The Manosphere Report

0:01Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out!

0:03The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day!

0:12You're all suited up, you got a wild card boxing hat on, a Bruce Lee

0:16shirt, come on son! Hey, we got the yellow thing going on.

0:22Yeah, you got it all going on.

0:23What's happened? Great to see you.

0:25Man, things are really well.

0:27This thing is a little loud.

0:28Is it? There's a, on that thing there, there's a little volume knob, you can

0:33turn that sucker down. There it is.

0:34Last time I saw you, it was at Terry Black's Barbecue.

0:36Yeah, yeah. Random run -in.

0:38Yeah, that was crazy. That was crazy.

0:40Yeah, man, I was thinking about going there right after this.

0:42I'm like, what? Terry Black's?

0:44That place was no joke.

0:45That place rules. Yeah, man.

0:47Are you still in LA?

0:48Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's it like?

0:51It's cool, man. Is it?

0:53Yeah. You're the only person that said that.

0:56No, no. Yeah, well, because, okay, I defend LA in a way where, first of

1:01all, if you got a handful of good people with you, you know?

1:05Yeah. And your family. Sure.

1:06So the fact that LA has all kinds of different things.

1:10You could be on a hiking trail in 20 minutes.

1:14Oh, geographically, it's amazing. Yeah, and the weather, you can't beat it.

1:17Oh, you can't beat it.

1:18So if you got good people, good friends with you, then it's all good.

1:23You just run by crooks.

1:25It's a nice neighborhood run by the mob.

1:28It's run by the woke mob.

1:30But, I mean, geographically, you can't beat it.

1:32You could be at the ocean, and then you could be in the mountains in

1:35two hours. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's, even if you don't partake, it's still cool.

1:42It still amps up the ante, really.

1:45Oh, yeah, like the spot itself is magical.

1:49It is a magical place to live, although I am deeply concerned that that motherfucker

1:54is going to get hit with a big one soon.

1:56It's about time, right? Yeah.

1:59I was reading this article about massive earthquakes in California and how often they're spread

2:05out and the possibility of one of them happening within the next decade.

2:08It's very high. Yeah, yeah.

2:11You know, I try not to think about that.

2:14I try not to think about it, too.

2:16Yeah, yeah, but, you know, now there's, you know, you can, I think they have

2:21better detection of that stuff now, too.

2:24Mm -mm. It's better. It doesn't matter.

2:27It doesn't matter. They can't detect.

2:29Well. Do you remember what happened in Italy?

2:31A couple guys got arrested and went to jail.

2:35They were seismologists because the company, the country, rather, didn't understand the ability to detect

2:42it. They had a big earthquake and a bunch of people died.

2:44And so they blamed these geologists or seismologists.

2:49They wound up winning in court on appeal because eventually the science was revealed.

2:54Like, hey, there's no fucking way you can really tell.

2:57But they hung these guys out.

2:59They blamed these guys on not being able to detect it.

3:02Man. Well, I mean, just think about it.

3:05The last crazy ones were 72 and then 94.

3:09Yeah. Right. I think it was 93.

3:10I came, I moved to L .A.

3:12right after the last big one.

3:14I saw one of the sections of the highway that had collapsed on the other

3:18one. I remember driving by going, fuck this place.

3:21I was in the middle of that one.

3:23I just, I came into L .A.

3:25Oh, you were there? Dude, I don't even like to tell the story about what

3:28happened during that 94 earthquake.

3:30Oh. Because it sounds like bullshit.

3:32But literally, I got up, ran out of my house, my apartment at the time,

3:40jumped off the balcony and watched it happen.

3:45You watched the house collapse?

3:47I watched the earthquake happen from outside.

3:50Oh. It's like no bullshit.

3:53Everybody, so I thought, oh shit, I overreacted.

3:57I had a bad dream.

3:58I lived on the first floor of this apartment building.

4:03All I know is I wake up, I'm off balance, catching my balance in the

4:08parking lot. Right? And like, oh shoot, I got to find the guard to get

4:13me back in the apartment building.

4:15Right? And I'm thinking, what, you know, what, what, what's, like, I've lost my mind

4:19or something. The next thing you know, everything shakes and the lights go out.

4:25Just go, just everything gets black.

4:28And so I'm backing, I retreat back because I'm thinking the building's going to fall

4:34on me. And I'm like, wait a minute.

4:38Then I got the, the story from everybody else that, that experienced it.

4:45They said that the first thing that happened was the, the building shook and the

4:50lights went out. Well, I was outside watching that.

4:54So I'm outside when it happened, like some kind of canine.

5:00What made you jump over the, I don't know, you had a feeling?

5:04Dude. Or did you have like the first, was it the first rumbles?

5:08I thought, I thought it was, I thought I reacted to the, like some kind

5:12of an aftershock or some kind of rumble.

5:14No, because the girl that was with me.

5:17You left her in the apartment?

5:22Dude. All she knows, she's like, you jumped up and you ran out of, you

5:28ran out of the house and I heard the, the, the, the door slide.

5:33And that was, and then the next thing you know, everything shook.

5:37She couldn't, she was trapped in there because there was a, a closet door that

5:43trapped, trapped her in the hallway.

5:46So when I got back in the place, me and a friend had to try

5:50to pry the door open because she couldn't get out.

5:53But I ran out of that place before the earthquake actually happened.

5:59How weird. Yeah. You got good instincts.

6:01I don't know what the hell that was.

6:03It has to be because.

6:05I don't even like telling that story because it sounds like bullshit.

6:07I don't even like it.

6:08I don't even like it.

6:08Make it. because it really happened that way because then the guard i talked to

6:14the guard i'm like hey when did when did the lights go out oh it

6:17shook and the lights went out i'm like i'm watching that happen so so you

6:21felt it happen before it happened some kind of weird way well i bet humans

6:27have that animals definitely have that they talk about thailand how they had that tsunami

6:32and all the animals ran up to the highest point of the of the island

6:35they all just took off it's like they just knew instinctively i don't know nothing

6:42like that has ever happened afterwards but i gotta say there's been i've been lucky

6:47over the years yeah but you're a dude who's tuned in you're tuned into your

6:50body you're tuned into your environment you're not going to get caught slipping like you

6:55probably felt something and your spidey sense went off yeah i i kind of have

7:02been like that growing up like i've been you know i've been on my own

7:08since i was 14 been through crazy shit that you normally would see on movies

7:12and that's the type of shit that gives you those kind of instincts but but

7:16yeah and i was always the one that said hey let's leave let's get out

7:20of here and then hey man there was a shootout that just happened right after

7:23you left or i could detect like the predators you know what i mean so

7:29i grew up kind of that way right because you have nobody looking out for

7:33you yeah nobody was looking out for you you had to look out for yourself

7:36well yeah i mean i was oh i was i was like always the junior

7:41of the group a lot of times because like i said i've you know i've

7:44been on my own since i was 14 i haven't grown an inch since i

7:46was 13 14 i was i looked like a grown -ass man right i was

7:51fighting in tournaments at 15 against you know uh uh grown men like you know

7:57fighting heavyweight at that time but i was always hanging with older people uh kind

8:06of you know kind of like i got away with kind of living as an

8:11adult early on because like you know did you work yeah well i was teaching

8:17a karate school a karate class what what was doing what was what was happening

8:21see i used to hang out at this community center in the hood at this

8:26time i moved from from brooklyn to bridgeport connecticut right bridgeport's a tough name yeah

8:32yeah it was a lot of people don't know yeah we had the top murder

8:36rate per capita man like bridgeport's rough oh yeah yeah so i was uh constantly

8:42i mean there's a community center that was like my haven and i would go

8:48practice with me my other karate nuts you know and so i'd be in the

8:55in the paper for winning heavyweight you know uh competitions or whatever and so the

9:01people that was running the community center said why don't you teach a class they

9:05thought i was an adult oh that's hilarious and so i was teaching like a

9:10you know like kind of like just under the table i was getting paid on

9:13the table basically but i had like close to 200 students early on like when

9:18i'm 15 16 oh that's crazy yeah so you know it was kind of kind

9:22of a trip that you know which is one of the reasons why i was

9:26a father at 15 you know because i had uh one of my students older

9:32sister you know it was like had a crush on her her her on his

9:39uh instructor but i was kind of living the life of a grown -up like

9:44early on and so you know there's there's a faction of people in bridgeport who

9:49think i'm satan i guess because they think that i'm probably in my 70s you're

9:56a vampire right yeah so there's there's some people i had to admit like uh

10:01no i wasn't the age you thought i was back then oh that's crazy yeah

10:04but i mean so yeah you know one of the things i i um i'm

10:10really grateful for is growing up that early and having to you know use my

10:14instincts and being that you know street fighting and fighting was like my favorite thing

10:20to do actually and so with when i got into the martial arts deeper and

10:25everything else you know i i just i just really i really dug into it

10:31and wanted to learn style after style and this you know everything i was just

10:36a martial art nerd for it but um i also liked the the realistic portion

10:44portion of it even though i was doing other styles like wushu and everything else

10:49but you know it was it was actually my haven somewhere eddie bravo has to

10:54find this video there's a video of us working out together at legends where we

11:00were talking about hopping sidekicks and different types of sidekicks and you threw there was

11:05a bag that we had that had a shitty chain but that regardless you threw

11:09a hopping sidekick on that chain and the chain snapped and went flying the bag

11:14went flying and eddie bravo was like what the fuck it's a funny video man

11:18i know eddie has it somewhere i'll probably i'll text him after this and try

11:23to see if he could put it up on his instagram or something yeah yeah

11:26back then man we were training when it wasn't even popular you know i see

11:30you in the gym all the time yeah all the time man and you were

11:34just think about this do you know it was 29 years ago the last time

11:39you interviewed me yeah that's right 29 years ago that after bob costa show he

11:45took a week off and i guest hosted it for a week yeah yeah and

11:49at that time you were you were already training with maurice smith yes maurice was

11:53one of the guests right you you were training because i i ended up training

11:56with maurice smith you know every time i'd go to seattle you know we we'd

12:00train together so you know we're like part of this like kind of karate martial

12:05art nerd culture yeah when it wasn't even popular no i used to see you

12:10all the time you know you and you and you know doing jujitsu carl parisian

12:15and all these guys are legends well there was another place it was we had

12:19there was legends and it was another the bomb squad yes the bomb squad was

12:23the first place that eddie taught And then that place closed down, then we went

12:26to Legends, and then we moved to the other Legends that was, like, in more

12:32East L .A., and then Eddie started opening up his own place in downtown.

12:37Yeah, yeah, and that's where I would train with Josh Barnett at that place quite

12:42a bit. Yeah. Yeah, man.

12:44Old days. Yes, man, yeah.

12:46Yeah, and who would be coming through the – because I was training Bob Sapp

12:52at one time, and then I – that's how I got Frankie Lyles connected into

12:57that. Wow. That whole thing.

12:58And so – I remember Frankie.

13:00Yeah. Frankie used to be at the Bomb Squad first.

13:02Right, yeah. Frankie was, like, my best friend in the world, and he was –

13:05you know, he was a super middleweight champion in the world.

13:07Yeah. That's who got me deeply into boxing.

13:10And so I would always be at his training camps, and, you know, I got

13:15to train with, like, Tommy Hearns and all these amazing people, like, Sugar Ray and

13:22all these guys, man. Frankie's a great boxing coach.

13:25Oh, yeah, yeah. He's one of the most technical – he's one of the most

13:28technical guys I've ever worked with.

13:29Like, he analyzes every aspect of your jab.

13:32He's pulling in your elbow.

13:33Oh, yeah. He's tightening this.

13:35He's moving you here. He's, like – like, he's showing all the, like, various basic

13:40little tiny details that make all the difference in the world.

13:43Yeah, man. He was my, you know, personal boxing coach a lot of – you

13:48know, I would train with him, Joe Goosen, early on.

13:53But Frankie, I mean, we really kind of combined a lot of things because I

14:01started kind of teaching him things with the jab, like the un -telegraphed type of

14:06stuff, and he started applying that, and he would bring me into stuff and, you

14:12know, have me show people like Sugar Ray, like, oh, Mike, explain this jab.

14:17And I'm like, what? I'm explaining this to Sugar Ray?

14:19This feels ridiculous, right? But it was like this combination because, like, I don't know.

14:26You know, I'm very analytical, and I love technique, you know, and so I would

14:33just try to break things down, and my whole thing was always to pressure test

14:37things, you know. So if I could develop a tool or a skill, and you

14:42can't stop it even if I tell you what I'm doing, then it's a really

14:48good technique. Then it's legit.

14:50The thing about no telegraph at all, it's so much more effective than a harder

14:56strike with a telegraph. Oh, God, yeah.

14:58Because it lands. Yeah. But it's so difficult to teach people that because everybody wants

15:01to hit everybody as hard as they can.

15:03Yeah. Especially if you have power, your instinct is to fucking load up on everything.

15:08I remember I first saw you teaching that to Kimbo Slice.

15:11Oh, yeah, yeah. You were on a movie set.

15:13Yeah, yeah, because Kimbo, oh, man, what a great guy.

15:17What a great guy he was.

15:18What a wonderful guy. So that's one thing about fighting.

15:21You can't hide your nature.

15:23You know what I mean?

15:24People see who you are, and he was a wonderful human being.

15:27But like a lot of people, almost like street basketball as opposed to professional, you

15:37miss out on certain techniques that you need when you're trying to step up.

15:42Right. And so, like, well, Kimbo, you know, he would, like a lot of people,

15:47he would kind of telegraph.

15:48And so when we were shooting the movie, you know, and I basically, we had

15:56a cameraman that did not really know how to shoot stuff.

15:59So I just had to do everything on screen.

16:02And so I would, I would, I just wanted to make everything very realistic.

16:07And so, so Kimbo had this rubber knife, and I was like, try your best

16:12to touch me with a rubber knife.

16:15And so he would try, but before, but as soon as he would move, there'd

16:20be a little bit of an indication that I'd see.

16:23And then I, I throw the punch, and it would go really close to him,

16:26and I'd have him react to that.

16:28But he was going, wait a minute, how are you, how are you hitting me

16:31before I can get this knife out?

16:33And then I told him, you know, I'll show you what that is later.

16:36Because, you know, kind of like, not to be real nerdish about it, but like,

16:41why, why are like 50 and 60 -year -old trainers meeting people's hands, like a

16:4820 -year -old guy's or contender's hands, like this?

16:52You see the person with the pad moving just as much as the other guy,

16:56because there's an indication there's, they, they do this beforehand.

17:01They're always kind of flexing and going in reverse before they go forward.

17:08So just for over years, I wouldn't do that, and I would exploit that, you

17:14know? So it's kind of like a cheat code that I'm like, hell, what the

17:17hell, what the hell I'm going to do with it?

17:19I'm, I'm an actor. So my thing is, just like yourself, when I see you,

17:24you know, with George St.

17:25Pierre and how we're always in the gym, we're, you know, we're kind of collaborating.

17:32We're, you know, we're, we're, it's about just getting better.

17:35Not, no ego or anything else like that.

17:37It's just like, hey, man, we're like kind of, you know, kind of like jamming

17:41on, on technique and getting better.

17:44Well, especially if you run into someone who has a different style than you.

17:47Because there's always something in different styles that you could take out of it.

17:51Absolutely. There's always something. And we're seeing that now.

17:54There's all these different martial artists that are entering into MMA that are having these

17:59different techniques that people haven't seen before.

18:01And there's a lot of them that people dismiss that you're finding are very effective,

18:06especially if you don't know how to do them.

18:08You don't know what they are.

18:09So you don't, you have like a database in your mind of movements.

18:13Like, I'm sure you see one of the guys loading up on a spin.

18:17Oh, yeah. Everybody sees that.

18:18But if you don't know that, you don't see it.

18:20Right. And if you, if you are loading up, then you're not going to, you're

18:26not going to capitalize on it.

18:27Right. Because you don't, you know, you're taking a, there's a millisecond that you're taking

18:31because your movement is not efficient.

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19:13slash jre to learn more there's a move that still to this day people aren't

19:18doing effectively when someone loads up because you could see the load up and it's

19:22just a jam it's just lifting your foot up and put it on the hips

19:25and it's super effective in taekwondo because everybody's fast you know everybody's trying to do

19:30that technique but that jam of just lifting your foot up and just not trying

19:34to hit them hard just putting that foot on the hip it fucks people up

19:38and i don't see anybody using that right now i tell you man like i

19:41don't like as in life there's always something that you can gain from you know

19:47people want to i don't know people are in their own egos a lot of

19:50times but like even wushu me is as hard as hell for me doing wushu

19:56against guys half my size it's not against but it's a performance thing right but

20:02if i can do all that can go to these these very uh hard techniques

20:10of like good i gotta get down to the floor and i gotta and body

20:15mastery and yeah at my size right well then i'm better so if i want

20:20to kick you in the eyebrow i can right because i'm it's about you know

20:24having my body do what my mind's telling it to right and so but of

20:29course people want to dismiss it because oh that ain't real you can't use it

20:33yeah good yeah just like ballet is hard as hell you can't use that either

20:37but anybody any heavyweight who put themselves through ballet would be a better fighter 100

20:44look at lomachenko yeah his dad taught him ukrainian dance lomachenko's dad pulled him out

20:50of boxing for two years when he was young yeah and said you're just gonna

20:53do you can't ukrainian dance yeah he's like what the fuck am i doing but

20:56look at that guy's footwork exactly exactly and so so it's it's just that as

21:01in life man i don't look at anything from one group and just discard any

21:05any other stuff i used to when i was young yeah when i was young

21:09i was pretty arrogant about certain things i thought forms were stupid all i wanted

21:13to do was spar and hit the bag yeah then as i got older i

21:16realized oh there's a lot of wisdom and all this oh absolutely yeah but yeah

21:19but that's like i say i try to apply that to life period you know

21:24i never look at anything from one perspective i mean i grew up in the

21:28hood and i'm you know my favorite band is freaking you know the eagles really

21:34and yeah i mean like you know and i'm listening to jody mitchell and all

21:39and people like what are you doing listening am i like what the fuck you

21:42know this is my life man fuck you like do you hear these lyrics you

21:47hear you hear jody mitchell's lyrics man what the fuck that's all for me too

21:52i mean i'm just as passionate about you know errol smith as i am about

21:56the isley brothers but but i it was i've never looked at life as i

22:02have to think in this parameter you know i've got to be marginalized that's that's

22:08just man come on it's such a waste of life it is it's all for

22:12you man so i agree with with the martial arts and everything else i look

22:16at every martial art uh just like everything else everything has something to contribute yeah

22:21you're just like all people have something to contribute even an idiot you can learn

22:25from an idiot you can you can a lot of idiots say wise things occasionally

22:30yeah because everybody's going to have a quotient of of legitimacy you know maybe it

22:38may be 20 as and they don't see the 80 right but until you acknowledge

22:43that 20 they're not going to hear you right you know what i mean so

22:46that's the thing it's like man we're on this planet and one of the things

22:49i mean i i i don't envy a whole lot of people but i do

22:53dude i do envy you because you get to expand your world you talk to

22:58so many interesting people and that's what a great thing what a great thing to

23:04just have all these type of perspectives and all that coming through and i gotta

23:11say man i'm super proud of you because i know you as joe from the

23:14gym and look what you've done man thank you man it's like that that's a

23:18that's a shot in the arm because it's like people that you like and seeing

23:22them prosper that's cool as shit like yeah i've learned a lot man and i

23:26didn't expect to you know when we first started doing this it was just for

23:29fun we just get together with our friends you know you knew what you wanted

23:33to do man you you were pretty damn clear because do you remember this you

23:36remember me coming to i think i think it was the ice house in pasadena

23:40yeah uh no no no oh shoot it wasn't ice house it was it was

23:43in it was in orange county i came to see magic club maybe i came

23:47to see you perform and i i i um offered you the the role in

23:53blood and bone do you remember that at all i do yeah yeah i do

23:57now yeah okay because blood and bone which is like actually sony's most successful non

24:03-theatrical that was basically a a kind of a reimagining of hard times with charles

24:12bronson and um uh james colburn yes well that role was basically that i was

24:20offering you was the james colburn role right and but you were so you was

24:25dead and you said i didn't i don't want to do this acting stuff i

24:28want to do i want to focus on what i you know your your interest

24:31which was you know you stand up and you you're getting together you're i mean

24:36i know you and eddie were doing like kind of the early podcast type of

24:40stuff and whatever and i'm like man you know you really kind of knew what

24:44you wanted to do well the the thing about acting is uh i mean i

24:48admire it especially good acting yeah but it takes a lot of time out of

24:52your day yeah it's It's a 16 -hour day, it's a long day, and it

24:57will take away from other things you do.

25:00And I saw that with a lot of comics, that they started doing acting, and

25:04it would take away from their act, because they really couldn't go and do sets

25:07every night. They couldn't really polish their material.

25:10You could see the stuff getting a little clunkier.

25:14You've got to focus. You've got to find the things you enjoy and focus on

25:18them. Yeah, that's why I say I'm so proud of just being there and seeing

25:22what you did. You being a part of the UFC when it was nothing promised,

25:29you know what I mean?

25:29Not only was it not promised, people looked at you like you were doing snuff

25:33films or something. Exactly. I remember the early days.

25:37Dana White always says this, people would talk to you like you were doing porn

25:40or something. Right, right. I was on news radio, the sitcom on NBC, and I

25:45was doing commentary where I was doing post -fight interviews for the UFC.

25:49And they were like, why are you doing this?

25:50Why are you flying to Alabama and doing cage fights?

25:54See, this is what movies are.

25:55Good movies are made of shit like this.

25:57You know, and somebody just out of their spirit doing what they want to do

26:03with no promise of anything and then accomplishing something.

26:08So, you know, kudos, man.

26:10Oh, thank you. Seriously, man.

26:11Well, for me, and I'm sure for you as well, when we were young, there

26:15was always a question, what is the best style?

26:16Is it kyokushin? Is it judo?

26:19Is it kung fu? What is it?

26:20What's the best style? And no one really knew.

26:23I mean, Benny the Jet fought in a bunch of those no -rules fights early

26:27on, but they never really took off.

26:29There wasn't a lot of those.

26:31You know, and Benny was obviously a very special fighter.

26:34Oh, yeah. Yeah, he was one of my teachers, too.

26:36Oh, yeah. Yeah. I trained at his gym.

26:39He was on the podcast with Blinky, Blinky Rodriguez recently, and I told him, I

26:43said, when I came to L .A., there was two places I had to go.

26:46I had to go to the Comedy Store and I had to go to the

26:47Jet Center. I had to go to the Jet Center.

26:49And I was there in 94, right before it went under, because the earthquake damaged

26:55the roof. Exactly. And so when the rainy season came.

26:58Yeah. It was on Friar Street.

26:59Yep, yep, yep. Right down from the Goossens.

27:01Yep. Yeah, right down. Yeah.

27:04And that was an honor, man, to be able to train in that gym.

27:07That was incredible. It was an incredible place.

27:09Oh, yeah. Yeah. I used to be there.

27:11Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah. Those were some great times, because, I mean, I connect with

27:16Benny, because when I was in Bridgeport, my instructor, Matty Malisi, went to California and

27:24started training with Benny. Oh, wow.

27:26Early on. So he put that on the map about coming to the Mecca and

27:30training with Benny. It was the Mecca.

27:32Yeah. For kickboxing, especially in the 90s, that was the Mecca.

27:35You had to go to the Jet Center.

27:36Oh, absolutely. Yeah, man, that was classic.

27:39So we were always wondering, like, what is the style?

27:42What's the best style? And then the UFC came along.

27:45And I'm like, oh, my God, they did it.

27:47They did it. They figured it out.

27:48They put it all together.

27:49And for a while, it was jiu -jitsu, because nobody understood jiu -jitsu.

27:52And Hoyce Gracie was just running shit.

27:54Well, you know how that was kind of set up a little bit.

27:58It was a little set up.

27:59Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, I mean, look, he had some challenges.

28:01Like, Ken Shamrock was a beast.

28:03Oh, yeah. You know, he had some really good fighters he was facing against.

28:05Kimbo Slice. I mean, excuse me, not Kimbo Slice.

28:08Not Kimo. Kimo. Sorry. Kimo was fucking huge.

28:12He was a big dude, but, you know, he didn't really.

28:14It was a hundred -pound advantage.

28:18He had a hundred pounds over Hoyce.

28:20The Gracies were smart. They were very smart at that time, knowing, you know, the

28:25right people to kind of pick at that time, because, you know, there was some

28:28killers out there. There were some killers out there.

28:31Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they definitely set it up, especially the early ones.

28:34But it's also, it's like, you know, that was, it was good for us to

28:39see a guy like Hoyce who wasn't jacked.

28:42He was a slender guy who weighed 175 pounds, and he was strangling everybody, armbarring

28:48everybody. It was wild to see when he beat Dan Severin.

28:51Dan Severin was 260 pounds, and Hoyce tapped him off his back with a triangle.

28:55Woo! Yeah, man, what a story.

28:58That put jiu -jitsu on the map.

29:00On the map, big time.

29:01But, you know, one thing that always broke my heart is people never knew about

29:04Hickson. Right. Oh, my God.

29:07I know. That dude. Yeah.

29:10That cat was like, I always consider him like pound for pound the best, because

29:15he had this, not only, you know, jiu -jitsu skills, but just his concentration.

29:22Yeah. And he was almost like, you know, hypnotic.

29:26Right. You know what I mean?

29:27And just no waste of energy.

29:30None. Just unbelievable. What an amazing person to watch.

29:34I would encourage anybody to pull up his fight.

29:37Talk about David versus Goliath stuff.

29:40Oh, yeah. Another great example of cross -training, too, because Hickson got really into yoga.

29:44And everybody's like, what the fuck are you doing yoga?

29:46Oh, yeah. Like, yoga's for girls, right?

29:48Hickson got really into yoga and got super flexible and really good at controlling his

29:54breathing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And never got tired.

29:57Yeah. You saw him in the Hulk?

29:59Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. With that Morton.

30:02Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Man, it's something, man.

30:04Talk about a legend. Oh, a real legend.

30:06Yeah. Yeah, man. Well, Hickson, there's a video of him, and he did this multiple

30:11times, where he would go to these gyms and he would teach a seminar, like

30:16a long seminar, and then roll with all the black belts and just tap them

30:21one after the other, world champions, guys that just didn't understand what was going on.

30:26Like, how is this happening?

30:28Oh, yeah. Like, Paul Ophelio, when he was a WEC world champion, and he had

30:34won the Mundiales, I believe, he'd won multiple jiu -jitsu championships, and he trained with

30:40Hickson, and he's like, man, it's true.

30:42Yeah. He goes, I can't believe it.

30:44He goes, that guy treated me like I didn't even belong in there.

30:46It was crazy. Yeah. And Hickson, by that time, was probably like 40.

30:51Yeah. You know, and he's still just dominating guys on the mat, and effortless.

30:55It wasn't strength. It was just pure technique and movement.

30:59Basics and just mastering of basics.

31:02Oh, basics. It was like, there's none of the, no Barambolos, no X.

31:08Nothing crazy. Everything he did is like Jiu -Jitsu 101, but to a masterful, masterful

31:16degree. Yeah. It was incredible.

31:18And telling people that, you know, because everybody knows Hoist, and I'm like, you guys

31:23don't know who his big brother is.

31:25He would openly say that my brother is 10 times better than me.

31:28Right, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so that really put—and I love Jiu -Jitsu because it's held

31:36up the tradition. That martial arts, so much karate lost because it became a business.

31:42And people would just, you know, put their time in and pay for their black

31:47belt. Right. And it just watered it down.

31:49Right. And all these people running around saying that they're master this and, you know,

31:53grand whatever and all these made -up things.

31:57And it's like, oh, yeah, the guy's a master in an Asian martial art.

32:02That's an English word. Right, right, right.

32:05You know what I mean?

32:06How did master sneak its way into it?

32:09Yeah, but anyway. But, you know, male ego.

32:12Well, the thing about martial arts other than Jiu -Jitsu is when you're sparring, it's

32:17very controlled. Like a lot of karate sparring is very controlled.

32:21A lot of Taekwondo sparring is very controlled.

32:23Yeah. But in Jiu -Jitsu, the beautiful thing about grappling is you know how good

32:27everybody is because they all spar.

32:30Yeah. And they're all rolling with each other.

32:32And they're essentially going full blast until the tap.

32:35Yeah. And so there's no hiding.

32:37Yeah. There's no hiding your skill.

32:39Yeah. I love what Eddie Bravo used to say.

32:41Basically, when you won, I killed you.

32:43Yeah. Yeah. I just killed you.

32:46Yeah. You know? Right. So that's like, wow, that's a trip because it's like it

32:50actually works out that way.

32:52Oh, yeah. Yeah. If he gets you in a triangle and you tap, it's because

32:55you were about to go to sleep.

32:56Yes. And once you're asleep, you can just stomp your head into a pancake.

33:00Yeah. You're done. Yeah. Just hold on to that triangle and then you never wake

33:03up. Yeah. What a humbling thing.

33:05Yeah. You know? Yeah. Very humbling.

33:07Yeah. And what's really humbling is how quickly someone can do it to you when

33:11you don't know what you're doing.

33:12Like, that was shocking to me because I had all this martial arts experience and

33:16I first started training. I was like, what's someone going to do to me?

33:19I wrestled in high school.

33:20I'm strong. I'm fast. I didn't know how to fight.

33:23Yeah. I just got manhandled over and over and over again.

33:26Oh, yeah. I was like, this is ridiculous.

33:27Yeah. See, but kudos because a lot of people, because if you've got an egotistical

33:33thing going and you get your little, I don't know, your comfort because you got

33:41your black belt and all that kind of stuff, that means jack nothing.

33:45You know, to everybody I know who continues and really to learn real fighting knows

33:51when you had a boxer beat the hell out of you and you go, oh,

33:56wait, there's a lot of this stuff I got to toss out the window.

33:59Yeah. And because, I mean, I never forget like times where, you know, like a

34:04wrestler gets to me or a boxer like pieces me up like early on.

34:08I'm like, no, I got to learn this.

34:10Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I went through several of those.

34:14Mm -hmm. I went through one of them in high school because I had a

34:17friend in high school that was a wrestler and I didn't think anything of wrestling.

34:21I'm like, that's not even a martial art.

34:23And then we wrestled on the grass one day and he just took me down

34:26at will. Yeah. And I was like, this is ridiculous.

34:28Yeah. Like he was pinning me down.

34:30I couldn't move. I couldn't get up.

34:31I'm like, this is stunning.

34:33Right. Yeah. I thought I'm strong.

34:36Yeah. I thought I could move.

34:37I thought I'll be able to get out of the way.

34:39Yeah. I had no chance.

34:41Yeah. And he wasn't even a great wrestler.

34:43He was just a decent wrestler.

34:45Yeah. And he just humbled me over and over and over again.

34:47So then I started wrestling.

34:48And then when I got into Taekwondo, I thought I'm really good at Taekwondo.

34:52I was competing on a national level.

34:54I won the state championships four years in a row.

34:57I was fucking people up.

34:57And then I remember the first time I boxed with a really good amateur boxer,

35:02I was like, oh, Lord.

35:04And this kid was like 18 years old.

35:06Yeah. And he went on.

35:09His kid, his name is Dana Rosenblatt.

35:11He went on to become a New England middleweight champion.

35:14He beat Vinny Pacienza. Oh, shoot.

35:16He beat Howard Davis Jr.

35:18As a professional. He was a really good boxer.

35:20Yeah, he had to be.

35:21But he was kickboxing at the time.

35:24And I was going to get into kickboxing.

35:26And so I was sparring with him.

35:27But when I was boxing with him, I was just getting lit up.

35:30I was like, oh. And then also when we were kickboxing, the moment he got

35:34close to me, I was in trouble.

35:35Right. I was like, oh, no.

35:37Like, Taekwondo had too many flaws.

35:39Exactly. The hand techniques. So I had gone through that.

35:42And so then I thought, okay, well, now I understand kickboxing.

35:45Then I met a dude who went to Thailand a bunch of times and was

35:48training Muay Thai and fighting over there.

35:49And then I started learning leg kicks.

35:51I'm like, well, oh, good Lord.

35:53Now all they have to do is kick my legs?

35:55I didn't even think of that.

35:56And then I started really paying attention to WKA fights, like the old Dennis Alexio

36:02days with Don the Dragon Wilson.

36:04And I was like, leg kicks.

36:06Leg kicks are everything. Oh, my goodness.

36:08And then I'm like, okay, well, now I got a solid foundation.

36:11I understand how to fight.

36:12And then I started getting into jiu -jitsu.

36:13I'm like, oh, no. Back to square one.

36:16I'm getting raped. I was just getting mauled on the mats.

36:21But I'd been through that so many times and restarted so many times.

36:25I was like, well, it's time to learn this now.

36:27Yeah. That's what I'm saying is everything has something to teach you.

36:32And even though there's that martial art, there's a fantasy world, which I look at

36:38as hilarious. You know, there's this, you know, I don't know.

36:43There's sometimes, I would say it like this, like with martial arts, it's the Dunning

36:50-Kruger effect in the largest way possible.

36:53Because everybody out there has an opinion of martial arts, though very few people really

36:59know what it is. You know, they want to look at, you know, the movies

37:02and everything, and they really want to believe that.

37:05They want to believe that this guy who, you know, kicks in the air and

37:09all that kind of stuff will be able to beat a champion.

37:13And in a way, hey, I benefit from that to some degree because they, you

37:17know, they think that about me, but, you know, I mean, even though I, I,

37:22I. comfortable fighting and i love to i mean i just love you know fighting

37:27against anybody you know but well you've had actual competition experience like a lot of

37:31competition yeah but my best experiences was is with like i got i got the

37:38chance to train against champions at their place you know when they're at their best

37:44and it's not an ego thing it's just like i i love to be able

37:48to test myself and i mean because i'm my biggest competition and so that whole

37:54thing about um just what the bow means to me is like thank you for

37:59making me better right by providing me an obstacle and and the higher the you

38:06know the better the person the better i can become 100 and so i loved

38:11it so i've you know for years i'm in there with kokan saki and you

38:16know maurice smiths and you know who you know you name it i i there's

38:22i've gotten i consider myself one of the luckiest like martial artists on the planet

38:28because i get to train with so many people sometimes you know at my house

38:32and you know i've got all these you know former champions you know training and

38:37you know rampage when he was champion i go to his place and you know

38:41and and honestly like the things i brag about is when i get humbled you

38:47know because that's when i learn something for sure my my philosophy is i love

38:51to be wrong because every time i'm wrong i learn something absolutely and so like

38:55some of the the best times for me is like i know when i was

38:59you know uh michael bisbing was getting ready for uh uh to fight george st

39:04pierre and we were in thailand i was like yeah you know let's let's like

39:08let's mix it up let's what were you doing in thailand oh we were doing

39:10a movie out there oh wow but he had to train he was getting ready

39:14uh for the george st pierre fight and so you know i was like yeah

39:19let's let's do some rounds or whatever and i i got so winded the second

39:25round i'm like dude just whoop my ass i i feel so like like i'm

39:32embarrassed i should never was a cardio machine yes he was he was a cardio

39:36machine i didn't expect that because we were we spent all day on a yacht

39:41the day before and he was drinking non -stop i'm a non -drinker right i'm

39:46like this guy's gonna you know i'm gonna probably take it easy on him today

39:50he is one of the toughest motherfuckers that ever fought in the sport i swear

39:55this is what i say about him no matter what you think about watching his

39:59fights you have to understand not only did he accomplish so much he accomplished a

40:05lot of it with one eye one fucking eye he had 11 fights in the

40:10ufc with a winning record with one eye yeah crazy yes yeah that that's man

40:16he would memorize the eye chart so that when they covered his eye he could

40:23side it out like he could read it oh yeah yeah how fucking crazy is

40:28that he's got a hell of a he's got a hell of a personal story

40:30too i was trying to encourage him to get that get that made you know

40:34like honestly man i i really i really look at these uh ufc fighters and

40:41you you know the mma guys as our modern day heroes they're our gladiators and

40:46so whenever i have a chance man i always like to put them in movies

40:51and try to expose them to another kind of way uh of you know getting

40:57paid yeah especially afterwards because i some it breaks my heart that they're heroes and

41:03then they get discarded sometimes but i mean not not by the um the union

41:08that they're with but just by the fans they're so fickle sometimes yes well the

41:13the casuals the people that aren't really martial artists right yeah so you know i

41:18dismiss a guy when they lose a few yeah i just did my my third

41:22movie with uh with cowboy cerrone you know uh i we just finished a little

41:26over a week ago oh that's yeah yeah he's doing really good man i love

41:30that yeah yeah that's a guy that could really legitimately transition to become a movie

41:34star yes yes and he's got a lot more confidence this is like i said

41:37the third movie i didn't i did a well he did a western with me

41:41uh outlaw johnny black i wrote and directed it um but i had i had

41:47uh cowboy uh i had uh randy couture in it oh wow and then josh

41:52barnett randy's done an amazing job of transitioning oh absolutely the expendables you know and

41:58he's great at it yeah yeah he has a great personality just very very calm

42:03he like he well i remember one time he was fighting tim sylvia for the

42:07heavyweight title and he came out there he had a smile on his face he

42:10looked over at me and he winked i'm like how is this motherfucker so relaxed

42:15yeah before his fight but he had a an amazing perspective he's like he said

42:20to me the people who love you will love you whether you win or lose

42:24and he said what's the worst thing that can happen you lose he goes you've

42:28lost before yeah it's no big deal yeah remember him spanking tito yeah he got

42:32on top of his spanking when he had him down yeah randy was an animal

42:36yeah well when we you know he had that heart attack while he was shooting

42:39my movie that's crazy and this came back to set like nothing how did he

42:44have a fucking heart attack i don't i don't remember how exactly it was and

42:48i think he he drove himself to the hospital yeah man it's talking about an

42:55american hero man i mean i was there for his first fight really yeah 1997

43:00yeah i was there for his very first fight oh shoot he fought this huge

43:03jack dude took him down mounted him beat the shit out of him it was

43:07wild it was like that was the time where wrestlers had first started cracking this

43:12code right right there was this code of there was a lot of people that

43:16thought like jujitsu was the only way and then the elite wrestlers got in there

43:19oh the mark kerr's the mark coleman's he's and then randy a bunch of these

43:24guys got in there and then they realized like if a guy could just take

43:27you down and beat the fuck out of you from the top there's not a

43:29whole lot you could do about it right right and then realize like boy that

43:33is the corner that's the true cornerstone of martial arts yeah the ability to take

43:37a guy down my goodness i mean what's harder than wrestling i don't think there's

43:40the hardest sport in the world yeah the hardest sport in the world and the

43:43best sport in the world to get your kids into at a young age because

43:46the discipline and the mental toughness that they get will carry them through for the

43:51rest of their life yep tenacity the just the stick -to -itiveness whatever you want

43:55to call it yeah that's just like even high school wrestling i remember wrestling in

44:00high school and i had already done martial arts but i was like i've never

44:02trained that hard i was like i can't believe and then it carried me over

44:07into my taekwondo career because i realized like oh i'm leaving a lot on the

44:10table like i'm not training like these guys are right so i started running i

44:14started adding all these things to my training that i wasn't doing before i started

44:17doing a lot more calisthenics a lot more different things like i'm leaving something on

44:21the table because we were not training in the gym and we were sparring hard

44:25we were doing hard rounds you'd get tired but it was not the same as

44:28what we were doing in wrestling no one trains harder than anaerobic stuff man that's

44:33that's man i got i got the wrestling bug when um and when i was

44:37in my i was a senior in high school and the football coach was a

44:43wrestler in in college and he he challenged me each other i think we did

44:49this two years in a row my junior year and my senior year at the

44:53end of the year we he we'd wrestle we'd just go like you know he

44:58and i yeah i would like i said i was big for my age were

45:01you playing football uh i i was for a very short time but i ended

45:07up um i was i wasn't i wasn't designed for for um team sports me

45:15neither and i ended up beating up the football coach oh no yeah i had

45:21a dude like i had i had the worst temper than anybody i'd ever seen

45:27i mean i used to go in the fits of rage i was so angry

45:32early on man it's like the hulk is like mike you should chill out a

45:36little bit man like i i was just it's probably from being on your own

45:40at 14 yeah you know what it is is like i was growing up in

45:43a very harsh environment and i was i didn't know i was an artist i

45:49didn't know i was a writer director whatever you know they didn't you didn't see

45:53those growing up where i am right and so when you're sensitive kid man what

45:57you do is you you build armor like i was to play mike tyson later

46:01on and i understood him quite well uh and if you're sensitive you you know

46:08anything that's precious you put it in you lock it in a safe and you

46:12become the safe and it's it's like i grew up my brothers were completely different

46:19they're engineers so things rolled off their back but like for me just i was

46:26just volatile and luckily i had martial arts to kind of folk put my focus

46:31into but like i said like a like i was to play mike tyson i

46:36understood him a great deal and you know even though you take the moniker of

46:41this monster it's only to hide what's really deep inside and that's why you would

46:48see if anybody's gonna go into tears in front of a million people it's people

46:54like mike tyson and you go how does that fit in the same person right

46:59and so that's what i was growing up and you know i don't know if

47:03you know this but i was a i was a school teacher before i was

47:06an actor oh really yeah i taught emd i was a special ed teacher so

47:11i focused on a lot of kids who were very much like me and i

47:14still do that in the way i consider that my real job whenever i'm off

47:18from work on a movie or whatever i go into the inner cities i go

47:22into community centers i devote my time because there's nothing that i could do there's

47:28no better spending of time than something like that because i was luckily luckily luckily

47:35saved i had just at the right times in my life just different seeds planted

47:41and so i'm i'm confident that if those seeds were not planted i would not

47:46be here because like i say i was been through uh some some crazy stuff

47:51it's a classic story yeah bro man like i tell you like just little under

47:56two years ago a buddy of mine who's a close friend of mine um he

48:02he got out of prison he was in prison for almost like 30 years and

48:06he found me on facebook and so when i went back east we we linked

48:12up and i said and you know i know a lot of people who has

48:15have i am businesses and everything i hooked him up you know got him a

48:19job and we were sitting over lunch and in the middle of him telling me

48:25like a third or fourth story like back in the glory days of us or

48:31whatever while he was in the middle of this story i was i was you

48:37know kind of getting myself set to kind of set him straight because i don't

48:41know if you want to call this superstitious but i won't lie i refuse to

48:46lie to my friends i even i won't lie by omission um so i was

48:53getting set to tell him dude man you got to stop embellishing on these stories

48:57just because you were locked up and you made these stories sound bigger than than

49:02life right i get it but you're that's not real you gotta you gotta really

49:08you know kind of not do that and in the middle of me thinking that

49:12and i'm listening to him i go holy shit he's telling the truth i started

49:18remembering what he was telling me and i'm like now i'm finishing his sentences not

49:25only was that story true but the other ones were true too and dude like

49:30i swear every time i think about this i got these goosebumps and i realized

49:35oh my god how close i was to being where he was or just not

49:42being on this planet right like i better devote my time into helping kids the

49:50way you was helped yeah don't pull that ladder up no no hell no hell

49:55no even if i'm taken out i i accept that even if i'm in some

50:01projects where i'm not supposed to be and i shouldn't have been i accept that

50:07because dude i am abundantly lucky i like it's it doesn't even it doesn't even

50:17fit on the radar how lucky i am and i could remember a lot of

50:20these crazy stories you know aside from the ones that he made me conjure back

50:26up but man i'm like wow well that speaks to your character that you had

50:31downplayed it all in your mind so much that you thought he was exaggerating i

50:36swept it under the rug yeah i i you know you're not that person anymore

50:40no no but i mean but there was so much there was so many events

50:49things that would i just call it on a wednesday that i went through that

50:54it's like i don't know like i think i wouldn't trade it because i i

51:02continue to be the happiest guy i know because of i think some of that

51:05because you can appreciate the good times oh my god yeah and yeah i should

51:10be slapped if i complain about anything right you know i mean like what and

51:16so you know so i just boy i i just know i'm so blessed and

51:23uh and you know what what we do what we're doing even right now man

51:27we're we're in the service industry man you know you're here to serve in my

51:33my opinion that's what we're all here for and uh you know it's great that

51:37we get to serve and doing the things that we would like to do that

51:40inspired us that's definitely a lot of what we do that i mean there's definitely

51:43a lot of it right you you entertain but um i feel very blessed that

51:49i've been able to expose people to so many different ways of thinking so much

51:54information so many different human beings that have led completely different paths right that can

51:59tell you about whatever discipline they're involved in what they've learned and what we're what

52:03we're working on right now and what you can learn about the human mind the

52:07body ancient history fill in the blank like whatever it is yeah yeah i mean

52:12and i see you do that over and over and you in utmost honesty i

52:16remember like where you had to kind of pull shabba aside until as a friend

52:22some things that are hard for people that you know other friends to tell him

52:27you know and like that was real hard yeah well that was real hard because

52:31i love that guy he's a great he's a great person he's a great human

52:34being and i knew the path i'd seen it too many times but i hadn't

52:39seen it with someone i was that close with i was like you have to

52:42stop because you not only that you're in the heavyweight division so the knockouts are

52:47brutal and you're going to get three or four more in the next couple of

52:51years and then you're not going to recover from those man so many people i

52:55hope they take a page out of that because it's so non -manly i feel

53:01to not to just not say anything right and allow somebody you love to go

53:07down the road i mean that that might be detrimental for them well it was

53:11also shab had another path he was really good at podcasting he's fun he's a

53:16funny dude right yeah he's like as a podcast he's like you got a great

53:20personality he's hilarious he's silly you know he's a big giant silly dude yeah like

53:25we would have so much fun and he was doing really well and he was

53:27making more money doing that than he was fighting yeah but his identity was so

53:31wrapped up in him being a top 10 ufc heavyweight right yeah he'd beat world

53:35-class guys like merco crocob you know and he was legit man but though that

53:40time had passed yeah and uh i saw that his he was one foot in

53:45and one foot out and as soon as the guy's one fit in one foot

53:47out you're gonna run into some guy who has both feet in and he's a

53:51fucking samurai and then you're gonna wake up on a stretcher yeah you're on the

53:55way to the hospital going what happened and you don't remember the fight you don't

53:59remember nothing yeah and then you don't know where your keys are you forget people's

54:03names you for you tell the same story over and over again and then you

54:07struggle to put sentences together when you start seeing dudes with the slur worth that

54:12man nothing's worth that because you're you mean at the time he's only 35 years

54:16old or whatever he was like man you got another 45 55 years of life

54:21you you can't do this you can't you can't sacrifice all these years for glory

54:28that will never be achieved anyway because you're not on that path anymore yeah and

54:32it's not about what strangers say about you no it's about you you know your

54:36friends your family people really love you it's just so hard for people to abandon

54:40that identity that's the hardest thing with fighters is to abandon that identity we've seen

54:46so many guys even the greats they come back and they shouldn't and you see

54:50it and you see them get humiliated you're like oh yeah yeah and you know

54:56when it comes down to it these people they don't love you man like a

55:00lot of you know it's they love you as the image yeah they live vicariously

55:05through you i remember i remember one time i was in um a fight in

55:09boston and i remember when something completely changed used usually if anybody would because i

55:16did any kind of thing i would do kickboxing or this tournament i i just

55:21loved my my best i think the the thing i did best in the world

55:26was fighting i had this i always had these cheat codes in a way and

55:32i enjoyed the the chess match of it and anybody who were was against me

55:39i don't care if you were my cousin or whatever you're gonna pay for all

55:42the angst that i've i've had in my life but until there was this one

55:47time i swear i ducked a technique i caught somebody with something that was kind

55:53of you know kind of cool and i just remember the audience just cheering and

56:00in that moment i was like just angry all right they're it's kind of like

56:05just kind of like yo this guy could really be messed up right now you're

56:10cheering for me you're living vicarious through me like I'm a pit bull or something

56:15right and I got angry at the audience I fucking hated them and I said

56:21because if I was down on the ground you'd be cheering for the person that

56:25put me down and something just snapped and I go no this is not enough

56:31for me this is this is not this is not what I want to do

56:37and and you know just something snapped and I I much rather be skillful test

56:47myself in a skillful way um and I much rather not try to peel your

56:55head off but show I could as opposed to you know that triumph of dominating

57:03it was nothing for me anymore in that um you know and just something it's

57:10just something just rubbed me the wrong way and I just anytime I would do

57:15any kind of competition it was for me and it wasn't for an audience you

57:20know I just something soured I I always thought at one time I'm going to

57:26be called out you know and I thought oh I'll I'll I'll rise to that

57:30occasion if that that happens and you know kind of like remember the thing with

57:35you and Wesley which would have been oh my god that would have been terrible

57:39but um oh yeah but uh but I always thought hey well you know maybe

57:44you know something I think Wesley just needed money I mean that was when he

57:48was I don't think he'd ever be I don't think that was ever serious but

57:51it's very much like I think we were in negotiation for quite a while man

57:55we had lawyers involved yeah it's always easy to pull a plug on something like

57:59that just like Jean -Claude's talking about fighting uh Jake Jake Paul right is he

58:04talking about that right he's 100 years old yeah I'm like he weighs 50 pounds

58:07I'm like I'm like come on man come on I just saw something in the

58:13last couple days I'm like okay I think Wesley was serious because I think they

58:18had um they had hit him with that tax case and he owed a lot

58:23of money before that tax case no no no it was in the middle of

58:26it really yeah 100 % I know it was yeah yeah it was 2000 I

58:31want to say five or six it was in the middle of all that and

58:34he was in trouble it was it was serious and he you know obviously eventually

58:39wound up going to jail yeah yeah and so they were going to set up

58:42a fight with him and Jean -Claude Van Damme that was the first fight but

58:46Campbell McClaren yeah Campbell McClaren from the UFC was like no one gives a shit

58:49about you fighting Jean -Claude Van Damme you got to fight someone who's current and

58:54so he said let me contact Joe Rogan he called me up and he said

58:58would you be willing to fight Wesley Snipes and I was like what and I

59:02was like come on really I go what is this and so I said let

59:05me think about it I thought about it I called him the next day I

59:08said let's fucking do it really yeah I was training with Rob Kamen in the

59:12mornings and then I was doing jujitsu at night I trained twice a day for

59:15six months wow I was always tired I was always tired that's one thing that

59:20I realized like fuck man to be like and I wasn't even a professional really

59:24but it was training like a professional it's like I can't believe how tired I

59:26am all the time uh -huh um but you know I think Wesley had never

59:32really had a fight I don't think so I think he he was a he

59:35was an accomplished martial artist he had good technique I trained with Wesley's instructors um

59:41you know Marcus Elgato was good friend of mine and um and also uh Lamar

59:46Thornton who was Marcus Elgato's instructor that's I believe the that's the only that's the

59:52the lineage I I believe that he he's through but I mean I've never I've

59:57known Wesley since way before he was kind of Wesley I was a giant fan

1:00:02of Wesley yeah which was also wild for me because I love Blade Blade was

1:00:07like my favorite comic book when I was a kid yeah yeah I just didn't

1:00:10I didn't think they were serious about I didn't I couldn't imagine why would Wesley

1:00:16I always thought it was not real I think Wesley thought that I was just

1:00:20a grappler and think he knew that I was doing jiu -jitsu I don't think

1:00:24he knew my background oh and so like they were Wesley was talking to them

1:00:29saying oh he he thinks he's gonna be able to stop you from taking him

1:00:32down and he's gonna catch you with a knee while you're coming in to try

1:00:35to take him down like I go oh he wants to stand up yeah I

1:00:38go I'm way better at that yeah yeah I was I was wondering how that

1:00:43even occurred I didn't think that was serious I was like okay it was serious

1:00:48yeah it was serious it went on for a long time it was a lot

1:00:52of negotiation to the point where I even talked about it on the UFC broadcast

1:00:57once I said come on Wesley sign the contract I'm getting bored training let's do

1:01:02this like I have to do it now I was like 35 or 36 I

1:01:07was like I don't have much time left before we're gonna do this we have

1:01:09to do this now like come on let's go and then he decided not to

1:01:13and then I'm like that's probably for the better yeah I know Wesley for a

1:01:17while I remember when he was first telling me about the sovereign being sovereign yeah

1:01:22that's where they got him with that sovereign citizen shit yeah and I was like

1:01:26I'm I wish I was friends with him I would have said dude they're gonna

1:01:30lock you up I was I'm super protective of my friends I've always been that

1:01:35way and with Wesley I was always like my thing is he used to have

1:01:39people around him that I'm like you know we have little get -togethers at my

1:01:45house whatever I'm like don't bring any of those motherfuckers or it's gonna be a

1:01:49problem you know because there's there's people that just I felt like were hangers -on

1:01:53and you know that kind of a thing and I was always like yeah man

1:01:57you are you good and you know are you um staying healthy I've always been

1:02:02that way because the way I look at it he's he's a big brother if

1:02:05not for him it may not be for me you know he gave me some

1:02:07good advice early on he always encouraged me that if I'm doing if I have

1:02:11a movie that's overseas get there you know show up in in those overseas markets

1:02:17and let them know that you're you're down you know and Jason you you I

1:02:20took that to heart, and that helped me out in my career a great deal.

1:02:24And so, you know, I look at it like that.

1:02:27I'll never say anything derogatory about him or whatever.

1:02:30So, I mean, I'm always—I just recently tried to reach out to him like a

1:02:35couple days ago just to check in, man, because I, you know, I wish him

1:02:40the best, and, you know, I want him to, like, really, you know, start kicking

1:02:45ass again. I would love to see him return as Blade.

1:02:48Yeah, that would be cool.

1:02:50He could do it, too.

1:02:51Yeah, yeah. An older Blade?

1:02:53Mm -hmm. He could do it.

1:02:54Yeah. Fuck, he was good in the original Blade.

1:02:57Yeah. That's the opening scene.

1:02:59That was one of the best scenes in any action movie of all time, when

1:03:03it's that vampire party, and the sprinkler starts spraying blood, and they're about to kill

1:03:08that dude, and all of a sudden Wesley shows up.

1:03:11Yeah, man. What really gets on my nerves is that, you know, he saved Marvel,

1:03:16man. Man, that movie saved Marvel.

1:03:18Oh, yeah. You know that, right?

1:03:19Oh, yeah. That movie was a huge hit.

1:03:21Even Stan Lee admits that.

1:03:23They were, like, in trouble until that movie.

1:03:25Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Because superhero movies are the biggest fucking movies in Hollywood right

1:03:30now. Mm -hmm, yeah. I mean, when they have a big budget movie, superhero movies

1:03:34are, like, the only movie that you can throw hundreds of millions of dollars and

1:03:38be sure it's going to kill it in the box office.

1:03:41Yeah. Whether it's the Avengers or Spider -Man or Superman or whoever the fuck it

1:03:45is, that's the only kind of movie that Hollywood's like, yeah, okay, we'll throw $500

1:03:50million at this one. Yeah, and, you know, it's—I'm not a big fan of those

1:03:55things. I know it's not—they didn't design it for people like me.

1:04:00Right. So it's for the fan base.

1:04:02And to me, it's like, ugh, you know, they tend to meld into each other

1:04:08as far as I'm concerned.

1:04:10They do. Yeah. They do.

1:04:11There's only so many times you could tell the stories.

1:04:14There's only so many—you know.

1:04:15Yeah. But I still enjoy them.

1:04:17I still enjoy some of them.

1:04:19They're fun. Yeah. I like when people are believable.

1:04:23Right. Believable. Yeah, there's nothing believable about those movies.

1:04:27Yeah. You know, I like the actors that are, like, you know, having some quirkiness

1:04:30and some, you know, edge to them.

1:04:33Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. You know, maybe I'm being unfair because I really hadn't seen

1:04:38a lot. Maybe I owe it to myself to give some of— No, I think

1:04:41you got it. It's simple entertainment.

1:04:45It's a silly release and escape.

1:04:48That's all it is. It's not a great—there's no great films that are superhero films.

1:04:52Right, yeah, because sometimes I'm like, oh, yeah, she's 90 pounds, and she just threw

1:04:55a—okay, let me. Like Charlie's Angels or something.

1:05:00Yeah, I'm like, oh, come on now.

1:05:01Kicking ass in stilettos. And it's like, anytime somebody lands in a three -point stance

1:05:05and then looks up, I'm like, I just changed the channel.

1:05:08Yeah. I'm just like, stop.

1:05:09Just stop. Yeah. But, you know, people love those things.

1:05:15I'm like, that's cool. I don't know why they have so much appeal, especially in

1:05:18the American market. People, that is one of the only movies that you can make

1:05:24that's guaranteed to be huge.

1:05:26Yeah, it's McDonald's, man. Mm -hmm.

1:05:28It's McDonald's. But I remember when— That's it.

1:05:31Yeah, I remember when, you know, you had, what was that, like, the 300.

1:05:36Mm -hmm. You know, that was like, nobody knew anybody.

1:05:39Right. But that was just such a breath of fresh air, because it looked like

1:05:43some badasses that were real.

1:05:45Yeah. You know what I mean?

1:05:45I'd like to see more of that kind of a thing.

1:05:48Like, you know, not the star power thing, but just some motherfuckers that you believe.

1:05:52Right. You know what I mean?

1:05:53That would—you know, that would attract me.

1:05:55Also, the style of that movie was so unique, because it blended fantasy with reality.

1:06:00Right. It blended, like, comic book.

1:06:02And history, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:06:03Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, knock on wood.

1:06:06I got some things in the works.

1:06:09Do you? Yeah. What are you working on?

1:06:10Oh, man. I've been blessed, man.

1:06:12I've got some really good movies coming out, and some things that I'm planning on

1:06:16doing. I'm getting to a place where I'm really shooting the things that I want,

1:06:21and I'm producing and all that stuff.

1:06:23So, you know, I have movies that have their body count, but also have a

1:06:29little bit of, like, something to say.

1:06:31You know what I miss?

1:06:32What's that? Spawn. Oh, man.

1:06:35Bro. Yeah, a lot of people— People forgot about Spawn.

1:06:38You don't hear about it anymore.

1:06:39Right. Yeah, man. That was fucking great.

1:06:43Yeah, I had my—man, you didn't—most people didn't see the first adaptation of it, the

1:06:51first—well, I saw a cut of the movie before it—I mean, at this time, it

1:06:59had, like, 71 special effects in it.

1:07:01But Bob Shea, at the time, that was running New Line, liked the—that version.

1:07:08He just gave the director a cut box to just add whatever he wanted.

1:07:15And the director was a special effects guy.

1:07:18So he started throwing special effects in there that was really killing the story, which

1:07:27kind of drove me up a wall, because then, like, you didn't even see why

1:07:31my character wanted to get back.

1:07:34You didn't even see the life that I wanted to get back to, because there

1:07:37was so much special effects.

1:07:39And even when I saw the final version, I'm like, what the hell is going

1:07:42on? People that knew Spawn, they were fine with it, because they understood the character.

1:07:48But for me, it was like the story got all convoluted.

1:07:52But, like, you know, but, I mean, people love it.

1:07:54It was a—I think it was a thing for its time.

1:07:58But, unfortunately, I saw a version of it that made you care about it.

1:08:02I understand, but I cared about the one that I saw.

1:08:05And I felt like—I don't understand how Spawn sort of escaped the zeitgeist.

1:08:11You don't ever hear about Spawn anymore.

1:08:13You know what I mean?

1:08:14Like, there's all these superhero films, all these different things, but Spawn was unique.

1:08:19And it was really good and dark.

1:08:21Yeah, I always say that if they did another one, you should do it just

1:08:24like the comic book. Make it hard R, or non -rated.

1:08:30Because, I mean, like, to do a Spawn PG, how we did PG.

1:08:3413 yeah it's like what do you want you trying to go for a breakfast

1:08:38cereal like spawn o's or something like like come on man let's go hard like

1:08:42the cartoon see if you can find a clip from spawn because it's i feel

1:08:47like no one talks about it anymore it's kind of weird damn sure talk to

1:08:52me about it bro it was good what year was this 97 wow yeah they

1:09:02were fucking great man evil has a new enemy justice has a new weapon and

1:09:15the world has a new hero the memories bro that was a fucking great movie

1:09:28man new line cinema presents yeah that was a great movie how many did you

1:09:32guys do one just one just one there was nothing else wasn't there something else

1:09:36like a series it was a cartoon first that's right yeah well it was comic

1:09:40book then it was a cartoon on hbo oh that's right yeah yeah uh keith

1:09:47david was the voice of spawn on that one oh yeah yeah yep and so

1:09:53yeah but that was a big hit i think so it made its money back

1:10:00yeah i mean i remember it was very popular like everyone who was talking about

1:10:05people got excited about especially people like me that like the comic books right they

1:10:09were very into it yeah i was always surprised but it just it's weird to

1:10:13me that that that even the comic book spawn doesn't get brought up anymore right

1:10:18yeah i every now and then like when like i'm off doing a movie whatever

1:10:22i drive by comic book stores i i go and i just start signing shit

1:10:25right the spawn stuff so there's still stuff there oh yeah there's always giving me

1:10:29a hardcore fan base yeah yeah so i mean you know there's people like there's

1:10:33still hardcore about that and then uh um tom mcfarlane has talked about doing another

1:10:40spawn for the last 25 years it was huge but the thing the weird thing

1:10:47is it's like okay i i wish you all the best of luck bro but

1:10:51he you created the comic book when he's talking about doing another spawn i'm like

1:10:57you haven't done a first one like the comic book no he's he's not a

1:11:02director like he's it's just like stan lee hasn't directed a marvel movie right and

1:11:08and tom mcfarlane is talking about doing another spawn but i'm like well that would

1:11:13be the first time a person that created a comic book directed and produced a

1:11:19movie that i know of right because even though he talks about he's going to

1:11:25do one and he had this concept that he talked to me about and then

1:11:30he said he wanted to you know i guess he wanted to use jamie fox

1:11:32and he talked about this concept that spawn would be you wouldn't see him and

1:11:37it's like like jaws he would never be around but just people would get fucked

1:11:41up all of a sudden they're you know like a mist would come in there

1:11:44people are destroyed i'm like good luck with that you know i don't know but

1:11:53like but he's been talking about it for a while and people say oh man

1:11:57you know i'm i'm i'm sad that you're not the next spawn that they're using

1:12:02jamie i'm like when is it going to happen they've been he's been saying that

1:12:07for a long time but i'm going hey maybe somebody is going to give him

1:12:11that amount of money to do a movie when he's never directed anything before right

1:12:16he hasn't directed anything before he visited set a few times because he created a

1:12:24comic book directing a movie is something completely different you know what i mean so

1:12:29i'm like all power to you if that's happening but it's like i i wonder

1:12:36why people believe it hmm yeah that's a lot to bite off to do especially

1:12:42a movie like that which would probably be a large budget yeah yeah yeah but

1:12:47uh you know but and then you're going to get the executives involved and they're

1:12:50going to fuck with it because they always have to have their say yeah man

1:12:53it's a it's a miracle that a movie gets done the way it's intended period

1:12:59yeah i'm like a lot of times when a movie works i go how did

1:13:04some executive not fuck this movie up right i mean i'm always there's only a

1:13:08few guys that can get away with a movie where everybody just leaves them alone

1:13:13there's a few tarantinos out there yeah let them go just let them go yeah

1:13:17yeah if you tried to make once upon a time in hollywood and you weren't

1:13:20a successful director you were just some guy with an idea someone would come along

1:13:24and fuck that up absolutely yeah absolutely luckily i'm people are leaving me alone i've

1:13:29been i've been directing and you know doing my own thing they go okay you

1:13:32got this okay like i say i'll give you the body count but now if

1:13:36i could put stuff in it you know what is going on with jamie foxx

1:13:39doing tyson because that it's been rumored for a decade that's yeah that's another thing

1:13:45it's like weird that jamie foxx wants to do a tyson and a spawn but

1:13:48it's like i don't i don't take it personally very talented guy but yeah i

1:13:53think jamie does a very good impression of mike tyson yeah but you gotta gain

1:13:59like 100 pounds right and then jamie's gotta get he's gotta pack on that meat

1:14:04at 50 but then why i just i just sit there and i go why

1:14:09when tyson's life itself has been very you know transparent right and so you can

1:14:17see the real guy you know in in documentary form and everything else what story

1:14:23do you have to tell that's true i'm not trying to be a hater but

1:14:26i'm like i just i'm i'm just curious the only thing that would be interesting

1:14:29is seeing like jamie do it seeing him pull like you pulled off ray charles

1:14:34like seeing him pull it off that would that would be the appeal of it

1:14:38i think right but yeah i in my personal opinion i don't think that's enough

1:14:42you gotta tell the story right i know what you're saying yeah you gotta you

1:14:45gotta it's gotta be some compelling story um i mean hell i mean People saw

1:14:49Titanic. You know how it's going to end.

1:14:51But he had to present a story there.

1:14:55Jamie is so versatile. He is.

1:14:58I mean, there's very few guys that can do all the different things that he

1:15:01can do. He can sing.

1:15:04He can act. He can do stand -up.

1:15:06And he can do all kinds of different characters.

1:15:09And, I mean, and he's so believable in so many different roles.

1:15:13You know what I watched the other day, which is a fucking great movie that

1:15:17I forgot was so great, is Collateral.

1:15:18Oh, hell yeah. Oh, my God.

1:15:20No, no. When Jamie had Collateral and Ray, to me, you couldn't have had a

1:15:27better year. Right. Two completely different human beings.

1:15:30Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. And he became those people.

1:15:35He became Ray Charles. Oh, yeah.

1:15:37Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And as good as he can sing, him singing as Ray Charles

1:15:42was insane. It's one of the best performances ever.

1:15:46Ever. You know? Ever. Yeah.

1:15:47But so is Collateral. Yeah.

1:15:49He really played that dude in Collateral.

1:15:52You believed it. And fucking Tom Cruise.

1:15:55Oh, my God. Tom Cruise really proved something to me in that damn movie.

1:16:00Because I would never think I would ever be scared of Tom freaking Cruise.

1:16:04Right. And how convincing he was.

1:16:07He's a bad motherfucker. Yes.

1:16:09He is a bad, he's crazy as batshit, but he's a bad motherfucker.

1:16:14He brought it in that movie.

1:16:15You have to be that crazy to do all the stunts that that guy does.

1:16:18Yeah. I mean, he's 60 years old.

1:16:19He's jumping off buildings and shit and breaking his ankle.

1:16:21Yeah. It's just like Johnny Depp.

1:16:23Like, I'm like, Johnny Depp, when he did Black Mass.

1:16:27Mm -hmm. Yeah. Like, I'm like, oh, you had that in you?

1:16:29Right, right, right. Holy shit.

1:16:31Yeah. And just like with Tom Cruise, I'm like, him having that character in him?

1:16:35There's a scene in Collateral that tactical instructors play.

1:16:39Yes. The scene when they're - The double tap.

1:16:41Yes. He whips it back.

1:16:43Yeah. Double tap, double tap.

1:16:44He knocks the guy's gun out of the way and pulls it out.

1:16:46Da -da -da -da -da -da -da.

1:16:47Yep. And it's so fast and so smooth.

1:16:50See if you can find that scene, Jamie.

1:16:52It's a scene where they're trying to take Tom Cruise's briefcase.

1:16:55Yeah. And he's in an alleyway.

1:16:57Yep. Ooh. Yeah. I played that over and over myself.

1:17:01The amount of times that he must have drilled that to get that, unholster the

1:17:07gun, pull it out, shoot him, shoot the other dude so smooth, and the way

1:17:12he did it, so professional.

1:17:13I mean, it looks like a legit hitman.

1:17:16Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. That was, that character, I mean, from start to finish, like,

1:17:25to me, proved a lot.

1:17:26Yeah. I mean, he embodied that guy.

1:17:30And you know - Here it is.

1:17:31Hold me. Is that my briefcase?

1:17:36Is it your briefcase? Yeah, it is.

1:17:38Why? You want it back?

1:17:40What about your wallet? What else you got from me, huh?

1:17:49Come on, son. Yeah. I actually visited that set when they were shooting that.

1:18:03Woo! Not that scene, but it was another day.

1:18:08And it was, I remember it was weird because they were shooting something, and they

1:18:13were shooting Tom, behind Tom Cruise's head.

1:18:16And they had eight camera angles, just behind his head.

1:18:23And I'm looking at the video village where they made sure they had a choice

1:18:32of whatever perfect thing that they want.

1:18:34And they, it was the craziest thing.

1:18:37I'm like, and I guess Michael Mann, he's known for, like, shooting a lot.

1:18:43But it was, like, eight cameras that was just behind the dude.

1:18:49That's crazy. Yeah. I'm like, this is a whole nother, like, level.

1:18:54Yeah. It was crazy. It's a great fucking movie.

1:18:56Yeah. That movie holds up.

1:18:58Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

1:19:00Yeah. Yeah. That's prime Jamie, man.

1:19:02Yep. Yeah. And the fact that he's got that much range, that he can do

1:19:07this nerdy dude who's terrified, doesn't know what the fuck is going on, he's just

1:19:10driving a car, and all of a sudden he has this hit man with him,

1:19:13and then he gets wrapped up in this whole thing.

1:19:15Yeah, but as a fan, I want to see him do something else like that.

1:19:19Right. Right. You know what I mean?

1:19:20Right. Right. Like, something, like, that requires what he can do.

1:19:24Mm -hmm. And there's a lot, you know, that's one of the things.

1:19:26There's a lot, not a lot of things out there sometimes.

1:19:29You know, so, you know, he's been doing things that, I think, show, you know,

1:19:35certain parts, but, like, to where he was going in Collateral and Ray, you know,

1:19:41it'd be nice to see that stuff again.

1:19:42It's got to be hard to find those roles, right?

1:19:46And when you find those roles, there's probably, like, six or seven A -list dudes

1:19:52that they have, like, on a board somewhere, and they're trying to figure out who's

1:19:56the guy for this. Yeah, but I believe— Who's going to sell the most.

1:19:58I believe you've got to create your own stuff, man.

1:20:01And put it this way, nobody was going to write Black Dynamite for me.

1:20:05Right, right, right. You know what I mean?

1:20:07Right. I had to, you know, my thing is largely creating my own lane.

1:20:10That was a fun movie, by the way.

1:20:11Well, thanks, man. Really fun.

1:20:13Thanks, man. So, yeah, man.

1:20:15So, luckily, like, I enjoyed writing.

1:20:19I was always looked at everything from—I was always fascinated about this industry.

1:20:25And I showed a lot of things as a writer, separate from the acting thing.

1:20:30And so, you know, just putting it all together is something that's, like, I really

1:20:35enjoy doing. How do you dedicate your time when you're writing?

1:20:38Do you just, like, have an idea and say, okay, for the next X weeks,

1:20:41I'm going to sit down and dedicate myself to this?

1:20:43Dude, it's all different. A lot of times, I will see the entire movie.

1:20:47Like, when I did Black Dynamite, dude, I was in China going to set.

1:20:54And I was in Shanghai.

1:20:57And I was listening to James Brown's Superbad.

1:21:02And I just started— thinking about i'm goof i'm laughing i'm in the back of

1:21:07this car and there's a driver wondering what the hell's going on with me i'm

1:21:11seeing the whole goddamn movie including a nunchuck fight scene with with richard nixon and

1:21:18and i'm i'm laughing and you know i started jotting stuff down because i was

1:21:24it occurred to me man like i was like i mean one day i was

1:21:28thinking like wow man like growing up we had shaft and well yeah we had

1:21:34a superfly and the mac and and all that posters like that that we idolize

1:21:39and i'm going those were pimps there was something wrong with my childhood why am

1:21:45i i'm like the mac like that's a hero and so it made me really

1:21:51think about it and i'm like i'm looking at these movies and like jim brown

1:21:57and fred williamson are like killing like 60 people and it's okay everybody's like this

1:22:03they have a club and then they got all these women and all and i'm

1:22:07like this is actually hilarious if i do a movie that depicted it exactly like

1:22:12it is thinking about this one of the biggest movies of that time was three

1:22:17the hard way i don't know if you remember that movie jim brown fred williamson

1:22:21and jim kelly oh yeah i forgot about jim kelly three the hard way what

1:22:28was it about it had the three predominant blaxploitation stars right and the movie was

1:22:35about an evil dr feather who had these leaders of liquid that he was going

1:22:42to put in the water systems of la chicago and new york that were going

1:22:48to kill all the black people it's not a comedy that's the movie it's not

1:22:54a comedy it was going to it was going to give sickle cell anemia to

1:22:58all the black people now the the the conspiratorial thing i've been a black man

1:23:04for a long time and it is really funny because in the community conspiracy is

1:23:10a big thing right so it like that whole conspiratorial thing oh they trying to

1:23:15get you that kind of a thing it really it it's engine was that that

1:23:20paranoia that this leader of liquid was going to kill black people well there was

1:23:26so much evidence that those conspiracies were real like the tuskegee but of course that

1:23:32that's that's something that's like it's it's on its feet though but right come on

1:23:36a leader something this big in the water systems that was going to kill all

1:23:43the black people and that's not a comedy that was a serious movie but when

1:23:49you look at it that's hilarious it's absolutely hilarious to think that you can do

1:23:55a movie about that so to do a movie i thought that really really talked

1:24:02about that time period where it was kind of this over correction because you know

1:24:08you had in the 60s there were like you know butlers and maids and all

1:24:13that kind of stuff but now you had these super over corrected badasses that could

1:24:20just do anything right and i thought it was hilarious to look at it and

1:24:24treat it as if it were like back in that day like like a lost

1:24:29movie actually tarantino was somebody i was talking to about that whole thing uh when

1:24:34i was putting a black dynamite together and he had certain ideas but you know

1:24:39i kind of went my own direction with it but yeah man so yeah things

1:24:43like that like you know i i was i've gotten to a place where i'm

1:24:48you know putting these things together that really interest me and i'm finding that there's

1:24:53an audience that likes it as well but yeah man so uh you know it

1:24:58it just occurred to me that it was bizarre yeah yeah so i mean you

1:25:03know so for that movie that movie just came to you yeah but it came

1:25:08to me just like the whole movie came to me in a ride to set

1:25:12is that normal for ideas or do you sometimes sit down and say like i

1:25:16want to write an idea about blank sometimes sometimes like i have a movie that

1:25:21the next movie i'm going to do is a sequel to a movie i did

1:25:26call as good as dead right uh and it became um samuel goldwyn's one of

1:25:31their most successful movies i i i wrote the idea it was based off my

1:25:36brother my brother he he went from florida into mexico and started a family he

1:25:41just like fell in love with mexico and i kind of based my my character

1:25:47on him and he's basically a cop that's like hiding out in mexico and you

1:25:52know trying to avoid uh this you know syndicate or whatever that's trying to kill

1:25:57him but um that movie just came to me i i wrote it we were

1:26:05in production like two months later and we actually got the movie done within a

1:26:11year and it was how did you get it made so quick yeah i mean

1:26:15they they responded to the script and it was kind of like a grown -up

1:26:18uh karate kid in a way so my character you don't know what was this

1:26:24black dude doing working construction in mexico and he's got you know he's got his

1:26:29wing chung dummy he's training in his backyard and it's a kid who's trying to

1:26:33avoid the gangs that he befriends that he's he teaches this unique kind of martial

1:26:38art and so one thing leads to another this kid gets good at it and

1:26:43they trace the style back to my character and then you know then the bad

1:26:49guys are trying to kill me and i have to fight back so what we're

1:26:52doing um we're about to do a sequel i start that in a couple of

1:26:56weeks actually so i wrote that one um but yeah so i feel like i

1:27:02don't know i i'm i'm still a fan of movies i i don't i wouldn't

1:27:09write something i wouldn't want to see and i've seen a lot you know i

1:27:14think i understand this industry i understand um there's a lot of stories that That

1:27:19I think could be told with fresh ways and with the action and martial arts

1:27:25that could be new and exciting.

1:27:27Like I'm getting to a place where I'm trying to make fight scenes look very

1:27:32real, including choreographing mistakes. You know what I mean?

1:27:38I think people have become so much more sophisticated watching UFC fights and all that

1:27:44type of stuff. I think you've got to raise the bar to make something look

1:27:49real. And there's a lot of the stuff that's in the superhero movies and whatever

1:27:56that you just kind of go, okay, you're seeing choreography for choreography's sake.

1:28:01Right. And you're not invested because you don't feel like you're looking at a real

1:28:06fight. Right. And so I like to kind of use my platform to step that

1:28:10up a bit. Yeah, that's hard, especially as a person who is a martial artist,

1:28:14to watch fight scenes and go, you have to kind of suspend disbelief and go,

1:28:18all right, let's just play out.

1:28:20Well, yeah, kind of like, you know, it's weird, but, you know, kind of full

1:28:22circle, it's kind of going back to the way Bruce Lee did stuff.

1:28:25Mm -hmm. And he's a little faster than the other person.

1:28:27He has a little bit more technique.

1:28:30And, you know, if you imagine, like, even if I imagine you in a real

1:28:35fight, your technique's not going nowhere.

1:28:38And other people are not going to have that same technique.

1:28:40You know, you beat somebody to the punch, you do things that would logically give

1:28:46you the edge, that's what you shoot.

1:28:49You know what I mean?

1:28:50Right. Yeah, so it's not like you've got to do a lot of camera tricks.

1:28:53If you're moving faster and stronger than another person, well, there it is.

1:28:59There it is. So luckily, you know, I mean, I can put things on screen

1:29:05that kind of resemble what things might look like, you know, and you get the

1:29:11benefit of the doubt because, you know, you're in a heroic position.

1:29:16It's just very hard to do that.

1:29:18It's very hard to make it look real.

1:29:20There's a real art to that.

1:29:21Yeah, yeah, but like with the movie that you turned down, Blood and Bone.

1:29:27I turned down John Wick 4, too, though.

1:29:30I turned down a lot of movies.

1:29:32You do. You did the right thing because what you're doing, you could not, you

1:29:35know, this could not be more, you know, up your alley doing the things that

1:29:39you're doing. But like. John Wick was hard.

1:29:41I'm a giant John Wick fan.

1:29:43Are you? Especially John Wick 1.

1:29:44And eventually. There's going to be a John Wick 7.

1:29:47So you can decide to do that if you want to.

1:29:49They got kind of crazy.

1:29:50They're over the top now.

1:29:53But even John Wick 1 was totally unrealistic.

1:29:55Oh, man. Totally unrealistic. But so fun.

1:29:58I fucking love those movies.

1:30:00Yeah. Well, I got something that's kind of in that vein that I just finished.

1:30:03There's a lot of body count, but a lot of CQB.

1:30:07I've been studying that for a while.

1:30:10What is CQB? Oh, close quarter combat.

1:30:13Oh, okay. Of course, close quarter battle.

1:30:16But, you know, I've been doing like, you know, a lot of like tactical training

1:30:21and kind of getting myself.

1:30:25I may compete at some point.

1:30:27Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. I've gotten pretty into it.

1:30:31Where do you train at?

1:30:32Well, a lot of places.

1:30:33I train with a guy named Tyler Gray.

1:30:36He's Delta Force. I have a lot of friends who are like, you know, special

1:30:41force guys. You ever go to Taron Tactical?

1:30:43Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

1:30:45I go to Taron quite a bit.

1:30:47That guy's the best. Oh, yeah.

1:30:49He's a man. He's amazing.

1:30:51You want to talk about someone who's very technical.

1:30:53Oh, my God. It's just he shoots from the hip like better than anybody using

1:30:59a laser. You know? No, he's preposterous.

1:31:02It's unreal. Always iron sights.

1:31:04Yeah. You know, he doesn't.

1:31:05I mean, he uses red dots, but, you know, he prefers iron sights.

1:31:08He's like, they never fail.

1:31:09They never go wrong. Yeah.

1:31:11And he's so crazy accurate.

1:31:13It's wild to watch. And when you think about, like, how long, how fast could

1:31:18you just take out everybody in this damn room?

1:31:20It's kind of. It's kind of spooky.

1:31:21Yeah. It is spooky. Yeah.

1:31:23Well, it's also he's so calm about it, too.

1:31:25Yeah. It's weird. Like, almost like autistic.

1:31:28Like, weird. Yeah. Just fucking Rain Man -ish.

1:31:31Yeah. Yeah. Like, what the fuck?

1:31:33Like, when you watch him do it, like, many times I've gone to his range

1:31:37and trained, and then, you know, people goad him into it.

1:31:40Like, do a run. Like, do this.

1:31:42And he's like, okay, I'm going to do this.

1:31:43I'm going to do that.

1:31:44I'm going to do this.

1:31:44I'm going to do that.

1:31:45And then I'm going to pull this out right here.

1:31:47Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. You're like, what the fuck did I just watch?

1:31:53Yeah. That's crazy. And then you see how many times he's won the championship?

1:31:56Oh, yeah. Ridiculous. And, like, there's only a few people that won consecutive years.

1:32:01And he's got, like, seven years in a row.

1:32:03Yeah. Just chunks. I'm like, this is crazy.

1:32:07Yeah. He's a very unique talent.

1:32:09Yeah. Very unique talent. Yeah.

1:32:11A buddy of mine, like Tyler Gray, he just, he's been Delta.

1:32:15He's been, he's been decorated.

1:32:18He's, oh, my God. His place in Vegas.

1:32:21He's, he creates guns and he's got, like, more in his arsenal than every gun

1:32:30store you could imagine. But, like, he's, like, he's something else.

1:32:33Like, he's one of the most mellow people you ever want to meet in your

1:32:36life. And, I mean, he's, he's been the guy, been the consultant and director on

1:32:43Navy SEALs for years. And, you know, but I got a lot of friends doing

1:32:47that. So, my brother, he just, he just retired from Secret Service.

1:32:53And, you know, you know Danny, Danny Hester?

1:32:56No. He was a former Mr.

1:33:00Olympia, classic physique. But he's gotten into, you know, I mean, I shoot with these

1:33:05guys all the time. And, you know, actually Flex Wheeler.

1:33:08You know, a lot of the guys are, you know, into the gun stuff.

1:33:12You know, so we, we go set up stuff and, you know.

1:33:15Well, once you start training, you realize, like, how difficult it is and how long

1:33:21the learning curve is. Because you think, oh, you point, you pull the trigger, what's

1:33:25the big deal? Then you get into it and then you see someone like Taryn

1:33:29or someone who's competing and you go, oh.

1:33:31Oh, well, there's... Oh, well, there's...

1:33:32This is just like everything else, just like karate, like jiu -jitsu, there's levels, levels

1:33:39and levels and levels. And you see people competing and you go, oh, wow, I'd

1:33:44like to do that someday.

1:33:45Yeah, yeah, you're in a great place for it.

1:33:47Yes, yeah, Texas is a great place for it.

1:33:50Oh, yeah. There's a staccato range that we go to sometimes, it's awesome.

1:33:53They have all these different setups out there, they have this old west town with

1:33:57all these different targets set up and you run from doorway to doorway, it's pretty

1:34:01badass. Yeah, John Jones, I see, is doing quite a bit of that.

1:34:04John Jones is a fucking scary human being.

1:34:06He's so scary. Yeah, yeah.

1:34:07And if you get past him, he's got his fucking dog, Dutch.

1:34:10Yeah. Which is, you know, he brings a Belgian Malinois everywhere he goes.

1:34:13Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know my good friend, Josh Barnett, he's at Terrence a lot,

1:34:20too. Yeah, he's another scary human being.

1:34:22Yeah, yeah. And a very analytical, intelligent.

1:34:24One of the most - Very well -read.

1:34:26He is like Jeopardy smart.

1:34:28Yes. He's like ridiculous. Because you can't, there's not many things that he doesn't know.

1:34:33Right, yeah. He's amazing. I watched you guys, you guys on this show, I was

1:34:38very flattered. He started, he mentioned, out of nowhere, he started talking about how he

1:34:44was inspired by myself and my wife.

1:34:47And that, you know, it actually got me real choked up.

1:34:51Yeah, I was like, what, man?

1:34:54Yeah, Josh's a great guy.

1:34:55Yeah. You know, incidentally, my wife is somebody that, I don't know, you met her

1:35:00a long time ago. You last saw her sliding down the Luxor.

1:35:05Oh, wow. That's crazy. Yep.

1:35:09That's crazy. On Fear Factor.

1:35:11On Fear Factor. Wow. Yep.

1:35:13She was sliding down the Luxor when you last saw her.

1:35:15That's crazy. She slipped right into my arms.

1:35:20That's awesome. Yeah, we've done our sixth movie together.

1:35:24Oh, wow. So we've been, you know, we got two, our teenagers are, we got

1:35:30one less, well, we got two left in the house.

1:35:33We're going to college now.

1:35:34So, you know, we're about to be empty nesters.

1:35:37Yeah, man. So, yeah, it's wild how these things kind of connect.

1:35:42It is wild. Yeah. It is wild.

1:35:44Yeah. Yeah. Josh is one of the, he's like one of the best examples to

1:35:50me of when people think of a martial artist or think of a cage fighter,

1:35:54former UFC heavyweight champion, and you think of a guy like, oh, probably some brute,

1:35:59some dude, have a conversation with him.

1:36:01Yes. And you realize the depth of his intellect and the depth of his knowledge,

1:36:05like how much he knows about Nietzsche, he can quote Nietzsche.

1:36:09Oh, my God. Like, he's so well read.

1:36:11He makes his own whiskey.

1:36:13Yeah. You know, like, he's a very interesting guy.

1:36:16Man, what a renaissance guy, man.

1:36:17Exactly. A real renaissance guy.

1:36:18Yeah, we usually, we have the same birthday.

1:36:20So sometimes we throw parties together, you know, when he's, when he's in town, he's

1:36:25always in Japan and just all over the place, man.

1:36:28He's like, he's an amazing human being.

1:36:30He really is. Yeah. Yeah.

1:36:31And again, one of the best examples, like when people have a stereotype of what

1:36:36they think a cage fighter is.

1:36:38Yeah. And Josh was the youngest ever UFC heavyweight champion.

1:36:41Yeah. Yeah. And man, that's probably like, I've trained more with him than so many

1:36:47people. Like, you know, and, uh, it's just, it's just, what a great friendship and

1:36:52what a, what a inspirational thinking person, you know?

1:36:57And, you know, so, yeah.

1:36:58And, you know, he did, um, Never Back Down, uh, three with me.

1:37:03We shot that in Thailand.

1:37:05Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:37:07What's it like training in Thailand?

1:37:09That's gotta be fun. Oh, man.

1:37:11Uh, kind of hot. Yeah.

1:37:13But the motherland of Muay Thai.

1:37:14Yeah. Yeah. Again, like with every style, there's, it's, it's strengths and its weaknesses.

1:37:20You know, a lot of, a lot of them, you know, a lot of things

1:37:22around, you know, they go around and not straight, right.

1:37:26Straight, you know, of course, the quickest distance between two points is a straight line.

1:37:33So, it's not a whole lot of, um, well, they could do with a lot

1:37:38more boxing technique and, and, uh, some of those things.

1:37:42But, man, talk about toughness, that kind of a thing.

1:37:46But it's kind of a tragic, like, how they, they beat the shit out of

1:37:50themselves. Mm -hmm. By the time they're in their thirties, man, they're like.

1:37:53Yeah, they're busted up. Yeah.

1:37:54Well, they start fighting when they're very, very young.

1:37:57Yeah. But it's also led to them training so intelligently.

1:38:00You know, one of the things about Thai training, they don't spar like a lot

1:38:04of Americans do, where they beat the fuck out of each other.

1:38:06They play spar. Yeah. And that play sparring allows them to not get beat up

1:38:12by the time they get into the ring on Saturday.

1:38:13Mm -hmm. Because a lot of them are fighting every week.

1:38:16Mm -hmm. So, they do touch sparring.

1:38:18You know, and a lot of people say, oh, you can't get good touch sparring.

1:38:21Well, you certainly can. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

1:38:23Especially when you're fighting every weekend.

1:38:26Yeah. And that's probably the best way to do it because you're, you know, just

1:38:30working on timing, pattern recognition, and just getting your, just your reps in.

1:38:36Yeah, just like with jujitsu, of course, when you don't muscle things, when the technique,

1:38:41you let the technique do its thing.

1:38:43That's so much better. Right, right.

1:38:45And you maintain so much better as well.

1:38:48Right. And I think one of the best examples of that is like Sanchai.

1:38:51Because Sanchai is in his 40s, and he's still fucking people up.

1:38:55I mean, it's crazy watching that guy fight.

1:38:57But you look at him, a very unassuming guy, you know, that is not ripped.

1:39:02You know, he's an older guy, but he's just, his timing and his smoothness and

1:39:07his, the way he moves, it's very playful, but he's just fucking people up.

1:39:11Yeah, yeah. Man, it makes me, I miss Thailand.

1:39:15I actually did my, we did our wedding ceremony in Thailand.

1:39:18Oh, wow. Yeah, and you know who was, who, who, uh, officiated part of it

1:39:23was Tony Jaa. Oh, really?

1:39:25Tony Jaa did the Buddhist part of our wedding.

1:39:28Oh, wow. He did the water blessing, and he also sang at the wedding.

1:39:32Yeah, yeah. That's cool. He's like.

1:39:34Ong Bak. Yes, yes. Yeah.

1:39:36One of the greatest martial artists ever.

1:39:39Ooh, what a great movie that was.

1:39:40Yeah, yeah. For martial arts technique?

1:39:42That was like one of the first times like real true Muay Thai was exhibited

1:39:45in a film. Absolutely, yeah.

1:39:47super high level yeah yeah and tony just my god like he would do the

1:39:51these incredible feats in front of you just unbelievable he could do a spin you

1:39:57do a somersault hit you in the in the shoulder and just tap you like

1:40:02that with your foot with his foot just he had that that much control it's

1:40:06unbelievable yeah yeah he he was sick recently but he's uh i think he's overcoming

1:40:12uh yeah i think it was uh i think it was a c word man

1:40:16oh yeah you know i haven't talked to him in a minute but i just

1:40:19found out about it like about i don't know a couple weeks ago yeah he's

1:40:24i knew he got thinner but i'm hoping that he's uh he's better now yeah

1:40:29he's a legend yeah he's something else it's so fascinating to me how different parts

1:40:34of the world develop a different style of martial arts in thailand in particular because

1:40:39of the fact that there was so much gambling and there were so many fights

1:40:43that they developed this very heavy leg kick clinch elbow knee style yeah it was

1:40:49just very different than a lot of the other styles you know and for a

1:40:53long time was really dominating in kickboxing but then you're starting to see other styles

1:40:59like particularly a lot of kyokushin guys now yeah specifically out of japan have you

1:41:04ever seen this kid yuki yoza is he kyokushin yeah kyokushin guy out of japan

1:41:09who's dominating people uh he he fights very different man he's fucking up a lot

1:41:15of thai guys with calf kicks okay oh my god dude no i no i

1:41:20hadn't heard of heard i just officiated a kyokushin tournament yesterday what was sunday was

1:41:26that two days ago uh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i'm you know i'm still

1:41:30connected in the kyokushin i mean been doing that you know yeah since i was

1:41:34a kid well you did the whole thing like we have to fight like 100

1:41:37guys in a day you did all that shit right i've done a 30 man

1:41:40i haven't done a hundred exaggerating but it's like a lot of people yeah yeah

1:41:45which is the toughest honestly it's a i i love it it was the toughest

1:41:49thing i'd ever i ever had to really face because you come to a point

1:41:54where you want to give up and you have to just you know kind of

1:41:59walk the burning sands what is it like walking the next day man i had

1:42:04i mean i remember the first time i did a 10 man and i had

1:42:08several knees on my legs put it that way so because they they destroy your

1:42:13legs so bad yeah right i did a 20 man one other time and made

1:42:17the mistake of uh having a um i had like a energy drink beforehand which

1:42:23is stupid because now my heart is racing higher than normal and so it made

1:42:28it even harder but somewhere around like inevitably you get to a place where i

1:42:34remember the 12th guy i'm like what the fuck are you doing why are you

1:42:38here you know but you had to dig deep and you got 18 more to

1:42:42go yeah yeah so i'm like man but honestly such a hard style yeah but

1:42:48man it's something about getting you know because you're you're going to be faced with

1:42:52yourself you're going to be you want to quit and you have to just dig

1:42:57down and get through it and there's nothing like it when you accomplish it uh

1:43:05because you know where you can go you know that most of the time you

1:43:11you're you tell yourself you're done you're not what a valuable lesson it is to

1:43:18know that about yourself yeah and you can't there's no substitute for that and it's

1:43:25just something that you just benefit uh i remember the last time i did this

1:43:30um we had to train out in um in uh banff canada because usually these

1:43:36things are in japan and people from all over the style they come and they

1:43:41train you're like training eight hours a day you got these little lunch breaks and

1:43:46i didn't think it through i i i just i think the last one was

1:43:51like about five six years ago i you know wanted to challenge myself i want

1:43:56to do this but i'm by myself and most people come with family members and

1:44:00all that kind of stuff so you buy yourself you're a movie star yeah and

1:44:04i have the target on my back but it's like of course yeah so and

1:44:07so and it's like we'd have a training thing and then you got a certain

1:44:12amount of time to go eat but then people want to take pictures with me

1:44:15and i'm the last guy to get into the into the lunch thing and then

1:44:20i was like oh shit i got 10 minutes to eat and then i got

1:44:23to get back in the next training session and you have a full stomach yeah

1:44:26and then then you got like i mean it kind of sucked but i i

1:44:31taught myself something i said you know you could be three hours in i tell

1:44:36myself i just got here i just got here and i dig deeper and whatever

1:44:40and then the last few days you're just fighting down to the last person and

1:44:44you know there's people that's like you know they got their their eye on you

1:44:48because like you know i've got the bullseye on me but the great thing is

1:44:51dude like i say i learned a lot i'm doing footwork with frankie for years

1:44:58i'm a boxing technique i've got benny orquides bill wallace was my instructor i've got

1:45:05so many things in my arsenal and to test myself it's such a it's such

1:45:14a great benefit to to you know and it was weird because i was thinking

1:45:18like am i insane because i had a movie that i was going to be

1:45:21starting in like a week later i could have just been messed up i could

1:45:26have had a broken leg or whatever a lot of times you leave with a

1:45:29souvenir they call it like you know when you trade in japan a lot of

1:45:33the japanese want to give you a souvenir that means a broken bone but i

1:45:38had to try to you know overcome that so in life it's especially in this

1:45:44kind of coddled life i'm living i don't get a chance to test myself that

1:45:51much right right and you know yeah i had to you know listen to my

1:45:57own complaints and shut the fuck up and get through it Yeah.

1:46:02Oh, it's not fair because everybody's taking pictures and you're doing this and I'm by

1:46:06myself. No, no, that's not.

1:46:09The point is get through it, you know, and I'm so glad to do that.

1:46:14And I always like to that's why I like to train with champions and and

1:46:18stuff, because, you know, that's you want to get through things.

1:46:23It should be. You should be tested.

1:46:26I mean, if I had a religion, a large part of it, if I was

1:46:31the head of my own religious cult, would be that men go through something.

1:46:36There's a rites of passage.

1:46:38Yes. You've got to know how to protect yourself and your family and your loved

1:46:41ones. That to me is is paramount.

1:46:44You also have to know what's inside of you.

1:46:47Like the only way to find out is to test it.

1:46:50Exactly. Because otherwise you get these dudes that have their chest pumped out and they're

1:46:54talking loud. Why are they doing that?

1:46:56Because they want to scare people off.

1:46:58Right. Because they don't know what they're capable of.

1:47:00They're terrified. Yeah. And you can't hide from yourself.

1:47:03Right. And that's the thing.

1:47:05I'm not going to bullshit myself.

1:47:06I'd like I want to know, you know, and and it's great.

1:47:12It's it's no there's no substitute for going through that.

1:47:18And that's the thing that I why I love fighters so much.

1:47:22You know, you're you're you're you're you're basically naked to the world.

1:47:27Right. You have to dig down.

1:47:30You have to overcome things.

1:47:31Yeah. That's why I love them so much, because they're there are gladiators.

1:47:35They we live vicariously through them.

1:47:38And that's why I'm a little dogged about actors receiving those accolades when they haven't

1:47:46done it. Right. You know what I mean?

1:47:48Myself included. I don't care if somebody says, oh, he's not a fighter.

1:47:51You know, he's an actor.

1:47:52Fine. You should think that way.

1:47:53Right. But personally, it's it's something deeper for myself.

1:47:57And, you know, one person I think I identify with that is you because I've

1:48:01seen you. I've seen you in the gyms back when it wasn't popular and and

1:48:07we're doing it for reasons that are not had nothing to do with glory or,

1:48:12you know, ego or anything like that.

1:48:14It's just for self -improvement.

1:48:16Yeah. You know, and that's what it's about, man, because it's about overcoming obstacles and

1:48:20your biggest obstacle in the world is yourself.

1:48:22Yeah. Yeah. My instructor, when I was very young, told me that martial arts are

1:48:27a vehicle for developing your human potential.

1:48:29Exactly. Exactly. It's so hard.

1:48:32Yeah. Oh, people need something hard.

1:48:34Yeah. And what about Khabib's?

1:48:37What is what a Khabib say?

1:48:39Like what he says about discipline.

1:48:41Oh, that that rant. Man, I had to.

1:48:43Oh, that. I don't know if that rant is real.

1:48:46Somebody told me that rant is A .I.

1:48:48What? Yeah. Is it A .I.?

1:48:50Damn it. What? Well, who cares?

1:48:52Well, yeah. It's in Khabib's voice.

1:48:54And I bet Khabib would agree with every word it said.

1:48:57Yes. Yes. You know, find that rant.

1:48:58Because let's pretend that it's not A .I.

1:49:01Or it may be one of A .I.'s greatest contributions to martial arts.

1:49:05Right. Absolutely. Because becoming addicted to discipline.

1:49:08Yeah. Every man addicted to something.

1:49:10Yeah. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

1:49:11Oh, it's such a great rant.

1:49:13Here it is. Give me this.

1:49:14Give me this. It's such a fucking great rant.

1:49:18Started from the beginning, too.

1:49:19Every man addicted to something.

1:49:21Some smoke, some drink, some chase girls, some waste time.

1:49:23But real man, he addicted to discipline.

1:49:26To early wakes, to prayer, to training, to silence.

1:49:30Discipline no need motivation. Discipline move without feeling.

1:49:34Discipline say, I go anyway.

1:49:37Even when tired, even when lonely.

1:49:39Discipline is best addiction. You want strong life?

1:49:43Discipline build it. You want peace?

1:49:46Discipline protect it. You want respect?

1:49:48Discipline earn it. No shortcut.

1:49:51Only work. Be man with control.

1:49:53Not man with excuse. No crime.

1:49:55No blame. You want better life?

1:49:57Start with better habits. Discipline.

1:50:00Every day. Until discipline become you.

1:50:03Every night. Fucking yeah. Yeah.

1:50:05I don't give a damn if this is A .I.

1:50:06or whatever. Well, kudos to the A .I.

1:50:09person that put that together.

1:50:10Yeah. That's how he lives.

1:50:13Yeah. So even if it's A .I., he would go, this is accurate.

1:50:17Yes. Well, I'll tell you what, man.

1:50:18That part of the world, Dagestan, you want to talk about a hard part of

1:50:21the world that is developing some of the baddest motherfuckers?

1:50:25Even in Muay Thai. There's this cat coming out of Muay Thai out of Dagestan

1:50:29right now, Azadullah Iman -Gazaleev, who's like 22 years old, and he is fucking everybody

1:50:37up. A Dagestani Muay Thai fighter.

1:50:40Really? Who has his own style.

1:50:42He's this tall, lanky dude who's one of the most terrifying strikers alive right now.

1:50:47A lot of people think he's the best striker alive.

1:50:49Oh, man. I think he's 22.

1:50:5122 or 23 years old.

1:50:53And he's just fucking everybody up.

1:50:55He fights for one FC.

1:50:57Give me a highlight reel of this cat.

1:50:59No, this is just from a fight, I guess.

1:51:01I don't know. Highly real didn't pop up right away, so I just went with

1:51:06the first fight. That's it.

1:51:07Best technical striker in the world.

1:51:08That's it. Click on that.

1:51:10Just give me some of this.

1:51:11Just start it from the beginning.

1:51:13This dude. That tall dude with the beard?

1:51:16Mm -hmm. Azadullah Iman -Gazaleev.

1:51:19Watch this motherfucker. What a style he has.

1:51:22I mean, it's just this long, tall, lanky dude.

1:51:26Perfect timing and measurement. And he just starts piecing dudes up.

1:51:31Mm. I think this is like his full fight.

1:51:33Yeah. Well, I don't think so.

1:51:35If you scoot ahead, I think he fucks this guy up pretty quick.

1:51:38I've seen this fight. This guy, he catches with one shot.

1:51:42But some dude's not so lucky.

1:51:46Oh, man. Yeah, that was one shot.

1:51:48But it keeps going. And then give me the next fight.

1:51:52He just starts lighting guys on fire, including ties.

1:51:56And they don't know what the fuck is going on.

1:51:58Because he fights different than them.

1:52:00I mean, he's a Muay Thai fighter.

1:52:02He's got that straight, you know, he's exploiting the fact that they got so much

1:52:07round technique. Exactly. A lot of front kicks up the middle, and especially to the

1:52:11face. But also his spinning attacks.

1:52:14He's got wicked spinning attacks.

1:52:16tax man and also comes off angle a lot his head's never on the center

1:52:21line super fucking technical but just lighting dudes on fire and just a just an

1:52:31attacker always attacking and has the benefit of that range that long range yeah i

1:52:37mean nice dude is incredible incredible and again 22 years old like look at that

1:52:47so he's combining like taekwondo techniques karate techniques and precision muay thai i mean the

1:52:57problem with this this this not this style but this form is that a lot

1:53:02of people aren't seeing it one fc is doing a really good job of highlighting

1:53:06a lot of like elite muay thai fighters you know they have taiwan chai over

1:53:10there and set of chai and all these like high level guys but in america

1:53:14this for whatever reason has not caught on and the only way this guy's going

1:53:19to get the kind of attention that i think he deserves is if he gets

1:53:21into mma boom yeah axe kick spinning back fist oh man his his straight rights

1:53:29are no joke he's a laser beam yeah he's so focused he's so good man

1:53:34so good yeah yeah so the dagestanis are now entering into muay thai which is

1:53:40a terrible side for all these muay thai guys yeah yeah man it's a those

1:53:44are hard people man hard people who start at a very young age i mean

1:53:50a very young age like and also dagestanis now because of khabib and islam they

1:53:56all know that this is the pathway to greatness yes yeah and so there's heroes

1:54:00and there can be ankulaev there's all these guys that have been world champions out

1:54:04of dagestan now so it's like you're seeing all these guys come out of there

1:54:08and some of these young guys that are coming up are so good yeah they're

1:54:12so good but this is fascinating to me that you take a guy who's adapted

1:54:15this thai style but then morphed it into something that's different and again like you

1:54:21were saying a lot of straight techniques oh yeah especially when you're a tall guy

1:54:24like that for the weight class because i think he fights at 145 and when

1:54:28you're that tall at 145 and you've got those straight shots down the middle oh

1:54:32yeah like his right is just like you can't really see it laser beam you

1:54:35know right directly at him but it's also the hooks too his hooks are coming

1:54:39around the guard right right like everything is precise and his accuracy is spectacular yeah

1:54:45yeah i'm i'm a student obviously i i i watch every fight i can i

1:54:51watch i watch kickboxing i watch muay thai i watch jujitsu matches i watch it

1:54:56all but i i'm always fascinated by these cats that stand out and this guy

1:55:01just stands out yeah yeah it's great when somebody knows how to use their length

1:55:06like that yeah yeah well yuki yoza the kyokushin guy that i was telling you

1:55:10totally different well this guy's doing a shelling up and getting in tight on guys

1:55:15and kicking the fuck out of their inner thigh outer calf lower like he's he's

1:55:20chopping at their legs so even thai guys don't know what to do because they're

1:55:24not used to guys kicking their calves like this guy right so he's inside going

1:55:29shin to shin and you know as well as anybody kyokushin guys have some of

1:55:32the most conditioned shins in the world yeah they're always battering shin to shin and

1:55:37this dude is just getting in and you see in the second round a lot

1:55:40of these thai guys like oh fuck i can't walk yeah i can't move right

1:55:43my calves don't work anymore yeah so the calf kick which is really kind of

1:55:48revolutionized mma it's changed mma because one two hard calf kicks you're compromised you're not

1:55:55moving right anymore and you're not pivoting off that foot when you're punching so your

1:55:59punching power is diminished this yuki yoza guy is like putting it on thai guys

1:56:04with it that's something i mean especially for for a kyokushin guy to i mean

1:56:08the the knock with kyokushin i've been doing it ever since i was a kid

1:56:12is just that no not developing facial exactly facial uh you know uh blocks well

1:56:19this guy has incorporated russian style boxing oh he's got russian style boxing with kyokushin

1:56:26karate techniques well yeah but that with that russian style boxing that they're they really

1:56:32kind of mastered the non -telegraph kind of yeah because it looks like they're not

1:56:36going fast yuki yoza highlight reel he's there's a bunch of fights with him and

1:56:41thai guys and you know the first round thai guys are doing their thing and

1:56:46it looks you know like a normal fight but the yuki yoza just starts chopping

1:56:50at those calves inside and he's like multiple kicks to the calf from in tight

1:56:55and close yeah that's punishing and you see guys like playing at like go ahead

1:57:00kick me kick me and then after a while they're like fuck don't kick me

1:57:02anyway they're trying to get macho with them pretend it's not working but yeah i

1:57:07don't like what would it take to develop like this is yuki yoza just like

1:57:14the like oh your your thighs you see how he's like he chop he's chopping

1:57:19when he's getting tight look at this always look at how how much he's utilizing

1:57:24the like all the karate techniques but also in tight just destroys guys legs but

1:57:31also spinning back kicks all that other shit but look at his boxing is excellent

1:57:35too oh a lot of muay thai stuff dumping people but look at that he's

1:57:41constantly kicking the inside of the leg when they're committing to kicks he's he's taking

1:57:46their legs out this dude i one of my favorite guys to watch right now

1:57:49like look that's a thai guy man he's just destroying their legs man man an

1:57:55excellent movement yeah and he comes out of a a very high level gym in

1:58:01japan that's produced a lot of really masasaki nori another guy who's like that is

1:58:07a very similar guy who beat taiwan chai recently like these guys are just destroying

1:58:12people's legs so they're utilizing a lot of the question mark kicks a lot of

1:58:17the stuff that that evolved in kyokushin but putting it into kickboxing yeah also with

1:58:23the toughness that is in you know a lot of the kyokushin fighters yeah i

1:58:27see i see him slip into a like a superman Yeah.

1:58:32Everybody's going to be susceptible for that.

1:58:34If you've got a kick, a leg kick that's that legitimate, they're going to bite

1:58:39on that. It's going to be open for them.

1:58:41And then he uses a Superman punch.

1:58:42Yeah. And another very young guy.

1:58:45So there's these people that are exploiting these holes and these styles because some of

1:58:50these Thai guys are so hard to beat.

1:58:52By the time they're competing and they're 25 years old, they might have 150 fights.

1:58:57So much experience. But this cat's figuring them out, man.

1:59:01It's really interesting to watch.

1:59:04Yeah. I would love to see.

1:59:06I wish there was like some kind of governing body that would get all the

1:59:10like some like superstars or whatever.

1:59:13Get this guy versus this guy from.

1:59:15Well, one is doing that a lot.

1:59:18But, you know, one, unfortunately, is not that popular in America.

1:59:21What I love about one is they'll have grappling competitions.

1:59:24They'll have kickboxing. They'll have Muay Thai.

1:59:27And then they'll have MMA.

1:59:28They'll have them all combined on one card.

1:59:30One is the one that Michael Chevelle was on, right?

1:59:33Well, he was on that.

1:59:35Michael Chevelle's not with one anymore.

1:59:37Michael Chevelle's one of the best commentators ever.

1:59:39Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's excellent.

1:59:40Great guy, too. I'll probably be seeing him in another like three weeks.

1:59:46You going to Australia? Yeah, going to Australia.

1:59:48Nice. My wife and I, we're going to, well, we did a tour.

1:59:52I do like seminars over there and, you know, meet and greets and stuff like

1:59:57that. We haven't done that in a while.

1:59:58But, yeah, we've got some really good fighters out there.

2:00:02Oh, yeah. John Wayne Parr.

2:00:03Yeah. You know, some great fighters have come out of Australia.

2:00:06Yeah, so, yeah, we're going to have some fun out there.

2:00:08That's awesome. Yeah, they're in New Zealand.

2:00:10Oh, yeah. Another hotbed. Oh, yeah.

2:00:13Another hotbed for fighters. Well, just warrior cultures, you know.

2:00:16Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Warrior history to this place.

2:00:19I don't think, I've never met an Australian that I didn't like.

2:00:22I know. They're the nicest fucking people.

2:00:24They're so fucking cool, yeah.

2:00:25Yeah, they're the coolest people.

2:00:26They're friendly, easy going. Yeah, you have rites of passage still.

2:00:31Mm -hmm. You know, places like that.

2:00:32You know, you, I mean, it's, that's one thing that is sad about United States.

2:00:38It's like, we're not making men anymore.

2:00:40Not a lot of them.

2:00:41No, no. When they are, they stand out.

2:00:43Yeah, you know, that's why it's like a lot of times in these movies, if

2:00:47you have an alpha male, a lot of times that alpha male, that American alpha

2:00:51male is being played by an Australian or somebody from, you know, it's like, it's

2:00:57very rarely an American. We got so, it's like such a trip, man.

2:01:02Well, masculinity is demonized here for some strange reason over the last couple of decades.

2:01:08Bro, I saw the beginning of a lot of it because, you know, like I

2:01:11said, I was a school teacher.

2:01:12And I was right on the forefront seeing, like, everybody gets a trophy, you know.

2:01:17You know, these, these kids, you know, they're, you know, it's about their self -esteem

2:01:21and you got to protect that.

2:01:23I'm like, come on. And, you know, taking away competition.

2:01:26Yeah. That just, I saw the beginning of that shit.

2:01:29And it's just so, so bad.

2:01:31Then, these kids don't know how to deal with loss or anything.

2:01:35And then they end up shooting the classroom.

2:01:37Right. You know, it's, it's, yeah.

2:01:39Dealing with loss is one of the most important lessons you could ever learn.

2:01:42If you want to get better, lose.

2:01:44Yeah. Losing is the best medicine because you lose, you know, I don't ever want

2:01:49to feel that again. And then you start thinking about all the things that you

2:01:52cut corners on, all the things that you didn't do.

2:01:55What can I do differently to make sure that never happens again, that I never

2:01:58feel that feeling. Or you quit.

2:02:00Those are the two options.

2:02:01Yeah. Either you get way better or you quit.

2:02:03But winning sometimes you don't learn.

2:02:06You know, you go, well, I'm doing the right thing.

2:02:08I'm winning. I'm getting better.

2:02:09I'm developing confidence. That's good.

2:02:10But man, sometimes a loss is the best medicine.

2:02:13Yeah, man. I realized something when I was, you know, I, I, I was, I

2:02:19was born with some gifts.

2:02:20Okay. I did. One thing that got me into college is decathlon.

2:02:26I, out of, as a fluke, I jumped into a, a race against one of

2:02:32the fastest guys on the track team and beat them.

2:02:35Right. And that was just a fluke.

2:02:37And the coach saw that.

2:02:39The track coach saw that and was like, oh my God, you're fucking running, running

2:02:42for the school. And I was like, oh, okay.

2:02:45I like, I was just like, I didn't have anybody, any kind of adult that

2:02:50took a liking to me like that.

2:02:52And next thing you know, I'm on the track team and I, and I started,

2:02:56I mean, I was really good.

2:02:58And then I wound up going to college because of that.

2:03:02And incidentally, that's the stuff that really kind of taught me, uh, to kind of,

2:03:10uh, evolve my martial arts because nowhere is there, um, a benefit of like cutting

2:03:19off fractions of seconds in movement like track.

2:03:23Like, like when I'm doing the shot put, well, a lot of times I was

2:03:28competing against people that were ginormous and all they had to do is stick their

2:03:33arm out and their arc was going to be better than mine.

2:03:35Well, I had to generate enough power to go at a 45 degree angle and

2:03:41in inertia and all that to get past them.

2:03:45And with running, of course, if you shoot the gun off, all your motion has

2:03:52to go forward. If you go backward, you're going to be a step behind everybody.

2:03:56So as far as efficiency of motion, I, all the things I had to do

2:04:02with track, I started applying in fighting and that's what kind of gave me cheat

2:04:06codes into things to where being super efficient really helped.

2:04:12Right. And so one thing would like kind of help the other, but like, yeah,

2:04:18a lot of my, my, my whole track thing was a great benefit, but I

2:04:26did learn that I was kind of in a way like the Bo Jackson's or

2:04:32the Herschel Walker's, I was gifted.

2:04:35And so when I would fight, I was, you know, I was a big guy

2:04:41that was fast and it didn't, you know, that was kind of rare.

2:04:44I was, you know, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I

2:04:44was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

2:04:44I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I

2:04:44was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

2:04:44I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I

2:04:44was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

2:04:44I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I

2:04:44was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was,

2:04:44I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I

2:04:44was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was So fighting

2:04:46was easy to me, but I learned that when I was the celebrated fighter, that

2:04:56was less of a good martial artist because then I kind of would kind of

2:05:00flake off other things. Like I wasn't, I didn't try as hard as other people.

2:05:06And that's another thing I don't know if Khabib really said, but it was a

2:05:09thing that he said about those gifted people, a lot of people who are gifted

2:05:14were not the best fighters.

2:05:17Yeah. That is a quote from him.

2:05:19Exactly. And I took that, you know, that, that same thing.

2:05:22Cause I realized, dude, you're, you're, you're, you're doing it wrong.

2:05:27You're, I mean, my philosophy was like, uh, I feel I adapted the philosophy of,

2:05:33okay, say, um, this kid, Sean is 140 pounds and there's me and it takes

2:05:40me a thousand kicks to become fatigued and it takes him 100 kicks to become

2:05:44fatigued and he pushes to 120 and I pushed to 1 ,001.

2:05:50Who's the better martial artist?

2:05:52He is because he's pushed into his comfort zone.

2:05:57He's pushing himself further. What if he one day gets to a thousand for him

2:06:05to go from a hundred to a thousand, that's going to be a quality 900

2:06:08that I don't have. Me being the gifted one.

2:06:13Right. I'm looking at it using the comparative method saying, well, you know, you know,

2:06:18I mean, at the end of the year, I used to kick a basketball rim.

2:06:22You know, I was, I had that ability, but when I started thinking about, well,

2:06:26what I compare myself to other people, that was the wrong thing.

2:06:31So I said, no, I'm going to be like, Sean, I want to train to

2:06:37my ability, not in comparison to someone else.

2:06:41Uh, and that really taught me something as far as like, again, why I put

2:06:48myself through these things and the benefit of it by really like when, what the

2:06:54martial arts really teaches is, you know, in fact that, yeah, I had these gifts,

2:07:01but if I, if I use those gifts as a crutch, I'm limiting what I

2:07:07can be. Right. You're limiting your potential.

2:07:09Exactly. And so oftentimes it's too easy for the gifted guys.

2:07:14And so they kind of slack off.

2:07:16Right. Yeah. So yeah, that, that's, that's, and I realized that's what I was doing.

2:07:20They also are not as comfortable with struggle.

2:07:23Absolutely. And being comfortable with struggle is a very important part of growth.

2:07:27Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a mixed message because we start

2:07:31to, uh, admire the, the freak sometimes.

2:07:38Uh, we, as, as men, we celebrate the pugilist a lot.

2:07:43And that's kind of a thing that where it came full circle to where, okay,

2:07:47yeah, I'm able to do these things, but is that really me?

2:07:51Is that, is that the limit of what I can be by having someone else

2:07:58go, oh, yeah, you can do this or that.

2:08:01That's kind of a, that's not really the, the, the, the crux of it.

2:08:07Right. You know what I mean?

2:08:08And it's, and it's really about like, yeah, there's going to be people that's going

2:08:12to praise what you can do physically, but is that, but I realized there was

2:08:18a point where that was kind of retarding where, where I could be mentally and

2:08:24what I can really become.

2:08:26We also have a responsibility to those gifts, right?

2:08:30Because if you are gifted athletically, you have a responsibility of achieving the full potential

2:08:36because you've been given this thing by genetics, by life, by God, this thing where

2:08:41you are faster, you move quicker, you have more explosive power, but are you going

2:08:46to harness that gift and allow it to reach its full potential?

2:08:50And when you do that, then you get a Mike Tyson.

2:08:52When you do that, then you get a Michael Jordan.

2:08:54You do that, then you get an elite of the elite.

2:08:57You get what David Goggins always liked to call uncommon amongst uncommon men.

2:09:02Right, right. And that's, that's the real hard thing to do because so many of

2:09:07these like really gifted guys in the gym, they always kind of peter off and

2:09:11disappear. And, and when they're in a fight where they fight another gifted guy that

2:09:15maybe trained a little harder than maybe he's got a little bit more experience, they

2:09:19realize, man, I don't want to struggle like that.

2:09:21I don't like that. I don't like that feeling.

2:09:23I like beating up guys in the gym that are below me.

2:09:26Yeah. And then you, you, you got to deal with that person in the mirror.

2:09:29Yeah. And that's not, yeah.

2:09:31It's hard for guys when they're the hammer of their whole life.

2:09:34And then one day they're the nail.

2:09:35Yeah. And you see guys that are like really elite that are dominating.

2:09:39And then one day they get fucked up and then you never see them again.

2:09:42Mm. Yeah. It's oftentimes, but then you'll see the guy who like gets fucked up

2:09:45a bunch of times and keeps showing up.

2:09:48Oh yeah. He keeps showing up and keeps learning.

2:09:50And then you realize like, oh, this guy is now elite.

2:09:52Yeah. And those are the true heroes to me.

2:09:54Right. You know, right. You know, there's people I don't want, you know, sometimes you

2:09:58get in trouble pointing out people like, like, I don't want to say somebody like

2:10:03Izzy or whatever, but, but like you see the, the, the, the people who are

2:10:08used to having that ability over other people and when it gets hard.

2:10:13Right. Right. And then it's like, um, even sometimes there's a, there's a talk about

2:10:18even Tyson and as just people are just, um, spectators when you go, oh man,

2:10:26there was this guy, this guy's so gifted.

2:10:28Now, uh, some of the knock has been that when it became hard, you hadn't

2:10:36seen him dig down and overcome that thing.

2:10:41Right. Right. Right. You know, cause a lot of times when it got hard, it

2:10:44was like, he just, you know, kind of tapped out.

2:10:47Yeah. And so that's something that, you know, not to disparage him, but it just,

2:10:52as people are looking at life, we look at, you know, we, we look at

2:10:57those things and we can take a lot of meaning from that.

2:10:59and apply that and say, oh, wow, is, I mean, that's on him to say,

2:11:06oh, was that the case?

2:11:07Or is it something that, I don't know.

2:11:11I think with Mike, it's a very special case because I think he had the

2:11:17elite coaching in the beginning with Cus D 'Amato and training.

2:11:21And then when Cus died, he was kind of left with all this amazing ability

2:11:27that he had developed when he was young.

2:11:29But not with the elite coaching.

2:11:31Like, so if Mike had left when Cus D 'Amato died, if he had then

2:11:37went to Emanuel Stewart or if he had then, you know what I'm saying?

2:11:40If he had then went to an elite boxing coach and had someone analyze his

2:11:46style and someone he really respected.

2:11:48Respected, yes, absolutely. That he could still maintain that same level of discipline when he

2:11:53was the 21 -year -old dominating the world.

2:11:55Oh, my God. But he had so much pressure on him.

2:11:58So much. Because, you know, I had to play him.

2:12:00So I had to study everything he did.

2:12:01And it's interesting because, oh, my God, like I always viewed him as somebody who

2:12:07was always looking for a father figure.

2:12:09Yes. And I would study him.

2:12:11And, you know, with Cus D 'Amato, he would dress like Cus D 'Amato.

2:12:15He was a young black guy from Brooklyn with suspenders.

2:12:19Right. You know, in a cabbie hat, like, you know, and then when Cus D

2:12:26'Amato was gone, he was around Kevin Rooney and Kevin Rooney had this really fast

2:12:31way of talking. And it seemed like he adapted that.

2:12:34And when he was with, you know, when he was with Swatwell.

2:12:40No, no. Shoot. Why am I blanking?

2:12:44The other manager. Jim Jacobs?

2:12:48Jim Jacobs. You know, Jim Jacobs was married.

2:12:51And he, I think marriage became important to him at that point because he was

2:12:55really under the, you know, the umbrella of Jim Jacobs.

2:12:58And then when he was with Robin Givens, with Don King.

2:13:05Oh, yeah. The N -word is every third word out of his mouth, very much

2:13:09like Don King. He goes to prison.

2:13:12He's got two father figures on him, Mao Zedong, and he's got, you know, Arthur

2:13:17Ashe on another shoulder. And I would just notice that, like, even speech patterns would

2:13:24change, you know. And I looked at him as, wow, here's a guy that I

2:13:29felt like I identified with a great deal because coming from the same kind of

2:13:33place. But, yeah, it's interesting because I think a lot of people don't know how

2:13:41much struggle he had to deal with.

2:13:43Because people think that Kevin Rooney was kind of a savior in that situation when

2:13:48he wasn't. Kevin Rooney explained to me directly that he says, if you ever see

2:13:54Mike, please apologize for me.

2:13:58Because when, I mean, when Mike was married to Robin Givens, he didn't want to

2:14:05do this interview. And then turn around, Kevin Rooney did the interview.

2:14:10And Kevin Rooney was like, I really messed up when I did that.

2:14:14And Kevin Rooney even told me that when, at the Spinks fight alone, Kevin made,

2:14:20like, over a million dollars.

2:14:22He left that casino owing.

2:14:26Mike had to bail him out, like, so many times.

2:14:28And so people thought, oh, Kevin Rooney is in control.

2:14:34No, Mike was, I mean, he had so much pressure on him.

2:14:38And I think with Don King trying to hire Mike's cohorts to help out, if

2:14:47he's going to hang out with him anyway, to try to just do that.

2:14:51He had so much, this dude had so much pressure on him, it's unbelievable.

2:14:54And Don King definitely took advantage of that.

2:14:58Yeah, I believe so. You know, because I knew Don from, because I was always

2:15:04in the fight camps with Frankie Lowes.

2:15:07In fact, that's how I got to first meet Mike Tyson.

2:15:10When Mike was in prison, Frankie put Mike and I on the phone together.

2:15:14And so I would, you know, do my little kind of interviewing of Mike while

2:15:20he was in prison. Because I was going to do, I was going to be

2:15:25playing him. So I wanted the whole story.

2:15:27Right. And, you know, and I went to Catskills on my own and knocked on

2:15:31that door and spent time with the people he grew up with in that house.

2:15:36Oh, wow. You know, so I learned a lot.

2:15:38There's a lot that, you know, the public doesn't know.

2:15:41And I think he was concerned about, you know, coming out.

2:15:44And, you know, it didn't.

2:15:46And so it was really interesting.

2:15:50I just got, I was front and center on how much pressure this guy had

2:15:55to deal with. He had to kind of develop with the whole world looking over

2:15:59his shoulder. Yeah. Yeah. And he was 20.

2:16:02Oh, yeah. Which is crazy.

2:16:03He's the youngest ever heavyweight champion in the world.

2:16:05He's went from being a 13 -year -old kid with no family to being adopted

2:16:10by this guy who's not just training him but also hypnotizing him.

2:16:14And then he's got Jim Jacobs who exposes him to this library of all the

2:16:19greatest fighters of all time.

2:16:21He's watching video footage of it.

2:16:23Bill Caton. Yeah. Bill Caton and Jim.

2:16:26Yeah. It's an extraordinary story because it's, like, unlike anyone else's.

2:16:30Like, the environment that he was exposed to and the way it produced this guy

2:16:37who was unlike any heavyweight before.

2:16:39I mean, in his prime.

2:16:41I always point to the Marvis Frazier fight.

2:16:42I always tell people, you want to see, like, the scariest motherfucker that ever stepped

2:16:46into the ring. Mike Tyson versus Marvis Frazier.

2:16:49He was just undeniable. Just undeniable.

2:16:53But that pressure, the kind of pressure that no one could explain what that's like.

2:16:58There's no internet back then.

2:16:59So there's not as many famous people.

2:17:02So, like, who's he going to relate to?

2:17:05Who's going to tell him what this is like?

2:17:08There's no one like him.

2:17:10You had Muhammad Ali. You had a few other guys that could maybe.

2:17:14tell him what it was like but for the most part he's not he's got

2:17:18no road map and he's out there in this world of superstardom we could do

2:17:23whatever the fuck he wants yeah everywhere he goes people are screaming and cheering and

2:17:27yeah and he's knocking everybody out in the first round yeah yeah the pressure on

2:17:31that man and then they have to fight holyfield right a guy who was really

2:17:36kind of more like a big brother to him throughout his life you know his

2:17:40professional life because you know holyfield was his crew he was a cruiserweight you know

2:17:47and holyfield was the type of guy how you doing mike you check on him

2:17:50and all that type of stuff then he has to fight this guy and there

2:17:53was deep down like he's got to fight this guy who's this he's got this

2:17:59reputation as a holy man and he's yeah all this type of stuff and then

2:18:03i remember being being at that fight and i remember the press conference and mike

2:18:09was like really manufacturing this hatred that i was like that's not real like he's

2:18:16trying to dig down to really get this edge to really hate holyfield and i

2:18:21was like that's a that's a i thought that was a mistake but um and

2:18:27i don't think psychologically he was in his his game right holyfield had an edge

2:18:33on him yeah i think it was also the fact the holy man thing was

2:18:37a big deal like holyfield had this incredible belief in god and he really believed

2:18:43that you know god was looking out for him and he was going to go

2:18:46in there and yeah and then couldn't be deterred dude the third round i mean

2:18:52i look of course i studied all this stuff on mike tyson third round of

2:18:55that first fight got chills because think about it he heard something that he never

2:19:03heard his entire career everybody started chanting for the other guy right holy field holy

2:19:10and i swear to you i saw just the air come out of this guy

2:19:15yeah and it was like i've done all of this and they're chanting for this

2:19:21man and how gracious he was um how tyson was at the end i felt

2:19:30like that's not a new thought you kind of had that opinion of him going

2:19:38into this well holyfield had been through the wars right he had those wars with

2:19:43riddick bow he had the first war with dwight muhammad kawi remember that fight at

2:19:48cruiserweight oh my god go back and watch that fight that fight he had the

2:19:52war with burt cooper like he had wars and holyfield was unflappable he's like yeah

2:19:58he's like i don't know why mike chain is about me but he's just that's

2:20:02like he's just like he never got angry yeah yeah it's like how you know

2:20:08it's hard to maintain like anger for that dude like he's just like okay well

2:20:14that's also terrifying too because you know you can't get in there you're trying to

2:20:17get in that head and it's like there's you're not getting in there god's in

2:20:20there yeah and then i was like if you look at it you know mike

2:20:24tyson was committing to every first blow yep holyfield is a counter fighter fake him

2:20:30let him throw that counter and you got him yeah and i was like i

2:20:36think normally mike knows this holyfield's center of gravity so different he's thin -legged big

2:20:45up top mike should be able to push him easily easily i didn't see the

2:20:51things that i normally saw from mike tyson in that fight which made me feel

2:20:55like this is a psychological component it's a psychological component but it's also a training

2:21:01component because again he wasn't with an elite trainer at that time it wasn't it

2:21:05wasn't the same as him being trained by costumano it wasn't the same yeah he

2:21:09didn't have the bobbing and weaving style that he used to have remember you mean

2:21:12he caught holyfield with the body shot in the uppercut yeah and just like basically

2:21:17you almost said you saw finish him yeah but he just chilled do you remember

2:21:23that moment i don't specifically yeah there's a moment there's a moment like that where

2:21:29he hurt him and holyfield looked like it's like yeah but holyfield would rebound i

2:21:36mean they're really bow fights but you look at tyson you look at almost everything

2:21:41he he's done i thought i was about to see the beginning of the end

2:21:45and i'm like what what i remember being there going why isn't he jumping on

2:21:50him you know me hey you know maybe i'm wrong or whatever but i swear

2:21:56i saw that moment and i remember going what's going on why is he not

2:22:03jumping on him i mean it's interesting it's interesting psychology plays a big role in

2:22:09how you feel about the opponent and the opponent essentially holds up a mirror and

2:22:13allows you to look at yourself yeah and when he's comparing himself to this holy

2:22:17man he probably didn't like it i joe you you know i think that's the

2:22:23way i thought about it of course who am i to do but this is

2:22:26my opinion those dudes with that kind of character like holyfield had at the time

2:22:30those are scary guys because like they can't be broken mentally right right they're always

2:22:35good and if you try to break them physically and he rebounds like oh god

2:22:39how how much do i have left in the tank yeah yeah yeah how many

2:22:44more of these shots can i take yeah like no it's different if somebody like

2:22:48taunted you now you can you know manufacture like you know right right but when

2:22:53guys just like okay i'm just doing my thing you you you kind of start

2:22:59going oh is it me is it because you don't then you know it's like

2:23:03that's the that's when you had fade or somebody like that it's just like like

2:23:10this it's like you just you drown yourself stoic because i can't i can't derive

2:23:14nothing from him he's like oh he was the best yeah yeah fedor was the

2:23:18best at it fedor would be the middle of the most chaotic war and it

2:23:22looked like he was just sipping a cup of coffee yeah it's crazy there was

2:23:25no one like that guy he's one of the most unique you Characters, and I

2:23:30think we were robbed of one of the greatest heavyweight matchups of all time when

2:23:35they never figured out how to put Cain Velasquez versus Fedor when they were both

2:23:39in their primes. Man, Cain Velasquez is the scariest person I've ever seen as far

2:23:47as I'm concerned. Like, if there was one guy that, like, because I pride myself

2:23:50if I get in the ring with anybody.

2:23:53That guy, man. He never got tired.

2:23:57Man, he's just like a juggernaut.

2:23:59He had cardio for a heavyweight that was like a marathon runner.

2:24:02It didn't make any sense.

2:24:03He was a 240 -pound guy who never got tired.

2:24:06Yeah. Perfect technique. Yeah, and I think the fights with Junior Dos Santos, I feel

2:24:13like they ruined each other.

2:24:15Yes. I feel like they ruined each other.

2:24:17Well, I think it certainly ruined Junior, especially the second fight.

2:24:20The first fight Junior caught.

2:24:21The first fight, Cain should have never took that fight.

2:24:24Cain had to take that fight because it was on Fox.

2:24:26It was a big deal.

2:24:27It was the main event of the Fox, the first Fox card, and Cain blew

2:24:30his knee out. So, if you look at that fight, Cain's wearing a knee brace.

2:24:34His knee was fucked up.

2:24:35Like, his meniscus was torn.

2:24:37He was all fucked up.

2:24:38He couldn't anchor on it.

2:24:39He couldn't really post on it.

2:24:41And then he couldn't get out of the way.

2:24:43And Junior caught him with a big right hand, cracked him, dropped him, stopped him.

2:24:46And then he comes back.

2:24:47Here it is. Here's Tyson versus Holyfield.

2:24:53Boom. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

2:24:55Yeah, but Holyfield's still there.

2:24:59He's still there. Remember, he has a chance.

2:25:03He has a chance right now.

2:25:04Evander's hurt. You heard what he said, right?

2:25:07Mm -hmm. Yeah. But that took some wind out of Evander right away.

2:25:12Biggest round for Mike yet.

2:25:13But the thing about Evander is, Evander was always there.

2:25:16He had been through these kind of fights before.

2:25:19But I don't know where I am, but I was there.

2:25:21Oh, wow. And something about seeing that, I felt like, oh, he's about to take

2:25:27him out. But I think because Evander rebounded, and Evander had a history of rebounding.

2:25:32Oh, sure, sure, absolutely. He had a history of wars.

2:25:35Absolutely. Especially the Riddick Bowe fights.

2:25:37It still doesn't change the fact that there was, I feel like there was an

2:25:40opportunity. Yeah. And that was a very un -Tyson -like situation.

2:25:45I just don't think Tyson was Tyson anymore by this time.

2:25:49I mean, I think he was a one -punch guy by this time.

2:25:52He wasn't cutting those crazy angles.

2:25:54True, true. He would slide off to the side and rip the body.

2:25:57True. He was standing right in front of guys.

2:25:58Yeah. He lost a lot of what made him special, which was the speed of

2:26:02combinations and the movement. The movement is primarily because he couldn't have never gotten that

2:26:08far if he didn't do that.

2:26:09Show that Marvis Frazier fight.

2:26:10Show that Marvis Frazier fight.

2:26:12Tyson versus Marvis Frazier is my favorite Tyson performance.

2:26:17Because Marvis Frazier looked like he was going to a funeral at the beginning of

2:26:20the fight. Look at him.

2:26:21I mean, you feel the energy from his face.

2:26:24And he didn't play the Covenant right after this with the grizzly bear just mauling.

2:26:30It's the same thing. Here it is.

2:26:34He's just all over Marvis, like from the beginning.

2:26:37This was on ABC Wide World of Sports.

2:26:39I remember watching this at home.

2:26:41But look at the bobbing and the weaving.

2:26:43It's not just right in front of him.

2:26:44It's angles. Like, what do you hear?

2:26:47Boom! Oh, man. Oh, man.

2:26:54That was when he was the champ.

2:26:56I mean, he wasn't the champ yet, but he was the champ.

2:26:58He was about to fight Trevor Burbick, but everybody was like, oh, my God, he's

2:27:03real. Yeah, here's the thing that sparked some controversy.

2:27:06Mike Tyson versus Muhammad Ali.

2:27:09It depends on which Tyson and which Muhammad Ali.

2:27:11Well, it was the best of both.

2:27:12You know, of course, you got to say the best of both.

2:27:14I think the best Muhammad Ali wasn't Muhammad Ali.

2:27:16I think it was Cassius Clay.

2:27:17I think the best was when he fought Cleveland Big Cat Williams.

2:27:20To me, I always tell people, like, you want to know Ali before they took

2:27:24his title away, before they put him on the shelf for three years because he

2:27:27wouldn't fight in Vietnam? Watch Cleveland Big Cat Williams because Cleveland was a big, scary

2:27:32power puncher. And Muhammad Ali was just dancing around him, dancing around him.

2:27:36But was he bigger than Muhammad Ali?

2:27:37Muhammad Ali, though. Was Cleveland?

2:27:40That's the thing about Muhammad Ali.

2:27:41People don't realize he was, like, the biggest guy in the ring.

2:27:44You know, he was only four pounds different than Foreman.

2:27:48People don't realize because he moves around the way he moves.

2:27:50Back then. But in the Cleveland Big Cat Williams days, he was lighter.

2:27:55Was he? Yeah, he was only, like, 215 or 220.

2:27:58And Cleveland Williams was what?

2:28:00He was big. Look at the size of Cleveland.

2:28:01Look at his back. Look at the back on Cleveland.

2:28:03And look at the legs, though.

2:28:04Yeah. But he was a power puncher, man.

2:28:07You watch somebody. Look at his back.

2:28:09Cleveland was a scary dude, man.

2:28:10He might be lean. He might be lean.

2:28:13But Muhammad Ali's a big dude.

2:28:15Oh, he's definitely a big dude.

2:28:16I think Muhammad Ali's bigger than that guy.

2:28:18Maybe. But look at the movement, man.

2:28:21My God. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

2:28:22So, this movement was absent when he came back three years later.

2:28:26He never fought like this again.

2:28:28And when he fought Cleveland Big Cat Williams, Cleveland just did not know where he

2:28:32was. I don't know. He was 212.

2:28:34Williams was 210 at weigh -in.

2:28:35Oh, okay. Well, dudes were smaller back then.

2:28:38Like, think about Rocky Marciano.

2:28:39He was only 185 when he was a champ.

2:28:41But the thing is, people don't realize, because he's fighting like a lighter guy, you've

2:28:45got a bigger guy, hitting guys, especially, you know, he'll trick people to coming in,

2:28:50and that magnifies everything. Yeah, sort of.

2:28:52But they're basically the same size.

2:28:53But 212 is fairly small.

2:28:55This is smaller than Mike was when Mike was in his prime, and, you know,

2:28:58Mike was only like 215, 220.

2:29:00Yeah, 221. So, that's why it's interesting, because, like, Mike moved his head, and the

2:29:05people who did the best against Muhammad Ali was Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, who

2:29:10moved their heads. Yes, but again, these are the guys after this three -year break.

2:29:15This three -year break, Muhammad Ali didn't train.

2:29:17He didn't train at all for three years.

2:29:19When you watch when he comes back after that, like, come on, son.

2:29:24Yeah. The speed. And Cleveland's like, what the fuck is going on?

2:29:27But speed and a bigger guy, that's the thing.

2:29:31That's the thing, because, like, you know, you thought when we were going in this

2:29:35clip that he was bigger than Muhammad Ali.

2:29:37I did. Yeah, so, but the thing is, like, people don't realize how big Muhammad

2:29:41Ali actually was, because... George Foreman, you know, was a monster.

2:29:45Look at these combinations. And his legs are bigger than George Foreman's.

2:29:49Right. And we know where the power is, right?

2:29:51Well, George Foreman, what did he weigh when they fought?

2:29:54218, and I think Muhammad Ali was 214.

2:29:57They were like right. So the actual fight day, who knew who was heavier?

2:30:02Right. I'm just saying it's interesting.

2:30:04It is. Because you got a guy the same size as Foreman moving faster.

2:30:09Yeah, but he didn't in that fight.

2:30:11In that fight, he mostly laid on the ropes, remember?

2:30:13Well, he did the rope -a -dope, but I'm seeing.

2:30:15He did a lot of that.

2:30:16He's still a big. 220.

2:30:18212 to 220. Pretty close.

2:30:20Yeah, I've seen it different.

2:30:21I've seen that. It's just he wasn't the same guy.

2:30:24If George Foreman of that time fought the Muhammad Ali that fought Cleveland Big Cat

2:30:30Williams, it's a completely different fight.

2:30:32Foreman's getting pieced up. Foreman's getting pieced up from the outside, and Ali was just

2:30:38picking him apart and moving, and Foreman's swinging it there.

2:30:40He was like nobody else before him, man.

2:30:43He was so different. He was so different.

2:30:45But those three years, when he had to take three years, and he didn't train

2:30:49at all, and then he came back, and now he's 30, and no strength and

2:30:54conditioning for three years, no running, no boxing.

2:30:57His body looked different. Yeah.

2:30:59Who did he fight when he came back?

2:31:00He fought... Lyle? No, that white dude, the horrible brain damage towards the end.

2:31:09Cobb? Jerry Cooney. Oh, Jerry Quarry.

2:31:11No, no, no. Jerry Quarry.

2:31:12Jerry Quarry. Okay. Yeah, when he fought Jerry Quarry.

2:31:14See if you can find that fight.

2:31:16Now, look at his body when you see it.

2:31:18You see his body smooth.

2:31:21His footwork doesn't look the same.

2:31:23His timing is off. He had a ton of ring rust.

2:31:27He just didn't... What's that, Jimmy?

2:31:28I'm sorry. He just didn't look the same.

2:31:31He didn't look the same, and I think that three years, they fucked him, man.

2:31:36Yeah. They fucked him. They fucked him, and, I mean, look, it made him a

2:31:40cultural hero because he wasn't willing to fight in Vietnam, and, you know, he famously...

2:31:45Like, look at his body.

2:31:46It's different, man. He's just not the same guy anymore.

2:31:49He's not moving as fast, and Jerry Quarry was just a really tough guy who

2:31:54was, you know, famous for being able to take a beating.

2:31:57Yeah. Like, Ali didn't have the endurance anymore.

2:32:00Like, look at him. He's just not the same guy anymore, man.

2:32:03Yeah. It was... He was a shadow of what he was before.

2:32:07He still went on to win the title.

2:32:09He still went on, but I always wonder what he would have been if those

2:32:14three years were not stolen from him in his peak, in his prime.

2:32:18Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That would have been something else.

2:32:21Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's one interesting thing.

2:32:26Another thing, interesting thing about Ali is, like, try to find him throwing a body

2:32:30shot. Right. Not a lot of those.

2:32:33No, he almost never did.

2:32:35Maybe a jab or two to the body.

2:32:37Like, he... Yeah. It's true.

2:32:40It'd be interesting to count up all the body shots throughout his whole career, and

2:32:44you might get 10. It's true.

2:32:47Yeah. It's true. It's interesting.

2:32:49Yeah, it is. That's why, I mean, that's why when we, you know, when people

2:32:52talk about the greatest boxer, of course, he's one of the greatest human beings, greatest

2:32:56Americans ever. Right, right. Like, just, man, the stuff he's, he put it, talk about

2:33:01putting himself out there for, you know, as far as a servant of the world.

2:33:07There's nobody, I don't know anybody who compares to him.

2:33:10Also, the personality. When he would go on talk shows.

2:33:14And he was just so fun.

2:33:16How sharp was he? Oh, so sharp.

2:33:17And all those things were memorized.

2:33:19One of my favorite ones was Howard Cosell said, you're very truculent, champ.

2:33:24And he goes, whatever truculent means, if it's good, I'm that.

2:33:28Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was just a different human being.

2:33:33He was not scared of anything, man.

2:33:35There's some stuff that, some interviews that he's being real controversial.

2:33:41Like, he would actually talk shit to people and talk about whooping their ass.

2:33:45You know, just recently I've seen some stuff that I was like, wow.

2:33:47I hadn't seen this one.

2:33:49Oh, yeah. If anybody disrespected him, if anybody, like, if they wouldn't call him Muhammad

2:33:53Ali, if they were calling him Cassius Clay, he would fuck them up.

2:33:56What's my name? Pop. What's my name?

2:33:58Pop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was a special person.

2:34:01And just culturally, like, one of the most significant figures ever in the history of

2:34:07America. Period. Because at a time where the world was torn, like, why the fuck

2:34:12are we in Vietnam? Mm -hmm.

2:34:14And this one guy says, I'm not doing this.

2:34:16Yeah. And then they're like, okay, we're going to strip your title away from you.

2:34:19And then for three years, he was, you know, persecuted and the whole world was

2:34:24watching and they eventually let him fight again.

2:34:26Yeah. But by then we had realized that Vietnam was not a just war.

2:34:30Yeah. And this guy, they had taken three years of his life away from him

2:34:33because he wasn't willing to participate.

2:34:35Yeah, man. What a hero, man.

2:34:37A real hero. A real hero.

2:34:39And, like, again, a cultural icon.

2:34:41Like, just a different kind of human being that inspired so many people outside of

2:34:45fighting. Mm -hmm. My parents were hippies.

2:34:47And my parents wanted to watch the Leon Spinks rematch when he fought Leon Spinks.

2:34:53Like, everybody was sitting around.

2:34:54I'm like, I remember being a little kid going, I can't believe they want to

2:34:58watch this fight. This is so weird to me.

2:35:00Like, they want to watch a fight because that's who Muhammad Ali was.

2:35:04He was just different. He meant something to America in a way that no other

2:35:09fighter before or since has.

2:35:11Yeah. Man, there's so many, man, just even for equal rights and just - For

2:35:17everything. Yeah, so much that I really can't think of many people that has been

2:35:21more significant in that struggle.

2:35:23No, and many people think, many people think about, like, what do you stand for?

2:35:28I mean, this guy, he could have easily just taken some stupid fucking desk job

2:35:34with the army or something, and, you know.

2:35:36Easily, yeah. I mean, I did a movie last year in Louisville, Kentucky.

2:35:41And while I was there, I went and visited Muhammad Ali's gravesite.

2:35:46And, dude, man, I didn't expect it.

2:35:49I was just like, let me see it.

2:35:50And, dude, I couldn't talk for two hours afterwards.

2:35:52I just sat in my car and just all just got overwhelmed just to think,

2:35:57what this - Man, it really meant.

2:35:58Yeah. It was just like, it jacked me up.

2:36:01I didn't expect that. Yeah, I can't think of another fighter that meant more, like

2:36:06in terms of like a cultural icon.

2:36:08I can't think of another one.

2:36:10Yeah, and put his life on the line and just was so, you know.

2:36:13And that's a cautionary tale to fighters too about the end, about fighting too long.

2:36:18Look, no one ever forgave Larry Holmes for beating him up.

2:36:21Larry Holmes, one of the greatest heavyweight champions of all time, never got his just

2:36:24due. Right. Because people never forgave him for beating up Ali.

2:36:28Yeah, yeah, honestly, yeah. Which is crazy.

2:36:31Yeah. You know, it's not fair.

2:36:32Didn't make any sense. I mean, Muhammad Ali was trying to beat him up, but,

2:36:36you know, everybody knew, even though Ali was fighting, everybody knew it was over.

2:36:40He wasn't the Muhammad Ali of old.

2:36:43Yeah, and he wanted to call it into the fight, man.

2:36:48Holmes was like, why am I doing this?

2:36:50Yeah, that was sad. Yeah, and Holmes was never that much of a likable presence,

2:36:56and it's hard to come behind Muhammad Ali.

2:36:59Right. He was never that kind of a person now.

2:37:01Yeah, yeah. But damn, did he have a jab.

2:37:03Oh, that's the best jab around.

2:37:05Woo, Larry Holmes. Even when he fought Tyson, he was popping him with that jab,

2:37:09and it made you wonder, God, I wonder what Larry would have done in his

2:37:12prime. This would have been an exciting fight to see in his prime.

2:37:14The two of them? Yeah.

2:37:16I still don't think he would have been able to beat prime Tyson.

2:37:18No. But it was wild to see.

2:37:20Tyson made his bones on fighting bigger guys and making them miss and pay for

2:37:24it. Yeah. Yeah, so he'd load up on his legs, and a lot of times

2:37:30when he's landing, he's in the air.

2:37:32Yep, yep. He's in the air, man.

2:37:34It was the speed, too.

2:37:35Middleweight speed in a heavyweight body.

2:37:37He's the fastest. Well, he was one of the fastest heavyweights.

2:37:41I think there's one guy.

2:37:43Usyk's pretty damn fast. Oh, Usyk's nice.

2:37:46Yeah. Oh, man, talk about a person.

2:37:48He's funny. That's a funny dude.

2:37:50Oh, he's a character. Yeah, yeah.

2:37:52And I want to talk about technique, too.

2:37:54And another guy was trained by the same guy as Lomachenko.

2:37:58Lomachenko's father trained Usyk. Oh, cool, cool.

2:38:00Which is also why he's like a heavyweight Usyk.

2:38:02Yeah. Or a heavyweight Lomachenko, rather.

2:38:04Lomachenko, yeah, yeah. He's got that footwork and movement and that Russian style, that Ukrainian

2:38:08Russian style. It's like those guys, they figured out movement and footwork.

2:38:12Bival has it, you know?

2:38:14Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a, you know, look, we're very fortunate that we can see

2:38:18all of these incredible human beings that have, you know, risked their life and their

2:38:23health and put it on the line so we could see true lessons about character

2:38:27and technique. Yeah, I just wish heavyweights would concentrate on technique a little bit more.

2:38:32Right. I mean, we're missing out on that.

2:38:34Well, maybe Usyk's changing people's perspective on that.

2:38:37Maybe they're realizing, like, wow, you can't just one -two everybody.

2:38:40Yeah, I think what happened, there's another thing in this country, it's like people, I

2:38:44think, they're not following boxing.

2:38:46They're not getting into boxing.

2:38:48A lot of these guys are going for the money.

2:38:50They'll try to play football or whatever.

2:38:54Well, since Deontay, we haven't really had a heavyweight boxing champion in America.

2:38:59Deontay was our last heavyweight boxing champion.

2:39:02Yeah, and talk about technique is, yeah.

2:39:05Not the best. But, you know, he had what Teddy Atlas likes to call the

2:39:09eraser. Right, yeah, true. He can make all the mistakes in the world.

2:39:12He had that one eraser, blam.

2:39:14Yeah, yeah. Deontay's was the craziest knockout puncher that's ever existed.

2:39:19Yeah. It was nuts. He just, he hit you moving backwards and flatlining you.

2:39:24Yeah, but he weighed like 212.

2:39:25Great, 209 when he fought Tyson Fury the first time.

2:39:29209. Yeah. Yeah, he and I went shooting before.

2:39:33Like, we've done some tactical stuff together.

2:39:37Yeah. Really nice guy. Yeah.

2:39:40I love talking to him on the podcast.

2:39:41Oh, yeah. He's great. I don't know.

2:39:45Like, just work on his technique, man.

2:39:48It's like, geez. I don't get it.

2:39:50Yeah, I don't know, man.

2:39:51It's too late. It's what you do for a living.

2:39:53I think he relied on that gift for so long.

2:39:57Because, I mean, look at the gift, though.

2:39:59I mean, at one point in time, he was like 39 knockouts out of 40

2:40:04fights. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like he's...

2:40:08I know. Nuts. But it didn't matter when it landed.

2:40:14When it landed, you couldn't do shit about all that sloppiness.

2:40:18I still wouldn't mind seeing AJ versus him.

2:40:21I still wouldn't mind that either.

2:40:22That'd be interesting. I think after the car accident, AJ might be done, though.

2:40:26Because he was... Oh, yeah.

2:40:27You know, he was knocked unconscious in that car accident.

2:40:30I heard really bad. I heard he was out for like 10 minutes.

2:40:33Really? Yeah. And his two friends died.

2:40:35You know what I mean?

2:40:36And after all his fights and, you know, that was the last thing he needed

2:40:41is some extracurricular brain damage like that.

2:40:44True. True. And then also losing his two great friends like that has got to

2:40:48be, you know, that's just fucking crazy.

2:40:52Yeah. That's a sad thing.

2:40:54But I think, you know, if he's my brother or my cousin, I'd be like,

2:40:58you got to go through this.

2:41:00You can't let, you know, you got to...

2:41:03For their sake. Yeah. What would your friends want you to do?

2:41:06Wow. You know. We'll see.

2:41:08Yeah. Yeah. I hope for the best.

2:41:10Because look, again, he's another one of our warriors, man.

2:41:13Yeah. He puts his body and, you know, life on the line.

2:41:16Yeah. For us, man. It's like, that's our modern day gladiator, you know?

2:41:21I know. There's nothing like a fight.

2:41:22It's different than any kind of sporting event.

2:41:25It's very different. And the losses are way different.

2:41:28They're way harder to deal with.

2:41:30And the victories are way greater.

2:41:32Yeah. You know, one of my best friends being Frankie, man.

2:41:34Like, so I got a front seat to all of that.

2:41:37You know, Frankie knocked out Roy Jones back in the amateurs.

2:41:40And, you know, I wanted to see him get his due.

2:41:44I mean, he was WBA super middleweight champ for five years straight.

2:41:48But, you know, it's a front seat to the boxing life and the fighting life.

2:41:55It's a hard world. Yeah, it is.

2:41:58It's a hard world. In the end, it's not pretty.

2:42:00And there's no one there for you.

2:42:01In the end, I was watching this piece on Bobby Chacon, who's a great fighter

2:42:06in the 80s. And, oh, my God.

2:42:08In the end, it was horrible.

2:42:10It was just horrible watching.

2:42:11Just the. The deterioration and the brain damage and no one there for you, that's

2:42:17a lot of guys. Yeah, yeah.

2:42:20And if you, I mean, your brain, it doesn't regenerate.

2:42:24No, it only gets worse.

2:42:25Yeah. And if you're experiencing brain damage now, I mean, without treatment, there's some treatments

2:42:30now that they're able to use to help regenerate some neural tissue.

2:42:36Yeah. But there's a certain amount you never come back from.

2:42:40Yeah, yeah. I know my son, one of my sons is, I mean, he's been

2:42:46going through, what do they call it?

2:42:48This is like a stimulation thing?

2:42:50Mm -hmm. The magnetic stuff?

2:42:52Yeah, it's, man, I forget.

2:42:55But he's actually, it's actually helped him out a great deal.

2:42:58I mean, he kind of went a, kind of an interesting route, like, kind of

2:43:06experimented with some stuff before.

2:43:08But now he's kind of come back, it's turned him around.

2:43:12What happened to him? Yeah, he kind of was like, he ain't getting high, doing,

2:43:16he kind of went that route for a minute.

2:43:18But it's, but he's gotten, I've just actually seen things turn around with this, I

2:43:26don't know why I can't remember, but it's this brain stimulation thing.

2:43:31And it kind of rewires you, you know?

2:43:34You know, I think I heard you talk about the...

2:43:37Ibocaine? You know, NED and those type of things.

2:43:42So, yeah, there's things that are going...

2:43:45There are things that can help, but you got to be very vigilant about it.

2:43:49Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I'm, I'm, I've been connected to a lot of the anti

2:43:56-aging type of stuff, you know.

2:43:59We're getting up there, brother.

2:44:00Yeah, it's fascinating, man. A good friend of mine is Bob Goldman.

2:44:04I don't know if you know who Dr.

2:44:05Bob Goldman is. No. Yeah, you should have him on your show.

2:44:08He's an interesting guy. He runs A4M.

2:44:11I don't know if you ever heard.

2:44:12It's this conglomerate of doctors all around the world that's dedicated to fixing causes of

2:44:19diseases, not just chasing around the, you know, the symptoms and stuff.

2:44:25And so it's like, very much in the face of the pharmaceutical companies, they are

2:44:31really dedicated to, like, taking care of things from the source.

2:44:38Okay. And it's been going on for a while, man.

2:44:40It's like, they have, like, about six of these things a year.

2:44:44One of the biggest ones is in Vegas.

2:44:47But, like, you look it up, A4M.

2:44:49Okay. Check it out. Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, they, he's been, you know, dealing with

2:44:57them. They, I've actually tried to, I've hooked Nick Diaz up with him to help

2:45:03him. Because, you know, they're in the forefront of the new medicine type stuff.

2:45:09So, yeah, he's, it's a, it's an interesting thing.

2:45:13A4M, they have a lot of doctors who will be given lectures on all the

2:45:20most innovative stuff. And they have all the newest equipment that's just like, it's just

2:45:25the biggest kind of, I don't know, like, rooms, huge rooms full of all the

2:45:33most. Collaborating, yeah. It's a good time to be an older person.

2:45:38There's a lot of science behind it now.

2:45:40They have the belief that you should be in your, you know, living to a

2:45:44hundred, but healthily. Yeah. They really believe that.

2:45:47And I, you know. If it's ever been possible, now's the time.

2:45:50Oh, yeah. I think so, too.

2:45:51Yeah, you should, like, my doctor, Dr.

2:45:55Alavizos, my doctor's 63, he looks like a freaking superhero.

2:46:01That's awesome. Yeah. 63 -year -old guys, when we were kids, were basically dead.

2:46:05Yeah. They were just old men, frail, feeble.

2:46:08Yeah, it's interesting, man. It's like, and, you know, we're getting older.

2:46:13But, knock wood, man, I've been very fortunate.

2:46:16I've been very lucky. Yeah, me too.

2:46:19This is a good time to be an older person.

2:46:21Yeah. Man, you look good, man.

2:46:23Thank you. You, too. Yeah.

2:46:24Yeah, we're, you know, I think I'm a little older than you, though.

2:46:26How old are you? Yeah.

2:46:28I'm 58. Oh, yeah, I'm a little older than you.

2:46:31Okay. Yeah. Well, you look great.

2:46:32Well, thank you. You look great, then, if you're older than me.

2:46:34I feel good. Yeah. I feel very good.

2:46:37It's a really good, well, there's so much information now on how to maintain your

2:46:41body and how to maintain your health.

2:46:43Yeah. When you're older. Yep, yep.

2:46:45You know. Well, hey, brother, it's been great.

2:46:47I'm glad we got together.

2:46:48It's a lot of fun.

2:46:49Me, too. Me, too, man.

2:46:50Again, man, I got to tell you, man, how proud I am.

2:46:53Joe from the gym is doing his thing, man, in a big way, man.

2:46:57I feel the same about you.

2:46:58Yeah. Thank you. Well, thank you, man.

2:47:00This was a lot of fun.

2:47:00Yeah, man. Thanks for having me.

2:47:01We'll do it again sometime.

2:47:02Yeah, we got to. All right.

2:47:03All right, brother. Definitely. All right.

2:47:04All right. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.

2:47:10Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.

2:47:14Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody.

#2456 - Michael Jai White