JRE MMA Show #172 with Gable Steveson

The Joe Rogan Experience. Showing by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. All right, what's happening? Pleasure to meet you, man. How are you? Great, I'm great. When you got a name like Gable and you're named after Dan Gable and you go on to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling, that is kind of... That's crazy, right? ...that's kind of prophetic. My mom, when I was young, she was trying to find names for me and she liked Kale Sandler Sanderson because Kale was a guy at the time, but she was at a tournament in Iowa with my older brother and she kept hearing Gable, Gable, Gable, and it was Dan Gable at the time. And Dan Gable was a huge figure in the Midwest for wrestling and so she was like, why don't I name you Gable Dan? And the rest was history, which is really crazy because his whole timeline is my timeline, which is fantastic. Except the MMA part. That too. Yeah. Which I wish you would have done. He would have been amazing. I think he would have been amazing. I think he would have been amazing. But it wasn't around. I mean, when he was wrestling. Bare-knuckle maybe? I don't know, do it on the street or something. He could have found a way. It's kind of fucked that there's no real professional outlet for actual wrestling. It is fucked. And wrestling needs a real way to go out there and be something big. And I think they have a really good one now with RAF. If you haven't heard about it, it's American Freestyle. They're trying. And I think they're trying to find a way to do it. They're trying. And I think they're trying really well. And I think it's going to come to a point where how do you make matchups continue? Because wrestling gets to the point where, and in fighting and a lot of the sports, you can get to the point where maybe you draft a guy and fighting, there's a next big thing. There's a next guy out there that you can kind of create. And with wrestling, they're trying to create an atmosphere of how can you create that person. And I like it. And I think it might work. And hopefully it keeps going the way it needs to go. It would be interesting if it would. The problem is MMA is so huge now and people kind of associate wrestling with either MMA or pro wrestling now. Those are the two things that they think of. And I think it's one of those things like soccer, where soccer should be huge in America. It's huge all over the world. Right? It's a very exciting sport. But nope. You know what's crazy? How popular soccer players are. And I feel like in America, we have so many sports that we can't hit that market for soccer. And I think that might be the biggest case why. Because if you go overseas, Ronaldo's paid $500 million. And if he scores a goal, he gets a million dollars a goal or something. So he's out here doing bicycle kicks. But it's like, we have so many professional sports that LeBron James is our biggest athlete. But even then, I think it's at a point where some people see LeBron and you know, it's not like the crazy wow factors. If you saw a soccer player in Italy or Spain, it'll be like, man, it's him. Right. Well, they have less sports though, right? I think so. Italy. I think Italy got like basketball, soccer. Well, they're not really known for basketball though. Soccer's big, boxing. There's a lot of boxers come out of Italy. But other than that. Rome. Yeah. They got a couple of fighters. But other than that, I think we're kind of at a halt with creating that big guy for America. Well, it's just strange to me because it's such a wrestling itself is such an exciting sport. It really is very exciting to watch and everybody understands it. It's not complicated. I think I really think everyone understands it to a certain extent. But they can learn the points and all the other stuff. Have you ever wrestled? Yeah. How did you do that in high school? How did you do that? Just one year. I was doing Taekwondo at the same time. Why just one year? Because I was doing Taekwondo and I couldn't do both of them at the same time. And I was pretty good at Taekwondo. You know what's crazy? I think since you've done Taekwondo, maybe I should try. You are such an athlete, you'd probably awesome at it. I might be able to pull it off. I don't know if I can get to your level. Well, you would figure it out, man. You'd figure it out. Are you flexible? It depends how and what are we doing? Well, you would get flexible. The thing is, you'd figure out how to get flexible. The flexibility thing drives me nuts. I've tried to show stuff to guys before MMA fighters. And they're like, I'm not flexible. I'm like, what does that mean? What does that mean? This is not like you're not tall. You can get flexible. You just stretch. We can rewind now and I can say I am flexible. I am flexible. Well, you certainly could get flexible. You can. Anyone can get flexible. But it's not, do you want to get flexible? That's a good question. Do you want to do something? This is a good question. It's a lot of work to get flexible. And would it compromise anything? Some people say it compromises some stability. To have completely over flexible hips and flexible joints that it could possibly compromise some stability. But I mean, yo, oh, Romero is pretty fucking flexible. And he's explosive. Crazy explosive. Super explosive. Bro, how about that match with Pat Downey? He went out there and made Pat Downey look like a beginner wrestler. And it's crazy because Pat Downey is really good. Really good. Yo, he's 48. I know. 48 shooting blast doubles. Like he's back in 04 Olympics. It doesn't make any sense. He's a freak. He's a real freak, man. And I mean, he's 48 allegedly. We don't even really know how old he is because he's from Cuba. How old do you think he is for real? Oh, I don't know, man. 35 at this point. I mean, he's obviously at least 48. But it's just crazy. But you know what the best part about it is? When guys get older and they kind of get a little bigger, they don't look good in a singlet. And this is crazy to say, but Yoel looks really solid in that singlet. Oh, bro, he looks solid everywhere, man. He's still got a six pack. He still does. And, you know, now he's doing dirty boxing and he's still fighting MMA. He's just, he's a freak. I mean, and we really didn't even get him in MMA until he was past his athletic prime. Yes. So you really started fighting in the UFC. How old was he when he first fought in the UFC? I want to say he's like 35. I don't know that, but it seemed really late because when he was going through Olympics, he was sound in every position. And like you said, I mean, in a couple of interviews back, if he would have started that early, just imagine. Oh my God, just imagine. But that's the thing that you have too is athleticism. And the thing about MMA is the real freak athletes, they go to football, they go to basketball, they go where all the money is, and they go where all the traditional sports avenues are. And it's just not, there's not a lot of freak athletes that wind up making their way to MMA. And when they do, they really shine. You know, and when I first started seeing you competing, you know, first obviously in wrestling, and you know, if you can win a gold medal in the Olympics in wrestling, I mean, you have to have everything. You have to have everything. You have to be a freak athlete. You have to be unbelievably dedicated, disciplined. Nobody gets there easy. No. You have to be like, you know, like, oh, he's just gifted. It doesn't exist. You got to have everything. There's got to be a lot of tools. Yeah. A lot of tools. A lot of tools and a lot of fortitude. The thing about wrestling that I've always said is like, not only is it the best base for MMA, because if a guy can dictate where the fight takes place, that is the most important aspect of fighting, and you can learn everything else. But it's also, it's like the mental toughness that wrestlers have, the ability to grind out those practices, the conditioning that's involved in wrestling. It's above and beyond, I think, all other sports. Yeah. I think it's the next level thing. And you see in UFC right now, the guys that are dominating and winning are kind of putting that wrestling base first, but making it MMA wrestling. You know, I feel like when a lot of guys, a lot of D1 wrestlers come to MMA, they kind of don't make the switch of how to take the right shot and how to finish the right shot and how to use your feet, to trip their feet out on the cage. And if you get stuck with the, stuck in agility, how do you move from that spot? And I think you see the guys that are doing it best, the Islam, the Hamzats are really going out there and attacking and making sure that people can understand that, hey, you got to fear this. And then next, I'm going to come with the hands. And so I think that's the biggest thing that we're working on now is that I've wrestled my whole life and I've done great things and won the Olympics and multiple national championships. But I think the main thing is going out there and understanding that you are that bad dude, but when you show them hands, now you have to have to respect both. And I think that's where a lot of this is going to come into play when I finally get to that point of reaching that competition. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all-in-one platform for building a website that actually looks legit and helps you stand out online. And I should know, my site, joerogan.com, is powered by Squarespace. They make it easy to lock down the right domain for your business or project and they've got built-in privacy and security tools to keep everything protected. Head to squarespace.com slash rogan to try it out for free. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code ROGAN to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. This episode is brought to you by Intuit TurboTax. April 15th is coming fast. There's been so many tax law changes this year, which means you're going to need an expert who has your back. You're in luck. TurboTax now has in-person locations nationwide. Walk into their tech-enabled stores and meet face-to-face with a TurboTax full-service expert who will get your best outcome. Your expert works to get you every doll you deserve while updating you as you go about your day. Head to TurboTax.com to find a store near you. Now, how long have you been striking for? I've been going into a little... So, I'm from Minnesota. I'm actually from Portage, Indiana. I moved to Appa Valley, Minnesota when I was 11 years old. And in college, I met a guy named Billy Simon. He's from Prior Lake. He fought nothing too big just on the regional scene in Minnesota. He has a house on Prior Lake, and he has a place in his basement that is built out for MMA and stuff like that. When I was maybe 21 years old, I started hitting the pads. And mind you, Steph is aboard. Don't really know what I'm doing. But he's kind of started and guided me along the way. And how old are you now? I'm 25. So, just four years? Just four years, but I think really, really striking? Seven months. That's so crazy. That's so crazy. Really time-consuming. Hey, this is what I want to do. I'm not going to wrestle. I'm doing MMA. I would say seven months. But when you watched your dirty boxing match, I would have never believed that. Except I know what an athlete you are. It's just so crazy how someone who really knows how to use their body can learn other things. I think the main thing also is I'm all ears. You can't go out there and think that you can do something without putting that time and effort in. Like we talked about with the Olympics or like you talked about. But I think the main thing is if I can go out there and be all ears and soak up game from the people that are trying to show me the way, I think I can do a lot of great things. And that's all I do. I'm all ears. I want to show up twice a day. That's the best thing that I can. If I got to show up three times a day and I feel like it, I'm going to go do it. It's also to be an elite athlete like yourself. You have to be coachable. You have to really... The guys who already know things and I'm going to do it my way, they never get elite. It doesn't work. No. And I think you got to put that guard down. You got to trust somebody. And if you don't trust anybody and, man, I think I can do it alone. I think I can kind of wing it. I think I can maybe not practice today. You got to trust somebody and you got to put your heart into somebody. And I feel like I have a good group of people around me to kind of put that heart into. And they're not even... They're kind of leading me in the right direction and, man, I'm grateful. So you were doing a bunch of different things, right? So you become an elite wrestler and then for a while you were thinking about playing football. So you played football for a short amount of time. Buffalo Bills, yeah. Yeah. How long did you play for? I never played football in my life. You never played? No, that was the first time. Hey, that was the first time I played football, I promise. That's crazy. First time you played football was professional. It was an NFL. My mom was always scared. Wow. The high school coach of the Apple Valley High School in Minnesota were like, hey, can play football. They were trying to call my mom and dad. And I'm like, you're not going to convince her she is scared to death of football. But the whole time I'm wrestling. So where do we break this gap at? Right, right. And I just get done with WWE and I go out there and I'm chilling. I get a call saying, hey, you want to try out for the Bills? And I tell Shawn McDermott and Brandon Bean, I said, hey, don't expect much, but I could put on shoes, but I've never had football cleats on. I never had pads on. I don't even know how to put the tights on anything. And I went out there and I sprinted my ass off though in that trial. I was sprinting down and back and forth. I said, hey, if I don't know any technique for D-Line, you're going to see effort. And McDermott saw effort and that's all he needed to see and he gave me a chance. What was that like? Like jumping into a completely new sport? It was hard because it's not just football. How old were you when you did that? I just turned 24. Wow. I just turned 24. I know you see that stance. That doesn't be good at stance. That doesn't be good at stance. But I came out there, no gloves, just winging it. And I told them, just give me a good chance, but football is not just football. It's the playbook. And the playbook is crazy because I went from, hey, go out there and wrestle someone one-on-one and see if the guard is light on his feet or see if he's leaning forward, see if the center is going to a silent count maybe, or see if the guard taps the center to snap the ball. There's a lot of different things that you got to know. And I'm out there with this big-ass helmet on. I'm never put a helmet on, Joe. So I'm out there with this big-ass helmet on. My head's like down and I can't look up. And I don't know what I'm doing. But I knew if I gave effort that someone would give me a chance. And I went out there, in my first game, I feel like I think I had a tackle, a QB rush, and I was kind of unheard of at the time because I've never played ball before. But it was crazy, once-in-lifetime experience, most definitely. And when you got cut, did you think about trying somewhere else? Did you think about doing it more? Yeah, once I got cut from Buffalo, it was the last one to get cut from the room. I remember going in to see Bean and McDermott, and they were going to do practice squad. But I knew they were going to do practice squad. So I was like, yo, just send me home. I figured I'll try again. So my plan was to go back to college in Russell already. But I sat around for maybe a month. Baltimore Ravens called me, and Baltimore was like, hey, you want to come to a tryout? I said, okay. You know, I never played football before. Just let you know. Like, if it's a little shaky, I went out there and I dominated the tryout. And I had like 10 minutes of work. But it was a great 10 minutes. And they're like, okay, we're going to take your physicals. You're going to be here and stay. The injury report comes back, and the injury report says they need to, what's the kind of, they need a DN and a linebacker. So you've got to compensate for the spot because you need someone to play next week. And I probably needed like six weeks on practice squad to play. And so I get sent home. They said, give me a week. We'll bring you back. A week comes, they'll bring me back. And so I'm like, okay, I see the writing on the wall. Let me move on. I sit for a little bit in the Napa's coach call. They just got ran over by a team. They said, we need a run stopper. So I go out there, do the tryout. I think it went well. They said we're not taking anybody today. And then from there, I was like, uh, you know, maybe, maybe this is not it. And so I went back to Russell. And did you ever think about MMA at that time? Was it in the back of your head? MMA was in the back of my head since the Olympics. But I wanted to make sure that if I was going to go to MMA, that let me try things first before going all in on something that I need to go all in on. And I did my tryouts. I did my things. And now I want to go in all in on something that, that is finally here. And when your mom was scared of you doing wrestling, how did she feel about you doing MMA? Oh, you know, she's shitting off. Oh my God. She can't even watch. She didn't even watch me wrestle. And so now I'm like, mom, I got a dude about to punch me in the face. Maybe if he can get to me. Are you sure you want to come and watch? And she's like, yeah, I'll come watch. And she comes out, has a good time and has her drinks. And when I step out, I'm like, where were you? Oh, it's in the back. So you didn't even see me fight? Why are you even, why are you even come then? So she out of the three fights I've had, she's sat in the back and she'll be like, the John will go and get her and be like, Gable's done. And she's like, oh, what happened? And John will be like, good, it's all. So did she get nervous? Oh my God. She's sweating and she's nervous. But I'm just like, I kind of, I'll give it a look of like, if this is one of them ones, I'm going to tell you. But I haven't given those looks yet. So, so no. So when you make this, so you decide football's not going to happen, WWE's not going to happen. You did like one televised match with WWE, right? I did, yes. Yeah, what was that like? Honestly, I had a great, from me being real and honest, I had a great experience. I have no, nothing wrong with anybody there. TKO was great, Triple H, Paul Levec was great, Stephanie Vince, everybody was great. I just had a competitive drive that I needed to get out. And so, you know, when you have that gap is there, you can't do both. Right. And I was trying to bridge both and I wasn't giving my 100% to the business. And if I'm not going to give 100% to the business, then you might as well X me out because it's already over with. So, I just, that's how, that's practically how it happened. Yeah, no slight on pro wrestling, but it's just like, if you really want to compete, compete. You got to get it all out. Yeah. And so I would love to go back in the future. I would love to do a sport and go out there and dominate and then, hey. Maybe after the UFC Heavyweight Champ. For sure. Maybe after a couple of times. And so I would love to go in. If it meant well, and now I would do it again most definitely because I have no hard feelings for them. And that's how it goes. So, when you make the decision that you're going to go into MMA, what is that like? Like, what are the steps that you take? I got doing NCAA's and I said, I flew down to Miami. I met with John and a couple other people and I said, hey, I want to fight. You know, John had me in his camp. So we're talking about John Jones. And did you know John before this? I knew John because I knew John from Instagram. John like wrestling. Oh, okay. So I knew John from IG. He sent me a DM. He sent me his number. And if you know John, he don't answer the phone worth anything. And it's crazy. But he sent me his number. He said, call me. So I called him and this was before he got hurt for the first debate fight. He was like, I want you to come practice with us. You know, I want a wrestling partner. I left him with played football. The next year comes, no, I'm sorry. I was, I don't even know where I was at at the time, but skip. We go in. He's like, I want you to come back for the second camp. He's going through it. Me and John hit it off like that. Wow. We hit it off immediately. So when you guys started training together in camp, is that when it really sunk in your head when you're like, this is what I want to do? Yeah. He really, he really, I needed somebody to kind of engrave it in me. With the wrestling, I had my father. I had the University of Minnesota. I had a lot of good people around me. They say, Hey, this is how we're going to do it. This is where you need to go. And this is how it's going to happen. And when I saw John, I saw that drive of like, damn, you know, this guy's winning and people get close, but they can't get past him. And why is that? So I really sat back and like watched his mental and like how he went about a lot of things, how he talked to people, how he greeted people, how he walked, how he punched, maybe how he looked when he was in the pocket, when he needed to get out, when he rested his hands. And I saw everything. And I was like, wow, like, man, this guy's a superstar, super, super star. And we all know that. And, and, and people know that for a long time now, but I really saw him and I was like, damn, I want to be that. And that's what kind of, that's what flipped my switch right there. What an amazing opportunity. You know, you haven't done any MMA and you get to go in there and train with the goat. It's crazy. This one, man, you know, it's hard to explain. I tell people, people ask me all the time, like, what was it like seeing John for the first time? Cause I'm 25. So when John was like super peak, I was like 12, 13 years old and I'm looking at this guy beat Gus of San Reyes and Tiago Santos and stuff like that. So it's different. You see a different side of people. And when I saw John, I was like, wow, like I've seen you for my whole life and I get to see you in person. Like how cool is that? Okay. If your New Year's resolution was change everything and be a new person, good luck. So instead of pretending you're going to meal prep kale forever or do morning cold plunges. Here's one actually realistic thing. A G one. A G one is a daily health drink that supports your energy, gut health, immune health and helps fill common nutrient gaps. Just one scoop in cold water each morning and you're off. It's got over 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics and whole food ingredients in there. So instead of guessing whether you need a probiotic or a prebiotic or sorting through 10 different bottles of pills and powders, you can just do one scoop and get on with your day. It's great because it feels like the grown up move, but for once it's actually really easy. It takes like 30 seconds and you'll notice the steadiness that sets you up for the day. Not wired, not crashing, just functional human being energy. I partnered with a G one for years and if you want to give it a try, head to drink AG one.com slash Joe Rogan and for a limited time you'll get a free AG one duffel bag and free AG one welcome kit with your first AG one subscription order. Only while supplies last, that's drink AG one.com slash Joe Rogan or visit the link in the description to get started. And for people that don't even know, the close fights that John had, they were really only close because John wasn't training. It's really all it is. 100%. John was partying and he was what I would call playing with his food. He didn't, like the Gustafson fight is a perfect example. Didn't train at all for the Gustafson fight. I mean, I talked to Greg Jackson and he was like, I swear to God, he barely showed up. I'm like, that is so crazy. And then he gutted it out in the last rounds. That's what's crazy. It's a close decision, but he wins the fight by gutting it out in the final rounds when he's done relatively no strength and conditioning. Nothing. It's so crazy. It's fantastic to see. Then really gets motivated for the second fight with Gustafson and just smokes him. Blows him out. Which is what you expect. When John is in prime form, he's the greatest of all time. Most definitely. For you to be able to be a young guy who's thinking about MMA and train with the greatest of all time, now two division world champion. It's crazy. Amazing opportunity. And it's amazing because you don't see the guy that's, you see the best of the best right away. We're back. So anyway, where were we? John Jones. Yeah. So you're saying, so you were talking about what it's like to first start training with them. So you had no MMA training really before that at all. You had just been doing a little bit of striking with this guy. Joe, I kid you not. I didn't even know really how to defend punches. That's crazy. I didn't know how to defend punches. And you probably saw a video of him throwing the knee at me because I'm so hard headed. I'm like, let me shoot on John. But whole time I forgot. He's a national championship wrestler. Right. So I didn't know how to defend a punch. I didn't know how to defend a kick. I didn't know how to do anything. But I went in there and I said, hey, if you need somebody, it's got to be me. And that's how hungry I was. And I feel like that's how kids should be nowadays about getting that opportunity. Man, just be hungry because someone's going to respect you. Yeah. Sure. But I mean, not a whole lot of people get that opportunity. That's a crazy opportunity. It's also like John is an elite wrestler as well. And so like learning how to incorporate elite wrestling into all the other aspects of MMA and to be able to go right into camp with John is just, this is amazing. Incredible opportunity. Super incredible. I'm grateful for it every day. And especially he's still here in my corner to this day. We talked this morning. He's still giving me all the pointers, all the advice, even when we're not even fighting. He's telling me how I should say things, what I should say, how I need to go about life, how I need to go about business and meeting people and greeting people. So it's a true opportunity. That's awesome. That's really awesome. So when you were in camp with him, you're going through the camp. Were you planning on MMA then? Or like, how does it work? Like what were you thinking? Were you just like the moment you started training with him? Is that when it really started the fire in you? Yes. I had a little bit of burn for it. But in the back of your mind. Yes. But a little burn, you got to have the heart. You got to have the heart. So what kind of was the stamp on it was I went to Madison Square Garden with him. And John was just doing John things, just being a superstar. Everybody knew who he was. And I was like, man, I got an Olympic gold medal. Maybe I should be getting something too. Like John showed me the way a little bit. So I'm trying to have him show me the way. He's bringing me to every place, meeting every person, showing me the opportunities that he has. And he was like, you can have this too. And that was kind of the cherry on the top. But we can put another cherry on the top and do a double one when he won the fight. And then I'm holding the belt with him. And I see this guy face to face. And you know, he's just the most popular man on earth for that day. And it's kind of like, wow, like you don't get, you don't really get to see the backstage moments. You get to see the guy go out there on TV and fight. But I got to see the backstage of everyone taking the pictures with him, the superstars. You know, I'm walking out the next game and I see Queen Latifah. And I'm like, damn, that's Queen Latifah. And I'm taking a selfie with Queen Latifah. I'm like, yo, can I take, can I send this to my mom? And she's like, yeah, go ahead. And I see Fat Joe talking to him and everybody. And I'm like, wow, like this is what it is to be like a real fighting star. Like, and fighting is one on one. And people want to watch someone fight. But I think in other sports, like we talked about earlier, there's a full team with helmets on, with jerseys on. But in fighting, people want to meet that badass dude. And they want to meet the champ. And that's what I want to be. Yeah. Um, so what is, what is training with John like? Like what is the training camp like? Like when, you know, you obviously haven't gone into training camp with any other elite fighters, but one of the more interesting that separates John from everybody else is like John doesn't take no short notice fights. John gained plans for everybody. He studies tendencies. He's his fight IQ. I mean, it's obviously he has, obviously he has everything. He obviously has all the skills, obviously has all the drive and everything else. But the fight IQ is the big one. That's the big one. Because if you don't have a good driver, who gives a fuck how fast your car is. It's really the mind behind it that puts it all together. He's, um, he's sitting in a Ferrari with Ferrari, um, gas. A lot of people sit in a Ferrari with 87 gas and a car don't work. Um, so when I, when I got to see those tendencies of him watching people and he does it to me now where he'll send me videos on Instagram of, of the top UFC guys, but go watch how he steps, you know, watch when he throws a punch, how he comes back and he doesn't reset this certain way. And he's kind of already installing, installing those tendencies in me. And so now when I was wrestling, I never used to watch people wrestle. Like I went out there on a limb and I was just beating guys, even in Olympics. I never watched anyone wrestle. I never watched their film. Really? Never. I told coaches, don't show me one video because I don't want to focus on that one thing he did. And that was me being hard headed. Like if a guy had a great double leg and I'm like, damn, how do I stop this double leg? And I'm worried while stopping a double leg instead of doing my offense. And so I never watched anybody. I went to the Olympics and I said, show me, show me the guys I'm wrestling. And I said, let's do it. Yeah, we guys do it. Come on. I said, let's do it. Come on. Bang in their head against wall. Listen to this. He did that to me. That's crazy. I said, let's do it. I said, as me or you as do or die. And this tournament, I'm not dying. Like you can't beat me in any way possible. And that's when I was at my best when I had that mindset. And he's kind of putting that back into me and I feel really good about it. That's amazing. It's amazing. So when he's sending you videos, like do you have like a, do you save all this shit? Do you have like a folder where you have all these different fighters and different moves? Because you're basically brand new at something. But so like this, let me just tell you what I said. You had a fight, an MMA fight where you hit that dude with a left hook and then took him down while he's out cold. I sent Dana White a text message. I said, everyone's fucked. I did. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you. Because I was like, that kind of speed is crazy. Like that kind of speed and incorporated with elite wrestling is crazy. I'm like, what do you, the heavyweight division is so shallow right now. You got Tom Aspinall, Cyril Gahn, John Jones, if he chooses to fight again. If France is, if some, by some miracle, they can work something out and bring him back to the UFC. Other than that, there's no one compelling for like a championship caliber fighter. There's basically four or five guys on earth that are in this like championship caliber like class and you're already there, which is nuts. You haven't even fought in the UFC yet. When I watched you move and I watched you fight, I was like, okay, how do you stop that? Like, who is, who's got the skills to be able to stop that? And in my mind, there's like only a few guys where it's going to be a problem. It is like the Francis and Ghanos, the, you know, the Cyril Gahn's and the Tom Aspinall's. That's it. There's like a few guys and everybody else on the way up. It's the only problem is going to be you getting fights. Like that kind of speed is just bananas for a 250 pound man. You know, and when you have that and you're 25 years old, it's like, this is a, it is a very rare thing that you see in MMA. And it's kind of crazy because the heavyweight division is of course the most prestigious division in the world. The heavyweight champion of the UFC is the baddest motherfucker on the planet. And you know, right now it's, it's kind of a toss up, right? Because Cyril Gahn had this fight with Aspinall, John is kind of semi-retired or whatever he decides to do. It's, you know, it's kind of up in the air. He'll probably have one more fight, right? I want him to. I think he's got the juice in him. The White House. Yeah, he would love the White House. He's told me many times he wants, he wants to be main event on the White House and he wants me to be a couple of slots behind him and kind of have us both win. And that's, that's his last leg right there. I would love, I would love for him to do one more. If he really wanted to in his heart, he should, but if he doesn't, John's not going to do it. They should do Alex Pereira in him with the White House. I told people, I said Alex Pereira would be a great matchup for Tom. A heavyweight version of the BMF belt. You know what I'm saying? It'll be perfect. There's, there's nothing else to it besides two guys going out there. It's Alex Pereira, the baddest light, light heavyweight. And that's John Jones, baddest heavyweight right now. Yeah. And regardless if someone else has the belt, John Jones is still the baddest heavyweight out there. It doesn't, the belt doesn't mean jack shit when it's John Jones. It doesn't mean jack shit. It doesn't. It's, you know, there's so many fighters could do that. They could just step away from the belts, a band of the belts, and then come back and all. It's really just about the fighter. Everybody knows who John is. Everybody knows what John does. It's like people will pay to, you don't need a belt. A belt doesn't mean anything. No, this is a crazy story. I, I came, I had a French Bulldog that passed away. So I like to go out there and I adopt French Bulldogs and I kind of give them a better home and I either ship them to a new home or I keep them. And so at the time I had a baby French Bulldog and he passed away. And I told John, I was like, yo, my dog died. I got to go home. He let me go home. I came back and I came back on a Tuesday. I didn't see John till Thursday. And mind you, this is a week before he's going to go out there for steep. He's sick, like super sick. And I watched this guy do five rounds on a Thursday and they sent, they shark baited him, five new people and he's dead tired. And this is when I knew he was unstoppable. He went out there and nobody could touch him. And I'm telling you, high class PFL fighters, XUFC fighters, X Glory kickboxers were going in there after him and he was just mopping them. And I was like, damn, this dude is beyond next level. And that was like, you know, you got to see greatness and I see it at the fight, but you also got to see it when, how does this guy be great before the fight? And I saw that and I was like, God damn. I said, excuse me, John, you think I can go in there with you? And he was like, no. And I was like, why do you think so? He was like, you don't know how to defend. And it was kind of a funny joke because a partner got hurt. And I was like, I raised my hand. I told Greg Jackson. I said, Greg, let me in there. And Greg was like, not today, Gable. And this was when I didn't know how to defend or anything. He was like, hey, not today. And I was like, man, why? You know, I can go in there and take him down. And he was like, this is different. And when I saw that, that was like the epitome of like super greatness in my eyes because I like hard workers. I like guys that beat on guys. I don't like guys that go out there and do the little extras that they to look cool. I mean, just go out there and dominate and let's go home. And I saw that and I was like, yeah, that's over with for Steve Pay. It's going to be a long night. Well, unfortunately, they met when Steve Pay had already had a lot of miles on the clock. A lot of miles. And John was still an elite. It's crazy that John essentially developed a spinning back kick, a real spinning back kick when he's 36 years old. Crazy. It's so nuts because, I mean, he tried it earlier in his career, but it was like he would spin instead of go straight. You know what I mean? But when he hit Steve Pay, it was perfect. It was that picture. We showed a video of it and then freeze froze the heel. It was halfway into his rib cage. It was crazy. I wouldn't have got to be there. Well, very few people would. Very few human beings can talk. That kick is so powerful. And when it comes from a big guy like John with those long ass legs and all that leverage with perfect technique and it goes right into the sweet spot like that, like good luck. But it's such a brilliant thinking on his side because he's like, okay, I have to fight heavyweights and I need something that can take them out with one shot. Like, what is that? Well, it's the most powerful kick, which is the spinning back kick. And so he trains it constantly. Constantly. You know, which is just very few people have the mindset to be able to do it. Very few guys develop new skills late in life, you know, late in their career. They start incorporating new skills like that. I think that's a thing where he's always our ears too. And that's kind of what he's putting into me also. I watched him do the spinning back kick the night before at midnight when we were practicing in the hotel lobby. So he was just planning on that? He was planning on it. He told me he wanted to take steep A down and then all of a sudden he does a spinning back kick and I was like, you slap him on the fucking. Did he bring in a Taekwondo coach? How did he develop that technique so quickly? He's got a, there's a kickboxing Taekwondo coach named Alex. He's got a long, he's got a long ass name because I think he married a Thai lady. So I think he changed his last name. Oh, okay. But he's from New Mexico. He works out at Jackson. He's got a lot of tattoos on him. And nobody, if you saw him, you would never know. But the Duke and kick hard as shit. And it's crazy. He worked with John on that. Yes. Yeah. The only other guy that I would say developed a crazy new technique late in his career was Vitor. When Vitor was like 35 or 36, he developed a wheel kick. It was crazy out of nowhere. When he fought Luke Rockhold, all of a sudden he's throwing wheel kicks. Like Vitor never, crazy. Crazy. Vitor never threw wheel kicks. Crazy. But I think it's honestly got to be cool from, because you sit right next to the cage. So it's got to be cool to like see people grow up through their career and then all of a sudden at the end you see like a guy does a spinning wheel kick or a guy does a spinning back kick and you're like, damn, where'd that come from? And I feel like does it give you a hide to kind of see like a person grow through a new stage of like seeing a new move from them? I just love excellence. That's what I love. I love when someone shines, when they just figure a way to eclipse everyone else. And they figure a way to, when they just like the pure yarned Marabh Dwabashwili fight. When you see a guy like pure yarn who loses the first fight to Marabh and comes back and dominates in the second fight. Like I love that shit. I love it. I love watching someone put in an insane amount of work and dedication and then shining on fight night. I love it. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. March is here and Uber Eats is delivering deals all month long. Each game day score big savings on all the delicious food you need to turn your couch into center court and fuel your fandom. Whether you're ordering in or hosting the whole crew, Uber Eats is serving up deals on wings, burgers, pizza from your favorite restaurant plus game day snacks from top stores. Bracket busted, still holding strong, Cinderella's story or Top Seed, however the madness unfolds, these deals keep it going all month long. Visit the game day hub on Uber Eats for all the latest deals and start saving today. This episode is brought to you by Momentus. 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If you want to try it for yourself, shop Momentus Creatine at livemomentus.com slash Rogan and use the code Rogan for up to 35% off your first order. It's cool too because you see Peter Yan as the new blueprint for guys that are coaching kids to do moves. He went out there and threw a fake hook and liver kicked Marabh and then he goes out there and hits a Soto Garri and trips guys. I mean, what other film tape blueprint can you use from someone else? He's done everything in all of his fights. His flow state is amazing. His flow state is incredible and he's so good at mixing up trips along with inside fighting. His stand up is so good. He's so hard to hit clean too. I think the only guy who really hit him clean was Sugar Sean. Sean hit him with a knee, like a really good knee, timed it perfectly in their fight and dropped him. But other than that, he very rarely gets hit. And when you do hit him, you're hitting him and he's kind of rolling with it. He keeps that super high guard. He does the high. Yeah, he keeps his hands straight in front of you. He's something special, man. And that dude's still only 32 years old. He's only 32? Yeah. No, it's crazy. What do you think if he doesn't lose him? 32 or 34. How old is Piotr Ion? Is he 32 or 34? But we've seen him in, I think he's 32. 32? Yeah. I mean, we've seen him in the UFC since he was in his 20s. If he doesn't lose to Marabh that first time, where do you think his path goes? It's a good question. Because he did lose to other guys as well. He lost to Sean and he lost to, the Aljamain fight was fucked. The first fight was fucked. But the second fight, Aljamain dominated him. But I think he probably overestimated himself in the second Aljamain fight. It doesn't seem like he was just prepared. And the thing about Aljamain is like his wrestling is very good and his back control is the fucking best in the business. When Aljamain gets your back, you're in deep shit. He's so good at back control. He's so good at rear naked chokes. And you know, Aljamain just really struggled to make that 135. It's gotta be hard. But if he got it right and he got it right in that second fight, you know, and he just did what he does at his best. It was one of his finest performances. So he lost that fight. But it didn't mean that he was done. It just mean like he realized like, okay, he had to have a camp like he had for Marabh in order to beat Aljamain. And I just don't think everybody's willing to go through that kind of camp every fight. Marabh went through four? Yeah, I think so. Four in a year. Yeah. For blueprint, how do you like that? Because I know guys kind of take the two fight up, the two fight at your approach, maybe three if you're doing well. I think that's more, more sustainable. Alex Pereira did the same thing. Like he's fought a lot of fights and he's fought fight short notice. You got to admire that mindset of a guy was like, I don't give a fuck. Let's fight, you know. But Alex has fought with broken toes. He's done everything. He fought with a norovirus and, you know, he had a fucked up hand the first time he fought Uncle Iov. And then, you know, the same thing, like he comes in for the second fight with Uncle Iov fully healthy and just smokes him in the first round. If you, what do you think about it? If you gave Alex Pereira like a solid, great wrestler, like an Islam of like heavyweight, heavyweight, how do you think that he does? It'll be a problem. Yeah. I mean, I think less of a problem certainly now than early in his career. Like if you see his first fight in the UFC with Michaelitis, he gets taken down the first round. That's not going to happen now. Even if it does, he gets up. You know, it's different. But it gets up against who? Does he get up against a guy like you? You know, it's a different, there's different levels, right? You really saw that with Jack De La Madalena in Islam, right? There's levels. And when you got a guy that's at Islam's level, that's just a super elite grappler. Unless you've faced that before, you don't know what to prepare yourself for. I tell people all the time. That's the thing with Peoriaon. He had been in there with Marab for the first fight. And so he knew what to expect. And he's seen all those crazy fights. He saw the fight with Sanhagen. He saw the fight where this was the rematch with Sugar Sean, where he submitted them. He's like, okay, this guy's a fucking monster. He's a monster now. You got to prepare for a monster. And he was ready. But unless you've experienced that before, and there's really no one like that in the Light Heavyweight Division, unfortunately. There's not some like super elite grappler in the Light Heavyweight Division. And I think that's one of the reasons why Hamzat is thinking about going up the Light Heavyweight. And I think he should. I'm a big fan of Hamzat. I love his style. I love his intensity. His intensity is the best thing ever. Oh, he's an animal. It's the best thing ever to watch. Because when I was wrestling, I liked to go out there and just put the hammer down to dominate. And he's got it. He's got that touch. Oh, yeah. He's an animal. And that animal part of him almost killed him because he refused to stop training when he had COVID. When he had COVID, he was just showing up at the gym and putting in two and a half hour sessions and vomiting blood. It's a nut. That's crazy. Yeah, they said the real problem with Hamzat was that you couldn't get him out of the gym and he was always overtrained. So then he brings in Sam Calavita. And Sam Calavita monitoring his recovery. So he's monitoring his heart rate. He's monitoring his recovery. And he's working on him with his strength and conditioning and they're doing it scientifically. And then you see in the Dracus Duplisifide, I mean, he just didn't gas at all. That was the same thing as Islam and Medellina. Very simple. They try to do the, you know, maybe what if, what if he can outbox him? But it's hard when you got to worry about so many things. And I think Islam did a great job of showing the leg kicks, making Jack switch. Oh, yeah. Jack didn't really push forward. And Islam, when he did, shot the double or he shot an outside single. And that's hard. It's hard when you got to think about so many things. Yeah. Well, you know, Khabib is without doubt one of the all-time greats, one of the greatest to ever do it. But the difference between Khabib and Islam is Islam is elite standup wise. Like Khabib was a very good standup, but Islam knocked out Volkanovsky with a head kick. You know, that's not in Khabib's repertoire. Islam is on another level. It's like one more level above. He could knock you out standing. He could knock you out on the ground. He could submit you. He could take you down. He's fucking huge for the weight class, especially 155. It's like there's so many aspects. And you're always thinking about that grappling when you're striking. So when you say like, oh, you know, who's better striker, Islam or Jack De La Maddalena? Well, it depends. Because if you got to worry about that takedown, your striking is not going to be the same. It's just not going to be the same. Because everything he does, you're always looking for that takedown. And that factor, it leads to guys getting hit all the time. Yeah. Like if you go back and watch old fights like Kevin Randleman versus Crocop, Kevin Randleman knocked out Crocop because Crocop was worried about the takedown. He was worried about the takedown. All of a sudden, Randleman comes with a big left hook. And Kevin Randleman was a NCAA champ wearer. Ohio State, I believe. Was it Ohio State? I believe he was Ohio. 184 or 197? I don't know. Or was he heavyweight? I don't know. Oh, yeah. Three time, big 10 wrestling champ at Ohio State. What weight? He never won the tournament? Heavyweight. Wow. Who do you lose to in the tournament? I'll look that up for a quick quick. But that was the thing about Randleman is like the speed and the takedown was always this big threat. And so because of that, you're thinking about one thing and boom, you get hit with a big shot. I've seen Kevin Randleman wear shoes in his matches. What's the difference? What's the difference of wearing? I've seen a guy wear shoes now. I was on Instagram and I saw maybe a kickboxing match or something like that. Why can they wear shoes now? Is there a rule that you can't? It's not now. All those things are old. Those are old? Yeah, those are all old. Pride, you still allow you to wear shoes. Early UFC used to be able to wear shoes. I saw that. I remember the first UFC video I seen was that big Hughes dude and that little dude that knocked him out. Was he the big black dude? Which guy? It was like an old video. Super old. That's not descriptive enough. Okay, I'm sorry. Give me a second. Big Hughes. What about the black dude? Bobby Sapp maybe? No, that wasn't UFC. Who was the big video? And then the white dude came out there and he was just whooping them and the big dude tried to grab them. I might be tripping, but I saw the video. Well, I don't think you're tripping. There has been so many fights. It's so hard to figure out what fight you're talking about. But there's an advantage to wrestling shoes for sure, without a doubt. The grip on the ground. I mean, how many times have you seen guys? Yeah, this one. Oh, Keith Hackney. Yeah. And Keith Hackney had a very strange style. It was like, I think he was a Kempo guy. And he hit him with a bitch slap. You know what I'm saying? You ever see how he knocked him down? Look at the difference in the size. Emanuel Yarborough, who was a sumo wrestler. But Emanuel was probably like, look at that. See, he overhand bitch slapped him. This is crazy. He basically stepped in and palm-striked him to the head. You think he looks... If he's still alive, you think he looks back at this video and be like, damn, I got slapped? Probably. Damn. I mean, Emanuel fought a bunch of different things. He fought... I think he fought in pride as well. If I'm... Oh. Oh, they forgot to lock the cage. He flew out the cage. Look at thin, big John McCarthy. He lost to Mark Rylan. Mark Rylan of Iowa. Okay. There you go. That's random what we're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, the old days were wild, man. It's wild. It's wild to go back and watch those fights. It's like... Since you've been kind of like a huge figure your whole life, have you gone back and watched Fear Factor? I watched it because my kids were watching it. My kids were watching Fear Factor because there was like a whole Fear Factor channel. Well, this was a true TV or one of those... True TV. Or Spike TV, maybe. One of those things. They had Fear Factor on all day long and my kids were watching it. I thought it was hilarious. Man, I was watching it too. I'm just going to tell you right now. Man, all this shit they were doing, hell no. Yeah. A lot of it is in your head. Like, a lot of the stuff that they had to eat is not that bad. Some of it was fucking disgusting. Yeah. Were you trying some while they were trying something? I ate a bunch of things. What was the worst thing? None of the things I ate were that bad. You know, like I ate a Madagascar hissing cockroach. It's like a cockroach the size of like this lighter. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't bad. Yeah. This is not much flavor to it. Yeah. What was it? More in your head than anything. I'm sorry. Being on that show, what was the worst thing you saw like someone tense up about? The worst thing was what they had to eat. You know, watching people throw up. Like people, I watch people throw up every day. You know how like the smell of throw up makes you want to throw up? That went away after a while. It was that bad? Yeah. I saw people throw up every week. I was watching four or five people throw up. This is like totally normal to be around a cube. It was like a candle for you. Because they were throwing up in front of me and I was telling them that they could keep going. I'm like, don't worry. You can keep going. You can keep going. Don't put that out of your head. This is a task. Just you want to win? Okay. You can do this. I can help you. I can talk you through this, but you just got to just, you are in control of your body. Force yourself to eat it. Chew it, swallow it, get it down. Let's go. But that was the worst, is the eating shit. Holding your breath underwater was hard. There's a lot of things they had to do that was hard. It's a crazy fucking trail. There was one where they had to jump out a helicopter and like swim and grab some of the helicopter propellers were like blowing the water so they couldn't. We did a few of the things like that. Yeah. Were you ever scared? For some of them? I was worried when they had to ride bulls. That one scared the shit out of me. Because I was like, you know, the stuntmen are animals. Have you ever meet stuntmen? They are some of the bravest, toughest dudes alive and the stunt guys had this attitude about the bull. Like they're like, oh, that's a stunt bull. That's a practice bull. And I go, does a fucking bull know he's a practice bull? I bet he doesn't. I bet he didn't get that memo. He don't know that. He's just a bull. That's a fucking huge animal and you're going to get a hundred pound lady to ride this huge animal. That's crazy. That's over with. And they got launched and almost got kicked. They rolled the dice a lot and got lucky that no one got seriously injured, I think. And the bull one was the big one for me. I was like, you can't predict that. Like you can, if you got a car stunt, you got to jump a car off a building into like this big cushion, like, okay, cool. You kind of know what's going to happen. You know, this is the thing, this could go wrong and this is how we're going to prepare against it going wrong or prepare for it. But you can't prepare for a bull. Like there's not much you could do. If the bull decides to stomp this person, that person could die. Like that's a real possibility, especially people that have no business riding bulls. Bull riding is hard for bull riders. Bull riding is tough. It's crazy. And they got a good seven seconds on that bull if they're great. If they're great. If they're great. And when you're watching it, you're like, oh my God, you watched the bull kick in and jumping up in the air. It's crazy. I know their lower back kills after that. We had one guy on Fear Factor who was a professional bull rider and his shoulder was so destroyed. He took a shirt off to show me. He had scars all around his shoulder. He's like, my shoulder pops out all the time. He just will pop out of socket. He'd go reach for something in his shoulder and pop out of socket. It was just destroyed. It was hanging on by a thread. Geez, that's disgusting. Ugh. How do you live like that though? I don't know, man. I guess you just deal with it. I guess that's the price you pay for greatness. You know? Got to pay something. Yeah, well they all pay. Every bull rider pays. You see those guys later in their career. They're all stiff because they got fused discs and fucking bolts in their back and shit. They're all fucked up. Spines rubbing. Oh yeah, it's a terrible way to live. I can't believe that bull riding is a real thing. I know. It's fascinating though because you can really see guys go out there and be like, you're facing the devil. Literally. The bull is going to win all the time. Every time. Even if you get there. It's hanging on for seven seconds. There's no goat who could just hang on the bull as long as possible. I'll hang on that bull for 30 minutes. He's going to get you off. He's going to get you off. Everybody goes flying eventually. Everybody. Everybody. It's going to happen one way or another. Yeah, there's no human being that could just stay on a bucking bull and just like, when I decide I'll get off. Have you rode? No. Okay, I haven't either. Fuck that. I don't think black people do that. I think there are. Is there a couple? There's got to be. Yeah, there is. There is. There is. There is. Oh, look at that dude. Right there. Bam. Ezekiel Mitchell. He's the size of that thing. I mean, look at his angle. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. He is so, the bull is so athletic that he damn near doing a handspring. Exactly. What they do it on his back. Right. And he weighs 2,000 pounds. He's just throwing his body up and through the air. That is, fuck all that. Like right there. Like you easily get stomped to death right there. It's a game over. You fall wrong. He lands on your face and that is a wrap. Your fucking head is pulverized. I wonder what the. The size of that thing. God. I wonder what the numbers are on like if a bull stomps like the velocity and the mass of it. Like what is the degenerative force from it? It's got to be insane. How many guys have died? I mean. None that I know. Hopefully. None that I know. But I mean, there has to be like an enormous number of guys that have died bull riding. What's the, what's like the, um, since since like run a crazy topic, what is, what is the like the craziest thing outside of like me fighting Taekwondo that you've done that you're like, damn, like that shit felt good. I never did anything other than I had three kickboxing fights, but other than fighting, that was the scariest shit that I ever did. Yeah. I mean, I've never done it. I'm not like a parachute. No, I'm not a bungee jumper. I mean, I've done bungee jumping on vacation. I did zip lining. I was like, what am I doing? This is stupid. I don't like doing stuff like that. I don't like dumb risks. No, I'm big. So I went on a zip lining one time. You know, you got to jump off the thing. Right. I was like, I was jumping off the platform. I thought I was going to fight Joe. I'm kidding. No, that might have been my last day on earth. If that, that line didn't hold me. Right. Because what do you weigh about 250? Like 255 and it bounces. You know, like, I was in Thailand and I went to do this thing. It was a bungee cump court thing and they said I couldn't do it because I was only 200 pounds. And I was like, that's crazy. Like, what happens if you get a guy that lies about his weight? It's over with. Yeah. Because people lie about their fucking weight all the time. I've seen the ones where the guys, they got the, the, the squirrel suit on and they jump off the building or they jump off the rocks and they go down and they come up. Uh-huh. And sometimes they don't. Sometimes they don't come up. My friend Andy did that jumping out of a fucking plane. He made it? Oh yeah. Okay. He's, he was, he held the world record at one point in time for the longest squirrel suit flight. What are they called? What do they call those things? Wingsuit. Wingsuit. Wingsuit. He held the record for it. It's ridiculous. But Andy's nuts. He's a Navy SEAL. 18 miles. 18 miles. 18 miles. What do you think he's thinking at like mile nine? Maybe I drop? He's a psycho. I don't know. 18 miles is crazy. Yeah. That's crazy. I would never do nothing like that ever. Uh-uh. No, I'm not interested in parachuting. I'm not interested in any of that shit. I might get on a wakeboat and surf. That's about all. You're falling the water. Yeah. What's that big a deal? With the life jacket. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds reasonable. It's a reasonable thrill. Falling up. Hey. Falling up the sky is crazy. Falling up the sky is crazy. He's falling out the sky. You have equipment. You check the equipment. You make sure you double check it. You've done it before. It's done. You know when to do it. With a bull, there's no safeguards. You know? I mean, you have like some sort of a chest protector on some people. You have a helmet. You're not... There's no safeguards. He could land on your hip. You're never going to walk again. It's over with. Fuck that. His game of I couldn't... I can't fathom riding a bull. Yeah. Doesn't Donald do it? Doesn't Donald surrounding? He rides bulls. So you got the name Cowboy, you better do something. He's out of his fucking mind. He got to do something with the name Cowboy. That's a dude that has a real adrenaline problem. He's got a real... And you're rightfully so. He looks crazy. He's got a real adrenaline problem. He told the story about getting trapped in a water... He was diving and he got trapped in a cave. And the guy, he was with panic because his cords got tangled up and the water was cloudy and he couldn't figure out how to get out. That was one of the most terrifying... I knew he was okay because he was right here telling me the story, but it was one of the terrifying stories that everybody's ever told me. But that dude loves that kind of shit. He loves like thrills. I can't. I don't think I can get behind thrills. I can't. No. It's too much. And especially your heart be like... Mm-hmm. It's just not worth it. It's today my day and it can't be my day. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. So here we are. It's the new year, which means it's about time to hit reset. Just because it's January doesn't mean you need to disappear into a cold plunge and never drink again. Just rotate in some athletic non-alcoholic beer. You get the taste, the perfect meal pairing and the night out, but you wake up without the hangover. With over 185 taste awards, they brew all kinds of styles. IPAs, Goldens, Hazies, you name it. Athletic is proud brewed in America and sold at over 75,000 grocery or liquor stores, bars and restaurants across the country. You can also purchase a variety of limited styles exclusively on their website. Go to athleticbrewing.com slash rogan to find stores near you or get brews shipped right to your door. Use code ROGAN to get 15% off your first online order. Near beer, terms and conditions and certain limitations apply. Athletic Brewing Company fit for all times. Was fighting for the first time, what was the difference in the way it felt the first time you fought versus wrestling? When I wrestle, I'm not really nervous. I'm more anxious to perform and put on a good show. When I went out there for my first fight, my heart was beating on my chest because that pin drops and it's like, it's me or you. I always had the mentality of it's me or you, it's do or die. Today's not my day, you got to go. That first time, my heart was jumping and John had it looking me in the eyes and I was like, you're good. You're lying what you know. We've been here before. You've done this before. There's 2,000 people here. You've wrestled in front of 20. Just think about it like that. When I thought about it like that, my heart rate calmed down. You get shaky a little bit. You feel like your legs are not there. That was my first time fighting. After that, I dirty boxing, I wanted to kill that dude. Punches are crazy because you couldn't even rely really on your wrestling in that. Which is what I wanted. Right. I wanted to go out there and show you that I can throw punches without having to look down at that leg. That's exactly what we did. Was that a calculated decision to try to do that as well as just like to just have a pure striking fight? Just so you could show that you could do it and then in your own mind not have your main skill set to rely on? Yes. I wanted to show the people. Hopefully I did show them a great show. We definitely did. I want to show the people at home that are casual viewer that who doesn't know Gable. Like, hey, can I turn on dirty boxing and the mom and dad and kids are sitting there watching saying, hey, what is about Gable Siefsen that's special? And he's a wrestler. So what can be special besides wrestling? And then I go out there and I get this knockout and I jump over the ring. That was crazy. You and the Arthur Jones, sack dance. The crazy thing was the way you leapt over the ring like it was nothing. That was banana. What does it feel like to not have, oh, there it is. Boom. But this is the nuttiest part right here. The big jump. Woo! Like it was nothing. Like it was nothing. I mean, that is crazy athleticism. But it's wild about that as you look like a really good boxer and you have only been boxing for a very small amount of time. I always had very good confidence in myself. I've always spoken about myself highly. I've always wanted to be over the top. Like a WWE. When he gets on the microphone and John Cena is like, you can't see me. Or Roman Reigns is like, acknowledge me. When I go out there, I don't want to have to say those things. I want it to, when you see me, that's him. And I've always tried to be the bigger than Gable person. But also, like if we had like a routine combo, you can see like, man, he's real human. You can talk to him. He does real things. We put on shoes the same way. We put on pants the same way. And I feel like a lot of superstars don't really show people that side of them. And it's up to them if they want to or they not. But I've always really like showing the families and the kids that like, man, look at Gable. You know, I can only human being, but when you compete, you're special. It's different. It's crazy to be able to do that in a sport that you're relatively new at. I mean, just, man, just think big about yourself. I get it. I tell every kid. I tell everybody. What's crazy about that, honestly, is like, I know you're just going to get better at it. That's what's crazy. When you watch someone strike that well early in their striking career, like your striking journey is so new that you disguise the limit as far as your potential. Joe, and the nicest way possible, I really want to say this, that's the worst I'll ever be. The worst I'll ever be. And for whoever who's going to watch this, that's the worst I'll ever be. Just think about it. 14 seconds. And then now think about if you're going to put some time into me, some effort into me, and I'm putting effort into myself. That dirty boxing is probably the weakest I'll ever be in the sport of MMA. I believe you. I believe you. I mean, it only makes sense if you've been training that short amount of time of striking. Now when you're training striking, are you training boxing? Are you doing Muay Thai? What kind of striking training are you doing? Are you incorporating it all together in MMA? I do it all. So a lot of days I go in. So I kind of have a really good schedule right now since I'm not going to go into a fight. So I do every day, besides Sunday, some days or two days, because I go to Lifetime and play basketball, I go to Lifetime and sit in the cold tub and sauna and stuff. But when I strike, I go in there, one round's maybe boxing. Next round is kicks, teaps, knees, everything, elbows. The next round is the blueprint I have of what moves I need to really do to get in, to kind of get to my shots. Or I'm going to fake shoot and punch. And then I probably go 10 rounds, 12 rounds of that, five minutes each. So you always incorporate all the MMA skills together in a workout? I try to. What's interesting when I was talking to Ilya Taporia, particularly when he's not training for a fight, he doesn't do that. He is very rare in that when he goes and he works on his boxing, he'll just box. He just boxes. When he works on his jujitsu, he just does jujitsu. When he works on his wrestling, he just does wrestling. Then he puts them all together with MMA training. But he spends an exorbitant amount of time on each individual skill by itself to really like hone and tighten those things up, which is, it's an interesting choice. Obviously, for him, it's worked out spectacularly. But there's no real, like, I guess if you want to be like an elite soccer player, I'm sure there's a program that they've kind of devised. This is the very best way to become a good soccer player. They have coaches and they game plan. They know what to do with MMA. There's all these different approaches. Everyone, Alex Pereira's approach is different. The Marab's approach, which will be different than your approach. But it's got a different thing. Yeah. It's just, like you said, it depends a person and it also depends the team that you have. I'm just really big on, I'm still very new, so I'm really big on just trying to make sure I can absorb all the information possible. When I go into these fights, these first few fights come, kind of showcase what I can. Sadly, they have ended early. Not sadly, but in a good way, you know what I'm saying. But just go out there and showcase who I am. When I go train, I don't mind sitting in there all day. Me and John will practice for hours just sitting there repeating, repeating. And then all of a sudden, we go on at eight o'clock as midnight. But I like that though, because it makes me feel good. It makes me feel like there's someone invested in me that makes me feel like I'm here for a purpose and it makes me feel like this is what I'm, there's someone out of the country, there's someone in Russia. When I'm asleep, he's up. And I don't like that. He's up working. So when I can get all the time possible, I'm making sure I get all that time because I don't want that dude to show up one day and he's got a little insomniac. And I just can't, I can't think about that happening. I always have that thought in my head with, in terms of like UFC fighters, like there's such a shallow division, the heavyweight division is so shallow. I'm like, there has got to be some elite Russian wrestlers that are thinking about you going the Fedor Emelianenko route. Like they're thinking about, I know Nemkov, who just won the PFL title. He's a very high level guy. But there has to be some like really high level wrestlers that are considering going into MMA. Right now, Russian heavyweights are really not as good as people think in wrestling. They got a guy named Abdul Raseed Sada live. I don't know if you've heard of him. I have. D.C. told me about him. Man, he is crazy. If he came to fighting, it's over with. Not for heavyweights, for the other groups because he's got to go through me. If he comes, if he comes to heavyweight. But Iranians heavyweights are really good. I think that's where the heavyweight field should start coming from as Iran. They got a lot of good. They got two good guys that are, one's my age, I'm 25, and another one is I think 22. They battle for the Olympic spot of a year, but the older one wins just by a little bit. The time is going to pass where that guy steps up and he's going to take the spot. So I would watch out for him. You know, what's interesting with MMA is some guys have a background in wrestling and then they learn how to strike and then they fall in love with striking and then they hardly ever wrestle when they fight. You know, it's kind of weird. Like you would see that a lot in the early, like Josh Koshchek is a good example, who's a very good amateur wrestler. And then when he fought in MMA, very rarely wrestled. It was mostly striking. You know, he could knock guys out standing and I think guys kind of fall in love with that. And then there's also the amount of effort. It's so tiring to wrestle along with all the other things that sometimes guys just put that aside and they just decided to stand and bang with people. I really like wrestling. I grew up wrestling and if I had a chance, I would love to go to the 2020 Olympics and win a gold medal. That's how much I still love wrestling. But right now my path is MMA and I knew the first couple of times that I would get those knockouts like you look at your hands and it's like you're Spider-Man, you got superpowers. Like I got lightning in my hands. Like I would have never thought in my 25 years of life that I would go out there and I would left hook somebody and he would be out cold and I would double-egg and flip them. Who would have ever thought that would ever happen? And so like you're right. You get obsessed with knocking people out, but I still think my base is wrestling. I just haven't used the best base yet. And that's just, I just want to show people that my best base doesn't need to be used because the second best one is just as good as the first. Well, and the second best one is getting better all the time. That's the thing. So, and again, I keep going back to this, but if you can get that good at wrestling, you can get that good at anything. It's just a matter of putting in the time and dedicating yourself to that thing. But it's the mindset that allows someone to become an Olympic gold medalist in wrestling. Boy, if that person, that's a scary person. That person decides to focus on whatever the fuck it is, fucking pickleball. Who gives a shit? They'll be elite at it. They just have to put their mind on it. It's a 100% mindset thing. It ain't nothing else. You can have athletic ability. You can hard work all day. You can be so disciplined in the world, but if your mind doesn't think it, that's why I feel like that's why I beat a lot of people before I even walked out there is I knew it. I just, you just got to know. And some people... Championship mindset. Some people just don't feel it, and you just got to feel it. I know. You know, it's like, I was talking to a friend of mine. I don't want to mention any names because then you'll connect it to the fighter. But he said, man, he goes, I don't want to fuck with anybody anymore that needs a mental coach. And I said, really, why? He goes, it's just like this, just too much. He goes, I want to do it. I don't need that shit. You don't need it. It's interesting because some guys do, and some guys that mental coach takes them over the top and then they find a way to win where maybe they'd have mental hiccups in the past. But his mentality was, I want a guy who has no problems. And like, if I'm going to coach a guy, I don't want a guy who's a head case. I want a guy who goes in there and already has this. I'm going to fucking dominate. And if I don't, I'm going to learn why I didn't dominate. And I'm going to come back and I'm going to get them next time. Yeah. And I feel like that's the person I am. I just want to go in there and dominate. And I also think that a lot of people kind of rely too much on a lot of outside things to kind of make them feel good about themselves and go out there and perform instead of just putting that switch on and just saying, hey, we're here. Outside things like what? Like we mean? Just mental coaches. You've got to get someone else to be maybe a breath working coach or another coach, another coach. And you've got to get someone else for coaches out there that you don't need. And when I was resting at Minnesota, I had Brandon Negum, Luke Becker, who's the assistant and head coach and Trevor Bramble. That's all I had. I didn't have nobody else. Because I didn't want anybody to interfere with the connection that we had. And I feel like when you get a great bond with somebody and then you bring in more people, the bonds get mixed up. People are paying attention to too many different things. Instead of practicing, maybe I got to work on my mind. Instead of working on my mind, maybe I got to go do something else. Maybe I got to take care of something else. Sort of like when you were talking about not watching video on your opponents because you're thinking about his double, how am I going to stop his double, instead of thinking about what am I going to do? Yeah. I would rather be productive for the team instead of productive for eight different people and maybe three of them don't care about you as much. They're there just to get a little something for you. Right, right, right, right. Where are you training now? Right now in still Minneapolis. I'm having a baby girl this Sunday. Congratulations. This Sunday, my little girl is coming. I appreciate it. Thank you. She's going to pop out. My lady is hopefully going to do us that day. If it comes early, it comes early. So that'll be really nice. I'm in Minneapolis right now, but when I do all the main training, New Mexico, Jackson Wing. Okay. So in Minneapolis, where are you training? That guy with that guy, Billy Simon. Say God. Yeah. I've been with him forever. So you're in this little tiny gym? I'm in that little gym. Nobody sees us. Wow. We got partners that need to come in. But rather than that, I don't want the big lights. Right. When I was growing up in Portage, Indiana, I had a wrestling mat in the garage and me and my two brothers were wrestling and that's where we got the most work in. My dad said, go in there and hand fight and whoever comes out comes out. And it was definitely not me at the time, but baby right now is me. But we were going there and hand fighting. If you get my dad's philosophy was we had Iowa style wrestling and Iowa style wrestling was brutal. If his face needs to be run into the wall, run his face into the wall and that's how we grew up. And if you don't want your face ran into the wall, you better put his in first. Right. Mm-hmm. And so when you train with this guy, are you training like I could get a call in a week to fight and I'm ready to do that? This episode is brought to you by Zip Recruiter. Life's too short to surround yourself with people you don't like. For me, I enjoy working with someone hardworking, reliable, who pushes the limits, but also knows how to have a good time every now and then. People like that always make your day to day a bit more interesting. But it's not always easy to find someone who matches what you're looking for in life, unless you're hiring because Zip Recruiter makes it super easy. See what I mean and try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash Rogan. 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The AI doc or how I became an apocaloptimist rated PG-13 only in theaters March 27th. Or are you training like just like developing skills constantly? I just religiously train and develop skills constantly. I try not to never stop. I don't like stopping because I'm kind of a, this is crazy. I'm a thicker body so if I sit for a little bit I feel like I'm getting fat and I want to feel that way. I just try to always keep myself in shape and try to keep the best look possible. So if you need me on one week, which I don't want to do any short notice, just how me and John do it, no short notice. If you need me in a week I look good, I'm ready. But we just take our time. So did John coach you about that? Like give you some thoughts about that? Because I think that's a giant mistake that guys make. You know, and like the Alexander Volkovsky fight is a good example. The Islam Makachep fight, he took that fight on 11 days notice. He's just been hanging around drinking. He's just chilling. Just being himself, just chilling. And then all of a sudden he gets this opportunity for a rematch. First fight was razor thin decision. He lost and he's like, I can do better, but you can't do better without a camp. You gotta have time to be yourself. Yeah. You have to have time to peek. And one of the things I really always admired about John is like even a fight, like the Chail Son and Fight, they offered him Chail Son on short notice. He was like, nope. Nope. And they're like, we need you to do this. He's like, nope. I'm a professional world champion. I prepare for my opponents and I don't want to fight unless I'm prepared for my opponent. Period. It's the smartest way. Look at him. He's the goat. I mean, it's just so many guys, they get 10. And I like to do appreciate that Alex does take those short notice fights and he wins some of those short notice fights. But how many times he's fought injured, like really injured, like the first Yuri Prokofsky fight. He had a fucked up knee, man. And when he stopped Yuri, there's a moment when he's on top of Yuri and he's beating on him and the referee stops it and he goes to step up and he rolls off of him. The reason he rolled off him, he couldn't support himself on his knee. That's how fucked up his knee was. And he was in a world title fight. It's bad. Crazy. Well, I feel like this is the only sport where they would let that happen just because football, you sit on IR. We don't have no IR. Right. It's either you do it or you say no. Right. And if you say no, they get upset at you. A lot of people get timid. Yeah. And I mean, once you get past that barrier of, I think right now, since I'm going to have this daughter, I think my tone and mindset has changed to kind of really be more of a father figure for her, but also for like, if kids want to look at me and be like, wow, you know, Gables normal also. But I think just, you've got to say no to a lot of people. You got to be generous in a lot of ways, but you also got to be able to go out there and say, I don't like this. I don't feel this way about this. And this is why, and be cool on both sides. But some people get scared about that moment. Are you doing, what kind of strength and conditioning are you doing? So I still, I still live with the college team. So everything they do with wrestling. The college wrestling team? Yes. Everything they do at the university of Minnesota, I still do. I still got the same strength coach with them. Bike sprints, aerodyne sprints, Watt bike, Versa climbers, everything. We try to mix it in all. Rowers, everything. Just to stay active. And if it's not where we're getting close to a fight, just maybe just take longer breaks in between just to keep the heart rate up. But I don't like when my heart rate takes a break. I like to kind of keep it consistent. So when I ramp up, it's already ready to rock. You already have a very high base line. And when you're doing strength and conditioning as far as weightlifting and stuff like that, you trying to put on weight at all? No. You like 250? I like to say where I'm at. I do a lot of band work, a lot of explosive work, a lot of jumps. A lot of light weights with high reps just to kind of keep the body moving and kind of keep the cutness and the strength there, but not also put too much with your stiff. And you're naturally a large guy anyway. It's not like you have to put on a ton of weight. But when you see a guy like Francis who's 265 natural, and he used to have to cut a little bit of weight to make too, which is kind of crazy, isn't it? Isn't it crazy? But it's also crazy that the UFC has a weight limit that you have to make at heavyweight. You have to cut weight to make heavyweight. How different do you think it would be if they didn't have 265 and it was just maybe 300? I think it should be no weight. It's heavyweight. It should be what they really need is more weight classes. The UFC, there's gaps that are just enormous. Like the gap between 85 and 205 is crazy. 20 pound weight gap in between categories, that doesn't make any sense to me. 10 pounds is still a lot, but at least it's reasonable. How many weight classes boxing have? Oh, shitload. They have so many. Boxing has so many weight classes. Boxing got eight champions for each weight, too. That's a problem. That's a problem. MMA does as well, right? If you think about it, there's the one champion, there's the PFL champion. But the difference is, there's really only the UFC champion in terms of the public perception. We talked about Nemkov, who's an excellent fighter. Nobody knows who the fuck he is. Not in America. A regular kid, some kid on the street, and you say, who is Vadim Nemkov? And they're like, what? But I bet you that kid knows I Show Speed. I bet they do. Right? I bet they do. They probably do. They know I Show Speed. They probably know who Alex Pereira is. They probably know who Islam Akachev is. They know who the UFC guys are. The UFC, that title is worth so much. It's the name. It is the combat sports leader. And if you're not in the UFC, I don't care. I mean, look, you can go to the PFL and you can win that million dollar tournament. And I'm all for that. And I'm very happy for those guys. They get to feed their family and they provide and they make a great living and they can retire with some money in the bank. But the reality is, part of what you're doing is you're trying to be the best. And if you're going to be the best, you kind of have to be in the UFC. Agreed. I mean, that's just what it is. It's just what it is. There's so many great leagues, but like the most prestigious people, you can say PFL, you can say anything. And you can go to any place and make a shit ton of money. But once you get that stamp of these UFC champ, people are like, damn man, that's him. That's it. That's him. Yeah, that's it. They put that UFC belt on you and it's on ESPN and everybody sees it. That's it. The PFL is just another belt. It's like, boxing has, they have the IBF, the WBA, the WBO, the WBC. It's like, it's just like so many fucking organizations. It just gets so crazy. It's like, didn't they try to make Terrence Crawford pay for his belt? Ridiculous. How crazy is that? Terrence Crawford's like, fuck you, I'm the champ. I just beat you. 300,000? Everybody saw it. Is that what they wanted from 300 grand? Can we get a look on this? Because I might be tripping. But they stripped him. I know they stripped him. It's like a percentage of purse. And I think it was like 3% of whatever he made. That's so nuts. That is so nuts. That is so nuts that they get paid that much, just be a sanctioning body. And what are they doing? They're not doing anything. Like, it doesn't mean anything. Well, they just get the best looking guy to maybe throw a belt on you. That's about all. They don't really get nothing else. You get nothing. You get a belt. But everybody knows he beat the breaks off Canelo Alvarez. That's it. He's the champion. I love Canelo as well. But I love what Terence did. Because what Terence did was crazy. He goes all the way up from 47 to 68. He had one fight at 54, wins the title at 54, and then goes all the way up to 68. And everybody's like, Canelo's going to be too big. Canelo's going to be too big. No way. Nope. Skill. His next level is king. And he's 38. He's 38. He could do a couple more if he wanted to. I don't think he does. But he's done. I think he's done. I love it. I love that he's done. De-throwned over $300,000 fee. Wow. That's crazy. Do you think that's right? No. No. Unpaid fees and brief reign as undisputed champion. It doesn't matter. He's the fucking champion. You can't take the guy's belt because he's not willing to give you money. Fuck you. He won. He's crazy. He won. Fuck off. He won. It's going to be a new boxing promotion. Zephah? Zephah? Yes. Sorry. Yeah. So the UFC is doing something with the Saudis. And they are, I think they're launching their first event in January. I think they're launching their first event the night before the big UFC on Paramount event. So it'll be the 23rd. Yes. I don't think they've announced anything in terms of the card who's going to be on it. I mean, that's not a lot of time. You know, that's only not even a month from now. So I don't even understand how they're doing that. But they're probably going to do the same thing that Riyadh season's doing, you know? Which is really smart. Riyadh season's great. I mean, it's putting guys into that next level category of, hey, you are a star. Mm-hmm. You're just not a great... And Turkey Allshake is throwing crazy money. I definitely deserve it for a lot of these guys. Oh, yeah. They deserve it. Oh, they definitely do. You know, if you do that, you're going to get people to fight that would avoid each other ordinarily, you know? And we've seen that already. The Saudis have already been able to do that, get guys to fight. And you're going to put on the most exciting fights. You're going to put on the best matchups. And so I think the UFC is trying to do that same kind of model. And now that the Saudis own Ring Magazine, so they have the Ring Magazine belt, which has always been the most prestigious belt. You know, like there's always a bunch of different champions in different weight classes. But if you're a fan of Ring Magazine like I am, when you would get Ring Magazine and they would have the Ring Champion, you know, Marvin Hagler, like, well, that's the fucking champion. That's him. Yeah, that's it. There might be a WBO guy out there, a WBA guy out there. But the reality is, that's the guy. That's the guy. And the boxing needs like a unified champion thing like that. So like when you see Terrence in there with like five belts, like it's great that he's got all those belts. But why? It should be one belt. It should be like this is the super middleweight champion of the fucking planet. Period. Fuck all your sanctioning bodies. That's the guy. That's it. One belt is all he needs. And they all have different colors too. They're all cool looking. They're all cool looking. I mean it's cool that he's got them all. I mean you go over his living room, it's probably dope. They Instagram picture the cool. Yeah, it looks great. I mean it looks great when he was in the ring and he's, you know, got them on his shoulders and shit. One of his waist. And then he's like, fight over who gets to be on the waist. You know? Like I'll give you an extra 100 grand and put it on your waist. But the reality is it's like the belt doesn't mean anything. The fighter means something. And when we all know who the champ is, we all know it's Terrence. If this other guy gets the belt, like okay, you didn't beat Terrence Crawford. So you're not really the 168 pound champion. But isn't that a hard, do you think for a boxer like that is that a hard shadow to live in? Or do you think it's a shadow to, or is that labeled as a shadow? You know? And then you step up. Well, that's different. When Terrence leaves, if he gives up all the belts and he really does decide to totally leave, which I'm not totally convinced, because I think he wanted, they wanted to him to have a rematch with Canelo. And they, I think he threw a big number at them. This is all I'm reading rumors online. That's crazy. I don't know what's, see if you find out what, if that's true. Did they offer, did Terrence Crawford demand like a certain amount for Canelo Alvarez rematch? He's coming in soon. I'll ask him in person. But I feel like you could probably entice him for one more big fight. Probably could. You know, one more big fight at 68, or maybe even at 54. I mean, really, you could fight at 47. I mean... When do you think there comes a point where people need to just stop? And like, you know, there's always going to be money thrown at you. But when you come up, when do you think there's a point that like... It's different for a person, you know? Yeah. So, Bernie Davis revealed that Terrence Crawford's price for Canelo rematch, and it's massive. According to Davis, Crawford won't return to the ring with Canelo Alvarez unless he's paid $100 million. And he deserves it. Rightfully so. Crawford earned $50 million for the first fight in September, but after a tactical low action bout that disappointed many fans, fuck off. Who the fuck did that disappoint? Who did that disappoint? You gotta be a casual of that disappointed you. Tactical low action bout. Blech! Who wrote this? I don't know, fuck off. I think I could write a better one than this. I think boxing has some very disrespectful journalists. I see some disrespectful shit they write about boxers. Go back to that little thing when it's said there. So anyway, pressure now on Turkey Al-Shayk to decide whether the rematch is worth that kind of money. Fans are already calling for other opponents, Benavidez, Bedebiyah, Beavall, fighters they believe bring real action. Oh, so this is kind of a disrespectful... It's kind of messed up. Real action. Why are they dissing him like this? I don't know, they do that a lot. There's a lot of shit talking and boxing, which I guess is fine. I like that there's not that much of that in MMA. MMA is much more respectful. Really standard and respectful. Yeah, and that guy deserves everything. He's one of the greatest to ever do it, and one of the best switch hitters in the history of the sport. Are you putting him above Floyd? It's hard. It's, you know, it's hard. You know, they never fought each other, which I think would have been amazing if they were both in their prime at the same time. That would have been fantastic to watch. Because ain't Floyd supposed to fight Mike? Am I true? Yes. I think I'm true, but... But I mean, I feel like that's going to be like Floyd versus, or excuse me, like Mike versus Roy, or like Mike versus Logan. It kind of looks more like a sparring. It's sparring. A little more like sparring, really, than a fight-fight. How is Floyd going to fight Mike Tyson? Have you ever spoke to Mike Tyson? Yeah, I've had him on a couple of times. Yeah. And he's my favorite. He's my favorite. Bro, he's, when he was in his prime, there was nobody like him. There was nobody like him. Because he had that speed, that speed, and that's something that you have. The speed of a lighter person in the frame of a heavyweight is an extraordinary gift. Because so many of these heavyweights, man, they got big power, but like Francis, big power, but they don't move like a lightweight guy. They don't move like a 170-pound guy. When Mike was in his prime, he was so fast. You could see guys trying to calculate and calibrate, because it was different. They were used to fighting heavyweights. And all of a sudden, you got this guy bobbing and weaving and moving towards you and like, ah! It was crazy. Your brain is being overloaded with all the possibilities. It was just, it was a totally different thing, man. He's by far my favorite. Oh, yeah. In his prime, he's the most extraordinary heavyweight that ever existed. Because every show was an execution. It wasn't like, oh my God, is Mike going to lose this one? No. In his prime, it was just all executions. And I think the best thing about that, being popular back in the day, like he was such a big time fighter, I was watching a lot of videos like Will Smith and Magic Johnson were showing up and Jordan and stuff. Oh, yeah. You know how crazy it is nowadays that we have social media that you don't have to go and watch someone live. But back then, when you see the videos of Michael Jackson in this hotel and you look out and it's like, wow, it's Michael Jackson. That wow factor is super cool. And he had that to the highest degree. Yeah. Everybody dressed up in the best clothes. They all showed up. Chains on, watches on. Everything. It was an event to be seen at. And if you were one of the people that was ringside, you were an elite celebrity. And that was, you know, the Mike Tyson era. That was, I mean, it was different. It was different than any other heavyweight since Ali. So you had Ali and then Larry Holmes, who doesn't get the credit that he deserves. He was fantastic. So I watched all of his videos, too. Amazing fighter. But he lived in the shadow of Ali. And a lot of people hated him, too, because he beat up Ali when Ali was already done. That was tough to watch. And he had been Ali's sparring partner when Ali was younger. And everybody knew how good Larry Holmes was. And everybody knew that Muhammad Ali was older. Would you do that? And what's that? Would you do that if you was a sparring partner for your homie? And that's got to be a difficult combo. Because you burn a bridge. Yeah. You burn a bridge with the whole society. But part of it is like you kind of have to, right? Because if you are the heavyweight champion of the world and they want to set up a fight with Muhammad Ali, Muhammad Ali wants to fight you and they want to give you $10 million and it's going to be on TV and everybody's hyped up about it. What are you going to do? Say, no, I won't fight him. I'm going to relinquish my crown. What are you going to do? I don't know if he had any opportunity to do anything other than fight him. But it's just like Muhammad Ali was so beloved not just as one of the greatest fighters of all time, but also as a cultural figure that watching that man beat him up like that just beat the shit out of Ali. And then seeing Ali afterwards when he had the shakes and he had Parkinson's and everybody knew that that was trauma related Parkinson's and knowing that Larry Holmes dished out a lot of that, I think in a lot of people's mind that always, and I think that through this day is why Larry Holmes does not get the credit that he deserves. He had one of the greatest jabs in the history of the sport. Great. I just saw a video of him. He was flicking it. Even when he fought Mike. When he fought Mike, he was way past his prime. He had been out for a long time. Mike did his thing. But there was a round in that fight where Larry Holmes was popping that jab where it made you think like, man, what would this fight have been like if Larry was in his prime? It would have been very interesting. I think Mike was on another level though. He was. Man, when I see him, he just had the vein. This episode is brought to you by the farmer's dog. Recipes, cooking methods, even portioning. 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This offer is for new customers only. This episode is brought to you by Threat Locker. Here's the truth. Reacting to cyber attacks isn't enough. You need control from the start. That's where Threat Locker comes in. With zero trust, you only allow what you need. Blocking everything else by default. You're in control. What runs, when, where, and how. Ransomware, zero-day exploits. Block them before they can execute. And now with AI, now increasing the speed and volume of attacks, a fast response isn't fast enough. Threatlocker.com slash JRE to learn more. That's my like wow for people. He was a speedy tank. And just the skill too. And also that style, that peek-a-boo style was just so different than anything else anybody was doing. So it was so hard to prepare for. You got most of these heavyweight boxes were standing straight up. They're throwing jabs and moving, they're moving like Forman or moving like Ken Norton or whoever they were. But Muhammad Ali was the only guy that moved like a lighter guy. He was different. But Mike Tyson was crouching and bobbing and weaving and coming at. It was a totally different thing to prepare for. You can't prepare for something like that. That's like when someone is too athletic. That's like preparing for Miles Garrett right now. You just can't. He's going to have 25 sacks this year. And it's like how do you prepare for something like that besides try to suck yourself into maybe I can do it. But this is not going to happen. There's always going to be freaks. There's always going to be these athletic freaks that can just do things that no one else can do. Now there's even more because you see high school football guys, 6'5", 2'80", going to Ohio State. Man, what they got going on? People are bigger. Also people are doing things for their kids at an early age to optimize their growth and making sure that they come out bigger and stronger and faster. Getting them training younger, strength and conditioning and plyometrics and shit when they're real young to get them prepared for things. I mean look, you know Vasiliy Lomachenko? Yes. The little guy, man, he was fast. That dude's dad took him out of boxing for two years to have him learn Ukrainian dance so that he have better footwork. And he was dancing on people. I see him. I watch his highlights on Instagram. Footwork was insane. Oosex the same. Mm-hmm. Same coach. Oosex the same person. Same coach. I really like Oosex. Yeah. Oh my God. Oosex is crazy. And not a big guy either. He just knows where to go and when to go. Mm-hmm. Which is nice. What's also is constantly moving. He's never right in front of you. He's constantly stepping and stepping and stepping and stepping and you know he's setting you up and he's always like downloading and calculating your movements and your reactions and things. It's so skillful. That to me is the most beautiful thing about boxing is that someone could stand in the fire and be so skillful. Like Crawford. I mean standing right in front of Canelo there was one point in the fight where he was pity patting him. His Lomachenko when he was in his prime. The movement was bananas. And it was just his ease of footwork and it wasn't footwork like trying to get away from you. It was footwork standing right in front of you and stepping off to the side and cracking. Like that kind of shit. Like these angles is just unless you have tried to do that you don't know how ridiculously difficult that is. The conditioning on that is crazy. Oh yeah. Yeah. Your legs have to be in peak form. Super peak form. It's just there's so many guys out there that you could learn from by watching and they set the bar so high. And that is the difference between watching like Keith Hackney versus Emmanuel Yarborough way back in 1993 versus watching you know John Jones in 2025. It's like we get to see now these guys that have seen it all the pewter yon's the Iliotoporias the Islamakachovs. You get to see the elite of the elite today and these young kids that are coming up now they get to see that and learn from that and incorporate all these things. And you're seeing these guys that are fighting on Dana White's contender series that are they look like world championship caliber fighters and they're not even in the UFC yet. Most definitely the latter guys. Most definitely the latter guys. Yeah there's so many good guys now. But in the heavyweight division it's still fairly shallow. I know. Which is where Gable comes in. It's funny I think I heard you say shallow about three times and you know Joe in the most nicest way because I like to be humble with the words and I like to like to talk with the confidence. I really think I can go out there and do do right better. This big promotion and go out there and just be fantastic. I think you can too. And I think you can do what Mike Tyson did which is revitalize the heavyweight division because I mean other than John who's of course a superstar but he's kind of semi retired. The Tom Aspinall serial gone thing was a fucking disaster. I mean that's a disaster. I mean Tom Aspinall still can't see. He's got a fucked up right eyeball still really bad right. I mean the reality is he might not ever fight again like who knows. Like if he has surgery on his eye and it doesn't go well and he can't see out of the eye. Apparently he's still fucked up in his right eye. There's some tendon damage or something and you know eyes are so tricky. You never know. Like unless you're a fucking complete psychopath like Michael Bisping who fought 11 fights in the UFC blind in one eye which is so crazy that he did that. Do you know what he did that crazy motherfucker. What did he memorize the eye chart. Like he memorized it so that he could put a good cover is left eye. Oh my God. And he could just whenever he went to do an exam knew the letters. They would say all right read the third chart and you say A B C D E. He knew what the letters were. Oh he's smart. He's crazy. Oh he's smart. He couldn't fucking see out of one of his eyes and still fought world class fighters. I think 11 fights he had only been able to see out of one eye. Yeah. I'm not really sure how to how to engage with the eye talk on Tom Aspinall. But I think he's a I think he's a fantastic fighter. I think God is really. What do you mean by engage with the eye talk. I feel like getting poked in eye sucks and I just don't know how he feels that he got. You know what I'm saying. So I'm not going to know what he was experiencing. Yeah. And nobody and nobody even knows but you know critics going to go online and say say X Y and Z but I'm just going to stand in the middle ground. I say I think Tom's a fantastic fighter. Ciro is great also and I think a lot of them are also great also. You're going to you're going to always say it's really shallow and I believe it's shallow too and I believe I can go out there and and do the best I can and really dominate when I need to. But just just when when I see Tom Aspinall you know Tom Aspinall reminds me of a guy from Turkey that I wrestled in the Olympics. He was a 2016 Olympic champ. His name is Tahaa Agul. He was six four same sizes. Same size as Tom. Same billets him everything and I went out there and I beat him eight to zero and I was in his face for that six minutes and I let him know that that I was here and I feel like in that instance that's when the tides change and I feel like with a guy like Tom I think I look at him as like a guy like Tahaa Agul. You know he's on top. He's the leader. You know he's still fresh but I think there's a there's another hungry guy that's going to come and and hopefully it's me that's going to come and go out there and and do what I need to do. Well listen I hope Tom gets back in because again we don't know what's going on with his eye and for all the critics you need to know there's the right eye that's the problem but if you look at when he fought his left eye the finger went deeper in his left eye than it does right eye. So if you think he's faking it he was knuckled deep in that fucking left eye. He was all the bin at eye. Yeah I mean it's horrible to see to undergrow multiple eye surgeries multiple eye surgeries and that's horrible. By the time the statement goes out I probably have surgery on one eye already. Next surgery is coming mid-January. Next surgery so he's having surgery on both eyes. You know it's really messed up but I think the way the post fight interview went because I like to look at how people approach the world also too and he was just upset how the people are reacting you know saying why the fuck are you booing why are you doing this. I mean there could have been a great approach to that of him saying man you know I got my eye poked but I'm going to come back stronger from this. Well the problem is people are always going to doubt you when you get poked in the eye you know there's always going to be a bunch of people like oh you're fine because people have gotten poked in the eye and they have continued fighting but is that smart. It's a foul. First of all I think every time a guy gets poked in the eye one point deduction immediately instantly maybe even two points you should never do that to a person never. One thing you notice about Piotr Jan's fight with Marabh he fights like this his hand is an a fist so when he's got his hand up like this and the front hand is extended he's not doing that. He's kind of guiding you yeah honestly. Well he's letting you know this motherfucker is coming you know and he's also like in a shell very well protected by having that one hand up like that and have that shoulder he's got the chin blocked and then he's doing this with this hand it's a very good defensive position also very skillful because he's so good defensively in terms of his movement and the way he's able to roll with punches and get out of the way in time but he never pokes in the eye he's not doing that. Serogon is a habit of doing that. Why do you think that is? You can speculate. You can speculate all day long. You could say he wants to do it you know I mean ask John. John spoke people in the eyes. He does it all the time. Yeah I mean even if you would have took the points from him he still would have won. Yeah I know it's just it's one of those things. It's like here's the problem why are the fingers out in the first place? Like why don't they cover that shit up? Like why don't they have it like one of those Everlast bag gloves. Like a mitt. Okay where it's like a mitt yeah. I mean have the thumb out because you don't grapple with these anyway you don't do this you never do this. So why do the fingers have to be loose? If you grapple you're grappling like this or like this. Like if you're clenching your hands together you're never clenching your hands together like this. You never interlace your fingers together. So why the fuck are they open in the first place when it only causes problems. If they developed an MMA glove that covered the tips of the fingers like a mitten we would have way less problems with this shit. You'd occasionally probably have a thumb in the eye every now and again but you would have at least eight less possibilities for each fight of things going into your eye. True. It just makes sense and it wouldn't hinder grappling. You just have a thin piece of leather that you know the padding goes over the knuckles the piece of leather goes over the tip of the fingers and have it come down like this like a mitten. It's not hard to design. If it was a mitt and I'm on top and I grab wrist control do you think the leather of the mitt sticks harder? Yeah probably aid grappling. It probably makes fights better. It probably do stuff like you'd probably be able to get more takedowns. Maybe I don't know man maybe when the leather gets wet maybe it becomes slippery like a finger. We'd have to find out but at least we would have less eye pokes and it's not going to hinder the striking at all. There's no need to have these fingers exposed like this. No there's no need but two great fighters I mean accidents happen. Accidents happen and also purposeful fouls happen. And I'm not saying that Cyril Gawne did it on purpose but he did it like five times in that fight. I rewatched that fight a couple of times and every time Aspenall came towards him he was doing this. Every time fingers outstretched pointed towards the face. It's just it's illegal. You're not supposed to ever do that. Your fist should always be balled up when it's moving towards your opponent's face. We don't have to have these goddamn fingers covered like that or open like that. They should be covered. It's not impossible to do. It could be really easy to design a glove like that. I don't understand for the life of me how the sport's been around since 1993 and no one has introduced gloves like that. True. Now you're right. A really good thing I wanted to ask you is for someone new coming in to a sport that a lot of people know how do you think they should bridge the popularity of the sport and also the real life of who the person is. I might be saying this in a hard way. No I know what you're saying. How do you think they should because you know I've been around a lot of people but you know it always gets bigger and always gets bigger. And how do you bridge that gap of keeping that same mind frame of like man you know I'm the guy but I need a reset. I always need a reset. I need to make sure. Yeah. Well it's going to be dependent upon you right and it's going to be a rocket ride that you're on and the pressure and just the overall like not being able to go to the mall is going to be weird. You know it's going to get weird. It'll get weird. You know you're going to get mobbed at the airport. It's going to get weird. And you know you're going to have to you're going to have to figure out a way to have your own private time. That's very important. When guys never have private time they're always surrounded by people and you could lose yourself. You could lose your way. That's fame itself. Fame itself is very complicated. It's very complicated for people especially for fighters when your entire identity relies on the way other people perceive you. That's not good. It feels good when you're on top because everybody's like oh there's cable he's the fucking man. Whoa you're the man. You're the man. But if you rely on other people's opinions of you for your self esteem and your self worth then the moment you have a stumble. What if you get eye poked. You know. What if you get eye poked and then also like Gables a bitch. Gables a bitch. And you're like what. What. And then you're dealing with the opinions of morons and they're affecting your own feelings about yourself. And then there's all the other pressures that come with money and people trying to scam you and business deals and bullshit and this and that and they want you to do movies and that kind of shit. You know like look that's the that's the the bane of fighters existence when Hollywood gets involved. That kind of in a lot of ways led to the client of Ronda Rousey in a lot of ways. Conor McGregor. People start fucking you know throwing everything at you. You're doing cell phone commercials and all this different shit and that stuff gets in the way. Yeah. It gets in the way of your training but it also gets in the way of your ability to have that deep pressure time to be yourself and to be alone with your thoughts which I think is very important just to solidify your own your own understanding of who you are as a human being. You know and you don't want to be defined by other people's opinions and perceptions. And then there's also like the U.S.C. does a fantastic job of showing who a fighter really is. The countdown series you know the U.S.C. embedded series. So when they're doing stuff like that you get to see this person interacting with their family going through training camp going through the weight cut and you get to see who they are joking around with people hanging out with their friends laughing. That's important too because people really want to relate to you. You know they don't want this guy who just appears you know every five months you don't know shit about him and then all of a sudden there he is in the ring again and you know you're putting all these things on him and imagining what he's like. The more they can get to see behind the curtain the better it is for you especially if you're a good person and you're an interesting person and they get to see. It's also inspiring for people they like you like to talk about yourself like you're a regular guy you put your shoes on one foot at a time like everybody else but like wow look at the greatness this regular guy can accomplish. Maybe I can do this maybe I can do something like that maybe in whatever I'm doing in life whatever if I'm a fucking skier or whatever whatever your job is maybe I can be great and be a normal person like this guy is. True no 100% well that's a that's a fantastic answer because you know I just feel like at some point I'll get to that spot you know of like how do I know if someone's not real how do I know if someone is in that space of things leeches and there's leeches there's bad people there's bad people so you know it's always a nice thing to have someone that has surpassed that level that you can finally see and be like man like how did you how did you change direction. Well John's a great guy to talk to about that. Most definitely. Obviously John's had his stumbles and which is you know when people talk about John and the things that John's got in trouble with I'm like listen do you want a wild motherfucker or not okay if you want a guy to be the greatest of all time in fucking cage fighting he's gonna be wild that's one of the reasons why he's great when John was what is he 22 years old what he won the title 23. 23. Mauricio Shogun who was an all time great pride legend he opens the fight with a flying knee who does that who does you gotta be wild you gotta be a wild fella that's John I mean and you know obviously there's stuff he shouldn't have done there's you know a lot of a lot of extracurricular activities a lot of partying that's not healthy it's not good but that is what comes with being that kind of a guy and you know John could probably tell you more about this than anybody that's ever lived like what were the stumbles what could I have done differently and he probably could help prepare you more than anybody ever. He's already kind of put a big foot into it and man he's amazing with a lot of things now you know we talk so well now a lot of things are in a sense of he's trying to look out for me in business opportunities and places that I need to go and it's amazing you know a lot of people don't do that especially when you see the peaks and valleys of that person and their public info also and a lot of people don't want to give people the chance because you see something about someone until you finally meet them and it's like man like this guy's a whole different person you would have never expected and so man with John he's just he's just opened a lot of doors and kind of he is doing that that guiding of me. Well that's great too because John is essentially guiding his replacement you know which is really hard for a lot of people to have that kind of self-awareness know that there's only a certain amount of time that I can do this for and I see this young great man who's coming up and I'm going to help him and I'm going to give him some advice that maybe it would have been amazing if someone gave me you know because John didn't have some heavyweight champion training with him that could teach him those things especially not someone at that level the level that he's at. Man I know he's honored we're both honored. Yeah. Like I said he called me today. He was just man I really think you should just let the world know who you are and just just kind of get people the real feel of who you need to be and I've always loved to have like you just talked about the UNC of Bettids you know you see the real human being and I've always liked people seeing a real human being because we all do shit the same way there's nothing special there's nothing special some people just have more money some people just have more status but at the end of the day hopefully we can all sleep in a bed and I know some people don't which is which is sad to see but it's just some people live different lives and I and I want to live a life where it's happy and healthy with the people I have and I can meet so many people and I feel like I'm doing a great job right now so man any input I can get on how to be better how to be more mature how to be more sound especially from John I'm getting a lot but from to hear from you you know you get different perspectives of you are in a different realm than than than John also but you guys also in the same place you like you do the podcast and John's semi-retired but you see the you see the two different lives of two different well respected people. Well the mindset that you have to really want to acquire that information and really sort it out and know that these these challenges are coming your way the money and the fame and all that stuff is the thing that everybody focuses on but really the focus is on excellence excellence is what brings you the money excellence is what brings you the fame and the moment you start thinking about the fame and the money and not thinking about the excellence you've lost your way you've lost your way and a lot of people lose their way a lot of people that money and that fame that it starts coming and all sudden you're just thinking about numbers you're thinking about the house you're going to buy in the car you're going to drive and all that stupid shit and you lose your way and you know one of the things that I always try to tell people I try to tell us the young comedians especially is that think of the attention that you have like it has a number value like the attention like let's imagine like if you had a hundred dollars you know you can only spend a hundred dollars let's imagine your mind only has a hundred units of focus you have a hundred units of focus any focus that you have on other shit outside of the thing that brings you excellence is just robbing from excellence that's all it is and if you're concentrating on haters on social media or if you got a crazy bitch in your life that's ruining everything or you got some friend who's a hater and you think he's like maybe like hoping you fail like all that stuff that's distracting and it's just robbing attention from excellence you know and some of it's unavoidable and some of it actually strengthens your resolve to have a certain amount of like shit in your life just to understand how to maintain and still be excellent despite of all that there's probably some resilience building that comes from that but protect your focus it's precious protect your time protect that energy that you have to invest in things it's so precious the mind your focus and your drive that is everything in your life that's everything and anything that steals from that I remember this is one fighter and he was a very good fighter that was fighting in pride and he had this crazy girlfriend and every time he was going to fight like the day before the fight the girl would start problems and she would start fights and she'd screen she left the hotel like one o'clock in the morning and went down to the bar she wanted him to fail she wanted to be more important than his fighting career and his fighting career was so important and so overwhelming that she felt like she wasn't getting the attention that she needed so she would go get attention from him and she would steal from him and brought in it was crazy and this guy and he never wanted to be in a champion and he was a very talented guy too I don't want to say his name but it was one of those things where it's like man there are people in your life you got to recognize when you're dealing with that kind of a person you got to recognize that you got to cut them out you got to get rid of them they're stealing they're stealing from your focus they're stealing from your ability to create excellence and that's what you're in the business of you know you're in the business of excellence and anybody that's trying to steal from that like those are liabilities they're you know that's like you got a hole in the bottom of your boat you got to patch that shit up yeah well it's just like Mike Tyson kind of said you know once you're favored by God you're also favored by the devil too that's so true too yeah the temptations will come yeah and then also you start believing your own bullshit you know I mean look at John when he wasn't training you know but luckily for John he was so much better than everybody in the division that all it took was like a readjustment like the Dominic Reyes fight he almost lost that fight you know and Dominic Reyes as great as he was that night should not have been beating John Jones I think John Jones with like a real focus and a real like real drive towards destroying Dominic Reyes would be on another level I think so too it's like he could he could he is the best guy to be in your corner man because he's made all the mistakes and still come out the goat like who better to tell you how to do it right there's no one better man probably the greatest of course the greatest by far yeah what do you do for chill time like what do you do to to unwind honestly right now I like Call of Duty I play a lot of Warzone Ronnie Ronnie 2k you know who that is no that made a basketball game okay he I guess so I got my own player on 2k and it says like it so when I load into the game it says my real name and then you're playing people know you're playing against me oh is he I'm playing Call of Duty or 2k I mentioned before the French Bulldogs I mean I like to take care of friends Bulldogs I feel like Jamie's got one you do yeah oh he's so cute around the day yeah brought him what we didn't know we didn't know you're into French Bulldogs so I had sadly I to pass away I had I just had one pass away he had IV DD in his neck and that's a bad it's um it's a disc disease that happens in French Bulldogs because they're they're bred so bad and so my my first one had it in his back he was playing all day and then I turn and he was like paralyzed and instant and I was like oh man like that's not good so I had to put him down oh it's horrible and then I adopted one after this is like I adopted one a year ago he just passed away a couple weeks ago his name was Archie my little guy he had it in his neck and I had him on painkillers for like six months and I and I looked in one day he kind of rolled wrong and he kind of yelped again and I was like we got to take him in oh it's horrible so it's bad you know I got I got bad attachments to friends Bulldogs like they're like my since I'm having a real baby now that's like my second baby you're gonna be amazed how much you love your real baby more than you love your dogs as much as I love my dogs it just it's just another level oh it's beyond doesn't even compare I might one of my dogs went to surgery today he had a hernia he had a hernia I have a golden retriever and I have a King Charles spaniel he's the cutest little dog he's so fucking cute he's seven months old and he was born with a little hernia it's like some of them get that little hernia cut out a little bit so they had to stitch them up and but it's when I was playing with him last night I was so scared I was like what if something happens to him okay I can't I can't take it you know because I love him so much he's so sweet he just like when he like pick him up he like kisses me like constantly and he makes noise sometimes he barks while he's kissing you know I love you too I love you too and his little tail's wagging he wags his tail with his whole body like his whole body's wagging just wiggling all over my little to go after the ears yeah he does it like he would like put a whole nibble on the ear and then he would switch sides and then he would switch sides let me live for a little bit but I'm the I'm his whole world yeah and I feel like sometimes we forget that yeah well they're little love devices they just they just want love from you and they want to give you love they never have bad days they're they're they're never shitty they're never in a bad mood they're always cool you know every day is the same thing every day I see him in the morning like good morning he's a little crazy and you just I get on the ground with him on the carpet and just let him roll all over I love dogs if you know if it was up to me I'd have 50 dogs I wish we could make him live longer making him live longer be crazy like like cats are like 20 years what kind of dog be 20 years well I think they are working on that I think there's actual startups right now that are working on animal longevity and there's be cool yeah they're they're working on different medical interventions that can allow dogs to live longer which is fascinating and then sometimes people they clone their dogs Tom Brady just did that yeah I don't know how he did it but I mean that's weird hey have a good time that's pet cemetery shit that is that might be hereditary yeah I don't know if I'm into that I don't know I feel about that that I feel like every dog has their own unique personality and as much as I love the dogs that I have now like like I had my dog Marshall he's almost nine or he just turned nine rather and I've had him since he was a puppy I love him to death but then I got this new dog Charlie and I love him to death too he's a totally different personality like I don't mind new dogs and new personalities I don't need the same dog over and over and over again you know I mean I think that's weird you saw a friend's bulldog they got like 12 different personalities I love Carl Jamie brings Carl and he's a little psycho he's got too many personalities he runs at you and just wants to play they got that bowling ball head I know he's he's a little ball muscle to Carl's jacked Carl's got he's built and in see a fitter you got pictures of him pull up a picture of Carl he's adorable he he plays at my golden and he just like throws himself like a meat missile at my golden because my golden is like so gentle which is great because the you know Charlie is only 15 pounds my little dog and so my golden is like playing and he he like gently puts a paw over when they play that's car look at that in the face look at that in the face I just know he does everything extra oh yeah look at him sleep he's really nice he's he's adorable but when he plays with Marshall it's really crazy we got a video of him did you get his nose done nope no he's just wow that's perfect that's really good some of them have fucked up noses well they come out they come out like this and then they can't breathe and so they breathe out their mouth and sometimes they got to get it's like solder mm-hmm they clean that out like they make like a bigger hole that's awful yeah but some of them have it where like you have to go in and kind of help the the the esophagus because their face is flat so you got to help like the back and kind of cut it to where the it can go down the pipe oh no crazy crazy I wish people I was so dogs could live forever those dogs got a million different characters I know well I love all kinds dogs man I love working dogs I love German shepherds and Belgian Malmoise and King Corso be cool they're a little dangerous but that's what I'm hearing they only lowered a one person have a mistake and they don't like to listen yeah whenever my my boy Mark Delagrante from sit young sit yo tongue Muay Thai he coached a lot of UFC fighters coach Kenny Florian great Muay Thai coach great guy works for the UFC mm-hmm he had a Connie Corso they had to put his hand like dang down on him yeah and he had it for years out of nowhere well you know he's testing them like sometimes those dogs and not all of them but some of them they will test you mm-hmm you know and you just can't have a dog that's biting you like now because what else it's a little bit like your kid yeah what if it bites your wife yeah what if it bites the mailman it's like never know yeah when it's just like those and it's not all of them like I've had pit bulls and I never had a pit bull that wanted even wanted to bite a person they were always like the sweetest with people but then you hear stories you hear which is crazy I know because how can I go online and see a pit bull just not letting go of somebody but all of a sudden the next video I see a pit bull wearing a Christmas sweater I know with Paul shoes on I know so it's weird I know it's it doesn't make any sense it doesn't but it's just like people some people are born crazy yeah people are born crazy yeah are you big in anything like what do you believe in conspiracy wise like what's your big one don't open up my god yo my dad my dad my dad's die hard conspiracy if you and him had a talk oh what is his big one what's the big one with him it I don't even know but I know he's really but I think that the biggest one right now he just said it but I don't even know I don't even want to say it wrong but that's my thing but I'm big on conspiracy what is the subject do you remember the subject some about I don't I don't even want to say it okay I don't even want to say it right now okay we'll talk off air yeah okay but I but I believe there's a lot of things we don't know as people and I believe there's a lot of a lot of conspiracies are real that's the that's the problem the problem with conspiracy theories is some of them are crazy and ridiculous but the reason why people entertain crazy and ridiculous ones is because some of them are real and they're so nuts that you go they did what when you just when you find out about us history alone you know you find out that the reason why we got into Vietnam was I don't know this you got okay it's called the gulf of Tonkin incident the gulf of Tonkin incident was supposedly the north Vietnamese the vietcong attacked one of our ships but it was fake they faked it it's not real it's called a false flag and they did it just to have a story so that we would have an excuse to invade Vietnam so we sent all those people to Vietnam for nothing a lot of people died for nothing a lot of people died for nothing and a lot of people made a lot of fucking money and it probably had to do with drugs too because that's they were moving heroin at a Vietnam I mean there was it was control of the heroin trade was a big part of it there was also why one of this episode is brought to you by fast growing trees did you know fast growing trees is America's largest most trusted online nursery with over two million happy customers they carry thousands of trees and plants that are grown with care and 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well we're using it for medical here or they're just getting used to fuck people it's money it's money there's people there's dirty money that gets moved around for sure when you you deal with something like the drug trade and billions of dollars are going all over like people want a piece of that and there's high-level people that are dirty and they get involved in that and they make decisions based on that and and they put people's lives at risk and people die because of it and that probably happened in Afghanistan it definitely happened in Vietnam and the people don't want to believe that he people are hearing this right now oh stop with that nonsense but it's true I mean there's a video of Geraldo Rivera interviewing these military guys that were guarding poppy fields in Afghanistan and the guy who's interviewing is very reluctant to talk about it but they was on Fox News and he had to talk about it because everybody was aware of it it was becoming a big conspiracy online and they were coming up with some sort of a rational reason why they needed to guard their heroin production because you know we need them to tell on the Taliban and like really really so we're letting the farmers poison young people and heroin addicts all over the world because we want them to give us information about is that really what's going on or are you motherfuckers making money out of this they got to be making a lot of money to a lot of money a lot of money well I just saw a story about that guy from him he was a football player from Australia he was selling drugs what was that story he was um he's not from Australia he went to USC quarterback he was selling drugs he was selling drugs out of an apartment in Australia for a cartel that was from Tijuana I forgot his name it's his it's his quarterback I feel like a lot of people know it and it's a real recent story it's a real story a recent story I from recent from what I've seen it might be an older it might be like a couple years older but yeah he got caught because someone along the way was a middleman for a lot of yeah wild true story behind cocaine quarterback signal caller for the cartel wow and they said he was making like a million dollars a day and cash and he he was trying to move it through Las Vegas casinos but the middleman someone messed up the bet and he lost the money so he had a loan money from someone and that someone was was like a undercover waiting for him like a year later and caught him at a McDonald's before he went across the road to Tijuana or something it's crazy yo you know drugs control a lot of things and it's messed up well it's the money when you think about how much money gets moved around in the drug game and people get tempted by that and then you know you get a hold of some legitimate businessman you say listen there's a way for you to get 10x return on your money you know you invest in this and we do that it's simple you'll never get dirty all the money goes to offshore accounts no one know about it you could retire when you're 45 crazy and then people start getting rubed it and it's also it's the excitement of doing something naughty that's part of it too some people just get you know like some people like to ride bulls some people like to do some shit they're not supposed to do they get they get addicted to doing things that they are not supposed to do they get addicted to the life DEA agents a lot of DEA agents become drug dealers what's just like that show a narcos Mexico yes yes same thing exactly exactly exactly or cocaine cowboys have you ever watched that documentary no what's that about amazing cocaine cowboys one and there's cocaine cowboys two there was so much corruption in Miami during the 1980s during the cocaine time that one graduating class of the police academy the entire graduating class either wound up murdered or in jail how you do that because they were all corrupt they were all involved in cocaine dealing all of them because there was so much money everybody's driving a Corvette everybody's live in large everybody's doing blow and wearing diamonds it's crazy it's like you get caught up in that life and if you're involved in like it's your police officer and everybody around you is dirty you know like you it's you just more likely you're gonna be dirty too well now now aren't they aren't they kind of blowing the Ecuadorian ships up that are coming to here that are having a lot of drugs on them yeah Venezuela right Venezuelan ships yeah they just blowing them up I don't even know I'm not I'm not educated on stuff like that but I wonder if it's for to keep the trade here no I doubt it I think more likely what it is is because Trump genuinely hates that they're bringing drugs into this country is there other things involved too I don't know I mean I'm sure some of it has to do perhaps with politics I mean I think that's a reasonable assumption but Jamie I just sent you something here's what's interesting one of the things that Trump was saying is that we're poising our our kids and that 100,000 people are dying every year from drug overdoses we have to put a stop to this from the time Trump's been in office deaths by overdose have dropped off a cliff look at that look at 2024 and leading into 2025 look at these are all deaths from overdoses I mean that's kind of crazy like look at that from all drugs which is the top one look at that drop I mean that's crazy so you see the peak in was in 2022 or it looks like actually 2020 between 2023 and 2024 that's the peak where people are dying and then from the time Trump's in office it's taking a fucking sharp downturn and why is that well part of it because they're blowing up these fucking boats that are bringing in all the drugs and not just drugs but drugs that are tainted with fentanyl fentanyl is terrible terrible because a little piece can kill you exactly it's smaller than a penny and you're dead and people are snorting lines of it mm-hmm and they don't even know what's in there and the cartel they're they're buying you know they're taking shitty drugs and mixing it with fentanyl so it has an effect and people are getting it from what they think is azanics and it's not azanics it's fake and it's got fentanyl in it and they're dying from that they're dying from coke that they think it's coke and fentanyl's and that you know it's horrible there's so much access to things in this world right now that I feel like is there's there's so many attainable things that that people don't even think about that a lot of shit happens in this world that we just have no clue and it's kind of weird and I just don't know like kind of the variety that I'm bringing to the combo but I'm just saying it like I have just to say it but it's different just like a social media you can meet so many people and and and just going to random places and meeting people and then you can get roped up in the wrong things and it's the downhill of the downhill starts yep you take a bad turn and next you know you're on a bad road and you keep going you know eventually I'm gonna get out of this game and no then you're in jail or you're dead Ed Calderon's guy's been on this podcast many times he used to work for the Mexican military now as an American citizen but he's a cartel expert and you know the stories that he's told us about the fucking cartel and the amount of money they have I mean they essentially they have giant military operations to all cartel the cart and they go to war with each other that's crazy who's the is it Pablo Escobar that had the money in the walls of his house I mean probably I don't know or who died and he buried it all over in different places I'm sure they all do that I'm sure Escobar did that they I think they all do that they probably have so much that was one of the things of cocaine cowboys was this pilot they had millions of dollars buried in his backyard who just take garbage bags fill it with millions of dollars of cash dig a big hole in the backyard and bury it there because you couldn't bring into a bank why not just give it away because they're doing coke and they want more money they just don't know what to do with it you know and they can't just have it all laying around their house and someone will break in their house and kill them and take their money it's like then it's over with it is a crazy game but I can't recommend that documentary enough cocaine you watch it you go what the where's the stream that it's probably on everywhere where is cocaine cowboys gotta get it sounds like Amazon I'm sure it's on everything it might even be on Netflix but it's it's incredible because you realize like wow like cocaine built Miami Miami had more banks per capita I don't know if it still does but at one point in time more banks per capita than any other city in the country and it's because those banks were laundering money damn they were laundering cocaine money it was all coming in in Miami never sleeps either so it was all night affair yeah that is a crazy fucking town that's that is not a good town if you want to be a fighter and live like a low-key discipline life no you can all of a sudden you're here and you end up here then all of a sudden it's 8 a.m. right you're at the beach at 12 can't be right no can't right that's a dark hole that a lot of people should not be in but how do you get out though I don't ask John I mean he seems to have navigated those waters better than anybody you know because usually it ruins everything in your life he's obviously had some missteps but still comes out the greatest you know which is not everybody's path you know but obviously John is smart in that he spends a lot of time doing the things that he wants to do spends a lot of time training his dog doing you know tactical stuff is always shooting guns and training and you know you got to have things outside of that life you know that you enjoy other than just partying yeah you got to have fun you got to have some type of gap and some release yeah and he's got a he's got a good release and he's got a good mentality of what the release should be and how it should go and and where he needs to go with it and then I mean I've been with him now since we have this close in action I've been with him to the places and he's always he's always kept me on a straight path and which is really really nice you know a lot of people that that may have you know like the like to take shots or like to do something like that you know that there's always a little man do you want one right but there's never there's never been a time where he's like man I think you should try and it's great because as as as an older as a younger kid that's coming up he sees the potential and that's all that matters and I just need someone to see it and man he's been great with it for sure yeah when you're around a bunch of people that party and they drag you into that world it's so easy for people to get hooked it's so easy for people to just get roped into that lifestyle because people essentially for the most part imitate their atmosphere and if you're around that kind of an atmosphere those are the type of people that you're with and those are the type of thrills that they're seeking you can get caught up in that you know and it's it's the bane of every fighter's existence is women in partying yeah you know he's always been like hey you gotta stay you gotta stay clean go home mm-hmm and that's been the best part about it that's great man that is fucking great so what is the timeline right now are have you signed a deal with the UFC are they I know they're talking to you what's going on they've reached out of many times but I told them just I'm kind of out of lines of right now I'm waiting for my little girl to give my baby girl to give to come out so January is kind of a dead month for me but are you signed with the UFC no no I'm not signed but have they offered you a fight yet um yeah they've reached out about a couple things but no one specific they just offered dates do you want to have fights in other organizations first one of the problems with a guy like you is that you're so talented that you could have one two fights in the UFC and all of a sudden be fighting a top contender you know which I think you would do well yeah but if I was a manager of like a boxer and a guy with your potential I would do what customano did with Mike Tyson you have him fight a bunch of different guys like you did with dirty boxing small organization MMA fights build up those skills get get a lot of experience while you're constantly training and growing and getting better and then once you enter into the UFC you're essentially already the champion there's just nobody knows it yeah I would really like to debut at the White House debut I would like to debut at the White House I would like to do I would like to do one or two more fights before then and then if I can sign do a big release hey he signed good job and then debuted at the White House that's my perfect world is it hard to get fights right now um I maybe a little bit maybe a little bit I don't ask I just say yes and then just keep moving I kind of leave it up to John to kind of watch the people and and all the coaches to kind of watch and see see what goes on but I mean if a guy says no is there's no hard feelings I mean just keep it pushing and hopefully I can get to the guy that says yes that's the problem is that when a guy gets so much hype around him there's a lot of guys who want to eventually be a world champion and go I'm not ready for this guy yet you know it's okay even good guys are still like ah this guy's not he's on another level right now but just just when if they do think that just whenever you think you are ready I will be there waiting that's terrifying I will be there wait that's terrifying a lot of people heard that like I don't want to wait I don't want to wait but there's a lot I 100% but also the smart move might be to get a hold of you now before you get better you know you can try now too but you know what I'm saying yeah you know I'm saying to be like pick your poison I mean like I said dirty boxing and that last fight in November with that double leg that's the worst I ever be and it's kind of neat to to repeat that to the world to kind of let them get a refresher that is the worst Gable see if it will be and the best is when he'll come back is next time but after that that's the last worst I'll ever be after that so do you have a blueprint like a map of where what you'd like to accomplish in your career yes long term yeah long term I'd like to be champion UFC champion I think steep a has about five defenses if I'm not mistaken I would like to do I would like to try to try to beat that record if I can and if I can't die trying you know I would like to I played it in a fail I won the Olympics I would just like to be just an overall good man you know a lot of people want to look at like we just talked about you know a lot of people want to look at the success the money I just want to be excellent man you know I'm saying I want to look back and be like damn like Gable did that and I saw Dana White he had a picture and he said let your last name be the reason that people remember you and I want the Stevenson last name to be something that people remember and I want them to look at me and be like damn like through the peaks and valleys Gable stood up and and he became someone his life and he provided for his family and he went home healthy and and that's what I want championships gonna come but I feel like a lot of people are so obsessed with I got to do this but I'm obsessed with being the best version of Gable because I'm the if I'm the best version of Gable you're not gonna be able to beat me keep that mindset and you will accomplish these things my man and then I believe it well I appreciate it thank you very much for being here yes you're right it's pleasure thank you and I can't wait to see fight in the UFC man I can't wait it's gonna be fun thank you all right thank you bye everybody ever seen a musical so good you didn't want it to end like you could live inside it forever then you're going to love Shmigadoon get your one-way ticket to Broadway musical paradise have you ever felt trapped at a musical like you literally couldn't escape then you'll hate to miss Shmigadoon because you'll never want to leave and you can't but the important thing is you'll never want to get tickets at ShmigadoonBroadway.com every act of change begins with a neighbor with someone saying we take care of each other here in food banks and food pantries neighbors pack fresh food and dignity into every box moving food from farms to families through Feeding America's nationwide network so when that box reaches a home it carries more than food it carries a promise that together we can end hunger Feeding America led by neighbors give 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