people were getting I mean I'm talking about just their lips opened up across the eyebrows and I mean they were getting from the elbows like they're like axes going across the knees you know with elbows and so forth and brutal but the tie they they wanted to catch you with the elbow because they wanted you to bleed because the fights over well they're so good it's slicing all that doubles and that's what really cuts you open especially to the forehead and the forehead bleeds like crazy you know it's it that one decision to benefit bill super foot Wallace probably screwed over kickboxing in America kind of crazy because then bill Wallace became the first commentator on the UFC all right which is ironic the first commentator on the UFC is bill super foot Wallace which is crazy because like this is no rules bill yeah this is like this is rules are completely out the window it's right it's it's very unfortunate because I think the development of kickboxing in this country has been stagnated you know and it had a it has shot for a while with glory glory was doing really well in America they had last man standing in LA remember that yeah absolutely a crazy event amazing event but for whatever reason it just didn't take hold it was so exciting but it just never they had it I believe they had it on spike TV for a while it just for whatever reason it wasn't promoted correctly or it just didn't catch with the American public and I genuinely don't understand it couldn't get the sponsorship either yeah yeah no but it's with the views coming sponsors right and it's really just about presenting a package together and making it exciting for people to see the thing is with the UFC in America the UFC is so popular that if the UFC is coming to town everybody's gonna go see the UFC every time the UFC is at Philly or Houston it's like let's go and you get tens of thousands of people want to come out to see the UFC but with kickboxing you got to sell it on these people you got to sell it to them and it hasn't been sold properly yet the thing is the product is there there's great strikers out there like for Jamie pull up a clip of a Yuki Yosa this cat freaks me out because like his combinations man he's so lethal and it just you see guys who just don't know what to do with the fact that he's taking away their legs like right away he does this weird thing to where like hooks their legs too and throws great boxing combinations too but it's like everything is just constantly chopping at the inside of the legs he throws high kicks and everything he's just and he's just brutalized in these dudes and it's constant no matter what he's doing he's chopping your legs taking your legs away going inside going outside the kids very good and you know that kielkish in background you know you guys know as buttons well as anybody it's such a brutal style and they have to learn boxing afterwards because the kielkish in competition is all punches to the chest only but look if you can learn how to kick you can learn how to punch a system out of putting the time in and this dude has put the time in he does a sneaky thing too where he he throws a low kick and then he hooks their calves and it works even on the ties I mean just yeah when you see a tie getting his legs destroyed by a Japanese you realize wow this sport has really changed that's what I'm down sport it's it's this one of the cool things about combat sports is that you see a new person rise doing something different and when they do everybody else has to sort of catch up and then the the techniques evolve and you see everybody rise to the level of whatever this person's at and recognize that there's new techniques that people are using because you know martial arts has evolved more since 1993 to 2026 than it did in the last 10,000 years and it's really because of exposure and because people like you guys went out there in the early early days and laid it all out on the line to find out because when I started doing martial arts was 82, 81 or 82 and back then no matter what you 81 no matter what you did you thought your style was the best and no one really knew you know if you did karate you thought karate was the best if you did taekwondo that was the best and there was no competition where everybody went together that we knew of other than we heard about your fights that you guys had and why everybody heard about that was like legendary like Penny and Blinky went on a fine they fought everybody no rules like no rules but we figured oh the strikers won striking's the way to go it has to be like the best strikers won but then you watched the UFC like oh geez what are they doing like what is this Brazilian cat is strangling everybody with a guillon this is nuts and then changed martial arts again but you know everybody's looking for the next uh biggest thing and so far you know I mean would you go from there from UFC where you can throw your ground in pound and so forth when you do technique standing everybody sees it but when it goes to the ground everybody's looking at the monitor because you can't see nothing right and so a lot of people were thinking it's boring but they didn't realize there was a skill on the ground but nobody seen it and it looked boring but when you got up so they were paying some of the fighters to stop the opponent standing yeah instead of going to the ground well there's a lot of promoters that definitely encourage fighters to not go to the ground yeah and discourage them when they did go to the ground because they knew they could take a guy down and just hold him down and beat him up a little bit and win and the promoters it's like we're not interested in you which I think is not fair because it's all about fighting and if a guy can hold you down you have to figure out how to get up and if otherwise we're pretending we're pretending these techniques work because if a guy is like a world class wrestler some division one all-american he takes you down holds you down you got to figure out how to handle that otherwise we're lying because the sport is about combat it's about fighting it's the sport of fighting fighting is a man that can hold you down if he could hold you down and beat you up why is the referee standing you up why is the referee giving you an opportunity to fight but you have to figure out how to get up you have to figure out how to submit him off your back sweep him or stand up those are the options a referee standing you up because the crowd's booing that's crazy you know it has really true though it's uh I think that the crowd you know they're they want to see action and they can't see it on the ground but they don't realize there's a lot of action going on the ground but they don't see that they want to see you know it's almost like everybody at a car race they want to see the racing but they they want to see a car crash you know and I don't understand it but they want to see the car crash they want to see something happen they want to they want to get excited but that's casuals you know you the casuals are the ones that boo in the fight goes the ground you can't change the rules for the casuals you know but there's that's the problem when business gets involved in sport yeah you start altering the rules to make it more business friendly which I just don't I don't agree with I just don't think that's the way to do it well when you you're talking about warriors right you know you you're talking about train samurai's yes they're trained hey to actually get in there and do their job and back away yeah but again you know right now the promoters a lot of promoters are looking at how can I feel my seats yes you know they don't care about the fighting they care about how can I bring okay he's popular he'll bring more people in the seats yes and that's all they're looking at well it was my job in the early days of the UFC when it first got on television to explain to people what's going on when it's the ground so it was my job you know back and I started working for the UFC in 2001 well I started in 97 and I started to get in 2001 and very few people other than martial artists understood Jiu Jitsu you know I had been training at Carlson Gracies and then by the time 98 came around I was training at John Sharp Machado so I was training every day so I I knew Jiu Jitsu and I and so I had to explain it like I was sitting next to my girlfriend like okay what he's gonna do now he's gonna throw his right leg over the side of his neck and he's gonna trap that on okay now he's fuck now he's in trouble now he's gonna hook that leg under his ankle he's got the triangle he got the triangle and I had to get people excited about it like I was excited about it but also kind of talk them through it because they didn't know what was happening you had to explain like why are his legs wrapped around that guy's neck this looks gay like what the hell is going on you know like what is this and you realize no he's cutting off the blood to his brain with his legs and they're like whoa that's nuts you know like right that's what Mel Gibson did to Gary Bucy and lead the weapon they're like that's crazy it works like yeah that's a real technique he learned from Horry and Gracie and so the early days was a lot of it for me was about kind of explaining to me what to people that are at home what was happening and talking them through it like that was the main part of my job once the fight got to the ground now everybody understands now everybody knows what a choke hold is everybody knows what a arm bar is everybody knows so now it's just about explaining whether or not he's in danger or he's free where the elbow is where the knee is and it's just kind of letting people know like whether or not he's okay or not but they know what's going on now even though they know what's going on the ground they still want to see him get up you hear the crowd get up you know there's nothing like a knockout and there's nothing like a head kick knockout head kick knockout is the ultimate when someone lands a head kick knockout like like Leon Edwards and first Kamar al-Usmund he's losing the fight fifth round boom head case he see Kamar al-Goda like wow the crowd Salt Lake City goes nuts that is the ultimate expression of martial arts is the kick right and a head kick that scores a knockout like that's a Bruce Lee movie you know that's true that's that's what everybody wants to see they want to see it in real life against a trained skilled opponent I get that that's that's the car crash yeah that's the car is the skillful car crash but exactly yeah all of the skillful but the more they know about it the more they understand the skill it takes to get there so you should the light on it yeah you know I say once people like you said understood the damage that's going on and the need to know the technique in that art form makes you the winner at the end of the day who's getting their handraised right you know what I'm saying right and then and then you got those they can do both though dasa you with a with a spinning back kick to the chin or they'll take you on put you in a rear naked choke you know what I mean so that's how you guys say it other part other part of the game but you know when you start talking about back in the era that you understand we understand it was the brutal heart it was that that was the transition was the spirit of it was it was it was the essence a you know I mean it was that tradition that really brought more mystique to the martial arts more tradition in a way that people honored you know what I mean so it was kind of like you start seeing the different transitions they came say I'm saying and you know it's just like you hear people it's like a guys out he hits the ground boom the referee you don't get there in time but he takes another whack or two you know I mean so then that that's the part at least I'm like wow man that's you want to make sure that he don't get up but at the end of the day those couple of extra shots can can can create the damage more damage more damage same same also yeah so at the end of the day I mean hey it's vicious it's it's you got to be conditioned I mean you got to put in the work without a doubt you know what I mean because uh exhaustant has made cowards many yes you know so yeah I mean so that that whole bull or heart that the tradition that atmosphere that spirit little by little started dissipating and then and then the new era starts coming in you know I I believe though the the injuries that in you know matter the ground and pound or whatever but the injury even standing up go you know getting knocked out standing and hitting the man uh you know a lot you know there a lot of motors are saying you know we want to see that but again the insurance pilots I mean to get the insurance to cover a lot of these fighters it's brutal yeah but you have the ball shows right that's it it's brutal and you have it's a lot of ground in part a lot of a jarring of the of the mind in the body eventually is going to give out you know and so some of them don't last two three years and they're great at what they do but you know by the time they finish it's hard for them to make a living right especially if they're married uh and so for I mean you got to continue on life so they try to make it safe enough but at the same time when it comes down to the out of war it's mental warfare it's physical it's even spiritual warfare the energies man that are coming at you so educating the the public to what it really takes and what it is that we're doing in the ring in the cage what is exactly okay it's entertainment but there's a skill there's a skill that we're using to be able to go in there and stop an opponent without getting hit yeah it really is a test of your spirit because it's a test of your spirit just to be able to discipline yourself to get a condition and train properly it's a test of your spirit to be able to fight at the level of your actual abilities under pressure and the what I do when I describe martial arts competition I say it's high level problem solving with dire physical consequences very well putt that's what it is it's just like that's what you're you're going against a skilled guy who's trying to do something to you and he's moving you're trying to do something to him and any mistake boom and then the referees got to like your face and the next thing you know you're like oh my god you don't know what happened I mean you have two type of fighters you have a checker player who take two hits to give one that don't care and then you have a chess player that don't like to take any and give the four five and six they're doing combinations exactly they're the ones that do a combination well that's why it's important where you train you know and the gym that you guys that set up the jet center was legendary for developing champions and legendary for teaching teaching proper technique and showing you the consequences of the moves and also teaching people that you don't have to spar to try to kill each other all the time you know you you could spar like some of the best sparring I ever got was at the jet center because the place when I was after I've been done fighting when I lived in Boston when we trained it was war every time you sparred you were just fighting there was no one pulled any punches no one pulled any kicks everybody's blasting everybody full blast it was terrifying and you saw a lot of guys getting knocked out in the gym and then they'd be back a couple days later and that's crazy that's crazy we know that now back then we didn't even think about it everybody just came back you just came back you start training again yeah the headache he is dealt with it nobody nobody actually understood a concussion right hey all right shake it off you know you'll be okay you know sit down for a while have some water okay back in right and so you went back in with the concussion not not even knowing that you had a concussion right other than I had a headache or I was a little dizzy but I'm okay again let me get back in because hey you didn't want to feel like hey I can't feel like a bitch yeah that's right yeah and so you get back in there with this and so that's what's going on with a lot of these fighters they you know before they go I mean they're training for their fight and they get a concussion and then next week they're going into the to fight with a concussion not even knowing they had a concussion happens all the time yeah I know one guy who got knocked out twice in camp and then like one of them was less than two weeks before his fight and then he got touched on the chin his fight just went out cold because he was already fucked up that's right he came into the fight like severely compromised it's like going into battle with a hole in your armor he was already messed up and you know there's like there's a time in place for hard sparring because I think you have to have some hard sparring to sparring to understand that hey you can't just block something like that you're gonna get your arm fucked up you can't just have you you're gonna have to deal with the fact that hard shots are coming away so sometimes you're gonna have to spar hard but technique sparring is so important too one of the reasons why the ties are so successful is they play spar like they fight every week so there's no reason to get banged up so when you watch tie fighters when they spar over there they're like they touch each other they just touch each other they're not trying to hurt each other because like once a week they have to go fight hard so they don't fight hard when they're training it's like their fighting is like their one hard sparring day yes because they're some of them will literally a fighting once a week you get these guys they're 22 years old they have 200 fights yeah which is crazy crazy but you know again if you're fighting for lifestyle as eating for your family so forth when you go in there they're fighting right it's there's no sparring session it's it's a fight and that's how they bring home food to their families so when they go out there I mean they're they're fighting at five years old they're you know they train three years old they're already training yeah you know by the time they're 10 years old they have so much experience of the fight and and some of them are are done by the time they're 22 24 you know they've done 300 fights by that's crazy yeah and a lot of it over there is motivated by gambling that's right so when people watch tie fights they go why they take the first round so light well it's because that's when everybody gambles and they can switch rounds yeah every opponent oh do they sometimes that's what I understood they switch opponents in between rounds opponents my god who they're betting on oh right right right switch opponents while yeah that they're gonna bet on yeah they do that all I mean there's so much gambling going on when you go to a boy tight fight in Thailand in the beginning of the fight you see everybody wave and money around a point to people and everybody's like sat in bed so the first round those fighters are just kind of like setting the pace and just experiencing each other's timing and then the second round comes in all the bets are in they start ramping it up and then they start really fighting which is alien to a lot of foreigners they go over there and they try to go wild in the first round like you gotta let the bets get in and they're like what what are you talking about like no no no it's an agreement a silent agreement when you go out there that for that first round for that first round you just feeling each other out that guys not gonna try to knock you out he's just trying to fill you out he's gonna try to land some shots couple hard leg kicks maybe a tip but really he's just waiting for that second round to open up exactly and that's again it's it's a way of life to them and you know a lot of a lot of them their parents are selling their kids when they're very young because they can't and they're in the kids take on the name of the gym and that's all they're in the upstairs they walk a talk a sleeper gym in that gym they don't go outside yeah every day that's how they do the training for fighting and I mean I've been to a couple of them and that's it they don't see nothing else they just train and go upstairs they do it and the next day they do the repeating and then they go to the fights it's crazy because the the money from the gambling is what led the sport to be so huge and the sport becoming so huge over there is what led them to be so good and that all that money and gambling led it to be one of the most fierce fighting styles on earth because while the rest of the world hadn't figured out the knees and the elbows and the clenched and the leg kicks the ties have been doing it forever they had already been doing it for a long time it took a long time for the rest of the world to catch up to what Thailand had figured out just from allowing people to fight for money I mean you're talking about in 75 just understanding the word moitai right that knowing thinking it was a guy yeah say what the heck is that that is such a crazy story yeah but and then the of course the leg checks counters and you start we started getting the idea okay okay this is how you fight them and then you have other styles for for American bread fighters that didn't didn't have part of that game in the repertoire of arsenal you know what I'm saying right right so and I think that's that's what the other thing that the pk did it didn't give anybody from from the pk a chance to learn you know internationally what was going on in the world not to put them down because you know what that was all part of us moving forward but you know and back in the day learning but you know when you when you come up through Shorokhan you're gonna know how to sweet and you're gonna know how to front kick right and what I mean and so that was on the traditional side of the art but yeah it's unfortunate it's unfortunate because I you know even Dana white when I talked to him about it's like oh people don't care about kickboxing I'm like yeah it's just because it was sold badly in the 80s that's really all it is like if it was around today I genuinely believe it would it like if kickboxing had gotten the same sort of promotional push that the UFC got like way back in 2001 I think it would be just as big as boxing just as big as MMA I think it'd be huge right now I'm gonna agree with you because there are a lot of excellent stand-up fighters that are really colorful absolutely and use all the weapons that can use elbows knees feet jumping yeah I mean things that know everybody afraid I don't do that they didn't want me to throw spinning back kicks it doesn't work I said really and I've been showing them for every time they said I went they I made them eat the words because again the art if you do it right yeah it looks fancy it doesn't work if you're not good at it no yeah like everything doesn't work if you're not good at it you try to punch Floyd Mayweather you're not gonna hit him it doesn't mean punches don't work that just means you're not good enough at that's not you know what I mean it's like it's like it's interesting that people don't see that even coaches don't see that sometimes you know Terrence Crawford learned how to switch hit you know because Terrence Crawford is one one of the best switch dance fighters ever since Marvin Hagler and the one of the reasons why he did is because his coach told him he can't do that his coach is like don't do that stay or thought stop messing around he's like what he's like I could fight this way too he's like no no no you can't he's like okay how shall you and he would call start fight South Park and then like start fuck up people up and switch hands on him and they're like oh no because it's an amazing skill to have but it's only amazing if you develop your South Park style as good as your orthodox style it doesn't mean you can't do it it means it has to be at that like if you want to win a spinning back kick doesn't mean you can't land a spinning back kick it's you mean your spinning back kick is not good enough to land it's right but Benny or Kitas can land that spinning back kick I mean I'm softball I'm lefty but I fought left forward because my brother said don't let them know you're lefty so he trained all of us even my sister was lefty and we all trained left forward but when we struck you couldn't tell they were a softball so we started left handed and working this and but that was his logic it was also the benefit of that is you had a lethal left hand kick so your left side kick that front kick the side kick from the left side and the front round kick from the left side was fast as buck because you're a naturally left side fighter that's right yeah that's right you know I think that it's just each decade as we go you know as Blinky was talking about the brachoodle way you know there was a you know you had honor there was an honor system and all that and then in the 70s it started to change when full contact right it came in it started to change and then kickboxing in 75 and on people were you know we're not martial arts we're we're kickboxes then Moitai came wall we're kick we're Moitai we're not kickboxes and and everything where you see if it is we're not Moitai fighters I said you know so every decade it changed but again you needed to learn from ground one and the ground one was internal there I am concept of what do you tell yourself with that you know and there was an honor system going on and and there was a quota of honor between warriors right and that got lost that's right and there was power in that there was power in that quota of honor of strength of annoying and they said well how do you know I say I just know with this how do you know I said I can't answer you that other than the fact that I just know the tenants of a warrior code that you would learn in traditional martial arts were very important that's why everybody would bow at the beginning of the class and everybody would ki-i at the same time there was there was there was a rigid structure to it and they would not let anyone trash talk there would not there was no yelling and swearing there was no none I don't even want to sweat off your head right there was bowing and you know it was the beginning of the fight everybody like bow to each other went back to the corner there was no trash talk there was no none of that it was your words will be spoken with your weapons that's it I wanted to just add you know Benny mentioned his sister well I was we're in cousins I was married to Lily Lily was my wife and she passed away but she was a trailblazer for women absolutely boxing and kid boxing and I was in both fought Madison Square Garden 1978 you know also and just in pain homie you know because she she also pioneered and was taking the forefront you know fighting at the Olympic fighting at the forum fought in Japan traveled the world fought and represented well and trained hard you know I'm saying so yeah actually at the fights my sister Lily she actually fought first blinky will fight and then I would be the last to fight so all three was when we traveled the world introducing kid boxing my sister blinky and myself we all fought at the same card so the night Bobby Chacon if you remember that name Bobby Chacon sure okay Bobby Chacon and Alexis are well oh yeah we fought on their card oh first husband and wife the fight on a boxing card like that under that right there wow yeah and I grew up with Bobby we grew up with Bobby he came out of the San Fernando Valley that'll featherweight yeah you know his whole style yeah his whole style yeah I was his partner for a while he stopped busing up my nose give me black eyes I said one time I he hit me was such a beautiful right hand my leg came up automatically and he start taking his glove off I'm you know I'm not sparring with you know I said it was a reflex I'm sorry to bring the leg up you say he start taking his glove I don't want to spar with you know did you hit him with the leg or just pick it up no I picked it up he hit me with a nice right and automatically my right leg came up to and by then he just he told Joe Puss I'm not sparring with him the more out there the craziest thing about all this is you guys were trailblazers there was very little money in it oh yeah are you kidding me very little money we paid for our own way just to get there to fight we paid them to fight really yeah no we didn't feel that I mean I said I mean we did we paid for our own gas and I just to go out there and actually fight so it was very little money yeah there was no money and glory and big houses and cars and the things that fighters look for today just heart yeah just the love just the love of the sport building it well I don't think you guys get enough credit and it's one of the reasons why I really wanted to have you on to talk about it because I think the sport needs to recognize the pioneers that blaze the trail and you two are one of the most important pioneers that blaze the trail in martial arts in this country and you did it back when no one knew what was going on you got a people need to understand it 70 like when did you guys first start fighting when when did you have your first kickboxing competitions actually it was in 73 was called full contact karate and we already was fighting in 64 martial arts and that was you know Bernackel was hitting the ground we were already sparring and then and then no one knew about it back then no we have to realize like the Bruce Lee movies when did they start coming out into America like this is like almost 10 years before that yeah crazy yeah like real pioneers man no one knew about it that you had heard about judo people knew about judo maybe some people had heard about karate but it wasn't that popular in America the first thing was actually popular was the boxing rights of course after the boxing boxing has always been popular and then other than all the other sport boxing was when it came to the art of war and then it was judo in the I started actually judo in 60 and then 63 we started Kimpo karate is that where you met Jean Lebel yes exactly yeah and I'll tell you what talking about the master disaster oh yeah he was awesome he was sonagi yeah I got a chance to meet him because one of the guys that are first trained jiu jitsu under I took private lessons from this guy Silvio Pimento oh yeah you know Silvio I do and he's a great guy shout out to Silvio and he was a Jean Lebel student so he had a bunch of nasty tricks that he learned from Jean Lebel along with his jiu jitsu stuff so he showed me a lot of like different chokes and different things and different variations that Jean had developed and I was like man and then I finally got to meet Jean what a character that guy was he is such a character Jean was one of those type of warriors since he's there saying if you want to train with me don't be afraid to get choked out and before you can actually train with him he choked you out he choked you out and he and he were going to get lipstick and put it around your eyes and then when he wake you up you had all of this and that was since a jian it was and I told since a jian I said get it over which he's choked me out get it over because I knew that I knew automatically like he was being easy where I said just do it get it over I said I'm not afraid just do it and took me before and I was out and I was back up again I didn't even know I was out and he said you took it like a you know like a charm man you know it was true I said I said you know since then if I'm not afraid to die what can you possibly do to me he said healing and I said yeah and then he grabbed my big toe and put me in pain all the way up to my forehead all the way back down to the other big toe and I sound never say that one again your big toe hit a big toe yeah he grabbed my big toe at the edge of it and he put his nail in it and oh my god my eyes were bulging jean told me a story about when he was old he was I think he was in his seventies some kids were breaking into his car and he went outside did you hear the story there's two guys who were talking like get the fuck out of here old man he's like oh really I think grabs his dude fucking hip throws him out of the crown creep boom grabs the other dude choke some unconscious he fucked up two dudes when he was 70 years old yeah in front of his house it's like yeah in fact quite a couple of movies with him his mother was Ali Norton she owned the Olympic auditorium I was I mean the Olympic auditorium was the spot we're back then man you have some big time fights big time fights yeah and always he was always humble and you know what I mean and he wore his humility very well yeah he was very self-deprecating and joking about himself and being silly but man you shook that guy's hand you're like this is a fucking gorilla this gene there he is such a great guy yes he is actually and he had one of the first mixed rules fights when he fought Milo Savage that's right that even predated the karate fights or the the mixed martial arts fights that you guys had in Hawaii that's right he fought Milo Savage who was a boxer and he wore a Ghee and the Ghee was so smart because Milo you know tangled up in the Ghee and Jean grabbed him and strangled him you know better fact it was Muhammad Ali at the time we went to fight in Japan and he was the main event I was a semi event was that when he was fighting a nookie yeah I went and I knocked out my opponent quickly because I wanted to see the fight so I stopped by opponent who did you fight do you remember I can't even think of his name I find the the undercard Benny's fight on the undercard because that fight with the nookie was crazy I don't know how they talked Muhammad Ali into fighting him I you know it was a five-rounder and it was there was there was not supposed to be no decision it was five-rounder and so forth and they both got paid great money but I was telling in the dressing room I was telling Muhammad Ali he's gonna go for your legs and he starts saying I'm so fast it I say I say I say Muhammad he's gonna go for your legs and as a sure enough after I fought I didn't even want to go to the dressing room I just wanted to stay there when they came out and sure enough the first thing Tony did jumped went to the ground and did a flying round kick to his thighs yeah after the second round Tony a nookie went out there and started going to his ground and Muhammad Ali jumped on the on the corner of the ring and was kicking him on the ground as he was holding onto the ring it was at the time it was funny if you see it but after the five-round I tell you Muhammad could you I mean they had a carry him yeah his legs are fucked up oh my god yeah they were really badly damaged and for a guy who relies on his legs as much as Ali did that's a crazy fight to take because if he got side-kicked and hyperthended his knee and it was never the same yeah it would compromise his movement that was float like a butterfly there was a big part of his style that's true and I just can't imagine how anybody allowed him to take that fight like if I was his manager but like there's no way you're taking this fight this guy's gonna ruin your legs you know first of all was always about whether it was about the money or not but it was about you know doing something different right and Tonyo Noki being in the Muhammad Ali here in the United States you know Tonyo Noki was the man he was the man in Japan and so that's why they went and it was packed the place did you you find a video is it available on my role I was looking for the I mean I can only find stuff about the event was called the World of the Worlds and they also showed it on like on TV on the screen wow Andre the giant he fought Chuck Weppner wow that's crazy so that was in New York yeah that was like it's a TV event it says like 10 rounds direct from New York and this is 15 rounds direct from Tokyo oh wow so they even a co-feature will appear local to your area oh wow oh but there's no video available look I'm still looking just there fight that was there that was a great fight though yeah their fight was crazy their fight was crazy when you look at a Noki kicking him you're like this is just nuts he jumped right to the ground he was a big guy oh yeah no it was a big guy but you know what he uh he wasn't full Japanese he was have Japanese have something else he was tall and yet a square jaw that was and and his thighs yeah he's a big dude oh yeah without a doubt is this the promotion for the fight not the actual fight itself I don't know oh there it goes oh it's not showing the actual fight but there was a lot of that oh yeah I wonder what they paid Ali to do that yeah because like that seems like a crazy decision to make they took him right to the hospital till you get that drop down it kicks the legs yeah this is it Ali was on the ropes lifting his legs up I'm in the corner and I wonder if you can see me there but yeah but it's just getting your legs kicked like that if you don't know what the hell's going on like that's gonna destroy your legs oh yeah they I mean right after that went right to the hospital they had a dream they had a dream he's legs were full of fluid they had a dream it out oh man yeah it hurt he got infected too did you get infected in the hospital and he was there for quite a while yeah that's terrible man that is so terrible it just I just don't understand why anybody it's this 1976 yeah that was the end of the card there was Ali the champ back then I think so I believe I think so wow just nuts man yep it was WBC WBA Heavyweight Boxing Champion wow I trained with Tony O'Noki yeah yeah what was that like I'm tell you the way they trained there they had these I mean working I mean they didn't use weights but the strength his grip was like a vice grip and they used steel clubs yeah the steel club but he had all that was just natural movement and so I even tried to have small ones for me but I trained with him for a week and I'll tell you what it was like every day I got up oh man because those those muscles I've never used before right oh my god well a lot of those guys learned strength and conditioning from Carl Gouch yes and Carl Gouch was a legendary catch wrestler and Carl Gouch went over to Japan and trained a lot of those guys like a lot of Sakuraba a lot of those guys who eventually became big time mixed martial arts fighters they started with catch wrestling and Carl Gouch was one of the beginning guys that came over to Japan and taught a lot of those Japanese progresslers a lot of the different submission holds of catch wrestling and his big thing was conditioning Carl Gouch's legendary strength and conditioning guy like his routine was absolutely brutal in order to be able to train with him you had before you could train with him he had to know that you were in physical condition so you had to go through this program to get yourself up to I forget what the requirement was but it was some insane requirement of physical conditioning before he would even teach you anything like you had to be in shape like you got to have a gas tank you got to be strong you got to be agile and you got to be able to move well you know my my mother my mother wrestled at the Olympic auditorium with with actually since a gene on the same card and then my actually I fought I fought at the Olympic you know and so and then my sister Lily she did roller derby at the Olympic and she used to do that as a rough lady yeah that's crazy you did roller derby tough roller derby tough man I've watched some of that yeah I want to see an event of that live it's like those girls get slammed oh yeah so a little quick vignette Lily was in a fight on the Bobby Chacon card at the Olympic auditorium so they did an article on Bobby and and in the article they mentioned Lily that she's had over 50 street fights and when she read that she was like why would he say that because he was pulling for her right I'm saying it's just crazy stuff like that but yes she went in there and she was throwing him down and and out of the ring you'd never guess it by looking at it never guess it never guess it well that was interesting because there was no real female boxing presence in this country back then really didn't exist like before Lily like who like it wasn't there was no one Lily's the one to actually a bunch of girls got together and Lily's the one that actually started boxing because they were saying women can box boxing boxing boxing boxing boxing she was knocking people out right she was knocking men out at the gyms and that's when they decided well let's see what's gonna happen sure enough she went out there and she was the first woman to have a boxing title a martial love title in a kickboxing title that's amazing she was the first one that's amazing and then there was Lucille Riker she was right behind and she couldn't get any fights women didn't want to fight her she was knocking people out dead and she was a kickboxing champion as well that's right started out Dutch kickboxing champion and then went into boxing and could never get that fight with Kristi Martin Kristi Martin was the big name and she could never get a fight with her yeah psych Kristi Martin was the first one in America that really broke through and became a famous female boxer yeah but before her and then there was of course Le La Lee and there's been a few other ones Clorescent Shields right now who's the greatest women of all time and it's like there's you know it's those people they owe it to Lily in a lot of ways and just like martial arts fighters owe it to you guys if someone didn't step in in the very early days and blaze that trail no one's going to find out what's on the other side of the woods hey Joel would have to use saying that you know since they've been is going to be inducted the Saturday this coming Saturday really at the martial arts museum so it's going to be it's going to become he's going to be inducted to the most more museum that's awesome that's awesome actually we have the first three finger glove this was a 73 the first three finger glove striking and grabbing yeah there's a lot of stuff that like in game of death those three sleek gloves yeah that needs to be redone you know one of the big problems with MMA today's iPokes it's a giant problem and I think it could be at least 80% solved by covering up the fingertips we don't need the fingertips for grappling you never grapple like this you never interlace your fingers that's right so if you could just cover it up like an old school ever last bad glove just do that because you could still grapple no problem it's like if you've got padding over the knuckles just extend the leather over the tips of the fingers make it like a mitten put it under the hand like this so your handle slide into it the same way your thumbs will still be free so you still have unfortunately you'll still have some pokes from the thumbs but way less when you don't have eight other things to poke with that's right I think that can be done and I'll think that takes away from the MMA sport at all no because again you know a lot of them some they're striking and they're striking with their fingers open yeah and I mean some of them I mean dirt I had this once guy that had his fingers stuck so deep that they actually had them I mean that's how deep his finger when he jab with his finger open and that happened recently with Tom Aspenal with his heavyweight title he was fighting Cyril Gond Cyril Gond poked him in the eye a couple times but one time with both finger in both eyes he poked him and his right eyes fucked up he's already had one surgery he's gonna have a second surgery soon how many detached retinas yeah over the course of time oh's accountless number I mean you're gonna have some detached retinas from fighting period there's no way to avoid it you're getting punched and kicked and elbowed in the eye it's going to happen but yes but it's gonna be less of it I mean look cigarette Leonard had a detached retina and that was just from boxing gloves right you're gonna have some detached retinas but I think you'd have a lot less eye injuries if you covered those damn fingertips and it's just we've gotten used to these MMA gloves that they have today it doesn't mean that's the only way to do it yeah they need to figure out another way how to take care of the one hundred percent and also make the sport better because if fights don't get stopped from eye pokes it's more exciting it's better yeah you don't want to fight stop from an eye poke so the fight will go on it'll be better fights it's a better product the same thing back then they were fighting with eight ounce gloves but there were horse hair in it and a lot of them were putting their glove in those bit bucket uh-huh getting wet so they get real solid and it's stuck to guys would cut a hole in it and take their squeezy bottle their water bottle take that little the straw part and stick it in there and squirt water into the horse hair and pat it down that's right you know that's what we thought that's what we started remember margarito he got oh yeah yeah he got caught using plaster of Paris and inside of his or whatever it was yes something that when it got wet would harden up like a rock inside of his his hand wraps like hitting him hitting him with a brick yeah yeah that's why that's why they're rep I mean they would come and check your wraps they would mark it to make sure before the glove go on um because they were doing a lot of crazy a lot of dirty shit oh yeah well margarito got away with it let long after people had already been checking things too which is really crazy yeah but you know you're always gonna have cheaters that's just how the sport is I mean you know it's again when you call it a sport there's gotta be there's gotta be the bushel way of honor system and yes respect and so forth when you're talking about a sport right but when it becomes away from a sport then it becomes a money thing uh-huh you get away from that bushel way of really a coat of honor between warriors right you know back then even they're samurai's they're signed to the dip but those are coat of honor and they knew what they were there for just like you know what you're going in there for and but now those rules and you did you go by the rules don't do it yeah I mean I think uh if people had a martial arts code of honor it would be just as exciting and maybe more interesting so an agreement and you would also develop a lot better human beings yes because instead of a bunch of kids imitating people talking trash what you would have is a bunch of kids that imitate very respectful martial arts yes people very respectful true martial artists very well put yeah absolutely there for self defense it's not to be you know aggressive and self improvement yeah that's the other thing it's like my my instructor had a saying that martial arts was a vehicle for developing your human potential and I never forgot that it's like if you could get great at martial arts you get great at anything at anything yeah it's really just a matter of like taking that knowledge that you learned about yourself and going through the fire and learning how to be a great martial artist and you could apply that to anything it's supposed to be a way of life yeah it's supposed to teach you you know about honor and dignity and respect and so forth that's basically what it was all about yeah that's what it's supposed to be about yeah and even though it's about defending self defense is defending instead of you know being a striker learning how to defend it's slipping and moving and defending but it turned around and it became striking you know instead of learning how to because I would put my money on a good defensive fighter then a striker because it's easy to go out there and strike but if you don't know how to defend striking back at you right well one of the most humiliating things for a fighter is they think they're a good striker and then they get in there with someone who has impeccable defense and they can't hit them at all and then they get confused yeah they get counter they get confused and you know it's also what caliber fighter are you training with which is probably one of the most important things for young fighters to understand you will imitate the atmosphere of your gym period and the level that is the top guy at your gym that is the level that everybody aspires to if you are training with a bunch of champions you're training with a bunch of high level guys you will aspire to be at that high level if you are the toughest guy in your gym if you're the best guy in your gym and you're you're not a world champion you're not the best in what you're just pretty good like you're not gonna grow in that gym you gotta get out of that gym you gotta get out of that gym you gotta go find people that are gonna test you and put you in danger and put you in a position where you're gonna have to learn and grow and that's the only way and that was that was the advantage of training at the Jets Center and we have people coming from all over the world over the country you had nothing but people that you had to aspire for you had to reach for the stars and I mean make it happen and with condition being the name of the game you know what I mean so you know and from time to time there was wars in the gym you know I mean but there's other times where there was you know you're gonna learn the day yeah not just gonna start swinging from left to right well it was the mecca of kickboxing and like I said like when I was living in Boston and when I was kickboxing in Boston people would talk about the Jets Center with like hush tones like you gotta get to the Jets Center because I was telling people I was moving to LA they're like oh you're gonna move to LA you gotta go to the Jets Center and I knew about it I was like oh so I'm like one of the first things I did like one of the first things I did I showed up for work I did all the things that I had to do was to work on this TV show then I went to Van Aes I gotta go sign up come on hey hey hey Joe so you mentioned that yeah and you know because you could sling on pretty good yourself you know yeah you leaned over and ripped the body shot to that one guy you were you were sparring with you went down on one knee and if I'm not mistaken you mentioned man I thought holy crap when I'm gonna get shot in the parking lot yeah and then he walks up to you and he taps your glove and he says good shot yeah I remember that yeah I'm nervous far those did it but that but that was that was part of it why I had them there yeah you know what I mean because at the end of the day it's not about violence and that was giving them that that lesson that they needed to learn yes you know what I'm saying during that time of their life and now we've grown it into something now we're we've done over 200 sporting events with rivals yeah that's awesome tackle football games no no no no that handball softball games people need to learn that the division that we have with each other we look at us versus them it's mostly bullshit it's not real that's like they're just human beings just like you're a human being and it's way better for them to be your friend than for them to be your enemy there's no need to have enemies like that for no reason whatsoever other than tribal gang bullshit it's not real it's like and the thing about martial arts is it teaches you the real battle is inside yourself the real battle is learning and growing and unfortunately with young men like there's this desire to show how hard you are and that you're macho but you don't have any skills you don't you're not really macho so you have to posture and be louder than everybody else and martial arts teaches you like man your battle is in the gym tomorrow like you get back in there tomorrow and get better and then learn why you got hit and then get better and learn why you're throwing your left hook wrong or why you throwing your round kick wrong and train it and work on the back and putting your time and you're going to learn and grow and then you're going to realize like I've been fighting my own self for this whole time I've been fighting nonsense and I've been making enemies that don't exist we got a guy that came into the gym six foot three two hundred thirty pound Mexican American which was a rare commodity back in 1980 and he had just done five years on a manslaughter and he wanted a box so I started working with him not long after I get a phone call and it's a parole officer and he says hey I hear you're you're dealing with Alex and I said yeah I'm dealing with him and he's doing just great I said you know I'm a private entity and I'm going to work with this guy I don't got to chase him he's in the gym all the time and so I took him to the diamond belt he wanted come to the golden glove he wanted took him to the state title he wanted he earns the right to go to the nationals in Beaumont, Texas is this Alex Garcia Alex Garcia so I I was a trainer manager at that time all them years take him to the war he earns the right to go to the world box off wins the world box off goes to the world games fights who Teofilo Stevenson six foot seven Cuban there was a three-time Olympic gold medalist Alex fights him for the gold on ABC right world of sports wow and he doesn't win but he lost the Teofilo Stevenson right from Cuba and he wins the silver medal and he's the first of in the Hispanic community Mexican America to win a medal or to fight and even that category that's how we division I remember I was just talking to my friend Joey Dias who's Cuban and we were talking about Teofilo Stevenson that that was the guy that they were trying to get to fight Muhammad Ali when he was in his prime because they were like you know right Muhammad Ali might be the best moral but he might be the second best because this is cat in Cuba that is a bad man and Teofilo Stevenson was a bad man he was so good but he was just locked into Cuba and locked into that amateur program when we never got to see him fight professional and back then they wouldn't let them fight pro nope if you don't castra would not allow that no and then he then he come out with Muhammad on the cover of Time Magazine like they were kind of teasing people with that fight perhaps I mean there was a lot of talk about it I remember in the 70s and the 80s there was a lot of talk about that about him fighting you know and then him you know him eventually defecting and coming over to America but it never happened but the thing without lixie that showed somebody that's gone away and come back home can make it if he could win the silver medal for the United States from America and the world games when we had boycott at the Olympics that was just part of the proof and so now when you're getting guys into union jobs you're getting guys with tattoo removal that's going on you know you're doing advocacy in the courtrooms and you're you're just being able to roll out there's there's education going on and there's a response to yellow tape the cvi the community violence intervention programs that are now nationwide they become a movement and when you say tattoo remember you talk about gang tattoos yeah tattoos but yeah mostly you know just things of people's past that holds them back right right yeah so now you know there's a there's another thing that's going on with tattoos you know it's where it's a no laser removal there's a there's some new technology and stuff that I'm talking to people about that you don't have to go through getting laser and ow and ooh and you can hear that laser going off so what's it about it's about meeting the needs of people it's about touching lives you know what I mean it's so it's about showing them another way and and having the ability to open up a door that they can go get through a path a path absolutely best thing about a lot of people they don't know how to make the first step they they've made some mistakes in their life their life is kind of a mess they don't know the first step the beautiful thing about a fighting journey and a gym is it allows you a martial arts dojo allows you a path you go in there you start there's some rules I'll see you tomorrow like okay I'll see tomorrow and then you're in there tomorrow and then you you start getting a little better and then you learn growth and you understand like if I work towards something I could build towards something and now I'm seeing progress you know and now I've got a brown belt you know now I've got a black belt now I'm a black I could tell people I'm a black belt like like I did something I accomplished something and I think that's one of the great things about belt systems and traditional martial arts it gives you a sense that you've got there's a right of passage like you've made you've gone through this thing and now you've moved to another level and now you you're supposed to behave like you are at a different level now you're a senior student now you know now you're one of the elite students in the gym you're held to a different standard it's very important for people you know a lot of times what happens is a lot of a lot of them come in with a lot of emotions anger fear frustration and especially at the with the jazz gym we were able to tap in and put fear to them in a in a sparring way that it will bring about that emotion up and then we had a chance to reprogram that that was the best part about the gym is to bring up what everybody hides into your threaten right hey once you're threatened I don't care what you hide under your bed in your closet will come up and then you get a chance to reprogram the way you're perceiving it the way you're looking at it and help them to heal not not pat it or forget it or act like it doesn't heal it so it doesn't stop them on their journey and that's what the Jets Center was all about is being able to bring that up mirror their truth help them look at the really what they're really all about and continue let them go on their journey and that's why the Jets Center was so successful because we had a chance to really mirror their truth and bring all that that they hide and bring it forward and they felt safe enough they felt protected yeah actually yeah yeah and you get to see them go through that and develop real confidence yes instead of this provato this false confidence trying to make people feel like you're confident scare them off you develop silent confidence we really know how to fight true that's true so that's what that's what makes the art you know so unique but so needed and in the art it gives you a foundation to build on in your life and no matter what and we've had all walks of life that come through the Jets Center all walks I mean and the ones that I mean we had so many different attorneys coming in and we used to call them the final attorneys that there were six seven of them they would you know in the gym they were so humble to each other they love each other they go outside or something they don't know they don't know each other as like I said what's wrong with you you just been in sparring with them working with them and they said he's an attorney I said hand but it was it was a brought character out of them it brought their hearts yeah yeah the mere the really truth under journey and what they were where they were going also for an attorney to step into that world and be around both these young gang members that are learning a new path and then professional fighters and like you know you're in a different world of discipline and willpower and focus that will help you in everything you do will help you as an attorney will help you as a doctor will help you as anything you do true and it certainly help you as a human yes a human just get through life there's nothing that's going to be harder in life than other than the loss of a loved one nothing going to be harder than your hardest training session at a real fight gym it's just that is that makes the rest of the world easy because your hardest thing you've volunteered to do and you look forward to doing it again and you do it every day when you could do like I always tell people martial artists are some of the nicest fucking people you'll ever meet in your life there's some of the nicest people because they don't have anything to prove like when I introduced my friends to like guys like what do you like I always talking about George St. Pierre yesterday I was introducing someone to George St. Pierre like what do you think he does it's like I don't know seems like a nice guy Mike that is one of the baddest motherfuckers that ever walked the face of the earth he's a two division UFC world champion one of the greatest of all time like no way I'm like yeah I mean like he's like how you're doing my friend like super nice super friendly like yeah he's got nothing to prove there's nothing to prove so he can be a nice person he could be a nice person and now feel weak he can be himself yeah yeah it's also so you know you may mention right now one of the hardest things to do is lose someone and so for me I wanted to share a little bit that in 2023 I got a phone call that that was something that I could never anticipate it was January of 2023 and it was a call that was made one of my sons called to tell me that he had talked to a friend of ours that does a lot of work with the prisons has a lot of entrees I'm big time boards and that he was that he was at one of the prisons and that an enemy walked up to him and asked him if he knew me so he said you know do you know Blinky and he said yeah he says why and the guy says because I like to talk to him and he said well why he said because I'm the guy that murdered his son oh and so my sons telling me that our friend wanted to know if I would consider talking to him on the phone so I had just entered into a season of fasting and praying me and my wife now we're going to celebrate 10 years more you know and and and I said I don't know I was grappling Joe I was I was I was grappling I was fighting with it and then I heard a gentle voice and it was say yes say yes so I call my son back and I said tell him I said yes but I don't want to talk to him on the phone I want to see him in person and so that's exactly what happened on January the 30th we drove up to the prison and and we get there and first first we stop and get something to eat and then we get to the prison and the seals right there waiting and when we get there he's he says well come on through and so me and and this guy went through and he he says yeah you know we don't normally have meetings on Monday but everything's fine we're going to be okay so they walk us through we walk through get out to the back door and there's the yard the yard the barbed wire everything's right there we start walking we're going to some a building to the left now I thought I was going to be talking to somebody behind glass but it turns out that they're they're asking me what do I think about this room and and I'm like in my mind why are they asking me what am I thinking about this room you know I mean because you know that's that's up to them but I looked down the hallway and there's a door I said what's behind that door and the seal tells me he says that's that's a chapel I said can I see it we walk back down the hallway he opens the door and and there's a podium right there and there's about 15 chairs so I said to him can we use this room and he said yes so at that point in time I need to go to the restroom so we walk out of the building he takes me to the restroom when we come back out my friend the one that was setting it all up he's not there but there's an inmate I can hear him saying hey blinky thank you for the letter to the parole board I got a date but I'm in another dimension show I mean I'm like somewhere else so a couple of minutes goes by and I hear I hear my buddy and he says hey blinky this is David and when I when I pivoted out he was right here in front of me this guy that had killed my son and the words that came out of his mouth Joe I cannot even I didn't have a second to to try to digest it but he says to me can I get a hug and when he said can I get a hug I grabbed them and I embraced them and I begin to weep I begin to weep I begin to grab I begin to prevail and he begin to weep and that was a holy ghost moment where the spirit of God was moving on that whole issue and we went from there into that chapel and we spent a little over two hours talking the the the seal that was there in my buddy they were sitting in the corner of the room and as I'm talking to him and we're going over because my wife before I left the house she says remember he was just a young guy you know and I mean he was probably confused back then so now I'm talking to him and now we're going over different things that took place and I hear that voice tell him talk to him so I said okay I said to him can I have the privilege of leading you to the Lord and he said to me yes he says yes tears are coming out of his eyes I stepped a few feet over I put my hand on his right shoulder my over his heart and I let him and he began with a contrite heart he began to weep and cry and I came to realize because it took me a long time to unpack that once I got I left there and I came home and to the chair where I always sit to read and wow it's like what just happened what did I just do what just took place and at the end of the day Joe it was I leave 99 to go get one and that's what I grasped that that one life that one person under the so that's why I've always said since then that the power of forgiveness is more powerful than my left hook and I had a good one that he did yeah I just took nice and short man but the power of forgiveness Joe reconciles it gives you a chance man to rekindle the fire it gives you the opportunity man to live life without carrying a heavy yoke on your neck right that people carry it's powerful I can't articulate to you in words what forgiveness is but forgiveness is divine the love that required the humility that's required to forgive unconditionally and that's why I trust in Christ that's a beautiful story I really is that's a beautiful message and it's incredibly powerful of you to forgive that man and to be able to recognize that you know he made a horrible horrible decision that affected your life and everyone around you yeah but he's just a human being you know and we're all capable of doing something terrible for in the wrong environment with the wrong people around us in the wrong lifestyle wrong decisions you know but we're all just human beings and that's why I'm still doing what I'm doing I had to say farewell to my brother Ben because we all the Jets Center together 50 50 man and it was just that type of calling Joe that said go and so here I am now 36 years later hard uh you know it's still jumping that's amazing and it's still working good I went there 32 years ago that's when I first started so I made my way to LA that's when I first came to your jam and took your classes are you still have a jam you know what right now I'm just doing a lot of traveling I'm seven on my documentary right now and working on the documentary and so forth and just doing a lot of traveling I've seen a lot of videos online are you teaching seminars and teaching people you're still doing a lot of that a lot of it do enjoy that still you know what I've always thought it was a better teacher than a fighter that's crazy the fight you want to do it is fighters of all time the fightering I can do but the teaching I love really I love being able to get somebody in turn on minceye doubt so they may look at their truth and seeing that we all have talent and we all have a gift it's just giving a chance to see that you know I really take a lot of pride in seeing somebody that I can see that they they doubt themselves they hesitate about and to go out there and really look at themselves and start to love themselves there's no better feeling to see somebody come up from being very mean and weak to something that's so strong and doing something great for society and for that's amazing that's right do you ever get any professional mixed martial arts fighters that reach out to you for training absolutely yeah who have you trained with well you know what I right now I basically what I do is I don't talk about any of them I just work with them and everybody asked me but I said you know what I don't care who you are I care about what you what you would think that how I can help you with if it's mental physical it's built because when it comes down to it 80% of it is mental 20% of it is physical but 99.9% of that is spiritual which is internal this is what I work with them on and so some of the fighters I I you know I said I prefer not to know you know what you are just other than what you want from me and from there I can work with you on that and so a lot of people want me to go and see their fights you know whether cage fighting MMA and stuff and there was only one time I went I believe I went one time because in the beginning there were great technicians in that cage beautiful technicians and it got lost it got lost somewhere around and then every once in a while you'll find somebody that stands out like a sword times it's just beautiful technique and then you can see they really love what they're doing well the young guys coming up today are some of the most technical I've ever seen yeah it's it's an amazing time because what we're seeing now is these kids that are in their 20s that you know the UFC really became popular in 2005 from the ultimate fighter so you're seeing kids that were really young when that was happening and they grew up watching Anderson Silva John Jones V Torbelford they grew up watching these elite fight Conor McGregor and now they are the newest version of that and the thing about martial arts and so different is we really didn't have a chance to see mixed martial arts on television at all until 1993 and so you're seeing this incredible there's no sport other than mixed martial arts where you look back at 1993 and look at it in 2026 and it's totally unrecognizable yeah it's so much different but MMA it is and these kids are so technical it's like we were talking about today the kids of today they can do everything they could submit you they can take you down they can kickbox with you they could do it all they don't have a week spot in their game and those are the elite young fighters of today and we're seeing a lot of those now a lot of them you know the only thing you can't coach his heart right right you can't coach hard I mean you can teach it in a way they can learn it from the pain of not having heart under the shame of not having heart and you decide I'm never going to be that person again like some people say like heart is either in you either have it or you don't but man I don't believe yeah I think it's something that can be grown just like everything else just like technique just like everything condition those wonderful job right but isn't that that's the journey yes the journey is finding that that's the journey you know the good bad nugget shows up that it may teach you something about yourself yeah and and that's the mirroring of your truth what is it like for you two men as pioneers like real true pioneers in the earliest days of martial arts in this country to see where it is today and to know that you started those first steps you know it's for me to start something but in a way of the Bushutel way of the quote of honor and respect and so forth this is what I felt that we were doing building up a way of life where warriors were fight with dignity and honor and respect and along the line when actually my last fight was in 95 94 I got my last fight and then it started to change because the graces came in were in 90 and 95 it started mixed martial arts all the way up to 2000 and then cage fighting was huge man just everywhere but I was I wasn't really I was following some of it but I didn't like some of it I didn't didn't leave a good taste and because when I saw some of these guys were on the ground just pounding this guy on the ground I thought wow was that me in the street once upon a time when I was young and I said so a lot of a lot of it that I didn't want to take their livelihood from them because I didn't want to hurt them to the point where they couldn't make a living if they were married if they were so I always had that in my in my mind in my heart to me it was a sport when somebody hit the ground I said give back up I pinned a lot of people but to hit them on the ground I just said give back up this yeah but it's an important part of fighting that's right yeah that's right but again you know the the fight game again there's a difference between the fight and the art of sport because in the art of sport I mean you do a lot of that on concrete and wood or different ballgame on the mats because there's two different flavors of understanding one protecting in the street and hitting that kind of ground and so forth because a lot of times that's international it was concrete that was in 64 65 how we fought on concrete taking down sweeps but letting it back up there was a court of honor even though we swept and took them to the ground you know and some will reverse punch to the ground and then let them back up but again I just think that sometimes when you're on the ground and there's somebody's livelihood you know you're thrashing and the idea okay I understand what it takes you know to hold that hand up as a winner and what it takes up the rules but I've always that turned around when I see somebody jumping out somebody yeah that's understandable considering in your day that wasn't that was frowned upon yeah so today it's one of the most important parts of the sport yeah but as for me I tell you you know you mentioned how it felt to be a pioneer a true pioneer at the front end I feel privileged to be a part of that to be I mean it was such a robust time it was it was so exciting it was rich there was richness in the air we were thriving we were pushing you know first it was that the trip to Hawaii where where we end up in a semi-comedy thing where you're if you don't knock them out you're not going to well by the way when we got to the airport Dana Goodson was caddy in there he was taking the luggers and he's seen us hey you guys double team me you know what I'm saying but but it was just the atmosphere was rich it was thriving it was it was special it was a special time you know what I mean and and and so I didn't want to cheat the game because I knew for a fact the condition was king being in tip top shape because there's one thing being in shape but being in tip top condition now you almost could radar what someone's going to throw you could catch it you could see it you could fill it you know so so being on the front end even though you know we got limited recognition it wasn't always about the recognition it was about the art it was about it was about life it was about how you treat people and and I'm grateful Joe I'm grateful because still today it's about people it's about service it's about it's about being able to open the door given opportunity and touch a life in the same way you know Benny's talking about you know the emotion and and and and you know what that allows to happen to an individual's life well we're approaching in a multi-pronged approach you see what I'm saying with the the basic needs of opportunity that a lot of people don't get a second look it's just like next next next you take the time to talk to them you know I mean I mean and I want to say this I want to say this you were humility so extremely well it's real I mean I mean I'm just saying Joe you know what I mean that that's what that's what I've since that's what I discern in my spirit and I've been running the race a long time Joe I've been running the race a long time and there's there's an annoying team that breaks the yoke of bondage there's an annoying team and it flows Joe and I if I left here without saying that I would I would be so disappointed in myself but anyways well my my humility is honest I mean I know who I am and I'm just a person like everybody else and the the beautiful thing about martial arts is it it teaches you that you know it teaches you who you really are not not image and what you're portraying what who what is your real spirit like what are you really capable of what can you really accomplish you know and who are you and you have to learn that and that's that's the beautiful thing about hard training and learning and competing because you you have to learn who you are that's the journey yeah it just doesn't come without loss it doesn't come without you know you have to go through some shit yeah the good the good bad luck shows up yeah all of it it's it is a part of who you are and when you guys are seeing the sport the crazy thing about your time was that there was no other motivation other than the journey because there was no money there was no fame I mean you obviously got a lot of notoriety and respect amongst martial artists and amongst people like me but the general public you know if I say you don't know who Blinky Rodriguez and Benny the Jet are they're like what who's that and martial artists know people who watch the movies know people saw black belt magazine they know but you were doing it in a pure sense you know it wasn't just a vehicle to become famous it was because you were trying to figure out who's the baddest man on earth and it was only one way to find out true yeah yeah truth speaks for itself truth truth speaks for itself um so do you have a desire at all to have a gym now do you ever think about like what it was like when you had the jet center you know there's something that I've been drawing in my mind just like when the jet center I was drawing on toilet paper actually in Japan and I got to I had an idea and I started drawing on toilet paper because I didn't have anything else to so I started drawing the jet center and I told Blinky I said Blinky this is our night this is our gym what do you think and he looked at me and he said I dreamt about that right after I told him our toilet paper this is gonna be our next gym this is gonna be the gym of what we're gonna do and he had a dream about it right before that really the kill plaza and chinchaku yeah came downstairs he was already there to eat and he says Blinky one day we're gonna we're not gonna lease a rent no more we're gonna own this gym and he pulls his paper out and says this is then he started pointing it out to kuzi steam room sound up cold plaza and he just started going through it and I'm looking at him and I'm smiling and says hey you think I'm crazy again I said Ben I dreamt that gym last night I dreamt you know wow and the proof is that it was what we said is when we walked into that bowling alley at 14540 friar street yeah right we closed a two and a half day escrow on that property with $4,000 down wow and it was that that we started a month later with the construction and building of it you can feel it in the building man I remember very clearly the first time I walked in the room I was like wow I was like I'm really here it was crazy yeah I didn't get too nervous entering the fight gym but that gym I got nervous because it's like the legendary history of it you guys really did something very very special I was real sad when the roof got damaged and it went under I was like man this is the end of an era but to end to answer your question I've been doodling again oh but I'm talking about a gym there will be a safe haven where people will come to learn their truth learning defense self defense but learning about themselves mirroring their own truth that they will be able to feel safe and to be able to release all that that people or they've been taught this this emotions of anger fear and frustration they get a chance to release it and feel comfortable and feel safe enough to do it that they may go on their journey this is the next gym that I already started doodling I didn't do it on but point of toilet paper but actually paper this time yeah actually paper is going to plan on doing that actually that's the key location that's the key because again this one will be different than anybody's ever saying and it will be a place to come from all over the world to look to me or their truth so do you think you're going to do that in California maybe maybe you know I mean born and raised yeah yeah you know and you can take the kid out of the country but you can't take the country out of the country yeah you know so we're still but by now I already just drawing I really finished drawing well hey California could you something like that yeah really good yeah because I already believe in that I already the nine pieces of equipment there's nobody's ever saying five five machines that nobody's ever seen and it's all about a mentally physically and spiritually endurance you know to take you to the next level that you never thought you can get there so if you do something when you plan on doing it well right now we're because I'm just taking one day at a time because sometimes you go jump ahead of your time I like it happen in one day yeah so I take it one day at a time but I've already started it and we'll see what it goes I really can't answer you okay win but it's on the making that's beautiful that makes me very happy because you've got a lot to teach people both of you do you know and you with your outreach you have a lot to teach people we've actually talked you know by one point you know about us buying a huge building and and having a gym there but also servicing people there right out of there you know the people they come to our office were tattoo removal or moving their lives down up the road a little bit all they comes with the programming of the different services I'm not going to end in date this broadcast with this so but at the same time we've had that conversation you know it is about humanity you know it is about people people need a place yeah people need a place to come and they came from all over the world when they get a chance to hear something like this they will come from all over the world to me or their truth to look at themselves the purpose and reason why they exist why they're here what are they doing this the kind of place in my mind is what I've designed that's why design equipment and all that for this place though well that makes me very happy that you're considering doing that I think that would be amazing and I think you're right I think people will come from all over the world to train there and to learn and I really hope that happens I really do gentlemen thank you very much for being here it's an honor thank you my pleasure thank you it's good to see you again thank you yeah it's absolutely good to see you still bobbling we yes sir yes sir okay thank you all but