April 10, 2024 • 38 mins
Welcome to Unbreakable! A Mental Wealth podcast hosted by Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer. On today’s episode, Jay goes inside the octagon for a chat with the Former UFC Champion of the World Michael "The Count" Bisping. The UFC Hall of Famer opens-up about his tough early years and shares his incredible story. The obstacles he faced are unmatched!!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental wealth podcast.
Build you from the inside out. Now Here's Jay Glacier.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome into Unbreakable, a mental Wealth podcast with Jay Glazer.
I'm Jay Glazer and our guest today Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
And you have heard of him, You've heard his voice.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
He was a pioneer in the sport of mixed martial arts,
then cross over to television. He's a Hall of Famer
before I get to him. If you're like many people,
you may be surprised to learn that one in five
adults in this country experienced mental illness last year, yet
far too many fail to receive the support they need.
Carol in Behavioral Health is doing something about it. They
understand the behavioral health is a key part of whole health,
(00:46):
delivering compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional, and social needs.
In tanding Carolyn behavioral Health, raising the quality of life
through empathy and action. Welcome into Unbreakable, a Mental Wealth
podcast with Jay Glazer. And Today's with a Glazier and
a man who took an entire country and brought it
with him to the UFC.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
The first fighter from Britain to fight.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
In the UFC, a Hall of Famer, former UFC Middleweight
Champion of the World. But probably the hardest thing he
ever had to do was be my broadcast partner on
the UFC on Fox. The abuse that I put him through,
the one and only, the Count Michael Bisbing, how are
you brother?
Speaker 4 (01:24):
You're absolutely right, Jay. I mean, listen, I've had some
tough battles in my life. I've been beat every single
day of my life. Sharing a studio with you, the
biggest DVA in all of sports, come on, that was
the challenge of myne I don't know if I can
do it. I just don't know if I can do it.
But hey, here we are. We're still smiling.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Was I abusive? Was I abusive?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
No? Do you know what? Actually, the first time I
met you, I remember you walked in because you're you know,
you're a big deal, Jay, you know, the voice of
the NFL, and you're probably thinking, oh God, I gotta
work with these schmucks, these these fighters that don't know
what they're talking about, the don't know how to do
the job, and to be fair, in those early days,
we were all totally brand new. So you walked in
(02:06):
straight away. Let you whoever we were working with, took
us into a backroom. He said, look, listen, forget about
the studio, forget about the cameras and the lights and
all the rest of it. This is just us sitting
here at a bar in a bar talking about the fights.
That's just think of it like that and ignore everything else.
So thank you for that advice. So yeah, contrary to
(02:26):
popular belief, we were a sweet also.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
But it is right. I try and tell people, especially
these football players come in.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Listen, you can sit through the bar and talk about
football all day long. When the cameras come on, you
start talking differently.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
We're in a bar.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
We don't go well, you've got the number one ranked
offense against the number two details. We don't talk like
that and just look at the camera as it's the
bartender for your best friend and the bastards ever pick
that up.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
The easier it was for me, and I think the
easier was for everybody else.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, no, absolutely, and fortunately I was able to pass
that kind of knowledge down. Remember Anthony Smith when he
first started to do a great face on the ESPN.
Now I'm very very polished. I said, look, listen, if
you get stoke I said, just look at me. That's
all you're gonna do. I've always got something dumb to say.
I've always got a stupid take. I've always got you know,
hopefully they's some a little bit of analysis as well.
(03:16):
So if you get stoked, just look at me. Because
we all know the sports. You know what I mean,
whatever sports it is, we know it. That's why would die.
And if you forget about the camera, it gets a
lot easier.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The other thing I told you, and I told our
football players is look, you know, I tell my football players.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
You know, I know.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
More about the NFL than ninety nine point nine nine
percent of the well, but I'll never know more than you.
I don't know what it's like to be in a
quarterback controversy, or have my head coach fired, or you know,
to be put on You have a touring hamsterring and
I'm out certain number of weeks and people are wondering
I from questionable or not, or have my locker room tourning.
I don't know that you guys do, so always teach
(03:55):
me something that I don't know, and same for you.
Like listen, I've had an early had two fights, but
I haven't been in a title fight. I haven't had
a whole country behind me. I haven't been on the
biggest stage in the world. You have, so always give
me something that I don't know. And if you could
do that and educate the fans that way instead of
giving the stats man, you'll always be golding.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah. Absolutely, and that's why, fortunately I've been able to
parlay that into a career with the UFC commentating, because
I don't need to tell you. You've been around the sport,
you know it's it's tough. The road of a fighter
when you hang up the gloves, is that what are
you going to do? A lot of people struggle with that.
That's why you see a lot of fighters coming out
of retirement. You know, a lot of people struggle, you know,
because it's a fantastic sport. But you know, the people
(04:37):
that do really well, they can make a really big living.
They can you know, they can turn their lives around them.
And I'm very lucky. I'm very very lucky. I live
in a beautiful house, I've got a career, I've got
money in the bank, I've got savings what I made.
But not everybody gets that far, you know, and certainly
the life of a fighter afterwards, when you dedicate so
much of your time and you put everything into it
because you know you've got to be all in the
(04:59):
road of a fight, it's tough. So yeah, as I say,
for me boats in La, I'm in a looky position.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
So I always ask, you know, We've trained a lot
of coaching, a lot of fighters, a lot of football players,
a lot of different athletes, and it's my unbreakable MMA program.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
He used to call MMA athletics. But I would always
ask right out of again, it was trying to trying
to find out why a fighter fights.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, and you know, most of the time, I always
found a lot of times guys fought because they were bullied.
And then even that I try to dive deeper. Okay, well,
do you want to fight out so you look the
part so you don't get bullied anymore? Or do you
want to get back of your bully? Because that's what
I want, right, the guy wants to get back at
their bully. Why did you fight? What got you into
this sport of fighting?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Original? Like take me psychologically? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah, so growing up in our house, you know, my
parents loved us. Then they're fantastic, but there was there
was a lot of violence, you know, back in the days.
I guess it was a different time, you know, but
my dad was there was a lot of violence. Let's
just put it lied that I'm both sized my mother,
I'm a father, you know. So for me growing up,
getting into a fight was very natural. You know. So
(06:03):
I got into a lot of fights when I was
younger because there was an angry kid, money was tired,
and there was a lot of bullying going on, you know,
be my shoes falling apart and just not having the
best clothes and stuff like that. And I used to
get bullied a lot. And then I just remember one
day thinking to myself, I'm not putting up with this anymore.
And the next one that does it, the next person
to talk shit, they're gonna get it. And that's what
(06:25):
I did. And anyone that talks shit, I started beating
them up, not badly, but just like giving him a
crack or whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
But that's a brave moment in life, because that's a
scary decision to make.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
But what happened was because I never had many friends,
because you know, it was a snobby town that I
was in. Then all of a sudden I went from
not having many friends to all of a sudden being
like kind of in the popular crowd because I was
a bit of a badass, you know what I mean.
So what that did. That kind of reinforced that kind
of behavior. So I was getting into more and more
fights all the time and like looking for the toughest
guides around. And it was a very very immature thing
(06:59):
to do, but that was kind of kind of like
my badge of honor. I could beat anybody in a fight.
That was my thing. And if there was a guy
in another town. There's an expression we used in England.
It's cock of the school. Who's the cock of the school?
Meaning the toughest guy, who's the cock of that school? Well,
come on, let's meet up and stuff like that. As
I say, very child is very immature, you know, but
that was kind of my badge of honor. I did
(07:19):
martial arts from when I was eight years old. I
was very good. But then when I got to about
fifteen sixteen, I was just hanging out with my friends, partying,
drinking stuff like that, and my life was going nowhere.
I left school at sixteen, did a string of dead
end jobs, you name it, I've done it. Nothing glamorous,
all you know, crap crap, bottom feed of jobs, you know,
factory work, stuff like that, an honest hard work in living.
(07:41):
But you would do sixty seventy hours a week and
at the end of it, no money. You know, I
was barely scraping by. So we would live for the weekend,
just get hammered, drunk, get into a few bar fights,
stuff like that. And then I got into my mid twenties.
Well no, sorry, it's part of me. In my early twenties,
I met a beautiful lady. She's now my wife, and
we have three children, and she definitely helped the emotional side.
(08:02):
But then and then, so I calmed down. I learned
some lessons, and you know, she got me on the
right track, and I'm so grateful for her coming into
my life and turning me around. But financially, I wasn't
setting the world on fire. At this point. We had
two children, and I really didn't know what I wanted
to do. I didn't know what I didn't know what
my skills were, where I was going to go, But
I just wanted to make a success of my life.
And I remember this guy that I was working with
(08:22):
he said to me, he said, Michael, he said, you're
a pretty smart kid. He said, is this what you
want to do for the rest of your life? And
I said no, absolutely, absolutely not. He said, you need
to give it some thought. He said, because I walked
through those doors twenty five years ago, and it feels
like that. He said, before you know it, you're going
to be almost fifty years old, forty five whatever, you know,
a life will pass you by. And that really struck me.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So I started goose bumps right there.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Man, Yeah, no, no, And this guy, I'm not in
contact with him. I've looked him up on Facebook as
I'm so grateful because I did.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Yeah, I did some soul searching, and I kept coming
back to one thing. The thing that I'm best at
was always for good or bad fighting, That is my skill.
So I thought, I'm going to become a professional fighter.
And back then I was thinking about becoming a boxer.
I'm going to become a professional boxer. I'm going to
do it, and I spoke to a few people. My
dad advised me to join the army and then if
(09:13):
he went in the army because my dad, I was
born on a military base My family is a military family.
So I was going to join the army and if
you get on the boxing team and you're good, they'll
just pay you to trade boxing. And there's a couple
of fighters, well known guys in England that had that
same path. And then you come out of the army
and you turn pro, so basically you're getting paid to trade,
you know. So that was my idea. But then I
(09:33):
bumped into like an old sense of mine and he
told me all about something called UFC. I never even
heard of it, you know, I didn't follow it. This
is two thousand and three and two thousand and two,
and he told me all about it. He said, the
champions out there, they're making big money. They're acting in
Hollywood movies and all this kind of stuff. And he
painted this whole picture for me, and he put this
vision in my head and I was like, wow, well
(09:55):
that's what I want to do. And that guy, for
whatever reason, we fell out. He ended up suing me
because money the roots of all evil. For him. I
was just a project that he picked up and put down.
For me, this was my life. And then he moved
off to New Zealand. That's actually what happened. He moved
to New Zealand. Years later I got I did well
in the UFC, and he sued me because he had
a contracts anyway, whatever, so we don't talk. But he
put this vision in my mind. So three months later
(10:17):
I quit work. I moved to another city. I slept
in my car five days a week, training Monday to Friday,
drove home. I used to do a bit of a
nightclub djaying, so I djate the weekends, make a little
bit of money, just enough to pay the bills. And
two years later I was on the Ultimate Fight in
the UFC and the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You know, I was picked you up when you're on
the Ultimate Fighter, not before that. So when you came
to the UFC, right, you're bringing a whole country.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, first break to fight in the UFC.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Right, Yeah, there was a guy called Ian Freeman that
fought before. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I was kind of I had Yeah, you did the
biggest splark, the biggest career, if you will. So yeah,
to your point, I mean trying to contra Yeah, yeah,
you know all ed, You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I was realized it or did you block that out?
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Well, do you know what? To be honest, this is
pre social media. So I had no idea. I'm from
a small little town in the north of England called Clitherow,
and it's a small town and every it's very working
class and there was no social media, you know, there
was no Instagram or anything like that, and the sport
was growing massively, but I was unaware of it. I
was in my little bubble, do you know what I mean?
(11:27):
So I had no idea. I remember the first fight,
I went on the Ultimate Fight, so I won the
Ultimate Fighter. I was very proud of that. So I
was the first break to be on the Ultimate Fighter,
the first one to win it. And now I was
in the UFC on a good contract and then but
I still had no idea about the fan base in
the UK until my second fight in the UFC. My
first one was in Las Vegas. My second fight was
in Manchester and I remember being backstage warming up, you
(11:49):
know as you do, and then I walked out and
do really just exploded. It was insane. Twenty two thousand
people and Kevin I only from Yahoo Sports role this.
This is not my words. He's a long time respected
boxing journalist. He said, I've been in some loud arenas before.
I've been there for Mike Tyson fires, I've been there
for Ricky Hatton vice. He said, I've never heard a
(12:10):
crowd as loud as that. And I walked out and
it blew my mind. My drenaline just spiked like crazy
because I had no idea people have been watching on TV.
The adrenaline spiked. I've sprinted to the octagon like an
absolute maniac, tried to get in the ring with no mouthpiece,
still with my hoodey on and my shoes and everything.
They're like, what are you doing the hell down? I
was like a maniac. Fortunately got the job done, but
(12:33):
almost blew it because.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, is that the night you realized life changed?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Kind of? Yeah, I mean to be honest. When I
won the Ultimate Fires of that things are going well.
When I fought in Las Vegas, I was like, this
is great, and then yeah, obviously with that, then I
kind of realized there was such support and I had
no idea. And that's why I've always been very grateful
for the people of the UK supporting my career because
along the ways I've along over the years, I've had
a long career. It's been twenty years since when I
(12:59):
met UFC debut almost you know, I've let my emotions
getting the better of me at times and things like that.
But people always realized that I was just an average guy,
you know, always put your best foot forward. Sometimes you
make mistakes.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well, here's my question also about you know, you again
represent the country because you go both ways. Did you
look at it like these people fueled me or was
there more pressure on you.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Because you had a whole nation?
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Always more pressure. I mean it was a great position
to be and of course no regrets, but yeah, absolutely
more pressure, you know, because I was not only representing
myself and my family, you know, they were number one.
That was why I was doing now. I was trying
to earn some money and give my family the best
life possible. But of course, yeah, I'm also representing an
entire nation. But it never it wasn't a burden. There
(13:42):
was a little bit of pressure, It wasn't a burden.
It was pressure that I was very happy to have
on my shoulders.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
How did you because again it seems like early on
in life you just beat everybody's ass, right then you
came in had an early success in the UFC.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
How did you handle early losses?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Yeah, yeah, so the big one was at UFC one
hundred when I thought Dan Henderson we coached the season
on The Ultimate Fighter. I acted like a bit of
an idiot at times. I was young, I was immature,
I was you know whatever. And Dan Henderson's a bloody legend.
But we still don't get onto this day. But I
got knocked out spectacularly. It was a vicious knockout. Fair
(14:19):
play to it. He got me good and for a
long time because I was like public enemy number one
because the whole season was UK versus USA, so I
was captain of the UK, you know, and obviously seventeen
seventy six and all the rest of it. They were
like fuck bitsbin, you know. I was that guy, and
I played up to it. Of course it did. I
was like, yeah, right, you want to boo, you want
(14:40):
you want something to talk shit about, I'll give you
something something to talk shit about. And then he knocked
me out, so yeah, online there was.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
And then made T shirts with him fly.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
If you name it, and and for me the way
it always was because like a lot of guys and
kind of in trend, with what your pug as is about.
Fighters were tough guys, right, so we don't talk about
our feelings and I never did. Yeah, of course it sucks.
But when I came back to my hotel room after
coming from the hospital because I didn't know where I
was for a long time, you know, my friends and
(15:13):
family have come home to see me and support me.
So I'm like, oh, come on, guys, it's just part
of the business. Let's go out. Let's party. So we
went out and had a heavy night in Vegas. When
I came home back to England, I never addressed any
of it and never speak about any of it and
just just buried away. So whatever, that's the way it goes.
You win some, you lose them, Let's go and I
always kind of did that. But in that fact there,
(15:34):
I never spoke about it, never spoke about my disappointment,
never spoke about how you know obviously from one that
I was going to fight for the belt and stuff,
and I just yeah, never addressed it at all. And
it was about two months later I think I was
let in bed. It was a Sunday morning and Rocky
was on and the waste alone portrays what the fighters
go through in those movies is absolutely perfect. And I
(15:55):
was sitting there and I did I just I just
burst into tears one day and my wife could hear me,
and she went and said, what's going on? What's going on?
And I guess it was just all that emotion that
had been bottled up for so long that I refuse
to speak about because you know it is, you know,
I like you just brush it off and get out
the day.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You know, It's funny because again, I've trained all these guys,
and part of my mentality training them is I always
have this thing neutral faced.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
If you're tired, don't fucking show me.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, hurt, don't fucking show me, Do not fucking show me,
because then I forget I'm tired. I just shrup on
my weapons. I ramp it up on you, right, And
you could be the guy in a stool doing that. However,
now that I'm trying to help people and athletes and
veterans and everybody with their mental health, it's complete opposite.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
I'm like, no, no, show it, tell it, talk about it.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
The more you could do, unpack it, fucking tell your brother,
your teammate, The more you could do that.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Man, the better.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's going to make us feel the more vulnerable we
can get, that's true strength. So it is an absolute
opposite of everything that we coach or coached in sport,
but it doesn't work in real life. And then again
you found that out and it's energizing when you realize.
But we still have such a to go to get
more athletes and combat vets and just any dude to
(17:04):
start opening up about their shit.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
But like the more of us should do it.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Who are kind of the center of dudism and no
one's question you're mad, you fuck cry right here, no
one's gonna call you puss, no one's questioning my manhood,
So I could do it. So I think more of
us need to do that, show people it's okay outside
that cage.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Yeah, no, absolutely, because you know people look at us
and as I said, if you go back to when
I was younger, when I was getting into fire, so
always want to be the tough guy. We portray ourselves
as the ultimate alpha male and all the rest of it.
But you know, we're still the same more people, still
still human beings inside. So things do get to you
and it's great to see that in this day and age.
Now people are being encouraged to and I know you
do a lot of great work, Jayson. Well done for that,
(17:43):
But there's still a long way to go. There's still
a long way to go, and to be honest, even
for me, you know what I mean, I've still got
a long way to go. I'm still up kind of
that mindset. I just don't address things, and I'll let
things boil. I don't talk about it, I don't talk
about and then I'll just fucking explode like a maniac.
But if I just spoke about it and talked about it,
addressed the problem right then and there, it would have
become this massive tornado that it became, or this huge
(18:05):
volcano or an earthquake or a life ending situation.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You know, now that you know it, you should just
do it. Like, hey, this is a much better route
for me, right, It's going to change.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Rabbits said that dun though easier said than me. Jay,
there's a lot of issues. Which what did we talking first?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Hey, hey buddy, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I was talking about our show on Foxing Uple Sunday said, Man,
there's there's six of us on the panel, but there's
eighteen personalities and Terry Brownshaw and I got thirteen of them.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
So exactly tell me about it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
The roommates in my head do not get along too often,
as we both know. Yeah, yeah, hey, So here's the
other thing about your style that I love, love, love, love,
love love more significant strikes and anybody in the history
of the UFC, right and listen. I used to tell
guys who are going to fight you they have a
certain range, and I'm like, you don't control the range
against that guy?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
What do you fucking do it? There's one guy in
particular who was training Ard Jiminy. He fucking put his
hands down. I'm like, what do you fucking do it?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Like, you don't control the ring? Oh I got the ring?
You not got the range against Michael Bisbeck. Where is
it in your point?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Because I think that's the greatest weapon.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Pressure and pace is the greatest fucking weapon anybody could
ever out. Like I learned from radykatur Like, you just
don't stop, don't stop, don't stop yet, and eventually people
are gonna go. I didn't fucking sign up for this yet,
Fucking Michael bispick Off, get Randy katuur Off.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I did not sign up for this ship. At what
point in.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Your career did you make that decision and go, I
they for one, I'm gonna throw five.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Yeah. Yeah. To be honest, it came very very early on.
When I was younger, I did a lot of martial arts,
and I did a lot of kickboxing tournaments and fights.
And it started because when I was younger, I won
all these tournaments easily, and and and then I got
very complacent and I wouldn't even train. And then kickboxing fights,
I was knocking people out in one round, and you know,
so that's why I knew I could fight back in
(19:49):
the day when I decided I was going to do this,
because I wasn't even really training. And then I was
hanging out with the boys for a few months. You know,
I hadn't been here a gym. I've got kind of
heavy and fat. And my kid boxing coach at the
time called me up. He said, there's a British title
this weekend. The guy just dropped out, He said, you've
been training. I said, yeah, yeah, I've been training. He says,
can you make whatever weight it was on Friday? I'm like, yeah, sure, okay,
(20:13):
So I took this fight. It was eight rounds for
the British light heavyweight title, and I thought, I'll just
do him. I could do everybody else. And I went
out there and I tried to kill him for the
first four rounds and I did a pretty good job
of doing that, but I didn't and then I got tired,
but so tired it was unbelievable, and for the next
four rounds he beat the absolute dog shit out of me.
(20:33):
And it was horrible. It was the worst experience. It's
not a team sport. You can't fall back, you can't
hide in the park, you can't let other people pick
up the slide. It's just you and your opponent and
the referee, and it's the loneliest place on earth. I
could even keep up my hand. I'm eat in shorts.
It was horrible. So I learned after that I am
never ever going into a fight tired ever again. And
(20:55):
that was kind of my style when I first started,
just like a blaze of pace and aggression, because if
you keep up this pace, eventually you can weaponize your
cardio and eventually your opponent's going to get tired, and
when they get tired, they start to make mistakes, and
when they make mistakes, that's when you can take over
and finish the fight. So whilst I are good boxing
and keep boxing and decent jiu jitsu and stuff, I
was never the best at anything, but I always made
(21:16):
sure I was the hardest worker in the room. I
was always going to be in the best shape. And
when you do that, you go into the fight very
confident as well. When you're going into a fight, if
if you've been lazy, if you haven't done the road work,
if you've skipped some spreader conditioning classes, whatever the case
may be, when you're in the ring and it's you
and your opponent and Bruce Buffer's in the middle, ah,
(21:37):
it's in your face. That's the most nerve wracking time.
You're shitting your pants, right, regardless of what you've done.
When they say a fight, you kind of an autopilot, right,
and what happens will happen. But in that moment when
you're standing on Bruce Buffer is saying your name and stuff,
if you know you've done everything, if you know you've
done the cardio, the road work, the spar and you've
(21:58):
left no stone unturned, you can stand there more confident
because you're like, you know what at least I'm showing
up the best version of myself. So I always made
sure to bring my a game and know that in
those moments I can be confident. Hey, I'm prepared as
I ever can be.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Was you went a title against Luke rock Hold on?
How many days? Notice? Eight days? Notice? Was it?
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Two weeks? Two weeks?
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Notes? Right? Two weeks? Notes?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
For those of us who have not had our hand
raised in a world title fight, take us behind your eyes.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Hey, when you see him go down? Yeah? And how
long after you see him go down? Does it sink in? Man?
My life has changed forever. I am the middleweight champ
of the world.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah. Yeah, So obviously i'd fall before. For those people
that don't know, I know, you know, and he beat
me in the second round. For those people that don't
know either, this is a fake. I so I'm blind
in one eye. So I've got a whole long story
about that.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
But I got a.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Long story about that too, because we got in trouble
one night at my bar because I was making fun
of you too much.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
You try to take it out of dominant cruise by
throwing Oh I did it. He's been a little prick.
He was prick. You didn't throw me.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Threw it the dominic we had like always anyway. So
when I thought Luke Rocold had already beating me at
that point, I was starting to venture out and do
a little bit of you know, TV work and acting
and stuff like that. So I was on a film
set in Canada shooting Triple X and I get the
opportunity to fight. I still had three days filming left
to finish. I fly straight home to the gym, train
(23:26):
for about ten days. When I went into the fight,
I was a ten to one under dog for obvious reasons.
Luke rock Holl was the man at the time. He
was dominating everybody with a champion, and he'd already beaten me,
to be fair. So I'm in the ring, and because
I didn't have a full training camp, the plan was,
I gotta swing for the fences. I got to try
and knock this guy out. I can't go five rounds.
I know that I don't want to be like that
(23:46):
kid in that kick boxing fight again, you know what
I mean. So I was swinging. I was swinging, and
you know, I was kind of out of ranging all
the rest of it. And I remember he come in
I went to the body and over the top, and
as a fighter, you know when you connect with a
good shot. But I'm there and I'm like and it
all slows down, like to very very slow. You know
your mind, the way it controls the fire, and you
(24:08):
see all the slow motion. I remember the impact on
the glove, thinking, oh.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
That was a good one.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
And all of a sudden he falls down. I'm like,
oh shit, he's down. And he gets up again. I'm like, no,
you don't, buddy, boom and he goes back down. I
remember he was on the floor and I'm like, shit,
don't go into his guard. He's got good jiu jitsu.
Don't play that again. Stay away. And I was like boom, boom,
and I started teeing off on his head. Then all
of a sudden, I had Big John McCarthy's gigantic forearms
dragging me off him. But that was the best feeling
(24:36):
because I realized I was the champion of the world.
So right after that, I jump on top of the
fence and I turned round and I turned and a
point and I said fuck you, But it wasn't I
wasn't talking about Luke Rockold that was aimed that, all
the haters, everyone that said throughout the entirety of my career,
He's not good enough, he's not big enough, he's not
strong enough, he's not skilled enough. I'd had it my
(24:58):
entire life. You were never gonna make it. The teacher
didn't lend me at school. Fucking everyone throughout my fucking life.
And that's who that was targeted at, every wanker that
went on online and wrote a shitty article about me,
every person on Twitter. That was a giant fuck you
to the fucking world because now here I am as
the champion of the goddamn world. So e that, Wow, that's.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Hey talking about I was saying, hey, we got to
let it out.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
That's letting it out.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
But you must have felt like that, like the win
of the world was off your shoulders at that moment.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
I mean for a moment. Yeah, until Monday morning, but
I got I got books for another five but for
a weekend.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So at what point, though, do you realize Okay, I
asked you before, like man about life changing, right in
the early part, At what point or what thing happened
after you you won the title?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Do you go there's something happened. You're like Oh my god,
life has really changed here.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Yeah, you know, it's kind of weird because at the
time you don't realize that you're just living life. When
I look back now to twenty sixteen and the life
I was living now and the things that were going on,
you know, I mean, I thought Anderson's Silva. I thought
lou Rock all the forought Dan Henderson. I was all
over the place. I had some crazy holidays. I was
filming Triple X with Vin Diesel. I was down in
(26:16):
Brazil promoting movies. I was in London training for a
World Championship fight whilst filming a movie at the same time.
But at that time, you just kind of you're just
taking it all in your stride. It's just like, what's happening.
When I look back now, got shit, that was a
crazy year. There was a lot of crazy stuff going on,
you know, and there was a few things as well,
you know that I can't get into right now, but like,
(26:36):
you know, some stuff that I did, and I was tryling.
I went all over the world in one year. It
was it was insane. So but at that time you
just still you're just experiencing it and you don't really
have time to step back out of it and look
and think, Wow, what's actually going on here?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
You know?
Speaker 4 (26:51):
But yeah, it was a great experience and very grateful
for all the doors it's opened. And now I get
to sit here and talk to you want, from a
high point to a low point I know going on.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
So basically you now.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
View it though, almost like you're viewing a really awesome
TV show.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Oh for sure. Yeah, yeah, but you know there's still
a few spin off series coming from that TV show,
you know what I mean. So the journey isn't over.
As I said, I'm very lucky. I'm blessed, you know
what I mean. So the life of a fighter is hard,
you know, and I've been very fortunate enough to keep
it going. And I remember when I went on The
Ultimate Fighter, there was there was one of the guys
(27:29):
on there. He was on Team Shamrock and his name
was Tate Fletcher. And he does some acting acting, right, Yeah, yeah,
he's acting. He does a lot of work, a lot
of big films. And I'll never forget these words that
Tate Fletcher said to me, because he's a very philosophical
kind of guy. I'm just a meeth head from England.
He says to me. He says, Michael, he puts his
hand on So we've all been given a grape here
(27:49):
with this opportunity, and it's up to us what we
do with this grape. Which some of us they'll just
eat the grape right here. Some of you can take
that grape. Some of us can take that grape and
make wine out of it, you know. And that always
kind of stuck with me as well. And so I've
always been trying to think about what's next, what's the
next phase of my career. That's why I wanted to
(28:09):
work at Fox Sports with people like yourself, because I
was always aware that this doesn't last forever. And I
was always worried about going back because I always had
like imposter syndrama. I felt like, at some point, this
is all going to collapse, right right, and I'm going
to be back in clither. I'm going to be broke again.
That's the time where I'm from Clithero. I'm gonna be
back there. I'm going to be broke, We're going to
be struggling to pay the bills and all the rest
(28:30):
of it and stressed out. So I always thought it
was going to go back there. It's only a matter
of time I'm believing it or not. This is a
very weird way of looking at things because I'm forty five. Now,
I'm forty five, I'm not will hold on a minute.
I've only got to make it through a few more years.
So where that isn't a reality? Do you know what
I'm saying? Because we all do it, Dude, how much
am I going to keep this ride going for?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Yeah? We all do it.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
We all got that fear yea, yeah, comor it's all
gonna be gone, We're gonna be broke. I started doing
this in the NFL inside of working ninety three. It's
been every year like, oh well it's gonna go. It's
and I started a minute by minute breaking news cycle
and I was the first host of an MMA show
in America and got them all.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
And you still.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
One thing I do try and work on now is
that beast is what that anxiety is what drives us
to be where we are.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Of course, at some point we got to get that
beast to take a rest so we can enjoy our lives.
And that's our great fight now.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Yeah, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And that my wife,
she's always that because you know, not that I'm a
whore for work or anything, but I'm a workaholic. I'm
always doing something. And she's like, Michael, You're going to
learn to say no to stuff, and I'm like, well,
I can't say no to this opportunity because I don't
know if this opportunity is going to come again, you
know what I'm saying. So I'm very lucky. I work hard,
but I enjoy it as well because I've.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Done you have to enjoy it. Yes, I enjoy it.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
Doesn't really feel like I feel against it calling it work.
But I'm going to go to Vegas this week and
I'm going to commentate on some fights. I'll be honest,
I do that for free because I absolutely love it.
Just don't tell Dan and why. But I would though
if they gave me the opportunity because I'm so passionate
about the sports, so I don't feel like i'm working.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
It's a passion just so you know, you go through waves.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
So there's sometimes yeah, I'm loving it out there, and
sometimes I'm like afraid I'm gonna lose it. It's all
goes on. So that is my biggest wrestling that's.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Moving forward now.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Is how do I just get it where that beast
and the anxiety, like the anxiety I needed it for
a while, I don't fucking need it anymore. Like I
need to put it over here now, right, But it's
hard to be able to say, hey, you're good, go
sit over there. So I want you also, I want
you to hear that part. But there's one thing I do.
I started putting my head this verse. I read a
prayer book appreciate the toil of the klot. So it's
(30:37):
not that I got to the top. It's this whole journey.
That's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I said, now a lot of times when I'm sitting
there just watching games at Fox, and you know, like
when we're back in our avocado room we call it
our green room, just sitting there like, thank you my
best friend, God Almighty.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
This is the pot of gold at the end of.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
The rainbow, not up there on TV, not making all
this money, just the journey itself, right, So that for
me is beautiful. And the other part is that I
want you to realize in every other fighter out there,
a football player, to get you being a world champion.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Okay, that's part of who you are. But the real
meat of who you are.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Okay, is the fact that you fucking outworked everybody else.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
To take those three steps up on the cage.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
And you talk about the imposter syndrome, that fucking greatness
doesn't suddenly leave when the gloves.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Come off, even if you lose. I don't care if
you're zero to eighty.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You did something, and you worked at something that ninety
nine point nine percent of the world will never ever
ever be willing or able to do. That's your fucking
equity going forward, not the like I deal with. There's
a lot of football players, though hardly anybody goes out
on their own chill like you get fucking thrown out right,
and usually your last year is what you remember most
and not the fact that, Hey, how you fucking did
(31:46):
something special football fighting.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
It's not a career.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
It's an opportunity to have something greater in life, whether
that's you've found out who you are or it leads
to something else through opportunities.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Yeah, no, absolutely, and thank you Ja saying that, And
I totally agree, you know, and I'm still finding other opportunities,
still finding a way to bullshit and calm people to
still give you a job. But it's going well, it's
going well. I'm living a life now that I never
thought possible. I touched on it before I lost the
vision in my right eye, and I thought, then, I thought,
my life, my livelihood, part of me is going to
(32:20):
be taken away and I'm not going to be able
to fight anymore. And I'm like, what am I going
to do?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
What?
Speaker 4 (32:24):
I've just moved to America. We've just bought this big,
stupid house that we don't need. I'm under a lot
of financial burden, a lot of financial stress, and my
fight career is gone. It's done. So I was absolutely terrified.
Fortunately now I was able to step away from the
fight again. But I'm not step away from the fight game,
step away from fighting itself. And I'm still able to
do what I love and be a part of it.
(32:45):
And that, for me, that's an achievement in itself, and
I'm very proud of it.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Good Man, good I like that. And we got to
work on that. We got to work work on loving
ourselves up because we don't know how to do that. Shit.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
We work on beating ourselves up. We work on all
the imposter syndrome and all that shit. But we don't
work enough on loving ourselves up. And that's one thing
I want you to want us all to start doing work.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
Yeah bye.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
By the way, I never asked you this. How the
hell did you get cleared when you couldn't see how
you right eye?
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Well that's a long, long story, and I got to
tell a lot of lies.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
For anyone that's watching this that doesn't know this is
a prosthetic guy, I can pull it out right now,
but I'm not going to please do Yeah, no, no,
don't We're good, which she almost came out yes. But
I only got that at twenty eighteen, you know, because
a doctor could look at that and clearly see you've
got a prosthetic guye in what are you doing?
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Because we were working, you were putting oil in your eye?
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Yeah, I was. I was always. I cheated tests. I cheated.
You know, a lot of lies, a lot of bulls, sheeting,
a lot of nerves, a lot of anxiety because I
always thought every fire have because you do a medical
test once a year, but then every time you fight,
the day before the fire, at the weighings, you do
a quick medical and it's not very in depth. You know,
(33:52):
check your heart, you look into your eyes, and they go,
follow my finger you're just a few things like that.
So I was all they had to do was cover
up my good eye, like how many fingers? How many fingers?
Because they say, can you see how that I find?
I said, yeah, absolutely I can. Yeah, sure, But that's
all they had to do. But they never did. But
to be on the safe side, I had a little code, right,
(34:12):
so I was there with Jason Perilla. I'm that right.
Look listen, if he covers up my good eye, I says,
how many fingers I'm holding up? If he does one,
you go, oh, just a quick yawn if it's too
god cough, really yeah god yeah yeah. But we never
had to use it. I forget what it was now.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
It was something like.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
Yeah, it was like you know, but but but we
never had to do it because we had the paperwork.
I memorized the test and stuff like that. So it
was it was very stressful because you train your ass off,
you pay training partners. I was flying fighting all over
the world, Australia or wherever We're gonna fly my whole
team out paper hotels, flights for them and then the
day before I might get rumbled, do you know what
(34:54):
I mean? So the whole time I'm living in a
state of anxiety, going oh God. When I got past that,
that was it. The wave was off my shoulders. That
was the easy stuff. Now all I gotta do is fight,
you know what, I believe into the fight with the
challenge for me.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
So yeah, yeah, that's tumblieve. And I never asked you.
I was just like, I had no idea. That's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Yeah, you gotta do it.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
That's brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
You gotta do what you gotta do.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
All right, last question for you, brother, This is called
the Unbreakable Mental Wealth Podcast. Give me the moment in
your life that should have broken you, could have broken you,
but didn't, and as a result, you came out the
other side of that tunnel unbreakable forever.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Yeah. Okay, so that's that's that's an interesting question. And
I was going to mention I was going to talk
about the eye thing, you know, because that was hard,
But it's I'm not going to say that because I've
just been talking about that. You don't want to hear
about all that again. I think for me, I was
on a crossroads in life. When I was younger, I
was getting into a lot of fights. As I said,
I was acting like an idiot. Never I was never
(35:56):
a criminal, but I was always just getting into bar
fights with was willing participants and my add do you
know what I mean? But just drunk with a ruper guys,
small town mentality, always just having stupid brawls and stuff.
But you start to develop a reputation. I remember I
got into this fight one time and the guy didn't
even press charges, but I got arrested on a public
order of offence. I got arrested. I got taken to
(36:18):
courts and it wasn't the first time I'd been there,
and the judge was just sick of me not learning
my lesson, so he sentenced me to twenty eight days
in prison. And I thought, and I remember at the time,
my lawyer said, listen, all you're going to get is
like one hundred pound fine. It's nothing. It's public order, right,
So just just plead guilty. If I pleaded not guilty,
no one could have gone against me because there was
no more pressing charges. But he said, just plead guilty. Okay,
(36:40):
you get like one hundred pound, fine, it's nothing, you know.
I was like, okay, And my wife was at the
back of the courtroom. She was pregnant with our first
son at the time, she was like eight months pregnant.
And the judge comes out and he sentences me to
twenty eight days. So right then and there, they take
me downstairs. I get put in handcuffs, I get taken
to the prison. It holds down, put in bloody you know,
(37:03):
the jumpsuit and everything. And I was on twenty three
hour a day lock up. It was a maximum security prison.
I shouldn't have transferred there, and you know, I was
locked up with body murderers and rapists and all the
rest of it. And I remember before I go through
the process where they you know, I assign you your
selling stuff. You get put in a holding cell. And
I remember sitting in this holding cell and we're talking
(37:23):
just absolutely degenerates and scombags and criminals and whatnot, just
shitty human human beings. And they're all talking, oh, hopefully
I'll get my old cell and all the rest of it.
And I just sat there and I just looked around
and I was like, how the fuck did it come
to this? How did it come to this. You know,
I'm like, I'm not a bad person. I'm a good person.
(37:45):
I've got a beautiful girlfriend, she's pregnant, and what am
I doing? What the hell am I doing with my life?
That I've made these decisions that's resulted in me being here,
you know. And I said to myself, right then and
there that day, I said, that's it. I am done.
I never getting into another fight on the street and
acting like an idiot of prioritizing hanging out with friends
(38:06):
and boozing and just being a fucking thug and stuff.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I thought, I've got to make some changes. And right
then and there, that's when I made those changes mentally,
and I came out. I held down a job. A
year later, I started becoming training to become a professional fighter.
But it was that right there that was the turning point,
and I was at a crossroads. I could have continued
and it would have been a nasty road and I
would have become absolutely nothing and a loser and statistic.
Or I could be sitting here talking to the great
(38:30):
Jay Glazer. I'm glad I took that back. That's hey,
life was about our choices. That's the best choice you've made. Yeah, no,
it really was.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
It really was amazing.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Michael Bisbin UFC Hall of Famer, My brother. I appreciate
you so much coming on. No, it took a little while,
but man, hey, your family forever.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
You know that one hundred percent. You always a pleasure
to talk to you, buddy, and thanks for having me.
Really appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Love you, brother, Michael Bisbin
This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental wealth podcast.
Build you from the inside out. Now Here's Jay Glacier.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome into Unbreakable, a mental Wealth podcast with Jay Glazer.
I'm Jay Glazer and our guest today Unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
And you have heard of him, You've heard his voice.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
He was a pioneer in the sport of mixed martial arts,
then cross over to television. He's a Hall of Famer
before I get to him. If you're like many people,
you may be surprised to learn that one in five
adults in this country experienced mental illness last year, yet
far too many fail to receive the support they need.
Carol in Behavioral Health is doing something about it. They
understand the behavioral health is a key part of whole health,
(00:46):
delivering compassionate care that treats physical, mental, emotional, and social needs.
In tanding Carolyn behavioral Health, raising the quality of life
through empathy and action. Welcome into Unbreakable, a Mental Wealth
podcast with Jay Glazer. And Today's with a Glazier and
a man who took an entire country and brought it
with him to the UFC.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
The first fighter from Britain to fight.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
In the UFC, a Hall of Famer, former UFC Middleweight
Champion of the World. But probably the hardest thing he
ever had to do was be my broadcast partner on
the UFC on Fox. The abuse that I put him through,
the one and only, the Count Michael Bisbing, how are
you brother?
Speaker 4 (01:24):
You're absolutely right, Jay. I mean, listen, I've had some
tough battles in my life. I've been beat every single
day of my life. Sharing a studio with you, the
biggest DVA in all of sports, come on, that was
the challenge of myne I don't know if I can
do it. I just don't know if I can do it.
But hey, here we are. We're still smiling.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Was I abusive? Was I abusive?
Speaker 4 (01:45):
No? Do you know what? Actually, the first time I
met you, I remember you walked in because you're you know,
you're a big deal, Jay, you know, the voice of
the NFL, and you're probably thinking, oh God, I gotta
work with these schmucks, these these fighters that don't know
what they're talking about, the don't know how to do
the job, and to be fair, in those early days,
we were all totally brand new. So you walked in
(02:06):
straight away. Let you whoever we were working with, took
us into a backroom. He said, look, listen, forget about
the studio, forget about the cameras and the lights and
all the rest of it. This is just us sitting
here at a bar in a bar talking about the fights.
That's just think of it like that and ignore everything else.
So thank you for that advice. So yeah, contrary to
(02:26):
popular belief, we were a sweet also.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
But it is right. I try and tell people, especially
these football players come in.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Listen, you can sit through the bar and talk about
football all day long. When the cameras come on, you
start talking differently.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
We're in a bar.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
We don't go well, you've got the number one ranked
offense against the number two details. We don't talk like
that and just look at the camera as it's the
bartender for your best friend and the bastards ever pick
that up.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
The easier it was for me, and I think the
easier was for everybody else.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, no, absolutely, and fortunately I was able to pass
that kind of knowledge down. Remember Anthony Smith when he
first started to do a great face on the ESPN.
Now I'm very very polished. I said, look, listen, if
you get stoke I said, just look at me. That's
all you're gonna do. I've always got something dumb to say.
I've always got a stupid take. I've always got you know,
hopefully they's some a little bit of analysis as well.
(03:16):
So if you get stoked, just look at me. Because
we all know the sports. You know what I mean,
whatever sports it is, we know it. That's why would die.
And if you forget about the camera, it gets a
lot easier.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
The other thing I told you, and I told our
football players is look, you know, I tell my football players.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
You know, I know.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
More about the NFL than ninety nine point nine nine
percent of the well, but I'll never know more than you.
I don't know what it's like to be in a
quarterback controversy, or have my head coach fired, or you know,
to be put on You have a touring hamsterring and
I'm out certain number of weeks and people are wondering
I from questionable or not, or have my locker room tourning.
I don't know that you guys do, so always teach
(03:55):
me something that I don't know, and same for you.
Like listen, I've had an early had two fights, but
I haven't been in a title fight. I haven't had
a whole country behind me. I haven't been on the
biggest stage in the world. You have, so always give
me something that I don't know. And if you could
do that and educate the fans that way instead of
giving the stats man, you'll always be golding.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah. Absolutely, and that's why, fortunately I've been able to
parlay that into a career with the UFC commentating, because
I don't need to tell you. You've been around the sport,
you know it's it's tough. The road of a fighter
when you hang up the gloves, is that what are
you going to do? A lot of people struggle with that.
That's why you see a lot of fighters coming out
of retirement. You know, a lot of people struggle, you know,
because it's a fantastic sport. But you know, the people
(04:37):
that do really well, they can make a really big living.
They can you know, they can turn their lives around them.
And I'm very lucky. I'm very very lucky. I live
in a beautiful house, I've got a career, I've got
money in the bank, I've got savings what I made.
But not everybody gets that far, you know, and certainly
the life of a fighter afterwards, when you dedicate so
much of your time and you put everything into it
because you know you've got to be all in the
(04:59):
road of a fight, it's tough. So yeah, as I say,
for me boats in La, I'm in a looky position.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
So I always ask, you know, We've trained a lot
of coaching, a lot of fighters, a lot of football players,
a lot of different athletes, and it's my unbreakable MMA program.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
He used to call MMA athletics. But I would always
ask right out of again, it was trying to trying
to find out why a fighter fights.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, and you know, most of the time, I always
found a lot of times guys fought because they were bullied.
And then even that I try to dive deeper. Okay, well,
do you want to fight out so you look the
part so you don't get bullied anymore? Or do you
want to get back of your bully? Because that's what
I want, right, the guy wants to get back at
their bully. Why did you fight? What got you into
this sport of fighting?
Speaker 3 (05:39):
Original? Like take me psychologically? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah, so growing up in our house, you know, my
parents loved us. Then they're fantastic, but there was there
was a lot of violence, you know, back in the days.
I guess it was a different time, you know, but
my dad was there was a lot of violence. Let's
just put it lied that I'm both sized my mother,
I'm a father, you know. So for me growing up,
getting into a fight was very natural. You know. So
(06:03):
I got into a lot of fights when I was
younger because there was an angry kid, money was tired,
and there was a lot of bullying going on, you know,
be my shoes falling apart and just not having the
best clothes and stuff like that. And I used to
get bullied a lot. And then I just remember one
day thinking to myself, I'm not putting up with this anymore.
And the next one that does it, the next person
to talk shit, they're gonna get it. And that's what
(06:25):
I did. And anyone that talks shit, I started beating
them up, not badly, but just like giving him a
crack or whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
But that's a brave moment in life, because that's a
scary decision to make.
Speaker 4 (06:37):
But what happened was because I never had many friends,
because you know, it was a snobby town that I
was in. Then all of a sudden I went from
not having many friends to all of a sudden being
like kind of in the popular crowd because I was
a bit of a badass, you know what I mean.
So what that did. That kind of reinforced that kind
of behavior. So I was getting into more and more
fights all the time and like looking for the toughest
guides around. And it was a very very immature thing
(06:59):
to do, but that was kind of kind of like
my badge of honor. I could beat anybody in a fight.
That was my thing. And if there was a guy
in another town. There's an expression we used in England.
It's cock of the school. Who's the cock of the school?
Meaning the toughest guy, who's the cock of that school? Well,
come on, let's meet up and stuff like that. As
I say, very child is very immature, you know, but
that was kind of my badge of honor. I did
(07:19):
martial arts from when I was eight years old. I
was very good. But then when I got to about
fifteen sixteen, I was just hanging out with my friends, partying,
drinking stuff like that, and my life was going nowhere.
I left school at sixteen, did a string of dead
end jobs, you name it, I've done it. Nothing glamorous,
all you know, crap crap, bottom feed of jobs, you know,
factory work, stuff like that, an honest hard work in living.
(07:41):
But you would do sixty seventy hours a week and
at the end of it, no money. You know, I
was barely scraping by. So we would live for the weekend,
just get hammered, drunk, get into a few bar fights,
stuff like that. And then I got into my mid twenties.
Well no, sorry, it's part of me. In my early twenties,
I met a beautiful lady. She's now my wife, and
we have three children, and she definitely helped the emotional side.
(08:02):
But then and then, so I calmed down. I learned
some lessons, and you know, she got me on the
right track, and I'm so grateful for her coming into
my life and turning me around. But financially, I wasn't
setting the world on fire. At this point. We had
two children, and I really didn't know what I wanted
to do. I didn't know what I didn't know what
my skills were, where I was going to go, But
I just wanted to make a success of my life.
And I remember this guy that I was working with
(08:22):
he said to me, he said, Michael, he said, you're
a pretty smart kid. He said, is this what you
want to do for the rest of your life? And
I said no, absolutely, absolutely not. He said, you need
to give it some thought. He said, because I walked
through those doors twenty five years ago, and it feels
like that. He said, before you know it, you're going
to be almost fifty years old, forty five whatever, you know,
a life will pass you by. And that really struck me.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
So I started goose bumps right there.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
Man, Yeah, no, no, And this guy, I'm not in
contact with him. I've looked him up on Facebook as
I'm so grateful because I did.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Yeah, I did some soul searching, and I kept coming
back to one thing. The thing that I'm best at
was always for good or bad fighting, That is my skill.
So I thought, I'm going to become a professional fighter.
And back then I was thinking about becoming a boxer.
I'm going to become a professional boxer. I'm going to
do it, and I spoke to a few people. My
dad advised me to join the army and then if
(09:13):
he went in the army because my dad, I was
born on a military base My family is a military family.
So I was going to join the army and if
you get on the boxing team and you're good, they'll
just pay you to trade boxing. And there's a couple
of fighters, well known guys in England that had that
same path. And then you come out of the army
and you turn pro, so basically you're getting paid to trade,
you know. So that was my idea. But then I
(09:33):
bumped into like an old sense of mine and he
told me all about something called UFC. I never even
heard of it, you know, I didn't follow it. This
is two thousand and three and two thousand and two,
and he told me all about it. He said, the
champions out there, they're making big money. They're acting in
Hollywood movies and all this kind of stuff. And he
painted this whole picture for me, and he put this
vision in my head and I was like, wow, well
(09:55):
that's what I want to do. And that guy, for
whatever reason, we fell out. He ended up suing me
because money the roots of all evil. For him. I
was just a project that he picked up and put down.
For me, this was my life. And then he moved
off to New Zealand. That's actually what happened. He moved
to New Zealand. Years later I got I did well
in the UFC, and he sued me because he had
a contracts anyway, whatever, so we don't talk. But he
put this vision in my mind. So three months later
(10:17):
I quit work. I moved to another city. I slept
in my car five days a week, training Monday to Friday,
drove home. I used to do a bit of a
nightclub djaying, so I djate the weekends, make a little
bit of money, just enough to pay the bills. And
two years later I was on the Ultimate Fight in
the UFC and the rest is history.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
You know, I was picked you up when you're on
the Ultimate Fighter, not before that. So when you came
to the UFC, right, you're bringing a whole country.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, first break to fight in the UFC.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Right, Yeah, there was a guy called Ian Freeman that
fought before. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
I was kind of I had Yeah, you did the
biggest splark, the biggest career, if you will. So yeah,
to your point, I mean trying to contra Yeah, yeah,
you know all ed, You're absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I was realized it or did you block that out?
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Well, do you know what? To be honest, this is
pre social media. So I had no idea. I'm from
a small little town in the north of England called Clitherow,
and it's a small town and every it's very working
class and there was no social media, you know, there
was no Instagram or anything like that, and the sport
was growing massively, but I was unaware of it. I
was in my little bubble, do you know what I mean?
(11:27):
So I had no idea. I remember the first fight,
I went on the Ultimate Fight, so I won the
Ultimate Fighter. I was very proud of that. So I
was the first break to be on the Ultimate Fighter,
the first one to win it. And now I was
in the UFC on a good contract and then but
I still had no idea about the fan base in
the UK until my second fight in the UFC. My
first one was in Las Vegas. My second fight was
in Manchester and I remember being backstage warming up, you
(11:49):
know as you do, and then I walked out and
do really just exploded. It was insane. Twenty two thousand
people and Kevin I only from Yahoo Sports role this.
This is not my words. He's a long time respected
boxing journalist. He said, I've been in some loud arenas before.
I've been there for Mike Tyson fires, I've been there
for Ricky Hatton vice. He said, I've never heard a
(12:10):
crowd as loud as that. And I walked out and
it blew my mind. My drenaline just spiked like crazy
because I had no idea people have been watching on TV.
The adrenaline spiked. I've sprinted to the octagon like an
absolute maniac, tried to get in the ring with no mouthpiece,
still with my hoodey on and my shoes and everything.
They're like, what are you doing the hell down? I
was like a maniac. Fortunately got the job done, but
(12:33):
almost blew it because.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, is that the night you realized life changed?
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Kind of? Yeah, I mean to be honest. When I
won the Ultimate Fires of that things are going well.
When I fought in Las Vegas, I was like, this
is great, and then yeah, obviously with that, then I
kind of realized there was such support and I had
no idea. And that's why I've always been very grateful
for the people of the UK supporting my career because
along the ways I've along over the years, I've had
a long career. It's been twenty years since when I
(12:59):
met UFC debut almost you know, I've let my emotions
getting the better of me at times and things like that.
But people always realized that I was just an average guy,
you know, always put your best foot forward. Sometimes you
make mistakes.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Well, here's my question also about you know, you again
represent the country because you go both ways. Did you
look at it like these people fueled me or was
there more pressure on you.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Because you had a whole nation?
Speaker 4 (13:21):
Always more pressure. I mean it was a great position
to be and of course no regrets, but yeah, absolutely
more pressure, you know, because I was not only representing
myself and my family, you know, they were number one.
That was why I was doing now. I was trying
to earn some money and give my family the best
life possible. But of course, yeah, I'm also representing an
entire nation. But it never it wasn't a burden. There
(13:42):
was a little bit of pressure, It wasn't a burden.
It was pressure that I was very happy to have
on my shoulders.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
How did you because again it seems like early on
in life you just beat everybody's ass, right then you
came in had an early success in the UFC.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
How did you handle early losses?
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Yeah, yeah, so the big one was at UFC one
hundred when I thought Dan Henderson we coached the season
on The Ultimate Fighter. I acted like a bit of
an idiot at times. I was young, I was immature,
I was you know whatever. And Dan Henderson's a bloody legend.
But we still don't get onto this day. But I
got knocked out spectacularly. It was a vicious knockout. Fair
(14:19):
play to it. He got me good and for a
long time because I was like public enemy number one
because the whole season was UK versus USA, so I
was captain of the UK, you know, and obviously seventeen
seventy six and all the rest of it. They were
like fuck bitsbin, you know. I was that guy, and
I played up to it. Of course it did. I
was like, yeah, right, you want to boo, you want
(14:40):
you want something to talk shit about, I'll give you
something something to talk shit about. And then he knocked
me out, so yeah, online there was.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
And then made T shirts with him fly.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
If you name it, and and for me the way
it always was because like a lot of guys and
kind of in trend, with what your pug as is about.
Fighters were tough guys, right, so we don't talk about
our feelings and I never did. Yeah, of course it sucks.
But when I came back to my hotel room after
coming from the hospital because I didn't know where I
was for a long time, you know, my friends and
(15:13):
family have come home to see me and support me.
So I'm like, oh, come on, guys, it's just part
of the business. Let's go out. Let's party. So we
went out and had a heavy night in Vegas. When
I came home back to England, I never addressed any
of it and never speak about any of it and
just just buried away. So whatever, that's the way it goes.
You win some, you lose them, Let's go and I
always kind of did that. But in that fact there,
(15:34):
I never spoke about it, never spoke about my disappointment,
never spoke about how you know obviously from one that
I was going to fight for the belt and stuff,
and I just yeah, never addressed it at all. And
it was about two months later I think I was
let in bed. It was a Sunday morning and Rocky
was on and the waste alone portrays what the fighters
go through in those movies is absolutely perfect. And I
(15:55):
was sitting there and I did I just I just
burst into tears one day and my wife could hear me,
and she went and said, what's going on? What's going on?
And I guess it was just all that emotion that
had been bottled up for so long that I refuse
to speak about because you know it is, you know,
I like you just brush it off and get out
the day.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You know, It's funny because again, I've trained all these guys,
and part of my mentality training them is I always
have this thing neutral faced.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
If you're tired, don't fucking show me.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, hurt, don't fucking show me, Do not fucking show me,
because then I forget I'm tired. I just shrup on
my weapons. I ramp it up on you, right, And
you could be the guy in a stool doing that. However,
now that I'm trying to help people and athletes and
veterans and everybody with their mental health, it's complete opposite.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
I'm like, no, no, show it, tell it, talk about it.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
The more you could do, unpack it, fucking tell your brother,
your teammate, The more you could do that.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Man, the better.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's going to make us feel the more vulnerable we
can get, that's true strength. So it is an absolute
opposite of everything that we coach or coached in sport,
but it doesn't work in real life. And then again
you found that out and it's energizing when you realize.
But we still have such a to go to get
more athletes and combat vets and just any dude to
(17:04):
start opening up about their shit.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
But like the more of us should do it.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Who are kind of the center of dudism and no
one's question you're mad, you fuck cry right here, no
one's gonna call you puss, no one's questioning my manhood,
So I could do it. So I think more of
us need to do that, show people it's okay outside
that cage.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Yeah, no, absolutely, because you know people look at us
and as I said, if you go back to when
I was younger, when I was getting into fire, so
always want to be the tough guy. We portray ourselves
as the ultimate alpha male and all the rest of it.
But you know, we're still the same more people, still
still human beings inside. So things do get to you
and it's great to see that in this day and age.
Now people are being encouraged to and I know you
do a lot of great work, Jayson. Well done for that,
(17:43):
But there's still a long way to go. There's still
a long way to go, and to be honest, even
for me, you know what I mean, I've still got
a long way to go. I'm still up kind of
that mindset. I just don't address things, and I'll let
things boil. I don't talk about it, I don't talk
about and then I'll just fucking explode like a maniac.
But if I just spoke about it and talked about it,
addressed the problem right then and there, it would have
become this massive tornado that it became, or this huge
(18:05):
volcano or an earthquake or a life ending situation.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
You know, now that you know it, you should just
do it. Like, hey, this is a much better route
for me, right, It's going to change.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
Rabbits said that dun though easier said than me. Jay,
there's a lot of issues. Which what did we talking first?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Hey, hey buddy, I'm right there with you.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
I was talking about our show on Foxing Uple Sunday said, Man,
there's there's six of us on the panel, but there's
eighteen personalities and Terry Brownshaw and I got thirteen of them.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
So exactly tell me about it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
The roommates in my head do not get along too often,
as we both know. Yeah, yeah, hey, So here's the
other thing about your style that I love, love, love, love,
love love more significant strikes and anybody in the history
of the UFC, right and listen. I used to tell
guys who are going to fight you they have a
certain range, and I'm like, you don't control the range
against that guy?
Speaker 3 (18:55):
What do you fucking do it? There's one guy in
particular who was training Ard Jiminy. He fucking put his
hands down. I'm like, what do you fucking do it?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Like, you don't control the ring? Oh I got the ring?
You not got the range against Michael Bisbeck. Where is
it in your point?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Because I think that's the greatest weapon.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
Pressure and pace is the greatest fucking weapon anybody could
ever out. Like I learned from radykatur Like, you just
don't stop, don't stop, don't stop yet, and eventually people
are gonna go. I didn't fucking sign up for this yet,
Fucking Michael bispick Off, get Randy katuur Off.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
I did not sign up for this ship. At what
point in.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
Your career did you make that decision and go, I
they for one, I'm gonna throw five.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Yeah. Yeah. To be honest, it came very very early on.
When I was younger, I did a lot of martial arts,
and I did a lot of kickboxing tournaments and fights.
And it started because when I was younger, I won
all these tournaments easily, and and and then I got
very complacent and I wouldn't even train. And then kickboxing fights,
I was knocking people out in one round, and you know,
so that's why I knew I could fight back in
(19:49):
the day when I decided I was going to do this,
because I wasn't even really training. And then I was
hanging out with the boys for a few months. You know,
I hadn't been here a gym. I've got kind of
heavy and fat. And my kid boxing coach at the
time called me up. He said, there's a British title
this weekend. The guy just dropped out, He said, you've
been training. I said, yeah, yeah, I've been training. He says,
can you make whatever weight it was on Friday? I'm like, yeah, sure, okay,
(20:13):
So I took this fight. It was eight rounds for
the British light heavyweight title, and I thought, I'll just
do him. I could do everybody else. And I went
out there and I tried to kill him for the
first four rounds and I did a pretty good job
of doing that, but I didn't and then I got tired,
but so tired it was unbelievable, and for the next
four rounds he beat the absolute dog shit out of me.
(20:33):
And it was horrible. It was the worst experience. It's
not a team sport. You can't fall back, you can't
hide in the park, you can't let other people pick
up the slide. It's just you and your opponent and
the referee, and it's the loneliest place on earth. I
could even keep up my hand. I'm eat in shorts.
It was horrible. So I learned after that I am
never ever going into a fight tired ever again. And
(20:55):
that was kind of my style when I first started,
just like a blaze of pace and aggression, because if
you keep up this pace, eventually you can weaponize your
cardio and eventually your opponent's going to get tired, and
when they get tired, they start to make mistakes, and
when they make mistakes, that's when you can take over
and finish the fight. So whilst I are good boxing
and keep boxing and decent jiu jitsu and stuff, I
was never the best at anything, but I always made
(21:16):
sure I was the hardest worker in the room. I
was always going to be in the best shape. And
when you do that, you go into the fight very
confident as well. When you're going into a fight, if
if you've been lazy, if you haven't done the road work,
if you've skipped some spreader conditioning classes, whatever the case
may be, when you're in the ring and it's you
and your opponent and Bruce Buffer's in the middle, ah,
(21:37):
it's in your face. That's the most nerve wracking time.
You're shitting your pants, right, regardless of what you've done.
When they say a fight, you kind of an autopilot, right,
and what happens will happen. But in that moment when
you're standing on Bruce Buffer is saying your name and stuff,
if you know you've done everything, if you know you've
done the cardio, the road work, the spar and you've
(21:58):
left no stone unturned, you can stand there more confident
because you're like, you know what at least I'm showing
up the best version of myself. So I always made
sure to bring my a game and know that in
those moments I can be confident. Hey, I'm prepared as
I ever can be.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Was you went a title against Luke rock Hold on?
How many days? Notice? Eight days? Notice? Was it?
Speaker 4 (22:19):
Two weeks? Two weeks?
Speaker 3 (22:20):
Notes? Right? Two weeks? Notes?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
For those of us who have not had our hand
raised in a world title fight, take us behind your eyes.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Hey, when you see him go down? Yeah? And how
long after you see him go down? Does it sink in? Man?
My life has changed forever. I am the middleweight champ
of the world.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
Yeah. Yeah, So obviously i'd fall before. For those people
that don't know, I know, you know, and he beat
me in the second round. For those people that don't
know either, this is a fake. I so I'm blind
in one eye. So I've got a whole long story
about that.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
But I got a.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Long story about that too, because we got in trouble
one night at my bar because I was making fun
of you too much.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
You try to take it out of dominant cruise by
throwing Oh I did it. He's been a little prick.
He was prick. You didn't throw me.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
Threw it the dominic we had like always anyway. So
when I thought Luke Rocold had already beating me at
that point, I was starting to venture out and do
a little bit of you know, TV work and acting
and stuff like that. So I was on a film
set in Canada shooting Triple X and I get the
opportunity to fight. I still had three days filming left
to finish. I fly straight home to the gym, train
(23:26):
for about ten days. When I went into the fight,
I was a ten to one under dog for obvious reasons.
Luke rock Holl was the man at the time. He
was dominating everybody with a champion, and he'd already beaten me,
to be fair. So I'm in the ring, and because
I didn't have a full training camp, the plan was,
I gotta swing for the fences. I got to try
and knock this guy out. I can't go five rounds.
I know that I don't want to be like that
(23:46):
kid in that kick boxing fight again, you know what
I mean. So I was swinging. I was swinging, and
you know, I was kind of out of ranging all
the rest of it. And I remember he come in
I went to the body and over the top, and
as a fighter, you know when you connect with a
good shot. But I'm there and I'm like and it
all slows down, like to very very slow. You know
your mind, the way it controls the fire, and you
(24:08):
see all the slow motion. I remember the impact on
the glove, thinking, oh.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
That was a good one.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Wow.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
And all of a sudden he falls down. I'm like,
oh shit, he's down. And he gets up again. I'm like, no,
you don't, buddy, boom and he goes back down. I
remember he was on the floor and I'm like, shit,
don't go into his guard. He's got good jiu jitsu.
Don't play that again. Stay away. And I was like boom, boom,
and I started teeing off on his head. Then all
of a sudden, I had Big John McCarthy's gigantic forearms
dragging me off him. But that was the best feeling
(24:36):
because I realized I was the champion of the world.
So right after that, I jump on top of the
fence and I turned round and I turned and a
point and I said fuck you, But it wasn't I
wasn't talking about Luke Rockold that was aimed that, all
the haters, everyone that said throughout the entirety of my career,
He's not good enough, he's not big enough, he's not
strong enough, he's not skilled enough. I'd had it my
(24:58):
entire life. You were never gonna make it. The teacher
didn't lend me at school. Fucking everyone throughout my fucking life.
And that's who that was targeted at, every wanker that
went on online and wrote a shitty article about me,
every person on Twitter. That was a giant fuck you
to the fucking world because now here I am as
the champion of the goddamn world. So e that, Wow, that's.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Hey talking about I was saying, hey, we got to
let it out.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
That's letting it out.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
But you must have felt like that, like the win
of the world was off your shoulders at that moment.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
I mean for a moment. Yeah, until Monday morning, but
I got I got books for another five but for
a weekend.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
So at what point, though, do you realize Okay, I
asked you before, like man about life changing, right in
the early part, At what point or what thing happened
after you you won the title?
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Do you go there's something happened. You're like Oh my god,
life has really changed here.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
Yeah, you know, it's kind of weird because at the
time you don't realize that you're just living life. When
I look back now to twenty sixteen and the life
I was living now and the things that were going on,
you know, I mean, I thought Anderson's Silva. I thought
lou Rock all the forought Dan Henderson. I was all
over the place. I had some crazy holidays. I was
filming Triple X with Vin Diesel. I was down in
(26:16):
Brazil promoting movies. I was in London training for a
World Championship fight whilst filming a movie at the same time.
But at that time, you just kind of you're just
taking it all in your stride. It's just like, what's happening.
When I look back now, got shit, that was a
crazy year. There was a lot of crazy stuff going on,
you know, and there was a few things as well,
you know that I can't get into right now, but like,
(26:36):
you know, some stuff that I did, and I was tryling.
I went all over the world in one year. It
was it was insane. So but at that time you
just still you're just experiencing it and you don't really
have time to step back out of it and look
and think, Wow, what's actually going on here?
Speaker 3 (26:51):
You know?
Speaker 4 (26:51):
But yeah, it was a great experience and very grateful
for all the doors it's opened. And now I get
to sit here and talk to you want, from a
high point to a low point I know going on.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
So basically you now.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
View it though, almost like you're viewing a really awesome
TV show.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
Oh for sure. Yeah, yeah, but you know there's still
a few spin off series coming from that TV show,
you know what I mean. So the journey isn't over.
As I said, I'm very lucky. I'm blessed, you know
what I mean. So the life of a fighter is hard,
you know, and I've been very fortunate enough to keep
it going. And I remember when I went on The
Ultimate Fighter, there was there was one of the guys
(27:29):
on there. He was on Team Shamrock and his name
was Tate Fletcher. And he does some acting acting, right, Yeah, yeah,
he's acting. He does a lot of work, a lot
of big films. And I'll never forget these words that
Tate Fletcher said to me, because he's a very philosophical
kind of guy. I'm just a meeth head from England.
He says to me. He says, Michael, he puts his
hand on So we've all been given a grape here
(27:49):
with this opportunity, and it's up to us what we
do with this grape. Which some of us they'll just
eat the grape right here. Some of you can take
that grape. Some of us can take that grape and
make wine out of it, you know. And that always
kind of stuck with me as well. And so I've
always been trying to think about what's next, what's the
next phase of my career. That's why I wanted to
(28:09):
work at Fox Sports with people like yourself, because I
was always aware that this doesn't last forever. And I
was always worried about going back because I always had
like imposter syndrama. I felt like, at some point, this
is all going to collapse, right right, and I'm going
to be back in clither. I'm going to be broke again.
That's the time where I'm from Clithero. I'm gonna be
back there. I'm going to be broke, We're going to
be struggling to pay the bills and all the rest
(28:30):
of it and stressed out. So I always thought it
was going to go back there. It's only a matter
of time I'm believing it or not. This is a
very weird way of looking at things because I'm forty five. Now,
I'm forty five, I'm not will hold on a minute.
I've only got to make it through a few more years.
So where that isn't a reality? Do you know what
I'm saying? Because we all do it, Dude, how much
am I going to keep this ride going for?
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Yeah? We all do it.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
We all got that fear yea, yeah, comor it's all
gonna be gone, We're gonna be broke. I started doing
this in the NFL inside of working ninety three. It's
been every year like, oh well it's gonna go. It's
and I started a minute by minute breaking news cycle
and I was the first host of an MMA show
in America and got them all.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
And you still.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
One thing I do try and work on now is
that beast is what that anxiety is what drives us
to be where we are.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Of course, at some point we got to get that
beast to take a rest so we can enjoy our lives.
And that's our great fight now.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Yeah, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And that my wife,
she's always that because you know, not that I'm a
whore for work or anything, but I'm a workaholic. I'm
always doing something. And she's like, Michael, You're going to
learn to say no to stuff, and I'm like, well,
I can't say no to this opportunity because I don't
know if this opportunity is going to come again, you
know what I'm saying. So I'm very lucky. I work hard,
but I enjoy it as well because I've.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Done you have to enjoy it. Yes, I enjoy it.
Speaker 4 (29:48):
Doesn't really feel like I feel against it calling it work.
But I'm going to go to Vegas this week and
I'm going to commentate on some fights. I'll be honest,
I do that for free because I absolutely love it.
Just don't tell Dan and why. But I would though
if they gave me the opportunity because I'm so passionate
about the sports, so I don't feel like i'm working.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
It's a passion just so you know, you go through waves.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
So there's sometimes yeah, I'm loving it out there, and
sometimes I'm like afraid I'm gonna lose it. It's all
goes on. So that is my biggest wrestling that's.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Moving forward now.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Is how do I just get it where that beast
and the anxiety, like the anxiety I needed it for
a while, I don't fucking need it anymore. Like I
need to put it over here now, right, But it's
hard to be able to say, hey, you're good, go
sit over there. So I want you also, I want
you to hear that part. But there's one thing I do.
I started putting my head this verse. I read a
prayer book appreciate the toil of the klot. So it's
(30:37):
not that I got to the top. It's this whole journey.
That's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I said, now a lot of times when I'm sitting
there just watching games at Fox, and you know, like
when we're back in our avocado room we call it
our green room, just sitting there like, thank you my
best friend, God Almighty.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
This is the pot of gold at the end of.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
The rainbow, not up there on TV, not making all
this money, just the journey itself, right, So that for
me is beautiful. And the other part is that I
want you to realize in every other fighter out there,
a football player, to get you being a world champion.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Okay, that's part of who you are. But the real
meat of who you are.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Okay, is the fact that you fucking outworked everybody else.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
To take those three steps up on the cage.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
And you talk about the imposter syndrome, that fucking greatness
doesn't suddenly leave when the gloves.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Come off, even if you lose. I don't care if
you're zero to eighty.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You did something, and you worked at something that ninety
nine point nine percent of the world will never ever
ever be willing or able to do. That's your fucking
equity going forward, not the like I deal with. There's
a lot of football players, though hardly anybody goes out
on their own chill like you get fucking thrown out right,
and usually your last year is what you remember most
and not the fact that, Hey, how you fucking did
(31:46):
something special football fighting.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
It's not a career.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
It's an opportunity to have something greater in life, whether
that's you've found out who you are or it leads
to something else through opportunities.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
Yeah, no, absolutely, and thank you Ja saying that, And
I totally agree, you know, and I'm still finding other opportunities,
still finding a way to bullshit and calm people to
still give you a job. But it's going well, it's
going well. I'm living a life now that I never
thought possible. I touched on it before I lost the
vision in my right eye, and I thought, then, I thought,
my life, my livelihood, part of me is going to
(32:20):
be taken away and I'm not going to be able
to fight anymore. And I'm like, what am I going
to do?
Speaker 3 (32:24):
What?
Speaker 4 (32:24):
I've just moved to America. We've just bought this big,
stupid house that we don't need. I'm under a lot
of financial burden, a lot of financial stress, and my
fight career is gone. It's done. So I was absolutely terrified.
Fortunately now I was able to step away from the
fight again. But I'm not step away from the fight game,
step away from fighting itself. And I'm still able to
do what I love and be a part of it.
(32:45):
And that, for me, that's an achievement in itself, and
I'm very proud of it.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Good Man, good I like that. And we got to
work on that. We got to work work on loving
ourselves up because we don't know how to do that. Shit.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
We work on beating ourselves up. We work on all
the imposter syndrome and all that shit. But we don't
work enough on loving ourselves up. And that's one thing
I want you to want us all to start doing work.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
Yeah bye.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
By the way, I never asked you this. How the
hell did you get cleared when you couldn't see how
you right eye?
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Well that's a long, long story, and I got to
tell a lot of lies.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
For anyone that's watching this that doesn't know this is
a prosthetic guy, I can pull it out right now,
but I'm not going to please do Yeah, no, no,
don't We're good, which she almost came out yes. But
I only got that at twenty eighteen, you know, because
a doctor could look at that and clearly see you've
got a prosthetic guye in what are you doing?
Speaker 3 (33:28):
Because we were working, you were putting oil in your eye?
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Yeah, I was. I was always. I cheated tests. I cheated.
You know, a lot of lies, a lot of bulls, sheeting,
a lot of nerves, a lot of anxiety because I
always thought every fire have because you do a medical
test once a year, but then every time you fight,
the day before the fire, at the weighings, you do
a quick medical and it's not very in depth. You know,
(33:52):
check your heart, you look into your eyes, and they go,
follow my finger you're just a few things like that.
So I was all they had to do was cover
up my good eye, like how many fingers? How many fingers?
Because they say, can you see how that I find?
I said, yeah, absolutely I can. Yeah, sure, But that's
all they had to do. But they never did. But
to be on the safe side, I had a little code, right,
(34:12):
so I was there with Jason Perilla. I'm that right.
Look listen, if he covers up my good eye, I says,
how many fingers I'm holding up? If he does one,
you go, oh, just a quick yawn if it's too
god cough, really yeah god yeah yeah. But we never
had to use it. I forget what it was now.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
It was something like.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
Yeah, it was like you know, but but but we
never had to do it because we had the paperwork.
I memorized the test and stuff like that. So it
was it was very stressful because you train your ass off,
you pay training partners. I was flying fighting all over
the world, Australia or wherever We're gonna fly my whole
team out paper hotels, flights for them and then the
day before I might get rumbled, do you know what
(34:54):
I mean? So the whole time I'm living in a
state of anxiety, going oh God. When I got past that,
that was it. The wave was off my shoulders. That
was the easy stuff. Now all I gotta do is fight,
you know what, I believe into the fight with the
challenge for me.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
So yeah, yeah, that's tumblieve. And I never asked you.
I was just like, I had no idea. That's fantastic.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Yeah, you gotta do it.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
That's brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 4 (35:18):
You gotta do what you gotta do.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
All right, last question for you, brother, This is called
the Unbreakable Mental Wealth Podcast. Give me the moment in
your life that should have broken you, could have broken you,
but didn't, and as a result, you came out the
other side of that tunnel unbreakable forever.
Speaker 4 (35:35):
Yeah. Okay, so that's that's that's an interesting question. And
I was going to mention I was going to talk
about the eye thing, you know, because that was hard,
But it's I'm not going to say that because I've
just been talking about that. You don't want to hear
about all that again. I think for me, I was
on a crossroads in life. When I was younger, I
was getting into a lot of fights. As I said,
I was acting like an idiot. Never I was never
(35:56):
a criminal, but I was always just getting into bar
fights with was willing participants and my add do you
know what I mean? But just drunk with a ruper guys,
small town mentality, always just having stupid brawls and stuff.
But you start to develop a reputation. I remember I
got into this fight one time and the guy didn't
even press charges, but I got arrested on a public
order of offence. I got arrested. I got taken to
(36:18):
courts and it wasn't the first time I'd been there,
and the judge was just sick of me not learning
my lesson, so he sentenced me to twenty eight days
in prison. And I thought, and I remember at the time,
my lawyer said, listen, all you're going to get is
like one hundred pound fine. It's nothing. It's public order, right,
So just just plead guilty. If I pleaded not guilty,
no one could have gone against me because there was
no more pressing charges. But he said, just plead guilty. Okay,
(36:40):
you get like one hundred pound, fine, it's nothing, you know.
I was like, okay, And my wife was at the
back of the courtroom. She was pregnant with our first
son at the time, she was like eight months pregnant.
And the judge comes out and he sentences me to
twenty eight days. So right then and there, they take
me downstairs. I get put in handcuffs, I get taken
to the prison. It holds down, put in bloody you know,
(37:03):
the jumpsuit and everything. And I was on twenty three
hour a day lock up. It was a maximum security prison.
I shouldn't have transferred there, and you know, I was
locked up with body murderers and rapists and all the
rest of it. And I remember before I go through
the process where they you know, I assign you your
selling stuff. You get put in a holding cell. And
I remember sitting in this holding cell and we're talking
(37:23):
just absolutely degenerates and scombags and criminals and whatnot, just
shitty human human beings. And they're all talking, oh, hopefully
I'll get my old cell and all the rest of it.
And I just sat there and I just looked around
and I was like, how the fuck did it come
to this? How did it come to this. You know,
I'm like, I'm not a bad person. I'm a good person.
(37:45):
I've got a beautiful girlfriend, she's pregnant, and what am
I doing? What the hell am I doing with my life?
That I've made these decisions that's resulted in me being here,
you know. And I said to myself, right then and
there that day, I said, that's it. I am done.
I never getting into another fight on the street and
acting like an idiot of prioritizing hanging out with friends
(38:06):
and boozing and just being a fucking thug and stuff.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
I thought, I've got to make some changes. And right
then and there, that's when I made those changes mentally,
and I came out. I held down a job. A
year later, I started becoming training to become a professional fighter.
But it was that right there that was the turning point,
and I was at a crossroads. I could have continued
and it would have been a nasty road and I
would have become absolutely nothing and a loser and statistic.
Or I could be sitting here talking to the great
(38:30):
Jay Glazer. I'm glad I took that back. That's hey,
life was about our choices. That's the best choice you've made. Yeah, no,
it really was.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
It really was amazing.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Michael Bisbin UFC Hall of Famer, My brother. I appreciate
you so much coming on. No, it took a little while,
but man, hey, your family forever.
Speaker 4 (38:47):
You know that one hundred percent. You always a pleasure
to talk to you, buddy, and thanks for having me.
Really appreciate you.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Love you, brother, Michael Bisbin
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
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