Championship Lessons To Success In Life and Business | Benson Henderson - The A Game Podcast: Real Estate Investing For Entrepreneurs

Episode Transcript
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(00:13):
Welcome to the A Game podcast withNick Lamonia digging into the minds and
experiences of some of today's brightestentrepreneurs in real estate and business,
along with Hollywood Stars, UFC fighters.
And your favorite rock bands.
People that have figured outhow to overcome obstacles,
take chances, live boldly.
And no matter what they do,they always bring their A game.

(00:48):
Alright, my guest today on the A Gamepodcast is Smooth Benson Henderson and og.
Of the MMA game, an absolutelegend and champion.
And remember, the A Game podcast is aboutshowing average people every day that they
can achieve extraordinary things, whetherit's on the mats, off the mats, in life,
in business, and finance, and in family.
Just showing you that you havethe potential to do a lot more.

(01:09):
I. Just these 300 plus interviews thatwe've done in the past, if you go back
into the archives, have some of thebiggest names in sports and entertainment
and finance, and especially in realestate investing, that you can learn
exactly how they did it and you canjust follow their path to success or
learn from the mistakes that they madealong the way so you don't have to,
and you can do it safer and faster.
And today's guess is no different.
Amanda started out as an averageperson who just committed

(01:31):
the right decision making.
The right patience and the right tenacity,consistency and dedication to achieve
amazing things in business, on themats in the cage, and as a family man.
He is now not even done with hisstory as he's about to fight again,
coming up any week now in the GFL ashis rematch for I think number four.
Number five, I. With Anthony Pettus,but whether you were a fight fan or

(01:52):
not, the disciplines, the habits thatyou take for anybody who wants to
achieve the highest level of successwill translate into anything you do.
And there's a lot of amazing principlesthat Benson Henderson gives you during
this that have helped him get overthings like worrying about what other
people think or getting shiny objectsyndrome or the daily habits or suffering
from losses or, or battling self-doubtto go out there and have a playful
mentality to try and achieve things.

(02:14):
And I think there's all things thatwe can take away, whether you are
a fighter, a real estate investor.
Or just a person trying to bebetter in life and achieve more.
This is a fantastic episode for you andthe only fee for this amazing episode
and this amazing guest is for you guysto please just subscribe to the podcast.
So wherever you watch and listen to yourpodcast, you can find the A Game Podcast,
real Estate Investing for Entrepreneurs.
Please take a second and subscribe.

(02:34):
It really goes a long wayfor us and for the algorithm.
And of course, if you can't findus for whatever reason, just
go to nick nick nick.com/links.
Nick, Nick nick.com/iks andyou'll find the a again, podcast
everywhere, as long as all the waysto connect with me on social media.
Please, if you have not take asecond, follow us on social media.
We're very active on all of them.
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter,Instagram, all of it.

(02:56):
Follow us, and when I post clips fromthis episode, the way that Benson
knows that you got value from whathe bought and continues to tell.
Other people to keep comingon is by just interacting.
Take a second.
You're scrolling on social media.
Anyway, give a thumbs up, givea share, give a question, give
a little fist bump, archive.
Tag Ben in there.
Let him know that you love the episode.
Let him know that you love theclip, and then we can keep this
party going for more and more.
And again, don't forget to support Bensonand check the show notes for all the

(03:19):
stuff they have going on with his fights.
And then with him and his wife teachingJuujitsu and self-defense, especially
for women at the MMA lab in Glendale,Arizona, which I personally trained.
And can vouch for being a great cleanspot with really great instruction.
And Benson could not have been a coolerguy or more of a gentleman on the mat.
So I really appreciate you comingon and being an A game podcast
guest today, as well as just an aperson outside of the mats as well.

(03:40):
And of course, the big thing here isI want to do real estate together.
So if you want to do realestate together on some level.
Whether you wanna buy investmentproperties from me, whether you wanna
sell investment properties to me, orif you don't even know how, you just
know that you wanna have a conversationabout how we can make money together and
maybe partner, just shoot me a message.
Either send me the words real estate onany of my social platforms so I know to
check it, preferably through Instagramif that's the one that you choose.

(04:03):
I check that a lot more, but sendthe words real estate and then
we'll touch base or just shoot mea text message with the words real
estate to 5 1 6 5 4 0 5 7 3 3.
Again, that is 5 1 6 5 4 0.
5, 7, 3, 3. And of course I do wannagive a shout out to a fellow real estate
investor and fellow jujitsu black belt.
Chris Rikke, who trainsat the MMA lab as well.

(04:25):
And from what I've told, is a fantasticreal estate agent and investor as well.
We connected a little bit throughInstagram, but I would definitely
like to share the match with you.
Sir, we were talking aboutyou before the podcast and it
was really great to connect.
Thank you for reaching out.
Definitely to look out for him as well.
But thank you for Ben Henderson coming on.
Thank you guys for listening.
Thank you for supportingthe A Game podcast.
Let's do some real estate together.
Shoot me a message.
Subscribe to the podcast, follow BensonHenderson, and let's get that one.

(04:46):
Thank you for coming on.
Thank you guys for listening.
Benson Smooth Henderson a game podcast.
Ladies and gentlemen, have a fan.
Fantastic day.
Alright, my guest today is an athlete,trainer, family man, entrepreneur,
and legend of the fight game.
Now fighting outta the MMA labin Arizona by way of Colorado.
Initially thinking he wouldgrow up to fight crime as a
cop, locking people in cages.

(05:06):
He ended up getting locked in cageshimself as a professional fighter who has
fought the biggest names in fighting inthe biggest organizations in the world,
including Kakar Combat and multiple highlevel judicial competitions against such
legends as Damien Maya and Ben Saunders.
He fought in Bellator and even became thelightweight champion of the WEC and of.
Course won the belt in the worldrenowned UFC, where he has known

(05:29):
as one of the greatest lightweightsof all time tying Frankie Agar, BJ
Penn, and Khabib for the second mostlightweight title, defenses of all time.
He's also earned multiple fight innight awards and as Fight of the
Night and Fight of the Year honors.
And in some of his past battles,he has choked out some of
your favorite UFC fighters.
After taking a temporary retirementfrom MMA, he jumped back into combat
sports and under recent victory in theboxing ring, and has since joined the

(05:50):
GFL and is scheduled to have anotherbanger with Anthony Pettus in California.
Coming up this May, he walks thewalk of a true martial artist and
a role model at his, he's a facebase, all natural individual.
Never tried drugs or alcohol and builta reputation on hard work and a strong
mindset in ethics, he's a father, abrother, a son of an army vet, a husband
of a wife who is another butt kickingMMA badass, and is also a two-time all

(06:12):
American wrestler, a fellow criminaljustice major and has fought with a
toothpick in his mouth many times.
The guy who body triangleme until I wanted to puke.
Welcome to the A Game podcast, thelegend himself, smooth Benson Anderson.
Hey, thank you, man.
That is one heck of afreaking intro, dude.
No, legit.
That was probably the bestintro, the most comprehensive
and best intro I've ever had.
Hat hats off, man, that was great.

(06:33):
I appreciate that.
Man.
It's hard to sum up such a greatcareer in a short amount of time.
Get that clip, put it on repeatin the mornings when I wake up.
Keep up.
We could definitely do that, man.
So for people who might be living undera rock and they're not sure with your
whole background there, man, where didthe legend of Benson Henderson come from?
I know you were a wrestler, youthought you were gonna be a cop,
but how did you end up going fromsomebody who thought they were gonna
be a police officer to somebodywho became a professional fighter?

(06:55):
So, I did graduate from, uh, DanaCollege in, uh, Blair, Nebraska.
SCH in Nebraska, GBR go Big Red.
I, uh, got my major, uh, double majorin criminal justice and sociology.
Like, ah, I registered my freshman year,so if I'm gonna be here for five years,
I wanna have something to show for it.
So I, I got the double major andthen right when I graduated, I
applied to like three or fourdifferent, uh, police departments.
I got, uh, hired onto a bunch of 'em,like three of 'em or four of 'em.

(07:17):
And then I was gonna pick, I waschoosing between Denver and Omaha.
They were the most attractive tome, and they had a good pay for
starting out for police officers.
At that moment.
I was deciding between like.
Omaha in Denver, looking at the costof living, looking to see like, uh,
commuting, like all the little detailsof when, you know, when you get a, an
adult and get a real job in real life,it's like, oh God, this is overwhelming.
Oh, right.
At that time.

(07:38):
I was, uh, still coaching at myalma mater coaching, wrestling.
And then we had a, a red flag,hard practice right after practice.
A bunch of guys sitting around talkingcrap the way guys do to each other.
Like, oh, you're a man.
You're a sy.
You wouldn't fight in the u ffc.
It was right when the time,long time ago when, uh, Matt
Hughes was the champ at one 70.
And, uh, wrestlers like, oh, unlessyou're the top, like 0.1% of, of

(07:59):
wrestlers who go on to the Olympics.
Majority college wrestlers, like 99.99,nine 9% of college wrestlers go on to
become school teachers and coach wrestlingand, you know, just get a regular job.
Uh, but their athletic career iskind of done and you spend a lot of
time, a lot of effort, a lot of workinto being a high level athlete.
And the college wrestlers, they're prettymuch, you know, professional athletes.

(08:19):
They, they treat their body, they'resupposed to treat their body as
professional athletes and stuff.
Uh, so I wanted to.
You know, give it a shot.
Try my hand at being aprofessional athlete.
I was thinking about it.
Uh, and then I, all the guyswould sit around with my boys
talking crap to each other.
Like, oh, you know, this guywould do good in the fight.
Oh, that guy would do good in the fight.
Oh, this guy, oh, he'd kick butt.
He's a, he's, you know,he's badass, blah, blah.
And then I came around to me, I'mnot really like the toughest of guys

(08:42):
demeanor wise, but you know, doingbadass walking around my chest out.
I've been in exactly onestreet fight my entire life.
And that was from like my freshmanyear in college when I came back home.
Uh, so I'm not a big streetfighter, not a tough guy.
I don't talk big game, nothing like that.
But he got around to me and, and a groupof circles of friends sitting around.
So Henderson, oh man, he, wedon't know if you do a good,

(09:02):
we don't, we don't think so.
Like, no, you, youcouldn't fight Henderson.
You're not a fighter.
Like you're a good, you're not a fighter.
You know?
I had to prove my man.
I was like, man, screw.
The heck whatcha you talking about, man?
So then they're like, oh yeah, prove it.
Prove it.
You can do it tonight.
You can do it tonight.
It was back in the day.
Then you could, uh, show up to a venueand that I was hosting fights that night.
And then you could sign your name upand you can fight that same night.
I had to prove my manhood.

(09:23):
My boys like, that's sit up sucker.
I can.
I can fight.
I'm a man.
I'm, I'm tough.
Ugh.
Uh, and then, so like four hourslater, three hours later, we
were in, uh, downtown Omaha,so called South downtown Omaha.
And I, I was, had some gloves on myfist and I had to, standing across the
cage, I saw a guy trying to beat me upand, uh, that's where it all started.
That's pretty incredible, man.
And I think it's a, a very interestingtransition because part of what

(09:45):
I wanted to talk about next was,you know, there's that cliche of.
Fear has killed more dreams thanthe actual failure ever has.
'cause people just, their egos aregetting in the way and they don't
wanna, it's about the fall, like,how are people gonna think if I
fail or if I do this or I do that.
And I find you to be very inspiring 'causeyou've tried all these different things
that, you know, you go from somebody who.
I don't think ever really caredabout what people thought.

(10:05):
And so like, I wanna start with thatbecause you seem to be somebody who
really lives by the beat of your own drum.
And especially growing up,I think, you know, you're in
college exactly like you said.
We kinda laugh.
It's like a college athlete issupposed to be known as a guy who
takes like pristine care of their body.
But a lot of 'em, like when we werethat age, I could train three times a
day and get blackout drunk at night.
And still train the next morning.
Like it wouldn't happen now, but you wereable to be somebody who excelled and you

(10:27):
didn't give into those peer pressures evenearly on where it was the cool thing to
do to be like, oh man, do drugs be crazy?
Be wild.
Yeah.
You followed what you felt wasthe right thing, regardless
of what other people did.
And what I found over the years islike all the stuff that you did that
people might have thought of youas the outcast on later on in life,
they look back and you're like, thatguy was actually the inspiration.
That's who I really should have been like.

(10:47):
So where did that comefrom that you always.
Did what you wanted to do and you neverreally felt the need to fit in or find
the peer pressure to belong with peoplewith stuff you didn't believe in.
Yeah, that's the big one for me.
Probably the biggest thing for my wholelife, for my whole career, and not just
career, but like life in general, hasbeen that I never really cared about
too much what people thought about me.
Uh, in, of course, when in high schoolit's not cool to not go out and drink.

(11:10):
It's cool.
You, you can go out and drinkout and party, oh, I'm gonna go
get, you know, like I said, I'mgonna go wasted, blah, blah.
And so I've never had alcohol.
I literally went to like maybe twohouse parties in my whole high school.
Cool.
You know, I was just neverthat, that type of guy.
Anyways, I, I, like, Ididn't want to be like that.
I didn't desire to be like that.
But because of that, because uh, I didn'twant to be like that, it made me develop
me, develop my character of, uh, even morenot wanting to be like everybody else and

(11:33):
being okay with not being the cool guy.
Like, ah, I don't need to be the cool guy.
I don't wanna be the cool guy.
I'm, I'm okay being me.
I'm comfortable with being mein my own skin and who I am.
It was hard.
It's definitely in highschool, the high school age.
Got the, you know, hormones runningand yeah, everybody wants, kind
of wants to be the cool guy.
I guess for me it was, uh, beingable to focus on what I did wanna be
successful at who, like being, notfocusing on not being a cool guy and

(11:56):
not being whatever, this guy or thatguy, whatever, but me being more focused
on what I do like and what I do enjoy.
So I really loved wrestling, so I really,you know, threw myself into wrestling.
I loved reading, so I reallythrew myself into, into reading.
And, you know, I was a comicbook, uh, nerd, comic book fan.
Before it was cool before allthe Marvel movies, whatnot.
The cool guys now I was like,oh yeah, Marvel, we love it.

(12:18):
All the movies are great.
Billion dollar movies andthis and that, blah blah.
When I was 15, it wasnot cool walking home.
Yeah.
Uh, but I embraced it.
I was cool with it.
I focused more on comicbooks, uh, than you know.
Partying or knowing the coolkids hanging out, the cool kids,
nothing like that, you know?
Uh, so I was just able to, I guess,develop my, my character from, from that
sense of, uh, individuality, I guess, youknow, I, I don't know a, a better way to

(12:39):
word it, but I was able to, to do that.
And, and, uh, being a Christian isnot always the coolest thing either.
It's not, you know, like, it'slike, oh, he is a cool guy, like
gonna church all the time, but.
For me, part of that also was, uh,being a, trying to be a strong Christian
anyways, and, um, relying on God,relying on Jesus to like, no, I'm cool.
I'm good.
I'm, I'm good.
I'm going to over, I'm, wehave, we on Friday nights, I'm

(13:00):
gonna do the good youth group.
And so that's what I, I delvedinto, I concentrated more on
that than concentrating onlike other stuff, you know?
So, uh, I think all that helped,uh, make me who I am today, I guess.
I think that that's awesome, man.
And, uh, I brought up a couple of things.
One of them is.
You definitely have to link up with Matt,Sarah, dude, he's got a new podcast.
I've heard him say that a million times.
He is like, everybody's coolwatching the Marvel movies now.
He's like, I was the nerd that gotmade fun of for like, I'd lived on

(13:21):
comics my whole life and stuff, dude.
So you guys are two Ps in a pod for sure.
But it also reminds me of, you know,I tell people, you know, they bring
up Ray Longo and Matt Sarah, and I'mlike, dude, those guys are always
the same 20 years I've known them.
I've seen them five in themorning, five at night.
Clubs fights everywhere, andthey're always who they are.
They never change for whoever was around.
And I feel like in the ageof social media, everybody's
trying to be somebody else.

(13:42):
And the biggest thing that Ithink is something that is now
missing in life is authenticity.
And I feel like you are anotherperson that I add to that list of
you've always just been authenticallyyou, like you're one of a kind.
You're who you are and youdon't change for anybody else.
And I think that that is part of whyyou became who you were, because that's
such a refreshing thing that you're notposting the pictures with the Lamborghinis

(14:02):
and the, like, all the nonsense man.
You're like, this is me.
Take it or leave it.
And I, I respect you for that.
And I think a lot of people, itseparates you from the crowd and that's
kind of what makes you who you are.
I appreciate, man.
I definitely think I had someinspirations, uh, growing up
too on people who are authentic.
They, or who they were around this groupof friends, around this group of friends,
around this group of friends around.
Their parents around these teachersthat they're the same person.

(14:24):
Uh, and you developedthat pretty early on.
Some people around this group offriends, they're this way around
this group of friends, they'rethis way around their parents.
Oh, they're totally different person.
They're this way, they're another way.
You know?
So I think I had some good examplesgrowing up of that and helping to develop
my on my own as well, just being me and.
I think the focus is the biggest thing.
I think being able to focus, being ableto actually concentrate on what you do,

(14:45):
like what you do enjoy, and who you are.
Instead of focus on who you likewant to be or who you wanna become,
or like just how we focus things,you know, like how we wore things
in our own head, what we focus on.
Uh, for me, being able to focus,making sure I focus on what I wanted.
Where I was going on that insteadof like, oh, I wanna be, I wanna be
like this, I wanna be this cool guy.
I wanna be freaking like, whateverit is, I concentrated wrestling.

(15:07):
I wanna be a great wrestler.
So I'm focused on my wrestling, man.
I think that that's awesome as anentrepreneur, man, the shiny object
syndrome, and you know, I, I tellpeople now, like it's work in progress.
Dude.
I'm not amazing at this, but I alwaystry and just think of like, what can I
do better today than I did yesterday?
Because you do something andthen you go, oh, well cool.
Like I won an amateur MMA fight.
Then you're like.
Oh, but he was the UFC champ, you know?
You know, like it's so easy to getcomparison syndrome and get carried

(15:29):
away and then be hard on yourselffor the stuff you have, and I feel
like the little daily wins are reallywhat helped shape you over time.
I was just telling this story, man,like I just spent three days with a
couple of my buddies that started thisbig financial consulting firm, and
everybody chases, oh, I want to be ableto post this amazing deal that I made
all this money or this investment withthis crazy return and these flashy cars.
And they've always driven like veryaverage cars and live like within

(15:50):
their means and chased average returns.
And 20 years later, they scaled theirbusiness and sold it for like huge money.
But it was like the basic stuff,it was like the fights aren't all
one with the flashy knockouts.
You know what I mean?
It's the fundamentals.
It's like the eatingright, the healthy stuff.
So what do you do, because that's.
A lot easier said than doneand be like, I wanna do this.
I'm gonna focus on this.
And in the age of internet now, howdo you keep yourself focused and

(16:13):
avoid all these distractions thattake you off course of your goals?
I, I think that's the crux of not justyour career, whether you're an investment
banker or whether you're a fighter or,or whatever the heck you do, uh, but
life in general, everyone, like you said,does get that flashy, ooh, flashy, shiny.
I want that.
Oh, flashy, shiny.
I want that.
Our attention span seemsto be so much shorter.
So one thing I did earlier in mycareer to help me focus on that.

(16:33):
Was having our long-term goalsand have our short-term goals,
like a long term, long-term goal.
But I wanna be the UFC champion.
All right, cool.
How are we gonna do that?
How are we gonna, uh, get to that path?
And then you set your short-termgoals, uh, along the way, and you
don't look at the long-term goal.
You set it, but youdon't really focus on it.
You only look at it because if youlook at it every day, day in, day
out, like, oh man, I'm not any closer.
I'm not any closer at all.
I, I. Still not there.

(16:55):
Like you start on your amateur career,even on your pro career, early on in
your pro career, you look every day,you wake up every day like, oh man, I'm
not any closer to being a UFC champion.
But if you look at, you justset short term goals, like, I
wanna really develop my jab.
I want to have a greatjab, I wanna go undefeated.
As an amateur, you're set, uh,short term goals that helps you
stay focused and see the results.
And the reason why kids loveplaying video games is just 'cause

(17:15):
they're the instant feedback.
They, people love, uh, social mediabecause it's kind of instant feedback.
It's right away.
So if you set.
More short-term goals, it's goodfeedback for you on getting better or
improving on whatever it is you wanna do.
MMA, you know, you set those short-termgoals will help you lead you on the
right path towards your long-term goals.
And, uh, I think with MMA,there's so many different goals.
You can set like so many differentfacets of MMA that go into mix martial

(17:39):
arts, whether it's jiujitsu with boxing,whether it's wrestling, whether it's
Muay Thai, whether it's frigging sambo,whether it's like there's a bunch.
Ft facets.
You could do judo, focus on judo.
Like I'll really, really get betterat my, uh, uchi ma. I really get
better at like, whatever, a coupleof judo moves you wanna hit in your,
and uh, add into your MMA game.
They'll all those different facets,like you can take one just boxing
people spend 20 years, 30 yearsof their lives becoming a master.

(18:00):
Great, amazing boxer.
Imagine how much work they putinto that 30 years of their life.
Marshal always have a, a much,there's not enough years.
There's not enough.
And all those facets.
So you can't score aton of short-term goals.
I wanna get better atthis in my wrestling.
I wanna get better at this in my boxing.
I wanna get better at thisin my ju I wanna get better
at this in my, my jiujitsu.
You know, like, I wanna get to a, apearl belt, I wanna be a black belt.

(18:21):
I wanna be like, whatever it is, you know?
So you set those short-term goals andyou get quicker, you know, uh, feedback.
Not like instantly feedback,but a quicker feedback.
It helps you stay more focusedon your long-term goal.
If you have been kicking yourselfthat you didn't start investing in
real estate sooner, whether yourbeginner, intermediate, or advanced.
Any way you're looking to getit on a residential, commercial,
land development, wholesaling,fix and flips, whatever it is.

(18:43):
Let's find a way to get you involvedin some projects, get you some
properties, whether you wanna sellsome properties to me, whether you
want to buy some properties from me,whether residential, fix and flip,
cash flow, multi-family, whatever it isyou're looking for, it's figure out a
way to get you involved or find a wayfor us to partner up on some deals.
Reach out to me on any ofmy social media channels.
If you go on www.nic.com/links,you will see all the different

(19:05):
ways to connect with me.
And figure out how we can startto work together, make it happen.
Everybody that invests inreal estate always just says
they wish they did it sooner.
Best time to start is today.
Yeah.
I never really thought about it likethat until you were just talking about,
I, I thought about stripes and a belt.
I was like, oh yeah.
It's exactly what they are.
Yeah.
It's like, oh, I want to be a black belt.
They're their first day at the MMA laband you're like, well, let's get to

(19:25):
your first stripe on your white belt.
You know?
And then they get that.
So these little wins that get you, okay.
Belt by belt.
So it makes a lot of sense.
That keeps you motivated.
When you get these little wins,it builds up that momentum.
I think it's important.
I agree, dude.
So you said something that I thoughtwas extremely interesting, so I was
gonna talk about this anyway because I,I started the whole conversation with,
you know, self-doubt has killed moredreams than failure ever actually has.
And I think you're an interestingcase study because you go out and

(19:47):
you do all these things and whatyou mentioned a couple of minutes
ago was you came up and people.
Didn't believe in you.
They were like, ah, Benson,he can't really fight.
He is not this, he's not that.
And you had something to prove whenyou were the underdog, but now you're
a UFC legend, like you're like onthe Mount Rushmore of professional
fighters and you still do these thingsand it's like a completely different
dynamic when you're the underdog.
Proven people wrong.

(20:07):
Then when you now come in with thistarget on your back and everybody wants
to make a name on you and you're justdoing it to try and keep feed your
competitive spirit, but they're tryingto prove to themselves or somebody else.
So I think that the ego of likecoming in and being like, well, if
I go in here now and I get tappedout by somebody or I lose, I.
It takes away is your self-identity ofthe stuff you've done in the past, and
you don't seem to really have that.

(20:28):
So I'm very interested because even onthe real estate side, dude, after 20
years, I feel like I took a lot morerisks when I didn't know what I was doing.
And then as you start to get betterand you learn more, like you realize
how much more there is on the line.
And I. I take less risk than Iever did, and I'm trying to get
more like you again and do that.
So where is that in you of being ableto go out there and really take these
risks and not be willing to fearthat failure like other people have?

(20:51):
Yeah, I, I think that'sa great point there.
People always say, oh, like whoevergoes outta retirement, like Michael
Jordan or Wayne Gresley, whoever goesoutta retirement, but then they come
back, they go, oh no, don't come back.
You're gonna ruin your leg.
Oh no, you retired already, blah, blah.
And like, and Jordanwas like, nah, I'm okay.
I'm good.
I know what I accomplished.
I'm set.
I'm happy there, but I want to dothis for whatever the reason is.
I wanna do this to help my youngteammates, uh, get better, improve.

(21:13):
I wanna do this to draw more, uh,fans to the, to the Wizards games.
The other reason is, is is cool,you know, but yeah, that risk,
that fear of, uh, you know.
Tarnishing your legacy andoh no, you, this and that.
Like, uh, you gotta, you throw,you have to all to decide.
And that goes back, take us almost fullcircle to when originally I was coming
up and being on constant on who I was.
Not being worried about who, uh, everybodyelse and all the other things, and

(21:35):
being the cool guy and this and that,but being more just focused on me.
Now on this side of my career,I'm still the same thing.
Still focus on me on what I wantto do, what I enjoy, uh, where
I want to, you know, put myenergies, I'm, I'll say it here.
First on your podcast, I'm gonna win.
Uh, they say the four majors, but Ionly really consider the three majors.
I don't, I don't considerthe, the Brazilian nationals.
I don't consider the Brazilian national.

(21:57):
I might get some, some flack pans,uh, worlds masters, world fans.
I, I wanna do the adults still,but I'll put the first one.
I come back, I'll probably do theMasters rules, but Pans, master
Worlds, and then Europeans, right?
That's the, I'm not sure.
Yeah, I think so.
Yeah.
Europe, Europeans, I wanna do thosethree major tournaments in 2026.
I wanna win all three of 'em.
My man, Gustavo, Dante, uh,stopped competing for a while, was

(22:17):
a super high level, awesome, uh,amazing black belt here in, uh,
Phoenix, here in Tempe, Arizona.
And, uh, he set a goal for himself to win.
He, I think he's already done itbefore as an, as an adult, so he is
super high level, but he's went outtacompetition for like the past 10 years.
He just came back and he sethimself a goal to win all three.
He, he did all four.
He won the Brazilian nationals also.
I'm gonna do the three.

(22:37):
Um.
But, so I'm gonna setthat goal for myself.
And it's just putting yourself outthere, just having fun, concentrate
what you wanna concentrate on.
I go out there, I get submittedby somebody, no big deal.
It's okay.
I'll, I'll come back.
I'll get better, I'll improve.
I am not necessarily worried abouttarnishing my legacy and going in and, and
not, not having success in this and that.
Like, you can't, you can't focus on that.
You have to focus on, you have to focuson you getting better, you improving.

(22:58):
I gotta focus on what.
What you want to do,like all that stuff, man.
And, um, that's where I'm at now, youknow, doing things that I wanna do,
have fun, always trying to get better.
So always trying to improve, still tryingto, you know, work on this, work on that.
Oh, I, I wanna get better myboxing, just pure boxing wise.
I wanna have a, a couple boxingfights and just work on that
and getting better on that.
So I did that.
Wanna get better on, uh, Muay Hai, youknow, so do a, a six month delve into,

(23:20):
uh, Muay Hai and just watching nothingbut Muay Hai videos practicing Muay Hai.
It may make me less successful in, inthe, in the practice room where IS spa
and stuff, I might get hit a little more.
I'm focused on what I wanna do.
I'm focused on getting better in actualmohai, which will hopefully, uh, end
up overall improving my MMA game.
But yeah, you gotta learn to focus.
You got, and it is hard.
It, it is not easy.
It, it is tough, but focus on whatyou wanna focus on and, and not

(23:43):
worrying about the, uh, I dunno, Iguess for me not worrying about the
legacy stuff and Oh, but, oh, butwhat if you lose like, ah, it's okay.
I'll live.
Yeah, man.
And you, you're trying newthings and I think that that's
where other people don't.
Understand with like any investor thathas a bad deal, anybody who invests
knows that it could be them anyday, and you don't pile on that guy.
It's like, Hey man, how can I help you?
So when I'm in that samespot, maybe you help me.

(24:04):
And I've heard other guys say like,a, any fighter that's ever fought is
not gonna make fun of you for losing.
And I don't think the averageperson realizes the other
circumstances that go into that.
Like, uh, who is it?
I had Matt Brown, I had Matt Brownon here, and he was like, dude.
Like I'm training for a fight andthen I show up for class on Friday
afternoon or Saturday morning, andI've had 17 training sessions already.
Like I can barely move,but I get my butt there.

(24:26):
And some guy who hasn't trained allweek, he's all hopped up on TRT and he
attacks me and he gets the better of me.
And he's like, oh yeah.
It's like, dude, you caught him.
But like you don't understand likethe level of training, the injuries.
And again, you could have beenworking your Muay Thai, you jump into
Jiujitsu competitions just to be like.
Ah, Hal, I'm here.
I'll do it.
Like you're not gettingthem at that same thing.
But I feel like that's whatthe true martial arts is like.
You put yourself out there, you trystuff, and there's a million excuses in

(24:49):
the world, but you're there just to testyourself and see how you do and have fun.
And I feel like that's what, whatwe were talking about earlier.
Maybe that's what keeps you young, dude.
'cause I was gonna say, at your age,you're still like, great hairline,
small waistline training every day.
Dude, how the hell do you do it?
I, I don't know, man.
I don't know.
I try to read all the books and do allthe things and keep my, what is it?
The telomeres keep my telomeres short.
Spray teller mirrors,you're gonna get older.

(25:09):
So I try to do all littlethings, but I, I don't know, man.
It's just, uh, hard work, man.
There's no secret.
I, I don't have a secret for it, but Ijust try to train every day and do better.
Uh, it's funny though, the Matt Brownthing, I think that's, uh, great
hearing that from, from Matt, likethat kind of analogy where you're
16, 17 sessions deep on the week yougo in on Friday just trying to work
your juicy and get better, this andthat, and you have some freaking meat.

(25:30):
You had to go over there and try.
Trying just to attackyou, just to kill you.
It has happened.
It does happen.
It's okay.
But I do take note.
I go, oh, I'm gonna get you when I'm fresh
17.
Uh, training hard, hard trainingsession is deep on the week.
I wanna make sure Icome in here one Friday.
I get you and I'm gonnahave fun on that day.

(25:50):
They go on the list, it's like, uh,what's that Happy Gilmore or Bill
Madison when he like crosses him off.
It's like, oh, okay, I'mgonna put you on this list.
I get you.
I remember.
Yep.
It's not gonna get forgotten.
And uh, I think this is a great topic too,'cause we were talking about you're doing
a lot of training at the MMA lab and itactually surprised me like it was awesome.
Them.
So you, you've been supercool about waking up early and
training with me and stuff.
And initially I think somebodywrote to me from there and they

(26:11):
were like, Hey, John's outta town,but Benson will train with you.
And I was like, dude, Abby.
Incredible.
And when I first came down,like I was thinking about what
it must be like to be you.
And you have no idea who I am.
Size training to that.
Like I might be some like who knowsdude, and you're willing to come down.
But I imagine there's a whole newlevel of risk of like those people.
And I dunno if it still goes on, dude,but it used to happen all the time where

(26:32):
like people walking off the streetsand be like, I had 400 street fights.
Can I fight Benson Henderson today?
And Lago would be like, dude,get the hell out of the gym.
But how is it now beingin the place you are?
I imagine you have to be a lot moreselective and careful about how you
train and also who you train with.
Yes, for sure.
We have to be a lot more smarter and,um, careful, uh, who you train with.
But some of those like tough guys whowalk in, I'm always up for a good time.

(26:53):
So if you wanna have a goodtime, you wanna, all right, cool.
Go sign that waiver
times.
I'm not super proud of it that I havestooped down that low, like what you want.
All right, man, that, that's whatyou, if that's what you asked
for, that's what you really want.
That's a, a weird way, a weird vibe tocome in with, but, okay, let's get it.
You, you can get it.
No problem.
So I have them a couple times long, aslong as they say assign that waiver.

(27:13):
But yeah, as far as training with theguys who come in from out of town, you
definitely have to be a little bit wary.
Like you, first time you get on out withsomebody, you kind of feel 'em out a
little bit, see how, how, if they're gonnago crazy or not go crazy, this and that.
But I, I haven't had any, not toomany, like bad examples of, uh, someone
coming and trying to absolutely kill me.
It happened a couple times here and there,but those guys, they weren't very good.
So I just smashed them.

(27:34):
So guys actually pretty good ordecent or they go, oh, oh, give
me a, give me a scare at all.
So I've been lucky in that sense.
Yeah, that's cool.
I dunno if you saw that videowhere, uh, Craig Jones goes to
that school and the guy attackshim and he snaps the guy's leg.
Oh, really?
I have not seen that video.
Dude.
It's i'll, I'll send it to you.
It's brutal.
Like you, you see the guy, he's tryingto train a seminar and the guy's kinda

(27:55):
like, Hey, I don't want you to teach.
Let's just roll.
And he was like, well, and I thinkhe was saying in the background, and
he is like, I'm in another country.
I kind of just threw this seminararound while I was sightseeing.
I'm not actively competing,I'm not in shape.
And this guy's like ready to go.
Like exactly what you would expectfrom like a crazy Russian school.
And eventually he harassedCraig enough times that he was
like, okay, let's just roll.
And he went at him hard and Ithink Craig got him once and the

(28:16):
guy like turned it up a notch.
And then the next thing youknow, you hear like, dude, it
was gross, like snap like a long.
And the guy like got up andkind of like limped off and was
like, all right, you got me.
And yeah, it was like, like you did that.
You did that.
Like, you, you wanted it, you got it.
Yeah.
Dude.
Uh, speaking of Craig, funny story.
I love, I love Craig.
He, I consider him a, a friend ofmine, we chained together a bunch

(28:36):
of times in, uh, England somewhere,or, uh, uh, Wales somewhere.
We, we train a bunch of times.
He, he's come down thePhoenix a couple times.
Every time he's in Phoenix, he hitsme up and we, we chained together.
One of my favorite stories ever about,uh, Craig Jones is we were training
and we're, you know, like when, uh,you train with somebody at first, you
start, you start kind of, you know.
Nice and easy, respectful.
So you respect for, eventually youturn up and then you're going live,

(28:57):
but by then you do, you establish like,oh yeah, I'm not trying to kill you.
I'm not going crazy.
But we can change a little harder.
Okay.
Yeah, we train harder.
Okay.
We do, we chain harder.
So that, that respectfultraining know, so, uh, Craig and
I were training, he kills me.
It's, it's not even close.
Craig is crazy good.
There's no competition.
It's not like we're training like.
Competitively, he is playing with me alittle bit, allowed me to try some stuff.
He's silly.
Good stupid, good mower training.

(29:18):
And, um, something happened.
We're in, we're in this position.
I think I had a geeing and either, Ithink somebody bumped into us, I think
is what it was, but something happened.
So we paused, we stopped, but we'rewearing the hard, we weren't lying.
Right.
I, I happened to have a geeing Iwas not in, in a million years.
Gonna finish it.
There's no way I would evenget close to finish it.
But I had the gee team, itwas a good, good position too.
I knew he was gonna do something to getout of it, but I had the geeing, somebody

(29:40):
bumped into us, so we had to reset.
And we, when we reset, Istill think we're going live.
I still think we're like,we're going super hard.
So reset.
I go to finish it, I go, thisschool super hard and passed.
And I was like, oh, I, but he wasn't,but he didn't start at a hundred miles.
We, we, we finished at a hundredmiles an hour on the reset.
He started like at 50.
I, so I'm like, I'm an idiot.
I, I, so I started at a hundredand freaking, I, I tap Craig Jones,

(30:04):
but not like, really only 'causehe started at 50 miles an hour.
Oh.
I realized what I had done thatI realized in my head like, oh.
And I was like, Craig, I'm sorry man.
I thought, I thought wewere starting to hard.
He's like, oh yeah, no worries.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Nice.
Super nice.
I was like, oh, it's okay.
It's okay.
No worries.
Sorry.
I was like, Craig, I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to, I thought we endedat a hundred, so I thought we're gonna

(30:25):
start at a hundred miles an hour.
And then like he didn't take it out on me.
He didn't beat me up.
He's just super casual about it.
Still just play with me, toywith me and stuff, you know?
So I was like, oh, thankGod he didn't kill me.
'cause he, I could, I couldunderstand him being mad.
If he would've got mad or got upset aboutit a little bit, then just thrashed me.
I would've been Taylortotally okay with it.
Like, oh yeah, sure, I deserve that.
I, you know, I, I went super hard.

(30:45):
I, I deserve that.
But he was, uh, super niceabout it, super casual about it.
Didn't, didn't even take it out on me.
So, but that's my, myfunny story, how I did not.
Catch catch, uh, Craig Jones.
Yeah, dude, it's, I mean, butthat's part of like the Damion
Mayo School train out here.
We called the BJJ lab and me and mybuddy have just been working on stuff
and like, we meet in the morning atlike five 30 and we catch each other

(31:06):
and stuff because we're trying stuff.
And I'm like, well, that'swhat this is for, right?
Yep.
Like I, I got away from stuffand being like, I gotta win.
I gotta win, I gotta win.
And now I'm like, nah, dude.
I'm like, I'm mid forties.
Like, I don't have to win anymore.
I just wanna get better at Juujitsu.
And dude, when you do what you didwith the guy that's like that, that if
he catches you does knock, gonna now,now I gotta get you back five times.
It makes everything just so muchmore enjoyable, dude, like me,
like, you could have killed me.

(31:27):
You went so nice with me, dude.
We had such a good time.
And I feel like that's whatmakes you want to come back.
Like not the, you get hurt.
You're like, I'm not gonna goback and train with that guy.
It's ridiculous.
Yeah.
To totally agree.
Being able to change that whereyou're like nice and casual.
I just, with Craig, I was, I wasn't sure.
I was like, oh God, I made a mess.
But he was cool, totally cool with it.
Totally, totally fine.
He realized like, you know what Ihad done, I realized what I had done.

(31:47):
Uh, but yeah, it, it is nice when youcan find training partners like that.
'cause not, not a lot oftraining partners like that.
You, you have to build, you know,get to that point with a, with with
a lot of training partners, you know?
Yeah.
So I, I'm very interested tohear, 'cause you've been around
a long time now, man, and.
I think of what I've seen over the yearsin the difference in the way people
train juujitsu and the way people trainMMA, I almost feel like it reversed.
Where Juujitsu, when I first started out,it was such a discipline and like at the

(32:11):
end of class, somebody would get up atSarah's and they'd be like, you know,
you wash your gi, you cut your nails.
You don't ask a higher belt to roll.
And it was still part of like thatmartial art, but the MMA sparring in
the boxing, it was like you're justgonna beat the shit out of each other.
And whoever comes back tomorrow, like, youknow, maybe we'll pay attention to you.
And now I feel like guys gotsmarter and they're not getting
hit at the head as much.
But then I go to like a Jiujitsugym and I'm trying to train

(32:32):
ice with this white belt.
And I'm like, okay, we'll go easy.
And then he drops down for a heelhook and cranks at a hundred percent.
And I'm like, did you not?
Like when you're boxing, you canclearly tell what the pace is,
and I feel like that etiquetteis getting lost on Jiujitsu.
So for you, I'm, I'm interested to hearhow are you seeing the evolution of.
Training on a smarter level, beingthat you run it like a business
times for MMA and for Jiujitsu.
I actually totally agree.

(32:53):
I think Jiujitsu back in theday was more of the gentle art.
It wasn't, you know, old school,traditional boxing in box.
Nowadays still, uh, they go hard Ifyou go with any, uh, to another gym or.
Wherever, like boxing Spar, youknow, if you're gonna spar with
a boxer, they're gonna go hard.
It's just it own thing.
Uh, Muay Hai, they play a lotmore, uh, they, Hey, yy, yo.

(33:13):
Oh.
Like they play more in,in Mu Hai and boxing.
They go hard.
Uh, jujitsu used to be.
Pretty, uh, much more casual.
Do the, do the mood, do the technique.
Oh, do this, do that.
Uh, wrestling, you go hard.
Wrestling has always been, youknow, nose to the grind, hard,
run the double leg run, play thelegs, go hard, uh, for wrestling.
Uh, but Gitsu has, I think, uh, I don'tknow the exact reason why I haven put my

(33:33):
finger on it, but Gitsu has gone more, alot more the way of wrestling where now
people are just going freaking crazy hard,I think because they've seen guys have
success, uh, in, in competitions like the.
The Rutolo is how you sayit, the Rutolo brothers?
Yeah.
Yeah.
The Rutolo brothers.
They, they go hard, like you watchthem, their gym training, like
they're trying to kill each other.
A lot of places.
It is just more now, like theyhave to have the technique.

(33:55):
They of course have great technique,you know, but being able to up
the ante on the intensity side.
Has led to them having moresuccess in, uh, in competition.
And so when people see that, youknow, these people are having success
and you know, we live in a copycatworld, everyone starts copy copying
Kat, like, um, format of success.
Like when, uh, Marchellewas a man killing everybody.
He's still killing everybody.
He's still a man.

(34:15):
When he first started out, everyonestarted copying Marcelo and his, uh,
kind of like, you know, his, uh, notlast laid back, but his, his style
more, you know, and now the guys whogo a little bit harder and they go
crazy and just all them energy andattacking and the pace and the intensity.
So now I think a lot of gyms are copyingthat, thinking like that's the right way
to do it, and there's no really right way.

(34:35):
There's no really wrong way of doing it.
It's not wrong the way theRu brothers trained 'cause.
They're pretty good.
They're pretty high level.
They're some of the best inplanning, you know, so it's not
wrong necessarily to train that,but maybe it's not for everybody.
Maybe you're in freaking, you know,middle of, of, uh, Phoenix, Arizona.
You have a job.
You, you work a 40 hour week ofjob that your training partner
has works 40 hour a week job.
You guys just kind of trained to havefun and get better, stay in shape.

(34:57):
Maybe that intensity, maybe that's.
Speed.
Maybe that high level, not necessarilyneeded, you know, maybe then it, it should
be more about, you know, learning thetechnique, having fun, staying in shape,
not necessarily high pace intensity.
Kill your training partner.
Maybe that's for a differentset of people, you know?
So you came up at a time where youexcelled and were able to find a way.
To make really good money as afighter, but most people don't.

(35:20):
Especially when you did, like, there'sobviously more money in everything
now, but you came up as a guy justlove of the game, you know what I mean?
And fighting became somethingthat became profitable.
But now you see that they just gaveaway Craig Jones game, man, amazing.
What he's been doing for the sport.
I love it.
They just gave out two $1 million.
Prize winners for Juujitsu.
So part of that, now, if you look backlike five, 10 years ago, dude, there

(35:41):
was no way you would do juujitsu.
And somebody would say, that'sall like, I used to have to go
drive miles and miles and miles tofind a juujitsu school somewhere.
And now they're like friggingStarbucks in every corner.
Like you can see 'em everywhere.
So how would you have done that different?
Would that have changed who youare and what you did in the sport?
If you knew you could have just goneand made a million dollars in Jiujitsu

(36:03):
and not had to get punched in the head?
Uh.
No, I don't think so.
I, I love, I love the, the holisticapproach, I guess, so to speak.
The, the approach to MMA, like,you can do anything you want.
Like, how do you think you're gonna win?
How do you think you'regonna get your hand raised?
This is a competition with oneperson versus one person one-on-one.
Just go, let's go at it.
What, what are you gonna do?
Are you gonna punch?
Yeah, go ahead.
Punch.
You can, if you think you canpunch to win, go ahead and

(36:25):
punch or you're gonna kick.
Okay.
If you think you can kickand win, go ahead and kick.
Uh, if you think you can hug me andgrab me and hold me, and that's how
you're gonna win, okay, try that.
No problem.
You know, so I love that approach of MMA.
The ideology of you can do whateveryou want to do, like full, full rules.
You know, obviously there aresome rules to make it a sport,
to make it a, an accepted sport.
So no eye gouging, no groin strikes, noshots to the spine, that kind of stuff,

(36:49):
you know, to make it a legitimate sport.
But I do love the, the aspect of MMAbeing a full make mixed martial arts
fight where you can do whatever iswant, you can punch, you can kick.
Uh, I enjoy that aspect.
So I don't think I would, I, I enjoyjujitsu, doing just jujitsu competitions.
I still do wrestling, uh, tournaments.
I love, I love wrestling.
I love each of the sportsfor their own sake, you know.
But if I could still make thegood money that I did for MMA, I

(37:09):
think I'd probably still chooseMMA, you know, it's pretty fun.
Very cool.
Nice man.
I do like, uh, knee and elbowing people.
I kind of, yeah, I heardyou in another thing.
You were like, I'm workinga lot on my elbows.
I thinking I'm gonna geta mohai fight in there.
Yeah.
Uh, one of these days, man, one ofthe, I, our next, uh, family vacation,
not this summer, but next summer isgonna be to Greece and then we'll take
another summer off and then the next.

(37:30):
Uh, vacation kinda big deal with my wife.
Like, go, okay babe, we'll dothe Caribbean the last summer,
we'll take a summer off and thenwe'll do degrees after that.
Would it be okay?
Is it all right if wedo, if we go to Thailand?
So hopefully I won't be too old and I'll,I'll be able to move still, but I am gonna
go to Thailand and when I go there, I'lltell my wife I'm gonna have a more flight.
It's, it is gonna happen.
Do a little bit training, havefun, bring the family out there,

(37:51):
family vacation, you know.
But I'm gonna have moretyphi too, for sure.
Sick dude.
That's awesome, man.
So you now teach at the MMA lab inArizona and I came down there, man,
what a really great facility, man.
Awesome spot.
Tons of stuff over there.
I wound up meeting a bunch of people overthere over time that are all super cool.
So now that you're on the other sideof that, we were talking earlier
about training and knuckleheadsand all those different things.

(38:11):
You started out talking about how likethe true martial arts sense of it and
knowing where the dangers are, andI've always felt like coming up under
Matt Cera, he would teach us stuff,but his stuff was always like, this
is a jujitsu position, that if youactually were in a fight, you'd be safe.
Like you're okay.
And so some of these schools have gottenaway from some of the things where
it's not, you're gonna get punchedin the face, it's not gonna work out.

(38:32):
But you came from atraditional background now.
So talk a little bit about you as theteacher and the businessman now who's
not just the fighter coming up trainingat the MMA lab, but somebody who's now.
Molding young minds, young fightersof all shapes and sizes over there
as a coach and as a businessman.
Yeah, for sure.
I, I think, uh, it is importantto always remember where you
come from and the importance ofwhy, why jujitsu is so great.

(38:53):
The reason I, I'm a pretty big,uh, I, I drank the Kool-Aid when,
when I was younger in my career.
My first started in jujitsu.
I was, I drank the Kool-Aid.
I was all jujitsu.
Jujitsu too.
I'm not as bad now, obviously, I'ma little bit older than stuff, you
know, but I think juju is important.
The real world self, us.
Defense aspect of jujitsuis, is crazy important.
Uh, so I make sure I, I always, whenI'm always teaching, I emphasize

(39:15):
to the guys, Hey, hey, this is agood position for a sport jitsu.
You can get a good sweep from here.
Hey, but if you're in a fight, somebody,somebody freaking, um, at the gas
station says, Hey, you took my pump.
I was, I'll put my gas there.
You come up on you.
You're not gonna pull this move.
You're not gonna, Idon't wanna see you here.
Right.
Uh, so I always make sure to emphasizeto the guys, uh, about what is like,
you know, real world sub defense,what's gonna work and what's not gonna

(39:38):
work, what's gonna get you punched inthe face, what's gonna get you picked
up and slammed on the hard concrete,and then who knows what, what the
heck happens after that, you know?
Uh, so I, I make a big point of,uh, emphasizing that to the guys
and hopefully they, uh, make surethey're paying attention when I'm,
when I'm showing 'em all that stuff.
As far as, uh, showing the, the newguys, the, the youngsters and molding
'em and, and help them out, I enjoy that.

(39:59):
I still don't really consider myselftoo much of a coach, a coach in the
jujitsu world as far as teaching classes.
I, I do consider myself more of a actuallegit straight up coaching stuff, but as
far as like the fight team guys and, andtraining fighters, I'm active enough.
I, I, I did retire from, uh, mixed martialarts, but I was still kind of active
enough and I did, uh, karate combat.
I did a couple juicytournaments and I, now I'm.

(40:19):
Doing MMA again.
Uh, so I still consider myselfmore like just a, a teammate, so I
definitely help out with the guys.
I have some words of not, uh, advice,but like some tips and stuff, you know,
but I still don't really feel, considermyself a, a full, full-time coach,
uh, even with my wife, who's training,hopefully get her her next, uh, MMA
fight pretty soon here, get a scheduled.
I still consider myself moreof a, a teammate for her.
I feel like, um, coaches, uh,have a lot more responsibility.

(40:42):
They, they need to do more.
And I, I do, I tell my wife,I help her as much as I can.
I, I do everything, you know.
Force, uh, and support herand, and training wise and all
that kind of stuff, you know.
But I feel like with, uh, with thecoaches, they should, and they do
have a lot more responsibility withthe, with the younger fighters.
And that's something I just can'tquite give as much right now.
I feel I, I would like to,I want to, but just Right.
Just right now, I. Like, I couldn'tgive that much of me as a coach,

(41:05):
you, you need to give all yourselfto your, to your students, you know,
especially for MMA guys gettingthere, getting punched in the face.
If you halfass it of a coach and theguy gets kicked in the head 'cause
you're, you know, half-ass in it,like, I, I always feel terrible.
I feel bad.
You know, I, I don't wanna do that.
I don't want to do that.
I, I think it's just not somethingI, I fully embrace as a MMA.
Coach just yet, but yeah, I'm a teammate.
I'll help you out.
I, I can hold MITs, I can holdpads, I can, we can roll around

(41:26):
and say, Hey, yeah, watch out.
Don't do this.
Hey, be careful this, but not necessarilya true, like a hundred percent coach.
I, I, I feel like So what, whatare you teaching over there?
Are you doing wrestling?
I know you're definitelydoing jiujitsu over there.
So at the MMA lab, how doyou spend your days there?
What are you mostly teaching?
I teach every day at six, and then onWednesday nights I teach at six and seven.
But we'll do, uh, GH onMondays and Wednesdays.
I do no GH on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

(41:46):
And, and I'll, I'll coverclasses here and there.
We have a great, amazing, um, Idon't know how the people do it.
Shape and conditioning.
Coach Jared Key, he was my personalshape condition coach my entire career.
He's, he's the secret sauce.
He's the real reason I think, uh, not thereal reason, but he's the secret sauce.
The, the, the reason, uh, for mehaving success in MMA 'cause I, I
don't think I was ever like the best.
Jujitsu guy.
I was never the best boxer.

(42:07):
I was never the best wrestler.
I was always like maybe secondbest or third best, but I'm
gonna get your butt tired.
I was.
I was not the, the better MMA fighter,like later in my career I might have
gotten to be better than most of thepeople I stepped into the kid against.
But early on in my career, in, inton my career, I don't think I was
better than a lot of guys who I beat.
I beat them 'cause I got them tired.
So we, we have a, a great strengtheningcoach, uh, Jared, Keith and I'll, I'll

(42:29):
cover his classes when he is effort,whenever he's outta town and I don't
know how he does it, but we always havea good, like 10, 15 people in there who
will like, enjoy being tortured by him.
A lot of money.
I have to be making a lot of money togo in there and get tortured by him.
These people not only go in therevoluntarily, they pay money to get
tortured by him on a freaking daily basis.
I don't understand it.

(42:49):
It blows my mind, uh, like I haveto, I have to be making a lot
of money to get tortured him.
He's a, a creative bastard who'sfreaking always on top of it doing, uh.
New this workout, new that workout,always change it up to make it
more fun, not stale routine.
And do we always do this,this, this, and this.
But he's great at, uh, switchingthings up and doing things
differently to make it like fun andinteresting and freaking torturous.

(43:12):
Hmm.
I think that's really cool, man.
And I, I think what's a goodthing that's evolved over time is.
I talk to people and they want away to get in shape, or they have
a daughter like Matt, Sarah'sdaughter's like fighting now.
And it's cool seeing like that,it keeps it in the family.
And if people don't know, your wife isalso like a professional MMA fighter and
like a a, a total stallion on the mats.
And I think some we werediscussing earlier was people

(43:34):
go, well, if I go to the MMA lab.
I have to be a fighter or I'm gonnahave to spar, and I don't think people
realize that the majority of thepeople that train at Juujitsu schools
are not doing it to be UFC fighters.
A lot of 'em are doing it for thesupport, the comradery, the community,
something just better or different,or just for self-defense to know.
Like Matt always says it, he goes,man, there's nothing better than

(43:55):
taking somebody who was like an.
Insecure nerd and turning'em into a confident killer.
And I feel like I'm seeing that withkids and I'm seeing that with women.
And what I love about what you aredoing is you're training people
to just be more confident in theirday-to-day life, to be better humans.
And your wife is, as far as Iknow, is also doing like a women's
self-defense thing there too.
So talk a little bit about howgoing to the MMA lab and training

(44:16):
juujitsu or self-defense.
It's not just for a UFC fighter anymore.
It's for everybody.
Yeah.
I, I think, uh, people are more underunderstanding now, like at first MMA,
like the tough guy and the, you know,the, oh, it's, uh, you know, MA got,
got a bad rap, but now people are moreunderstanding like, oh no, it's the
same thing as going down to the, tothe local Y and playing pick up game.
Pick up a game of basketball.
It just happens to be jiujitsuinstead, or boxing or kickboxing.

(44:37):
But it's the same thing.
It's just a way to stay inshape, have fun, and you're
actually learning the skillset.
You're learning something.
So you're not only working out,going to the gym, lifting weights,
and doing this and do that.
You're not only learning a skillset,uh, but when you come into the lab,
you're actually learning the skillset.
You're learning how to box.
You're learning how to acknowledgethat, you know, we all know knowledge
that something that ever goes away.
You're not gonna unlearn that stuff.
You might be rusty at it, rusty at it.

(44:58):
Practicing you, you do, you dofor, uh, six months, seven months,
or whatever it is, and you,you get pretty good and stuff.
If you stop doing it for 2,3, 2, 3 months, you'll get
a little rusty for sure.
But you always have that knowledge.
So I think, uh, we had, uh, 987 members,I believe, uh, as of last night at like
8:00 PM so we're doing pretty good.
We're, we're, we're doing all right.

(45:18):
We have a, a ton of, uh, students who,who enjoy working out and having a
good time, staying in shape insteadof going down to the, the lifetime
fitness or whatever, and then hoppingon a treadmill for freaking two hours.
Like, Hey, I, I can burnfreaking 1000 calories.
I'll hop in the treadmill for two hours,or I can go take this kickboxing class
and I'll burn 1500 calories and, andthe one hour I make good friends, chop
it up and, and just have a good time.

(45:39):
So I'm a big fan, big, uh,proponent of going to, uh, any gym.
And just having fun training,learning something, you know, uh,
if you're in the Phoenix area,for sure, come, come check us out.
And yeah, we do, uh, offer self-defenseto my wife and I just started it
about a month ago, going back to ourroots of, uh, like I said, we talked
about before, uh, Gracie Juujitsu,uh, self-defense and how important
Jiujitsu is and, and that aspect.

(46:00):
Aspect.
Something my wife and I wanted todo for a long time, we just kind of
didn't always have, have the time.
I was, you know, more active competingand we couldn't, you know, commit to this.
And if I did it, it'd besomething I wanted to commit
to, like I wanna take seriously.
And so now like, okay,well we need to do it.
We keep you talking about it foreverso that we would commit it to it.
And every Sunday it's free to all women.
I will never, ever charge fora women's health defense class.

(46:21):
I want, I won't ever charge for it.
Um, so it's free every Sunday,and it's the importance of, uh,
you know, women's self defense.
A lot of it is, uh, just awareness,being aware of your surroundings and,
and all that kind of stuff, you know.
Uh, but the importanceof it is, uh, is huge.
Something I take very seriously.
I made my mom go sign up andtake, uh, women's self defense.
Tacoma when I was younger, you know, juststarted now with the white belt blue.

(46:41):
But I was like, oh, OMA like, mom,you need to go take self-defense.
You need to go learn some stuff.
You need to go learn some stuff.
So I signed her up and I made her go.
I looked up a jujitsu school and Imade her go over there and started,
uh, with the woman's self-defense.
She liked a little bit, so she,she took up juujitsu herself
for a little while, you know?
It's, it's, it is a very important thing.
I think, uh, all women,uh, would be helpful.
It'd be good for them to, to doa, a women's home defense course.

(47:04):
I agree, man.
I think it's awesome what you're doing.
And, uh, before, I know we're gettinga little tight on time here, but
I can't let you go without talkingabout, uh, I had no idea, man.
We were down there and I waslike, man, he's in good shape.
He could probably fight today.
I. And then the next thing I knowyou're getting a press release that
you signed with GFL and you got afight coming up and it's scheduled
and it looks like, I think tickets areactually going on sale this week, man.
So talk about GFL andyou coming back to MMA.

(47:25):
Uh, yeah, GFL, you know, they, theysent me emails, say, Hey, we're a new.
Organization, new promotion where, youknow, have fights and this and that.
Uh, I initially, I said,nah, that's okay man.
I appreciate it.
But, uh, I had a lot of fun.
I had a good long career, but now it'smy, the reason why I retired because my
wife's interchange, 'cause she's gettinga little bit older and she wanted to start
fighting when she was like 22, 23 or so.

(47:47):
We had some babies.
We had four babies.
So she started training, getting in shape,get in shape, then we get pregnant again,
and then I'll have the baby basicallya whole year off start training, get
in shape again, get in shape again.
And oh, another baby islike, oh, I'm sorry babe.
My bad.
Sorry.
Uh, so that happened like,you know, four times.
So she was out for a little while havingbabies, but she wanted, she wanted to get
her MMA career started and get it going.

(48:07):
So I retired so she gets started and,and take it, you know, full time.
Take it seriously.
But GFL sent me that emailand they're like, oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And then they sent me the, the price, howmuch they're gonna, they're gonna pay.
I took a look and I waslike, oh, boom, boom.
I showed my wife, Ishowed, I showed Maria.
She's like, yeah, okay, I understandyou can, you can take these, you can
take these, uh, take these fights.
Uh, so yeah, so I signed with GFL.

(48:28):
I'm excited.
They have a, a huge rosterof, uh, some big names.
We're all a little bit older,uh, but some big names still.
I be myself as, uh, still pretty, uh,in shape and I can still throw down.
I still do, uh, pretty darn wellagainst the best guys in the world,
and I ain't gonna like all theseguys feel the exact same way.
And so they had like a. I, Kevin Lee,Tony Ferguson, Anthony Penn, myself, a

(48:48):
bunch of guys at 55 was like, oh man,I haven't faced a bunch of these guys.
I've never fought Ferguson, neverfought Kevin Lee Penn. I'd love
to get my hands on him again.
There's a bunch of guys who, whohaven't fought against, uh, and some
good name, uh, younger guys too.
Some, some good, uh, prospects in the GFL.
It's like, oh man, this is,this would be really cool.
And your pay, uh.
Itch ton of money.
Let's go.
Let's do it.
And at first I was supposed to fightKevin Lee and oh, that was great.

(49:10):
Oh cool, awesome.
Somebody haven't faced off again.
It'll be fun, let's go get it and stuff.
Uh, and then they got switched toAnthony Edison said I was all about that.
I was like, Hey, himand I have some history.
I need, I need to get my go.
And the MMA rule set, let's go.
It was interesting.
I was gonna ask if you asked for that.
'cause I know like Weidman signed tothem too, and he really wanted the rock
hole rematch, so they were like, movesome stuff around and make him get that.
So I didn't know if that was just in thecards or that was something you requested.

(49:32):
Nah, no, nothing I requested.
Uh, but when they, when they broughtit up though, I, I was all for it.
I, I did, I did sign to, uh, to GFLbecause they came me a ton of money
and I knew that they signed Petti.
So I was like, okay, well there'sa chance I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll
get Petti at some point in time.
I know a lot of people like,uh, to see us go at it.
We put on a lot of entertaining fightsand stuff, so there's a chance I get
my hands on Pettus One more time.
Let's go.
Very cool, man.

(49:52):
It's a tournament format, like it'sbeen hard to get some of the details.
I know they did it by state andYeah, there's, there's a couple of
different things in there, right?
It's, it's too hard to get the details.
I don't think they did thebest job getting the word out.
Uh, but for GFL, they'redoing it in the NFL format.
From what I heard from, from, I couldbe mistaken, that might have seen some
things around already before what Iwas told, uh, and, and gathered up.

(50:13):
Uh, they're doing it in the NFLformat, so for six weeks or eight
weeks, or however long their seasonis, it's usually like the NFL.
Every team will compete.
That weekend.
So the fights will be eitherFriday, Saturday night, or
Saturday, Sunday, whatever it is.
They're, every team's gonnacompete though, so they have
eight teams or six teams.
Every team will compete in thatweekend, and then they'll wait
a month and then they'll have afight another, uh, another weekend.

(50:37):
Every team will fight and at the end ofthe six weeks, or eight weeks, or however
long is at the end of that six week oreight weeks, then they actually have a
playoff for whoever, whatever team won.
Whoever team has the mostwins, they go to the playoffs.
And then the same thing.
They, they, uh, go through theplayoffs until they have a, a champion.
There's two fighters per weightclass for each, uh, team.
So you'd imagine how it wouldplay out would be, uh, first

(50:57):
fighter, fighter A and myself.
And, um, and then the next fighter.
So I might fight thefirst week and this peus.
So I will fight Peus the firstweek, the next week, the next
month would be the other guy.
Then probably me again nextmonth, and it'll probably
be him again the next month.
So they'll probably trade off.
Um, the GFL, of course,they want eyeballs.
They, they want people to tune inand stuff, you know, so they said
if there's an interesting matchup.
They'll say I fight one week, uh, onethis weekend, the next month against this

(51:20):
team is a, a big interesting matchup.
People are like, oh, it'sHenderson for Ferguson.
It's never happened before.
It'd be really cool.
See you, really awesome.
See, so I, the, thatfighter might fight twice.
I'm, I would maybe fight two in a row.
But then the other guy, of course,he wants to fight too, so he would,
he probably have the next one.
But the GFL was all about making up,making, uh, interesting, awesome, cool
matchup that people didn't get a chanceto see and they wanna see him, you know?
So I thought that was very cool too, thatit's not, it doesn't have to be a set.

(51:43):
A, B. A, BAB could be A A, thenB, B then a again or whatever.
So just for the sake of ainteresting matchup thing in the,
the fans in interested in it.
Dude, I, I think it's really cool.
I, I was looking at the roster andthe more people that came out, I
was like, there's a lot of reallyfun fights in here, and I've trained
with a lot of the guys and I'm like,they're all still really good dude.
Like a retired fight.

(52:03):
I rode with Ally Quinta a couplemonths ago and I was like, dude,
aren't you supposed to be retired?
You're stronger and faster than youwere when you were actually five.
I was like.
Not cool, man.
So I think it's gonna be good.
I think the matches are gonnabe competitive and I was
really blown away to see that.
It looked like UFC actually gave alot of these guys their blessings
and I was like, they must have caughtthem on a good day or something, man.
But it seems to be pretty amicable.
Yeah.
Oh, no one knows where the G Lsare getting their money from.

(52:25):
Uh, so maybe they're getting themoney from somebody who is friends
with the, whoever owns the UFC now.
So I don't know what the reasonis, but I'm, I'm all for it.
It sounds good.
Very cool, man.
Well, you have been an absolute stud dude.
I really appreciate all the mornings.
You wake up early and you train withme like a gentleman without killing
me, but teaching me some good stuff,having some great conversations.
And you were total stuff for comingon and sharing your time with me.

(52:45):
Day.
If people are looking to connect withyou for the woman's self-defense,
they wanna follow you, they wannacome down and train with you.
What are some of the best ways toconnect with you and with the gym?
Go to the, uh, any social media.
Uh, the gym is the, uh, at the MMA lab,uh, myself is just at Benson Henderson.
Uh, hit, hit us up and let me know,uh, whenever you guys are in town,
if you're coming from out of town,if you're in town, please uh, come on

(53:08):
by and, uh, come check the gym out.
Awesome man.
Obviously, all these links willbe in the show notes for all
the stuff you have going on.
I'm planning on coming downhopefully on there live for your
fight, which would be awesome.
Cool.
You sir, are somebody who bringsyour A game to everything you
do in life in business, and thisinterview has been no different.
You definitely bought your Agame to the A Game podcast today.
Sir, any final thoughts before Ilet you go about your busy day?
Nah man.
I appreciate your time though man.

(53:29):
It was fun.
Absolute legend man.
Thank you for coming on.
You've been a stud.
On and off the mats,smooth Benson, Henderson.
Get that W sir, we'll be rooting for you.
Thank you man.
Thanks.
Have a great day brother.
Thanks.
It feel like.

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