Lex Fridman Podcast - #242 – Ben Askren: Wrestling and MMA

Episode Date: November 20, 2021

Ben Askren is a wrestler and MMA fighter, former Bellator and ONE Championship welterweight champion, a two-time NCAA wrestling champion and four-time finalist. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Notion: https://notion.com/startups to get up to $1000 off team plan - NI: https://www.ni.com/perspectives - Onnit: https://lexfridman.com/onnit to get up to 10% off - Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX to get special savings - NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/lex to get free product tour EPISODE LINKS: Ben's Twitter: https://twitter.com/Benaskren Ben's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benaskren/ Ben's Website: https://www.benaskren.com/ Ben's Wrestling Academy: https://awawisconsin.com/ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (06:59) - Woodley vs Jake Paul boxing match (10:48) - Askren vs Jake Paul boxing match (13:23) - Jordan Burroughs and Kyle Dake (24:37) - Askren vs Burroughs charity match (29:21) - Champion mentality and handling losses (43:40) - Future interest in competition (53:09) - Askren's early career (1:03:58) - Robots wrestling (1:18:39) - Olympics (1:24:46) - Dagestan wrestling (1:30:51) - Askren Wrestling Academy (1:46:32) - Khabib Nurmagomedov (1:53:08) - 2020 Olympics (1:54:49) - Wrestling dominance in MMA

The following is a conversation with Ben Asgren, wrestler, MMA fighter, and a brilliant, opinionated, and fun personality in the world of martial arts. And yes, he occasionally likes to talk a little trash. Given his wild online antics and his boxing match with Jake Paul, some people may forget just how dominant he was in the sport of wrestling and in MMA for most of his career. In wrestling, he is a two-time NCAA Division I national champion and four-time finalist. It makes martial arts he went undefeated for 10 years with a record of 19 and 0 before

losing to Jorge Mazvidal with the flying knee that caught everyone by surprise. He's also into cryptocurrency, disc golf, and is the co-host of Flow Wrestling Radio Live. And now onto the full ad reads, as always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too This show is brought to you by Notion a note taking and team collaboration tool that I can't believe is actually sponsoring this podcast given how amazing they are It combines note taking document sharing wikis project management and much more into one space that's simple, powerful and beautifully designed.

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financing program. That's netsuite.com slash Lex. Netsuite.com slash Lex. This is Lex Friedman podcast, and here is my conversation with Ben Asker. Before we talk about your incredible wrestling career, your MMA career, Let me ask you, I have to ask you, what did you think about the Jake Paul versus Tyron Woodley fight? Well, I thought I mean, I was in bias. I thought Tyron won, I had five rounds of three. And again, this is maybe my bias in the way I was seeing it.

I thought he was more effective with striking and he was more aggressive, and Jake had more volume. But that was the only thing I would give him. And I guess a lot of people just didn't see it that way. They thought he landed more, seeing him with more punches. I just didn't think I really did any damage. It was a split decision split decision. Yeah. We surprised. Well, there's a thing. So the thing I said when I went into fight, I said, we don't really, he maybe he's good. Maybe he's not, we have no, we really have no idea to this point, you know?

And so I knew Tyron was a lot better boxing than I was. And so I thought, okay, Tyron's, I think it's a good likely that Tyron beat him up. But there's the chance that Jake's kind of good at this. And I think that's kind of what played out is he's kind of good at it Even if you saw the way I saw it He still was impressive in his showering and he's obviously put a lot of time into it. So he's He's not bad. We'll say that much You know, but isn't surprising to you that like a elite level

athlete Combat athlete Lost to somebody who just takes it really seriously, but is nevertheless not elite level. But I think boxing is a really specific rule set. So, I'll speak about Tyron, not myself. Tyron had good striking, but obviously it was his first boxing match ever. And within mixed martial arts, you have the fear of the takedown and the fear of the kick and fear of other things to go along with the punching.

And so if you look at Tyron, throughout his MMA career, a lot of times what set up his punches were like level change fakes at a takedown, they dropped boom and then something comes over the top, right? So there's many more elements to worry about in mixed martial arts, where it's boxing, there's only one. It was his first fight. Yes, I thought everyone was going to win. I thought this was going to happen. But like I said, I mean, it's pretty evident that Jake's, he's not bad at boxing. He's pretty solid, you know, gets in there and works hard at it, I guess. How did 10 times, how many times do you think Jake wins?

I guess Tyron? I guess Tyron. Hmm. They fight again and again and again and again, like iterative. Yeah. So I mean, part of. Hmm. They fight again and again and again, like iterative. Yeah. So, I mean, part of the thing is, okay, so Jake's corner said you need a knockout going into the A-thrown, right? So, I think they thought, maybe they're trying to motivate him, but I don't see that one

because if they were actually thought that he was winning, why would they encourage him to take a dumb risk when Tyron has clear his knockout power, right? It's a really stupid coaching philosophy. That's what you're thinking. So you obviously are thinking, hey, this is actually in the balance, it's competitive. And I feel like Tyron thought maybe he was winning and didn't have the urgency necessary. And so I think there's a chance he turns it up a lot.

Matt, I would want to watch him again before I, so I was just problem with my personality Here's my personality likes I have an issue with not being able to give really exact answers So I hate giving you an answer that like I don't feel like is a hundred percent calculated Yeah, so I would like to see them go once more because I would like to see hey Can tire if if time can turn the pace and and Jake can't handle it then I think it's an eight one or nine two, right? If it goes the exact same way and maybe Tyrone was a close split decision, I'm saying, oh, it's probably going to close every single time. We're probably going to get a five to five type of thing, you know? So it's like

I feel like out of one match, it's not totally indicative of what the future is going to look like. I feel like Tyrone would get a knockout and then you would still be in the same place. Like not, not, not, not like not not not know what to predict Okay, so your fight with Jake Paul Looking back you have had a little bit of time now. How would you analyze that fight? Well, I mean the fight specifically I got cracked with an overhead right so I mean it kind of sucks I would say I mean, the fight specifically, I got cracked with an overhead right. So I mean, it kind of sucks. I would say, you know, this is where I'm like, I don't, I really don't care.

And everyone's like, why would you do it? It turns your reputation. It's like, well, I wanted to do it. I had an enjoyable time training and the build up. Obviously, I wasn't skillful enough to get the win. But if I even, even despite the fact that I know it's gonna happen, if someone asked me to do it again, I probably would have done it again, you know? And so the way I was thinking about when I was

starting whether to do or not, because I got the offer, it's like, okay, is this money, it can change my life? Yeah, it could, right? It's not gonna double my net worth, but it's gonna add significantly, make my life easier. Number two is like when I was in high school, we used to do boxing matches for free.

Just because we thought it was fun, we didn't have something going off right now. Me and my buddies would get together and we had some boxing goes on based and we punched each other in the head. So it's like for something I think is enjoyable and not that I pay me a whole much of money. Yeah, sure, I'll do it.

Would you do you think if you got three match, if you did three match, would you, what are the odds you win? Okay, let's have, probably not very good. I think he's pretty good actually, and I'm not very good. Now I was probably at a low point for me because when I started training for that,

I was like 215 pounds, which is heavy, so I never bad, I came off my hip surgery. I literally, when I said yes, I'll do it, I had literally started working out like the week before for the first time in my, it's in the surgery, because I wasn't I'll do it. I had literally started working out the week before for the first time in my instance of surgery because I wasn't able to do anything. Could I perform better? Yeah.

But now, after watching him box Tyron, if you ask me, Ben, can you be Tyron? Probably not. I don't think I can be Tyron. So, in boxing. In boxing. Correct. In boxing. Yeah. So my chances of beating him, you, and watching that card, it's like,

damn, like, kind of be fun to box him with my no suck so I know it can beat. That's what would be fun, you know, because like, the training preparation was fun, but then obviously, I got my butt kicked out, so that sucked, you know, can I swear on this podcast? Yeah, of course.

Well, I was gonna drop an F-bomb, that wasn't quite sure. So I think that sucked is this where, you could you could drop all all of the F bombs you want. So preparation wise, do you think you were more prepared for that fight or the the Jordan boroughs exhibition? Uh-huh. I mean like how did you approach it mentally? You know? Um, I mean like how did you approach your mentally, you know? Well the borrows thing I obviously it's okay So when I retired the first time in 2017 borrows was the only current like we'll say really a league level wrestler that I never trained with

I was really good friends with Nebraska's head assistant coach still am and I said hey I just want I'm gonna pay my own way. I want to come down to a trade with Jordan So I want to see what it feels like you know, I'm gonna get in there and mix it up I mix it up with David Taylor and Kyle Dake. I mean, there's just something about wrestling that I love. And so I flew myself down there in January of 2018 and I spent four days training with Jordan. It was a really good time. It gave me some great insight into how he thinks and, you know, what a great champion is.

What was the like training with him? Like, what can you give some insights? Yeah, of course. Like what the like how hard is the live training? Is it more drilling? Is the technical like how does his it seems like his style is very different than yours? How does that match up in the room in terms of like what you learn from each other? That kind of thing. We went full live for one I think think it was like a 12 or 15 minute go where we just go, wrestle. We did a bunch of simulated live, but obviously he had,

so I was a senior in college and he was a freshman at Nebraska and so we, our teams had dueled each other. He was obviously a lot smaller at that point in time. But he had, he had followed my career. And so when I went in there, it was like, hey, I know you're really good at this position. What about this position? What are you trying to do? How exactly does it work?

And then let's wrestle there. You know? And then, hey, what about this position? And so we would spend 30 to 40 minutes talking about that position. On the ground or... It was like, what was it, Cheshra, what was it, how do I lock? I don't know, it's called the a chess rapper was it had a lot of was I didn't really it's called a we call the lightning dump but it's a the lightning dump yeah I was I

named my body's name was lightning Luke Smith in high school he was the first person I saw do it so usually my see someone do something I named that move after them got it um I know right great name it's a good so yeah but so what I said with that like, he was still trying to be the best in the world. I was just trying to go work out Jordan Burles because I enjoyed wrestling. Yeah. Um, is like someone who at that point, when he has five world titles at that four or five at that point, a lot. And so he's with my high school kids is like,

Hey, this is the guy who's the best in the world, who's bringing someone in and saying, well, how do I do this? How do I do that? What about this? What about that? And so the level of inquisitive, inquisitive, that's hard work, inquisitiveness he has, is really impressive. And then it's obvious why he got to the level he did

because he's figuring out all these little situations. And that's also one of the biggest things I think wrestlers, a lot of wrestlers fail to do as they get older. Even when they get to early college age, they say, this is my style. This is what I do I'm gonna lift and work out hard and I'm and I'm not gonna add anything to my game, you know, whereas You've seen many progressions in Jordan Burles game who just made his tenth world team and you yeah

And you know if you have a really keen eye you may able to watch him change, you know I've been watching since 2007 of 2007. He's changed so much and Obviously still maintain a world class level almost the entire time When you say change like what changed because he's he's got that double leg Yeah, but they're saying that like double anymore. What's that he like his double leg for the first time in his Alex dear to hitting in years Yeah, so that's like when people think about Jordan bros they think about the double leg because in his early years fire, he had a great double leg, right? And even so in those years, I would say the the biggest thing with Jordan Bros. double leg was it his level of explosiveness, it was his level of persistence. He would shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and it was a lot

of times would be from fun creative angles and out of scale was poop all things on you you know and just he was just super persistent with it and I think that was probably the key and then you saw you know when he came out to the one the first world championship in 2011 it was kind of that type of mentality and then shortly after then obviously everyone was starting to lower their stance and lower and he developed a really good like mantis go behind series where he would go one way the other way then he started developing really good like, Mantis go behind series where he would go one way the other way. Then he started developing a really good, low single ankle pick type thing, you know? And then his hand fighting got really tremendous,

like 15, 16, 17, his hand fighting was really good. And now I just commented at the 21 trials, like a few of the defensive sequences you got into is like, holy shit, like just not from an athletics team, like from a technical standpoint, the things he were doing was just tremendous. So I've seen him as someone like who's continued to reinvent themselves over the course of the last 10, 12 years. Especially in the as a junior and senior in college, you're

exceptionally dominant. Yeah. If you were to face him at the peak, both of your peaks of NCAA wrestling, could you could you beat him and if you can beat him, of course you can beat him. How do you solve the Jordan Boros? Well, so for a folks out wrestling standpoint. Folks out. So, you know, he had some competitive matches in junior senior year. He had a two one win over, or maybe three two, over Michael Chandler, who was my teammate, who's fighting you've seen now, he had a two and one over called well. So I think you can glean some insight into that.

He got ridden, he got so mad about this up on a podcast. So during Corona, we had to make up all kinds of bullshit to talk about. Yeah. And we were doing like the last 10 years, best 165s. And I said, Kyle Dake would ride him for over a minute. Oh wow. He got so mad, you want to come on the podcast the next day. So hopefully he doesn't listen to this. Like, fuck you, man. You know, but you know, what was this? This

is your Corona Corona last year. He got mad. We were talking about before the trials. Yeah, correct. Yeah. So, um, you know, Michael channel wrote him for two minutes plus. Now this is junior year and not a senior year, sure, right? But it's close. So I think there's some things there. I think the interesting thing would be, if I would have stuck around, right? So I chose to go into mixed martial arts after it doesn't eight. I would have been 74 and he would have been 74.

So we would have had a wrestle. And then I think the freestyle Jordan Burles puzzle is a lot more difficult to solve than the folks that are Jordan Burles puzzle. And I think he would acknowledge that he's much better at freestyle than he was at folk style. You know, although he was very good, he's better.

This is like raw speed explosiveness. Present a problem to you. Well, so he was never, I mean, he didn't really excel on the mat in kind of either style. In freestyle, he has got some good lace transitions, but in folk style, like his entire college career, think he has like 10 pins, which is almost nothing. You know, so he was gaining no value of the top position.

He was good enough on most people to get off bottom without it being an issue, but it wasn't like, oh my gosh, this is an area where we really be careful. There's a lot of things here. You know, it's just, he wasn't gaining value there. Whereas in freestyle, he, I don't want to say never, but the amount of times he gets turned is incredibly rare, very, very rare. And he does have like glace transitions, so he gets a lot of points there. So,

and obviously freestyle is, it can be geared way more in the neutral position, right? What we're only doing takedowns so yeah we surprised that he lost to date in the trials the caldake. I don't know, Kyle so he's so good right I mean I think I think his performance the Olympics was uh was lost and was shocking to I mean we know it's gonna happen to Kyle Daye, you know, he's been a guy who's competed with Jordan Burles forever and obviously he was on the losing side for a while and now he's on the winning side. But I think a lot of people thought it was a coin flip and I think actually Kyle Daye made it feel like it's not a coin flip. Now to me it feels like Kyle Daye is gonna win that match significantly more times than he isn't is what it feels like.

Yeah, I forgot which trials it was, was it four years ago, where Kyle, Dake, threw him like he, he saw in clings of like, oh wow, there might be eventually a changing in the guard. Yeah, so 13 Kyle came out and he had the one throw, but then he lost one of the matches decisively. And then he was hurt in 14 and in 16 Kyle did actually want to 86 kilogram. So in actually in 16 at the trials we had, so Jake Herbert was number one seed. He was former as guy Russell. I was a former world silver medalist. So you had David Taylor who had not made a yet, who is now a world champion and a big champion. You had Kyle Dake in

the bracket, who was a two time world champion now. And you had Jayden Cox in the bracket, who had not made any teams yet, but is now what a four time world medal, two time world champion. So and then obviously, Jayden came on on top of that once, first Olympic medal, Olympic bronze medal. So Kyle didn't wrestle Jordan in 16. And Jordan and Kyle's contention the whole time and they argued about this. So I actually did a little bit of backstabbing. Well, it was not, it's not backstabbing.

And both of them were just one. I didn't tell any of them. Okay, okay. So Jordan got mad. We talked about the fake match for the crown, right? We had to make up something to talk about. Yeah, because obviously no matches. So we talked about this fake match and do you stand behind that statement, by the way? Here's what I said.

Kyle digs for a time and say champion. Yes, I said, you got to pick a winner. I said, Kyle dig wins 2-1 on a minute and six ride time, which I mean, we're talking as close as it gets. As close as it gets for Kyle dig because of four-time NCAA champion. Oh, sorry I was talking over Jordan girls over Jordan borrows in a folks down that in a folks down match college or now now we're in college in college. They're both of them at their peaks at 165 pounds So completely hypothetical as a Jordan called in he was all pissed at me for a picket Kyle day

He wants to come on the next day and argue his point. So I said, if that's dumb, we need to pick a winner. We need to do something hypothetical. So that I call Kyle Day, and I said, Kyle, Jordan's gonna come on and argue his case in the morning. If he's gonna do that, why don't you come in and argue your case? So no one else knew Kyle was coming on the podcast,

so they both show up and they went out. But one of the contentions Kyle had for years and there's still this rule. If you win a world level medal, the following year, you sit out until the very end of the American trials and they do a best two or three. So every time previously that Kyle had wrestled Jordan, he had to come through a tournament on Saturday, okay? Probably three matches, and then on Sunday, he would wrestle Jordan in the best two out of three, right? So his content was, I'm only wrestling Jordan at a disadvantage because I have to compete on Saturday and then competing on, it's a fair argument, it really is, but I also see

USA Wrestling's point is like if someone wins a world medal, we're going to reward them because we want that person on the team again. So it's crazy though that you're like Carl Dayk had to wrestle because he's not wrestling bombs in that Bums. Yeah and and yeah, I don't know. I don't know how wrestlers do it because yeah You have to go to war like three matches and then face Jordan borrows. Yeah, especially a few of those years with you know, Daykid, the name Andrew Howell, but if there's a really good match as David Taylor had really competitive matches with him, Isaiah Martins even got in their deer and deer. So he had some really competitive matches before he ever got to Jordan borrows. So I never answered you this question was how did I feel? So the Jordan borrows match, I was not in wrestling shape at all.

Meaning, wrestling is heavily dependent, especially in neutral positions, heavily dependent on timing and other things. I was wrestling very, very minimally because I started fighting again. So like my athletic shape was great, but it was mainly for fighting, I wasn't wrestling. So I think they were actually trying to do Buroughs' date at the Beat the Streets. It's the biggest fundraising wrestling ever single year. In New York. In New York City.

The easy raise, like a million dollars, they started all these programs in New York City to get what you're really wondering what they're doing with the money now, because they probably can't get heavy kids wrestling because New York's crazy. Anyway. I think New York figures out a way what to do with the money. Hence Michael Mell is complaining that they're corrupt and all. But it goes to the Beat the Streets organization. Mellus complaining that they're corrupt and all. But it goes to the Beat the Street's organization

and starts the clubs in New York. So I don't know what to do with my, anyway. So I was called like, I don't know, two weeks before the event and said, hey, someone's supposed to wrestle Jordan Burles, it fell out. Would you wrestle him? I said, yeah, sure, why not?

You know, and it's like, well, I said, I train with them for four days, the year before. I had a pretty good idea how the match was gonna go. Wasn't gonna go so well for me. But it's like, okay, you're missing a main event. I can bring, because of where I'm at right now in my life, I can bring a lot of attention to wrestling. I can help you guys raise a bunch of money

for beat the streets. My goal is, I think I thought I could get one take down or turn on him was kind of my goal for the match. I didn't get there. You weren't kind of hard. He went hard. Yeah, that's what I can give me a point. Yeah, that I said this bullshit, Jordan, I told him to match like this bullshit. You're fucking going too hard right now. Yeah. I'm not a wrestler. I'm not a wrestler. I'm a fighter. I'm coming in here. So yeah, so I had a really good idea. I mean, we were out together. I think in a Heoprack at Matt because I think in the live go we did like the 12 or 15 minutes. I think I actually score a take down in that I believe maybe or maybe it was a turn. I hope I say no I didn't but whatever.

Yeah, so I knew what was going to happen. I knew what the outcome was going to be. I knew I could I'm hoping it's taking competitive and maybe you don't lose like 10 to or something like. Yeah. Well, let's walk back because I think I originally brought up in terms of how prepared were you against Jake Paul versus Jonah Burles. So did you prepare for Jake? Cardiowiz? Yeah, I did, but it was, I told you, I started training for my, I mean, once I had my hip surgery, they said, you know, for the first six weeks, you can't even walk. And it was hard for me to listen to them

because by week four, four and a half, five, I was feeling pretty good. I want to get to my crutches. But I'm like, you know what, this is for the rest of my life. And if you get the, so if you get the real hip replacement, there's no wrestling, there's no nothing, right? So that's the next step. So, okay, I'm going to take this here. So I do my crush of the six weeks, the next six weeks, it's still like really low weight bearing. Can't not do anything, you know? So then I get down with the three

months, which is like January. And I'm like, okay, I should start working out. So I start riding bike a little bit. And then, okay, I'm now I'm fat, I'm fucking fat. I'm going to get better shape because I'm not doing anything. So I I should start working out. So I started riding bike a little bit. And then, okay, I'm now I'm fucking fat. I'm gonna get better shape, cause I'm gonna do anything. So I'm actually start working out. And then that happened, right? So I'm like, okay, well now I got three months and it's a good reason to get back in shape.

And I knew I wasn't gonna do a full-time boxer. So it's like, how do I put a boxing camp together? So I had my ultimate mic roads. He came up and kind of lived with me ish kind of thing for three months. I found a couple of this guy, K9, out of Michigan. He came over three weeks. He was great.

I went to Freddie Roach for a week. So I kind of like, you know, try to give me good ideas as I could. And my thought was like, okay, well, if this dude sucks, I can just be tough. And you know, block of you punches get tired and then beat him up. If he's good, I was probably not much of my do about in the next three months, because I was never going to boxing in the first place. All of my stand-up in mixed martial arts was predicated on how do I get through the two or three punches

that are going to come at me. And then time I need to get a hold of them. You know, it's only you only have to make two or three of the miss and then boom you're on top of them at least for me. Um, that was all my striking was predicated on it wasn't about hey, I'm gonna do damage on the feet in order to make something else happen It was like how do I clear this barrier get a hold of you and if you I actually did the math one time. I think I got to take down If you include the knockout round, it gets miles out of it all. I got to take down every round except two. So it was like 53 out of 55 rounds in MMA, I got to take down somewhere in there.

Okay, so you're hunting the takedown once you get your hands on them, you get to take down. Yeah, okay. But the incredible thing about you, I just recently talked, spent a couple of days with Jimmy Pedro. And he talked about his guys and just champions in general hating to lose more than they love winning. And the way you talked about losing, you lost very few times in your career.

Like later, you were dominating few times in your career, like later, you were dominating both the arresting and MMA, but the way you took these losses against people that are, I don't know, below elite level. It's fair. I was also going to get pissy, but I'm sorry. I completely fear. I thought he was a bum too. No, that's not what I meant.

I'm in trouble. It's okay, no, it's good. No, no, no, no. But like, what can you explain the psychology behind that? Like, the, what, is there a system behind this, is there a philosophy behind this? Well, so I wasn't very good in the beginning. And I think that's where I'll start.

So I didn't start getting good until the age of like 13. I started at five I probably started competing more at age 10 11 didn't really get good till 13 is still at 13 I'm starting to create I'm getting better right I'm pretty good. So I actually I have actually I have writing this book on sports psych but this I got well I got someone ready for me kind of thing because I've had this philosophy for years that there has to be this balance between two things, right? So on the one hand, in this category, on the one hand, you have Hay and the Lose,

a great champion has to hate the Lose, like you said, right? But on this other hand, you have to have someone who seeks out challenges, right? Because if you don't have that, you're never gonna reach your full potential either. And so you have to balance these two balls at the same time, right? And so like for me, I always, and this is maybe because that wasn't good, but I was always like, let me go find the best people to wrestle all the time.

Let me go find, I would like literally like seven days later when I was starting to get better, it was like, and there's no internet. Well, there's no one was using the internet. It was like a wrestling magazine. And like, hey, dad, there's a tournament here. I think that, are the kids gonna be there? Can you take me two hours across the state today, please? You would wrestle like in competition, I guess, I'm not.

In competition, yeah, yeah, in competition. Hey, I heard there's this tournament. Here's the magazine, says this tournament. Hey, dad, will you take me over there tomorrow? You weren't trying to win, you were trying to get the experience. I was trying to wrestle the best guys. Maybe I win, maybe I lose. There's no, when you used to do a competition,

there's no guarantee of a winner or a loss, you're just doing competition, right? So I wanted to go, I wanted to challenge myself against the best guys of which I thought maybe I could come on on top, right? So like eighth grade year, I won way, what you know, I probably lost the handful of times in the state of Wisconsin.

It was probably really, really minimal really minimal amount of times I lost, you know, but it was just about getting the challenge. And it's like some kids, and not kids in my club, because I'll push them very hard on this, are scared of challenging themselves. They like being the big fish in this small pond. They're not willing to go say,

I wanna go get that guy, and I wanna get that guy, and I wanna get that guy. And so that's like, so I think that's part of it for me is like, I always just love the challenge. I enjoy competing thoroughly, right? And I understood from a young age because it wasn't

a good losing part of it. You're not always going to win. And that was kind of it. It's like, hey, sometimes, you know, and for my MMA career, I never planned it to go that way, but yeah, I didn't lose for nine years. And like that's, that's pretty rare. I didn't lose for nine years and like that's that's pretty rare I didn't plan for that to happen that was just what happened

Okay, but you also Didn't lose like the second part of your college career my 87. I lost one my last 87 matches. Yeah So that didn't come along with the hatred of losing you just I don't like lose. I still don't like it Yeah, yeah, okay, just I don't like lose I still don't like it yeah yeah yeah okay but you don't you don't seem you seem to kind of shrug it off a little bit okay so like with specifically with these two instances that you're bringing up with the Mosvard all it feels definitely so okay all right let's go let's go deep let's go the Mosvard all one it feels different because so whoa wait let's for people don't know

uh muskid al-loss was your first loss first loss in MMA yeah yeah yeah and i mean it was a dramatic loss and there was this kind of build up as you were potentially one of the greats of all time coming into this fight and so this this pressure, all of that. So then, I mean, I was thoroughly enjoying it. I don't know if I didn't feel the pressure. So the milestone fight is, he got one fucking move on me. It's not he beat me. And if we do that again, I think I win at that point in my life. For sure, I think I win way, way, way more times than I lose. He knew that too. That's why he didn't want to sound the bottom agreement. That's why I had to taunt him and why he got

so mad because I had to continue to taunt him in order to get him to sign, right? So that would hurt because I said, people don't know my mental health is going through a fast. I did three fights in like smaller leagues. I got signed by Bellator. I was undefeated for three and a half years. I was 9-0. When I got done with that in 2012, 2013, I, at that point in my head, I was just going to transition to the UFC because that's where you go. I was ranked like six in the world. I hadn't really had a competitive match at the end of the Bellator thing. And Dana White, for a reason still unknown to me, We still have this conversation. I wish I could ask and I should ask him some time. Chose to refuse me any entry into UFC. He just said, I went to his office and he really said, we're not interested. We're not going to make you an

offer. Did you, did you mention something to about him about the UFC? That was a year before that. That was a year before. That that that might play a role in it, I think. So, yes, what happened a year before that was, I called him a liar, but listen, I'm writing this one, because he said, you can't test for drugs, because I'm all natural, which you can help by my physique. And I was always put off by the fact

that so many people cheated. And I was very vocal about that. And so he had made some statement like, oh, there's no way you could test. I said, bullshit, you used to, very specifically, I said, you saw it, does it. For all other sports worldwide, you can do it. And then it was funny,

because I hired you, saw it in a couple of years later. So I think he took some offense to that. But that was like a year and, almost a year and a half, I think, somewhere later. It's not like he holds a grudge or anything. Yeah. So I literally go to Vegas. It's a long story.

You can read about it other places. So I got released from a belt. It's not like this is a ghost. I got released from my belt or contract. Is that my out of here? I'm going to go to the UFC. I go to Vegas. And then I was told,

hey, there's no offer for you. Tough shit. You know? So then I ended up signing with one champion ship. I spent what three and a half years there. I won the belt in my second fight and retained the title the entire time. And then I just, I think dominating people.

Yeah, I didn't have a competitive fight. And so I retired 18 and I'll never get, and for someone who loves a challenge, never getting to really challenge myself was incredibly frustrating. And I left the door open, but I said, if I ever get the chance to prove him in the decimal, I'd love to come back.

So somehow a year later, I get traded, trades have never happened. And this is the one and only trade ever. I've been retired for a year, I got traded, I get to come back, I fight Robbie Lawler the first fight, I win, and then essentially they're saying, okay, if you fight, you know, if you beat George, you're gonna get the title straight against Marty.

And it's like this is what I've been working for, I've been trying to prove I was the best part of the world for the last 10 years and I've not been afforded this opportunity. So when I lost the George, that was hard because it was something that I had waited for for a really, really long time. It was something that I thought I could compete for and I never got the opportunity to do. So that one was hard. At the same time, just a competitive logistic, he got me with one move.

It wasn't like he beat my ass for 15 minutes and I got beat a bunch of different ways. So that was like, fuck, like if I get it again, I could have done it, but I'm not, they're not gonna let me have it again. It's not like wrestling where you could go the next year or the next week or whatever, you know? You lose a big 10s, you go to nationals two weeks later. Does that loss change you?

And anyway, your psychology? I don't, I don't think so. It's the first loss. I mean, had I had I had a longer MMA career post that there definitely would have been a lot of times spent getting better at the and the entry point to the take down right which I already spent time there. I don't I hate making excuses but yeah the hip the hinging of my hip what I couldn't do was preventing me from doing some things and it's why if you look at the fight, I'm like, bent over as I go for the double leg.

Yeah. So what happened for people who don't know you want in for a double leg? He wanted a flying knee. He did a flying knee. And the way he caught you well, specifically the way he did that knee was kind of different in the way anyone had thrown flying knees before. Most people go more just from a stand straight vertical where as he took a few like running steps and went more you know the trajectory of the angle with different. So I think that's kind of probably why it caught you know the I think a lot of things in combat will probably everything but

I focus specifically on coming to happen subconsciously like our brain is reading what's coming at us and and last time this stuff we've seen before so we can judge how to move correctly. You miss red because it's something you haven't seen. Head forward. Head not seen him come at that specific angle. Yeah. So that was also really hard with the burrows one. I told you I knew I was going to lose.

So it's like, yeah, but whatever. You know, I'm I'm taking this because I want to put this poor wrestling out there in a big way. I want to help them raise a lot of money. We sold the Mass Square Garden, who was theater and we raise a lot of money. We sold the medical school garden, who was theater and we raised a whole bunch of money. So my goals were accomplished. Jake Paul fight, I took it because they paid me

all the bunch of money and I thought it was gonna be fun. Did I have any illusion? I was a great boxer, no illusions whatsoever. Would I have preferred to win? Absolutely, but you know, like I told everyone, whether I win or lose a certain night, I'm gonna be back coaching wrestling on Monday because that's what I enjoy doing and I was back coaching wrestling on Monday because that's what I enjoy doing

and I was back coaching wrestling on Monday. And once about these medical kids, give me a little bit shit about it. And that's it, but where were you in terms of your shape and how you felt in the Mazda Dal fight? Would you say you're on the, I mean, it's a difficult question to ask of a world class athlete, but like, were you past peak?

Oh, yeah, yeah. And so I don't know, like, I don't know why guys like to lie about that. I mean, the peak for me was really evidently in my late 20s. And maybe they are all fueled by extra supplements. I don't know, but for me, that was evident. But you get this, so you get this crosshair where you're, if you're smart, like I mentioned, you're still gaining wisdom, you're gaining strategy, gaining a lot of things, right? And so while your physicality may go down,

your overall skill level still may be rising, especially in MMA because people usually start later because they're gaining wisdom strategy, all of the, maybe more tools in the toolbox, they're gaining all these things. So they're actual competitive peak despite their athletic peak going down might still be a few years past that, right? Because these things are crossing. No, so I thought I was great. Obviously, the hip was an issue. It's funny because so that I knew I had a lot of pain here. I knew it was because of this and it was like, okay Whenever I'm done, I'll just get a take care of whatever But I every time I train I'll have pain kind of like all of my back and the day after the surgery

I woke up and there was no pain on the right side of my the surgery on the left side There's no pain on the right side of my back. That's fucking weird like every every morning I wake up There's a lot of pain there, you know my back. That's fucking weird. Like every morning I wake up, there's a lot of pain there, you know. My okay, I'm on pain pills. Maybe it'll come back tomorrow. And that's really never been back since my intake. So it was weird because it was like this. I thought this was affecting this, but it was affecting all the way across my whole back. So, you know, if I get to get a new hip, honestly, if I, if I, I don't know, it's going to change the competitive outcome. What's ever? If I had known how good the hip replacement was going to be, I would have done it.

The second I retired from one championship in November of 2017, I would have my hip surgery scheduled for December one. Just from a lifestyle standpoint, I could only sleep in one position. I there's a lot of things I couldn't do. I was in a lot of pain. So I would have done that a lot earlier. But now from my athletic point, I was ready to just check those wrong sometimes. I don't know how to ask this, but Joe Rogan, me, had a sense about you similar to like a fader that you are potentially one of the greatest ever. Does it hurt that you're not in the discussion now

of being in the top 10 of all time? I didn't prove it. I don't deserve it. Beirut, I mean, I didn't prove it. I mean, and so it's like, had I somehow gotten to Commence Day in a way, we go and Comm convince him in 2013 to

Make me an offer and I didn't even need a good offer. I needed any offer had I gotten the offer then Maybe the outcomes different right but given I would never expect him when thinking me that way. I didn't prove it I know I know what I was And I'm good with that and yeah other people never got to see that Well, you don't know you can't know fully right do you think if you Went to the US at that time set of one championship. I think we had a lot of success Yeah, I mean, there's obviously certain guys. There's a lot of guys have trained with that. I had a lot of really good results against and Obviously walked away at the time was the champion for a long time there

So I was around time was the champion Anthony was the champion at lightweight I was you know same Jim is him and we had a lot of people coming through. Yeah, I Face time Would I fought him? I don't think so I mean, so he was still the champion when I came into the FC and we said no, we're not gonna fight all right Hey, so he can't change history, right? So once something happens, you gotta accept for what it is and move forward. And obviously hope you can continue

to keep accomplishing great things, which for me obviously my athletic career is over. So now it's gonna be through my wrestling academies and who knows what else I get into. Oh, you might do exhibition matches and all that kind of stuff, right? Stessu! Wrestling and stuff, no? I don't think so. So here's my thing with the wrestling matches is like just for fun.

If you said, hey Ben, just for fun. Yeah. Would you love to go wrestle someone? Yeah, I would. I would. Right. I love wrestling. I get in there. I love, you know, I love like, so one of my guys has gotten to be pretty good. He's in college, he got in the Kegin'al tool. He just wanted junior world title this year. And so when I'm doing private lessons, I have such a thing about the development of the athlete. Sometimes I can wrestle hard, but most of the time it's like, I'm just going to help them with whatever they need help with.

And it's still wrestling, and it's fun, but it's helping them. You know, for like, for Kegin' goes back to the summer and he's training for the junior world title. So to be able to shake hands sometimes and say like, how much I try to kick your ass? Do you try to kick my ass? You know, like just to go, like, yeah, it's a good thing.

It's so much fun. And I don't get to do that very much. So if you said Ben, would you love to do some matches in the answers? Yeah, the problem unfortunately for me and maybe you could talk me off a ledge here is like because of where I've gotten to my career. If I choose to do wrestling match,

it's gonna be really excited about it. It's going to pull up and it's like, I just want to wrestle just to wrestle. I'd rather just like go in a room or no one can watch and just wrestle. I just enjoy it. Well, you could also wrestle, so there's different kinds of wrestling. There's wrestling where there's an event and like, you know, there's a build-up and an announcement. Yeah. And you can also do like a beef style, like in the room, there's a build up and an announcement. Yeah. And you can also do like, uh, a Kubee style, like in the room, there's cameras and you're kind of going, it's like, the way Kube does that. In, uh, Marcelo did that. He won't ask me to have that.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I've seen Kubee some videos. Okay. It's not like set up. It's just people going hard and then it's more fun. Yeah. You know, and it's, it's also more like presenting the beauty of the sport, you know, for sure.

And like, and there's no winning or losing really in that context. Yeah. Like you're just, you're always joking around a little bit, even when you go super hard. So I feel like, especially in the modern day with the internet, that's a compelling way to do. So I've thought about, this is the one thing I thought about doing, because I told you about my body was the content thing, it's called rock fin. I thought about doing, you know, the old, really famous, Gracie challenge. Yeah.

Okay, so I thought about doing the Ask and Challenge. You know, hear my rule set? Yeah, let's go. I'm not sure I'm going to do this. People are going to show up here, like, I'm going to scum on something. Okay, I just select you. I'll start with a thousand bucks, right? Okay, 30 minutes.

You pin me or I pin you. That's it. No points, no nothing. We just wrestle. Camera, that's it, right? Camera in the room, maybe. Maybe there's a rat freak so we don't want to be in content over the pin.

So, one pin. There's one pin. 30 minutes, 30 minutes, okay? If I pin you, you don't get shit, you go home, right? Every person I pin it goes up by $1, two thousand three thousand four thousand five thousand and so on If you make it the distance and I don't pin you and you don't pin me I'll pay for your travel and give you five hundred bucks, right? This the constellation price for showing up if you pin me you get whatever the jackpot is

Wait who's adding to the jackpot I am it's my money But then what's the incentive to keep winning for you? It's a jackpot. So I would put the content somewhere and people would watch it, right? Oh, so you're gonna make money? Yeah, so you'd make money that way? But it's not exponentially growing, right?

It's just going up by like, yeah. I really think there's probably a couple people that could pin me. So I would have just not choose those people or wait till I get a really large audience and people get really excited In that case, I'm making a lot of money. So what do you think how many matches would go with you like Caldake shows up? I don't think he could pick me. Yeah, I mean like so George Burles go George Burles could beat me

But he can't pick me. He was never a pinner. Yeah, he can pick me There's only a few people who have the skill level to do so right? It takes a lot because that was so pinning was one of my specialties I had the fourth most of all time and I won the pinning award the last two years So you didn't even don on points and just pin them this is actually one of the issues I have with Jiu Jitsu and the point system and the Eddie Bravo thing I actually the Eddie Bravo things kind of people get so mad at me. Sorry Jitsu. I think it's bullshit And you want me to tell you why it's bullshit?

So like, if Jordan Bros. was my ass, and the score is 16 to two, but he can't pin me, then I get to go to overtime and get a cradle on him. I'm probably gonna pin him. So I'm better than Jordan Bros. Nah, that ain't right. He is what my ass. Do you know what I'm saying?

Like, if we can go the whole, cause they do submission only. So if Jordan Bros beats me up for 8 minutes, 10 minutes, I don't know. What's the length of it? Any problem? I don't know. Something like that. So we go 10. Me and Jormbrose are going to be outscore me significantly. He will not pin me. I promise you that. So now we go to the overtime.

Strong words. He won't. Jormbrose is not going to beat me. We'll give but yeah. He won't, Jordan bros, he's not gonna, he's gonna beat me. I will give you that. Kyle Dei won't pin you either. No, okay. Okay, they will both beat me on points very badly. Now David Taylor, he might, he might pin me

because he's a very good pinner also. They'll beat me very badly, they will not pin me. But now we get to overtime and we get to pick like, right, so in a problem, you get a rear-negative choke or an arm bar. Okay, give me a cradle, I'll pry pin them. Okay, a good cradle. You can say cradle or maybe give them, they're not gonna pin me, right? Maybe there's a chance, but probably not, because that's not their special day.

So for people who don't know that any any bravo thing is what and goes into overtime you get a dominance position on a person and you get to yeah, basically put them in a cradle. This is the rest of the equivalent. But you take their back, maybe a bar, a wrestling arm bar. So then I don't think that's very fair,

because if someone whoops your ass, they whoops your ass, and then, you know, and so I think the reason why jujitsu people accept that rule set is that I don't think, I think they know this, but would admit it, I don't think their point scoring it adequately rewards what people value. So like in wrestling, we value takedowns because it gets closer to the pin.

And the most valuable scoring is a near fall near to the pin because that's the ultimate goal to sport. Whereas in Jiu-Jitsu, for example, like if I were to get a takedown, so like if I went to Gordon Ryan and he just didn't pull guard, I would probably get the take down. Now, if somehow he didn't submit me what you probably would, right? But say he got got close to like 12 submissions, but somehow I slipped out of all of them. Now I went to zebra like that's ridiculous. Like he should very clearly win because he almost submitted it. You know what I'm saying? Like there and I realized the difficulty. I realized the difficulty in rewarding near submissions,

but that is the most valuable thing is getting close to finishing the match. And in most competitions, they don't actually reward them. But okay, so this isn't about the sport. This is about the Ben Askerin challenge that we're talking about. Okay, why 30 minutes? Why not unlimited time?

Why go on until whenever? Well, because that is just a cardio thing. Because at some point, then someone would just have to fall over dead, right? There's no more skill level involved. It's just who gets to stand up the longest. You honestly don't think 30 minutes is a cardio thing too. How do you think that's actually going to look?

How they going against you for 30 minutes? So it's going to be kind of boring, for the most part. Well, position you're going to be stuck in. Well, you can't have a gigantic amount of action for 30 minutes. So I relate to, because some of my kids,

when I'm teaching them wrestling, they're like, well, but I can't do that for seven minutes. And I'm like, well, you know, like say, if I had you do, I hate and cleans that it relatively heavy weight as hard as you could, you're not gonna last seven minutes. Your pace will slow down, right?

So my thing is like, well, your pace doesn't have to have to have to have to have to have to have to have here, because in wrestling, you're competing as someone. So if you're here at 100 and you go to 80, but they go to 70, that's great. And then you go to 60, but they go to 40, this is even better, right? Because the gap is growing.

So we don't necessarily, if we get tired, that's fine. If they get more tired, that's better. So I think both people would know that, so they would kind of slow it down. But yeah, I think in 30, I mean, I've wrestled 30 minute goes, I've wrestled, I've wrestled hour and long goes. You're not getting it so tired, you going to fall over in that time period. But at some point, if we have it unlimited, someone will get so tired that or dehydrated

that they're just going to freaking fall over. Yeah. But you think, what about making it exciting and dynamic? You think the other person is always going to be going for the pen. And therefore, I make a dynamic. Well, if they're working that hard, then they might exhaust themselves, right? And obviously, then if you're being that dynamic,

then you're adding risk to yourself too, because you are doing that. Well, I love this. This is a great idea. I'm just gonna do it. Well, I figured I'd rack up like 20 pins against bombs, or not as great people in the beginning, and then I would start bringing in better people, because they would enticed by, you know, $20,000 the possibility of it.

And not not much fanfare, just a camera and just a camera. It's cool. It's in my wrestling room. Yeah, like the greatest challenge. Yes. Yeah. And so then maybe you have like, you know, for most people, you have someone edit like the 90 seconds of the most fun things that happen and then you can watch the entire 30 minutes if you want to yeah, I think most people if they're not really really elite. I'm probably gonna pin them if They're not really elite

So yeah, but I don't know I that's something I haven't think about this has been like fun for me to think about Obviously plays in my skillsets because my cardio is good and my painting is good also. So yeah. So like you said, you weren't very good in your early days until 13, 14. What was the switch? You started to dominate people in your college career, you dominated. And obviously you just stopped losing at some point. Yeah. So, well, I was so even when I didn't lose in collegiate competition, I would go in the summers

and try to make the world team. So I would lose some, not a lot, right, minimally. Okay, so when I'm five, I start playing all sports. Like, I know you moved to America at what age? 13. Okay, so five. So at least I don't know what it was for you, but moved to America at what age? 13. So at least I don't know what it was for you, but in America, at my age, you usually play the sport every season, right? So that's what I did in the beginning. I had minimal success in wrestling,

and I was kind of chunky. And then, in fifth grade, I can't tell you, I wanted to be better. And I told my parents, and this is funny, because now I look at other 11 year olds in very few of them are this mature And I actually think emotional maturity is kind of one of the key indicators of how long term success was a bit someone's gonna be and age 11 I said I don't want to play baseball. I like baseball But I don't want to play a spot can I want to wrestle more because I only better wrestling So age 11 I quit baseball so I could wrestle in a club for March, April and May because that was that was all the existed at point time

You couldn't wrestle in June, July or August any of those other months What was that desire to get better? What is it? So it's not about I don't know where it came from I just want to get better. I want to get better. I want to be good at this I want to be really good at this so when you're looking at kids now as a coach You're looking for that somebody says you know what I kind of suck. I want to get better And I and I want to try to also inspire that. I mean, honestly, I think, I think as a coach, that's probably my biggest job

is to get a kid and get them to believe I can do this. Because if I can do this, what can I, I can do that. I can do that too, right? And there's so many kids who unfortunately have like shitty parents or bad teachers to tell them, you suck, you can't be too, right? And there's so many kids who unfortunately have like shitty parents or bad teachers that tell them, you suck, you can't be anything, right? So I think my biggest goal is coaches

to get someone to believe they can do it. So actually some of the ones that believe they can do it, they're the most fun, but they're not the ones who need it the most, right? The ones who think they can are the ones that need me the most. Yeah. They need someone to let's go.

So I don't know, what inspired me. I'm not sure. So age at age 11, fifth grade, I quit. I started. So then I started having more success. You know, I'm like, say placing at the state tournament. In high school. So you, you, right, fifth, so sixth grade, I placed it like the state, locally, you state tournament. You know, so I'm like, having more success. Seven's gave me the first year I won the youth state tournament. So I'm getting better. Eighth grade, I actually feel like I got pretty good, but like when I went to the national tournaments, I was still having really minimal success.

My freshman year, I decided to quit football. Same reason, it's like why I need to put more time to this. My parents, my dad luckily got a mat in my basement. So, you know, there's no, so we have a year on club, and our impetus was that we didn't have this opportunity to go to a club year round. So we had a mat in my basement, I had to go find, hey, you wanna go,

you wanna go to a wrestle? Like, really, yeah, to find partners for myself. What'd you do? Did you drill, did you lie for us, or what'd you do in that basement? So actually, I think you'll enjoy this. I think the start of my scrambling was kind of based on that.

So I got kind of, I think it's probably my freshman software. I'm kind of the years of a little fuzzy, right? But probably my freshman software junior year, I found two kids who were really consistent who would come out like you would come out on Tuesday and this dude would come out on Wednesday, right? And they would come every week and they were really consistent partners for me to have in the summer But they weren't nearly as good as me. They were way worse. So it's like okay, how do I? How do I make this kind of like fun and compelling for them to come back?

If I was will they're asked they're not gonna come back, you know? So it's like I would let them get as close as I thought they could do a take down before not getting it and then tried to like escape or get out. So obviously, if I let them get really close, sometimes they get it, you know, so they're enjoying it. I don't know if they ever knew I was doing this, right? I have no idea. And that was kind of like the start because I had to figure my way out of bad positions because I had to try to make it entertaining for them where they still got something out of it. And they wanted to come back the next week. And I also got something out of bad positions because I had to try to make it entertaining for them where they still got something out of it and they wanted to come back the next week. And I also got something out of it.

Yeah, I love this. Yeah. Because that relationship is so important with that, like that. I've had a few drilling partners, training partners that were really important to my life. And I was wondering why it's difficult, why it's so difficult to find them. If anyone's listening to this, I'm looking for a judo person in the Austin area actually. Getting the reps with people is hard, even in Jiu-Jitsu, it's just like people want to do the fun stuff. They don't want to really put in the work and it takes a certain kind of personality.

Then you also have to make it fun for the person just like you said, if there's a skill mismatch, but also if you have an interest mismatch in terms of the the model drilling you want to do all that kind of stuff, you have to figure out ways to make it fun. Yeah. It's tricky. So you did. So I yeah, I did that and no one told me. I get some I get frustrated because now we have, you know, just in my academy, we probably have 50, 60 high school kids only that are you I think I did that and no one told me. I get frustrated because now we have, just in my academy, we probably have 50, 60, high school kids only that are year round.

They're year round, maybe they're not consistent in the summer or whatever, but they're there. So when they don't have a great partner, they start whining and it's like, you little bitches. You know, like, some days they get really mad about it because it's like, I had no partner.

I had to find freaking two partners come twice a week. You guys, there's still 22 people in the room I'm sorry There's not the perfect partner for you, but like go work out that dude. Yeah, you know, you know So what was the switch the change was or is this gradual or okay? Yeah, so I was doing so ninth grade a quick football I want to get really serious Position football. I was actually a nose tackle and I was but that point so I okay So I was also the other thing I kind of left over. I was really fat growing up. In a six grade, I also decided,

okay, I'm really fat. And if I want to be competitive wrestling, I shouldn't be fat because weight matters. I went from 130 pounds to 100 pounds in six grade. So by the time I was a freshman, I was 119. So I still wasn't as heavy as I was on six grade. So I was pretty small too, but I was also slow unfortunately So they put me in those tackle. I you know, I'd like the competitiveness so I was decent at it So that's where you wrestle 119 my freshman area So yeah, so then I still I would start having a lot of success state wise, but not nationally It's my national success didn't come to like my junior in high school

but not nationally. It's my national success thing comes to like my junior in high school. But yeah, I was like grinding and getting better the whole time. And then senior year, I started having a lot of success nationally and I recruited. And then, but then even my freshman of college, I, this is where I love competing. I would go every weekend because I knew,

if you take the emotions out of competition, all it is is seeing your failures, acknowledging them, and then figuring out what you need to work on. Right, if we take all the emotion out of it, that's what it is is seeing your failures, acknowledging them, and then figuring out what you need to work on. If we take all the emotion out of it, that's what it is. I wrestle 50 matches as a red shirt freshman, which is incredibly rare. I had 10 losses. It's not like to not so great guys. My skill level still, at that point, was not that great.

The next year, I came out and I made an insiophanel. I made a gigantic jump in that retro year to the, to the real freshman year. So a few questions. Yeah. Where did the funk style, or wrestling though, the, the creators thought get developed by which stage? So I, so I think like looking retroactively, there's no, there was no intention to start when I was in high school with those kids, but I think that's kind of like,

well, what was happening, right? So what I would really say is I had one influential coach, my graduate of college named Mike Ironman, great guy. But then the second thing was, it was just out of necessity. I had this burning desire to be the best. And when I was getting my ass kicked every day in the room, because we had, you know, the tirement was there. We had all American 150 seven.

We had all American 180 four. So I was not having ass kicked every day in the room, because we had an entire month was there. We had all American, one for the seven, we had all American 184. So I wasn't having a ton of success. And very quickly I realized from like a more traditional athletic perspective, strength and speed, I couldn't keep up with anyone. I was way worse. So it's like, okay, fuck, how do I do this? You know, I wanna do this, how do I do this?

There's gotta be a way. You know, so Mike Ironman showed me a couple things, but then it was just like this creative expansion for the next, you know, three to five years. And then even now it's like, I don't know, there's something, maybe you feel a sway about judo or grab a, there's something that's like fun about the way the body moves and works

and exploring something new and thinking about hey wrestling's been happening at a relatively high level for we'll say 80 to 90 years in America and there's still new things being developed and so when you see something new you're like oh damn like that's great or like Jason Ulfman have to win Dixie and like why do I have to get that shit like why do I think that's so easy I should I should have thought of that you know so there's this this obsession with the sport or wrestling and positions where I actually think sometimes I wouldn't have smartphones because I may have been

distracted by my smartphone. Maybe I wouldn't have been because I was obsessed, but maybe. But some days I couldn't finish the single leg on a specific person or maybe they were finishing on me. And it was like Go home and I just fucking obsessed about that one position like okay, how do what what are my missing here and and not just accepting like that Whatever the coach says the answer, but like what am I missing? What ways can my body move that no one's told me it can move yet?

Where can my arms go right? Where can I do all these things? And so I would just obsess about these things. And then, you know, something that you come in the next day and you say, oh, well, maybe this, you know, and maybe it works. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe it works twice and it doesn't work the next time. And so you kind of like have this creative process. And it's like, you know, there's a lot of things that are on the cutting room for that never

made it to the light because you thought they're me good and they failed and they sucked. And then, you know, to the point where I like my senior year, I got to this point where the people, then they were just figures, figures would wrestle in my head about positions I was thinking about. I wouldn't tell them what to do. They would just go in my head. And then like something, I'm, oh, fuck, wait, that's it. That's it. That's it. That just happened. That's the move. And then I go try to practice and sure enough. Boom, that's the move. That's it. That just happened. That's the move and then I go try to practice and sure enough. Boom. That's the move. That's exactly we have Alpha zero playing learning chess. You have Oh, no, it's called self plays. You have What did the figures have?

Like no faces. They were just like do they have a human form or is it just like stick figures essentially? Yeah, there's not like yeah, I was not human. Do more like stick figure. It wouldn't stick figures exactly like they were. So that's some volume. Yeah, it was like it was like a great person and they had, you know, three dimensions essentially because I had to see how the things moved and yeah. I mean, this is exactly what open AI and the, the mind at Google or I don't know if you've seen but there's something called reinforcement learning and artificial intelligence where you have like they've done it for like sumo wrestling. You have you have like you have these two stick figures that don't even know how to get up at first and they figure out how to stand there to feet and then they figure out how to push you. their two feet and then they figure out how to push you the other person off of the pedestal. But what about like when you look at the Boston dynamics or sometimes the high trouble with like jumping and balancing and the other stuff? So are they are they doing the same

program or no? No, no, no. This is different. Everything the Boston dynamics is doing is hard coded. So it's not, it's not learning the all the sophisticated movements and strategies like high level strategies of movement. That's all something that bossing dynamics does not do. And if it does it like the parkour stuff, that's all hard coded. And the people like project and think like these robots have like discovered like how to move in sophisticated ways they haven't. Well, that's what when you and John were talking about the grappling robot. Yeah.

I mean, the one thing I was, I was obsessing about in my head is that with the chest, right, if a chest piece moves, right, the horse can move like an L, right, it can only move like an L. It doesn't matter if it moves at two meters per second or seven meters per second. It can only move there, right? Whereas like a single leg,

I can shoot a single leg with many different velocities. I can shoot at different angles. I can shoot with different amounts of force, right? I can shoot with my head up, or my head, I mean, right? All these things are gonna matter. We're talking about, I can keep it being defending the single head. All these things are going to matter. We're talking about a human being defending the single leg. All of those things are going to matter.

That's where human beings who wrestle are calculating those things subconsciously. They're obviously not consciously calculating in their head. Oh, the force is coming at me at this, so I need to do that. They're doing it. It feels. But the thing is, so you would absolutely, if you're doing a robot, you're wrestling, you're going to have to constrain the speed at which it moves, and the power that it's able to deliver. So that presumably, there'll be the limitation. So then it'll be just the same exactly as a human. But then, but it's the even, so if we go human

max force, which are in Rose Devil, max force, right? That's the highest as high as we get no equipment down from there Even with even with in that it's like sometimes I can shoot sing like with a maximum force of I don't will say we'll say 20 So number right? I don't know shoot at 20 because I feel sometimes I shoot at 15 sometimes you shoot at 12 right because you You feel something in your opponent that makes you differently. So they would have to learn how and then, you know, all these different things. And sometimes maybe I clamp a little harder. So the robot would have to learn all these different incoming inputs to the system and then create this reaction. Oh, no, no, one hundred percent. So this would be all continuous. Like, yeah, so unlike

Chess, it would not, it just Chess is's discrete there's it's one and you move it's a very specific set of moves now here you would those are all variables you control and their continuous variable so the speed the force there's actuator so there's all these joints right yeah you can move I mean it's just an optimization problem it's kind of fast it's it's fascinating so I've been fascinated thinking about it since you guys talked about it. It was a long time ago. I listened to it probably three to four weeks ago. I've kind of been like obsessing about it ever since. Well, yeah, it just changes when, so unlike boxing, for example, or striking, you know, once you grab a hold of somebody,

it change, you're now one body. So it's very complicated. It's not just shooting a double leg without, like maybe doing like, like faking a double leg and then shooting the double leg. That's very doable with robotics, but then like doing a clinch and from there, doing like a Russian tie, like that.

That's, I think it's way harder than people realize in terms of how many things are involved. Like the force of the grip, the leverage you're providing with all the different parts of the shoulder and the arm and the torso, the twist, how much of your weight are you allocating, like leaning on the other person, like taking weight off of one of your legs and the other leg, all of that. I think that's the really interesting thing about humans is we're able to do all of this calculation subconsciously. Yes, subconsciously. Yeah, and that's what I've been thinking about since it's like how many things, even these high school athletes who are like getting medium good are subconsciously thinking about all the time or not even not even thinking about reacting to. But then even like for me, I'm, you know, I'm a few or as a megged you better than somebody's kid that player. And so when I go

like super hard, it's like, I can feel their weight moving the wrong direction. And so for me to off balance them or trip them or whatever is kind of easy sometimes, you know, because they're not feeling it the right way, right? Or their timing's just a little bit off for the way they're not feeling it the right way, right? Or they're timing just a little bit off or the way they're grabbing the hip, maybe they should be up a little higher, right? These really small things. Yeah, I think that's all easy to take advantage of

for a robot is just, there's so many things. The big problem is ethically, I don't know how many people are willing to train with a robot because you're gonna get hurt. Well, can you make a robot train with a robot or no? Yes, but then it's expensive. So, because they're going to get... What's the padding on that thing?

I know, but then it's not... You know, it's... Then you're not capturing the full... Why can't you put like some rubber coating on them, you know, something for that effect? You could. I mean, you could. Yeah.

I mean, you're talking about robots that are, these are humanoid robots. So we're talking about $500,000 million robots. So you would have to be motivated. It's been a lot of money. To spend a lot of money because you have to have them wrestle for like a lot to get better.

Yeah, to get better. And then the open question is how long does it take to get good enough to be a human? I don't think we understand, I don't think we understand how hard wrestling is. Yeah. Like, is it a really hard problem? Like, what's harder, chest or wrestling? Wrestling by far. That's the sense. So because there's an infinite amount of moves, right? And possibility. So once I shoot the single leg, now you have X amount of choices. Once you make your choice, now I have a choice, X amount of choices. Now,

now you have X amount of choices on the defense, and we can just keep going back and forth, right? And this number becomes, yeah, but the same happens with chess. Correct. But then in wrestling, you have to make these movements in very instantaneously, right? Because I should sing like, I'm not going to wait and say, what's your defense? Yeah, right? You should be instantaneously. And then also, again, based on the force and the vectors and the angles, you have to calculate that. And it just so really, you know, if you're saying, why can't you sing like, it's not like moving chest, it's not one move, right? It's if you want to talk about different forces and stuff, it could be hundreds or thousands of different

moves based on how hard I shoot it, the angle, the direction, all of those things. Yeah, but wait a minute. So robots can do this kind of stuff really fast. What people probably know, the physiology of this, but it's the reaction speed for a human is maybe a hundred milliseconds. I can supplement that. I don't know. From sensation to, like from the signal traveling up your brain and down, I don't know what that number is, but robots robot certainly could do way faster.

It, you would actually have to like, constrain the speed. Well, so the robot's already killing the chest people. Right? So, yeah, theoretically they could eventually be wrestlers, but you guys always had wrestling a chest. Yeah, I think wrestling is, because of the time component in it,

and then the physicality of, you know, is it this force or that force? You know, I'm, because if I'm gonna say, say we're gonna see belt side by side, right? A wrestling seat belt, not what you just do. Based on the pressure you're giving me, I might do a bunch of different things, right? And so like to an untrained eye,

they might both look like the same thing from you to a trained feel. It's like, well, in one case, it's really evident, I should go this one. In other case, it's really evident, I should go that way. So the other thing to consider, just like with chess, the AI systems, so human versus human plays a certain way together, they actually haven't considered a really large number of strategies that AI systems discover. So one possibility with a robot, they'll discover a certain way together. They actually haven't considered a really large number of strategies that AI systems discover. So one possibility with a robot, they'll discover certain ties and certain take downs. I'm saying that will dominate no matter what the human does. You think that is so you think there's that so this I mean this was somewhat the rest

of some fun is there's even after 80 90 years there's this continuous evolution. So you think some like low single type thing, like John Smith type of situation. Well, like a downblock go behind is something that has really, I would say really in the last five, eight years has really been involved. What's the go behind? Downblock go behind. So when you shoot, well, they just head inside or head outside matters, but there's one for both.

You shoot at me essentially. I take my leg and boom. And then so that was kind of in existence when I was in college, right? You down block them and you stop. But usually you hit on this side of their head, right? And now immediately as you shoot at I attack that shoulder and then I start hitting a go behind on you, right? And so like that in its current incarnation, it absolutely wasn't on I was in college. I would say probably became popular five to seven years ago.

So yeah, there's these big things that are happening. Now, now I really want to roll back because I want to be ahead of the game. I want to know what I'm missing. I mean, one interesting thing you have with Alpha Zero that plays chess is it sacrifices pieces much more than humans do. So give you a piece.

And not only does it give you a piece, it will wait a bunch of moves before it makes you pay. So because it knows that that's better for the long term. Long term. So like humans rarely sacrifice without getting the piece back like two or three moves after. Alpha zero can wait like five moves. So basically, you have potentially with wrestling, you might have a robot that puts itself in bad positions, but in a certain kind of way that will actually. Lures that opponent in to trap. Exactly.

What my style is based on. You basically narrow one thing to do is you narrow the set of choices. You put yourself in a bad position, but it narrows a set of choices. For now, because they're not used to it. Yeah, they're not used to it. And then you drag it into your... Yes. Yeah. But there's also the problem is there's mechanical issues. Like it's actually just difficult to build robots that are able to sense, because we have sensation throughout our body. Yeah. It's just difficult to build that kind of robot. It's actually just difficult to build robots that are able to sense because we have sensation

through our body. Yeah, it's just difficult to build that kind of robot. It's expensive. You start talking about multi-million dollars and then people start asking questions. Why did you invest all of this money? It could be a better investment. Okay. So I mentioned John Smith.

He is, if people don't know one of the great wrestlers wrestling coaches ever. He's also creative like you. He spoke really highly of you. What do you think about that guy? Do you guys ever work together? Not really. So you know what, when I was a senior and I had the people wrestling in my head, I was lucky enough to be doing, I was pretty much graduated. So I did an independent study with the sports cycle. I was lucky enough to be doing, I was pretty much graduated. So I did an independent study with the sports cycle. I was potentially going to go to grad school for sports cycle. Well, I actually did nine credits, and then I just decided I wouldn't do it anymore.

I would continue learning on my own. But I had an independent study with the guy who's head of USA Track and Field Sports Psych. So the class was, I got to go sit down and talk in the front hour, and he was like fascinated by me. So he didn't even make me do homework. It was like the greatest three credits ever. We just talked.

I learned so much. It was so awesome. But so I started, so one time it came up, the head, he's robot, people rustling my head. He said, well, who else do you think I said that John Smith happened? So I went and got John Smith's number and called him and said, hey, you've had these people rustling in your head. And he said, yeah, but soon it stopped coaching. They went away. Same thing happened to me. So they started coaching. They went away. So if I really force myself now, and I'm like, I, you know, I see something in practice.

Or it's really higher because high school wrestling, I don't want to make it feel bad, but it's like, it's a little bit lower level, right? So if like Kagan, for example, who won the gym, if he's strolling with a problem or asked me a question, and I can force myself to like see the body's moving and think about it again, you know, kind of like I was in the early age, but it won't just flow there anymore. So he said it went away and for me it went away also. By the way, if you can pause on the bodies in your head,

what, like how are they generating new ideas? pause on the bodies in your head. How are they generating new ideas? Are they just kind of, I don't know, you tell me? So they're just scrambling in your head. It would be specifically based on a problem I was struggling with, or a specific position. It goes in for a single and then go from there. Yeah, so I'm sitting in geography class and, you know, I don't have to work that hard because it's easy, right?

And yeah, I'm just sitting there like kind of acting like I'm looking at the board and these guys are wrestling and I'm watching them wrestle and yeah, sometimes they come up with a really good solution. Is there some of you you looked up to style wise, Not gable John Smith. Yeah, all these like legend status people quite gable art to cable up John Smith the after the fact so the problem with wrestling in my era was you couldn't watch it There was no there's no access, right? It wasn't it wasn't really available even if you want to say Go find a bunch of John Smith net. They're kind of hard to find right there's a couple of money to But I've obviously seen all of those but in in my era

There was there really wasn't any of it. So it was hard to be a fan of something and that's what wrestling wrestling has His the fans are going like this because now, you know, you flip on the flow app and you can watch You know something that's happening in Europe, right? We can do this easily. So we can be a fan of people So now I'm more a fan of people. So now I'm more a fan of wrestling than I was then because there just was no access. So now I can watch someone I like and say, oh shit, like that guy's wrestling.

Oh boom, I flipped my phone on, I watched them wrestle, you know, that type of thing. You know, on a quick rant, it's really frustrating that you can't watch the Olympics. Oh my God, it's so frustrating. I've been, I think I'm gonna go to't watch the Olympics. Oh my God. So fresh. I've been, I think I'm going to go to war on the NBC's head course. I'll go with you. You got to, you got to soldier here. I was talking to Jimmy, Jimmy Pedro.

He was surprised by this too. Most matches, you can't see even, you talk about like a, uh, come back, uh, Gable Steelers and, yeah, you can't see the full match. You get like a comeback, Gable Steelers, and you can't see the full match. You get like a crappy highlight. So the two, the two biggest things in the right way and really the three, the NC Championship and ASPN. Yeah. There will be trials on NBC and NILOX and NBC and these these, these companies are so

big. They don't have a department dedicated to selling the rights to that footage, right? So the rights to wrestling footage, which knowing like here's all that much about except a niche, are they exact same as track and field or basketball, new Olympics? So yes, all of this stuff is completely inaccessible to us. The NCA's, the Olympic trials and the Olympics, you can't go watch old film on it, it sucks. Yeah, old, the current film. Yeah. So you came and watched the game of match? We gave a sequence, no.

They did a, you know, they do something that I know is the fuck out of me. What? Okay. They do like a three or two minute highlight. So it's like, they capture the most important thing, but it's all about the buildup. Yeah, yeah.

It's like that very beginning when you step on the mat and the nerves and you walk out and like that, I mean, I don't know, you miss, then when the triumph happens or the heartbreak happens, it has that much more power. Yeah, if you wanna go to war with NBC or ESPN, I'm happy to join that. I'm fortunate. It is. IOC.

Well, I mean, I see on the internet, IOC is selling that for the Olympics is the one that's making it. Well, so NBC broadcasts, so they obviously have the live rights. You would think they would have recorded. If they, I mean, they're the ones recording it, you would think they keep the rights when you think. No, no, no, they're like getting a license of it. They're getting exclusive like license, but like the, you know, for example, I've had this talk to Travis Stevens, the G-Doh player,

and there's a really sort of famous match. It's a heartbreak in his career from 2012, Olympics, where he goes against a German, only a bishop, whatever. It's a 20-minute match to go to war, and that's not available anywhere, but it's uploaded on YouTube and set to private. The reason I know this is on the IOC channel, so they've uploaded all of these matches.

They haven't input up. So actually, so my Olympic match the the one I won Got put public and I don't know if it's private. It got put up on YouTube As a lawyer to it the week of my Jake Paul fighter was so dumb I'm like why I'm having 13 years later this bullshit like this should have been up So I mean what okay, so what about Olympic trials footage that has to be the USOC then or NBC? So I know like okay, so I know flow right cuz that word for them. I know if flow buys your event or whatever right they buy the rights

Generally in the contract they'll have rights to both live stream it and then use that footage at any point moving forward So those matches live on flow's website. That's why I would be surprised that if NBC didn't have something similar. Flow does a pretty good job of providing like a place where you can watch all these matches. NBC does not. And also there's an argument with Flow as well, but certainly with Olympics. There's a difference between what Flow does and what the Olympics represent. What do you mean by that? It feels like the Olympics, there's a difference between what flow does and what the Olympics represent. What do you mean by that? Like, it feels like the Olympics, which is what the charter says, should be as accessible as possible.

Yes. Like, you should really lower the barrier for entry for the Olympics. You know, that's what the charter says, but those people in the out of sea, those, we assume the worst people ever. Yeah, they're very bad. Well, they're not bad. They just lost touch of the dream they once had when they joined the IOC.

Well, I would argue, I would argue all the way back that these are rich fat cats who, like I get so mad about the NCA, which finally now got rid of this term, bullshit term, amateurism. It's like, well, there's something holy grail where you can't make money to be an amateur athlete, but the people who own the IOC or the people who own the institutions, college institutions

are making boat loads of money off of you, that's crap. So you competed, like you said, at the 2008 Olympics, did you believe you can win gold? Yeah, absolutely. So your mental game was on point. Yeah, I was ready. So what went wrong? That wasn't good enough. That was what on point. Yeah, I was ready. So what went wrong? That wasn't good enough. I was what I said.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so at that point in time, it was my first year of year and I was a competition. So when I came out in 2007, it was my first time making 74 kilograms, which is pretty small for me. I had some failures, but then quickly I turned that around. And I was having success in America.

I was beating everyone. I don't want to say easy, but yeah, I was doing really well. I went international one time and there was one match I got cheated on, the Russians, their cheaters. I think she was Ukraine, not Russia. I lost one real match where I actually lost. And it was to Dennis Sargush who would go on to win through World title, but he was behind the tee of that year.

And it was competitive. You know, so I knew, okay, I'm like, I'm going with the best guys in the world. I beat a bunch of other guys who, you know, were good and had passed decent results. So I knew I was like right there. Unfortunately, I ran this guy, I'm Fundora and I had someone who scouted reports for a maximum of high school coaches for our academy at John Messin-Marick and Fundora was the worst

stylistic matchup I got him and I lost him second round. So I wasn't good enough. I had decided to keep wrestling. I probably would have gotten better but that point, I wasn't in the cards. So in your division was like you said, the T. of, vice-sensitivity of, that gets special.

He's very special. So that would be my other guy that U.S. earlier who I enjoyed watching. And that was a guy, again, it was kind of after the fact because it was hard to access footage, but he was a lot of fun to watch. What do you think made him great? A lot of people talk about him as potentially one of the great greatest ever.

Absolutely. I mean, six and so he won six and three, six worlds, nine, six worlds, three, I'm a back, nine total, which there's only one or two people above that. So again, it was it was hard to watch any live footage of him, but from what I've seen, his his feel is different. He was just ahead of his time and the feel and the touch he had for certain moves and different things because obviously physically he's kind of unimposing. He's, you know, taller skinnier, which is, you know, it can work from wrestling wrestling, but it is by less represented. Yeah, he was special. So good. Do you take any inspiration from let's talk about Dagestan in general? What do you think makes those wrestlers great?

Yeah, it's fascinating. I have your red book, The Talent Code. Yeah, it's great. And that kind of talks about these talent hotspots all around the world. So now obviously with our wrestling academies, we try to take some lessons from that and apply it. I got to assume they didn't cover Dagestan in that book specifically, but I got to assume a lot of the same principles that are in that book apply to Dagestan and wrestling. They did South Korea and women's golf, they curse out on baseball, they picked a lot of these other places that were really elite.

I think it's maybe Moscow and women's tennis also. And so I think all these things that make any group great organization is probably the same things that's happening there. Well, the hardship, I mean, what, is there something specific about wrestling that can create so many great champions? From that area. Obviously, they all love it. It's a big deal that wrestling is specifically is a big deal there. They do some, but also obviously. That's part of it. A lot of the kids are doing it. They obviously are rough, tumble, tough life. Then I think that also that a lot of them, it is a way out right there.

The elite of athletes in that part of the world from my understanding are really well compensated compared to what the average person makes and if she's really well, so people see it as a way out. Whereas like, and then honestly, if America's getting better, but in 2008, the reason I went to MMA was because I didn't want to be poor the whole life. You know what I'm saying? It sucks. Well, I don't want to make $20,000 for the next 48 years. So I'm going to go do something else.

If I could have made, even I need to be rich, right? If I could have made $100,000 or $70,000 wrestling, I probably would have kept wrestling. So I think it's this factors. And obviously now they have a really like a bunch of really good people in one area so there's probably and it's been going on for a long time So it's probably been a bunch of like adults and coaches that are coming back and helping that progress So yeah, a lot of those things that happen. So I'm definitely gonna travel there as I talk to them because I can speak Russian that makes it very Makes me uniquely qualified to I think I speak a little bit of Russian.

Your brother can? Yeah. Okay. Like a little bit like, it just squares and... No, no, no, no, no, like he would... Oh, man, don't, don't make me over so. I think he would be able to have a conversation with you. I think.

Okay. Probably not like you. What's the, uh, what's the reason you know, is right? He, I don't know why he got obsessed with languages, and so his college degree is actually what they call InterDIS, where you have three minors. We had a minor in Russian, a minor in Spanish, and maybe Japanese. I'm messing up. It's definitely Russian and Spanish, or for sure.

I don't know what the third one is. No, but yeah, the understanding, it's really fascinating. But the emphasis on technique, the lighter drilling, like they don't really go super hard. Yeah, and I only spent a couple of, so I was there, I was in Vladikovka's in 2008, that was where the world couple was, we had to train there for like two days afterwards. So, I didn't get to dig deep, dig deep into what was going on or anything, but yeah, I mean, I think sparring has sparring is very beneficial for wrestling.

Not like sparring MMA is what we fight, right? Sparring in wrestling is, so I always just describe it to be really simple. If we're drilling, it's relatively zero percent resistance. If we're going as far as we can, that's 100 percent. There's all this gray area in the middle. That's sparring, right? And so, you know, if you have a good relationship, like, you know, especially in college, me and my brother, we could just go and we know where each other's at. We didn't have to talk about it, right? But like in my rest of the hole, say, okay, hey, I want you guys to go 50 percent in this position. Or I want the high-crotch guy.

I want him to shoot and this is for him. So I want him to go 70 and defensive guy. I want you to go 40. So you're not supposed to be trying to win here. You're gonna go a little lighter. I want you to give them some looks, you know. So I think I think it has really taken hold of America. I think it's what beneficial for success. And I think that's I mean America's doing better than we've ever done the story. Well, that's 70 and 40. That's like an art form to find that right place because I think that's, I mean, America's doing better than we've ever done. Well, that's 70 and 40. That's like an art form to find that right place. Because, like what, the really good people I've trained with, they go much closer to 100% speed wise, or like, but without, like, forcing things that you would when you're going.

It's some weird combination of things that, that like if you truly earn a technique, then you're given that technique. Yeah, yeah. But like if you don't, you don't. And then it becomes much less injury prone, it becomes somehow more fun, more dynamic, you don't get stuck in positions, it's just a lot of movement. The one thing, so you and John talked about, you know, like different ways to learn and get better. And so I think John, I was innovated within the sport of Giu-Jitsu. And so for us,

one, and maybe there's a differentiator for us. I think about it. So, so to interrupt, you have this academy, you sent me this plan, they have a really well thought through plan for how to develop a good wrestler. So, but I's, for me there's four categories, right? There's the teaching, which is like you don't know shit. I'm, you're coming in and I'm showing you the move and you're literally going out there and you're trying. To me, that's not even drilling. That's like teaching, like you're trying to learn something.

So obviously in someone's earlier periods, there's been a lot of time in that phase because they literally don't even know how to move their bodies the right way. Once you learn the skill, then there's the drilling because you need to, you absolutely have to get those reps to become really proficient in that movement and then the sparring and then the live, right? And so like I think obviously by the time you get to the kind of end point, right? But further on, the time you spend teaching is so, I don't want to say in, I'm sorry, in the learning teaching phase is not insignificant, but it's so much smaller because to someone who's really good who have coach for 10 years, I don't have to give this big long drawn on explanation.

I just have to say, hey, move your hand a little differently. Right? Or just do this. Right? We don't have to spend any time there. So I think that's like something that consumes for the younger kids, they've five through 12 or 13, we're consuming a massive amount of time there on that teaching learning phase. And then as we get older that time wanes a lot. But that makes total sense, right? Yeah. It's funny because when you look at like, jujitsu schools, they spend a lot of time in the teaching, learning, and then the live. It feels like there's not enough drilling. I like how you draw a distinction there.

Yeah. Because it feels like you're always starting from scratch. People have very crappy short-term memory. They're not, like, the way teaching is done is you show a technique for scratch. And it seems disjoint. It is, for sure, especially if you have a class that's been with you for a while. You don't have to start with scratch.

You can say, hey, let's focus on this one little thing here, or after we do this, let's do that, you know, and you kind of put, start putting it all together. And then with Gigi, the thing that I really struggled with was a couple of things. It was, and this is not speaking for all the Jijitums, my personal experience through this board. And I actually found, so when I unretired, I found someone really great that I loved,

and I really wish it was Mark Lame, and I don't know if you know him at all. I wish I would have found him earlier, because he was just tremendous. But no more, there's no drilling. So it's like, in wrestling, I can boil down to, I can probably name you the best six moves, right? So we need, as younger people, single leg, right?

Single leg can be the most proficient take down. It always has been, I don't know, probably always will be unless they figure out something different. The robot, the robot is different. We're gonna shoot a lot of single legs. Why? Because everyone's gonna do that, right?

We're gonna shoot a lot of single legs. So, just like say an R bar or some type of sweep, right? Why can't we go get 50 reps there? Hey, we, I mean, by the time I've been in your Jiu Jitsu school for two years, I better know fucking R bar. I better know what. So don't spend 10 minutes teaching me.

Just tell me to go hit 50 reps. And then if one I'm hitting my reps, if there's something I'm doing wrong, then just say, Hey, Ben, move your leg a little bit that way or raise your hips up a little more, right? Like correct. As you're drilling. So you're getting all these reps at it. So you're becoming more proficient. And then the other thing I really struggled with was to your point during live, so many

times it's just this five minute go, go, go. And that's not the most efficient way to learn because when you have two people, especially when they're focused on winning, and you say, go, they're going to go to whatever they do best. Well, if I'm trying to make you good at something, I don't want you doing what you do best all the time. I need you doing some other things, right? If you have a great single leg, but you can't shoot to the other side of their body, we

need to work on that, right? You need to start shooting to the other side. There's some sense that you, it's not like you should be told what to work on, but you should be told to work on the thing that you want to work on. Meaning, because I don't know, maybe you can comment on this, but you know, everybody develops a different game as you get better and better. There's a set of things you need to be working on. So I actually have, like when I, especially when I'm like training very seriously,

I'll have a specific technique that I have in mind and I have a sheet of paper on the side where I literally, my head keep counting off how many times I put myself in that position and pulled off the technique. And that's all I care about. Yeah. In like training. So I'll just, whatever it is, if it's a G18, it's a G18, arm drag, arm drag.

But I want to make sure I don't, I love numbers. So I'll say like, I'll make sure I get 50 arm drags. Yeah. And I'm not getting off the mat until I do. And that, you know, if it takes... It's thrilling in a live contest. So in this, in this thing I'm describing right now is the live contest. Okay, but drilling obviously. Drilling.

So I feel like I can't find a drilling part like it's so hard to find drilling partners. Even so boring. It's annoying to me that this is boring and there's nothing more annoying to me than the look of boredom on another person's face when we're drawing. It's like, do you really think drawing is that beneficial to you because you said it to Joss. Yeah, I think so. Really?

But yes. Why? Am I an idiot or why it's really beneficial? Let's go with suture of pushes. Why is this so beneficial? I think for me, there's a meditative aspect to it where the more you drill, the more you start noticing the details, the more you start.

Okay, let me, let me back. My new details, yeah. I'm not gonna push back all the way because every time, if I was wrestling, I wouldn't, I had crutching like whatever, right? But even so say like at a high level, when I'm really wrestling to 10 years ago, even during that drill portion,

if we talk about the resistance of our opponent from 0 to 100, it's very likely that my partner, at that point, because people I'm really comfortable with, they're probably at least going 20 or 30, right? They're probably giving me a certain look with the sprawl or you know, I gotta get through their hands if I don't set it upright right they might put their arm down Right, so it's like it we are drilling because we're wrestling at a really low resistance level

But there's a little bit sparring. Oh, yeah, the 20% the 20 yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, so that's not really drilling. I think it's rolling. I think literally you're shooting and I'm just not boom I'm gonna show you dummy boom boom boom boom boom boom type of thing now. It's very hard to be a dummy that doesn't do 20%. You're gonna do 20%. Yeah, so yes, 20%. But it's like sparring a little bit that. No, but they're not really resisting.

They're just giving you the right frame. They're giving you the right movement. And they're being an intelligent dummy, essentially. I mean, but also like the really important component of this is you pick the techniques for which it's beneficial. If the technique has dynamic elements so you don't want to be doing that with,

I'm saying like there's certain moves and I like those moves and I select the game base and those moves. Like so are you drilling to get better? Are you drilling just to work out? No, to get better. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I believe you can become like,

exceptionally good, very fast by drilling. But how? First of all, let me ask you an empirical question. Let me, have you actually drilled 10,000 times of a kilometer? At least a million. Millions? You haven't drilled a million. 100,000, 100 hundreds of thousands likely. I think you're just saying numbers

I don't think you know what a hundred thousand. I don't think I don't think you know what a hundred thousand Dude, there was a 10-year period where I wrestled every single day. That's that's 3,000 days. So you tell me 10,000. That's only three of a day. I do way more than that Three of them probably 30 of my day. That's that's a hundred thousand. Yeah, yeah, hundreds of thousands I'm I doubt you get 30 a day for I did for I am for sure 100% There's no doubt all right because some days I might do a hundred right? 30 a 30 is not very many especially if we count all reps if we're kind of Drilling and live so like our coach college coaches make us just drill a lot and I was hated it.

So I would rebelling. Just kind of give a little sparrow. You shoot a highcratch. We'll start, coach on the drill highcratch. Okay, we'll start. You shoot the highcratch. That's great. Then I'm gonna set the corner.

I'm gonna give you my hip or I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna try something. So then you have to react. And I would argue that all skill level past like the beginner stuff is some necessity of that, right? I'm going to do this then what are you going to do? It's back and forth.

I should sing like, what are you going to do? I should hydrochlorine do. And you have to start unconsciously programming these things in your head because even you're conscious of the thing about it, it's going to be too slow to actually hit it in a manner. But the drilling is the unconscious programming. But the simple movement, the first simple movement, the first simple movement that's single leg or the high crotch or arm jaguar, like, I feel like the amount

you're going to get better at it is so minuscule compared to the amount you're going to gain at doing other things around it. You see? No, but that's the keyword you feel. Okay. That's your opinion. I think if we did, if we did a study on it, that I would be proven correct. No. Oh, perhaps. So first of all, your brain as an exceptionally creative combat athlete, it's clear that you

don't like the boredom of drilling. Like it's obviously you, that you have like, you're such a creative energy that you're just not going to be somebody who's going to enjoy that. So enjoyment is probably having an active mind is really important. So the question is, do you have the kind of makeup that has an active mind during a drilling on a dummy? And I have that mind. Like that.

You really think, okay, so if you're a, let's pick a technique, what technique do you want to drill out? I would do it to, so if you're a let's pick your technique what technique you want to draw a lot I would do them to get to a wrestling whatever you want It's hard to describe with words, but certain guard passes Let me let me think just guard pass Okay, so you have a guard pass and you get it to be a is a 9.5 out of 10 right just from a technical standpoint Don't you think you need some resistance to feel? Because essentially, all benefit after that is going to be, what are they going to try to do to me?

And have they shipped it that way? Do I need to do it to sink here? Oh, yeah. So it's like, I actually think we're agreeing, but maybe terminology wise. Well, the split is the important thing, how much of each. So I think it is smart.

I think it's a very light touch spar is what you're talking about, which is in my opinion, it really isn't drilling. And it's because drilling past the basic proficiency, I don't think brings much value. But that's what I'm trying to tell you is I think it does. I think doing that same movement, I think you begin to learn more over time.

Like, you're saying, like, once you get the basic proficiency, then there's diminishing returns. I don't think so. I think everything has diminishing returns when you're learning a technique. But with something that's complex as wrestling or grappling, if you can have way more gains over here, why focus on going from a 9.7 to a 9.8? If you, if this other area,

if you're spending so much time here that is on other areas left unexplored, you can make gigantic gains over there. No, but you're gonna lose. I think a lot depends on your style. I think a lot is determined by how good you are at one thing. And so if you want to become a master of a particular thing and then make your whole game where it's all pulled into

that system, then I don't know. One is too small for number. Yeah, small. I feel like you can't be easily this, like, I, yeah, you want a funnel, you want to create funnels, funnels, right? Where everything goes into a few positions where I feel we're in 100%. Yeah, you want you want a funnel you want to create funnels funnels right where everything goes into a few And then it's all feel yeah, yeah, but I feel that you can get like Drilling on a dummy

80% of the time and 20% of the time live rolling with people worse than you Like a little bit worse than you or a lot worse. Yeah, so. So I think I definitely think so my buildup would be teach. So we're talking complex technique, right? So by the time we're talking about a late high school kid who's pretty proficient, he's already done the drawing part. So then now it's like, okay, if I want to get something new to you, I'll probably tell you, you'll probably be able to do the basic premise within five to 10 minutes if they're good, right?

Do this, okay, they do it. Then it's like, okay, so now here's from here, what are we gonna do? We're gonna go lights barring so I know you have success because I need you to complete the task in order to give it better at it. That's something a lot of people in wrestling mess up is they just want to go to the toughest person.

But if you go to the toughest person, you're not gonna actually execute on any skills. You're gonna get work out, and I need you to execute. I need to get good at this in order to get good at it. You have to get all the way through the technique. Why do you need them to complete it just so they gain confidence in the technique or they go through all the stuff. They have to feel all the way through. Like if I said learn a high-crotch when you're drilling with stop halfway every time, but you're not actually going to feel to do it because you're going to stop you're going to feel. So, you know, try on someone spar not actually gonna feel to do it, because you're gonna stop, you're gonna feel.

So, you know, trying on someone, spar lightly, get it, do it on someone who's not as good as you get it, then kind of work your way up the ladder, so you can get it on someone you're only scalable or maybe better than you, right? In a live competition. So it's like, I don't know,

I feel like that basic drilling, like, so it killed the key in part a few times. Like, I feel like if there's something new, I could literally tell them, this is what I want you to do, and he's such a great feel, like he could go drill it proficiently within probably a minute or two.

But then to hit it on someone high level, that's gonna take quite a while longer. And that's a mix of drilling and sparring on people a little bit worse than you. Yeah, and then equal and then better. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because there's there's there's just with with grappling

right there's such like a feel component to the pressure, the movement, all these things. And there's still a say there's so many things you can throw at someone out of one position, not just moves, but moves is different levels of force or whatever. Are you in these kids developing like a big picture strategy of like what are the main setups and takedowns and just like a whole system? Um, so we, you know, I kind of sent your technique book right and how we kind of go at, approach it. So I think in wrestling, you're going to need, you're going to need a handful of things just off the off the word go, right? You're going to need a handful of things just off the word go.

You're going to. So I think on our feet, I need to be able to take this out of the body. I need to be able to bring you underneath me. I need to be able to go around you. We can accomplish those different ways, but we should have all of those weapons if we're going to be really good some way. So if I neglect one of those, if I I neglect the ability to say pull you down right from hand lock you.

Now if I have a good shot and you're smart, you're just going to lower your stance. So my shot is not going to be a successful and I have the inability to pull you down, right? So I kind of need all of those so I can, as they get better, I can point those things out. On bottom, my folks out bottom, there's certain things like you have to be good at leg right defense, right? You have to, I mean, in high level, or you're just, you're going to, it's when you get it in, you're just getting stuck there. Not going to be a little escape.

But besides that, yeah, there's those are multi-do things that you can choose from and I'm going to, depending on your body style and what you're good and bad at, I'm going to probably develop something a little different. I might give you, hey, you do the quad pod, you'd be better as a knee slide, whatever. Yeah, on top, kind of same thing. I have to ask you, Bob, could be. So I remember a while ago,

Rogan said that that's the perfect fight. It could be you are. Let me ask two questions. The first, do you think you can So let me ask two questions the first Do you think you can beat him in an MMA match when you're at your peak? Yeah, I don't like Yeah, I mean this one is people are people like we'll get really mad at me if I say yes, but yeah, I mean How would you do it? How would you solve that puzzle? Yeah? I

Mean we would grapple and I think I would be better than him But you know I just as I feel weird saying is people would be better than him. But I, you know, I, I sometimes I feel weird saying as people, but yeah, right, you're full of shit, you know, and, but that's no, no, no one outgrappled them, right? I mean, nobody did. And maybe I'm wrong in this. But I, I, if we, we'll get the best possible candidates, I'm definitely one of them. And then I've said it with small size advantage too. So in a wrestling match, so we can just reduce that MMA match to a wrestling match, what do

you think is the right strategy on him? Like, do you understand his style, that his wrestling style, the pressure he applies, do you understand how the hell he makes it happen? Yeah, I mean, he never, unfortunately, fought any real, who I would say really, really high level wrestlers. I was actually really disappointed how bad Justin Gagey's wrestling was because Justin Gagey had some solid success but his wrestling was really bad in that fight. Gagey had success in NCAA.

Yeah, I think he was seventh place maybe or so somewhere. He was definitely American. He was lower though. So yeah, I would like to see how he dealt with someone who was like, who I think, oh man, this guy's a really high level wrestler. Because yeah, we saw in this early in his career, but you know, Glacin T-Bout did give him some issues earlier in his career. So I would like to see him in that situation and see how he does.

I would love to, like, you know, like, I just love wrestling and grappling. Like, yeah, I'd love to see someone said, hey, Ben, you know, it could be one of those that roll with you. Okay, I'm there tomorrow. It sounds like a blast. Let's go. It's probably competitive as hell. Yeah.

The year's still competitive. I know when to be and when not to be like, you know, say if I'm going to my high school kids are not going to be competitive because then I'm just being a dick. How would you take them down? What? What? I'm a real wrestler.

He's wrestling wrestling wrestling. I would probably try to text single licks and stuff. Single licks. Yeah. Haven't. Okay. No, I've no, I've honestly, I don't have the slightest clue. I don't have the feel.

I'd feel them out. The single licks my best taking on stuff. People talk about his wrestling being really good. Yeah. People that train with the product. Okay. So I, I grilled someone, I will not say who on the Ed Rooth thing, because Ed Rooth is very elite at Folk style wrestling and everybody came

that great at fighting, unfortunately. Wait, Ed Rooth wrestled, could be, they were on same team for a while. Yeah. Okay. And there was rumors that could be beat him up. And I said, I, guys, sure can't believe that. And I've heard that that was, if they were just straight wrestling, Ed would get slightly the better of it. Ed was just like one of the greats. He's great. He's really good. Yeah.

So that was what I heard. But in an MMA setting, because of all the tools that could be would get him. I don't know. What but I agree. I agree with Rogan on this one. That would have been good to see. Yeah. I'm fun. So yeah, people has to work out

I'd love it. I love wrestling and crap like I don't do much to do because I don't have time for it anymore I'm at the wrestling academy like every single day But yeah, I love G2. I did it and you know if I didn't have wrestling academy that probably would still be doing G2 Yeah, you did well and G2 as well, but I'm asking a ridiculous question. Who's the greatest of all time freestyle or folk style? Oh, wrestling. Wrestling. Well, I will say my knowledge passed like the year 2000 is really not that great.

Cause you can't reach direction. Sorry, after 2000 before, because you can't find any film or anything, you know, and so you hear about it. So you need evidence, you need direct evidence. I want to be able to watch them and see them and feel the times and feel their opponents and, you know, all those things to really like, I hate giving bad answers, you know, so I would, I, there's just not enough footage of any of those people. You know, we took, we go back to someone like Alexander Medvedd, like, you can't find footage, you can't find anything on it, you know,

it's like, who is he wrestling? I'm not sure so Post-2000 I think and I was just freestyle so Americans The T.F. has the probably the best argument post-2000. I think sad July of if you got the Russian tank He's not this yeah, so who's who's better? It's neither or so July So sigil I just want to do one big nine or seven this I don't understand how that works, but there So who's, who's better? It's neither or so July. So, so July just wanted to go to the Olympics. Not understand this, I don't understand how that works, but there's pretty close, right?

Not really. Not, not that match, but in general, the matchup. So, well, so Kyle won the first one in 17. So July, I have pinned him the following year, but then Kyle lost and took bronze in 19, and then just lost. I don't want to say fairly decisively, but it was, it was six to three and that

there was a late take down. He kind of gave it up and maybe fuzulic competitive maybe wouldn't have third or rest again in like two weeks here. So that you know, yeah, you get me, you have to say sigilive at this point. There's nothing else to say unless Kyle proves us otherwise. Yeah, not enough people talk about about such a life. Okay. Well, you think that guy should go to MMA? I think Kyle should go to MMA. Some of these guys. Yeah, they're making enough money wrestling where they don't really feel the need to.

It's terrifying. No, is a heavyweight. A such a life would probably, it's like, it's like, could be, but heavyweight. Well, I don't know if you remember, do you remember Belol Mokoff? So Belol Mokoff actually was the Russian representative in both styles in 2016 Greco and freestyle And he was to my knowledge the only person the UFC's ever signed that was zero in the modern era Signed that was zero and zero and then he actually never ended up fighting But weird right? So yeah motivation. I don't know. I don't know what the story is, because sometimes I have Russia. I mean, maybe you've better sources than I do.

Sometimes it feels like dudes just disappear. Like they're a world champ or a little big champ and they'll say, you're like, wait, where do you go? You talked shit about Russia earlier in the conversation. So, what did I say? I forgot, but I think. steroids. I think somebody's going to show up to your door. I'm worried.

I honestly, I've said enough bad things where I would be kind of looking at my shoulder if I weren't there. I for one love, the Russians. What about Icarus? How does that make you feel? What about it? Fake news. Oh really?

It's probably, yeah, maybe it is. I don't know. I don't know what it is anymore. You know, I struggle some, and I hate cheating in all of its forms. Any other like recaps from the Olympics of 2020, Tokyo that stood out to you, Gable Steelers and like anything like that? It's great. Yeah.

No, I think America is coming to the point where we're going to compete with Rush every single year in wrestling, which obviously, you know, I long, long time ago, many, many of you, we did, we, we were great. And then kind of after that Soviet Union period, I think there was a lot of poverty in that area. And that kind of led the wrestling team going down a little bit. And then obviously a lot of those regions, the, what they found oil and gas in the Caspian Sea, I believe, and they've been really kind of on the upswing for the last 20 years. And now America really since 2012 has been on the upswing and wrestling, and we're kind

of really competing with them. And they're not sending a couple of their best guys. So Oslo, so for those who don't know, the Olympics, we've got to put back a year. So there are hosting the World 2021 World Championships, despite the fact that we just had the Olympics two months ago. So it's happening next week in Oslo, Norway. So like Russia is not sending their number one at 57. And I don't want number one 65. So it's like America's probably going to win.

I think I don't want to guarantee anything. But there's there's a really good. It's a Taylor. Also competing America gave any of the Olympics that meddled the opportunities did not even have for us off They just got to keep the spot since there's two months later if they meddled So the only one who's not is Gable Gables moving on we have a pretty good guy behind him in Nick Westow excuse a world Metalist

But then he's a Pearls filled into the 79 spot Chain Cox filled in the 92 spot who's a world champion also so we have a Hell of a team pretty good good spot. Yeah. Pretty good spot. Yeah. Okay. So given your run in Bellataurin, one championship, that was like one of the most dominant runs in MMA. What would you say was like key to your dominance and that long undefeated streak? Huh. I'd probably consistently be one. The fact that I just I lived and trained the same way no matter where my life was, whereas a lot of fighters, once they start making

money for the first time, they have all these obligations and they travel and they really enjoy making money. And that's kind of why some of them fall off. Do you like the same process? Like the same camp in my house. I didn't vacation. Everything. Just, you know, I, and so that, that was a big part of it. Obviously, the style thing is like, no one could, there was only a few people who could stop my style. And I think I continue to get better as a mixed martial artist. And I wasn't as innovative and mixed martial arts, but there was a handful of things that I innovated specifically in the top position where I spent a lot of time where just like, once I got a top U is like in a spider web and there was just kind of

no way out, you know, you never felt the certain things I was doing. And so the people just, they gave up eventually. How's the level of wrestling in MMA would you say? So I saw somewhere like champions, the most popular martial art for current UFC champions are all wrestling. So we just lost a bunch of the belts wrestling wrestling as it sport, right? But yeah, one point we had, I think it was eight of nine, maybe or something to that effect. And I think it's not just wrestling, not just the actual martial art of wrestling that contributes to our success in mixed martial arts, but other things like

the way we're systemized. So most kids who have a system have went through the high school program and the college program and they know how to show up on time and they know how to work hard So when they go to 80 to your aka or wherever they know how to show up on time and they know how to work hard and that's gonna get you a really long way Just those two things right not even the techniques is just the disciplines those things Then I think you throw on top of the fact that most of us have competed 1500 to 2000 times probably by the time we get to 20 something like that's a huge advantage to most of these other people from other disciplines, maybe if it could be the hundred if that, right? So we have this competitive process down really, really, really, really well. Plus the way cut, the way cut, there's all these things, right, the factor into it.

I think the fact that we're really open minded, like I think if you would, I don't pick on Jiu Jitsu again, but like, how many Jiu Jitsu guys have became highly proficient in wrestling versus how many wrestling guys have became highly proficient in Jiu Jitsu? I think that number swings one way and not that much the other way, you know? So we're open to adapting and learning and for some reason, like, Jiu Jitsu people, how many of them have got a high level wrestling or even mediocre wrestling. The numbers really small, like they refuse to, it's really frustrating. Like why won't they do this is obviously part of it.

You know, if I don't pick on specific guys, but there's certain guys in the history of them and they were like, listen man, I mean, Damien Maya, who is my last fight, is a great example of someone who actually did get proficient wrestling, right? But there's some of these dudes who guys was like if you just kind of top you would submit him Why can't you learn a freaking takedown like holy moly like just learn how to take someone down? Once you get them down, they will knock it up and you win the fight like it's so easy, you know How how complicated is that journey? So like Donna heard that you you mentioned, the Craig Jones, they're big on wrestling as part of

just now, like wrestling, not just on the feet, but wrestling from the bottom coming up and all that kind of stuff. So how difficult is that whole skill set? Would you say for just a person to learn? Not that hard. If they really put their mind to it, because they already like, when you grapple, and this is any grappling art, like there's a certain part of it that you kind of get and it can might not be the exact same thing, but you understand how your body moves out of feel certain pressures and you can adapt yourself pretty quickly, you know. So I don't think

there's a certain level of stubbornness where they didn't want to certain people didn't want to do it for whatever reason. I think a lot of times in MMA, I'm so macho, I can stand and bang thing where they want to show how macho they are. But yeah, that was the first thing when there's a lot of wrestlers who became highly proficient in jujitsu and really adapted and it doesn't go the other way. And then I guess the other thing there too is they can both steal from each other, right? As any martial art can steal from another and like I feel like Jitu didn't do enough stealing from wrestling.

Like they should have looked at all the wrestling possible and said, well, why don't we steal that and that, you know, and like, hey, let's take that over. And maybe we'd make a little tweak because it's different, but there's something we can definitely use there. So like in wrestling, for example, you know, there's a one arm key at teen in Jiu-Jitsu, right?

Okay, so there's a move called, well, it's got a hundred of names like the oldest moving wrestling because it's what they did, the cows where they go around the chin and they throw them on the back. I don't recall that one. I don't know.

Okay, sorry, did you just ask me what I call that one? Yeah. Would you take a cow and grab a weather. No, no, no, no, but it rests like the rest. I don't know. Okay. We call it like, are you putting it under? Yeah. So you grab their chin and then you go under their arm and then throw them on the ground. Okay. Got you. Yeah. So we called it the honey badger, but it's got honey badger. Different names. Wherever you go. It's got different names.

Um, so I would always I would, like, prejudiced, too. I was average at it. Like, I could do it. But against good people, you never get it. For because, oh, I'll say what, because they would get the back of their head up and they were too strong where you couldn't collapse them by going over their neck, right?

Because the forces weren't right. So then in Juditsu, you learn the one arm gui-ti and where you grab their chin. And this is more running along the side of their head. then and then you go here and you choke them right? Much more efficient way to move their head because the full curve is way down here and their head can move into that right? So once I learn that and you get to him like wait, I Can do some wrestling So now once I grab their chin the right way and I do the honey badger. No one ever gets out

I just had to steal that you just do put it in wrestling and boom there we go So now once I grab their chin the right way and I do the honey badger, no one ever gets out. I just had to steal that jujitsu, put it in wrestling and boom, there we go. But very few people steal any direction. That takes creativity. Really? And open mind. It's so easy because it's already done, you just got to steal that. I mean, same with judo, if you're a geek, jujitsu person, there's so much stuff in judo that's ripe for the stealing because Judo is much more emphasized as explosive moves on the transition, which is something Jiu Jitsu does

not do because they have some from the takedown too. From the takedown, but also just in general just in the transition, the concept of transition, the like Jiu Jitsu is very much about, like, we're in this position, then we're in this position, then we're in this position. The judo is much more in when there's chaos of any kind. That's when you need to strike. And to learn that, I mean, that's why people

like Travis Seams and Jidoka, when they go, they Jiu-Jitsu, they can dominate. But Jiu-J the people should steal that. They're too stubborn. Yeah, but so is that wrestlers just stubborn too. No way. There would never be a stubborn wrestlers. Well, I mean, I was surprised. You know, all these coaches, John Smith, Dan Gable, they don't really have interest in MMA or jizis and so on. Like, but you would think somebody like a John Smith would like put on a white belt and roll around.

Yeah, I think he's just too focused on, you know, what is a coach and what he's doing. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think if you've taken me younger, you would have a lot of fun. We actually have a really good wrestler making this MMA debut tomorrow. And if you're Bo Nick, I'll I'm sure you've heard of him through how gobble. I think he's going to have a lot of success. I mean some people might say that like Jiu Jitsu makes you a little comfortable being in your back and for a wrestler that could be like really bad. I hate to take.

Yeah but that's the dangable take. It's so stupid it's so stupid for God's sakes we know the fucking rules. Just say wrestle you don't go to your back and you should do you can it's so stupid. For God's sake, we know the fucking rules. Just say, Russell, you don't go to your back and you do two cans, like whatever. Yeah. You know what I like, so you do two, for example. So I coach, whereas at Rufus, I coached the wrestling for a long,

I don't know, three, four, five years. So I can take my Gigietsugai. And teaching them a wrestling technique where you need to use your feet. To teach you, it's so easy, so simple, because they're gonna understand the concept, butterfly guard, etc., etc., etc., right? To take a wrestler who's never done any of it and teach him how to use his feet, oh my gosh, such a beast, it's so hard, you know, because that's not a weapon they're

thinking about using. So it's like, we understand the rules, it's like freestyle and folk's are wrestling and freestyle form the mat. I can lock my hands. You don't see people lock on their hands all the time and folk style just because they did freestyle. It's like they get it. There's a rule they understand it. So the notion that somehow you come from in your back, but pinning that's like a, has a special meaning. Yeah. I actually think so. Jiu Jitsu, you, you don't actually want to be flat, flat, very often, right? You don't need to. I was wondered this because I did a couple catch-reshing tournaments and I did, I would put myself in butterfly guard and I wasn't

going against good people, which is why I was doing all these things. But I wondered if you could create a system of wrestling where you're butterfly guard. So I think that there's a few places where I use it. But so specifically the elevator series was my main series up bottom. It is not butterfly guard. It's a butterfly guard grip with your foot. So I boom, I go here, I catch with my, your leg with my foot, boom, and I elevate you over, right? And then also sometimes, like, I think Keegan does this

too from watching me, like double leg, sometimes, if I'm accepting, so freeze to office, you're gonna give a point to me and folks out, except then you've already got me. And as I go down, I'm just gonna butterfly guard you off, you know, and then I'm gonna try to flip my hip back to the mat and get it in at the wizard position. Like I've used that quite a few times where it is kind of like a bailout mechanism that gives me back to maybe not a great position, but obviously much better than being

hanging out. Beautiful. Yeah. Let me ask you quickly about crypto, because you're also you have a show, you have a lot of interest in cryptocurrency. Why are you interested in cryptocurrency? Is it just a financial investment or is it a philosophy that attracts you to it? Philosophy. So my friend told me about it in 2017. I was actually, I was,

my friend met me in Shanghai. I fought in one championship. And he told me, and the second he told me, I'm like, I'm so in. Because I had read Ron championship and he told me and the second he told me I'm like, I'm so in. Because I had read Ron Paul and the Fed. I had read, I had an understanding how the Fed is unfair. And so when he told me crypto, it's a decentralized system that no one has control over.

It just made sense. And so like we've had the podcast with Michael Sailor on it. And I love the way he says it's like, who do you trust more with your money? You trust the politicians or do you trust engineers? I think that's an easy choice. I don't even think I don't even think about that. I don't trust politicians No matter what country they come from China America, wherever I don't trust them. So what about into in 2017 was Bitcoin What was Bitcoin? Are you, what do you find, which ones do you find interesting? There's all kinds of ideas.

So there's the more sort of primal mechanism of proof of work and Bitcoin. And then there's smart contracts, ideas, and there's all kinds of innovations across the different. Yeah. So I can't say I've been super deep where I understand the technical components of a lot of them. I understand what Bitcoin can do for people, and so that's probably the one I focused the most on. And I actually, I think I was talking about, I was trying to convince Michael to talk about Bitcoin because he hates it also, wait, then I'll say.

And I think most of the main problems Bitcoin solves, people in America are so American centric, they don't understand it. So like high levels of inflation, that hasn't happened in, what's started to happen, has happened in America in a long time, right? But someone in Venezuela is like, oh, I get that, you know, or remittance payments, right? Remittance payments to, you see it. So I saw this in, when I was spending all time in Singapore, Singapore is obviously a really wealthy country.

And so you'd have Indonesian workers or Philip, and they would all go on Sundays, they would go to these places to ship stuff back to their families and through Western Union, Western Union gouges the shit out of these people. I mean, they're taking 8, 10, 12% of whatever they're sending, then it takes five days and the person they'll pick it up, whereas Bitcoin,

I could send you Bitcoin person to person, right? So like, American people don't understand that. American people don't really understand the unbanked, right? The decent portion of the world is unbanked. They don't have access to it. And a much, much, much smaller portion of the world doesn't have access to the internet. So if I can put a mobile wallet on your phone

and we can send money person to person. So there's a put a mobile wallet on your phone and we can send money person to person. So there's a whole bunch of those problems where Americans don't really think about that are really obvious that this solves. So I think that's the key one. Obviously the fact that I'm the value goes up is really outstanding also. But if you look at it, I got it in 2017. So I got to watch it go up. I didn't sell shit at the top, really stupid. And then the majority of my time was spent through the bear market. And so I had to love it for the principles that are provided, not the fact that actually I actually lost money in the beginning and now I'm way up.

But yeah, so I was just holding. Just holding. I think at the top of this bull market, I'll probably sell a very small portion. Just like, right now, there's a bull market. Yeah, most people think in the next three, six months will be at the top of the market. That's the problem that happens. I'll probably sell a little bit.

You got a hot a little bit. You got a hot, well yeah. So here's one of my podcast co-hosts. He's like super rich, like, over rich. So he has a lot of touch with the every man. So here's my argument, the him is really simple. And listen, I'm doing well for myself in life, but if, say, someone buys a Bitcoin, right,

one Bitcoin at $5,000, which it was last year. And this Bitcoin goes from $5,000 to $200,000, which is, you know, right around what a lot of people think the peak is going to be. They bought one Bitcoin and they are living in a $200,000 house. So to take half of that, right, you started the $5,000 of the Bitcoin to sell half a Bitcoin for $100,000 and pay off your house, your remaining house payment,

that's life changing to someone. It really is. And so you still have a Bitcoin, so if Bitcoin goes to a million, you're still going to have half a million, and you're going to feel really, really rich with it, half a million dollars, because you bought it for F and $2,500, you know?

Yeah. So yeah, so I would encourage anyone who's not Uber rich to, if you have huge profits, take a little bit of them, because it could change your life. And if you hold it and it goes down, you're going to feel the pain of that. Like sometimes if you're more constrained financially, it's much more psychologically difficult to ride the wood, the ups and downs. Yeah, it is for sure.

This is a really fascinating thing. And Bitcoin actually said the guy, one of the main guys on our podcast is called Onchain Metrics. So all wall transactions are visible You know, and so they have these all these fun categories. I love so I actually I think you don't like numbers But I like numbers. I love numbers also. So they have all these different categories like you can see how long a wall and is held Bitcoin right or how many big coins are in a certain wallet? And so what they've seen during this, the downturn rise of April, it kind of peaked and went down is that the whales are

still buying. They've set the main group of sellers is the ones who held it from zero to three months. So like they don't have money, they bought it because they thought it was going up and I was like, oh shit, I got to sell it. Right? Whereas anyone's had it for a long time is generally still holding on. That's interesting. That's a good indicator, right, for the whole space. Yeah.

Let me ask you for some advice. You've been through one heck of a career, one heck of a life. What advice would you give to a young person today? Well, in wrestling, I think wrestling's really a microcosm of what your life is going to be. And that's what one of the things I stress to kids is like, if we can go through this now and you figure out, I have a couple of kids that are struggling with certain things.

Now, if you can figure out this now in wrestling, to me a lot better figure out now and get over this mental hump, then when you're 32 and you have two kids and your job's not going well, it's going to be a lot worse,. It's gonna be a lot more painful than, let's fucking figure it out now. So a lot of these things, a lot of these lessons, we can learn from wrestling, whether it's persistence or perseverance or work ethic, or you know I said wrestling show up

on time when they work hard, right? These things, if we can learn these things at an early age, those are general, those characteristics, characteristics with generally carry on throughout our life. And those are the things they're gonna make us really successful. So I would say a great coach. Someone who's gonna spend a lot of time and put a lot of time into you and make sure they have a lot of wisdom and steal all the wisdom that you can from them. And then, though, if you can be successful at one thing, generally, whatever that recipe was that took you to be successful at that,

apply it to everything else. Apply it to the rest of your life. Apply it to getting a wife that you enjoy. Apply it to your family. And then, if you can be successful with that, apply it to everything else. Right? Apply it to the rest of your life. Apply it to you. Getting a wife that you enjoy, apply it to, living in a place you want to live, doing a job you want to do.

Right? There's so many possibilities, and you just have to be bold enough to go take those chances. It's interesting, because like early on in life is when you have much more time, like people don't realize this, time to learn the lessons, like somehow later in life, you get busier responsibilities and all that kind of stuff. Like high school is a magical time in college. In college, yeah.

There's so much time. Right. Learn. You don't even have kids yet. Yeah, I don't have kids. It still fills up. Well, no, I'm purpose. And I did something that many people don't seem to be able

to do. I walked away from a lot of responsibilities just by saying, goodbye. Oh, okay. But, you know, meetings, everybody around me at MIT was like meetings fill the day. And they have more projects and you do a great job and you become successful and then the more meetings fill

the day and more responsibilities as opposed to like, wait a minute, do I wanna be involved in all these things? And instead, do I wanna find one or two things to really focus on? And that's what I choose. But like, that becomes harder and harder and harder to get older. No, I mean, I'm sure.

And also the more success you have, you become sought after other places too. I'm sure that's happening with you. And it's hard to keep saying no, no, no. This thing goes hard. You're known for roasting people with a single boom roasted line. So any ideas, maybe you want to mention malice, but any ideas come to mine when you look at me. Man, you know what? If I was going to boom roast someone, I would

want to kind of like research their career and dissect them and figure out their biggest next to the core. And I didn't have that notion of you. I figured I got a general sense of, okay, he's really successfully super sharp. He's really interested in some really interesting things. I bet we'll have a great conversation, but I had no intention to roast you. Yeah, there you go. What about mouse? You had to know where the mouse went. Hmm, for him.

Oh, man. How'd you get to know him, by the way? How'd you just Twitter? Where is the most magical place in the world, right? I always tell people it's the greatest source of information if you know how to use it. Hmm, he's insane on Twitter actually. He's funny. He's on follow him on Twitter because he was two in time.

It's too much, it's too much, it fills up. Like I wanna be able to consume the content. So if I want to see something he says, I can go to his page, right? But it's just too much for my timeline. I want to be able to consume who I follow. So I try to not follow a lot of people because I wanna be able to consume them. And he was too much for my timeline. I want to be able to consume who I follow. So I try to not follow a lot of people because I want to be able to consume them.

And he was too much. He fights the trolls, which I don't know why you'd ever fight the trolls. There's just too many of them. He's a troll himself. He's like the big troll fighting the little trolls. He's the king troll. Here's the million of them.

So even if you kill a 100,000, there's still not a 100,000 left. There's just you calling it. He's got a hundred thousand there's still not a thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand

thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand He's trying to grow hair now after all these years. He looked good bald, everyone loved him, with his head shaved. Now it looks kind of strange like why you got hair now. Well, it was one of the more surreal moments of my life. So he was here and he wore a black suit and tie. Really? Yeah, we did the podcast with him,

just mirror image of me. And then we also did, I haven't released it yet, but just a video together and I was doing a martial arts stuff in a student tie. That was quite... That's like, like certain moments in your life are just like, I can't believe I was part of that. Yeah, from a GSP, so yeah, I don't think I've anything to roast them about. Maybe the Matt Sarathick would be the one that you get them with, you know?

But I would be, I would be really fascinated that you get him with, you know, but I would be really fascinated, like, really dig deep from a sports psychology standpoint, because he always talks about how much fury he had when he was competing. And I find that to be interesting, because obviously, so it's almost like, to me, it's almost like, was he successful despite that, not because of that, right? And because anxiety usually leaves it really negative performance for the majority of people. And what was it about him that the anxiety

wasn't super negative? You know what I'm saying? Like, it's very interesting. I wonder that too. So I have, I wonder that about him, but I have a huge amount of anxiety in terms of especially with people. Just about everything.

Yeah. I wonder if that's helpful or or or not It feels like it's very helpful. I think so I so I think I think in two different things So I think Probably your everyday life. Okay, it's different than like inner performance or a competition It's you have to be like super in the moment of what you're doing So anything that's pulling you away like oh my gosh You know high school kids write that coach.

Oh my gosh, that girl's in the stands, and if I could beat, then, and they're actively thinking about this other thing when this is going on. And I need 100% of your focus right here. He's never, I don't think he has anxiety in the ring. That's the point. I think, I have the same thing,

like if I have a really high performance thing that I have to do, I don't know, a lecture in front of a lot of people. Yeah, that would be a great example. That there's huge amount of anxiety weeks ahead, days ahead, hours ahead. So you have a system to get rid of it then? No, maybe, but it's just the body gets rid of it somehow. Yeah, there's not a system. Subconscious system. Yeah, it's just the body gets rid of it somehow. Yeah, there's not a system. Subconscious system.

Yeah, it's... Subconscious system. So you don't actually have anxiety while you're... No. So that's like... So then that problem... Somehow that problem has solved itself, right? The problem is when the anxiety is actually happening

while the wrestling match is happening, that's the real issue. Yeah, but it's like sneaks in there too. That's the difference in MMA and wrestling is There's no breaks in wrestling, right? Yeah, I guess there is you can look at the crowd a little bit like you can look So maybe I'm bound maybe but like the there's other things we have to perform Well, well, there's more breaks like the lecture you can catch yourself thinking like in this conversation You know, yeah, like I'll said a bunch of stuff where I think why the hell would you say that? That's dumb right that that's the anxiety because there's the pause and that that that could be

um I don't know I think it just pushes me to be better but maybe I could be way better if I'll go that yeah it's scary to think that GSB if you let go of that But he didn't even better or did he ever did he have a route like you're saying like You don't necessarily feel those so I think certain people that I've coached like they would describe how they would feel Literally to ring the wrestling match, right? And you're saying like during the the speech of the hormones It's mostly gone. Yep, and that's it would be interesting to see if like You know he talked a lot about that, but if it was all, if it was all the way, somehow gone, he, it means he would have a mechanism for it. So I had a really bad performance in my freshman year of high school and nationals,

because I had, I had the ability to be anxious. And when my coaches talked about like, and a lot of atypical personalities are kind of that way, you know, because they're trying to consider all possibilities at the same time. And while we're actually performing or competing, it's negative performance, right? So he said he would always leading up to the match within say an hour, his thing was talking about fishing. He would get someone to talk about fishing with them because they would stop him thinking about the match and being uber anxious. So I kind of like, to get hard and really help me as I would always like have someone to talk to, it's goof around about whatever. So I'm not thinking about this thing.

And then once I step in, it's time to go. So I didn't have this anxious build up. Now it's not for me, I took it away, but like you said, you have a way to get it away, obviously. Yeah, I guess there's a little little tricks. Yeah, you start thinking about it. It's not fishing, maybe I should try the fishing thing. I hate fishing so bored. Well, maybe maybe it's good to think about that.

All right, Ben. This is like I told you, I'm a big fan of a big fan of your wrestling, your fighting, your personality. Thank you for coming down and thank you for talking today. Appreciate it. See you, Johnner. Bam. Let's go wrestle. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Ben Askerin. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Muhammad Ali. Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with an extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

Thank you.