Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1437: The Unfiltered Truth About MMA With Phil Daru

Episode Date: December 3, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin speak with renowned fight trainer, Phil Daru. Phil’s experience hanging out with Logan Paul. (4:06) His thoughts on the recent Mike Tyson fight. (7:43) How there are levels to this game. (8:40) Why being good these days is not enough. (11:30) Could you be a really good fighter and not be picked up by the UFC? (13:53) The journeyman’s journey explained. (14:41) The attributes of a great versus successful fighter. (16:01) Why he likes to have his hands on everything. (17:46) The mental training involved in fighting. (19:09) When did he realize he had more passion for coaching than fighting? (22:41) The characteristics of a ‘fighter’. (23:26) The last time a fighter surprised him. (26:11) The importance of ‘taking a punch’. (27:47) The components of a “badass” team. (30:17) Understanding the roles of the coaches. (33:20) The most optimal form of martial arts for the average person. (34:46) The truth behind the statement, the last thing to go is your power. (36:05) The greatness of Tyson and Ali. (37:30) The common misconceptions of having ‘knockout power’. (39:11) The evolution of MMA and the role of PED’s in the sport. (40:57) His take on transgender athletes in mixed martial arts. (45:42) The biggest mistakes coaches make with their fighters. (47:56) The science and process behind weight cutting. (49:59) What does the rehydration process look like? (54:07) The role of marijuana when it comes to performance. (55:50) Why you will not see fighters fighting in the streets. (58:27) The value of MMA training for kids. (59:54) The humbling effects of training in an MMA gym, the benefits of slow wins & MORE. (1:01:55) The value of the enforcer. (1:05:28) The fragile nature of the male ego. (1:09:40) Guiding his children in the right way. (1:14:07) The craziest moves he has seen. (1:15:25) What separates him from his peers? (1:17:38) Building that ‘buy-in’ with his athletes. (1:19:25) The importance of the ‘arts’ of mixed martial arts. (1:22:53) Who is the best striker he has seen? (1:24:38) Fighters to look out for. (1:25:50) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Phil Daru (@darustrong)  Instagram Website YouTube Logan Paul (@loganpaul)  Instagram Jake Paul (@jakepaul)  Instagram Dustin Poirier (@dustinpoirier)  Instagram Conor McGregor (@thenotoriousmma)  Instagram Din Thomas (@dinthomas)  Instagram Robbie Lawler (@ruthless_rl)  Instagram KAMARU USMAN (@usman84kg)  Instagram Jon Jones (@jonnybones)  Instagram Mike Tyson (@miketyson)  Instagram Eric Peña (@pena.performance)  Instagram Mike Swick (@mike_swick)  Instagram Gillian Robertson (@savage_ufc)  Instagram Platinum Mike Perry (@platinummikeperry)  Instagram Israel Adesanya (@stylebender)  Instagram Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Paleo Valley for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code “Mindpump15” at checkout for 15% discount** Cyber Monday Special!! (ENDS AT 11:59 pm 12/2/20) MAPS Program 65% off (Promo code “CYBERMAPS” at checkout) and MAPS Bundles 50% off (Promo code “CMBUNDLES” at checkout) Elvis Sinosic: PED use in MMA and what it means for $4 billion UFC On Transgender athletes and performance advantages How To Burn Fat Using Diaphragmatic Breathing Pec-Gate solved? Israel Adesanya cites too much marijuana for unusual looking chest at UFC 253 Inside the viral knockout that made UFC middleweight Joaquin Buckley 'immortal' Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND our good friend Phil Daru. He is a top world class MMA coach and trainer. The guy's also an excellent trainer in general. Knows his stuff in this podcast. We interview him and ask him all kinds of questions about training MMA athletes. Had a punch harder. We talk about the sport itself. His story, it's a great conversation. If you're

into the athletics of training, if you're into mixed martial arts, if you want to hear some stories of back in the day when Phil was the enforcer at his gym, you're going to want to listen to this episode. Again, it's a lot of fun. Phil knows what he's talking about, and he's one of the best coaches out there. Now you can find out more from Phil Deru at derustrong.com or derustrong.com. I don't know if I'm saying it right or wrong. I wanna make sure I get it right because Phil can kick my ass.

You can also find him on social media. He's got a great Instagram page. It's at derustrong. That's D-A-R-U strong. And then look him up on YouTube. He's got great videos on YouTube of teaching punches and kicks and training related to MMA and then training related to just overall fitness.

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Bundles are where we combine multiple maps programs and we normally discount them about 30% off. Well guess what? You can take an additional 50% off. So take another 50% off the already discounted price of bundles with the code C-M bundles. You can find all of these plus learn more about the workout programs at maps fitness products dot com It's been about a year since we had the privilege of having filled down here and unfortunately the first time We had you in the studio we were slammed with podcasting and you came down at least graced us with your presence Did some great content for our YouTube channel and it been meaning to get you back in the studio so we could chop it up, man. So welcome. It's the five-star bathroom.

Yeah. So, when I first came here, you guys were renovating that motherfucker. Yeah. It was bad. It was real bad. It looks good in there now. Yeah. I definitely think chicken there.

It's good in there. All we had to do was stop paying rent. That's so hard to imagine how that motivates people. Yeah. So, you guys were talking earlier. I just walked in on a conversation before we turned in the fight. That's so hard to imagine how that motivates people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you guys were talking earlier, I just walked in on a conversation before we turned on the mics. You guys were talking about,

I guess the fights that happened to begin. Well, before Phil, or before Phil got here, Justin and I were looking at some old clips. He actually went down, the last time he was here, he went down and kind of messed with Logan Paul a little bit. Oh really? Yeah, yeah, we were talking about the brothers right now. Yeah, that was fun.

That was fun. I went there not knowing what I was gonna get into, right? So the kid has a fucking mansion, by the way. If you guys haven't seen it, I know y'all the young kids, yeah, I'm fucking Logan Paul, yeah. So I'm like, all right, I didn't know who he was really. Oh, you didn't even know who he was. I mean, I knew to a degree, right?

I wasn't like, my daughter's definitely new. you didn't even know who he was. I mean, I knew to a degree. Right. I wasn't like, my daughters definitely knew. They were fucking excited for that, for me, I guess. And I was like, I trained multiple world champions, but hey, Logan Paul. Hey, did that, that's the cake, right? That's gotta be funny as a dad, right? Like, you're around famous people all the time, training these bad ass athletes,

who you have all the respect and report. You're going down to go see some YouTuber and your little daughters are probably freaking out. They were tripping about it. I was like, all right. Like, oh, get're going down to go see some youtuber and your little daughters are probably freaking out. Yeah, they were they were tripping about it. I was like, all right, like tell them to follow me on Instagram. I'm like, no. What? What are we doing?

Yeah, the status right there. Fuck Dustin Porriet. We talking about a little bit of Paul. Yeah. Okay. So now I went there and we had a mutual. I just knew the coach that that he was working with again. He's's trained some of my fighters that actually work with now, Sullivan Barara. Sullivan's actually fighting Kovalev in another month, so getting him ready.

But the style that he has now is similar to what boxing coach of mine, Pauli Gloves, that's what we call him, Paul Gavoni. And he kind of mimics this style where, if you're a larger or a taller guy, you would have a longer reach per se, so you would do more of the long style, which, quote unquote, is what they call it. So he went in there and I seen him throwing,

hitting the bag and throwing his hands, and he's not bad, like he's a good athlete. Don't get me wrong, like 100%. I think he's wrestled in high school and maybe in some college and stuff. And definitely a big guy too as well. He's bigger than his brother. He's bigger than Jake, right?

He's tall, right? Yeah, he's just, they're both kind of big boys, right? I didn't see Jake, so I don't know. But I know Logan's a big boy, for sure, 100%. And he was taking it serious until he told me one thing, cut our workout short, and he had to go to the fucking Catalina wine mixer.

What? I was like, I was like, is that for real? That's a real thing. I was like, yeah, I thought that was in the movie. Yeah, I thought that was the school. This rich, rich people, like rich people, I don't know. Yeah. And so, yeah, he cut it short and then I found out

that he took his private bus to his private yacht, which then he had a chopper land on the yacht and take him over to the Catalina wine mix. So this shit, I swear to God, has happened. It's totally normal. So I'm like, so you cut in the workout short for this. I'm like, you know what? Yeah. This is definitely some Instagram shit right here. I'm like, so you cut in the workout short for this. I'm like, you know what? Yeah, okay.

This is definitely some Instagram shit right here. You two stuff. But to his defense, I would say this, he did take it serious. Like he was taking the training serious. He was taking what I gave him as far as tips for recovery and conditioning. He took it real serious. So I give him that.

Now when it comes to the two, watching both of them, Jake and Logan, you know, I think Jake has better skill set. I think Jake puts his punches a lot, puts it together a lot better. I think he creates more torque, more power. It turns his punches over a little bit better, but I don't know. I don't know if they're going to fight or anything. Now you saw the, you, you watched the Roy fight in Tyson and he was on that undercard. What did you think of the fights?

I mean, I love Tyson, man. I grew up watching Tyson. I mimicked Tyson when I was fighting, you know? So, and even Roy too, man. Who must have, yeah, I must have forgot. Like fucking, I had that album. Yeah. I shouldn't have said that.

I was jamming that shit too. But no, I mean, I had that had the album. Shouldn't have said that. I was jamming that shit too. But but no, I mean, I thought that I thought Tyson won the fight for sure. I thought he edged it over. But you know, obviously bigger gloves in like shorter time. He had the real time in there. I obviously everybody knows Tyson would have won anyways. You know, I mean, I mean in that perspective. But as far as Jake goes, I mean, fucking basketball player, he was fighting.

Yeah. I mean, like, why are you going to step in there? And then somebody said it on Twitter is like, you don't play boxing. And I'm like, yeah, 100% don't bet. Well, this is a good question. Ask someone like you who has so much respect for the sports of fighting. You're obviously in it very deep, you're fighter yourself.

How does it feel seeing YouTube stars and basketball players bring in these crowds and generate this revenue? And I'm sure you personally know 100 boxers that have put in time and energy and skill that can't even make you know they can't rub two quarters together Like what is that like I work with some of those guys, you know, it's it's tough to watch a guy and a kid come from like seven years old And now he's 28 still fighting on undercards and not making shit, you know, same thing with MMA. MMA's even worse, you know, but It also is a good thing because you're bringing

more people's eyes to the sport. Unfortunately, it's to that, it had to come to that for it to happen. Do I feel that they have the ability or they have the right to call other fighters out? Fuck no. Like, know your place. You know what I mean? In that perspective, like Jake calling out Conor McGregor and Dylan Dennis, and I'm this ember, like, there's levels. Yeah.

Definitely levels. Please stop. Please stop. Jake, you can be good, like for sure. And you just have to understand that take your time and make the steps in the right direction. I mean, it's good to have high goals,

but calling them out and disrespecting them makes the sport a mockery. I remember learning that lesson firsthand. I remember when I was doing Jiu Jitsu, I was training hard, I was competing in local tournaments. In my club, I was good. I was pretty good. I was pretty good. I was a purple belt.

And then a world class pan-am champion, same, it was a purple belt, just like me, came and visited from Brazil. So here I am. I won like a local tournament. I'm pretty good in my club. Strong guy. And I see another purple belt.

Oh, this will be a good match. And it was like I had stepped into a new universe where I didn't know Jiu Jitsu anymore. Like I literally went on the mat and it was a very valuable lesson in the difference between world class and I practice. Well, that was a thing too, because I can totally see how disrespectful that is, but also as a part of me that's like, I kind of want him to learn a lesson even from everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

Is he really gonna learn a lesson though, or is it really just a money grab? It's a money grab. That's a hard show. I mean, I feel like it's... Yeah, what's the win for Conor McGregor if he goes in there and kicks the sands in with that? No, he has no win.

There's nothing there for him. I mean, he makes me... But money. A couple million dollars, but maybe more than that. Ten million dollars, but at the end of than that, $10 million, but you know, at the end of the day, it's like, that's definitely a lose-lose. Now, when other fighters are seeing this, like you said, who put the time and effort, I have all the respect in the world for athletes that do that, but especially fighters, because

you're, I mean, when you're in the ring, it's a different sport. You're literally fighting and you can get hurt and you put a lot of energy into it and you don't always make a lot of money. When they see stuff like that, are they thinking or are they talking to you about how they can make them, you know, maybe brand themselves so that they can start to generate them? Because it's obvious that just being good isn't always necessarily enough, right? Never enough. Not at this point. I think that a lot of the fighters now,

especially in the UFC, are beginning to see that based off of what Connor has laid out, that's where the blueprint goes. And so, yeah, people are starting to call people out a little bit more. And it's not that it hasn't been done before, but you can see the level has gone up a bit. Marketing themselves, doing things on social media, doing things around their area, I think

Dustin does a great job of that, but he doesn't in a positive way, right? He does a lot for charity, obviously he has his own foundation. So with that, he kind of puts himself in this light of, I'm the good guy, you know, and trust me, he is a good guy, like honestly. But he's being able to market himself in a positive manner that is going to help attract people to buy his fights on top of the fact that he can fight his ass off. So I think that there's ways that you can go about doing it in a positive way without making yourself look like an asshole.

Now as a spectator, are we only getting to see then, above average at best, fighters fight because you have people like the, like I've heard people make the argument that Connor's not even a great fighter. I mean, for me as a spectator, he looks amazing. But I've heard you're a great fighter. Okay, okay, so there's some people that make that case

that Dana set him up with all the fights and that he had easy street Over you see you see like honestly if you don't anybody who makes it to the UFC is skillful Yeah, so to the average person yeah, whoever's saying that is gonna get their ass kicked by a conmergr If you're walking on the street. Yeah, for sure. It's that's not it I mean you got to think matchups, you know, and if I guess yes He had great matchups if you wanna call it that, but he was just fighting up his ranks.

And at the end of the day, you can't say that he didn't get two belts out of it in two different weight classes. Now, I'm gonna follow up along with what Adam just said, and I'm gonna pose the question differently. Could you be a really good fighter, but not be exciting to watch, be kind of boring, not marketable, and then just not get picked up by the UFC?

Oh yeah, all the time. There's a lot of guys in regional scenes, or that kind of make it to the UFC, maybe drop one or how to bad showing, and then you never hear from them again, right? Great jujitsu guys, guys that grind, you know, wrestling style, you know what I mean, and not be able to finish, but just edge out

or at least dominate on the floor, but not be as exciting, like, not knock out power. They're not, you know, they don't have that, that ability to draw a crowd, you know, things of that nature. And yeah, you probably never hear from them again. What's that become, coaches? What's that typical journey look like for a fighter, right?

So, you know, you say you're winning in regionals, you get a shot and doesn't USC only normally give you a fight or a five-fight type of, how does that work? It depends on the person. It depends on how much they bring it to the table. Okay, so give me a stand, like a normal journeyman, not somebody who was like, oh my god, everybody's talking about his fights in regionals.

Just a good fighter who's winning, who gets a shot. Yeah, well, it used to be you would get your shot on the ultimate fighter. And that was really where they started to develop those guys. And you would have to go there and audition and then they would have to see exactly, are you marketable? Are you gonna draw the crowd?

Because that would be based off of your interview. So you would have like a three part series of interviews and then you would also do a tryout as well to see how physically good you are skill wise You know knowing the techniques and things of that nature and then also have the ability to sell yourself So would you say that the the show because I like ultimate fighter So one of my favorite shows of what would you say that it's a pretty good collection of some pretty bad-ass guys that make it to Okay, look at the guys that came out of it. I know right. There's a lot of world champions right right for sure

I've in and they're coming back with another series of another season and I think that Look at the guys that came out of this. I know, right? There's a lot of them. World champions. Right, right. For sure. And they're coming back with another series, another season. And I think that this one is going to be really good. Based on, I think the coach is, I think the coach may be her beef. I'm not sure. Let me speak out of turn, but I believe that's what they're trying to do. So I'll see.

Okay, so let me ask you this. And what are the attributes that would make someone a great fighter, and then what are the additional attributes that they would need to become a successful fighter? I'm talking about in terms of money and business and that kind of stuff, so I'm sure that they're probably lots of commonalities, but in order to become successful

versus just being a good fighter, a great fighter. Yeah, you have to have that star quality. So the goal really first and foremost is you have to have the technical and tactical efficiency. So you have to be able to produce wins and doing in a great fashion. So learning the techniques is first and foremost, right? Learning how to skillfully put it together

from a strategy standpoint and then putting it together from a tactical standpoint and then also being able to carry that over inside the fight. A lot of guys are really good in the gym when the fight comes and it closed that cage door and they crumble. Bro, I had such trouble with tournaments

because of that because I would get so amped up that I would exhaust myself, but in the club I was just no problem. Yeah, because you were confident. Yes. You were confident. You didn't have that level of uncertainty, right? I believe that those types of fighters rise to the occasion.

You know, so that anxiety isn't there. And if somebody can overcome the anxiety and still produce what they've done inside the training room, that's how they get it done. The guys that are really good at that end of the girls don't even give me wrong. You got a lot of those too as well, is the ones that can just focus in on the task. Not worry about all the other outside things going on. So for that, that makes them elite. Do you gamble on the fights at all?

Me? Yeah. I don't give me any trouble. Okay. So are you not supposed to gamble on the fights? Is that what? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you. You can have some insults. With no styles and fighters so well, you could bet. I'm not much of a gambler though. Like I like to beat, I like to have my hands on everything.

Like if I'm not, like if I'm not in it, if I don't have, like I bet on my guys for sure. Okay. I know I had a hand in it in some way. Oh, I see. You ever bet against your guys? No, fuck. That'd be the worst coaching. I know, I know. You're gonna in some way. Oh, I see. You ever bet against your guys? Oh, fuck. That'd be the worst coaching.

You're gonna give the way, bro. You're gonna give the way, bro. I'm on this file, I got it. You're gonna give the name up right now, bro. I've been in places where I was like, fuck, man, I think he's gonna lose, but I hope he wins. You know what I'm saying? Or she or something, okay, okay.

I've been in nose like, because it's a hard fight. And it's the UFC or it's world champion boxing. And you've spent every day leading up to that with them, so you gotta know their mindset going in. It's more of a mindset thing. It has nothing really to do with the physical capabilities, because everybody has those. If you're at that level, like, all I, man,

getting Dustin ready for Connor, like, oh, I gotta make sure he is ready, is mentally prepared, and he has the ability to manage his fatigue. That's really what it is Are there are there signs then in case so when you're getting you've prepared so many fighters So when you're preparing a fighter are there signs when you like you like man this he's he's got some out in yeah He's down. Yeah, but then I have times where I'm like yo He's fucking ready and then they should the bed. Oh my wow what the fuck just happened

You know, but it's because of the fact that the fight was too much, right? It was really good, you know, leading up, everything was on point, all the numbers were going up, and then all of a sudden, you're like, it's just unfolded in the wrong way. You're like, wow.

It's such a huge impact. Like I said, I experienced that personally, where you just, you're going into the competition, crushing it, never getting tired. And because you worked yourself up so much and people are watching and there's so much pressure, well, I've heard some of these stuff. Get exhausted.

Sports psychologists will take them down and sort of recreate that. We'll walk in and then they'll imagine themselves like having the crowd there and then performing and like do you do that within your ass? Yeah, so like, I mean the skills guys would do that more so, but I would put them in the direct, bow and eject the man's of what's gonna happen,

like from a, from a time perspective or duration, right? Because that's sports specificity from a physical preparation standpoint. But when I was fighting, Dean Thomas used to put us in the cage that we had, a little mini cage, and then he would call all like the parents and the people that drew the gym. And they would come out and be the Saturday

before the fight, and that Saturday night was like a mock fight. Okay. So like you would have multiple sparring partners, so you'd get it's dog in a hole or shark tank or whatever, and you would be in there for you know your three by five's or whatever or five by three's and then people would fucking boot the shit out of you like call you names, clutch out or he would do shit like

put classical music or some shit that we didn't want to hear in sparring where we were like, man, this is totally throwing us off. We didn't like the sound if it was something. It was like, he knew who we were because we had, when he was training me and myself with like five other of his pros that he brought up. If you guys don't know Dean Thomas, he's like a UFC veteran. He does a Dana White looking for a fight. He's a black guy and he's like a UFC veteran. He does a Dana White looking for a fight. Okay. He's a black guy and he's the only black dude in there So but Dean was my coach since I was like 19 years old He was actually on my podcast too. We talked a little bit about like the history of how we met and stuff

But but he would he would throw that on and we would have five guys That were pros and we would train together and we would throw He would throw on this music and we'd like, man, fucking you guys, the wrong location on you. Like, come on, good. So, yeah, I mean, so it was like that and then that kind of got us ready for the negative things that we were going to have to deal with inside the fight. And we always fought, especially with me, I've always fought in other people's territory. It was always either in Louisiana or North Carolina,

or somewhere in the back woods of fucking Alabama. It's crazy shit when I was growing up into the sport. And I used to fight for like $200, man. It wasn't any money in this shit whatsoever. I actually spent money going back home. I actually lost money going back home. But those times got me to develop my mindset and then got me to understand how these fighters

and what these fighters go through on a in-camp and in the fight itself. When did you realize that you had as much or more passion for teaching others out of fight than actually fighting yourself? I think it was, I mean, I was doing this while I was fighting. So I was actually coaching while I was fighting too as well. And I was doing that with my teammates because we had, again, that small group. So we had a group of people that we had to rely upon because Dean wasn't always there.

Dean would have to go, you know, train Tyron Willie. He would leave for like six to seven months sometimes and be gone. So we would have to train each other. So I took it upon myself as a captain to get everybody together and I would run training practices and things of that nature. So that's how it kind of developed and then from, you know, once I decided to retire, then it was just an easy transition. And now, what kind of a person, because for the average person looking in and they're hearing, most fighters don't make a lot of money, you're going to get hurt. That's part of the sport.

You're fighting. Most people don't want to fight. What kind of a person wants to do that? In other words, what were the characteristics that mean? Because I know the kind of person that gets into fitness, they tend to be insecure about their body, so they start working out, maybe they become empowered, now they can fall in love with it,

and then they wanna train other people. What kind of people wanna be fighters? What makes somebody wanna do that? There's many different fighters out there. Oh, really? There's different categories of fighters, and Dean talks a lot about this. There's like the fighter, which is a guy that just

loves to fight. Yeah, that's like Diaz Brothers, yeah. There's like the fighter, which is a guy that just loves to fight. Yeah, that's like Diaz Brothers. Diaz Brothers, yes for sure. Dustin is one of those guys. You know, then you have the martial artists, right? That's like GSP, like an Anderson. So loves the art, right? They love to, they love the art of martial art

and they test themselves in the fight. Then you have the athlete. That's the guy like Tyron Willie, who came from a different sport sporting background or was a football player and then transitioned over. And that was kind of me right there that because I played college football and I was like, man, I like to fight because I like to challenge myself and what better way to challenge yourself one on one with an individual and be so primal as to stepping a cage and fight somebody.

So, and then you have, you know, the competitor, which is the guy that just wants to compete whatever it is. It could be anything, it could be chess, checkers, whatever. You know what I'm saying? So, you have those guys, and then you have a mix. You have hybrid. I was just gonna say, how often do you see somebody who has kind of a blend of all of it?

And is that the ultimate fighter for you? I think so, man. I think you can turn it on and turn it off at certain ways and in times of the fight. You man. I think you can turn it on and turn it off at certain ways in times of the fight. I think you should be a martial artist in times and I think you should be a true fighter at times. I think you need to know when to turn it up. I think you need to know how to be respectful.

And that's really where you'll get the elite. Which one of those is the easiest coach? I mean, from what you're saying, it sounds like with the mindset and stuff, it might be easiest to coach a fighter because they love fighting so much that doesn't matter. But am I wrong? I mean, no, I think that also has to deal

with personality types too as well. Like a dopamine driven individual is gonna be like a raw. Like he just wants to get after it. And you got a guy that's really a Cedal Colleen dominant, it was really like analytical, you know, that's kind of the, I like a mix of both. I like a, maybe a Cedal Colleen dopamine dominant type of individual. Somebody who's willing to get after it, once they understand what they're doing,

likes to ask questions because they want to know what's working and why it is working, but also is ready to turn that switch on. And that's where you'll get a fighter that is going to take it to the top. How often are you surprised? How often do you set somebody and you feel like, he's gonna be like this and then like they get in there and you're like, oh shit.

Yeah, when's the last time you watched a fight? Oh man. And you were just, what's the biggest surprise where you're like, I can't believe the person just won. Yeah, yeah, good, good, good, bad. I'll tell you one now, amazing to me. I was like I was cornering one of my guys Actually one of my teammates Um in like 2011 and we were in this we were in Atlanta, Georgia

Somewhere in Georgia and It was a shit hole like 100% but the guys fighting there were all regional scene guys, and we were in the back, and the warm up room was like a kitchen. This was like in a bar somewhere, right? So I'm back there, and I'm warming up my guy, and we're wrapping him up, and then I see this guy, the corner of my eye,

and he's fucking like hitting pads and doing shadow boxing, the weirdest fucking way I've ever seen and it looked like he didn't know what he was doing, like what he was doing, like swatting flies almost, right? So he goes out to the fight and like, I didn't watch the fight, but I heard it. And all you hear was like the bell rang and you heard. And everybody starts, oh shit, the kid got knocked out.

He comes back and he's got a fucking metal on his, he's like, yeah! I was like, what the fuck? How this happened? So, I mean, it's Mr. Rihanna. I'm gonna see you training. I think also, you could also look really good, shadow boxing and hitting pads,

but when it comes to fighting an individual, you can't look. Totally different, right? How important is the ability to be able to take a punch and how the hell do you train that? Or can you train that? I think some of that you have to be born with for sure to be able to take a punch and keep going.

So you have a thick skull? Yeah. Big head like Justin. Yes, some people tell. But then some people are really prone to getting knocked out. And then you have certain things that happen throughout your life, like any type of head trauma is obviously gonna deteriorate your ability to take a punch, right?

It's gonna weaken the chin per se, what people say, you know? So was that look like in the training process? Cause I know, like back in the day, old school, like they would have a lot more, you know, like fights where it was like full contact in the training sessions versus like backing off of that to try and save them for the fight. Well, if you look at it like, like, Vendor Lesovas and those guys that have wars in the gym,

their career is kind of deteriorated through our eyes, you know. And a guy like Robbie Lawler stopped doing that years ago. Like he was like, I remember, you know, he went to American top team and he stopped sparring for a good amount of time. Like, I want to say his last maybe seven or eight fights. He stopped sparring for his camps. And that's helped him out because again, you don't want to put yourself in that position to like get, you know, accumulate damage while you're trying to get better, you know, in that way.

You save that for the fight. It's the same thing when somebody goes for like a power lift and meet. Like, you don't want to always hit your one rep max leading up into the competition. Like, you want to build up to that. And then once the time comes for you to put it all out there, then you do it. Yeah, yeah. Now, how do you balance that with also teaching? I'm sure this is probably more important for people

who are newer to the fight game. Balance that out with also learning how to take a punch and learning how to fight through that. Yeah, well, that's different. That's one of the things that you have to get time in the gym. You have to spar, you have to get hit, but you have to learn how to, you know, roll with it in the sense, you know, roll with the punches they say, but you have to learn how to roll with it in the sense,

roll with the punches they say, but you have to be able to do that because again, once you get hit for real, your mind kind of changes, like things shift. If I... Everybody has a plan to get a punch in the face, yeah, that's a very, very quick one. It's a great quote, like honestly,

and you see it in people's eyes, like in sparring, and a new kid will come into the gym and it'll get hit for the first time. And he's like, oh shit. And then you'll find out if he's going to stay or not, because he might not show up the next day. You mentioned the America top team. So what makes a badass team?

Is it the coaches? Is it the actual athletes that are in it? Part of it, is it a blended two? Like what makes a badass team? I mean, you got a lot of great teams out there, for sure. Right, right. I know, I think that a mix of understanding between the coaches, not trying to be the guy,

always being able to put in terms of the fighter is the main priority. Yeah. And then also training partners, like training partners make or break a gym. You have to have cohesiveness, that you have to be able to want to hang out with each other outside of the gym.

There has to be almost like a family bond in a sense. Because you need each other, even though it's an individualized sport, you still need training partners. And those training partners you need to rely upon and they need to rely upon you. So with that, I think a large amount comes from having the ability to have iron, sharpened iron. I imagine it's got to be challenging because of the amount of egos.

I mean, nobody, I mean, or at least I would think very few guys and girls walking into that environment are weak minded or soft or don't think of think very few guys and girls walking into that environment are weak-minded or soft or don't think of themselves as a badass and a leader. So how often as coaches are you guys having to like kind of pull back the reins on these guys and do they fight each other a lot and get pissed off? What's that dynamic life? I mean, I've seen a couple of fights in the gym for sure, but the thing about MMA is that it's a little bit, it's more about camaraderie in a sense.

Like yeah, we fight each other, we shake hands out the words and we leave it in the gym. We never take it outside the gym. And if that does happen, then that guy isn't meant for the team. He's not meant to be. Does that happen? Does that happen where you guys gotta say,

you know, maybe a guy comes in and he's just, he's fucking up the chemistry Yeah, even though he's maybe a good-ass athlete, but he's talking shit outside the gym and he's just I think that's I think that's with every sport Yeah, you have even in the NFL you get kicked out, you know, so yeah I think if a guy's bringing down the organization he's got to go How do you manage when two people in the same team? Then let's say they're both doing really well. They're both in the same team, then let's say they're both doing really well, they're both in the same weight class, now it's time for them to fight each other.

How is that managed or does one person usually leave? Both. It's either managed to where we split the coaching up or that person will leave and go to another camp. I know that like Kamar Uzman and a fucking drawn a blank. The guy he's fighting they were teammates for a long time and Uzman actually left the gym and now he's training in another camp. And obviously you know they both are a part of that team but one person had to step away because it just got too close. And sometimes you just don't have enough coaches. Right.

So a lot of teams won't they have too many fighters and not enough coaches. And sometimes you just don't have enough coaches. Right, right. So a lot of teams won't have too many fighters in all of them coaches. So then you have to go to a different camp in order for you to. Well, you also got to think that he's going to see the strategy in a sense too. How much of a going into a fight is the strategy piece? Are you sure?

Okay, and then, yeah, take me, because as a spectator and not as familiar with the sport, I just, when I see a fight, I see, you know, five, six, seven coaches back there. What are all their roles? And what does that look like from a strategy standpoint going into a fight? I mean, you might, for MMA, you might have a BJJ coach,

wrestling coach, a striking coach, and then you might have an MMA coach that puts it all together. It's kind of like a Mike Brown. Like he puts it all together, or it would be like a Dean Thomas. Okay. Okay.

And then those people will come together and organize a strategy based around their particular role. Yeah. Right. And their strong suit. Now, if a fighter is coming from a background of wrestling, well, then his main priority, his game plan is going to be centered around wrestling. Yeah.

You know, it just makes sense. Whatever the strong suit is, that's what we have to go with. Now if the opponent has equal wrestling, well, then we have to kind of balance that out. So now we have to increase his ability to stop a takedown on top of the fact, increasing his ability to strike. Yeah. So have you had some fighters you think are really, really good at changing their game plan? This is, they're normally a great wrestler, but you could coach them and say, Hey, we're fighting somebody that

that pretty much gets canceled out. I want you to really focus here. So from, I would say even mid mid fight, the guys that do it really well is John Jones and GSP. Those are the two guys that really know how to take something and turn it into something even better. Oh, wow. That's interesting. What now, if somebody who's listening right now was interested in the sport and is thinking they don't want to compete in the sport, but they want to learn something for self-defense, and you know, they don't have a lot of time, right? So the average person might do something two, three days a week. I've heard people say, oh, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the best single thing to learn for self-defense, so the people say boxing. Do you have one that you would pick?

Moitai. I don't know if I like Moitai for self-defense. I think Moitai is a great art. I think if you are looking to do something in the world of striking and you want to involve kicks, Moitai would be better than, let's say, Taikwondo in a sense. It's easier. It's faster to get the hold of, I guess you would say. But from the average person, from a defensive standpoint, yes, I would say Jujitsu, BJJ

would be the most optimal. And that's just because most street fights end on the ground, right? I mean, every fight I've been into ended up on the ground, whether or not. Or they're like to stop them real quick, right? Yeah, but then again, you also have the factor of, okay, I'm not going to go to prison. If I point this guy and knock him out and maybe cause him irreversible damage, right? Where I can do him, put him to sleep a little bit,

put his feet up in the air, and then we're good. That makes a lot of sense. I'm up and send my. When you watched Tyson fight over the, I think it was over the weekend or whatever, were you surprised at how well he was able to move? Was that shot, because he's 54 years old. Is that something shocking or is that? No.

No, because it's like riding a bike. You know, that guy's been doing it forever since he was a kid. You know, and that was something that I was like, I mean, it's impressive. Don't get me wrong, because who do you know is 55? Fuck right. He could easily just win eight donuts for the next last But he's also always been impressive You know, Zan, so why are y'all surprised? Yeah, you didn't see him when he was 22. He was fucking people up. Yeah, yeah

How old was foreman when he came back? He was late 40s 45. Okay, is it true that the last thing that a boxer loses is his power? Is that true statement? I believe so. I know speed, obviously timing, you know, those things will go, but sheer force into a punch, you know, and that's because I think you get that old man straight back, you know, and then as long as you can, you can put it in the right place, have the precision, the timing back,

and that takes time, obviously, that was something that they were working on. That's why I took them a long time to get it together. Now, okay, go ahead. I was gonna say, what makes someone, because Tyson, I was, I used to love boxing as a kid, and I love the old time boxers, I was a big fan of watching them,

and their styles were so different. Muhammad Ali looks nothing like Mike Tyson in the ring, but was incredibly impressive in his own right. Of course, Tyson was a monster. What made Tyson so good? What made someone like Muhammad Ali so good? Because they were so different. Their styles look so different.

I think it was the belief in themselves, to be honest with you, you know, because at the end of the day, everybody's gonna have different styles that work towards their specific makeup and what they, honestly, it also has to do with, again, personality, right? Look at Tyson, he was a ferocious being like,

he was very dopamine driven. Yeah, how many guys were beat before they even walked in the ring with that guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he had to have that style. Would you imagine him having a style like Muhammad Ali would make sense? I'm gonna eat your children. And then float around you like a butterfly.

So I think that that is one thing. Also, it's more about understanding their body and how they move in space. And that comes from training but also The coaches I you know and having a coach that can look at someone and be like all right This is gonna be good for him and then their development through time and How they're working inside the gym increases their confidence. Yeah, so like if if like Conor McGregor the reason why he was Talking that shit because he had wars in the gym and he was beating people up And he put in the work

So now that switch has turned on to like I'm ultra confident because I know I've done everything possible To put myself in this position and so you can't knock him for being a little bit overconfident Because you're gonna need that in a in a world of everybody's a killer. So I have to be a king amongst kings. Now what are some of the big misconceptions about what makes you a good hard puncher? Is it, I'm strong on the gym therefore I can punch hard, is it, I swing, what are some of the misconceptions

where people are like, oh yeah, that guy should be able to punch pretty hard, but you know, I got that debate of like, you know, everybody says, oh, you're born with punching power or you're born with knockout power. And don't give me wrong, like, genetically, your genetic makeup and your limb length and your torque angles and how you put your punches together is going to give you a stronger, more powerful punch. And where you place it is definitely going to give you a stronger, more powerful punch and where you place it is definitely going to give you that. I think like a guy like, like powerful punches, name some powerful punches that we have. George Foreman was a hardhead or backer.

If you look at his limb length, like look at how long his arms were and how he produced force and put it through his opponent as opposed to just trying to put it and snap it back, but he punched through his opponent. So it has something to do with that. I don't think, I mean, strength does play an underlining role because force is obviously gonna be one part of the equation when you're talking about power output. But when you're talking about, like, say for instance,

and I go back to this, because this guy worked with his dust and he's not the strongest guy in the gym, but he can lay you out. He can crack. He's got, I mean, his last five fights, I think he's got five knockouts. So he can crack. And obviously, Conor McGregor's not the most,

he's not gonna go in a strong man competition anytime soon, but he can crack too. So I think at the end of the day, it's how you place your punches, how you create torque, and also how you understand where to place it from a precision standpoint. Yeah. Now, you've been in this game for a really long time, and you've seen the evolution of science with sports performance

and everything from PEDs to supplementation and diet. Tell me a little bit about what you've seen with all those things and then the evolution of the sport with MMA. I think we're getting more educated on on recovery methods with the PEDs. I mean obviously you've seen people disintegrate in the sport based off of you Sada. Right, right? You saw the came in and a lot of guys went right right back down. Yeah, I remember the pride guys came over to UFC and everybody lost 15 pounds. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's let's let's talk about this because there there is some arguments and it's like some people think that it's a massive advantage to have PDs, but we talk about

you know, what what's what's more of an advantage? A guy that is naturally at 205 pounds in a badass fighter, or a guy that would normally be 175 juiced up to get to 205, we make the argument from just a fitness professional understanding the body really well, that I would think the natural guy at 205 is actually an advantage. For sure, yeah, and I get you on that 100% But the guys that don't understand that from a physiological level, right from biochemistry level They're like oh no, he's cheating because he had to add something to himself, right? Whereas that they could be taking creatine and BCAAs and all this other shit But because it's in drosgenous and you put it in with this range, now it's bad.

Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So that's the negative side effect. I mean, where do you stand? I don't give a shit about everybody else. I have my opinion on what I just said. Do you agree with that or do you disagree?

When it comes down to a sport that's one on one, I believe you should have an even plan field, right? So you should test both of them and see where their test levels lie. If one is over the other, well then yes, you can do some TRT at that time to bring their levels the same. Okay. To maximize equal balance. That's an interesting person. You think that we may see that in the future because there's so much of this, maybe eventually

we just say, listen, we're just instead of trying to say he took all these PDs, this guy didn't or this guy did a better job of hiding it, this guy didn't, why don't we just straight up see where each guy's levels are and make sure they're equal going into a fight. The problem is, is that that takes too much time and energy, right? Because it's hard to even match up guys now and guys take fights on short notice. So how are you going to get your blood work done and then you got a good point. There's also so many factors like you could have,

one person could have more adrogen receptors. So his testosterone is lower, but his testosterone is more effective in his body, right? So that could also play a role. But yeah, when it comes to weight classes, I mean, okay, in the real world, you street fights, yeah, if you're bigger, there's an advantage there. But when you're all weighing the same, you're 175,

you're 175. I would speculate, in my opinion, the PED's like Annabolic steroids, really only make an advantage, give you an advantage with recovery, allowing you to not hurt yourself. Because otherwise, you're the same weight as the other guy. And if you got a juice yourself up to that weight.

Well, not to mention, like, you know, when you take Annabolic steroids, it may help not to mention, when you take anabolic steroids, it may help you build muscle, but you still have things like tissue and ligaments and bones, and the natural guy has got the bone structure to support a 205 person, the guy who was 170, a juice up to 25, his bones didn't grow to be a 205 guy. Plus, let's talk about this for a second.

I'd love your opinion on this. If you're good at a skill at 175 pounds and you decide to gain 15 pounds, you've lost some timing and some skill because you're not really used to your body. You're now 185 or 190 pounds. You got to move different. I mean, is that accurate statement? Yeah, you lose your leverages.

You're like, again, you'll have to learn how to move in space a little bit differently, especially if you don't have a long amount of time to get used to that weight. Because I went up, so I fought at 155, and I walked around it like 175, and then I went up to 170 and walked around a 205, and that training process at 205 was way different than 175.

You know what I mean? So like, in... Different size human. And then on top of that energy expenditure. So now it's. You know what I mean? So like in size human. And then on top of that energy expenditure. So now it's like, okay, I need to learn how to move more efficiently with the body that I have now because I'm putting out a large amount of energy here. You know, so I think that plays a huge role

in conditioning to as well. So if I'm gonna go ahead and build a guy up to another way class, I'm gonna make sure that I give him the adequate amount of energy output so that when we train, or when he goes into the fight, he has that training process down pat. And so that I can maximize my time there, but also equal out his efficiency of movement

so that when he gets into the fight, he knows how to move in space. Okay, okay, so I have a question for you to a little controversial. And I know where I stand, and we've made comments on this in the past, but more and more we're seeing transgender athletes compete with other athletes. So somebody's, let's say born a man and then they transition to female and then they get

the hormone levels down to what you would see with another female and they say, oh, it's wrong level playing field. We can all compete together. You've seen this a little bit in MMA. There was one fighter that did that. And I watched the fights and it was a little bit. It was pretty brutal. Do you think that that's crazy?

Is there, would you have an advantage, even if you brought your testosterone levels down, even if you transition, but you were born a man, went through pierbodies a man, and you lived as a man for so long. Are there just differences in things like bone structure? And, I mean, what do you feel about that? I don't know, I mean, it's difficult to say,

because if the hormones are matching at that particular time, but also you gotta look at like, okay, strength levels and how well they're able to produce that power. And this is just different, like female structures, different to male structure. And if they can get their levels down to that degree, I don't, I don't see it being a big issue, but at the end of the day, if they're fighting at 125,

but you used to be like 145 pound man, well now you're looking at like, okay, well, that's kind of an advantage, obviously. So it's the same thing as saying, okay, I'm gonna take PEDs and go ahead and fight it. Well, I know this from the fitness space and from bodybuilding. I mean, if you're on steroids for 20 years

and you decide to go off, there's a certain level of muscle and strength that you're gonna keep. So for me, it's like, you know, you got an athlete who is a man for 20 years and then they decide to change and sure now the hormone levels are like a woman's hormone levels. I still think there's an advantage in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely true.

That's where I'm getting at with that. It's your muscle and your ability to build muscle is still there, you know, to that degree. It's not, it's not obviously as much as it was. But yeah, it is a disadvantage when you're talking about that. Now, if you put that individual up against another killer light, let's say a man in Nunez and have fun. Good luck. She beats up dudes in a gym now. We don't know.

We don't even matter. That's awesome. That's awesome. As a coach, and when you look around at your peers, what are some of the biggest mistakes you see other coaches making with fighters, whether it be nutritional related, recovery related, setting up for the fight? What are the big mistakes you see other coaches making with fighters, whether it be nutritional related, recovery related, setting up for the fight, what are the big mistakes you see? I see a big mistake that I see with physical prep coaches and strength conditioning coaches is trying to fit a training program because that's what they're supposed to be doing, right? So what do you mean, explain that? So like, okay,

trying to fit a square peg in a round hole because that's what it says in an NCA book, right? Not understanding the athlete, not understanding the situation, the circumstances, and then molding your programming based upon their individual needs, it's context specific. So with that, I'd rather see more of understanding what the actual individual needs at that particular time and not be married to this one particular system that you learned in a weekend course. That's interesting because that's similar in our field, right? So just training clients, like that's what makes a really good coach is the guy or girl who can see the client and meet them where they're at.

Even though we've all read the same certifications and books and know what's the ideal protocol that takes someone through, depending on where they're at and their journey makes all the difference on how I start them so similar. Yeah, it comes with experience too, and then it comes with experience with working with those individuals that you're working with, that population.

So with fighters, I've been working with fighters and I've been a fighter for 10 plus years. A guy that has a large amount of time in the game, I may not be going through that particular system of how you should be doing it based on what books say. I'm giving him what he needs at that particular time because we only have that limited amount of time. The scheduling plays a big role. The circumstance of what they have to go through plays a big role. You know, the again, the circumstance of what

they have to go through on a daily basis. Yeah. Right. So that is where I see a big difference where I should I want to start to see more of an understanding of what the individuals actually need at that particular time. Now, how do you handle like the extreme weight cut? Like this is something that we need to prepare for. Maybe it's like not a huge amount of time that you have allotted to strategize for that. It's something that just got thrown at you. How do you do that in a way where it still kind of keeps athletes safe?

I wouldn't recommend it. You know, I like to see guys sitting around 12 to 15% somewhere when they start fight camp. Sometimes they're up to 20% from scale weight. Oh, I see. Yeah, I mean, so if, as of now, I'm doing, I don't really do a whole lot of weight cutting. I have somebody else do that shit because I can't deal with that shit anymore. I've done it, I'm pretty much on my life and then working with the fighters, just the

goal really though is when we want to see from a body composition standpoint, how much muscle mass do they have, how much from a body composition standpoint, how much muscle mass do they have, how much fat mass do they have, how much water are they holding, and then I can kind of adequately gauge how much we can take off safely and effectively, and then put back on once we step off the scale, because the rehydration and the refueling process is the most important, because that's going to dictate the performance. And they don't allow IVs anymore, right? Not in the UFC, but any other promotion, yes.

So how much weight, so you said 12%, 15%, is that, that's the beginning of the two month, three month, four month training camp? Or is that two months? Is that two months? Okay, and then what about like the day before? How much leeway do they get? What, how much weight do you? Ideally, I like to see them sitting around five pounds out.

Okay, so they're gonna try and cut five pounds of water out to get on the scale. And that's usually how, how is that usually done? So there's two processes. You could do either a bath or you could do the sauna. Depends on the person really, right? Depends on what they like, right? Some people like the bath, some people like the sauna, right?

The reason why we don't go fully on the sauna because again, it can drain you a lot more than say a bath and a bath is a lot faster. It's a lot more efficient. When the hotel room, we can just go to a bath. Sometimes a lot of hotels won't have a sauna. So we have to drive to a gym or something like that. But we put them in a bath and we close the door and we're fine.

And we can just do it in the hotel. There's not a whole lot of stress that has to be involved. Obviously, stress is going to hold on to as much water as possible. Right. Right. So we want to de-stress. We want to work on breathing techniques, diaphragmatic breathing, bring down it to a parasympathetic state.

And then from there, I can adequately gauge, all right, how much time we need to get two, three, two, three pounds off. Let's say the day before and then the morning of will do one more bath to get the rest off. Is it common that you see an athlete stressing out so much about their fight that they just hang on to all the water and you can't get it out? It's not even about the fight, it's about the wake up. Oh, they're stressing about the wake up. They stress more about the wake up than the fight. Oh, wow. That's why it's so vital that you like, like, they come in with the right percentage already.

On top of that, they have to be at the right body weight when they start camp, six weeks out, three weeks out, one week out, and now they're like, okay, I'm in a good place. Cause you're in your head, all camp. It's funny, because this is very similar to what the conversation I'd have when I was coaching competitors for bodybuilding is like I You know once they find out you can help them and you're good at it

Everybody wants you to help them and they call you up, you know Hey, I want to do a show in three months, and then I find out where they're at and I said no, I won't take you I want to I you got to come in all the real work in my opinion released for that sport is done leading into it You've done a good job then, that I know I can, okay, mathematically figure this out and go, okay, I can slowly taper you off and I'll be able to present this. I remember, I think it was the ultimate fighter,

it was like one of the first few seasons and one of the guys dropped 20 pounds. I think it was like the day before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that happens. It's the most you've ever seen. 30 pounds. Holy shit, oh, on 30 pounds. Holy shit. Oh, on 30 pounds the day before?

The day before. Had it been a big boy though, right? No, no, it was a 35. What? How was the energy in that fight? It was terrible. Oh, I bet. He was dying, doing it, and then he had no energy,

come fight night because he just drained himself. That's okay. So what is the re-hydration process look like? Let's say you cut eight pounds. A little bit more than the five that you like. They came in, they didn't do, maybe they fucked up with their diet a little bit. I got to drop eight pounds of water. They do the weigh in, they make weight. Now what does it look like getting them ready to fight because that's exhausting. I've lost a few pounds in the sauna. You feel like shit afterwards, yeah. So first and foremost, we want to get electrolytes

in hands down, right? So we do a mix of a three liter mix of electrolytes and then we'll throw in some branch and amino acids, some creatine too as well. And then after there are three liters and they do that every 15 minutes. So it takes them 15 minutes per liter to finish and then they can have some food.

Now that food is obviously gonna consist of some type of fast digestive carbohydrate and some protein, which I'll leave the fats out of it as much. Now why are you timing the dehydration? Just for digestion. So if they go too fast, what happens? It's just get bloated, it feel like shit. And again, it'll get lethargic.

So we want to slowly sip it, and we want to make sure it's cold enough to where it's cooling down the body. And now it's like PDLI, or do you have your own mix? It's a mix. Now Eric Pena is a guy that I work with. He used to work with George Lockhart. So he's got all his techniques from George Lockhart.

But what we do is, it's usually a mix of obviously water, mix with coconut water, and then we do noon tabs, because it has caffeine too as well. We'll do some branch chain amino acids in there, and it all depends like the formulation of it, right? The dosages depend on the body weight and what they've lost and what they need to put back on. Usually you want them up around 10 to 12 pounds come fight night from their scale weight. So, Phil, when you see these guys get popped, right? And they make the claim that it was from some herbal supplement that they just took. I mean, who do we just have like two fights ago? The guy that his guy know was out really, really bad. Right. Out of Sonja. Yes, yes, yes. And he said he blamed it on marijuana. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's technically you can do that. You've heard it's possible, right? You know, you got to smoke a lot of weed. So okay, you know who Otasanya is, man? Yeah, he probably just smokes a lot of weed. So I mean, is it, I mean, when you see that, when they come out with that, do you just laugh and say, yeah, right?

Or is it, do you think that that's happening? Oh, man, with the weed? Well, I mean weed, I mean, when they blame it on something like that, or like, what's that? Well, John, we knew John was fucking doing crazy shit. Okay. Like, everybody knows that.

It's like, it's okay, and that was a bit frosted flakes. But John, like, John admits it though. He's like, yeah, I was high when I fought Gustafin. You know, so, I mean, yeah, I do believe with these guys, they need an outlet in a sense. And so, they may turn to marijuana, they may turn to cocaine, they may be. Because they're so rigid, right? Everything is so... Everything is regimented and to the tee.

And when their fight's done, most of them, especially at the highest level, they're like, fuck this. I need to cut loose. I need to, you're unwind. And I have all this money. And I'm fucking going to Tahiti. And I'm smashing bitches all day long. Yeah, that's it.

It is, so is marijuana still a banned substance in... No. It's not... No, it's not. No, it's only during fight week, I believe. Oh, so if you test positive after the fight for marijuana, you can get disqualified or whatever? I believe so, yeah. If it's going to enhance something,

but the problem is, we can all know that we's not gonna enhance. I remember when Nick, I think it was Nick Diaz. I remember, I remember what Fide was he won and then afterwards he tested for a lot of marijuana and I'm like, he, they shouldn't disqualify him. He should get another award. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Overcame the obstacle. That's crazy. And then Mike Tyson say he smoked about two weeks before his last fight just now? Probably. I mean, he owns, he's owned like a company now. Yeah, yeah. That's, I think there was a promotion for his shit.

That's 100%. That was, yeah, still whooping ass. And I'm smoking dope every day. Yeah, that's it. So you think it should be, you think it shouldn't be banned because it's not really a performance and answer. No, no, I don't think so. I think a lot of my guys need it, you know,

because they need, they need, they need, they're getting their dope, I mean, dominant thing. They need to chill the fuck out. They need to calm the fuck down. Oh, I'm curious to go home and relax. Now, so I remember when I was training in Jiu Jitsu, there were a few MMA guys that were in there that were, you know, Mike Swick,

good friend of mine actually. He used to, he was a trainer actually for me at 24 fitness at one point, that's how we became friends. And I remember hanging out with him and then he would bring, you know, John Fitch and some other fun. And I remember going out with them and then he would bring you know John Fitch and some other fun and I remember going out with them and how chill and humble they were and I remember thinking like oh I'm gonna these profiders are

you gonna like start a fight or no man they were like yeah like you can exactly they could people could bump them say something to them to like what is that common is that a common thing with I was a guy that like, not to say that I'm like fucking Mike Fischer or John Fischer and those guys I'm like, but I tell you this, when I started training, I stopped fighting in the streets 100%. I was like, man, I do this shit every day.

I don't want to do this. It's like work, it's work. I don't want to fight you in trouble when you're in it. I talk to you, I talk to shit to you. You're like, I'm too tired to work right now. Honestly, and you're so confident in your ability. That's right, bro, for real. That's what SWIC told me,

because I remember talking a mic about that, and he goes, I know what I can do to somebody in on the street, and I don't want to do it. And he goes, do you, he goes, if a five year old comes up to you and wants to challenge you to fight, do you get threatened? And I said, no, he goes,

that's how I feel with somebody. Exactly, you know, yeah, you know that the consequences of what may happen will actually get you more in trouble than them. So you're like, ah, fuck it. So let's say you as a parent, because I have kids and let's say you have a child that's a bit rebellious, maybe they're getting in trouble and getting into fights and not really doing a good job or whatever. You think fighting is a great outlet for them,

get them in an MMA gym, that'll help them out. 100%, 100%. I think that that should be with young kids, especially young boys, that have a lot to prove. They want to always prove something, especially to the father. My son's six years old, and he's with all the fighters all the time, and he's like shadow box and everywhere we go.

You know, and he wrestles and he does all the stuff, but I think that that's gonna give him a level of confidence and develop his ability to calm down at times where things can get a little bit hectic, and he can deal with those stresses. And if you have a guy, a kid, a young boy that's very riled up and he's looking for attention, I believe that, or let's say for instance, you're a mother and the father's not involved.

And you need to have a father figure, I think, a coach or a martial arts instructor, a sensei, whatever you want to call him, is going to be that guide for that individual and help him develop himself as a man appropriately. You know, and carry himself. Now, is that actually pretty, I would think that would be pretty common in the fight world. Is there a lot of fatherless fighters where they, okay. 100%.

I think that that was one of the reasons, and we kind of talked about that earlier, but I think a lot of times when people get into fighting is because they're looking for something. They're looking for that individual to impress almost and it's maybe themselves. It may be the guy that wasn't in their lives. So yeah, I do see that a lot. And you see that a lot with like, even any sport athlete, really, if you think about it, right?

I grew up with a lot of guys that are in the NFL. I played with a lot of guys that are in the NFL. None of those guys had had had fathers to look up to or know how to be a man. So they turned to football and looked at their coaches for advice and for guidance in that way. Now, talk about the humbling effects of fighting, of training in a gym, a boxing gym,

or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu gym, or because I remember specifically walking in, you know, 220 pounds, strong dude, a little bit of judo background and sparring with this 160 pound skinny, flexible instructor and tapping out, I don't know, five times in five minutes and went outside and threw up and was humbled and signed up and signed up and it was a great learning lesson. Talk a little bit about the humbling, the value of going to a fight gym and just getting your ass kicked. But that show, I'll tell you about that,

but that shows who you are as a person though, because you got a lot of guys that think they're the shit, big muscle bound guys that go in there and get wrecked by 135 pounds, you're just two kids and they never come back. They can't handle it. And they talk shit about the gym too. They talk shit about the kid.

They're like, bro, you got your like five times, put you to sleep. We had to put your legs up. Shake you out. But yeah, I think that definitely will humble you in a way. Because you're especially in jujitsu, man, because you're in the Ghee, you're like in a straight jacket. Like you're just like, oh shit, no, don't grab this and fucking, you get choked out.

And then like, you have no abilities at all. Whatever you think you had, no, I don't care how strong you are, the leverages and the techniques, will get, you'll get nullified quick, you know? But don't get me wrong. If you do have strength and the technique, however, now you're getting...

Dangerous. Yeah, now you're gonna be leveling up. Yeah, but you get humbled really quickly. So from a personal development standpoint, what do you learn more from winning in the gym or getting your ass kicked in the gym? 100% getting your ass kicked in the gym. Here's the thing,

and I like that question, that's actually a really good question, because you definitely need wins in the gym, because you need to build your confidence. Sure, right? But you need small wins in the gym. You don't need to dominate in the gym. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. So, like, I don't wanna go in there with the training partner. You don't wanna be the best dude in there, right? I'm thinking, you're not gonna get better. Your confidence may be somewhat high, but then you're looking at yourself like these guys suck though. So like, and then I step into a UFC cage or whatever.

Doesn't matter what it is. And you're like, but those guys weren't as good as my opponent. But now if you go in there and you have a small victory in a sparring match where you put together a combination really well or you slipped that point, you had great defense, you stopped that takedown, and that guy is a world class wrestler. Even though he took you down,

you know, fucking nine times out of 10, but that 10th time, I got that. And then you go into the fight and you're like, that guy's not nowhere near as good as my training partner. Do you recall a story where you seem like a, like a no-name kid come into a gym, that's like American top team

where you got a bunch of bad asses and you've watched him work his way up, like relatively quick, does that ever happen? I believe it does. You know, with top team, it's more of like a collection of like people coming in that already divided out. Already yourself?

But yeah, like I've definitely seen like Jillian Robertson who was in the UFC now. I've known that girl since she was 16. She came to my gym when I was running boot camps for extra money, doing my boot camp, and then she was like, I want to fight because she knew that I was fighting. And she goes, I go, well, go talk to Dean. She signed up and worked her way up, and now she's in the UFC. She's like, she's going gonna be breaking the top 10.

All right, now, so there was a story, I don't know if this is true, but there was a story of when Hulk Hogan first became a wrestler. He went to a submission wrestling Japanese school and he went in there big dude, obviously he's a massive guy, cocky, loud, you personality, and they wouldn't let him in. And then he finally got them to let him in, and the instructor knee-locked him and busted up his knee to teach him a lesson. And then the story goes that Hulk came back, was humbled, and he ended up learning. I've also heard stories of Jiu-Jitsu schools having their arm breaker.

The dude that's in the class at the instructor sees a new guy come in, act like a loud mouth or whatever. And the instructor looks at the arm breaker and says, hey, why don't you go spar with them to tea? Is that true? Does that really happen? Yeah.

Oh, shit. You have your own forces for sure. In forces, there you go. Yeah, we had in forces in our gym. I was one at one point. Like I'd be one and then we have one other guy. Those are the guys that really just kind of have pride in the gym.

They're like, they're very prideful. Of like the culture they've built. The culture they do. You don't want someone coming to the fuck. They're the team guy. Like they're that guy. So that's the, and then they're the guy that just don't give a fuck either.

So yeah, those are, you'll get that. That's funny, that mirrors like hockey. So hockey has to be a lot of time. Hockey has enforcer, and he's the one who just, he protects everybody on the team, cares about the culture, the family of it, and you mess with one of my guys, I mean, he's gonna come in and power a good teeth.

Yeah, I had that with, I was not that guy in this, when I trained, but I did have an experience with a coach looked at me and he says, Sal, why don't you go against him and give me this look like I'm like, oh shit, you expect me to like, fuck him up, I don't know, I don't know if I want to do that. Do you have a story of when you had to enforce? So yeah, there was one guy that came from a

Krab Maga school. Oh, Krab Maga? He was trying to say that Krab Maga was better than MMA. And I'll put you right now. Yeah, and I was like, all right, we're just a guy wearing a shirt. Yeah. Is that our moves are so deadly?

We don't train his attention. No, I know, and he was like, I hate to say it, but he was probably like in his 40s. And like, you could tell like, he was just, he wanted to test himself. He didn't really want to sign up. Like, he just wanted to go in there and spa and test his Krav Maga against MMA.

Yeah. So I get it wasn't it wasn't Dean wasn't there at the time, but one of the other managers was there and and again they kind of basically were like, yo, we got this new guy. He's coming in from the Krav Maga school and it's like, I need you to I need you to handle that. I just need you to handle that. And so no doubt. Got it. So and I was probably and I was getting ready for a fight. I think I was I was close like six weeks out. So at that time, you're peaking right out. Peaking, right?

So yeah, so he came in the gym and I seen him putting on his gloves and I was like, and I told him I was like, you don't need your gloves today. I walked by and I was like, you don't need your gloves today. So he's like, I don't plan on looking at me. He was like, oh fuck. So I had him put on his MMA gloves and I had big gloves. I had 16s and he had MMA.

So like, he was in, I was like, don't let up. And I was like, let's go. He showed me your problem with God today. So I remember, I guess the bell rang and I hit him with a low calf kick and swept him right off his feet. Kinda like, I smashed his leg. Like I was kicking through his whole entire body.

He just, what? He fell, hit the ground, boom, got back up. I was like, get up. Right? Because I wasn't going to want to ground. We weren't doing that. It was all stand up. So, and so he got back up, then I hit him in the body.

I think I kicked him in the liver. And he fucking dropped. It's like, get back up. So he kept getting back up, get back up. Then I just, I just said, fucking, I went down, I hit down I hit him to the head of the jab to the body and overhand Overhand left cuz I'm South Paul and it was over Now when that happened did you get up and is he like hey man? That was really good I'm yeah, thanks for like thanks for teaching me or was he like I'm out?

No, I I felt bad for the guy afterwards because like he really didn't know what the fuck was happening Yeah, and then I was like yo, I was like you good man. He was he really didn't know what the fuck was happening. And then I was like, yo, I was like, you good man? And he was like, yeah man, what the fuck man? He was like, you know, you really hit me hard. I was like, I was like, nah man, that's how we spar, man. Yeah, now have you ever seen, because I told the story so many times in the podcast, but it was just a great memory.

We had a female instructor, and there was a guy, a new guy that came in to sign up and he didn't want to spar against her because she's, no, no, I don't want to go against girls and whatever. She said, no, you can go. And he tried to drag her off the mat several times. So finally, she put him to sleep and he literally went, he choked out, went to sleep. He was so embarrassed.

He walked, you ever seen anything like that where a guy comes in and spars with one of the girls? It was like a big juice head, like 100%. You ever see anything like that where a guy comes in and spars with one of the girls? And he's, tell me a story. It was like a big juice head, like 100%. It was one of the bodybuilders that there was like local to the area. Okay. And we had a girl.

They don't have fragile egos, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. If he came in, he had, and it was funny, he had like a stringer tank top on it too. It was great. Well, then it pulled out the side. It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was hard and all, like, what the hell is going on? It was like, I'm getting bored and all.

Like, oh man, and he had like, you know, he was greased up. You know, he had, he looked like he was from the Jersey Shore, like straight out. And this was back at that time when the Jersey, remember the Jersey Shore? Do I remember? Yeah, I remember. Yeah, fuck it.

But back when that show came out, everybody was dressing like that, it was like there. So he was all in it. And so actually my girlfriend at the time, she was a Jujitsu purple belt and a very highly competitive purple belt. It was a different level of purple belt, right? Not just like I just go to the gym once or twice a week. Like this is like I lived this shit,

to type purple belt. So yeah, he came and did you get through and I was getting, I think I was getting ready for a fight. So I didn't do the class, but I was watching. And I was just watching to make sure he wasn't going crazy on my fucking girlfriend at the time. So I'm just sitting there or whatever. And I, they, you know, we started on our knees, right?

And slap-tans, whatever. And then he was kind of like not engaging because he was like, oh man, she's a girl, type shit, though, my girlfriend, well, at the time my girlfriend jumped to his back, basically wrapped both legs around him, you know, getting me got a seat belt. And he was like a fish out of water at this point,

like trying to catch, it looked like a turtle on a shell. And then he was like, she already had everything locked in, so he couldn't use his strength, but he tried, and then she just had good leverage, snuck in the rear naked, and he started snoring within like three seconds. Now did he, was you all right afterwards? Was he like, hey, that was cool?

Or were you like, yeah, he was embarrassed as fuck. And then after that, he kind of left and never came out. Yeah, see, but I feel like that's like the, man, if you can get through that, like for me personally, like, you know, I think the value of the real true value of a fighting, yes, it's great to learn self defense. The fitness is awesome too. But the real value is just, you develop a healthy ego. You don't have this huge

I remember you know even myself doing it walking around the street and and you don't you don't look around like you're Some guy that want to dominate anybody. You know, you know the real damage that fights can do You have a different respect and value for it and you learn from your mistakes and you get your ass kicked and you come back and you're ready to learn some more, which I mean, is that not a skill that can apply to everything in life? Oh yeah, definitely. I think that transitions over to your work life,

to your family life, everything involved. When I don't train, I feel like mad at myself. You know what I mean? I feel like what the fuck am I doing? What's my purpose? You know, so when I get back into it, I just tore my ACL, well, I didn't just tear my ACL, I just got surgery on it, but I tore it last year.

I think I tore it right now. You did, right now. You did. And it was interesting too, but it was me being dumb, trying to get out of a position that obviously, I didn't have the best, I was in the best position to get out of that position. And so I ended up basically tearing my ACL completely.

But when I was out of it, I was like, man, fuck. I missed training, so I had to do something, and then I was just kind of just rehabbing the shit out of it and then just coaching and golfing myself and coaching. But again, it's like, if I don't have that, and it's not about, like weightlifting is good. I like the train, I like to get underneath load and lift and power lift and all that,

but it's different when it's martial art. It's different when you're like sparring, it's different when you're just, it's different when you're wrestling. It's a way different, like feeling afterwards. Like you feel accomplished to another degree, you know what I mean? Oh yeah, the personal development is just tremendous. Now you have, you said you had a six year old son. Easy growing up differently than you in the

sense that did you have a hard life? This is life a lot easier. And if he says to you, when they dad, I want to, I want to go bang in the ring. I want to go punch and get punched. And I want to fight. Are you going to be like, that's cooler? You're going to say to him, no, you have a different life than I did. What's your conversation going to be like, that that happened? There will be a really hard life lesson and then I will have to integrate in my ability

to lead him in the proper ways that I didn't have when I was growing up. And I grew up obviously way different than him. From my perspective, I grew up way rougher in a sense and I'm trying to make sure that my son didn't grow up the way I grew up. Now with that being said, am I going to let him do what he wants to do? Absolutely, but I'm going to guide him in the right ways to do it the right way. Is that make sense? Right? I want to make sure that he has all the things that he needs necessary so that if he wants to fight or do whatever, but also wants to go to a university and be a lawyer,

then he can do both. Or he can do one of the other depending on what his goals are and depending on where his life takes him. But he always has to be ready at that time, and I want to make sure that I'm giving him guidance in order to do so. Yeah, I got one more question. I just have to get this in here. It's kind of like, what does, you see a lot of mysticism and folklore out there in martial arts, and you see some of these moves like Hollywood shows.

So you've seen the crane kick was actually landed and actually worked. Have you seen any other crazy MacDojo-type moves that worked? This, there's one from the UFC. The guy, I don't know what fight it was, but it's going, it's making it's rounds. If you look it up, but it's a spinning back kick, the guy caught like a body shot.

The opponent caught the body shot and the kids spun around and head kicked them. Oh wow. Knocked them out. Oh, sick. Oh wow. I feel like the YouTube dad did. I feel like the better that the more it advances

and the better all the athletes get, the more you're gonna see some crazy flash. These guys, this guy was obviously an athlete for sure. Yeah, cause it used to be early days, they said, there was a second there where everybody's like, headkits are always the time Don't train head kicks. You're never gonna land one But now everybody then people got so good that that became an advantage and then they're like no spin kicks don't work

I did see that one. I didn't see this. Oh, bro. Let me see. Let me see this I remember like the first time I saw someone use the cage to do like a Superman. Yeah, that was crazy That was amazing. Yeah, that was crazy the first time I did a kick to do like a Superman bunch. That was crazy. That was amazing. Yeah, that was crazy the first time. I was at a kick. Yeah.

Yeah. I remember the first time I got wristlocked. That's when I thought wristlocks were a waste of time. I got caught one. I was like, oh shit, this actually can work sometimes. Yeah, watch this. Catch. Oh, what the?

Oh shit. Yeah, they're on a different level. He caught his ankle and he did a spinning roundhouse kick. I mean, to the guys' defense, he did everything spinning roundhouse kick to the guy's defense. He did everything he could. Supposed to. Yeah, the guy just just, wow. Now I feel now, I'd love your opinion on this field.

People see this kind of stuff or whatever, they're going to think, I'm going to go train. They're all going to practice that. One move, right? Yeah, one of the funniest is that again, my coach, Dean, was like, everybody's gonna do that and anything. Because everybody did the peddish shit. After that, everybody was doing it off the cage and I was trying to do it off the cage. I remember when I first got the timing down.

Whoa, dude. So I got a self-awareness question for you. So there's a lot of people that are aspiring trainers and coaches and I would think in our profession, like one of the pinnacles or ultimate, I mean, I know as a young kid, I wanted to train pro athletes. You've reached that, right?

You're training pro athletes. What is it about you that separates you from your peers that has allowed you to get to that level, you think? I mean, my ability to always want to scale and grow, progress on a daily basis, having the ability to understand the individual more, taking my abilities from a science perspective

and then integrating that into an art. Whereas that a lot of people want to, again, fit that square peg in the round hole, where my goal is to actually understand the athlete first and foremost. There's a lot of psychology that goes about it. Yeah. And for me, I'm always trying to evolve the system in order for me to create what we need to from a success standpoint.

So, I mean, I think that from generations of coaches that developed their own skill set, you got a lot of great coaches out there that are new and that can make something of themselves, I think that they are too worried about trying to be accepted by their peers and not worrying about the success that they can make their athlete. So again, you'll see it on social media, where people will post things, and you see like jargony words, or like high scientific terms,

because they're trying to impress their peers, as opposed to trying to actually get what you need out of the athlete. That's ego. That's all ego, man. It's like, are you effectively communicating? Or are you just telling everybody, why don't people think you're smart?

You know what I find interesting about you? You don't see this a whole lot, where usually what makes a good athlete doesn't make them a good coach. Good athletes have incredible instincts and body awareness. And they don't always, usually they can't communicate it or coach it very well, but they can do it themselves. Coach is often, obviously the stereotype is,

they might have the same instincts in natural body awareness or abilities, but they just have a really good ability to communicate it. You seem to have both, obviously, you're a fighter, so, and you communicate it very well. You're also very intelligent in, you know, talking to you from a trainer standpoint, you know, I've talked to a lot of fight coaches.

You know more about the human body and biomechanics and training than most coaches I've talked to most trainers that I've talked to. But the fact that you're a fighter also and a coach, is that help you connect with fighters differently than other coaches? Yeah, that's a big thing too as well, is that my ability from, and they respect that. I think that that was one thing that I started doing was a lot of the guys that didn't know me. I got them to realize that, yes, I was a fighter at one point,

and then from there, the buy-in, per se, quote unquote, was there. And for a lot of coaches, I'm not saying that you have to be a fighter or you have to play the sport, but you definitely should know how it feels. Of course. Right, from a biochemistry, from a bio mechanic standpoint, but also from a psychological standpoint. And we go back to that, I think it's largely due to the fact that I know what they're thinking,

at what particular time, you know, in camp, in the fight, whatever, because like we talked about, when you asked me about, oh, they're wearing about the fight, when I word about the fight, because we're wearing about the way it could. Because that's the first thing we gotta accomplish. So those little things like that, when you're talking about like,

strength conditioning coaches or even skills coaches, some skills coaches have never fought before. You know, you have, that's interesting. Like you have really big name skills coaches have never fought before. You know, you have, that's interesting. Yeah, like you have really big name coaches that have never fought before. But they were able to put themselves in the position of their athletes and relay over information based upon what they know

and how they perceive what they're feeling. So you have that connection there. And when you can develop that connection and that's again going back to the art of coaching is having the ability to reframe What you're trying to relay over so that the athlete can understand exactly what they're doing is appropriate for the sport and then also you have invested your energy and getting them in a position to be successful in the fight and then outside of the fight in their careers going further. I think also coaches don't go the extra route a lot of them, not all of them.

Don't go the extra route because I'm still talking with fighters and athletes that are well-retired, that are done, but I still make sure that they're good. I'll make sure that they're doing some type of training or they're progressing in other future endeavors that they want to do, whether it be business, whether it be whatever. That's a good leader. And that's what you need to be as a coach, right?

I think that that was one thing that kind of separated me too as well as I can lead by example, but also I can inform and teach as appropriate as possible for that particular individual. You mentioned art and you've talked about mindset a lot and one thing that is for me interesting about mixed martial arts versus the other traditional combat sports in America, which I guess the most popular ones would have been boxing, and wrestling is that they lacked the art that you would see in martial arts, right?

The meditation, the, I don't know, what you want to call it, esoteric aspect of martial arts, which in MMA, obviously some of that has to come over, because you have practitioners who've done things like karate and other martial arts. How important is the art part of martial arts, for mixed martial arts? Or is it all just like a sport train to learn the technique?

It goes back to the individual. It goes back to who they are, right? As a competitor, as a fighter, as a martial artist. If you are a martial artist, that's what you need to do. Like, that's how you need to get better is to engulf yourself in the art, in martial status, in that particular way. Because if I try to, again, try to get somebody like, let's say, you guys probably don't know, this is but like Mike Perry you ever heard of him right? You get a guy like Mike Perry who's just a fighter hundred percent right?

Maybe a little bit of an athlete and you try to give him this stuff that GSP is on He's gonna shut down. It's not gonna be his style So you're gonna deter him away from him being the best that he can be, right? Now if you have somebody who is totally engulfed in that whole way of life, then yes, absolutely, because you're gonna better them because that's who they are. Who's the best striker you've ever seen in front of you? In front of me? Yeah.

Like who, like has anybody ever shocked you? We're like, oh man, I heard that this person was good, but this is insane. I mean, there's a lot. We had a lot like more Thai guys that come to the gym and like guys from Pouquet and like killers. I don't even know their names, but those are those are the guys. I mean in the UFC, I mean, right now, like even watching them in the fight, I would say, out of Sonya's tremendous, you know, like,

they don't really understand, like, yeah, I mean, because now he's in the limelight, but he's been killing people for years, you know, and that's, and even with, again, John Jones, I would say he knows how to place his shots appropriately. Dust in the same thing, the way he, and this isn't sparring, I'm watching him too, the way he can roll punches and the way he places punches effortlessly is really what you're, you're trying to look at. And then from boxing standpoint, man, I got some sleepers, man,

that are really, really good. Well, I was just gonna ask you, that was a follow up to that is, you know, you got any names for us. People we should watch, like that, you know, not everybody knows about right now. I got this kid shirt on, actually. But he is, he's a regional scene guy,

fights for the LFA. He's really good. Tyler Ray. He actually isn't a lot of my Instagram videos. He kind of looks like Dustin. Everybody thinks he's Dustin, but he's not. He's like way thicker and bigger, he's 170 pounds. This guy is like across the board, really fucking good. wrestler, good striker, super strong, squats,

like from like a strength standpoint, like they live So we're 400 squats over 400, you know, but he's super fast. He's explosive and he has a wrestling predate pedigree And he's seven and one at the moment. Okay, so be on a lookout for him and he's gonna try to go for that That next ultimate fighter show. Oh cool. Oh, yeah, what about you Jits about Jiu Jitsu? Who's the best Jiu Jitsu guy you've ever seen? Oh, the person. Oh man. I mean, really, Antonio Carl Disapato, shooface,

he's actually really fucking good, man. Now, have you sparred with him? No. No, I have other fucking, it's crazy. He's really, really good, but like he's beat Bouchesha, he's won a lot of titles, but he's also in the UFC. So, I mean, from a Jiu-Jitsu standpoint, he's definitely good. Moicano is really good, Hanato Moicano,

who fights in the UFC, underrated Jiu-Jitsu game. I seen him actually tap out, shoe face, in the gym. Now, are the, okay, so in Jiu-jitsu, there's a lot of folklore, right? Like, for whatever reason, I've heard a lot of top level jujitsu guys say that Hicks and Gracie is actually as good as they say it is. More Marcelo Garcia, more people say. Like, it's just insane.

I mean, you believe that, is it true? Do you think that Hicks and is in good, as they say? I mean, at the moment, I mean, they're so. I mean, he's old now, but. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, back then, yeah, you believe that, is it true? Do you think that Hickson isn't good, as is good as they say? I mean, at the moment, I mean, they're so... I mean, he's old now, but... Yeah, yeah, I mean, back then, yeah, I believe so. I mean, you can't listen. There's some that are like fake, but they'll get exposed. Eventually, you'll get exposed,

because you're getting tested all the time. I don't wanna say it, because I'm not getting in trouble with the graces, man. I'm like, that's like a bomb my car or something. I'm like, I'm right. Don't set me up, Charlie. No, those are purious, man. They're purious. Good time, Phil.

Always good. It's great time having you on the podcast, bro. Yeah, yeah. Appreciate it, man. You guys got a great set up here. Oh, thank you. I got to tighten up on my podcast. Yeah, no, we love what you do, man.

Again, you're a smart guy. You present yourself very well. You communicate very well. I think we think you're doing a great job, so. I appreciate it, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump.

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