July 14, 2025 • 35 mins
A million dollar tournament just went down in Kazakhstan. It was one of the greatest shows in grappling history with some of the best matches we've seen to date, and there's a chance you have never heard of it. Listen here for the behind the scenes AIGA recap from our man who had the boots on the ground.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
A good martial artist does not become tense, but
ready.
Essentially, at this point, thefight is over, so you pretty
much flow with the goal.
Who is worthy to be trustedwith the secret to limitless
power?
I'm ready.
(00:27):
The Kazakhstan Chronicles yes,indeed, ladies and gentlemen, I
was recently in Kazakhstan forthe AIGA Championships.
My voice has barely recoveredfrom screaming my lungs out.
It was a lot of excitement, alot of interesting discoveries.
(00:48):
If you've never been toKazakhstan and yeah, I just I
got to witness some of the bestgrappling I've ever seen and
just got to witness firsthandhow much people love jujitsu
over there.
Now, just to clarify a littlebit of cultural context of about
Kazakhstan yes, I think whatmost of us know of it is what
(01:08):
Borat exposed us, to which Ithink I was quite blown away to
discover that Borat was, in fact, not a documentary no, not at
all.
And not the most accuratedescription or depiction of
Kazakhstan or the Kazakhakhpeople they're in.
No, not at all.
And I think the thing thatpeople probably don't understand
is that kazakhstan has come along way in the last 10, 20
(01:32):
years, like it's uh, it'sprobably.
It's not the little backwatervillage that borat portrayed, no
, and it's massive, thriving.
It's a nation, huge, like LikeKazakhstan, as a landmass is, I
think, the biggest of the standslike it's right next to
Kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, whatever.
It borders on China.
It borders on Russia.
(01:53):
It borders China, does it?
Yeah, well, where I was, whichis in Almaty, is closer to the
China border than it is toRussia.
Wow, it's a it of land andAlmaty's got it going on.
Man, they've got crazy shoppingmalls, they've got people
driving Lamborghinis, they'vegot designer brands Like I was
(02:14):
like so impressed They've gotthese curated gardens and flower
beds.
And I was like, wow, this placeis fucking impressive, man,
it's beautiful, surrounded byall these mountains.
It was awesome.
Like I really rate Almaty.
Now people say that so Almatyused to be the capital of
Kazakhstan and now it is Astanaand that was just a government
(02:36):
move.
Astana is now the capital.
Yeah, it was like 20 years agoand, speaking with the boys from
the Team Aleon, they had goneto Astana and had done the
qualifier there and it wasfreezing cold.
It's more north and they'relike no, it's not a lot of fun,
it's still got a very heavySoviet influence and not as much
(02:57):
of the nightlife, but Almatyit's popping.
Free markets reign supreme inAlmaty.
There's some beautiful peopledoing beautiful things in Almaty
.
I'll tell you what you get thatreally interesting Eurasian mix
.
All right, tell me.
So let's just run the importantones real quick.
What's the coffee?
Like, you can get a good coffee, you can.
(03:18):
We found a cafe called VanillaCafe and once it was found, we
were there every day.
Okay, vanilla Cafe, and we,once it was found, we were there
every day.
Okay, like, we like can justget shit instant coffee, which
is the standard, yeah.
But then we found, like anactual proper cafe where they'll
do pour over, they'll do, oh,wow, cold drip, they'll do.
Whatever the fuck.
You want a nice, nice.
It's top, top notch.
What about um?
Can you converse with people inEnglish?
(03:40):
Young people, you can.
I say that.
I mean it's not expected thateveryone should speak English,
but no, young people, you can Isay that I mean it's not
expected that everyone shouldspeak English, but no young
people speaking.
You can ask.
You can ask.
Older people speak Russian.
Younger people speak Kazakh andEnglish.
Okay, so it is.
There's been a decided move totry and make um Kazakh culture
more of a thing, right, not justthe little brother of Russia.
Okay, so it's been reallypushed that young people speak
(04:03):
Kazakh as well as English.
What about the australian accent?
Does it get you street credover there?
No, you just.
They just think you're american.
Fuck, like you just.
Nah, it's fine, it's spilling,nah, it's all good.
I, we get street crediteverywhere we go, uh, everywhere
else, everywhere else, but, uh,no, kazakhstan.
Um, the streets don't care,okay, just another white guy.
(04:24):
Last one, what's the foodsituation like?
Generally?
Okay, so Kazakhstan is a Muslimnation, so you are getting no
pork anywhere.
Right, there's no bacon, butyou can get like a beef pastrami
type setup, very nice, which isvery nice.
Yeah, you can get a turkeysausage.
You can get lamb, everything,yeah, skewers, horse meat oh,
(04:49):
horse meat's a bit of a deal,yeah, so we ended up getting
some horse meat on the last daylike a Kazakhstan banquet type
setup.
How was that?
Ah, yeah, good, probably alittle bit overcooked, to be
honest, very lean it, to behonest, very lean.
It is lean, but they serve italmost like it.
Not a salami, but it's I didn'thave.
You can get a horse steak, butit was cut more into strips,
more like a?
(05:09):
Um, not a salami, but it's likea, like an Osso Bucco type,
like you know, like thin slicedsegments of meat, cross section
yeah, let's get a look at thatcross section.
It was served on a big flatnoodle, like a really big flat
noodle, and you pour a brothover it.
Fuck yeah, oh, it was amazing.
(05:30):
And they did a ton of dumplingsand, yeah, a bunch of skewers.
Okay, a lot of nice spices.
Fuck, yeah, you're selling meKazakhstan.
Oh, no, definitely.
I can recommend to anyone ifyou're watching this, even
though it sounds like a weirdplace to go.
They, freaking, love grappling,they love jujitsu and they are
very lovely people, right?
So you did mention that whenwe're chatting before that
(05:52):
grapplers are revered.
They are, oh man, we had peoplecoming up to us in the streets
like, oh you, oh, team aleone.
Like, oh, oh, you're here foreager.
Like you know, the kids wantyou to sign their fucking face.
Yeah, wow.
They're like, can you sign myhead?
I'll get a tattoo.
You're like, oh, I don't knowif I recommend that.
You know, draw on my arm.
Like they love it, they'll giveyou their belt, sign their belt
(06:14):
.
Like it's just the fandom forgrappling.
And this event is really big inKazakhstan, or in Almaty at
least.
How long has AIGA been runningfor?
This is the third season, whichmeans sixth year.
It's biannually, so they do aqualifier year and then they do
the competition year, right, andyeah, look Like a qualifier,
(06:38):
like in the right, a qualifierand a championship every year.
So they do a qualifier one yearat different parts of the world
and then they have thechampionship the following year.
Oh, I see, kind of similar toADCC.
Yeah, right, you could say itis the ADCC of Europe, even
though ADCC is everywhere.
Yeah, they do their qualifierin Brazil, they do qualifiers in
(07:01):
the US, they do a qualifier inAsia, and so, bringing all these
teams together, it was, um, andlook, there's obviously a lot
of stuff going on in the worldright now.
So from the get-go there wasdrama, because obviously bombs
are getting dropped left, rightand center talison sores, who
was meant to be, you know,coming in.
He was originally part of TeamAcai Republic.
(07:23):
He then switched teams to Kasai.
He was stuck in Qatar airportfor almost two days, oh shit.
Yeah, declan Moody also.
Did Taliesin make it over?
I think he did.
I did see him on the last day,right, but he didn't compete or
anything.
He was just there as part ofthe team Declan.
Declan didn't.
(07:45):
The Australian government issued, like when Iran bombed an empty
building in Qatar, and so Doha,where the airport is, Declan
was flying from Texas, I believeto come and join Team Aleone.
He was in Qatar when thathappened, and so the australian
government put out this wholething.
(08:05):
All australians have to be senthome, oh wow.
So he stood in a queue for 24hours to try to get because he's
also got an english passport tosee if he could kind of circum
navigate that nonsense, notnonsense, it was legit.
But no, they sent him home.
Fuck, he would have been spewing.
Oh my god, like we could.
(08:25):
We definitely could have usedhim, but uh, it's just how it
goes.
You know what did they do toreplace him?
I heard they got.
I heard a fucking rumbling onthe grapevine mate.
Look, they were, that they wereshort, they would have a unit,
they were desperate, they had abit of experience over 91 kilos
and I, someone with the kind oftenacity that would just go.
You know what I'm prepared tothrow down.
(08:47):
I'll throw my fucking hat inthe ring because I don't know
any better.
Whatever I lack in skill, Imake up for in flexibility and
willingness to fucking bang.
Look, when you meet jujitsugiant Big Dan from New Wave,
he's the biggest human you'veever seen.
Yeah, he's six foot seven, Ithink he's 130, 140, like he is
(09:11):
legitimately a giant, nice guy,by the way, I did chat to him.
Um yeah, but andrew tackettbeat him.
Bro, frightening, fright,frightening human.
I mean.
He, he lost matches, he wonmatches, he, he ripped.
So she's relaxed as he, is heto meet in person like he's,
he's, he's I.
I actually found him very easyto chat to.
But whatever, we have mutualfriends.
You know I I was willing totake the step.
(09:35):
I said to team management hey,you got no one, fucking chuck me
in, I'm, I'm here, but it's aprofessional jiu-jitsu
organization.
It would actually look bad onthem for them to put me out
there.
You know they need a namebecause you need these matches.
So they got Big Ian Dorb fromIan is a friend of PJ Barch's.
He trains at.
(09:56):
He's got his own gym which islike 10th Planet Poe Way, but he
also trains at Legion.
You've probably seen him in abunch of clips.
But he also trains at Legion.
You've probably seen him in abunch of clips.
He's a huge human, 120 kilos ofpure muscle.
Looks the part was a wrestler,high school collegiate wrestler.
He was the guy they werelooking at getting him and what?
(10:16):
They just caught him up, flewhim in, yeah, like within two
days they got him there yeah,wow, and you know, paid him to
be there and all that caper.
But unfortunately he got leglocked in under a minute.
Oh yeah, fuck, it's so brutal.
That's what it is, man Like Imean when you're playing that
game.
So look, unfortunately I didn'tget to make my debut this time.
(10:37):
Fuck, I was.
I went.
When you told me of thatscenario, I was like this is is
like kit dale, like we've seen.
It's a last resurgence scenario.
I'm like jt's coming back.
I actually think I could havedone a bit.
My leg lock defense.
Credit to ian.
In is a beast, but he doesn'tknow anything about leg locks,
right, and he turned and it gotcranked on.
(11:00):
And if, if, the jujitsu gianthad pulled guard on me, I would
have lasted more in the minute,that's for sure.
I can, yeah, 100 like.
I know how to defend leg locks.
It's not, I look like I saidit's.
It's.
It's a scary thing to stand infront of that big man.
Yeah, it's frightening to thinkyou've got to wrestle this guy,
but he pulled guard and he canrip your fucking leg off.
(11:22):
And, um, dan manchild is goodfriends with him.
They're training partners atNew Wave.
He didn't want to go againsthim, so it was going to be
Manchild trains at New Wave,does he?
Yeah, so he was like no, I'mnot going to he's my friend
Manchild.
Dan Manchild and Dan thejujitsu giant, manasoyo,
manasoyo.
Yes, not to be-.
Two different Dans, two verydifferent Dans.
One is the man-child, one is agiant, both are large humans.
(11:46):
One is significantly larger.
One is 100 kilos, one is 130kilos.
Yeah, that's the hard thing.
With Aiga, it's just 91 kilosplus Right.
So you better bring a bigmotherfucker to that fight.
Fuck, it would have been greatto see Declan go against a guy
like that.
It would have been greatbecause, also, declan is B-team
and they're most Manasuias andNew Wave and those.
(12:08):
Neither of the twain shall meetunless it's like this.
So, yeah, it would have been agreat matchup, fuck, okay.
So you didn't get the call-up,unfortunately not.
So were there other athletesthat were, you know, unable to
make it?
Yeah, a bunch of athletesdidn't show up, like people were
(12:29):
scrambling to fill rosters.
I think, like 10th planet hadoriginally put their hat in the
ring to have a team and thenthey withdrew because it was it
was going to be too hard to geteverybody across.
Oh really, yeah, check, mattput in a team last minute and
they also put in another Russianteam last minute.
Like it was amazing to thinkthat we were actually able to
get a team of, you know, 14all-stars there, so 14 athletes
(12:51):
in Team Alley-Own.
So here's the great thing TeamAlley-Own is very well organized
as a professional team.
So they had a nutritionist,they had a cook, they had me as
the strength conditioning coach,they had substitutes.
A bunch of teams just had oneguy per category, but you could
get.
You could getutes.
A bunch of teams just had oneguy per category, but you could
get injured.
You know, you could do yourfirst match, get injured.
I mean that's fucking, yeah.
(13:11):
I mean that's very professional.
They had one substitute forevery position.
Yes, wow.
And did any of the subs getused?
Yeah, yeah, everyone got achance.
Oh really, yeah, yeah.
So, for example, we had Dyke,and Dyke put on amazing matches.
He won two matches and he wasfit enough to have done the
third, but he said no, I've donemy job, we'll let Jack have a
(13:33):
run.
So Relentless Worldwide, my guyJack, he got out there and did
his thing.
Unfortunately he didn't get thewin, but it was very tough
fighting Team Universal, solet's do the timeline.
Um, when we got there, we didn'tknow who we're going up against
.
They did the draw, they let youknow who's there and first
round we got team acai republicand team I have micah.
(13:54):
Uh, well, originally they did,but, uh, mika govon pulled out
right, they had hulk.
Uh, they had, uh, your Gracie,your Natas Gracie.
Oh yeah, they had a few peopleright, formidable but cowardly.
Oh yeah, fucking oath,controversial.
Well, he was meant to roll, hewas meant to go.
(14:15):
So we matched up against themand ran a train on them and the
last match was well, hulk didn'tshow up, he went for a hike,
some people's version of runninga.
All submissions, like, actually,one of them was not a
submission, because you're notdisgraced, he was there and
chose to not compete, chose tonot compete Against PJ Barch.
(14:36):
Why?
Because he's a fucking coward,because he would think this.
They've never fought right.
It's a real matchup betweenthose two guys.
I think PJ has his number andpsychologically it shows that he
does that.
He wouldn't.
But he wouldn't have got a goodamount of money to win or lose
that match.
So he's like I'm going to savethis, I'm going to save this for
(14:57):
like a who's number one andmaybe get 10 G's or something
which makes sense, but you'vebeen paid money to be there.
That's not very Gracie, is it?
Well, fucking, it is whatever.
Watching Jonatas compete, he'san animal.
I think PJ's got it all overhim and it just showed that he
wasn't even willing to get outthere.
He was at the comp, he lined up, right.
(15:17):
I mean, hulk just went hiking.
He literally just went peaceout, I'm going hiking, I'm not
coming back.
And he live streamed himselfhiking.
He did his, he did Well.
He just decided not to go.
Yeah, why Wasn't getting paidenough?
I don't know.
Just give him a fuck, jeez.
Yeah, I think Things getconfusing once money's involved.
I think folks Maybe they didn'tget as well looked after as
(15:39):
they had hoped.
Right, they were not getting thesame treatment we were getting
Right, because that comes downto each team.
Yeah, the team manager, teamowner.
It's like the NRL wars of thelate 80s.
You know they need some kind ofsalary cap so that you know you
don't get this fucking jealousybetween teams.
It's not even that, it's morethat they had fucking kit kats
(16:00):
at the breakfast buffet.
Well, no, they would.
They would, they gave, they got.
We spoke to them because we hadour photo shoot.
So here's the thing.
It's very professional in termsof like the ufc.
It's like there's media day, so, weigh-in, you have media day
where you get photos taken andvideo taken, team, everything
right.
And Team Masai was after us andthen after them was Team Kasai.
(16:21):
So we were kind of all goingthrough the same art studio
photography joint in the city.
Anyway, check out the vlog ifyou want to see behind the
scenes.
And Hulk is Team Aleon in termsof being sponsored.
So he showed up and he was likeoh, what's up?
Boys Chatting very friendly andthey were talking about.
(16:41):
And he was like, oh, who's thisguy talking about me?
And they're like, oh, that'sour strength conditioning coach.
He's like you guys got afucking strength conditioning
coach.
He's like we're lucky to evenhave a hotel and some fucking
meal vouchers.
Yeah, wow, they were notgetting looked after, allegedly,
but the morale was very low.
So we came through big energy,big team, because we'd already
(17:03):
spent like almost eight daystogether hanging out.
There was very good teambonding, everyone was supporting
and cheering for each other andwe just fucking smashed it.
Yeah, wow, very good teambonding.
Everyone was supporting andcheering for each other and we
just fucking smashed them.
Yeah, wow.
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Yeah, so that highlight clipthat posted on the Instagram.
That was round like the firstmatch, first rounds, right,
first round, clean sweeps.
Yeah, 2 million submittedeveryone, all submissions, nice
it was.
I sent you that text messageand I said tell the guys to
submit everyone and I let themknow.
(18:13):
And they said do it for Joey,no.
And we got in and out of there,like we got in just clean,
swept the team in under 50minutes and then left the
building.
How many matches?
Five, six, seven matches total.
But Yonatas pulled out of thelast match, okay, and I think PJ
was a bit filthy about that,because he warmed up and he was
(18:36):
G'd up.
So Yonatas pulled out becausethat match didn't matter because
their team had already lost.
Yeah, they'd already lost.
So there was nothing to gain,not particularly.
And did Yonatas' team have achance to no, it's done, it's
done.
Yeah.
To no, it's done, it's done,yeah.
Okay, it makes a little bitmore sense to me.
I still think it was poor form.
(18:56):
I mean, it's poor, it's not inthe spirit, but I do get it.
I guess, as a professional, Ifeel like, look, I'm risking
getting hurt and damaging mybrand and there's nothing to
gain Except for fucking pride.
Anyway, not to worry.
I mean mean this is what youget, though, right with
professionalization.
Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Yeah, yeah.
But I mean he did get paid tobe there.
He made a tough choice.
No, he did get paid to be there.
(19:17):
So if you're paid to be there,do your fucking job, yeah, but I
already got paid.
You showed up, so do your job,yeah, but I guess maybe that's
something.
Hey, we'll pay you the secondhalf once you do all your
matches.
I don't know, anyway.
So I say what you will.
Moving on to day two Okay, so,seven matches.
We got back to the hotel andthey were only on to the second
(19:39):
or third match of William's teamversus the Russians.
Yeah, and you know they beatthem, but they took ages because
, like, the matches that were ondidn't go the distance with us.
So we just got finished.
Next guy, finished, next guy,yeah, so we Winner stays on, or
nah, no, no, no, it's, it's,it's.
Uh, you have a lightweightrepresentative?
Yeah, right, so you do yourmatch, whatever the outcome.
(20:01):
That guy gets off.
Next guy, next guy.
So next day we had williams team, which were the favorites,
madolfo team, which had been nowthe new sponsor, was williams
elite, and that is team new wave, and so we're like as in, like
it's basically the new wave guys, yeah, right, and so, yeah, we
(20:24):
shaped up for that.
That was um, and it was veryclose.
Actually, they went up a match.
We won a match like like it wasquite back and forth and there
was a very controversial matchbetween Dante Leon and DeAndre
Corbet and DeAndre really put iton Dante.
Dante couldn't do what hewanted and very close match it
(20:46):
ended up being.
I think the end score was maybe2-2 each or 0-0 across all
three rounds, but there was amoment where Dante wrestled up
and was trying to take him downand they're kind of on the feet.
I believe they're on the feetfor three seconds, right.
So when DeAndre got a bigUchimata and fucking slammed
(21:06):
Dante, I was like that's twopoints.
But the refs judged it as acontinuation no points, oh right
.
And then when it came to adecision, they gave it to Dante.
That was the difference in TeamAlley-Own beating Team Williams.
Right, that meant that TeamWilliams won.
Yeah, shame.
(21:28):
Yeah, because, yeah, like itwas.
I saw a highlight of that.
I think people were worried.
Exciting match Because, yeah,like it was, it was.
We saw a highlight.
I think people were worried.
Exciting match.
People will, I guess, from Aliown's perspective, or like shit,
these guys are the favorites.
But when you put it out thereand you go match versus match,
we actually had some really goodopposition there and, um, we
could have, yeah, it could.
It actually came down to thelast match, which was Wojcik.
(21:51):
If, yeah, it could have goneeither way.
It was three, three each.
Yeah, um, chris Wojcik uh,versus, uh, isaac Michelle, ah,
and Isaac Michelle was on one.
Yeah, wow, and he got a veryquick armbar, unfortunately.
Fuck, he's a great performerand I feel bad because the Woj
(22:11):
is a legend and I feel like hehad the game to beat.
He could have leg locked, butit went the way it went.
So they won.
Team Williams went through tothe final and they went.
Team Kasai beat UniversalFighters, universal Soldiers
crew, the Cyborgs, and so wefought a team universal fighters
(22:32):
in there for bronze, yeah, okay, which we won.
Very tough, like, the universalfighters crew made everyone eat
shit.
They really pushed team Kasaibecause they're really good at
wrestling, they're really goodat the rule set and they're very
hard to leg lock.
Who was in that team?
Uh, everyone from Dagestan.
Fuck yeah, that was like theywere Just a bunch of hard cunts,
(22:59):
the toughest guys and okay.
So here's a funny story.
We had a under 60 kilo guycalled Shakmanov, or Muhammad
Shakmanov, who's an MMA fighterand had previously beaten
someone on team Alley-Oan.
Right, he got recruited to teamAlley-Oan but he trained with
us.
He never hung out with us andhe was always in the corner of
(23:22):
Team Universal Fighters becausethat's his team, they're his
boys from Dagestan.
He's from the same hometown asKhabib, so he trained with you
guys, he trained with us, but henever hung out besides them.
A spy, yeah, right, absolutely.
Like he was wearing our teamlogo and he got into a fight
with Team Kasai wearing TeamAlion fucking gear.
He wasn't happy with Diego Patobecause Diego Pato did a heel
(23:45):
hook on his friend and the guywouldn't tap and so Pato cranked
it and broke dude's leg and, ashe did, he was like, just
fucking tap.
Pato said that, yeah, because,like, the guy was like, oh, you
broke my leg and he was justlike, ah.
So Shakmanov got really upset,got on stage in our gear,
fucking faced up and shoved thefuck out of Pato.
(24:08):
Oh, wow, he started like abrawl, wow, and I was like, bro,
somebody get your boy.
Like he shouldn't be wearingour team flag, like he's being
paid to be here.
He's a mad disruptor.
He's on their team.
Like how he would never shapeup again like he would if he was
training with you guys.
And then at what point was itlike, hey, you're not on as soon
as we got there?
(24:28):
Well, no, he didn't.
No one said that.
I said that.
I said take the shirt off him,fuck him off right, because he's
in their corner, he's cheeringfor them, he's coaching for them
, yeah, and then we had to fightthem in the.
In the, so you reckon wasgathering data?
No, he wasn't, he's just loyal.
He's a loyal guy, he supportshis team.
They're his boys, he grew upwith them.
They're his boys.
But he was being paid to be onour team, so I figured he could
(24:50):
have at least sat in our corner,which he did not.
Oh, I see what you Right, ah,tricky one isn't his money, it's
tricky, he's not supporting theteam.
Tricky that there's like these,um, whatever loyalties, divided
tribal alliances.
But then it's like, oh, maybeyou paid to be here.
And, yeah, I look at.
It was hilarious to see him onstage fully starting like a diaz
(25:11):
brothers-esque fight, uh, inour uniform.
It's like this fucking guy andit was funny because, um, andrew
, uh, alion, who owns bali, mma,like I, like his loyalty, he'll
fight for his boys.
I'm like dude, fuck this guy,don't pay him, like he's being
paid to be there.
I was like, yeah, so what wentdown post-event?
(25:32):
No, no, no.
So how it transpired is TeamKasai smashed Team Williams.
Right, they beat them 6-1.
That's pretty convincing, dude,I tell you, fucking Roberto
Jimenez had his way with fuckingBaldoni.
Oh, really Smashed him Really,bro, wow, bro, wild, wild action
(25:54):
.
And Jason Nolfe gotdisqualified for slamming.
I saw he slammed a dude.
Well, he slammed a guy fromTriangle.
He slammed Pato from triangle.
He asked if he could do that.
He's like, can I slam him?
And they're like, nah, not fromclose guard.
And he did it anyway.
And he was like, oh no, I justfell to my knees, bro, it was
vicious, it was a bit.
And Dan Mansoyo pulled.
Oh, I didn't know I was goingto get pedalized.
(26:14):
I'm like, bro, read the fuckingrule book.
Dog, like I, fucking.
I love Big Dan, I love thejiu-jitsu giant.
I actually get on with him verywell.
(26:35):
So, full respect, he's a legend, but what a brain snap.
Um.
So, yeah, team Kasai won, theywon the, they won half mil.
And, uh, team Alion beat upuniversal fighters.
It was very lucky because thereffing was super dodgy.
Right, they the, the Russians,it would be stalling, or the
(26:58):
Dagestanis would be stalling andthe referee would call a
stalling call and they put astalling clock so they have to
be active within 20 seconds orsomething, and at 19 seconds
they'd wave it off right.
Every time, every time they andthen they would call stalling
on on the guy who was activelytrying to get submissions or do
something.
Yeah, right, it was fucking oneruskies.
Yeah, it was wild action, sothey had to.
It was lucky that um teamaleone boys are good at
(27:19):
submissions.
They got a bunch of submissionsand that's why we won.
Wow, fuck, I look cool man.
Oh, dude, the production wasgreat.
They even had a guy rapping inKazakh at halftime.
Freestyle rapping was actuallypretty good.
Were you cooked at the end ofthe two days?
Yeah, it was fucked.
It was fucked.
It didn't finish till 3 am.
Wow, yeah, then you're theretill 3 am and, in terms of the
(27:41):
vibe, similar to like site, likeas big as adcc no, tiny it's.
The production looks massive,but the stadium itself is very
small, right, uh, it's much of alive crowd.
Um, I think initially there waslike a lot of fans, a lot of
kids.
Kids want you to they.
Actually, they want you to givethem their.
Give you, give them your rashguard, right?
They're like, sir, sir, give mea rash guard, right?
(28:02):
They're like, sir, sir, give meyour rash guard.
Yeah, well, maybe I want it.
Maybe I just fucking want it,man, I'm a fan too.
Maybe I want a million bucks inthis rash guard, bro.
Maybe I don't want to give itto you.
And they're asking me for myhat.
They wanted me to sign theirface.
You were in the red hat, weren?
That thing I do I do to keep itfresh.
You know you got to have.
(28:22):
You know, you know it is.
If you, you got your favorite.
You know those fucking saltmarks.
Nah, the salt mark gets a bit.
And I was sweating.
Yeah, I was fucking, I'm bad, Iwas screaming, bro.
Even the Russians, the veryunemotional Russians, were like
Wow, yeah, it was.
(28:44):
It was a huge energy.
But by the time it got to 2 am,3 am, where everyone was pretty
cooked, but the finish, wherethey shoot out the gold confetti
and they have that.
So the, the owner of um iegabrings out a million dollars in
a fucking leather bag in usdollars and empties it into this
big glass case.
Look at this big shield whichis the prize.
It's awesome, like amazingevent, um.
And so then afterwards, peopleripping it up, partying or
(29:06):
what's going on.
Right, everyone's fuckingcooked half the half.
The city's closed.
You do breakfast beers the nextday or some shit.
3 am on a sunday?
Well, what are we going onmonday afternoon?
Well, no, no, we we did.
We went out for like a kind ofkazakh-esque feast.
A couple people had to go tothe airport straight from the
thing, right, but yeah, we wentto this Everyone keeps it pretty
clean, I'm guessing.
(29:26):
Well, it's a Muslim nation.
Yeah, I mean, you can do whatyou want, but most people are
not drinking.
Yeah, but yeah, we went out andwe had horsemeat and dumplings
and I had a pizza, because,fucking, have a pizza.
Wow, yeah, have a pizza.
Um, wow, yeah, it was cool.
It was cool.
That's why your coat looks soglossy today.
(29:47):
No, that's from all the uhargan oil.
It's from all my, from all myessential oils I acquired from
over there frankincense andmyrrh, all of that, oh, wow, no,
it's people, people, people,people present.
Well, people dress up nice,they smell nice, like people.
Yeah, I was very impressed bythe standard in Almaty.
Like the cafes, the shops,everything, the standard is
(30:10):
incredibly high.
Now, obviously, we were stayingout in the mountains.
It's very rural, can't drinkthe tap water Very different
scenario, but in the city,beautiful.
But yeah, we had this big kindof banquet to finish, we checked
out of our cabins and we wentand stayed in the group house
with the russians, which waspretty dope.
Yeah, I had a big sauna there,like that's, where everybody was
cutting weight and um, yeah, itwas.
(30:31):
It was cool, but it was like abit like jujitsu od, similar to
what we had experienced with cjiand adcc, because I'm the thing
is, when you hang out withfull-time jujitsu athletes,
that's all I want to talk aboutand do so.
Everybody was re-watching thelive stream the next day and I
was like, oh, it's a bitbreaking it down, oh, it's a bit
much like yeah, but it was.
(30:53):
It was phenomenal to have thetime to be there in person,
because it feels so different tobe there and see it and not
know the outcome, versuswatching it later.
Who's your new best friend?
Pj Barge?
No, devontae Me, and Devontaegot into it hard.
Devontae Bones Johnson.
(31:13):
Right on, he's the man.
He's from Unity.
Right, he is from Unity.
Good best mates with Levi.
Okay, they came up together.
Yeah, I remember watching him.
He always stood out becausehe's so fucking big.
He's so big, so tall and hisgame is he smashed everybody at
his weight, like he's.
He's a scary prospect at 205,like the 90 kilo category.
(31:34):
And who's your new enemy?
I don't, I don't have any newenemies.
Look, think If you had to pickone.
No, oh, nikolai, fuck youNikolai.
So there's this guy.
Nikolai was a nutritionist.
He's very good.
He was part of 10th PlanetMoscow.
I think he's very good.
I didn't realize how good hewas.
(31:56):
He just seemed like a slim,muscular, cauliflower-eared,
square-jawed GI Russiancauliflower eared, square jawed
gi russian right.
And he plays like madbirambolos and leg locks his
shells like fuck man, this guy'sgood, try to leg lock me on the
first day and I was like holyshit, this guy's real good.
This nutrition coach has gotsome shit.
He has got some shit, bro.
And everyone's like yeah,nicola is good bro.
Like don't, don't, he's.
(32:17):
He could be on the team.
Like, as much as he's anutritionist, he could sub in.
Right, and I had to, he didn'tcatch.
Be on the team.
Like as much as he's anutritionist.
He could sub in Right and I hadto.
He didn't catch me on the firstday, um, but he got me.
Later he came up to me he'skind of halfway through the
training he said, oh man, I'mtired.
And I was like cool bro.
He's like no, I'm like allright, bam, fucking blast double
(32:41):
cover.
I was like fuck you, it wasfucking on, I end up getting.
I finished with the takedown,thankfully, and I squashed the
fuck out of him.
But he ended up catching me ina hill hook and I was like fuck
you, you got tapped by a skinnynutritionist.
Yeah, bro, yeah, he lied to me.
I can't believe you admittedthat, live on air.
But I bashed him for that.
I was like, all right, I'llroll you 100%.
(33:01):
Don't be a cunt, don't lie, donot trust a Russian when they
say they're tired.
They're not tired.
They want you to think they'retired.
That's psychological warfare.
Nah, man, nah, the Russians aretough as shit.
All of them are tough.
Yeah, I had a role withShakmanov, the guy unstoppable,
wrestling so fast.
(33:24):
You can't get anything on thatguy.
The only guy I saw take himdown was DeAndre.
Deandre had an amazingperformance.
Yeah, I made a lot of friends.
I think I'm friends with allthose guys.
Shout out PJ Bartsch, you know Ilove you honey.
California kid PJ got sick ofme by the end.
But you kid PJ got sick of meby the end.
(33:46):
But I think I really did learnto appreciate being more relaxed
from PJ.
He's the most laid back catever.
I was like, wow, I wish I couldbe cool like PJ.
I wish I was so self-assuredlike him.
He's so relaxed man.
He doesn't give a fuck at all.
The epitome of no fucks givenis PJ Barge.
And he's so good at jujitsu.
I mean, he's chain smokingthose zins though he's like,
(34:06):
like, explains it to me, is itjust the nicotine, right?
So people are chasing it as abit of a stimulant focus.
Yeah, yeah, locking in.
Uh bro, he was just non-stopwith those things.
And yeah, to just see himwearing women's gym pants he
chooses like he bought those Yep.
And just his saunter, his swag,which is just so fucking laid
(34:31):
back, it's impressive.
And to watch him justabsolutely frustrate the fuck
out of a high level Russianwrestler, impeccable, yeah, fuck
, yeah.
It was inspiring.
He's one of the fucking sickest, one of my favorite grapplers
to watch these days, for sure,in my opinion, I think he's the
best guy at that weight.
What is it?
85?
83.
83.
Yeah, I think he's better thanMika.
Like, he got ripped off in thatmatch in ADCC.
(34:52):
He beat Mika Govan in thatmatch.
Mika got the decision.
No, I have huge faith in theButter Panther, even though he
may not love me.
But that's all right, he knowswe're friends.
That's what your friendshipsare like.
Yeah, slightly antagonistic.
No, I get on with everybody,but I think it was just one of
(35:14):
those things that he's just sucha big dog.
He didn't like my intensity.
I find that hard to believe.
A lot like Joey actually, Ithink there are some distinct
similarities between PJ, bartand Joey on a personal level.
I see you, pj, I see you Laidback, nice guys just can't
handle how full on I am Shut up,fuckhead On that note.
(35:37):
Amazing, great trip, bro.
Sick Kazakhstan On the next oneShoo.
A good martial artist does not become tense, but
ready.
Essentially, at this point, thefight is over, so you pretty
much flow with the goal.
Who is worthy to be trustedwith the secret to limitless
power?
I'm ready.
(00:27):
The Kazakhstan Chronicles yes,indeed, ladies and gentlemen, I
was recently in Kazakhstan forthe AIGA Championships.
My voice has barely recoveredfrom screaming my lungs out.
It was a lot of excitement, alot of interesting discoveries.
(00:48):
If you've never been toKazakhstan and yeah, I just I
got to witness some of the bestgrappling I've ever seen and
just got to witness firsthandhow much people love jujitsu
over there.
Now, just to clarify a littlebit of cultural context of about
Kazakhstan yes, I think whatmost of us know of it is what
(01:08):
Borat exposed us, to which Ithink I was quite blown away to
discover that Borat was, in fact, not a documentary no, not at
all.
And not the most accuratedescription or depiction of
Kazakhstan or the Kazakhakhpeople they're in.
No, not at all.
And I think the thing thatpeople probably don't understand
is that kazakhstan has come along way in the last 10, 20
(01:32):
years, like it's uh, it'sprobably.
It's not the little backwatervillage that borat portrayed, no
, and it's massive, thriving.
It's a nation, huge, like LikeKazakhstan, as a landmass is, I
think, the biggest of the standslike it's right next to
Kyrgyzstan, tajikistan, whatever.
It borders on China.
It borders on Russia.
(01:53):
It borders China, does it?
Yeah, well, where I was, whichis in Almaty, is closer to the
China border than it is toRussia.
Wow, it's a it of land andAlmaty's got it going on.
Man, they've got crazy shoppingmalls, they've got people
driving Lamborghinis, they'vegot designer brands Like I was
(02:14):
like so impressed They've gotthese curated gardens and flower
beds.
And I was like, wow, this placeis fucking impressive, man,
it's beautiful, surrounded byall these mountains.
It was awesome.
Like I really rate Almaty.
Now people say that so Almatyused to be the capital of
Kazakhstan and now it is Astanaand that was just a government
(02:36):
move.
Astana is now the capital.
Yeah, it was like 20 years agoand, speaking with the boys from
the Team Aleon, they had goneto Astana and had done the
qualifier there and it wasfreezing cold.
It's more north and they'relike no, it's not a lot of fun,
it's still got a very heavySoviet influence and not as much
(02:57):
of the nightlife, but Almatyit's popping.
Free markets reign supreme inAlmaty.
There's some beautiful peopledoing beautiful things in Almaty
.
I'll tell you what you get thatreally interesting Eurasian mix
.
All right, tell me.
So let's just run the importantones real quick.
What's the coffee?
Like, you can get a good coffee, you can.
(03:18):
We found a cafe called VanillaCafe and once it was found, we
were there every day.
Okay, vanilla Cafe, and we,once it was found, we were there
every day.
Okay, like, we like can justget shit instant coffee, which
is the standard, yeah.
But then we found, like anactual proper cafe where they'll
do pour over, they'll do, oh,wow, cold drip, they'll do.
Whatever the fuck.
You want a nice, nice.
It's top, top notch.
What about um?
Can you converse with people inEnglish?
(03:40):
Young people, you can.
I say that.
I mean it's not expected thateveryone should speak English,
but no, young people, you can Isay that I mean it's not
expected that everyone shouldspeak English, but no young
people speaking.
You can ask.
You can ask.
Older people speak Russian.
Younger people speak Kazakh andEnglish.
Okay, so it is.
There's been a decided move totry and make um Kazakh culture
more of a thing, right, not justthe little brother of Russia.
Okay, so it's been reallypushed that young people speak
(04:03):
Kazakh as well as English.
What about the australian accent?
Does it get you street credover there?
No, you just.
They just think you're american.
Fuck, like you just.
Nah, it's fine, it's spilling,nah, it's all good.
I, we get street crediteverywhere we go, uh, everywhere
else, everywhere else, but, uh,no, kazakhstan.
Um, the streets don't care,okay, just another white guy.
(04:24):
Last one, what's the foodsituation like?
Generally?
Okay, so Kazakhstan is a Muslimnation, so you are getting no
pork anywhere.
Right, there's no bacon, butyou can get like a beef pastrami
type setup, very nice, which isvery nice.
Yeah, you can get a turkeysausage.
You can get lamb, everything,yeah, skewers, horse meat oh,
(04:49):
horse meat's a bit of a deal,yeah, so we ended up getting
some horse meat on the last daylike a Kazakhstan banquet type
setup.
How was that?
Ah, yeah, good, probably alittle bit overcooked, to be
honest, very lean it, to behonest, very lean.
It is lean, but they serve italmost like it.
Not a salami, but it's I didn'thave.
You can get a horse steak, butit was cut more into strips,
more like a?
(05:09):
Um, not a salami, but it's likea, like an Osso Bucco type,
like you know, like thin slicedsegments of meat, cross section
yeah, let's get a look at thatcross section.
It was served on a big flatnoodle, like a really big flat
noodle, and you pour a brothover it.
Fuck yeah, oh, it was amazing.
(05:30):
And they did a ton of dumplingsand, yeah, a bunch of skewers.
Okay, a lot of nice spices.
Fuck, yeah, you're selling meKazakhstan.
Oh, no, definitely.
I can recommend to anyone ifyou're watching this, even
though it sounds like a weirdplace to go.
They, freaking, love grappling,they love jujitsu and they are
very lovely people, right?
So you did mention that whenwe're chatting before that
(05:52):
grapplers are revered.
They are, oh man, we had peoplecoming up to us in the streets
like, oh you, oh, team aleone.
Like, oh, oh, you're here foreager.
Like you know, the kids wantyou to sign their fucking face.
Yeah, wow.
They're like, can you sign myhead?
I'll get a tattoo.
You're like, oh, I don't knowif I recommend that.
You know, draw on my arm.
Like they love it, they'll giveyou their belt, sign their belt
(06:14):
.
Like it's just the fandom forgrappling.
And this event is really big inKazakhstan, or in Almaty at
least.
How long has AIGA been runningfor?
This is the third season, whichmeans sixth year.
It's biannually, so they do aqualifier year and then they do
the competition year, right, andyeah, look Like a qualifier,
(06:38):
like in the right, a qualifierand a championship every year.
So they do a qualifier one yearat different parts of the world
and then they have thechampionship the following year.
Oh, I see, kind of similar toADCC.
Yeah, right, you could say itis the ADCC of Europe, even
though ADCC is everywhere.
Yeah, they do their qualifierin Brazil, they do qualifiers in
(07:01):
the US, they do a qualifier inAsia, and so, bringing all these
teams together, it was, um, andlook, there's obviously a lot
of stuff going on in the worldright now.
So from the get-go there wasdrama, because obviously bombs
are getting dropped left, rightand center talison sores, who
was meant to be, you know,coming in.
He was originally part of TeamAcai Republic.
(07:23):
He then switched teams to Kasai.
He was stuck in Qatar airportfor almost two days, oh shit.
Yeah, declan Moody also.
Did Taliesin make it over?
I think he did.
I did see him on the last day,right, but he didn't compete or
anything.
He was just there as part ofthe team Declan.
Declan didn't.
(07:45):
The Australian government issued, like when Iran bombed an empty
building in Qatar, and so Doha,where the airport is, Declan
was flying from Texas, I believeto come and join Team Aleone.
He was in Qatar when thathappened, and so the australian
government put out this wholething.
(08:05):
All australians have to be senthome, oh wow.
So he stood in a queue for 24hours to try to get because he's
also got an english passport tosee if he could kind of circum
navigate that nonsense, notnonsense, it was legit.
But no, they sent him home.
Fuck, he would have been spewing.
Oh my god, like we could.
(08:25):
We definitely could have usedhim, but uh, it's just how it
goes.
You know what did they do toreplace him?
I heard they got.
I heard a fucking rumbling onthe grapevine mate.
Look, they were, that they wereshort, they would have a unit,
they were desperate, they had abit of experience over 91 kilos
and I, someone with the kind oftenacity that would just go.
You know what I'm prepared tothrow down.
(08:47):
I'll throw my fucking hat inthe ring because I don't know
any better.
Whatever I lack in skill, Imake up for in flexibility and
willingness to fucking bang.
Look, when you meet jujitsugiant Big Dan from New Wave,
he's the biggest human you'veever seen.
Yeah, he's six foot seven, Ithink he's 130, 140, like he is
(09:11):
legitimately a giant, nice guy,by the way, I did chat to him.
Um yeah, but andrew tackettbeat him.
Bro, frightening, fright,frightening human.
I mean.
He, he lost matches, he wonmatches, he, he ripped.
So she's relaxed as he, is heto meet in person like he's,
he's, he's I.
I actually found him very easyto chat to.
But whatever, we have mutualfriends.
You know I I was willing totake the step.
(09:35):
I said to team management hey,you got no one, fucking chuck me
in, I'm, I'm here, but it's aprofessional jiu-jitsu
organization.
It would actually look bad onthem for them to put me out
there.
You know they need a namebecause you need these matches.
So they got Big Ian Dorb fromIan is a friend of PJ Barch's.
He trains at.
(09:56):
He's got his own gym which islike 10th Planet Poe Way, but he
also trains at Legion.
You've probably seen him in abunch of clips.
But he also trains at Legion.
You've probably seen him in abunch of clips.
He's a huge human, 120 kilos ofpure muscle.
Looks the part was a wrestler,high school collegiate wrestler.
He was the guy they werelooking at getting him and what?
(10:16):
They just caught him up, flewhim in, yeah, like within two
days they got him there yeah,wow, and you know, paid him to
be there and all that caper.
But unfortunately he got leglocked in under a minute.
Oh yeah, fuck, it's so brutal.
That's what it is, man Like Imean when you're playing that
game.
So look, unfortunately I didn'tget to make my debut this time.
(10:37):
Fuck, I was.
I went.
When you told me of thatscenario, I was like this is is
like kit dale, like we've seen.
It's a last resurgence scenario.
I'm like jt's coming back.
I actually think I could havedone a bit.
My leg lock defense.
Credit to ian.
In is a beast, but he doesn'tknow anything about leg locks,
right, and he turned and it gotcranked on.
(11:00):
And if, if, the jujitsu gianthad pulled guard on me, I would
have lasted more in the minute,that's for sure.
I can, yeah, 100 like.
I know how to defend leg locks.
It's not, I look like I saidit's.
It's.
It's a scary thing to stand infront of that big man.
Yeah, it's frightening to thinkyou've got to wrestle this guy,
but he pulled guard and he canrip your fucking leg off.
(11:22):
And, um, dan manchild is goodfriends with him.
They're training partners atNew Wave.
He didn't want to go againsthim, so it was going to be
Manchild trains at New Wave,does he?
Yeah, so he was like no, I'mnot going to he's my friend
Manchild.
Dan Manchild and Dan thejujitsu giant, manasoyo,
manasoyo.
Yes, not to be-.
Two different Dans, two verydifferent Dans.
One is the man-child, one is agiant, both are large humans.
(11:46):
One is significantly larger.
One is 100 kilos, one is 130kilos.
Yeah, that's the hard thing.
With Aiga, it's just 91 kilosplus Right.
So you better bring a bigmotherfucker to that fight.
Fuck, it would have been greatto see Declan go against a guy
like that.
It would have been greatbecause, also, declan is B-team
and they're most Manasuias andNew Wave and those.
(12:08):
Neither of the twain shall meetunless it's like this.
So, yeah, it would have been agreat matchup, fuck, okay.
So you didn't get the call-up,unfortunately not.
So were there other athletesthat were, you know, unable to
make it?
Yeah, a bunch of athletesdidn't show up, like people were
(12:29):
scrambling to fill rosters.
I think, like 10th planet hadoriginally put their hat in the
ring to have a team and thenthey withdrew because it was it
was going to be too hard to geteverybody across.
Oh really, yeah, check, mattput in a team last minute and
they also put in another Russianteam last minute.
Like it was amazing to thinkthat we were actually able to
get a team of, you know, 14all-stars there, so 14 athletes
(12:51):
in Team Alley-Own.
So here's the great thing TeamAlley-Own is very well organized
as a professional team.
So they had a nutritionist,they had a cook, they had me as
the strength conditioning coach,they had substitutes.
A bunch of teams just had oneguy per category, but you could
get.
You could getutes.
A bunch of teams just had oneguy per category, but you could
get injured.
You know, you could do yourfirst match, get injured.
I mean that's fucking, yeah.
(13:11):
I mean that's very professional.
They had one substitute forevery position.
Yes, wow.
And did any of the subs getused?
Yeah, yeah, everyone got achance.
Oh really, yeah, yeah.
So, for example, we had Dyke,and Dyke put on amazing matches.
He won two matches and he wasfit enough to have done the
third, but he said no, I've donemy job, we'll let Jack have a
(13:33):
run.
So Relentless Worldwide, my guyJack, he got out there and did
his thing.
Unfortunately he didn't get thewin, but it was very tough
fighting Team Universal, solet's do the timeline.
Um, when we got there, we didn'tknow who we're going up against
.
They did the draw, they let youknow who's there and first
round we got team acai republicand team I have micah.
(13:54):
Uh, well, originally they did,but, uh, mika govon pulled out
right, they had hulk.
Uh, they had, uh, your Gracie,your Natas Gracie.
Oh yeah, they had a few peopleright, formidable but cowardly.
Oh yeah, fucking oath,controversial.
Well, he was meant to roll, hewas meant to go.
(14:15):
So we matched up against themand ran a train on them and the
last match was well, hulk didn'tshow up, he went for a hike,
some people's version of runninga.
All submissions, like, actually,one of them was not a
submission, because you're notdisgraced, he was there and
chose to not compete, chose tonot compete Against PJ Barch.
(14:36):
Why?
Because he's a fucking coward,because he would think this.
They've never fought right.
It's a real matchup betweenthose two guys.
I think PJ has his number andpsychologically it shows that he
does that.
He wouldn't.
But he wouldn't have got a goodamount of money to win or lose
that match.
So he's like I'm going to savethis, I'm going to save this for
(14:57):
like a who's number one andmaybe get 10 G's or something
which makes sense, but you'vebeen paid money to be there.
That's not very Gracie, is it?
Well, fucking, it is whatever.
Watching Jonatas compete, he'san animal.
I think PJ's got it all overhim and it just showed that he
wasn't even willing to get outthere.
He was at the comp, he lined up, right.
(15:17):
I mean, hulk just went hiking.
He literally just went peaceout, I'm going hiking, I'm not
coming back.
And he live streamed himselfhiking.
He did his, he did Well.
He just decided not to go.
Yeah, why Wasn't getting paidenough?
I don't know.
Just give him a fuck, jeez.
Yeah, I think Things getconfusing once money's involved.
I think folks Maybe they didn'tget as well looked after as
(15:39):
they had hoped.
Right, they were not getting thesame treatment we were getting
Right, because that comes downto each team.
Yeah, the team manager, teamowner.
It's like the NRL wars of thelate 80s.
You know they need some kind ofsalary cap so that you know you
don't get this fucking jealousybetween teams.
It's not even that, it's morethat they had fucking kit kats
(16:00):
at the breakfast buffet.
Well, no, they would.
They would, they gave, they got.
We spoke to them because we hadour photo shoot.
So here's the thing.
It's very professional in termsof like the ufc.
It's like there's media day, so, weigh-in, you have media day
where you get photos taken andvideo taken, team, everything
right.
And Team Masai was after us andthen after them was Team Kasai.
(16:21):
So we were kind of all goingthrough the same art studio
photography joint in the city.
Anyway, check out the vlog ifyou want to see behind the
scenes.
And Hulk is Team Aleon in termsof being sponsored.
So he showed up and he was likeoh, what's up?
Boys Chatting very friendly andthey were talking about.
(16:41):
And he was like, oh, who's thisguy talking about me?
And they're like, oh, that'sour strength conditioning coach.
He's like you guys got afucking strength conditioning
coach.
He's like we're lucky to evenhave a hotel and some fucking
meal vouchers.
Yeah, wow, they were notgetting looked after, allegedly,
but the morale was very low.
So we came through big energy,big team, because we'd already
(17:03):
spent like almost eight daystogether hanging out.
There was very good teambonding, everyone was supporting
and cheering for each other andwe just fucking smashed it.
Yeah, wow, very good teambonding.
Everyone was supporting andcheering for each other and we
just fucking smashed them.
Yeah, wow.
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Yeah, so that highlight clipthat posted on the Instagram.
That was round like the firstmatch, first rounds, right,
first round, clean sweeps.
Yeah, 2 million submittedeveryone, all submissions, nice
it was.
I sent you that text messageand I said tell the guys to
submit everyone and I let themknow.
(18:13):
And they said do it for Joey,no.
And we got in and out of there,like we got in just clean,
swept the team in under 50minutes and then left the
building.
How many matches?
Five, six, seven matches total.
But Yonatas pulled out of thelast match, okay, and I think PJ
was a bit filthy about that,because he warmed up and he was
(18:36):
G'd up.
So Yonatas pulled out becausethat match didn't matter because
their team had already lost.
Yeah, they'd already lost.
So there was nothing to gain,not particularly.
And did Yonatas' team have achance to no, it's done, it's
done.
Yeah.
To no, it's done, it's done,yeah.
Okay, it makes a little bitmore sense to me.
I still think it was poor form.
(18:56):
I mean, it's poor, it's not inthe spirit, but I do get it.
I guess, as a professional, Ifeel like, look, I'm risking
getting hurt and damaging mybrand and there's nothing to
gain Except for fucking pride.
Anyway, not to worry.
I mean mean this is what youget, though, right with
professionalization.
Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Yeah, yeah.
But I mean he did get paid tobe there.
He made a tough choice.
No, he did get paid to be there.
(19:17):
So if you're paid to be there,do your fucking job, yeah, but I
already got paid.
You showed up, so do your job,yeah, but I guess maybe that's
something.
Hey, we'll pay you the secondhalf once you do all your
matches.
I don't know, anyway.
So I say what you will.
Moving on to day two Okay, so,seven matches.
We got back to the hotel andthey were only on to the second
(19:39):
or third match of William's teamversus the Russians.
Yeah, and you know they beatthem, but they took ages because
, like, the matches that were ondidn't go the distance with us.
So we just got finished.
Next guy, finished, next guy,yeah, so we Winner stays on, or
nah, no, no, no, it's, it's,it's.
Uh, you have a lightweightrepresentative?
Yeah, right, so you do yourmatch, whatever the outcome.
(20:01):
That guy gets off.
Next guy, next guy.
So next day we had williams team, which were the favorites,
madolfo team, which had been nowthe new sponsor, was williams
elite, and that is team new wave, and so we're like as in, like
it's basically the new wave guys, yeah, right, and so, yeah, we
(20:24):
shaped up for that.
That was um, and it was veryclose.
Actually, they went up a match.
We won a match like like it wasquite back and forth and there
was a very controversial matchbetween Dante Leon and DeAndre
Corbet and DeAndre really put iton Dante.
Dante couldn't do what hewanted and very close match it
(20:46):
ended up being.
I think the end score was maybe2-2 each or 0-0 across all
three rounds, but there was amoment where Dante wrestled up
and was trying to take him downand they're kind of on the feet.
I believe they're on the feetfor three seconds, right.
So when DeAndre got a bigUchimata and fucking slammed
(21:06):
Dante, I was like that's twopoints.
But the refs judged it as acontinuation no points, oh right
.
And then when it came to adecision, they gave it to Dante.
That was the difference in TeamAlley-Own beating Team Williams.
Right, that meant that TeamWilliams won.
Yeah, shame.
(21:28):
Yeah, because, yeah, like itwas.
I saw a highlight of that.
I think people were worried.
Exciting match Because, yeah,like it was, it was.
We saw a highlight.
I think people were worried.
Exciting match.
People will, I guess, from Aliown's perspective, or like shit,
these guys are the favorites.
But when you put it out thereand you go match versus match,
we actually had some really goodopposition there and, um, we
could have, yeah, it could.
It actually came down to thelast match, which was Wojcik.
(21:51):
If, yeah, it could have goneeither way.
It was three, three each.
Yeah, um, chris Wojcik uh,versus, uh, isaac Michelle, ah,
and Isaac Michelle was on one.
Yeah, wow, and he got a veryquick armbar, unfortunately.
Fuck, he's a great performerand I feel bad because the Woj
(22:11):
is a legend and I feel like hehad the game to beat.
He could have leg locked, butit went the way it went.
So they won.
Team Williams went through tothe final and they went.
Team Kasai beat UniversalFighters, universal Soldiers
crew, the Cyborgs, and so wefought a team universal fighters
(22:32):
in there for bronze, yeah, okay, which we won.
Very tough, like, the universalfighters crew made everyone eat
shit.
They really pushed team Kasaibecause they're really good at
wrestling, they're really goodat the rule set and they're very
hard to leg lock.
Who was in that team?
Uh, everyone from Dagestan.
Fuck yeah, that was like theywere Just a bunch of hard cunts,
(22:59):
the toughest guys and okay.
So here's a funny story.
We had a under 60 kilo guycalled Shakmanov, or Muhammad
Shakmanov, who's an MMA fighterand had previously beaten
someone on team Alley-Oan.
Right, he got recruited to teamAlley-Oan but he trained with
us.
He never hung out with us andhe was always in the corner of
(23:22):
Team Universal Fighters becausethat's his team, they're his
boys from Dagestan.
He's from the same hometown asKhabib, so he trained with you
guys, he trained with us, but henever hung out besides them.
A spy, yeah, right, absolutely.
Like he was wearing our teamlogo and he got into a fight
with Team Kasai wearing TeamAlion fucking gear.
He wasn't happy with Diego Patobecause Diego Pato did a heel
(23:45):
hook on his friend and the guywouldn't tap and so Pato cranked
it and broke dude's leg and, ashe did, he was like, just
fucking tap.
Pato said that, yeah, because,like, the guy was like, oh, you
broke my leg and he was justlike, ah.
So Shakmanov got really upset,got on stage in our gear,
fucking faced up and shoved thefuck out of Pato.
(24:08):
Oh, wow, he started like abrawl, wow, and I was like, bro,
somebody get your boy.
Like he shouldn't be wearingour team flag, like he's being
paid to be here.
He's a mad disruptor.
He's on their team.
Like how he would never shapeup again like he would if he was
training with you guys.
And then at what point was itlike, hey, you're not on as soon
as we got there?
(24:28):
Well, no, he didn't.
No one said that.
I said that.
I said take the shirt off him,fuck him off right, because he's
in their corner, he's cheeringfor them, he's coaching for them
, yeah, and then we had to fightthem in the.
In the, so you reckon wasgathering data?
No, he wasn't, he's just loyal.
He's a loyal guy, he supportshis team.
They're his boys, he grew upwith them.
They're his boys.
But he was being paid to be onour team, so I figured he could
(24:50):
have at least sat in our corner,which he did not.
Oh, I see what you Right, ah,tricky one isn't his money, it's
tricky, he's not supporting theteam.
Tricky that there's like these,um, whatever loyalties, divided
tribal alliances.
But then it's like, oh, maybeyou paid to be here.
And, yeah, I look at.
It was hilarious to see him onstage fully starting like a diaz
(25:11):
brothers-esque fight, uh, inour uniform.
It's like this fucking guy andit was funny because, um, andrew
, uh, alion, who owns bali, mma,like I, like his loyalty, he'll
fight for his boys.
I'm like dude, fuck this guy,don't pay him, like he's being
paid to be there.
I was like, yeah, so what wentdown post-event?
(25:32):
No, no, no.
So how it transpired is TeamKasai smashed Team Williams.
Right, they beat them 6-1.
That's pretty convincing, dude,I tell you, fucking Roberto
Jimenez had his way with fuckingBaldoni.
Oh, really Smashed him Really,bro, wow, bro, wild, wild action
(25:54):
.
And Jason Nolfe gotdisqualified for slamming.
I saw he slammed a dude.
Well, he slammed a guy fromTriangle.
He slammed Pato from triangle.
He asked if he could do that.
He's like, can I slam him?
And they're like, nah, not fromclose guard.
And he did it anyway.
And he was like, oh no, I justfell to my knees, bro, it was
vicious, it was a bit.
And Dan Mansoyo pulled.
Oh, I didn't know I was goingto get pedalized.
(26:14):
I'm like, bro, read the fuckingrule book.
Dog, like I, fucking.
I love Big Dan, I love thejiu-jitsu giant.
I actually get on with him verywell.
(26:35):
So, full respect, he's a legend, but what a brain snap.
Um.
So, yeah, team Kasai won, theywon the, they won half mil.
And, uh, team Alion beat upuniversal fighters.
It was very lucky because thereffing was super dodgy.
Right, they the, the Russians,it would be stalling, or the
(26:58):
Dagestanis would be stalling andthe referee would call a
stalling call and they put astalling clock so they have to
be active within 20 seconds orsomething, and at 19 seconds
they'd wave it off right.
Every time, every time they andthen they would call stalling
on on the guy who was activelytrying to get submissions or do
something.
Yeah, right, it was fucking oneruskies.
Yeah, it was wild action, sothey had to.
It was lucky that um teamaleone boys are good at
(27:19):
submissions.
They got a bunch of submissionsand that's why we won.
Wow, fuck, I look cool man.
Oh, dude, the production wasgreat.
They even had a guy rapping inKazakh at halftime.
Freestyle rapping was actuallypretty good.
Were you cooked at the end ofthe two days?
Yeah, it was fucked.
It was fucked.
It didn't finish till 3 am.
Wow, yeah, then you're theretill 3 am and, in terms of the
(27:41):
vibe, similar to like site, likeas big as adcc no, tiny it's.
The production looks massive,but the stadium itself is very
small, right, uh, it's much of alive crowd.
Um, I think initially there waslike a lot of fans, a lot of
kids.
Kids want you to they.
Actually, they want you to givethem their.
Give you, give them your rashguard, right?
They're like, sir, sir, give mea rash guard, right?
(28:02):
They're like, sir, sir, give meyour rash guard.
Yeah, well, maybe I want it.
Maybe I just fucking want it,man, I'm a fan too.
Maybe I want a million bucks inthis rash guard, bro.
Maybe I don't want to give itto you.
And they're asking me for myhat.
They wanted me to sign theirface.
You were in the red hat, weren?
That thing I do I do to keep itfresh.
You know you got to have.
(28:22):
You know, you know it is.
If you, you got your favorite.
You know those fucking saltmarks.
Nah, the salt mark gets a bit.
And I was sweating.
Yeah, I was fucking, I'm bad, Iwas screaming, bro.
Even the Russians, the veryunemotional Russians, were like
Wow, yeah, it was.
(28:44):
It was a huge energy.
But by the time it got to 2 am,3 am, where everyone was pretty
cooked, but the finish, wherethey shoot out the gold confetti
and they have that.
So the, the owner of um iegabrings out a million dollars in
a fucking leather bag in usdollars and empties it into this
big glass case.
Look at this big shield whichis the prize.
It's awesome, like amazingevent, um.
And so then afterwards, peopleripping it up, partying or
(29:06):
what's going on.
Right, everyone's fuckingcooked half the half.
The city's closed.
You do breakfast beers the nextday or some shit.
3 am on a sunday?
Well, what are we going onmonday afternoon?
Well, no, no, we we did.
We went out for like a kind ofkazakh-esque feast.
A couple people had to go tothe airport straight from the
thing, right, but yeah, we wentto this Everyone keeps it pretty
clean, I'm guessing.
(29:26):
Well, it's a Muslim nation.
Yeah, I mean, you can do whatyou want, but most people are
not drinking.
Yeah, but yeah, we went out andwe had horsemeat and dumplings
and I had a pizza, because,fucking, have a pizza.
Wow, yeah, have a pizza.
Um, wow, yeah, it was cool.
It was cool.
That's why your coat looks soglossy today.
(29:47):
No, that's from all the uhargan oil.
It's from all my, from all myessential oils I acquired from
over there frankincense andmyrrh, all of that, oh, wow, no,
it's people, people, people,people present.
Well, people dress up nice,they smell nice, like people.
Yeah, I was very impressed bythe standard in Almaty.
Like the cafes, the shops,everything, the standard is
(30:10):
incredibly high.
Now, obviously, we were stayingout in the mountains.
It's very rural, can't drinkthe tap water Very different
scenario, but in the city,beautiful.
But yeah, we had this big kindof banquet to finish, we checked
out of our cabins and we wentand stayed in the group house
with the russians, which waspretty dope.
Yeah, I had a big sauna there,like that's, where everybody was
cutting weight and um, yeah, itwas.
(30:31):
It was cool, but it was like abit like jujitsu od, similar to
what we had experienced with cjiand adcc, because I'm the thing
is, when you hang out withfull-time jujitsu athletes,
that's all I want to talk aboutand do so.
Everybody was re-watching thelive stream the next day and I
was like, oh, it's a bitbreaking it down, oh, it's a bit
much like yeah, but it was.
(30:53):
It was phenomenal to have thetime to be there in person,
because it feels so different tobe there and see it and not
know the outcome, versuswatching it later.
Who's your new best friend?
Pj Barge?
No, devontae Me, and Devontaegot into it hard.
Devontae Bones Johnson.
(31:13):
Right on, he's the man.
He's from Unity.
Right, he is from Unity.
Good best mates with Levi.
Okay, they came up together.
Yeah, I remember watching him.
He always stood out becausehe's so fucking big.
He's so big, so tall and hisgame is he smashed everybody at
his weight, like he's.
He's a scary prospect at 205,like the 90 kilo category.
(31:34):
And who's your new enemy?
I don't, I don't have any newenemies.
Look, think If you had to pickone.
No, oh, nikolai, fuck youNikolai.
So there's this guy.
Nikolai was a nutritionist.
He's very good.
He was part of 10th PlanetMoscow.
I think he's very good.
I didn't realize how good hewas.
(31:56):
He just seemed like a slim,muscular, cauliflower-eared,
square-jawed GI Russiancauliflower eared, square jawed
gi russian right.
And he plays like madbirambolos and leg locks his
shells like fuck man, this guy'sgood, try to leg lock me on the
first day and I was like holyshit, this guy's real good.
This nutrition coach has gotsome shit.
He has got some shit, bro.
And everyone's like yeah,nicola is good bro.
Like don't, don't, he's.
(32:17):
He could be on the team.
Like, as much as he's anutritionist, he could sub in.
Right, and I had to, he didn'tcatch.
Be on the team.
Like as much as he's anutritionist.
He could sub in Right and I hadto.
He didn't catch me on the firstday, um, but he got me.
Later he came up to me he'skind of halfway through the
training he said, oh man, I'mtired.
And I was like cool bro.
He's like no, I'm like allright, bam, fucking blast double
(32:41):
cover.
I was like fuck you, it wasfucking on, I end up getting.
I finished with the takedown,thankfully, and I squashed the
fuck out of him.
But he ended up catching me ina hill hook and I was like fuck
you, you got tapped by a skinnynutritionist.
Yeah, bro, yeah, he lied to me.
I can't believe you admittedthat, live on air.
But I bashed him for that.
I was like, all right, I'llroll you 100%.
(33:01):
Don't be a cunt, don't lie, donot trust a Russian when they
say they're tired.
They're not tired.
They want you to think they'retired.
That's psychological warfare.
Nah, man, nah, the Russians aretough as shit.
All of them are tough.
Yeah, I had a role withShakmanov, the guy unstoppable,
wrestling so fast.
(33:24):
You can't get anything on thatguy.
The only guy I saw take himdown was DeAndre.
Deandre had an amazingperformance.
Yeah, I made a lot of friends.
I think I'm friends with allthose guys.
Shout out PJ Bartsch, you know Ilove you honey.
California kid PJ got sick ofme by the end.
But you kid PJ got sick of meby the end.
(33:46):
But I think I really did learnto appreciate being more relaxed
from PJ.
He's the most laid back catever.
I was like, wow, I wish I couldbe cool like PJ.
I wish I was so self-assuredlike him.
He's so relaxed man.
He doesn't give a fuck at all.
The epitome of no fucks givenis PJ Barge.
And he's so good at jujitsu.
I mean, he's chain smokingthose zins though he's like,
(34:06):
like, explains it to me, is itjust the nicotine, right?
So people are chasing it as abit of a stimulant focus.
Yeah, yeah, locking in.
Uh bro, he was just non-stopwith those things.
And yeah, to just see himwearing women's gym pants he
chooses like he bought those Yep.
And just his saunter, his swag,which is just so fucking laid
(34:31):
back, it's impressive.
And to watch him justabsolutely frustrate the fuck
out of a high level Russianwrestler, impeccable, yeah, fuck
, yeah.
It was inspiring.
He's one of the fucking sickest, one of my favorite grapplers
to watch these days, for sure,in my opinion, I think he's the
best guy at that weight.
What is it?
85?
83.
83.
Yeah, I think he's better thanMika.
Like, he got ripped off in thatmatch in ADCC.
(34:52):
He beat Mika Govan in thatmatch.
Mika got the decision.
No, I have huge faith in theButter Panther, even though he
may not love me.
But that's all right, he knowswe're friends.
That's what your friendshipsare like.
Yeah, slightly antagonistic.
No, I get on with everybody,but I think it was just one of
(35:14):
those things that he's just sucha big dog.
He didn't like my intensity.
I find that hard to believe.
A lot like Joey actually, Ithink there are some distinct
similarities between PJ, bartand Joey on a personal level.
I see you, pj, I see you Laidback, nice guys just can't
handle how full on I am Shut up,fuckhead On that note.
(35:37):
Amazing, great trip, bro.
Sick Kazakhstan On the next oneShoo.
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