Real N Rare interview with BKFC Jake The Grinder Heffernan

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:25):
All right, what is up, sports fans? We are back
for another episode of the Real and the Rare, and
I'm being joined tonight by b KFC fighter mister Jake
Heffer and Jake, how we feeling this evening, my friend?
Happy Father's Day?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hey man, Happy Father's Day. Feeling good and you know,
just getting ready for fight week it starts tomorrow, so
we're in.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
It into the nitty gritty father's days here. Obviously, you
know we're both father of children, So how do you
wind up spending your day?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Did you just spend it with the wife and kids?

Speaker 1 (00:55):
How'd you wind up doing it?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
You know, I'm actually a single father, so it was
just me and the kids this this Father's Day, and
you know, we just hung out, woke up. My I
have a girlfriend, so that you know, she got she
got everything ready for me.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
Had a real big surprise this morning lined up for me.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
She stayed up till like she didn't get home till
like three o'clock in the morning, and then she stayed
up till like seven setting everything up. So I have
the luxury of having a person in my life now
that really puts the effort forward. And then this morning
I actually went to work, did did a little jiu
jitsu for about an hour, and then came back home

(01:33):
and and and hung out with the kids, went out
to lunch and then I honestly just been doing the
best thing to do on Father's Day, which is nothing.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I mean, uh, you know, you know, single dad here too,
But you know, like you, I have someone in my
life who who make sure everything's taken care of, all
the i's doted, tea's crossed, you know, made sure my
son had a little something to give me. Daughter gave
me a message today she's.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
Down I'm the shore, hanging out with her friends, doing.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
What she likes to do. So yeah, just like uh,
it wasn't too lazy. You know, had to run the store,
grab a few things, do some on do stuff like that,
but nothing too crazy. So yeah, good Father's Day anyone
who's celebrating and and uh enjoying the day. Hope, hopefully
hopefully you had a good one and speaking a good one, man,
it was another wild Combat sports weekend. You know you had, uh,

(02:25):
you had UFC last night, you had uh b KFC
both both BKFC iced debut and BKFC Mohegan Son. Uh,
what is it like man to be fighting for a
promotion that is growing this exponentially. The man it's uh,
I've been saying it for a few years. Uh. I know,
like obviously BKFC isn't isn't m m A, isn't UFC.

(02:48):
But uh uh I do think that that we are
in an even market now, if you if so to speak,
if you know, UFC used to rule everything. If anything
was on Saturday Night, it was it was on Combat
Sports Wise nine times out of ten. You know, the
people trying to tune in, we're all going to the UFC.
I would have to say, over the last you know,

(03:08):
five years or so, that ain't been the case. B
KFC is kind of a bare knuckle as a whole
has kind of put their stamp on hell. Even even
you had dirty Boxing last night that was that was
a good event. But what what are your thoughts on that? Brother?
Uh lost shake there for a second, So I guess, uh,

(03:30):
let's let's go over a few of those things. Obviously, Uh,
Mike Perry's Dirty Boxing was also last night. You also
had here in Philadelphia, Damon Feldman had his uh celebrity
boxing that was that was also going on there.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
So it was another crazy, crazy.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Night of of fights. It was one of one of
those things where like I said.

Speaker 5 (03:59):
It's you know, you have BKFC, you got all that,
all that stuff going on, and uh, you know, having
having all that and in one weekend on the fourteenth,
it was just.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
A fun, crazy night of uh of combat sports events
and uh, you know, we'll get take back on here
in a second. Here it comes. Technology wins again. Technology
wins again.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Sorry about that.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
Yeah, listen, I'm used. I've been doing this long enough.
I know sometimes Internet was just kicks you off. Yeah, so,
uh but like I was saying, you know, uh, the
combat sports world has changed. Man, we we you know,
we were talking about before you got on air that uh,
you know, the way we we consume things and things
of that nature is in in a totally different space.

(04:48):
But uh, I definitely feel BKFC has uh in uh
you know, seven eight years that they've been around, has
more than a bridge the gap on what people think
you should be doing on a on a given combat
sports event weekend. You know, you got Conor McGregor as
one of the promoters there. You know, I already said,

(05:10):
like we had a big weekend this weekend for for BKFC,
both with the BKFC Ice.

Speaker 3 (05:15):
And the Mohican Sun.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
You're gonna be on the card next weekend in Texas
and that that's gonna be a huge card. I mean,
you guys got a listful characters on that one. How
excited are are you for that? Being?

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Man? Honestly, one, It'll be really cool to be andre Erlowski.
I'm really excited for that. I hope, I hope we
end up being in the same corner, like honestly.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
Just so you can bes with them in the locker room, right.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Man, Just to just to be around
one of the legends of the sport, that'll be really cool.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
I know.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
Jessica I is also.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Gonna be Yeah. Yeah, she's another one. Man. I've been
interviewing her since she was like early day bell tour stuff,
before UFC even had you know, a women's division or
anything like that. She's one of those ones. I was
surprised when she was retired, you know, I've had I've
had her on here beforehand. The stuff that she went

(06:05):
through just to get back in the physical condition that
she is now, It's it was crazy. I don't know
if you heard like she had a parasite that was
basically taking everything from her, like from her nutrients to everything.
She was just was basically fighting as a half a
person in the latest two and a half years as
she was in the in the UFC. Now she's uh,

(06:25):
she was, you know, suit over tired for the last
few and now getting back in there. Let me pull
that up because I did put that in the back.
It's still on the back end. Here. She's gonna be
making her debut. You know, the Flatway fight. It's uh
that that's a big one. You were already talking about Orlowski,
him and Copeland are gonna be going at it. That
should be fun, a fun fight. Obviously you got you

(06:48):
got some skin in the game there wanting to meet them.
But I still think outside of your fight now, we're
gonna get to yours in a second. I got to
talk about this one because we got Boxing Royalty on
the card. Man, we got Kensey Morrison, Tommy Morris, the
Sun is gonna be fighting. Uh listen, they don't do
it no bigger than Texas, right, So I guess Big
AFC literally went all in and putting this event together. Man.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, honestly, man, they they really I'm so excited to
be on the very first card for for for BKFC Texas.
You know, again, like you said, they really do go big.
They do show after show after show to keep in competition,
and they've really become like the number two under the
UFC and then who knows, like soon enough, maybe bigger

(07:31):
than the UFC with the most exciting fights in my opinion,
I mean.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Here's the thing, like, can you name someone that's doing
more not just in the United States but internationally as well?

Speaker 2 (07:40):
No, I can't.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
AFC is doing like I'm not, and I'm not sitting
there trying to take anything away from what when any
other promotromotion is already that that that their home is,
you know, international stuff like you know what what you
can't take away what one's been doing and what they
have been doing over the layers, you know, you know,
five to ten years regardless, but the scale of what
they're doing there. You know, we were just in Italy,

(08:03):
we were just in Dubai. Uh.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
What BKFC has done in the small amount of time
that they've been doing it, it's reminiscence to the the
the mid to end of the ZUFA era.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
In my opinion, yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Man, honestly, and I think the UFC is great. I
think they do a really good job. I've been in
the corner for Alex Morno and Ricky Tercio, so I've
been in the backstage.

Speaker 4 (08:25):
I know how the production value works.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I've been to the the you know, the the ceremonial,
you know after the way ends, the media days. I've
been in the backstage a lot. So so I will
tell you it'll be exciting to get backstage for BKFC
just to see how they do it. But that is
a high, high production value from the UFC. And and
to see another sport that's not quite MMA.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
But I mean we're getting all the legends of MMA.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
You get all the all the guys that are like, hey,
I don't have it, I mean anymore to get picked
up and slammed and choked and kneed and elbowed. But
they're like, but Box seems like I can get into that.
And then beyond that is it's you know, the bare
knuckle factor. Nobody in the world, you know, sees a
bare knuckle fight and it's like, I gotta get out

(09:12):
of here. I don't want to watch this like, no
matter what, it's like a train wreck, got to watch it,
and it's it's one of those it's exciting, it's it's
one hundred and twenty seconds of chaos per round and
people want to see that. And you know, David Feldman's
done a really good job of just getting not only
really good fights booked with Nate Shook, but then also

(09:33):
making sure he's going all over the country now all
over the world, just getting these shows out to get
the popularity down. And you know, again, it was illegal
to do BK in Texas for a long time and
they just got it sanctioned a couple months ago. And
I know the TDLR really well, so they kind of
whispered in my ear during a couple of local MMA

(09:55):
shows that they might be doing one in Texas, and
I was my manager and I was like, man, I've
heard some talks and chatter on a Texas card, and
he was like, man, there's going to be a Texas card,
so if you want to get on it, just let
me know. And I've been looking for a matchup. I
got signed back in November, So you know, it's exciting
to be again a part of that first one.

Speaker 4 (10:14):
I hope I see Carl McGregor. You know, it'd be cool.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
I mean Texas man.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
He was, uh, you know, you know, I was lucky
enough to be able to cover uh the.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
The knucklemania here in Philadelphia, you know. Uh yeah, I'm
friends with the BKFC news and students. Guards. She she she, uh,
you know, last minute she couldn't make it. Was like, Steve,
can you help my guys at I was like, hey, yeah,
I got you. I got you. So went down there
and helped her cover that. But and I got to
see like some of that packstage and listen. Uh you know,

(10:46):
I may have never gotten UFC credentials, but I think
it was us. It was as top of the arm
as you can get. You know, you know, my kids
had an awesome night. And and like you're sitting there saying,
you know, the first one in Texas should be one,
and I gotta ask you, you know obviously, you know, you know,
you know you got some love for Texas. When we
talk about you know, the the sanctioning bodies and things

(11:09):
of that nature and the stuff that goes into it,
Texas gets a lot of hate, man, that they do
get a lot of hate Uh, you know you've had
some controversial judging, some controversial suspension stuff happen. We talk
about this all the time, you know. I was talking
about it to Lauren Murphy, like the stuff that we
would like to see changed as we continue to grow

(11:30):
combat sports. You know. Uh, you know one thing she
was talking about is just she she wants the uh,
some of these idiot nutritionists to get out of here.
Because I think the most dangerous thing that that you
fighters have to deal with is is rapid extreme weight cutting.
I think that we need to do a different process
of how you guys weigh in. Maybe have you make

(11:51):
the weight at you know, you know a certain amount
of time before the fighting, no matter what. Give you
guys a few days to let your body recover because
some of you guys do push the limits. I remember, uh,
you know you're talking Andre Alaska. I remember when I
was covering a World Series of Fighting in Steve Stephen
carl was was their World toweight champion. He was telling

(12:12):
me he was cutting twenty five to thirty five pounds
to make to make that one hundred and seventy pounds limit.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
These are things that we like, it might be good.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
In the moment, but as an overall health thing, as
an overall performance thing, rapid extreme weight cutting, in my opinion,
is one of the things I want to do away with.
And I think we need to talk to you guys,
the athletes as you know, as like say, if you
know I'm a commission member in some way, is there
do you think we should change that that day before
way in and move it a.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Few days, like keep it fight week.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
You know, I'm not sitting there saying like, let's do
it when you make, guys call and make make make
the fight that you guys weigh and then you can
do as long as you're worth an X amount of
percentage beforehand, the kind of keep it in the thing
the other because the only other thing that did was
sitting there. We need more weight classes, and we could
sit there and talk about that too. We're blue in
the face, but I think that this is something that

(13:04):
we can kind of help you guys out so you
guys can ultimately be healthier, fight better, and have better
performances when you guys get in there.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
You know. Yeah, honestly, I think the best way to
do that would be kind of like I've talked to
somebody who actually has fought for one FC, and it
was a female. Her name's be When, and she basically
had told me the way that she did it. You
know check ins where they have to check in like
once a week, and then they're just they have to

(13:36):
be I think, within five pounds of their weight class
and then you know, I don't know exactly how it
goes nowadays, but I think that would be one of
the best ways, is just have everyone within a certain
weight allowance of the weight class that they're going to
be doing. I think ten pounds is not a hard

(13:56):
cut on the body. Because you know, I have a nutritionist.
My antristness works for the UFCPI you know, I didn't
use them for this camp because I've used them for
so long. I pretty much have the memorization of the
of the of the diet plan and then the cut protocol.
But the way that we do it is we flush,

(14:16):
so like starting tomorrow, no salt, no carbs, and then
I'm just doing two gallons of water a day. That
two gallons will it sends your body into a hormonal
response which makes you start to like flush out all
the things you don't need. I'll lose like seven pounds

(14:37):
from Monday to Thursday, I'll lose like seven pounds and
then currently right now, like yesterday after my workout, I
was eleven pounds out.

Speaker 4 (14:45):
So it's like, you know, right there, flush, flush seven from.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
That point, you know, do a workout tomorrow morning, get
back right back to where I was one sixty seven,
and then and then flush the weight from there.

Speaker 4 (14:59):
Drink the two game of water a day.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
You know, you're you're cutting your protein down, you're cutting
your carbs out. You you do little bits of fat,
you do little bits of fruit for you know, natural sugars,
and then you know again you do that, you do
that process of the flushing, and then you get down
that seven pounds and then you got like fucking six
seven pounds to cut. So it's not a not a hard,

(15:21):
hard process. It's just you gotta get guys that aren't
gonna kind of play the system. And I know, I
do know guys that are like, man, I'm making a
twenty five pound cut in the next week, and I'm like, man,
I don't know why you do that to yourself. Like
I used to fight at one hundred and forty five
pounds and as a younger man. I remember in the beginning,
it's like I want to be able to get as
big as I can. Then my opponent when I go

(15:43):
to rehydrate, that was like the whole thought process behind that.
But then now as a thirty five, thirty six year
old man, I'm like, I don't want to cut weight
at all. I would rather I would rather just fight
at what I walk around at. But I just need
that there has to be an understanding that on her inch,
you know, of punching power needs to be understood.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
So I'm not going to fight a guy that's.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
You know, that did cut weight to make the weight
class and an iweigh one you know, Let's say we
do the weight at one sixty. I weigh one sixty
and my opponent cuts to one sixty and then we
go fight and he's weighing one to eighty, you know,
one seventy five, and that's like, that doesn't make any sense, man,
that's me.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
I think some of the bigger examples now, like right,
like we just seen her fault last week is Kayla Harrison.
You know, she walks around closer to one hundred and
seventy pounds and she just followed one hundred and thirty
five pounds, and you could see the difference from where
she weighed where as were we were just talking about
some ceremonial weighings and all that. You could see the
difference from when she weighed in officially on the scale

(16:46):
and that afternoon she was completely sunken in. Then you
go see her afterwards and she's glowing, she's bouncing around
and all that. Like that's not a sustainable thing. And
you know, you know, I know a lot of fans will, oh, well,
they just need to bring back another division. I just yeah,
we can have that argument all day long. And you know,
there's there's a lot of one hundred and forty five

(17:07):
pounds women's even even even lightweight, even one hundred and
fifty five pounds divisions for for female. But it's one
of those things where there's not enough top level athletes
for the UFC to kind of warrant that. So that's
why they did away with forty five. So this is
where where she can fight at. She wants to fight
the best people in the world. She's about to you know,
as the rumors goes, I'm gonna pull this one up here.

(17:29):
Since we're talking about Kayla is you know, she's about
to get in there with Kayla Harrison and and are
you know our favorite manager of the stars, Ali is
basically saying that Kayla's gonna gotta make a man of
Nunas quit. Amanda Nunas is arguably the goat of women's
mixed martial arts.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Like, yeah, I I Kayla Harrison, you know, star athlete.
You know, everybody knows that there's no denying that absolutely.
Amanda Nunez is just a monster in that cage. But like,
don't don't don't like it's the same process. They're both
cutting weight, they're both doing heavy cuts, They're you know,

(18:09):
Amanda's coming off of retirement, so that means that she's
gonna there's a whole process where she's gonna have to
get back in shape. You know, maybe she is in shape,
but she's gonna have to get back on her diet,
get back down and then do that whole process. And
you know, it's just one of those things where it's
like make them do the presser and have them get

(18:30):
on the scale at the presser, see what they weigh.
And then the presser is usually like two sometimes three
months before the fight. So they get on the scale,
you see what they weigh, and then you and then
you have a nutritionist that's with them, that doesn't work
for them, that works for the company, or works for
the state. One of the two, right that, what's that said?

Speaker 1 (18:51):
One of the two, you know, the company I want
to do, the state Athletic Commission.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
One of the two.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
They track, they can, they can track the weight, they
can they can make sure the athletes are are doing
what they're supposed to do to diet correctly. Track, you know,
tracking the meal plans, making sure that they're not cheating
on the meals. And then you know, the way that
my nutritionist does it is we don't we just plan
on losing one pound a week every week until fight week.
That's what we always do. He's like, I'm just I

(19:18):
just need you to lose one pound a week. Sometimes
I'll lose like three pounds in a week, you know.
And it's like, so it's it's not as hard as
people think. It's kind of like what Morob had said.
People are like, oh, he's this you know star and
it's genetics. And he's like, it's not genetics, man, it's
not genetics. I'm at the gym every day, I go train.

(19:41):
I don't he you know, Morob was like, I don't smoke,
I don't do drugs, I don't drink. I just I
want to be the champion of the UFC, so I
don't cut corners. And it's like, if you want to
take this seriously, and you want to you want to
get into that upper echelon of fighters, then you got
to take it seriously.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
Look at you know, Granted, it didn't go his way.
Look at O'Malley.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
He was like, I got quit smoking weed, I quit
you know, watching porn.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Actually, I mean, granted, he was going against you know,
that's really there, and you know he is, you know,
one of the few you know, like you know, legitimate
stars that we have in the UFC seed today. But
I was I wasn't impressed where shown the mindset finally
was it seemed like, you know, he was done with
the character that Sugar Shane was. He was done with

(20:28):
all the all the outside noise. Granted, sometimes when you
get in there, you're just going against up a buzzsaw
sometimes and that's just the way the sport is. Sometimes
you're the can being crushing. Sometimes you're the machine crushing
the cane that night. He just happened to be getting
crushed by the machine. But I think moving forward, if
he keeps that mindset, don't let don't let that lost

(20:50):
break you shown. Yeah, keep that, keep that routine, dude,
keep that routine.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Nicest guys I've ever met too in the in the
back during fights and so you know I met him, Man,
when was it. I think I was in New York.
I want to say I was in New York, maybe
Los Angeles. Either way, I met him at one of
the UFCS recently, you know, you know we were at
the PI, so I guess it was in Vegas. Super

(21:16):
nice guy. Took some pictures with him. You know, we
trained in the same room at the same time. You know,
he was with his team and I was with mine.
But we got to kind of be around each other
a little bit. Like really nice, super nice guy. And
I'm not one of those guys that's like, oh, if
you smoke weed, you're terrible. Like, dude, if you want
to go smoke weed, that's fine, but you have to
have a strong mindset. Well, you can't be doing his partying,

(21:37):
staying out late, eating bad food, drinking like don't get
me wrong, Like you want to go drink, go have fun,
go drink, but don't have something that you're trying to
achieve and then be going and getting messed up in
the process. Like I don't drink when I'm in camp.
I don't really drink very much at all, but I
especially like if somebody invites me out for a late

(21:57):
night out, I don't go, like and honestly going out
last night to watch the fights. The whole time, I
was like, man, I don't even want to be here, guys.
I just want to go home and go to sleep tired.
Like I'm only here because I want to watch Uzman
and Buckley fight, and I don't want to pay for
the fights.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
So I was, oh, yeah, that's going into one of
my next ones. Did you see some fade and made
a post he was trying to get tickets to the
U of Chicago. Did you see the prices for those.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
Bleeds for Chicago?

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (22:27):
No than dollars?

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Oh good, I'm not I'm not like you know, I listen.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
I haven't been to the UFC since one thirty three.
I wasn't at at the last two times they came
one because they were fight nights, and I just wasn't
really attracted to the card. The other thing is because
it was Philly. You didn't have Sean Brady, you didn't
have Andre Petrowski, you did, you didn't have any of
the Philly guys on it. So what was the point

(22:53):
of put it in a vent on Philly because you
didn't have anyone on it? So I was just like,
you know what, I'm not gonna watch it. And and
then there's things like this where you're sitting there seeing
like the I think it's a combination of two things.
It's a combination of who they have on the card,
the type of card it is. But you also have
the other side of it where if it depends where
you're getting tickets from, are you getting tickets from a fighter,

(23:15):
are you getting tickets from ticket Mace or you going
to another on the other site like seat geek or
something like that, because they have another charge where they
wind up charge you another one hundred and fifty fifty
dollars just because and that's still after I just told
you all that, that's still over one thousand dollars for
for news bleeds. I'm not paying that. Unlet's unless that
that that was a group thing. When you're doing like

(23:36):
like like four or five seats or something, then that
might be something we might have a conversation for. But
that's out of control then, especially after did you see
what PFL did over over the last week they're putting
their tickets down in like twenty five dollars.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Yeah, that's the thing is it's there's you know, and
I let UFC fans are great. You can't do the
sport without the fans, but you get these guys that
are like, I'm gonna pay the price no matter what
it is. And in the UFC sits back and they're like, man,
they paid the price, let's raise it again. And that's
that's an unfortunate thing. It's gonna get to. And beyond that,
it's like the best seat in the house is my

(24:11):
is my living room?

Speaker 1 (24:12):
Yeah, I say it all the time, like I listen,
I talk about it a lot a lot of times
with you fighters. You know, I have the pleasure of
talking to you guys. I know it's an electric being
there being at a combat sports event, especially a high
level combat sports when we're talking UFC, BKFC, you know,
top level boxing events, things.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
Of that nature.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
There is an electricity that is in a in an
arena when you're watching a combat sports event, that is
that is close to no other thing that The only
thing I can compare it to is college football, just
because of the sheer mass of people that wind up there,
and and you know the rivalries of college athletics and
things of that nature. But you're damn right, brother, I'd

(24:54):
rather be sitting in my couch, laying on my bed whatever,
watching a fight because I don't have a bait. I
don't have a bad seat. I don't got a freaking
bunch of bunch of knuckleheads in the road row in front.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
Of me throwing their arms up so I can't see.

Speaker 1 (25:07):
You know. And then I don't want to pay for
the best seat in the house of being you know, ringside,
cage side, or just just depending on the venue you're at,
where the best.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Seat in the house is.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
When I could just be relaxing, I don't have to
spend you know, you know, you know, forty dollars for
a cheese steak and a thing of fries, and I
can just do it at my house. Man. It's I
love going to combat sports events, but Maine didn't price
that bro I went to.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
It was like a smart stadium in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
When when my boy Ricky Tercios fought and I was
cornering him for that, but I I, you know, I
cornered in the way where I wasn't actually cage side.
I just was this warm up guy and his cut buddy,
and I helped him with his workouts throughout the week.
And then he gave me one of the tickets that
he had, Like the fighters get like fam you.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Want to well comp tickets and tickets they sell, but
I'll get you, brother.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
And so I got that seat, which was cool. But
then you're in that giant arena and you just can't
help it. You want to go buy some merch You
want to go buy this, and you want to get that,
and you want to just grab a bunch of stuff.
And then suddenly I still spent like five hundred bucks.
I'm like, what happened? And so, you know, and again
I understand, like that's a part of the game. Like
even when I go to my fights, like I sell shirts,

(26:25):
I sell you know, I'm sponsored by one of the
merchandise apparel people. That's that's at the at the fights
for the local fights here in Houston, which is loaded pistols,
And as soon as I get done with a fight,
I go over to the to the booth and I
try to help him sell stuff. And so I understand
the concept of like, in order for these shows to
run correctly, we got to get the merch out. We gotta,

(26:47):
you know, the the at the local shows, the promoters
are like paying for all the alcohol to be there
and all the all the food to be there, so
they're making a profit on that.

Speaker 4 (26:57):
And again, like that's great. I think that's awesome, But
when you get.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
To a certain point, like you know again, it's especially
with Ticketmaster. I ran into that problem with the BK fights.
It's in Dallas, so a lot of my fans want
to go, family members, teammates, everybody wants to go to
the BK fights. And they're like bro I went online
and tried to get tickets from Ticketmaster, and it was
like a three hundred dollars charge for all the tickets

(27:23):
I wanted to get. It was like, it wasn't it
wasn't a purchase like a charge for a overall purchase.
It was a purchase charge for every ticket I wanted,
and so I bought three hundred dollars and tickets and
I was gonna have to pay three hundred dollars for
surcharges and I'm like, whoa dude.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
So that's why a lot of times I'd rather go
to the Like I tell a lot of people like, listen,
find a local fighter, ask them for a physical ticket. Yeah,
and that's the only way. It's either that or you
have to get in for the pre sale for the event.
And that's before they announced you guys are on the event.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, so that's it's like I I they luckily the
BK guys hit me up and said how many tickets
do you want? And I luckily ordered enough to where
I just told everyone to hold off on the Ticketmaster
stuff and then I was able to sell in hand.

Speaker 1 (28:13):
But also you got to think about how much that
that now puts on the promotion too. Yeah, the these
sites like Ticketmaster and seek, you're making it so hard
not just for you the athlete, but the promoter that
has put it on event. Now they gotta they gotta
go grab x amount of tickets, have them printed up,
and then hopefully you sell every one of those tickets.

(28:35):
Then you have to play that game of is this
person really going and are they just sitting there doing
you know? Then you wand up, you know, stuck with
you know, you know, three four, five tickets and you're
just like, all right, great, now I have to figure
this out. So it's like there's so many different variables. Man,
it's it's rough.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
But at the end of the day, you know, it's
a spectator sport. We got to please the fans, so
you know, without them going, we don't have a show. So,
you know, unless and us we're talking about APEX fights
where there's only fifty people sitting in there anyway, but
not every promotion can afford to make their own venue
and then stream it on fight Pass or whatever else.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
So yeah, but I don't listen. I was fortunate enough
to cover Dave Feldman's promotions when he was here in
Philadelphia before he got bought out by CFFC, when he
was doing XFV. I don't think Dave will ever do
an empty arena, doesn't matter how much money he makes
off of the streaming. I don't think he'll ever lose
that that that live event vibe. That's just something something

(29:34):
that gets his blood going. You know, you know, you
know his you know him and his brother were you know,
we're fighters at one point in time.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
And you know, you know, Damien had a good, good event.
This weekend.

Speaker 1 (29:46):
We had a you know, celebrity boxing here Philadelphia. So
you know, you had Rick Flair there, you had a
former bell to or fighters Sammy or Payza was fighting
on the car and a bunch of former you know,
a bunch of former boxer putting their hats in the ring.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
It was It's a fun night.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Like you you have to keep that vibe like as
much as you know, as you were just talking about Apex,
like I don't think that something will ever see BKFC
do no.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
And that's you know, I just I say that just
almost as a joke because I've been to those Apex fights.
It is quiet in there. You can hear every punch
land you know that you Unfortunately, you can hear every
fan that's there, and that's a weird. I remember one
kid was yelling at me like give me your jacket

(30:34):
because I had the fight kid on, because I was
cornering Oux.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Give me your jacket.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
I love these people.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Screaming at me and I'm like, what is happening, Like
who's child is this, which I'm sure he was probably
some UFC execs kid that wanted to go to the
fights or something, but just I mean hounding at the fighters.
Every fighter that walked out, this kid is screaming at them,
like give me your jacket. I almost wanted to take
one shoe off and then just give him that one

(31:03):
shoe and be like, do with it whatever you want, bro,
Like you got one shoe, I'm not giving the other one.
You know, I don't know, man, but yeah, my stuff
is unfortunately, you know it's gonna be you know, worse
and worse. But I'll tell you what, man, BK's doing
it right. They had they you know, upper seats were cheap.

(31:23):
They were like fifty bucks. You know, the it's an
arena style event, so you know, the seats go up
as as as the as the seats go back, so
there's not really a bad seat in the house.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Yeah, Like like when you know, when I was lucky
enough to you know, my kids went to Knucklemania. You know,
they had good They were in the two hundred level.
Wasn't wasn't you know, forty five dollars a ticket. They
I asked. You know, when when the fight was over,
I asked my kids, how do they how? They They
were great. I could see everything. You know, it was

(31:56):
a great event. Things of that nature. So it's like,
you don't have to have these seats that are one
thousand dollars a pop. And I think mainly why we're
seeing that right now for people who don't know, if
you looked at the first quarter numbers for TKL, they
are three million dollars in the red. Yeah, so that's
probably why those tickets are prior around that. Like I said,

(32:18):
there's different factors that why why everything is, you know,
things you were talking about. You know fans, fans just
go because they want to go, and no one to
pay in it.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
There's just so many things.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Like when we talk about combat sports, there's the the good,
the bad, and the ugly. Well, this is unfortunately the
ugly part of it right now.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Well, I'll tell you a very ugly part of the
fight situation. You know, I don't know if it's been
released yet. I talked to my manager. I'm allowed to
say it, so I'm gonna go ahead and tell you.
My opponent decided to call me up and ask me
for a different weight class, to which I was already
ready to cut weight and almost on weight. So I

(32:59):
said no, and so I lost my opponent, which is Campos,
so he's out, and you know, he very liked the
message was weird too. He was like, hey, man, we're
both professionals, let's not cut weight. And I'm like this,
first of all, that's a very weird and contradictory thing
to say.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
We're both professionals. I'm not going to be able to
make weight. I want to be a lazy fuck, and hey,
let's let's agree to fight at a different weight clise,
come on, man.

Speaker 2 (33:30):
And he didn't ask for like five pounds. He wanted
from one fifty five all the way to one sixty five,
and I, of course, I was like no. I talked
to my coaches, Alex Morono Ricky Tercios, and you know,
those are my main two guys. We all three really
support each other in the in the process. Our striking coach,
Matt Walld is very involved, as well as my manager

(33:51):
Tonio Rusco, and so we just sat down and were like,
this doesn't make sense, Like, how does it make sense
for me to do this?

Speaker 1 (33:57):
I mean, if he's given you money. That's the that's
the only way. And I still like, I can tell
you money ain't changing your hard work at that point
in time, right.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
And so I was like, you know, what what can
we do? And we were like, well, let's give him
five pounds and then but my manager was like, but
he didn't have to pay for that. We're so close
to the fight time. And so we said to him,
you know, we'll do five pounds, but you'll have to
pay a little bit, not much either, like he's probably
I don't know what he's making on his check, but
it's probably good coming off belator. So I think we

(34:31):
asked for like a thousand dollars and then he was like, no,
I'm not giving you that much. I'll make fifty five.
And I was like, well, why did you even ask?
And then he calls back a day later and he's like,
I can't make fifty five. To his manager, I can't
make I'm nowhere near it. That's what he told his manager,
I'm nowhere near it. It's like, why did you sign
a contract for one hundred and fifty five pounds and

(34:51):
if you were nowhere near the weight class and so
you know, at that point, I'm talking to my coaches
and we're like expecting him to drop the fight. And
Friday morning, I get the call from the manager and
the way he I answer the phone and the way
he's like hey man, and I'm like that did not
sound like a good hey man, and you know, and
so unfortunately the fight, you know, there was a lot

(35:12):
of back and forth with him saying he was gonna
make it, then he wasn't, then he was, and he wasn't.
And I'm talking four phone calls of he's not gonna
make it, he dropped a fight, he is gonna make it.
We're good, He's not gonna make it. He is gonna
make it, he'll take one sixty, and then actually five
calls because then the fifth call was he's not gonna
make one sixty either. He's you know, they're gonna they're

(35:33):
gonna change it. Luckily, my manager did the work, Nate
Strip did the work, and they got me a shortness replacement.
So we're still in the card. We're still good to go,
we're still debuting.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
So are you allowed to say who you're fighting now
or are you just keeping it close to the chest
praying that it just goes through.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, So you know, I'm just I gotta I gotta
like to just that little bit is I'll keep it
to myself, but we gotta fight.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Everything's still good to go.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
I'm still on track for making one fifty five, which
was my original plan, which is what I professionally signed
for to make. And I just made one fifty five
last month for the Submission Hunter Pro series for the
belt that I just won, and I made scratuate, So
I made one fifty five. You know, with with with
regular weight classes, if it's not a title fight, it
you get that pound all out. So I'm about to

(36:19):
make one fifty six and you better believe I'm gonna
use that pound.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
But you know, like people talk about this all the time, man,
Like you know, we were talking about it earlier with
that rapid extreme weight cutting. Like listen, if you sign
a contract, it don't matter if you sign it, you know,
three months before the fight, two months before the fight,
two weeks before the fight. Like you say you're gonna

(36:44):
make this weight, don't immediately sit there and say like, hey,
we're all professionals, let's agree to them. Like, listen, the
promotion just came up with the weight we don't make up.
We don't make up the weight. You signed the contract,
you put the work in. Yeah, it's like listen, and
you know that that's not being professional. That's you don't
call your your opponent up like you guys are buddies

(37:06):
or something like hey, man, like I got this going on,
I can't do this. I don't have this situation. Like listen, man,
just be honest with it. If that's the case, to
move up with weight class, stop stop wasting the fifty
five ers times. Man, it's you know, it's it's unprofessional.
It's something that you shouldn't have to deal with stress wise,
because what if you done put all this work in

(37:27):
and then the backup plane doesn't go through, then you're
then you're asked out time, money, effort, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, and then beyond that is you know, I could
have had, you know, more time to plan for a
different opponent had you just been honest from the very beginning.
Because let's face it, if I get a phone call
that says from a manager, my guy's nowhere near making weight,
I assume as a guy who fights at one hundred
and fifty five pounds and is a true fifty five
or like I cut to forty five and I did

(37:56):
those rapid, terrible weightcuts. They were terrible on my body.
I feel like it shortened my life overall. And you know,
if he's saying he's nowhere near making fifty five, that
means he's got to be walking around at like one
like geez bro, Like, what were you thinking signing the
dotted line knowing that you were that heavy?

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Like move up, I'm time gonna move up that boy.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
I've said this to people too, is like, dude, don't
you have sponsors that like sponsored you to make this
fight card? If I was sponsoring somebody to be a
pro athlete and then the one thing you didn't do
was the one thing first thing.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
Said, dude, this is something that goes back to my
early days of doing podcast. What's the first thing you
guys assigned to do?

Speaker 3 (38:43):
To make weight?

Speaker 1 (38:44):
That's the first thing.

Speaker 2 (38:46):
That's You got three jobs in any camp, train, make weight,
and fight. You technically don't have to do two of
those jobs. All you have to do is the middle one.
You just got to make weight. That's all you don't
have to train. Then that's fine with me. If you
don't want to train, but you gotta make weight. And
guess what you climb in that ring. You want to

(39:07):
put your hands down and let me crack you in
the face, then you could do that too, But you
gotta make weight. That's the one thing. And don't get
me wrong. I have busted weight before, and I have
been but by like a pound, you know, like I
had a rough cut. I did a hillacious weight cut
at the end of my career, my last two forty
five matches, I didn't make weight. I felt terrible, not

(39:28):
only terrible physically, but I felt terrible on a professional
level because I agreed to make this weight and even
if it was one pound two pounds.

Speaker 4 (39:37):
I'm looking at my opponent and I see that.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
I'm like, I'm gonna be fighting a different version of
this dude tomorrow because he is freaking pissed at me
now because I was the.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Same way I put because now working right, dude, I did.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
A catchweight at one sixty for my second to last fight,
and the guy I came in at one sixty one,
and there's no pound allowance on a catchweight, so he
walks up. He's drinking his pedialyte and the Promoter's like,
he's at one sixty one and I look at him.
I'm like, yo, dude, it's one sixty and he's already
drinking the pedia Lite, Like, oh oh, I thought we'd

(40:15):
get a pound allowance. And I'm like, do you not
like read your content? You know, don't know how to
read or something. I'm so upset. But he's already n
he's already rehydrating, so I can't go make him cut
the pound now. So like I get the extra money,
which is fine, And I finished the dude with a
real naked choke in the fight, and he's all apologetic
and like, I'm so sorry for you know, messing on

(40:36):
that pound. And it's like, what the funny thing was
is like, dude, you asked for the catchweight.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
I didn't ask for the catchwaight.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
I was down for fifty five, and then you asked
for a catchweight and then you still didn't make the
catch Like that makes no sense to me. But either way,
you know, like I said, it's grind time. Now we
got where.

Speaker 4 (40:54):
You know, we're less than a week out.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
You know that the hard part of you the training
is easy, the fight is easy. The hard part is
making weight. So we start the hard part this week,
you know, we flush all that weight out. And honestly,
like I said, Eric Penya, he works for the UFCPI
Penya Performance. He's awesome. He does my nutrition. He you know,
I was with him for like two years of learning

(41:18):
how to do everything in the game. And I just
all I do is literally just follow the plan. I
wake up in the morning, I eat my food that
I'm supposed to eat, I hydrate with what I'm supposed
to hydrate with, and then a couple hours later, I
do the meal plan again. I hit my training session.
A couple hours later, I do my meal again, and I.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Just follow that. And does it get tedious? Yes?

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Do I want to go out with my friends and
go out to a restaurant and eat the bad food. Yes,
But I also want to be great. And that's the
one thing that these athletes, especially these early athletes, you
have to understand, Like, I want to be great locally,
on a national level, on a world level. I want
to be great, and the only way to do that

(42:03):
is to follow the rules that you have put in
front of yourself to achieve that greatness. And again, man,
like I said, like I also have sponsors. I'm a
full time martial artist. I teach jiu jitsu, I do
private lessons of jiu jitsu, kickboxing, Mui Thai boxing, wrestling.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
Like I just full time train.

Speaker 1 (42:22):
All the time.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
My body is my product, you know. And and I
know you got those guys out there that I don't
know what else they maybe do, But like Patty Pinwoo's
out there gaining like ninety pounds every time he fucking
gets done with a fight. That shit's crazy to me.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
But why able to do that? That's not sustainable? I
mean we all, we all, we all know that as
a fan, as an athlete, as a coach, we know
that's not sustainable. He's being a young kid. He's being
silly and stupid. He's gonna have to put in elacious
work on his body in between that to get back
down to forty five. The word normally fights that So
that's all.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
That's where you accumulate injury. That's what happened to me, man.
I was making those terrible weightcuts. I was having to
not eat when I wanted to eat. I was doing
a lot of guests work because I wasn't following a
nutrition plan. And then my body started to shut down
on me, and I have injuries now that are forever injuries.
They'll never go away. I will deal with them for

(43:18):
the rest of my life because of making a weight
cutting mistake. And that's just you know. I try to
tell all the young guys on my team, like, guys,
this is the way it's done. This is what needs
to happen, this is what goes in and it's not
even like a crazy situation.

Speaker 4 (43:34):
You just don't eat certain things during certain.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Times of the day. If you're about to go to bed,
don't have bread and pasta before you go to sleep.
You want to have pasta, you have that mid day
for lunch. You know what I'm saying, Like, get your
carbs in the daytime, get your protein and your vegetables
at night. If you want to have fruit, you have
your fruit during the mid afternoon. You know, Like, the

(43:57):
diet plans aren't bad if they're thoroughly blamed to you
and you understand the system at which you're doing it,
and so like I I don't know how other nutritionists
have done it. You know, I've experienced Ricky Tertios's meal
plans because he has the PI working for him. I've
experienced Alex's meal plans because the same thing he's in

(44:17):
the UFC.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
I've seen how they do it.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
That's why I ended up hiring Eric Pinez because he
works for the UFC and he does it well, and honestly,
I think they do it well. So anyone who's like
has if you have anyone who's doing guest work for
you on your your weight cutting, or if you got
one of those old school MMA fighters, which I'm kind
of thinking Derek Campos probably had one of.

Speaker 4 (44:38):
Those old school coaches that's like, you just gotta you
just got to.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Eat nothing for three weeks and then you'll make the weight,
you know, And that's terrible. Man, You're you're in the
wrong camp. You need to you know that. That's what
sponsors are for. Like I use huge percentages of my
sponsorship checks to pay for my nutritionists, to pay for
my strength conditioning coach, to invest into myself, and then

(45:02):
the paycheck at the end of the day when I fight,
whether or not it replenishes that, it doesn't matter because
I'm not fighting for money. I'm fighting for glory. I'm
fighting for my legacy, and I'm fighting for my resume. Like,
nobody wants to train with the guy in the gym
that's doing a lot of guesswork. You know what they
want to train with, BKFC fighter Mma, that submission hunter

(45:24):
pro Champ, That's who they want to fight. That's who
they want to train with, you know. And so so
I am my product. So these dudes that are doing
all this guesswork, you guys, go pay somebody who go
to went to school for it and and only deals
with fighters, like not some bodybuilding coach, not some fighter
that's cut weight incorrectly fifty times, but he miraculously made

(45:46):
it every time. So he's telling you what to do, Like, no,
go get a dude that that understands the game. He
went to school for it. There's there are there are
sciences that back up this stuff. Nowadays, it's a it's
a it's a it's a it's a bright day and
age for fighters now and then beyond that, like do
your body mass index? Like I thought it featherweight for
so long because I thought I was a featherweight because

(46:06):
I'm short. But it turns out my body mass index
wants me to be a fifty fiver. So as soon
as my nutritionists was like, yo, dude, you're not supposed
to be at forty five. You're supposed to be at
fifty five. I'm telling you right now, like an inch
is not going to make a difference when you are healthy.
And when I thought at one hundred and fifty five pounds,
I thought a dude, it was way bigger than me,

(46:27):
and I demolished him. When I fought at one hundred
and sixty pounds and I thought a dude that was
bigger than me, I crushed him because I felt good
and I didn't cut a halacious amount of weight. So
that's you know, again, it is what it is with
these with these guys doing all the guest work. But
you know, hopefully with the weight cutting issue again, I

(46:48):
think the best way to do it is have them
weigh in before the contract is signed and if they're
if they're like, you know, thirty pounds to forty pounds out,
then they need to You need to find a guy
I'll fight them that they can agree to at the
next weight class up. And if that's not the case,
then if you're gonna be in the UFC, you should
be maintaining a certain weight at all times, like honestly,

(47:10):
you should be you should have the ability to take
short notice fights.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
That's how close you should be on weight.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Like if you get called off the couch, let's face it,
if you're serious about it, you're not on the couch.
But if you get called up, you should be like,
I can make that weight.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
I'll take it. Let's go. And that's how it should be.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Like if it all goes well on Saturday night, I
piece this dude and knock him up, you know, get
him done in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth round, whatever,
I don't take a lot of damage. I'm gonna look
at the BCFC and be like, yo, man, I'm not
all messed up.

Speaker 4 (47:42):
Let's get another one lined up as soon as possible.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
And then beyond that, like, hey, and if anything falls out,
you let me know and I'll show up and I'll
get to one fifty five, you know, or one sixty.
I don't mind one sixty now. One sixty five is
a little brash because I'm walking around at one.

Speaker 4 (47:57):
Seventy though, But you know, let's let's let's be professional.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah. I think that's the kind of the the mantra
of the of the evening that let's be professional. Let's
do things the right way. You know. Between you know,
when I was already talking about what you let me
know about your opponents, what we were already going going
down those lines, like we said, like I said, there's
the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sometimes we see
we see all of them within a span of a

(48:26):
fun week. So but yeah, I'm with you there, We
just we just I think as an athlete, we all
have to hold ourselves accountable and to a to a
certain level. And as we were already talking about three things, train,
make weight, go fight, It's it's not that hard. If
you're not If you can't make the weight, don't sign

(48:48):
the contract.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
I can only assume that when he got the contract
he was like, oh well I need this pay check, so.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
And so you know, but yeah, all you're gonna do
at the end of the day is burn Bridges and
that now you're not gonna entertainertaining a fight with him
because you already know he's unprofessional. Yeah, you're you know,
Baron Knuckle is gonna you're gonna be on on on
thin ice with them because now they're gonna have trouble match.
And he goes guy because it's gonna get around this
guy that doesn't want to make weight. He's gonna give
you a calls and he's gonna he's gonna try to

(49:21):
give you an excuse on the book to make it
a catch weight. And how how do you sell sell
fights out of catchweight when you guys are trying to
build build up, you know, divisions to to and guys
who want to move up rankings. As you're sitting there
saying you're not doing this for for the fun or
the money. You're doing it for for the glory of it,
you know, and and there there's nothing wrong with that.

(49:42):
A lot a lot a lot of athletes, you know,
when you get to this level, we get to a
certain age, it's it's about the fights that make sense,
not just to go in there and fighting anybody. So, uh,
you know, I'm sure, uh you know, if and when
you get you get that win Saturday night, you're gonna
start looking, Okay, well, who's uh, who's who's.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
Ahead of me in the in the top fifteen ranking
for BKFC.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Okay, I'll take this guy, this guy or this guy
let me know when they're free.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
It's exactly it, man like again, just be professional.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
Listen, I don't blame you for going back to him
being irritated. I'd be freaking irritated about it now too.
Like I've had situations where you call people out on
on just being professional doing things in the right way.
They get upset about it. They want to sit there
and message you and do There's always somebody that's got
something to say about it. Like listen, dude, just at
the end of the day, you know what's expected of you.

(50:36):
You know what you signed up for. Be professional. I
mean you know that will be the mantra of this
eport the episode professional.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
And speaking of which, ya, I want to switch gears
and get you off. And we were talking about last
night's fights. Man, we have to talk about the controversy
from last night. Brother. Uh you know, uh, you know
Anthony Smith already called it out. You know. You know
poor Paul Craig, you know, unfortunately did up kick his opponent.

(51:06):
He deserves an oscar for that last night, correct, Man.

Speaker 4 (51:10):
I don't know, because I'll tell you I fought in.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
LFA.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
I fought a guy named Gabriel Silva and he, like
starch cold, knocked me out. I was fighting on Dana
White's looking for a fight. So I got it in
my head that I wasn't gonna grapple. I was just
gonna throw down the whole time, to like show Dana.
I was ready to get signed to the UFC. Like.
I hit with a punch right on the temple and
it kind of like blinded me for a second, and

(51:39):
so I backpedaled with my hands straight out and I
bounced off the cage and the guy.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
Caught me right on the on the chin with an uppercut.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
As soon as my butt hit the ground, my body
went into instinct mode and I drove in on a
double leg on the ref. I took the ref down,
I started to pass his guard. The only and the
only reason I know this is because I watched the
video that nobody was home there. You could see it
in my eyes like there, I couldn't focus. I was

(52:08):
just kind of looking around. But I was holding the
ref by the neck with my hands straight up in
the air, ready to throw a punch. And the doctors
like ran up on me and they were like, do
not hit him, And I was like what is going on?
And I'm like you could see you in here, and
so you know, like on the on the one end.
On the one end, it did look a little bit like, uh,

(52:33):
there was a little bit of theatrics going on.

Speaker 4 (52:35):
But also I've been there.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
I remember I was like peeling their hands off, and
I was like, I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm fine. I mean,
I don't remember, but I remember watching the video of it,
and I'm And then I didn't wake up until I
was back in the back locker room and they were
tucking my gloves off of me, and one of the
jerks of the glove getting pulled off my hand brought
me back to reality. But I was eyes open, walking

(52:58):
around like getting carted around, all glazed over by everybody,
And I'm like, when that happened to him and he
got upkicked and I saw it, I was like, man,
having experienced something like that before, I didn't do all
of that, Like I didn't shake on the ground and
then butt scoop backwards and then try to wrap up
daily evon on the ref.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
But you know again, it does that.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
You know, those flash knockouts are crazy, man, your brain
getting cocted and your.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Body got thinked mode.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
And when you've dealt with you know, round after round
after round after round after round, all throughout camp.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
Sometimes your body will do what it needs to do
to keep it self protected.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
And so I'm I like, it's like, I'm fifty to
fifty half of me agrees with Anthony Smith, but then
also half of me is like, hey man, he made
that upkick. May have been worse than you think. Those
are some big boys and he got like snapkicked in
the face.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
Yeah, I mean, it was it was it was a
it was an up kick. It was a it was
a nice ax up upkick, you know, regardless if if
Paul meant to do it or not. Is you know,
is another one of those things that people like to
throw out there. But it's one of those things when
you're in that position that's kind of like you're like

(54:15):
you were talking about, it's an instinct, you know, flat
flash knockouts, that's an instinct thing. So it's it's it's
one of those things where it's unfortunately, you know, one
of those things you can't really avoid all the time.
But like like I said, it's, uh, the nuances of
m M A where it just it just rears its
head and it's just sometimes there's nothing you can really

(54:36):
say or do about it. It's just what happened to
happen at that moment. You know, at the moment it's
not a DQ, it's a no contest. So we'll see
if anything changes there. I know a lot of people
are giving my man some heat right now, so we
you know, and we see that a lot in combat sports.
You know. Yeah, I guess what's the what's the phrase

(54:57):
going around now, fraud checks? You know, Yeah, these guys
being hyped up, you know, these the you know, these
guys coming from wrestling backgrounds, are coming from this background,
and it's always all, well, he or she just got
fraud checked. Well, or maybe we just over hyped them
and they got put in there with with somebody who was,

(55:17):
you know, above their level, and we seen where their
skill is at. Right now, when you could say fraud
check is when they when they're going in there and
they still have that hype and they haven't gotten any better,
they haven't learned from their mistake. I say it all
the times, like you're you're not really a fighter until
you get humbled and you get one of those l's,
you get caught in a submission, you get you get

(55:39):
knocked out.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
Some fighters have the fortunate you know, skill.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
Set, they never get to be humbled like that. They
never get to feel that experience. To be a real
professional mixed martial artist, you got to get get somewhere
up the mountain, get knocked down and climb back up.
But again sometimes and it's one of those things like
we live in the the you know, the social media world,
and then we could say anything behind a keyboard, a

(56:04):
video camera, what what, whatever. But I think it's an
unfair thing, especially with some of some of these you
know up and coming your own prospect. Oh well they've
been fraud checked. No they haven't. They just fount where
their level is right now. I don't think there's anyone's
been fraud checked. Hype is hype, you know.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes a bay thing.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
But I'm getting sick of the fraud check nonsense. That's
just me.

Speaker 3 (56:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:26):
And then beyond anything else, I'll tell you this, one
of the scariest things you can ever do is make
that walk. That is a scary process. You walk down
that that that corridor, that tunnel, that that walkway, and
you look at that cage and either you're the first
one in or you're the second one in. When you're
the first one in, you're then waiting on your opponents
to get there. When you're the second one in, your

(56:46):
opponent's watching you the whole way in, and so it's
it's it's it's you know, it's still nerve racking to
this day, every time I do it, it's exciting. I like
crave the feeling of it, but but it's still nerve racking.
So anyone who climbs in cage, especially at the top level.
You you know, Anthony Smith being you know who he is.

(57:07):
I understand where he's coming from, but that in itself
is hard enough. So the fact that he was able
to climb in there with Paul Craig, a jiu jitsu
mm a phenom, you know, a giant human being. Overall,
at the end of the day, you're you're either gonna
take these hard, you know situations, You're gonna take these

(57:28):
challenges and you're gonna shine or you're gonna get shined on.

Speaker 4 (57:32):
And that's why it's it's one of these, it's fifty
to fifty.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
This is one of those scenarios where it's the other
you know, it's the thirty thirty three, thirty three thirty three.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
I guess you know the.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
The other the other outcome is something crazy happened in
the fight went to no contest, and you know what,
they'll probably get matched up again, they'll redo the fight.
I assume Paul Craig will trying all that guy, and
then you know it'll be what it is. So you know,
it's whatever. But you know, yeah, at the end of
the day, all these keyboard warriors, all these guys that

(58:03):
don't do it, or haven't been there before, or aren't
at that level, they really just have no business talking
about that. I I've had guys get on Facebook or
Instagram and message me after fights.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Sometimes right after a fight, they they're they're in your
inbox like dude, who are you?

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yeah, I'm like, bro, I don't even know you. Why
are you talking to me? And they're like, oh, you
just you did this the whole fight and that's not
one of.

Speaker 1 (58:27):
The most terrible fighter in the planet.

Speaker 2 (58:29):
But they come to my gym sign a waiver and
then do rounds with me, and then and then you
tell me.

Speaker 1 (58:35):
Sam Alvey's the best for that. Have you seen him
on social media over there? So he's just been like listen,
come fly out. I'll send you come. You can come
to my ranch. You can stay in my ranch. I'll
give you a nice little room. We go to the
gym and we'll see what's fun. I love him doing that.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
Man, Man, it's these guys, I mean. But the good
thing is it's one of those things where because that
specific thing is happening.

Speaker 4 (58:56):
Where these streamers are getting flown out.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
And beat up.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
You know, I would love for that to happen. Uh,
that would be great if some if some streamer was
to call me out and be like, I'm gonna go
test Jakeffrigan, because I'll tell you what, no matter what
performances I've done in the cage, when I'm in my
gym and I'm on my home turf and I'm representing
my my coaches and teammates, I am the mat enforcer
at my gym. I like, right, I crave when those

(59:25):
when those wrestlers show up and they're like, I'm gonna
show everybody that I can be the best, and I
just I just beat them up something fear. My favorite
thing to do is when somebody's going too hard with
one of the younger fighters or even with somebody that
doesn't fight. They're just there to get a workout, and
they're just this guy's just leg kicking them or punching
them in the face too hard. I go drop them
with a body shot. That's my favorite thing. I didn't

(59:47):
even punch you in the face. Dog, I hit you.

Speaker 4 (59:50):
I hit you in your belly and you and you
you keeled over and started crying.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Kick like need to the need of the rib cage.
See how you like it? Bro Again, that's one thing
I I I.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
Like that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
You know, Sean O'Malley's done it, Mike Perry's done it.
You know Strickland, Strickland's done it a lot, even even
you know Andrew Tait, he fought like three hundred guys
or thirty guys or something some audience I see.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
I've seen the video.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
He's basically fought like sixty some guys in like in
like twenty five minutes or something. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Yeah, And it's like he beat up every one of
them because none of them fought, none of them trained before.
And it's like, dude, andertate's not even that good. But
and it's like what we call them is the uninitiated.
They come in and they talk all that mess, but
they've never gone through rounds with with pro fighters, and
they're like, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Hey, like I know, I got the utmost respect. I
may I may be critiquing a fighter on some things.
I may sit there and talk about like hey, you
could use this to your veiners or that to your veiners.
But at the end of the day, I respect all
of you guys. You guys go in there like you know,
I watched my kids train for the better part of
of six years. You guys, there there's a level. There's

(01:01:03):
a level two normal average shows like me and guys
like you, and even girls don't. Don't. Don't sleep on
the on the female fighters either, because they're just as nasty,
you know. I know Julianna and Penyon was just talking
about getting beat up by a by a line chef
when she before she became an actual you know, you know,
legitimate fighter. But like there's levels, man, and and sometimes

(01:01:26):
some people need just just like like as Tyson says,
sometimes you just got to punch these idy to like
talk too much in the mail. Let them know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Yeah, that's the that's the way to do it, honestly.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
And speaking of guys testing themselves and putting in themselves
in the linelight. I don't know if you've seen this.
I came across this, I got I gotta talk about it.
Former Philadelphia seventy six er Michael Carter Williams is now
three and oh as a professional boxer. It's not rare
we see guys, guys who were athletes and other sports
excel when they come over to combat sports. Because, uh,

(01:02:00):
you know, there was a former cowboy name, uh Greg Hardy.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
He didn't do too well.

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Yeah, and you know, obviously he was in the news
recently because he got himself into some more legal troubles
and stuff like that. But he's been having a rough
going at uh even outside after he's left the UFC.
He's been put on his but a few times. So
it's nice to see some one of these guys, you know,
especially a basketball player, former Philadelphia seventy six I got
to throw it out there, you know, coming over to

(01:02:27):
boxingything and getting some things done. Hopefully, you know, see
how he does in another year or two, see if
he keeps it up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Man. Honestly, I love it when that happens. I think
it's super super cool. I you know, I think also
what that is is these these guys probably have been training.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Oh yeah, probably. You got to think about it, like
I mean, when you talk about high level athletes, like
when you're talking about like you know, uh uh you
know NFL players, you know, NBA players, you have to
train at everything to train your body to get get
ready for these seasons, like hockey players and things that.
Obviously hockey players are guys that are that are definitely

(01:03:03):
gonna be in in the gym, boxing, kickboxing, doing things
and things of that nature just because of you know,
the sport they play. But we see some of these guys,
like you know that that they're doing more than just
you know, uh uh drills that are that are attested
to their particular sport. They're doing everything to keep their

(01:03:23):
body at at at the at these high levels man.
And uh, we were just talking about that. Did did
you see what Lesnar's daughter.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Did this weekend?

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Yes, she said national shot put champion. First off, her
her mother's jeans did not transfer over, that's all.

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
No, no, yeah, she looks like Brock.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
Sure, But and that that's not nothing bait either, because
he's he's an absolute animal. Now obviously, we we we
we've got other other former heavyweights. You know, uh Mayamir
is getting ready to go for her third amateur fight.
You think we're ever gonna see We're gonna see uh
you know uh uh Maya over here get getting a

(01:04:05):
chance to do some do some UFC like Brock. You
know you think that she's ever gonna test her reins
at that? Or is it he's gonna school her up there? Like, listen,
there's another level to this too, man.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Honestly, if she was smart, she would use her dad's
hookups to get her in some pro wrestling.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
That's what I would do, dude, Like listen, being a
shoppo champion right now, Listen, we know you've got strength, girl,
We know you got the strength.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
So it's like if you if she has a real
interest and she wants to do it, that's not gonna
be something her dad like.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
It's one thing I always with my kids.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
My kids train because I want them to be able
to defend themselves. But they don't have to do what
I do. Like you guys don't got to do what
daddy does. That is what I do because I want.

Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
To do it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Nobody can make you climb into a cage. I have
seen guys go to the fight card, show up, get wrapped,
watch one fight, turn around, look at the coaches and go,
I don't want to do it. I don't want to
do it. And they've had to get talked into.

Speaker 4 (01:05:01):
Going in and fighting. And you know what happens to
those dudes.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
They get beat up and then they quit and then
they get t KO'ed or finished, or what's worse is
their coach, you know, talks them into it when they
weren't ready, and then they go out there and they
get super knocked out. And it's one of those things
where you can't make people fight. Like if my son
wants to be a YouTuber, he wants to do podcasts

(01:05:26):
and he wants to he wants to, you know, do
game reviews and toy reviews and things like that, and
I'm like, I'm totally I was like, you know what,
I'll buy you all the equipment, we'll make sure it's
done the right way and safely and and that you're
not dealing with any weirdos on the internet, and then.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
We'll do it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
And then but my daughter she's like, Daddy, I want
to do what you want to do. And I'm like, yo,
keep that energy. But it's whatever you want to do.
I will support you with whatever you want. Now, if
she you know, if she's a she's a super athlete,
Brock Listener's daughter. You know, that's that is something that
is ingrained into her. If you want to call it genetics,

(01:06:08):
you can call it genetics. It looks to me like
it's just a ton of hard work and a good
example set in front of her with her dad. That's
what it looks like. That is my goal. I just
want to set an example that you can't have whatever
you want in life, like the parents that are like, oh,
you can be whatever you want. No, you can't. You
cannot be whatever you want. You can be whatever you

(01:06:28):
work really really hard to be. You want to be
an investment baker, you gotta learn math. You know, you
want to be a Signif you gotta learn chemistry, you
want to you know, like you got you want to
do something, you gotta go learn it. You gotta immerse
yourself into it, and you gotta you gotta make it
something that you can literally tell some people I'm a

(01:06:49):
professional at this, Like I am a professional jiu jitsu athlete.
I am a professional retired MMA fighter. I am a
soon to be professional boxer. Why because I am immersed
myself into it. I am addicted to training. Every aspect
of training, lifting, running, dieting, cutting, coaching. All of that

(01:07:12):
stuff is my every single day. I live it, I
breathe it. It runs through my veins, you know, like
there's no guesswork being done. Like I said before, So
if that's something that like these athletes that you know,
maybe they did boxing when they were younger.

Speaker 4 (01:07:25):
It was just something they tried, but they loved and
then they they.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
Found out they were really good at basketball or football
or baseball or whatever, and they pursue that and they
and they do what they what they want with it,
and then they go to something else. Like me, I
wanted to do everything in the world with mma. I
thought that was going to be it for me. And
then I realized how good I was at jiu jitsu,
and then I realized that I really like to box.

Speaker 4 (01:07:47):
Rather than mix the two together, I'd rather just do
jiu jitsu.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
And and you know, now I'm the one to fifty
five champ and I'm gonna go do boxing and then
hopefully I get to be the one fifty five bare
knuckle f C champ eventually.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
So it's one of those things where just because.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
You know you you you start with one thing, doesn't
mean you can't change.

Speaker 4 (01:08:06):
But you do have to immerse yourself. You have to
work really really hard.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
As you're sinner saying you love ju jujitsu, you're coaching
stuff like that. We you know we're already you're already
connected there at UFCP I and stuff like that. Would
you would you be be opposed to getting involved when
the UFC does get it there ready to launch their
UFCBJJ stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Oh, I'm going to go try to get the Submission
Hunter Pro title for one fifty five. I got a
title uh defense coming up, so you know, defend the
No G title, and then I'm going to go to
try to go clutch up to the GE title for
one fifty five. And then I'm going to make my
argument to the UFC like, Hey, I'm the best in
Texas at one hundred and fifty five pounds, what's up?

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
Like put me in?

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Like age is not a factor when it comes to
jiu jitsu. Age is a factor when it comes to
m M A. And I understand that, and I've said
this before to other people. UFC wants to get as
much long out of their athletes as possible. When you
are zeroed in on one style, you can do that
till you're fifty. But the mixture of having to go
to boxing class on Monday, kickboxing on Tuesday, jiu jitsu

(01:09:12):
on Thursday, MMA class on Friday, you know, it's like
you literally your body just goes through so much wear
and tear. Like i have so enjoyed doing this boxing camp,
and I'm coming off the jiu jitsu camp. I this
this camp has been twelve weeks for me, twelve weeks
of six weeks of jiu jitsu camp, six weeks of
boxing camp, you know. And I've always been boxing.

Speaker 4 (01:09:33):
I've been boxing since i was nineteen years old.

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
I've been in boxing classes, taking boxing, you know seriously,
but I've been using it from MMA now getting to
zero in on just doing boxing, my body is not
dealing with any of that wear and tear like it
was with MMA, where I'm like, you know, like doing
grappling for an hour and then in the next hour,
I'm jumping straight into kickboxing class and doing kickboxing, and

(01:09:58):
then the next day I'm doing MMA, and then I'm
doing ju jitsu again, and then I'm doing you know,
I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Three as you gotta think you're not just your body's overloaded,
your mind's overloaded. So what are you actually retaining when
you're trying to do that too. It's Yeah, people really
don't understand how hard it is to to to do
m m A. I was talking to to one of
the guests last week. We just seen the NFL kind
of kind of uh put throwing their hat in the

(01:10:23):
flag football for the Olympics. You think we're ever going
to see m m A in the Olympics. There's just
too many variables that could that to to get that
to go right man.

Speaker 4 (01:10:32):
Yeah, Unfortunately, I don't think it'll ever happen. It's hard enough.
They I remember at one point they were talking about trying.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
To do jiu jitsu in uh in the Olympics, and
that's been hard enough. And if it's like we can't
even get jiu jitsu in there, but there's judo and
you know, stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (01:10:47):
But you know, the problem, the problem is there's just
so much.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
There's so much going on with with the the smaller details,
like you said, with with m m A. That I
just I don't ever see it being something like you know,
and then beyond that with with with the Olympics, I
think you have to be an amateur to do Olympics boxing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
Right, Yeah, That's what I'm saying, Like, if you've done
any any type of pro anything, like, you're not gonna
get big athletes. But I'm saying, like how you wind
up growing, Like like a lot of times, those those
amateur boxers that that want up winning gold medals, how
many times have you seen them go and turn around
and become multiple time multiple division world champions with the

(01:11:32):
list is pretty long? Yeah, you know. So, I mean
I do think if you have if you probably have
to be completely geared up, you know, shin guards, uh
you know, you know, uh headguards. But I think you
would probably have to do a similar to to an
an amateur MMA rules set like no elbows, no no

(01:11:55):
things that like you all have to take a few
of those things out. But I think it it could
help it grow. But I just think there's too many
things that happened injuries, you know, WAG class is there's
so many different variables going on there where I think
it may not it may never happen or may be
almost impossible to get it to be a high level

(01:12:17):
of excitement that most fans are used to watching, unless
you truly love love MMA to the point where it
doesn't matter if it's amateur, if it's head gears, shin guards,
et cetera.

Speaker 4 (01:12:27):
Yeah, it's again, it's too many factors.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
I think, Uh, I think keeping everything on the specifics
away from MMA, just boxing, you know, just judo. Again,
I would rather see jiu jitsu in the Olympics before
I would take So keep everything on the specific end
when it comes to the Olympics, and then we'll get
those gymnasts. We'll get those judo you know, gold medalists.

(01:12:53):
You know we'll get those.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
I mean, you know you have to judo medalists to
be in UFC champions in Rondo, rass and Kayla Harrison,
you have some good representation there. I agree. I think
we should it's long overdue. Jiu jitsu should be should be,
UH should be an Olympic sport. I don't care if
you put it in the winter, if you put it
in summer, it really doesn't matter. It should be in

(01:13:15):
one of the two regardless, And UH something to give
some of these athletes to grow for We have, you know,
Olympic level wrestlers doing all kinds of kinds of stuff,
doing great things. You know that that are amateur wrestlers
through through the through college years. A lot of times
it's either at that point they either become pro wrestlers

(01:13:36):
or they're thrown in the m m A. Give them
a chance to go fight for their to to basically
you know, fight and show their skills off for their country.
Give that, give them that opportunity, you know, That's all
I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. You know, if we
never get mm A, we never get mm A. But
at least give us jiu.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
Jitsu and honestly, man like, to me, the UFC is
the Olympics of NA so you know we're pretty much
set there anyways.

Speaker 1 (01:14:02):
Yeah, I hear you. I mean Olympics to a point,
But yeah, I mean how UFC has grown over the
last ten years internationally, things of that nature. I know,
I'm pretty hard on them right now, just because the
stars ain't popping out like they used to. I say,
you know that they they if they don't do something
really soon, star power is gonna be all but gone. Yeah,

(01:14:24):
and then you're having the price thing that we have
already we already talked about earlier and things of that nature.
You're going to you're going to have a problem if
they don't start developing stars like they were the early
days of The Ultimate Fighter where.

Speaker 6 (01:14:37):
Almost you you could count where's at least five guys
or girls from each show that would wind up being
a star to some level, regardless if they became a
champion or not.

Speaker 1 (01:14:48):
You were invested in watching them win, lose, grow, fail,
et cetera. You were invested in. I don't know if
it's maybe the fans have changed or just the way
that the UFC goes about promoting those things.

Speaker 3 (01:15:02):
It's they're in trouble in that aspect in my opinion.

Speaker 1 (01:15:05):
Yeah, they don't. They don't really.

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
Do the It's almost like they expect you to, you know, Oh,
everyone's got their own social media is get your own followers,
say something crazy online, like I think, I think it's
just one of those things where they the social media
kindness has ruined a lot of aspects of the promotions
doing the work to make the stars, because they expect

(01:15:32):
the fighters to make themselves into these stars and it's
just not happening that way social media.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Also, you got to remember to remember the remember the
countdown shows. They'd almost do the entire main card. Yeah,
you have to be lucky if they just do the
main comin and maybe a feature fight on the card.

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Yeah, it's it's it's it's definitely, I mean, and I'm
sure some people will say, oh, it's because of covid
or you stop it exactly, like, not that I'm telling
you right now. It's it's the fact of of In
my opinion, I really do think it's it's the it's

(01:16:10):
the backlash of what social media is doing. Two Because
some some you know, and I don't mean to be mean,
but some girl online can wear an outfit that has
her boobs out and she's going to be having more
followers than any professional athlete by by not just a
couple of thousand, by like a million followers.

Speaker 1 (01:16:33):
Yeah, I know what you mean. Like, and it's sad
when you talk about it, because a lot of the
if you look at a lot of the female athletes,
that's how they build their brand is off of the
off of the back of the sexualization of social media.

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
I agree with that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:47):
And that's why I laugh when you see some of
these some of these fighters be like, well, I'm not
interested in the women's fighting. Well, I'm like, well, the
fans might disagree with you. Yeah, because I still think
fans are more invested with their fights. One because the
because the female athletes, it's hard to find those top
level girls and two half of them are already picturing

(01:17:08):
what they look like with they don't have their clothes off.
Let's be honest. Yeah, no, it is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
There's certain positions when they get into when they're in
mount or by control that everybody crowd is like, whoa,
suddenly this fight got interesting. Yeah, that's but the problem is,
you know the men aren't able to do that. That's
not happening.

Speaker 1 (01:17:29):
Well, unless you're for corysaying, Hagen, I don't know if
you heard about that, right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
Oh you know what I did? I did hear about that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
That's what.

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
It makes two billion dollars off showing off your basketballs.

Speaker 1 (01:17:41):
Man, how do you do that? Bro?

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
Teach us there, But that's the man. And then that
that just but that bleeds into the issues that we're
having with.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
Yeah, it does that he has to do something like
that to kind of crowd fund his career, like it's
it's rough, Like you have to cross the line where
you feel like you probably shouldn't have to.

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):
And then I don't want to be the dad that
my kids go to school.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
Oh yeah, right, that's the other side of the man.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
Some dudes bullying my son because he showed him a
picture of me online because I was trying to make
twenty bucks, you know, like I can't have that, so,
you know, and if that's what Corey san Higgan's actually doing,
whether it was a joke or not, I don't know,
but you know, at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
Yeah, we could probably count like just about thirty percent
of the UFC's female roster that has of accounts that
have probably doubled that they probably pay for their entire
fight camps for multiple years and things of that nature.
But that's up to them if they want to do that.
Like I'll give only fans credits to a point where

(01:18:48):
not only do they sponsor athletes, but they don't they
tell them they don't have to do you know, the
adult rate of stuff that just do do training videos,
do X, do Y do Z.

Speaker 2 (01:18:59):
And you know, to be be amy twenty dollars for
my feet shots. I guess I'll take it, but not all.

Speaker 3 (01:19:08):
Let's go see Jake's hairy feet.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
I got some really nice I take care of my feet.
My toenails are immaculate. So if you guys want to
feet that are really big but also well taken care of,
I guess that's what we can do. But beyond that,
bro like again, it's just it just you know, and
then and then the prefer the perversion of what's happening
online is also just I feel like that's making society

(01:19:33):
worse and worse, and it gives people excuses to, you know,
bring that to the schools and bring that to my
young children. And I'll tell you what, I am one
of those dads where if I find out some perverbs
doing something weird in front of my child, I'm gonna
go have a conversation. And that conversation might not be
what you like, and that conversation might.

Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
Not have you know, we talk about that that guy
you always see the video of you know their you know,
uh Louisiana there bringing this guy who kidnapped this kid
and did all these things. He used to work for
the TV network. He's hiding by the fucking the the
phone booth thing and he just pipe pops, put put
one in his head and you know, pleads guilty or whatever.

(01:20:15):
The funny part is the older son reposted that video earlier.
He was like, the funny thing about that is, you know,
you know, you know, you know obviously you know my brother,
you know, you know, had a traumatic experience. But you know,
Dad pulled the ultimate dad mood. Like listen, you know
a lot of us feel that way. You know, I
think a lot of us feel that Kane Velaska shouldn't
be spending any time in jail after after the things

(01:20:38):
that that he had to go do with. But you know,
our judicial system fails. How is the guy that assaulted
his son sitting at home still to this day, on
on on you know, on house arrest with an ankle monitor.
Why Kane Velaska is in jail. It makes no sense
to me. I mean I would still be livid, but
you know, and he has to play you know, the
the you know the car that you know, you know

(01:21:01):
he did something wrong. No, I don't feel Kane did
anything wrong. And furthermore, I think I think Kan should
have better aim and rid every one of the world
of that mame, but then California penal system would have
really slammed the hammer down on him and probably would
have been doing more time. So in that sense, I
kind of agree with with it. But it's it's one
of those things. Man, we're daz man. If we know

(01:21:22):
something bay's happened, we immediately go go to do the
one thing. Who what, where or when? And and somebody
gets some bail money up because you don't need it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
Yeah, And I'm right there with you, bro, Like I
would have I would have been, you know, maybe posted
up somewhere with a high high powered rifle.

Speaker 1 (01:21:43):
That right now you'd be hanging out with some Navy
seals structured its like, Yo, you got to teach me somethings, guys.
I got some situation I got to deal with in
my life.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
I had to plead insanity or whatever else so that
I can go sit in the room for you know,
two months and then get out. Then That's what I'll do.
But either way, the you know, going back on what
we were saying before, I think the UFC really does
leave it to social media to make.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
It's It's sad it goes that way to me. I
think that's really where we're losing that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:15):
Like, you know, when was the last time a UFC
guy was on a wheaties box? You know what I'm saying,
Like when when I don't even remember, you know, are
they still doing it? Because I don't know because and
I go to the I go to the to the
grocery store to go back, you know, stuff for my
kids and stuff. And that's where it's you know, there
needs to wear the billboards at where are the commercials?

(01:22:36):
You know, grantwear advertisements. Nowadays there's no commercial I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
I think the one thing they've gotten better with is,
like I guess, the collector's part of things like sports
cards and stuff like that and unique stuff that they
do with.

Speaker 3 (01:22:48):
You know, obviously Dana White is very close with tops.

Speaker 1 (01:22:51):
He does does you know his tops Fridays on his
social media's and stuff like that. But I agree with you,
I think there's parts of it that doesn't go the
way that he used to. And you're not finding these
other ways of building the athlete outside of what they
do on their own social media, which has forced them

(01:23:11):
to kind of lean this way or lean that way.
So I mean, it's it's rough. It's something that I
think we're you know, we're stuck in this run and
I just think it's we're gonna, you know, as athletes,
you know, they're just gonna have to find their way
through it to connect with the general public in one way,
shape or form.

Speaker 3 (01:23:30):
Justin Gage is another one man. I don't know if
you've seen this. He donates most of most of the
money for his person to underprivileged kids. Uh, you know,
you know obviously, you know, Daniel Cormier does a lot,
a lot of wrestling programs. He sends kids over to
Daghastan and stuff like that to train and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
So they all do their own thing in their own
way to kind of grow and connect with with with people.
But it's hard for some of the some of these
people who are up in that haven't built a brand
to be able to kind of connect and do that
and grow in that way. So I think if the
UFC is just leaning on social media, they need they
need themselves need to do better to say, hey, we're

(01:24:13):
gonna pick you know, five athletes a year from each
weight class, and you know we're gonna do X, Y
and Z to kind of help help you guys get
out that there are more people to potential sponsors outside
of the cage and things of that nature. You have
to do something that to help these guys and girls
to kind of get out of this mold and trend
that we're stuck in.

Speaker 2 (01:24:33):
That's the other thing is like the UFC has so
much money that they're not using to pay the fighters
no offense, but maybe take five athletes, five UFC guys,
you know, five different weight classes, take them out to
a high school or some event, do a talk, go

(01:24:53):
to the you know, I know my coach Alex Morono,
he just went and talked to the Boy Scouts and
did a whole event over there with the Boy Scouts
here in Houston.

Speaker 4 (01:25:02):
So it's like, there's options.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
It's just I feel like, you know, it's it's just
it's not even I don't think that they're doing it
on purpose. I think that they're just comfortable. And what
is the worst thing that you can do is because it's.

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
Just the worst thing to do with anything when you're
involved in combat sport is being complacent or comfortable. Yeah,
you can't.

Speaker 3 (01:25:21):
It's something that that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):
I think was the reason why I made have lost
the first time is because she didn't have a challenge anymore.
Somebody like Kayla Harrison has excited her and got her
up for a challenge. Now yeah, and I think we
all knew this that that fight was coming. So it's
one of these things where you can't get complaced, you
can't just be okay with where things are. And I
think that's probably the big You're right, that's probably the

(01:25:44):
biggest problem that is going on with the ufc IS
is that they've gotten fat and comfortable on top of
their throne.

Speaker 3 (01:25:50):
It's looking sloppy.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Man. Someone needs to tell the king to kind of uh,
you know, spiffing himself up and get and get get
ready for a big fight. Because you know, BK. David
felt his great job.

Speaker 2 (01:26:04):
You know, the more shows he puts out, the more
you know, the more he gets, you know, the company built,
the more that he has these options. So he's you know,
you as an athlete for for the company. I would
love to sit down and be like, hey, man, send
me somewhere use me. I'm an athlete. I'm I'm a
professional athlete. I've I've devoted my life to being an

(01:26:25):
example for you know, the younger crowd, the kids, the
everyday Joe that thinks that they can't do this. Like,
I'm an athlete, bro, send me somewhere all you know,
put me in a basketball game. I don't even watch basketball,
but put me there. I'll sit down and I'll go.
I'll go, you know, shake some hands and and do
the things I need to do. Like it starts small.

(01:26:48):
It's those little tiny things where you know, it's on
a news station where somebody says, oh, pro athlete and
pro boxer BKFC boxer. Was that a Knicks game this weekend,
or a you know, a Diamondback game this weekend, or's
something where we can you know, we can you know,
put us in places where and you can't say, well,
now he lives in this place. There's an athlete in

(01:27:10):
every single state. There's an athlete in.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
The amount of guys they have on the roster or
under their wing, regardless of a still currently fighting, used
to fight, et cetera. You know the fact that you
know UFC veteran will open a door for you where
were it wouldn't have mattered twenty years ago, you know,
so you know i'd do something made done.

Speaker 4 (01:27:36):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:27:37):
The other thing I think that it's hard is that
when you do put all this effort towards the the
promotions and then you're not quite getting back what you
want in being taken care of. Like why.

Speaker 1 (01:27:56):
That's why that's used to get so made. I remember
him flipping out after one of these events. He wanted
to see the the books beat opened up. He was like,
how am I only getting X, Y, and Z and
we done this and we did that, We promoted that,
we did this, we did that. Like I definitely feel
where you got where you as the athletes sitting there
saying like.

Speaker 3 (01:28:15):
How do you how are you only giving us this.

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):
Because I know we we put all this effort into
and I know you guys are are making you.

Speaker 3 (01:28:22):
Know X amount of money off of this and that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:24):
So it's it's rough, man, because the you know, they
still have you guys basically registered for lack of a
better term, is like indentured servants. You guys are subcontracted employees. Man.
That's it's not That's one of the other things I
talked about about changing the sport. It's something that that you,
you as the athlete, should be taken care of. Like

(01:28:45):
even the NFL, I still don't think they do enough.
They only cover these guys up the five years after
after they retire, so it's it's it's still not enough.
I mean they do have programs and.

Speaker 3 (01:28:55):
Things of that nature. You know, the the NFL Players
Association does a lot of stuff, but.

Speaker 1 (01:29:00):
That's just the NFL, the UFC, MMA, Combat Sports Boxing.
There's none of that that doesn't exist. No.

Speaker 2 (01:29:07):
Yeah, And that's the thing is, it's like with with
being a pro athlete, you kind of are in that
in that point where it's like if I make it,
say to the UFC Hall of Fame or or the
Bare Knuckle f C Hall of Fame or the Fury
FC Hall of Fame, what does that mean?

Speaker 4 (01:29:25):
Is that just a plaque that I take home?

Speaker 1 (01:29:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:29:27):
And I want nothing more to be in the Fury
FC in the Hall of Fame. That's one of my
goals right now. So you know, I'm still doing submission
or pro for Fury that's the same promotion and uh
and I talk to the promoter all the time. I'm like, man,
put me in the hall of fame. I've been fighting
for you since since the amateur days, you know. And
and it'd be nice, but you know, what would be

(01:29:48):
really great is with one of these like big promotions,
you know. I know it's harder for the smaller local promotions,
but for these bigger promotions, you know, with like the
UFC Hall of Fame or those guys getting a paycheck
for life after that is that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:01):
I think it's the same thing, y'all getting a ceremony,
a plaque, think something to put in your house. But
I don't think there's a dollar sign attached to that.
I don't think you guys get I don't think anyone
get actually taken care of. We already know that, Like
you know, the stuff that happened with Stephan Bonner. He
was completely separated, dissolved from the UFC, and that's why

(01:30:23):
he fell down the road he fell down. It's rough
to see some of these guys that we've seen help
grow that not just the promotion, but there's the sport
as a whole to a level, and then they're just
discarded once once they're done done with the promotion. Do
I think that they should be on the hook for everything? No,
I don't I think that, but I think there should

(01:30:45):
be something put in there, Like you know, if you
guys do you know you know we do X amount events.

Speaker 3 (01:30:51):
If you guys, do you know five.

Speaker 1 (01:30:53):
Meeting greets that year you're entitled to X y Z,
you know, do something where they have to earn their keep.
But take care of them, man, it's not yea hard.

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
Look at Andre Rolowski. He was the UFC champ, you know,
like he's been in the sport forever. I think he's
I think he's been doing him mad for like twenty
six years or something.

Speaker 1 (01:31:16):
Like something like that. I think he is probably the
longest active combat sports athlete that we have right now.

Speaker 2 (01:31:23):
And when he retired, Michelle Watterson had retired the same night,
and that's and Michelle Watterson's cool. I don't have anything
against her, but they did this big promo when she
retired where she was. They were like did her highlight
video and all that, and then you know, they gave

(01:31:44):
her like a sendoff. And when Andrea Orlowski, on the
same exact night retired, they didn't do anything for him.
He just like went home that night, like got his
paycheck and left. And it's like, that's that was so
sad to me.

Speaker 1 (01:31:58):
It's not sad. It's a slap in the face. Brother.
Let's call it what it really is.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
And so I'm I'm so glad that he's able to
go fight again. And you know, he did the dirty
the dirty boxing, which was super cool and awesome to watch.
He's doing bare knuckle f C, which is gonna be
great again. It's gonna be an honor to share, just
like a locker room with him, is my hope. And uh,
but it's one of those things, Yeah, hey man, can

(01:32:23):
you sign these real quick? You know something, so you
know it'll be you know, it's one of those things
where the sport will only grow from here and and
you know, it always has been growing. And I don't
mean like Emma, I mean combat sports overall has been
growing NonStop because because I'll tell you this is also

(01:32:45):
one of those scenarios where you know, what, what do
you expect us to do? After we fight? We're gonna
open gyms, We're gonna bring up the next echelon of fighters,
and then we're gonna and and we're gonna continue to
be around, like why not. Now, don't get me wrong,
if you get the guy that spirals out of control,

(01:33:06):
uses all his money to do a bunch of cocaine
and and get arrested a bunch and then and then
and then you know, ruin his own life, like obviously,
don't man, Yeah, listen, I.

Speaker 1 (01:33:19):
Love John, he's the goat, but he's ruined his his
his personal his personal persona to a point where a
lot of people don't like him.

Speaker 2 (01:33:29):
Yeah, and so it's like, but you know, there, there's
there's so many avenues to make sure that the fighters
are taken care of, you know, like, for instance, I
do commentary for you for Fury Fury FC on UFC
Fight Pass, I do the commentary for the Submissi Hunter
Pro matches. I do the commentary for the Challenger series.
I do that as much as I possibly can. It's

(01:33:50):
something I really am interested in. I like, you know,
obviously I can sit here and talk for.

Speaker 1 (01:33:55):
Trying to get in that Paul Felder role.

Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
I don't blame you, dude, I'm trying, bro, I'd love
to sit in there to Paul.

Speaker 1 (01:34:00):
And in commentation, he's lucky man because you know he
you know, good management team, great guy, personal guy. You
know again, my kids were lucky to be down there
at Daniel Gracie Philadelphia for a period of time. You
know him, Uh, you know, Sean Brady, all them guys
were coming up. Pat Savatin was always there. I mean,

(01:34:21):
you know, it's it's good to see a guy that
you know, you know, put everything in there, maybe did
did it. You know it wasn't the world champion, wasn't
you know, you know, it wasn't the super popular guy,
but was taking care of him away where This is
what I'm saying, Like you you know, you have guys
in ways that you could take care of these guys,
have them earn a paycheck, and they're not being one

(01:34:44):
of these guys that's on the news because you know,
you know, you know they fell into depression there that
they got involved with the wrong people and they wind
up either in jail doing drugs, passed away, et cetera.
That's what we did. We don't want to see are
are you know you CE legends or MMA legends go
down that road. You know, I see Mark, you know

(01:35:05):
where Mark Coleman was five years ago to where he
is now. Man, He's he's sober, he's he's he's getting healthy.
You know, he's doing you know, he was, you know,
doing stuff with the UFC. He just got inducted into
you know, the Ohio Wrestling Hall of Fame. He's doing commentary,
he's looking into the doing wheelchair boxing when vonder Lea Silva,

(01:35:28):
Why is he doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:35:30):
It's just one of those things where again, he.

Speaker 1 (01:35:34):
Should be taking care of financial where he doesn't have
to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:37):
Maybe one thing if he just wants to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:40):
But I would think we all can kind of see
from the outside looking in that there's probably a dollar
sign reason why he's doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:35:47):
I'll tell you this now. I'm not saying don't take
care of the other smaller fighters. Like obviously Paul Felder
is a great example of somebody who you know, Anthony
Smith an analysts. You know, Michelle Waterson has also done
you know, the analytics and stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:36:01):
And she's also in movies right now.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
She was just going.

Speaker 2 (01:36:06):
And you, I guarantee you that's that's from meeting certain
people at these MMA shows getting to talk to them.
I met Vince Vince Vaughan one time after an MMA
fight with Alex to Moronto.

Speaker 4 (01:36:16):
I thought that was one of the coolest things ever.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
You know, Like, I'll tell you this, as a combat
sports athlete, I was like, what am I gonna do
after I retire? I became a level for security officer.
I went and did security for Josh Brolin, and I
was the security guard, the main security guard for for Thanos,
for for you know, for for Gangster Squad Josh Brolin.
That was so cool. And that's one of those things

(01:36:39):
where I'm like, I'm sitting there talking to him. I'm like, hey, man,
I would love to go be your security guard when
you're on your next movie set. And then I would
love to be on a movie set watch somebody do
a fight scene and be like, that was garbage. I'm
a pro athlete, I'm a profider. That's done.

Speaker 1 (01:36:52):
And then maybe we're gonna have a conversation with the
fight choreographer like no, no, no, no, that's not like listen,
I know it's movies. It's like, yo, you have to
make it look at least look semi real. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:37:03):
Man, I'll wear a green mask and you guys can
punch me in the face for real, because that was garbage.
Bro you know something, you know and and either way,
like there's there's definitely ways. But at the end of
the day, like and again I was I was gonna
lead into this. If you win a UFC title, you
should be paid for the rest of your life for

(01:37:23):
achieving that goal, and they should go back and they
should be one of.

Speaker 1 (01:37:27):
The hardest thing to do as a professional athlete.

Speaker 4 (01:37:29):
The hardest things to do is become world champion.

Speaker 2 (01:37:33):
Like even Olympic athletes, if they achieve gold, they get
taken care of for quite a long time. Now, it's
not the most amount of money. I think America you
get like one hundred thousand dollars if you win a
gold medal, and I think they give you like twelve
hundred bucks a month or something. I don't know exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
You got to think, what there's six seventh divisions. Yeah,
so like out of a ten year Spain, you may
have less than twenty people winning the title.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
And then maybe maybe okay, so let's say maybe we
don't do everybody who wins the title, but everyone who
defended their title. If you defend your title and you
win that fight and you have two consecutive championship wins,
you should get taken care of the rest of your life.
You know who got a raw deal with the UFC
after they retire or after they left the UFC. Dimitrius Johnson,

(01:38:21):
one of the greatest of all time, like bro.

Speaker 1 (01:38:25):
Next one my last two questions, was gonna be your
Mount Rushmore? Because that that that's kind of what everyone's
talking about right now. It's I think it's probably the
safest because I don't think you could do a goat.

Speaker 3 (01:38:36):
For combat sports.

Speaker 1 (01:38:37):
You can't do it. Too many eras, too many weight classes, no,
too many styles. I think if Mount Rushman was the
only way you could settle who are your you know
your your greatest of x y z.

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
Is Man, I'll tell you Dimitrius Johnson for sure, he's
on there.

Speaker 1 (01:38:53):
Yeah, there's no I agree. I agree. Uh, the freaking
the slam into the arm bar has to be the
greatest transition that we in modern day mixed Marshall.

Speaker 2 (01:39:05):
It wasn't just awesome to see on a combat sports level,
it was beautiful because it was so well done.

Speaker 3 (01:39:13):
You know he was super clean.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
Yeah, it was so did You don't get.

Speaker 1 (01:39:18):
Enough credit as a head coach either. I'm gonna I'm
gonna point that out. Everyone talks about Randy Gatour, an
extreme guitur.

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
And in New Mexico, and then Randy Coutur, one of
my all time favorite fighters. Randy Catour definitely goes to
the UFC Hall of Fame. I would say George Saint
Pierre because he retired with the belt. Then he decided
I'm gonna come back, win the belt again and then

(01:39:48):
retire again like that was one of the coolest things ever.
So you know, so Mighty Mouse, Randy Tour, GSP and
then you got to give it to DC Day.

Speaker 1 (01:40:01):
You got you you keep Jones off.

Speaker 2 (01:40:03):
The list, you know, John Jones. You know there's just
too much controversy. You gotta you have to. You have
to have people on Mount Rushmore. That is the embody
a good example for my children.

Speaker 1 (01:40:20):
And unfortunately I hear you. But we're human beings, right,
we make mistakes. Should we keep out him for his
first off? Because I'm gonna go into this, this is
going to go in a total sports question for you
because what.

Speaker 3 (01:40:35):
Just happened to Pete Rose is disgusting.

Speaker 1 (01:40:38):
They have fourteen of his items in Baseball Hall of Fame,
and until he died, they kept him on the band list.

Speaker 7 (01:40:46):
Now that he has passed away, they put him not
only him, but Shoeles Joe Jackson available for the media
to vote and see if he gets in the Hall
of Fame.

Speaker 1 (01:40:56):
That is disgusting.

Speaker 2 (01:40:59):
Yeah, they just have so much they you know, the
the overall.

Speaker 3 (01:41:03):
We're not angels. I'm not gonna sit there and say
we are.

Speaker 1 (01:41:05):
We tell you.

Speaker 2 (01:41:07):
John Jones has is literally he is the goat in
my opinion, he is the greatest of all time at
light heavyweight. Uh, he's you know.

Speaker 1 (01:41:14):
I'm not gonna say it heavyweight. I won't say that
a heavyweight because he hasn't proven that you've won the belt,
you haven't really really defended well.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
And then beyond that, it's like, you know, I just
I'm looking at longevity and everything like that, so we're
looking over time. He's definitely the greatest of all time
at light heavyweight. So maybe there's an argument there where
it's a toss up between DC and and and, But like,
look at what John Jones is doing for the sport.

Speaker 1 (01:41:43):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
He's doing nothing. He's he's only a fighter.

Speaker 1 (01:41:48):
Doing seminars and he's showing up to Mike Perry's Dirty
Boxing because he's he's part part promoter, owner whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
Constant wrestling videos with kids taking care of you know.

Speaker 3 (01:42:02):
Daniel's been here.

Speaker 1 (01:42:02):
Daniel's been here in Philadelphia, had Eddie Alvareze's new gym
that they they teamed up with an MPR like right
right in right in Newtown, and and they've had Daniel
Cormier there. He I think Frankie Egar shows up at
a as A as A you know sometime coach there.
They just did a seminar with Corey Sanhagen I think

(01:42:24):
last weekend. So, I mean, you have these guys that that,
as you're saying, they give back. That's important, that is important.

Speaker 2 (01:42:33):
And it's like, what are we looking at when we're
looking at the Mount Rushmore literally Mount Rushmore, the presidents,
the guys that have done something.

Speaker 1 (01:42:42):
To build this bounding fathers fathers.

Speaker 2 (01:42:46):
Have built this country so that we can all be
in the in the greatest country in the world, you
know what I'm saying. So I love John Jones. I
do think he's the greatest of all time. I don't
know that I would put him on the Mount Rushmore event.

Speaker 1 (01:42:58):
Right, Well, here's mine for you, right, I totally agree
with you. Dimitrius modymlsh Johnson, a guy that no one
talks about him from the early ages is you know,
I know he's going through his personal stuff right now
and all that stuff is bj pen Bcha Pen was absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:43:12):
Amazing for for the for the lighter fighters.

Speaker 1 (01:43:15):
Yeah, Anderson Siva was an absolute no you could put
him up there in like Bruce League level. He was
just amazing to watch for the longest time. And you
know he had he did have some stinkers in there
were times he didn't show up, but uh, the guy
was ultimately entertaining. He's the consummate father figure in his

(01:43:37):
kid's life, you know, probably one of the nicest unassuming
guys outside of the cage. Inside of it, he was
an absolute terror. I have to have him on there.
And you know, as much as I hated at the time,
you have to put gsp on there. You have to.
I love John, I'm gonna keep him off the list,
but not because because of of that. I just think

(01:43:59):
it's so hard, like when we're even saying to Matt Runt,
like there's still like four more guys I can mention,
like you know, we could talk, you know, as your
Daniel Cormier. Uh, you know, there's so many different other
different guys that we can mention. I don't like to
go that line of the influencer things that you know,
you help. You know, everyone likes to throw conomic Oh, well,

(01:44:20):
he was a two way champion, but was he like
he you know, he helped grow grow the sport internationally,
but he he sullied the end of his career. And
I don't think we're ever gonna see him fight again.
I already said it when he when he broke his
leg against Dustin that it was over. My son still
thinks he fights. Everyone still like because he's involved with

(01:44:40):
being I don't think he ever does that. I mean,
he may do some videos of him training, doing stuff
with his kids and stuff like that, but I don't
think we would ever see him going going through a
fight camp doing The money ruined him.

Speaker 3 (01:44:54):
I don't care what anyone says.

Speaker 1 (01:44:56):
Yeah, when you make that much money, all right, to
that same effect, what happened to kad Be once he
got Once he got paid and got the money, what happened?
Oh he retired, Yeah, he retired with too many question
marks and that Everyone's like, why don't you put Kebibo
on there? I'm like, for that exact reason, he was
injured too much.

Speaker 3 (01:45:12):
He didn't fight.

Speaker 1 (01:45:13):
He didn't fight the best at his time throughout the weight.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
Like, that's the one thing I'll give John.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
He killed a murderer's row of of of the best
of the best light heavyweights.

Speaker 3 (01:45:25):
A murderer's row.

Speaker 1 (01:45:26):
His his kill list is disgusting.

Speaker 2 (01:45:29):
Yeah, and that's the thing, is it. You know Again,
I always look at the the overall of the you know,
what did they you know, when when did they get
that goat status?

Speaker 1 (01:45:40):
And then what did they do after? Again, that's why
I say no, people of disrespect djson so much. He
is my lightweight king. He is. I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:45:50):
I always loved seeing BJ fight. I just got so
upset when he came back and fought and lost so
many times. I remember when he fought Ryan Hall, and
I just remember thinking like, man.

Speaker 1 (01:46:05):
This is not great.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):
And then he and then you know, it goes exactly
how we all thought it would. You know, he gets
leg locked, he gets heel hooked in the fight, and
and you know, and then and then his personal life,
you know, that's that sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:46:20):
All the prayers to him. Man, he's going.

Speaker 2 (01:46:24):
I think he just got arrested like the third time
in a row.

Speaker 1 (01:46:27):
Four fourth he broke the the restraining orders.

Speaker 2 (01:46:31):
Yeah, this with Colin McGregor. If he's at BKFC Texas
in Dallas next week. Once I win my fight, I
will look at him and be like, Yo, you're the irishman.
I'm the American irishman. What's up, dude, Let's do one.
Let's do one sixty.

Speaker 1 (01:46:48):
Listen, there's there's a long list of that, you know,
Jeremy Stevens, Michael Chans.

Speaker 2 (01:46:56):
Just from having the fight planned, the amount of money
making spot he I'm gonna fight Connor McGregor. Let me
have seven thousand dollars for this fight. Camp and the dudes.

Speaker 1 (01:47:06):
Are gonna be like, let's do it, let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:47:07):
So I'm just everyone's got it. If you're smart, you
call out Connor McGregor after your fight, especially if you
can get him to bump some guns with you, that's
the best.

Speaker 1 (01:47:16):
Mike Perry still thinks it's gonna happen. I don't think,
you know, when Connor did what he did, it's because
he was hungry. That man is not hungry anymore. He
doesn't need to heat. He don't have an actual address,
he has a yacht, he has you know the s S. McGregor. Dude, Yeah,
he's he's good.

Speaker 2 (01:47:37):
So so yeah, man, I you know, honestly, there's a
lot of guys that could go on just the combat sports.
You know, Ret Mount Rushmore, you know, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson,
you know Bullock, Uh yeah, you know, like, uh, there's.

Speaker 1 (01:47:54):
Even harder like I was, just as when we were
talking before, and I gotta pull it up and give
the shout out to uh our recent documents into the
Hall of Fame, Michael Non, Manipacial in the past, Manian
Devil himself in Vinnie Panzianza. Those are guys like how
many different weight classes, Bernard Hopkins, Evander Holyfield, Evander Holyfield's

(01:48:17):
fights with George Foreman, and obviously the Mike Tyson fight.
Listen his battles with George Foreman. That watching that on HBO,
you know, you know, Michael Buffer and all that, like
like and and and uh, that just just grew me
as a combat sports fan. It's what makes you fall
in love with the sport where where you know, Evander

(01:48:40):
Holyfield's hitting freaking George Foreman with everything including the Kitchens thing,
and George Foreman is that keeps come at them and
cut him at im. Then you hear the stories ants
to the fact where Evander didn't he was lost, he
was he didn't know what to do. What else do
I have to do and there's nothing you can do.
So it's it's one of these things, man, where when

(01:49:02):
we're talking about that, like, it's so hard to just
say Mount Rushmore because there's more to that, there's so
many weight classes errors.

Speaker 3 (01:49:10):
It's so hard, man.

Speaker 1 (01:49:12):
Because you feel like you're you're disrespecting somebody by keeping
them off it.

Speaker 2 (01:49:17):
Well, and then almost you almost want to do, hey,
let's just do Mount Rushmore per weight class.

Speaker 1 (01:49:23):
And then and then, and then that has flown her
way on there too, that knocking out the coming back
and knocking out the you know, the Korean girl as well,
like Yo Rose. Now, my units is road to being
UFC champion is the most you know, unpredictable. No one

(01:49:43):
could have ever said that girl is going to be
a world champion when she was either an invicta or tougher.
She was just someone who was just consistently learning the
game and made the best of her opportunities. And then
losing someone to someone like losing the title of someone
like Carlo k spars. I mean this, that's just the
craziness of how combat sports is. Literally styles makes fights,

(01:50:06):
and sometimes someone has the perfect style for the for
that athlete, and that's just the way it goes.

Speaker 2 (01:50:12):
Man. And honestly, like with Mma, two losses, you could
just be that could just be a bad night. You
just might you could have woken up in the morning
and been like, man, my next feels a little bit weird,
Let's go do this fight, and then you have a
bad performance in the fight and the fight doesn't go
your way. So there's so many there's so many factors
where like even at like like we said before, man

(01:50:32):
and Nuna is like no one ever thought she would
lose and she ended up having a bad night. Look
at look at Valentina Schevchenko also on the on the
Woman's Mount Rushmore.

Speaker 1 (01:50:41):
She definitely the only one that's got nine defenses.

Speaker 2 (01:50:45):
Yeah, And it's like, but she had a night where
she lost a scramble for one second, she got her
face cranked off of her neck and and and you know,
and that's the way it happens. And so you know, Mma,
I used to tell the young fighters. I still tell
them Mma is like a sweet, sweet lady. When you win,

(01:51:06):
she takes care of you. She wakes you wake up
in the morning and breakfast is made. But she's a cruel,
cruel mistress. When you lose, she shows she'll put your
business on blast. Everyone will doubt you at that point.
So it's one of those things. Man, you either get
that sweet lady or you get that cruel mistress with
MMA with combat sports fighting.

Speaker 1 (01:51:26):
Is obviously your sport. So the last one before we
get ready to wrap this up, I didn't even realize
almost fucking two hours. Ship obviously gonna bring it up, man,
big night coming up twenty first there in Texas. Uh,
you know, obviously we can't talk about your opponent, but

(01:51:46):
you know, uh, what does this mean that you obviously
you're you're the guy from Texas. You know you're you're
the local guy. Uh, you know you've already talked about
the things that your hight the back can't wait to meet.
Andrea Lawsky. You know Jessica I is going to be there.
She made her debut in the UFC in Texas. She's
making her debut for BKFC in Texas. There's all kinds
of different storylines surrounding BKFC seventy six. What's the pain

(01:52:12):
the picture you want? You want painted? When everything's sitting done?
In the twenty first is in the books.

Speaker 2 (01:52:18):
Man, I just want people to remember my fight. Honestly,
That's one of those things where sometimes two guys will fight,
the next fight starts, and then you know, that fight
ends and the next fight starts and they're like what
happened with the Heathernan fight? And people are just.

Speaker 4 (01:52:32):
Like, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:52:33):
I don't remember, man either this guy want this guy lost,
but I don't remember how it went. I just want
people to remember that Ja Kefernan was on the first
Texas card for BKFC, and and I want people to
just be able to look back and be like, ah,
the first round was this, in the second round was this,
and he hit him with a right and he hit
him with the left of the body, and you know,

(01:52:54):
like it's I just I just want people to stand
up from their seats and be screaming and spilling their
beer on the guy in front of them.

Speaker 4 (01:53:03):
Just you know, I just I just want a memorable fight.

Speaker 2 (01:53:05):
I want, you know, and then beyond anything else is
I want people to understand like just because I close
one door on combat sports doesn't mean that I don't,
you know, have other opportunities in front of me. We
get this fight done, you know, we have a good
time doing it. The biggest thing that you know that's
important is to go out there and have fun.

Speaker 1 (01:53:24):
We do this because it's fun.

Speaker 2 (01:53:26):
If it wasn't, it wouldn't be worth doing if it
wasn't enjoyable, and it's so enjoyable to do, so I
really just I want people to see the smile on
my face as long as my teeth are still in
at the end of the match. And and you know,
I'm gonna be I said it before, I'm gonna be
covered in my blood. I'm gonna be covered in his blood,
but I'm gonna have my hand raised at the end.
And I just want people to remember not only my

(01:53:49):
fight but my name and really make a staple for
myself in the in the BKFC, and then you know, hey, man,
come out unscathed, and then rebook another fight as soon
as possible. I know that they have a plan to
do another Texas card, so maybe get on that, you know,
be in the first two Texas cards and then get
some things handled. Maybe get a Dubai fight, you know,

(01:54:11):
and and maybe maybe go to Italy.

Speaker 1 (01:54:13):
Oh, I guess that's that's that's your fucking list for
international fights.

Speaker 2 (01:54:17):
I mean, it's not my list, but I I you know,
the one thing I always wanted to do was travel
the world fighting. That's you know, I've traveled the country.
I've gone to other states and fought, and it's it's
so enjoyable to just go to a place, experience the people,
and and experience the crowd and and get to fight
in front of people that you don't know so well.

(01:54:39):
And I've always wanted to experience that on the world level,
is to go to other countries and fight. So I
I you know, you know, wherever BKFC ends up, I
would love to get a phone call to be able
to for them to say, hey, you had an exciting fight.
We want to put you in in this country to
you know, go enjoy the country for the week and
then come and beat the tar out of somebody for

(01:55:01):
ten minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:55:03):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:55:03):
That's That's what I've always dreamed of. So I'm still
chasing that dream. You know, maybe one day the UFCBJJ
hits me up and I get to do that and
we go to other countries there. So again, I've I've
closed the door on MMA. I'm happy with what I
did with it. I have no regrets and I'm and
I'm ready for the next opportunities. So you know again,

(01:55:24):
I just I'm hoping that when the when it's all
said and done, that the paychecks are signed and the
and the stitches are put in, that people remember my name,
they remember my fight.

Speaker 1 (01:55:35):
That's all you you want at the end of the day, brother,
And I can't blame you for that. As as we
wrap this one up at what I typically do is
kind of throw the microphone over to you, Jake, and
when you were like to thank training partners, teammates, shoot
out your social media sites, any sponsors you might have,
you know, any any last words or party shots for
our listeners. The time is yours in my.

Speaker 2 (01:55:57):
Front man, I just really appreciate Ricky Tercios, Alex Morano,
Matthew Wald, my teammates, and my coaches.

Speaker 4 (01:56:04):
They've really you know, they're more excited.

Speaker 2 (01:56:07):
Alex Morano has been the most excited person about this fight,
so I can't thank him enough. I've been under his
tutelage for from the very day one. You know, he's
been helping me out, so I really appreciate him.

Speaker 1 (01:56:19):
Ricky Tercios has.

Speaker 2 (01:56:20):
Been my main coach, my pat older, my boxing coach
for this entire camp. You know, ultimate fighter champ. Being
in your corner is something that's really really important to me.
Matthew Wald for taking me from a grappler in MMA
to a striker in boxing has been you know, a
feat for him, so I appreciate him. And then beyond that,
I got my sponsors. You know, I'm wearing my my

(01:56:41):
walkout shirt right now. So we got Copindero. You know,
Woodland's MMA is the gym that I train at. You know,
I'll turn around and let you guys see it. We're here.
We got all of the different sponsors right here, you know, Vid,
Vincent Real Estate, we got you know, Armored Real Group.
We got so many different sponsors. And without them, you know,

(01:57:04):
they we can't do this without the extra support, without
you know, being able to take off of work, you know,
maybe move around some private lessons and do everything so
that I can pursue, you know, my overall dream. The
sponsorships really matter, so you know, I appreciate them so much.
You guys, go to my social media at j g

(01:57:25):
W on Instagram. I list all my sponsors there, look
up their businesses and you know, hit them up do
what you can with that.

Speaker 1 (01:57:34):
And again, like at the end of the.

Speaker 2 (01:57:36):
Day, this is a sport to entertain the fans, and
I hope that I do so, so, you know, beyond
anything else, thinking the fans is I think one of
the most important things. So everybody out there, man, I
can't wait to put a show on for you.

Speaker 1 (01:57:49):
I think we're all gonna be looking forward to this weekend.
Like I said, you know, bkfc's doing a big there
in Texas. So guys, if you haven't got tickets, make
sure you go reach out to one of the fighters
so you can see even a little bit of money
off of off of those uh those uh you know,
the those stub sites and things of that nature. Because
as we were already talking about, it's it's rough out there. Yeah,

(01:58:10):
you can apprecate the time that this evening, my friend.
Best of skill to you, man, whoever it happens to
be the unfortunate soul that's across across the ring for you,
and uh you're able to kind of accomplish the these uh,
these goals and dreams you haven't instilled for yourself. Hopefully
we can do it do it again here real soon,
uh here on the saff Floord of Tribune and UH

(01:58:32):
here on the Real and the Rare. UH. Enjoy your
evening and we'll be in touch, my friend.

Speaker 2 (01:58:38):
I appreciate you man. Happy Father's Day.

Speaker 1 (01:58:40):
Thank you you too, my friend. I have a good
one you too. All right, everyone, That was Jake Kiffernan,
as we read in the last few minutes here great great,
great time, great conversations. Make sure you guys are checking
out b KFC UH seventy six there in in uh
Fort Worth, Texas. I'm Steve. This was another episode of

(01:59:02):
the Real and the Rare. I will catch you guys
on the reband. I'll be going multiple times this week.
And we got a fun interview with Irving Fryar Wednesday
afternoon with UH with Ben Troop and UH the Fan
in the end.

Speaker 3 (01:59:16):
So keep keeping locked in here and we'll see you
guys soon.

Speaker 1 (01:59:20):
Pre guys,