The Sevan Podcast - #233 - Jordan Leavitt

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

UFC Fighter.  Jordan "The Monkey King" Leavitt.The Sevan Podcast is sponsored by http://www.barbelljobs.comFollow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/therealsevanpodcast/Episode Videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC59b5GwfJN9HY7uhhCW-ACw/videosSevan's Stuff:https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/?hl=enhttps://app.sugarwod.com/marketplace/3-playing-brothers Support the showPartners:https://cahormones.com/ - CODE "SEVAN" FOR FREE CONSULTATIONhttps://www.paperstcoffee.com/ - THE COFFEE I DRINK!https://asrx.com/collections/the-real... - OUR TSHIRTS... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Or is it bam, we're live? No guest. Wait, there is a guest today. Jordan Levitt. Jordan, leave it. L-E-A-V-I-T-T. UFC fighter fights this Saturday. First fight on the card. What time is that at? Let me see. Saturday, December 18th, Jordan Leavitt versus Matt Sales at... I don't know. Here he is.

We'll ask him. We'll just be like, hey, Jordan, what time is your fight? Hey, Jordan, what time is your fight? 1 p.m. on Saturday. Yes, 1 p.m. Can't believe it. Can you believe it? No. I'm actually pretty excited for this fight.

This week's been very relaxed, so I'm actually pretty excited for this fight. So it's this week's been very relaxed. So I'm pretty pumped. I'm the first five of the night. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I like to kind of like ease in, watch other people, you know, do their stuff first. But it should be good. I feel I like you and I and I feel guilty that you're fighting. That's probably how my family feels actually yeah go ahead say it

say it oh they're still you know i'm not all of them haven't really come to terms with it yeah of course i mean you know there's you know it's super easy to make the argument that we're all made to fight like that's it that's the thing you know i it's super easy to make the argument that we're all made to fight. Like, that's it. That's the thing. You know, I've had fighters on the show. I can't remember who it was. If it was maybe I had Al Jermaine on here. Maybe it was Al Jermaine said a couple weeks ago.

He said, hey, what was it? It wasn't him. I can't remember who it was, but basically said, hey, if I beat you up, like it's done. Doesn't matter if your girlfriend's period mind doesn't matter if you have more money than me. Like I beat you up. Like what? It doesn't matter if your girlfriend's period mind doesn't matter if you have more money than me. Like I beat you up. Like what?

You know, it's like it's it's it's higher order man ego reality shit. Right. Yeah. It's like hierarchies are so real. Yes. You know, thank you. And I and I really like you and I think you're a super, I just love your personality, your character, what you're doing with your life. But then all of a sudden I'm like, Oh yeah, but yeah, but I don't want,

I don't want him to get hurt. But, but that it's kind of like, um, like you, you like a bird because it flies and then you bring it home and you put it in a cage and all the shit you liked about it's gone. Oh man. Uh, you look great. is everything how's the weight how's the training how's the haircut how's the uh love life how's everything how's the whole dang everything's going pretty well haircut i'm a little nappy right now just kind of woke up a little bit ago i have a pretty decent fro when it's. So I have a fro for this fight. It's been a while since I've done that.

Love life. Wife and family are good. My baby turns 11 months next week. Congrats. Yeah, that's all kind of flown by. Yeah. Being a dad's cool. I think it suits me.

Definitely. It was worth the wait. Say that again? Oh, yeah. Being a dad's cool. It was worth the wait. She's starting to stand now. She says dad and ba. It's nice. It's really cool.

How fast they adapt and grow every day. It's really awesome to watch. I can't wait to have more. It's up to my wife. She has to go through the majority of the crappy part. So I've loved the whole being a dad part. And, you know, it's been a nice adventure. I love I love to hear that.

I have three little ones, too. I have two four year olds and a six year old. And just last night, my dad's like, why do you do your podcast at 7 a.m. So I can spend the rest of the day with my kids. I love it. podcast at 7am so I can spend the rest of the day with my kids. I love it. How, how is that going? Um, it, it is, it is real. You, um, the time commitment. And if you don't have a great partner who, especially, so you have two things that you have to fully be dedicated to, right? Your professional athlete who has to get in the ring and put it all on the

line. And that requires a hundred percent commitment. And then you have a kid that requires a hundred percent commitment. So kind of your, your mate, at least from in my life, my mates like the most important thing in getting that job done. How is that going? The time commitment, your relationship with your wife and your ability to like manage all that time stuff. I actually feel like being an MMA fighter is, it gives me like, even though I spend still like six to six to eight hours a day training and doing technical work and everything, it's split up.

I constantly get to be home in between everything that I'm doing. My baby, she'll take a nap, be asleep for two hours, and I'll be back. She sees me for the majority of the time that she's awake. I haven't really missed any of the milestone moments. I'm really lucky because a lot of my families, their parents, everyone misses something because

one person's watching the baby, other person's working, or both are working. I'm actually very fortunate that I'm there when my baby wakes up. I'm there when she goes to sleep, and I get to see her for the majority of the in-between if I time my workouts correctly. And I haven't really had to juggle being like a dad and being a fighter too much because luckily they sleep a lot right now. And, yeah, and I just – I'm gone for like three-hour blocks.

So it's been actually pretty, I'm actually pretty blessed to have kind of my situation the way it is. And your wife's cool with, with the time commitment that fighting takes. I mean, there's anybody ever really cool and this one's gone for big part of the day, but she's, she always says she's happy. Like I don't have a regular job. Because I wake up and say she needs like she needs some extra help in the morning like i can stay home for i could i could stay home for a session i could reschedule i could text some people say hey you want to work this at

this time and i can just do that if i was working a regular job i couldn't say i'll just come in three hours later and that's how it's going to be. But it makes it easier for me to be a helpful husband. And I don't have all that guilt where I come home after a long day and then I'm too tired to do anything. So it's awesome. My conscience is clear. And I get to see my baby all the time.

And I get to be a good husband. And yeah, I get to avoid a lot of those usual issues that some people run into. And you're living in Vegas, right? Jordan. Yeah. Pronounce your last name for me. Levitt. Levitt. Um, so you live in Vegas, you train in Vegas and your fight is in Vegas. I know it's perfect. I hate traveling.

And, um, will you sleep in your bed the night of the fight? No. Um, since COVID, all the COVID rules is like, I have to check in right after weigh-ins, but the bubble, they've shortened it a lot. You said the like check in five days before, and that was annoying. I hated that. Cause like I'm, I live like five minutes away from the apex and so it was it's always kind of frustrating where i have to like leave my like family for five days but now i basically just have to get like a daily covid test and i had

to constantly go there but since it's right around the corner it's not too bad and i get to sleep in my bed right before i you know starve myself and sweat myself to death. And then I'm just gone for like 24 hours. So it's pretty cool. It's way better than fighting in Abu Dhabi. I can't imagine flying across the world, quarantine for a few days, and then being stuck in a hotel for like 10 days. So as long as I don't get my passport, I'm not doing that. I should be fighting here for the majority of the time do you not have your passport no um when i first got my ufc

contract they were doing like every other week in abu dhabi and they told me if you get you have to get your passport so you can fight in abu dhabi and i was like so on the flip side, if I don't get my passport, I can only, I will only fight in Vegas. They're like, yeah, basically. And I never got back to them. I'd prefer just to stay here. You wanted, you were talking about in one of your interviews that you wanted to fight in October, November, and you didn't want to fight too close to Christmas. You ended up fighting, you're going to fight on December, what is it 18th how is that for you are you still are you fine with it you good yeah i just had to start my weight cut a little early so that way i wouldn't have to be stressed

out during thanksgiving all right right i was a vegetarian for like five years when i was younger and i hated being the person like oh sorry can't eat that so this year I you know cut the weight a little earlier um suffered like a week or two extra that way I can not make Thanksgiving annoying for everybody else and yeah it's a week before Christmas but hopefully nothing I won't have a black eye for any of the pitchers and I can get a bonus and then the year well and yeah Christmas is always stressful so i guess a paycheck right before it's pretty cool yeah that is really cool uh guys jordan levitt 26 years old he's fighting this weekend uh saturday uh 1 p.m december 18th we had jordan on the show before i highly recommend going back and listening to it um you so you come you come to you make it

to the ufc you have that first fight that's just nuts everyone should definitely see that fight against matt weinman then you fought claudio uh poyes yeah and that went the distance um a pretty uneventful fight i like what you said um you didn't lose the fight you ran out of time um and you know a lot of people, you could be like, well, that's just bullshit excuse. But if you watch the fight, actually, it's quite, quite nicely. And I really liked that. Uh, I watched, I watched all your interviews that you've done in the last, you know, a couple of months, your confidence is, um,

extraordinary. It's still obvious you believe in yourself to the fullest, or at least you have me tricked. What's the deal with this guy, Matt Sales? He seems like both you guys are the real deal, and something's going to be settled. It's, it's, it's interesting. It's two new guys with two great records. You've had some great wins and some great fights.

And, uh, and now you guys are facing each other just bam, right off at 1 PM. What do you, what do you think about him in the fight? I like him. The past two years we've actually been kind of like a nice, like mirror for each other. We both had a knee surgery. We both had a daughter recently, or we both moved up the weight class um yeah i i don't know too much about him i tried not i usually like stalk my opponents check out their instagram watch all their interviews but i also feel like that kind of gets in my head sometimes like you start to feel

too much empathy and it's hard to like want to fight somebody and beat them up if like you know about you know oh their daughter's birthday was yesterday oh they had went through this trial and you start to think like maybe i don't deserve this one maybe this person would be happier and it'd be better off if they won so i've just i just watched his fights he's got a big right hand um pretty good he's got smooth striking pretty well rounded and yeah he thinks he's gonna knock me out and i guess it could happen but i i don't think it's gonna happen um i don't think it's gonna happen either what what about this speaking of empathy so after the chris chris weinman fight anyone who watches that fight it's a it's a sorry not chris matt um uh there is the the knockout is vicious and we all know it went viral and you're in the ring and you're in the octagon and you it's very emotional

for you basically what it looks like is the viewers that you feel bad that you knocked them out now and that makes perfect sense to me i always always wonder, you know, we even saw it. I don't know if you watched the Lomachenko fight last week, but he's beating this guy and he has to look at the ref and he has to look at the corner and be like, hey, someone needs to stop this shit. Like you can tell at some point he's like, the empathy kicks in is what it looks like.

But what is, it comes to this question, what is worse, knocking someone out that viciously or losing to Claudio play as, you know, does that fix that? You get one loss and you're like, okay, fuck this empathy thing.

I'll go home and cry and feel bad. But in the ring, I just got a mash dudes. No, that really helped me a lot. Like up and still up until after my loss, like I had conflicted feelings about knocking out Matt Weidman. Yeah.

I never watched it. I never posted videos of me slamming him. And then I lost my fight, and I'm like, well, this doesn't feel nice either. Right. I go home, I look in the mirror, and I've seen a loser for the first time. And it made me angry. And it made doubt like a lot of the stuff I did. And I'm like, dang it. I always have doubts and insecurities, but it's better to be a winner and have all those negative emotions, you know. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I prefer not to hurt people. That was my first time ever knocking anybody out, like period.

Like I've dropped people, but that was my first time sleeping somebody. And I liked Matt Wyman. I looked up to him. So there's a lot of like mixed emotions. His wife was ringside. That was always, that shouldn't be allowed. But yeah, I guess I'll feel a little bad if I knock out somebody again, but I can't worry too much about it.

Chances are they'll be fine. Jordan, do you have this thing, the killer instinct, that I hear people talk about? I feel almost so bad using the word because I don't really know what it is. But do you have that? For me, it's like I never like, oh, let's fight. I'm never like super pumped in that way. I don't enjoy the fist fight.

But I feel like, I don't want to sound weird, but I kind of disassociate hurting somebody during the fight. And then as soon as it's after, it kind of kicks back. It's very cold and calculating for me when you cut somebody or you hit somebody or you're hurting them and like you hear them like kind of like grunting and effort and pain and you know like you feel someone break i don't really like feel emotions during that time it's mostly like kind of like if i was

like in a video game like you see like the health bar at the top yeah you can't imagine that over somebody i try to like separate myself from a lot of like the primal instinctual like emotions and feelings you have some people work it was interesting some people in the videos i watched in the last couple days were comparing you to ryan hall is that the guy's name and yeah and then and then i also heard you say that you're that you need to really work um after your claudio fight you need to work on on your Claudio fight, you need to work on, on your urgency. For those of you guys who don't follow fighting there, Ryan Hall's a very, very peculiar fighter.

Everyone respects the shit out of him. He's really, really fucking trippy. He's like one of those weird fish that lives like an assault water tank. Like you're just staring at, and you're not sure like, how'd you get in here with the rest of the fish? You don't.

And there's no doubt that Jordan has some of those qualities. there's no doubt he's um you know from the fans and from the commentators he's very very uh grappling jujitsu um uh oriented and there's a yeah almost like a slowness to you guys maybe slowness isn't the right word. Maybe it's urgency, but you don't behave like someone who's in a fight. Either of you, like everyone else, there's a bit of a franticness to them. And you're like, and you,

and you know, and yeah, what do you think about that comparison? Do you need to fix that? Is that just who you guys are? No, like I I'm like, I mean,

it's a compliment, right? It's's a compliment but it's also a little weird you're like ah that guy there needs to be some urgency yeah um we're both just very like confident and like we know what our abilities are we know like what's going to happen in certain positions and like we're both like we're both like when you interview when you listen to his interview like we're both very frank like oh yeah this person could knock me out they could do this this and that but you know we're just very confident in our preparation and for me it's always been like as long as i can get the rounds in and get my cardio in and the strength training in like if i'm better than this person majority of the time i'm going to

win i shouldn't stress out about what they can do because if you're not getting beat constantly inside the training room you probably don't get beat very often in the fight and yeah i'm flattered by the comparison he does i feel like he lacks even more. He lacks even he lacks urgency even more than I do. And yeah, it's almost like he's not in a fight. It's almost like he's not in a fight. Yeah. And he kind of is like it's super easy to go out there and say, relax when you know a person's not even going to like engage you in like one area of the fight game. It's always nice to know you always have a trap like an escape route that no one else wants to follow you down so like no one will ever grapple him because he's one of the best grapplers in the world so he can strike with you and if he doesn't like it he'll just fall to

his butt but you're not gonna do anything he gets to pace himself get up slowly you know and for me it's like i know on the ground no one's ever hurt me. Like I'm very good at like not getting hurt. I know on the feet, my defense is pretty airtight. I don't get hit. So for me, it's very, it's very easy for me to be confident in my offense because I know usually, I know the chances are, I'm probably not going to be eating too many things too much like punishment

back. And you guys are in the same weight class. He's 145 right now. We were in the same weight class you and ryan um he's 145 right now we were in the same weight class up until about a year ago and now he's a 45 he fought at 45 last week that fight was at 45 yeah oh okay and and you're not doing that you're not messing with 45 anymore no because i got a kidney failure my last 45 cut so it kind of forced me to move up and and i weigh i'm like pretty like dry right now i've been like water loading so i'm like losing a bunch of water weight and i'm like still like 173 so like 18 pounds to go so yeah 45 was like not even like in my wheelhouse anymore sadly wait a sec it's wednesday morning yeah so 40 like 48 hours

almost is that is is 18 pounds a concern no no okay no um i just look at two gallons of water and that's basically how much i have to lose but um oh you just drank you drank two gallons knowing that that's what you have to lose oh no it's just like i see it like the time like i visualize it you know it's like 16 pounds is two gallons and i have like 18 pounds left and i still feel pretty good i'm still i sparred yesterday never supposed to like spar week of but like i sparred felt good five rounds and gonna do some drilling today and i had two three gallons on monday two gallons yesterday i have about i have like three-fourths a gallon today so the body's gonna drop like five or six pounds i started carnivore yesterday so yeah weight will come off i'm not too concerned

about i don't think this weight cuts be too bad uh one of your fellow fighters, Dylan Vowell, he just says, hopefully they don't forget that you can KO them too. 20 seconds, slam and sleep. Thanks, Dylan. Yeah, I mean, I think the possibility of me knocking out Matt Sales is very real. And he's

like, oh, he's either going to smit me or I'm going to knock him out. And that's kind of like the only scenarios that are going to play out. And I mean, I i trained with dan hooker he's a top fiver i've trained a cowboy i train at one of like the best gyms in the country and all the fights all the rounds of sparring they start on the feet so i just grappled because i know i'm dominant there but if he can stop me from implementing plan a like plan b is going to go just as bad for him i imagine so it would be nice to get like a knockout again um all my all my all my ufc wins could be by knockout and all my fights before that could be by submission and sean strickland trains in your gym he very recently moved but yeah sean sean was there for about two years and where did he go

just um extreme contours like right down the street. So I still see him on the days where I go to a different gym and get some rounds in. So even though my family is kind of splitting up a little bit, I still see them all because I'm all over the valley. Is that normal? Are there hard feelings? Is that normal for guys to like cruise around?

It depends. It depends. Like the MMA world is very interesting because like some gym ship gym owners are like cultish like you can't learn from anybody else you can't help out anybody else and in vegas a lot of the coaches are like that so there's a lot of drama when you gym hop in las vegas for whatever reason but you go to other places and from what i hear it's not too much like that like people acknowledge that hey like i'm one person or like we have like four coaches on staff there's 80 of you it makes perfect sense for you to try to get more personal attention somebody else and for me

it's all it's like as long as you know where your home gym is and like you know where like your main training partners and like your family is it shouldn't matter like where you're visiting so i go to boxing gyms and i visit coutures every once in a while and i'm friends with everybody and it makes it harder to get fights because you train up more people in your weight class and whatnot but you know a lot people gotta understand that like fighting's like almost like investing in your education you need to constantly learn new skills to match the like the market and uh be competitive with other people and for me as long as you're gaining knowledge it's the most important thing and yeah some people don't like that i think it's probably also um personality driven too i i suspect that you the kind of personality that you have people are more okay with you visiting their gym or coming to their gym or leaving their gym.

You're just not, I don't know. It's easy to accept you. Yeah. And people just know, like, if, say, if I know two people at a separate gym and they're fighting, like, they know I'm not going to help out either of them. What do you think about this? And I'm like, well, if you watch us fight, you see this, but like anything personal, like I, I ain't going to do that. You know, um, I feel like as long as you're not like a sleaze bag, people usually aren't

going to, you know, mind you too much. And I don't hurt people when I spar and I always help out and offer my two cents and and yeah and people appreciate that so I think it makes it easy for me to hop around. How did you know when you were serious like the other day don't laugh at me I knew that finally I you know I take my kids to jiu-jitsu uh three four five six days a week um never less than three often six and i knew that we were serious when we got nail clippers for the car that just live in the car like oh shit this is getting serious how did you know that when this was what were some of the signs you're like oh shit this is serious um when i started when i was training and they're like so and all the coaches like every coach

basically would be like so like what do you what's your end point in this and you only ask that question in two scenarios number one like the you don't belong in that sport and they're like hey you might want to think about your end game like get out of here or they're like no like you kind of got it and especially as a person like a lot of like self-doubt and like this imposter syndrome, like monkey on my back that I've been like kind of dealing with for like the entire fighting thing. It makes it easier to kind of wing it when you know other people believe in you. Like if you believe in your training partners and they believe in you, like by extension, you should be able to believe in yourself.

And I'm kind of slowly coming to terms of like, I'm a fighter and I belong here. It wasn't an accident. And I'm not just beating these people because I see a hole and they're unlucky enough for me to like expose that thing. It's like, yeah, maybe I'm actually good.

Maybe I belong here and I put in the work in and I'm the person that deserves to win in a lot of these circumstances so so so the it was when someone said something to you and you're like wow okay yeah okay yeah that's interesting that's really interesting i i think for some reason i i like imposter syndrome by that i mean i had made 10 movies i directed and produced 10 documentaries and i still would never call myself a director like if someone said what do you do for a living i would be like oh i'm in media then i would meet someone and i'd be like hey what do you do and they're like i'm a director and like what have you directed well nothing yet and i'm like and i used to think well that's interesting they're comfortable calling themselves a director they haven't made any movies and i'm not comfortable but finally i just became

i just i kind of just accepted it like it's fine i can make movies and just not be that i don't know i always feel like imposter syndrome is like the couch it is like you should believe in yourself but not if it's i'm like well not if it's working the other way like if i don't believe in myself is that and i and i'm still crushing it you know what i mean maybe you should maybe that's good for you that you just it's good to not believe in yourself so that you always have something to prove to yourself do you know what i mean kind of like you leverage that insecurity it's like they said someone i heard someone ask tyson one time when he was young hey you know you're gonna go to a shrink and get this fixed he goes nah this is

what makes me a killer i it would it would be messed up if they fixed that you know it's like everybody has like this great weakness like a shadow but like even though like it's painful it's like a cross kind of a bear like a lot of the time like difficult things and like tribulations like really build you and make you and force you to grow not just like stay in the comfort zone and like do like oh yeah i believe in myself i could do this because like i've been enjoying it sometimes it's important so like sounds weird like kind of like hate it yeah like to want to like to enjoy. Yeah. Like to want to like, to enjoy the struggle. And for me, it's like, there's a sports psychologist on staff at the UFC and I've never used him or anything.

Cause I'm like, first off, I don't think anything's wrong. You know, like I'm pretty sure I know, like I don't, sometimes I doubt if I am good or anything and that's very natural. But because I doubt that, like I never take for granted like my training days. I never good or anything. And that's very natural. But because I doubt that, I never take for granted my training days. I never take days off. I'm always working. I'm always training. And even though it makes me a head case on fight week,

it all pays off on fight night. Because when you're fighting somebody and they're trying to knock you out, everything else disappears in the periphery. And I don't have anxiety when i'm in there so it's better for me to be better prepared so yeah i feel you a lot on that when does it go away is it is does literally like that you have to hear the bell ring um my when i took my i know it's only a seven-year-old kid but when i took my seven-year-old, but when I take him to jiu-jitsu tournaments, he told me one time, he goes, man, I was shaking so much.

And I go, like, really shaking? He goes, yeah. He goes, I was vibrating. And I said, even when you're going? He goes, oh, no. As soon as they say go or kumbats or whatever they say, he goes, you stop shaking and you start fighting. I was like, just like that? He goes, yeah.

And he goes, and you don't start shaking again until your next fight. Is it like that? Are you basically like vibrating? Yeah, for me, for the most part, like. Like you're about to kiss a girl. That's the only thing I can think of. Like, like the first time I was about to kiss a girl, I'm like, holy shit, I'm going to vibrate out of my skin. Yeah.

The anticipation is just a lot worse than you know you know like when you fight like there's all this fluff there's weigh-ins and there's face ops and there's the walkout song and you're like they're three hours early because they put you in the locker room they don't want you to run off and whatnot and all that is not part of the usually usual routine. So like everything's, you're distracted by all this fluff and like grandeur. And then as soon as they say go and you touch gloves,

then it's like, oh, I'm familiar with this. I do this all the time. My best fights has been when basically somebody like pushed me out of my anxiety. I had this one weigh-ins. We're at the weigh-ins, the guy like put his fist in my face. And I was not anxious at all for that fight.

He made me kind of like, okay, you want to fight? And that kind of put me back into like, oh, I'm at the gym. This guy's being a punk. I'm about to swat him. And that fight, I still was only 70 seconds. But I've never came out like so much pep in my step and i was just very aggressive there wasn't a glove touch as i walked out there and like choked him out so for me it's like as soon as someone like flips that switch for me it stays

on and i really liked it like that one time where he pissed me off at weigh-ins because for an entire day i didn't have anxiety because i was like oh i can't wait to beat up this person you know just like when you hear about a fighter coming into town that you've never trained with i'm like oh i'm gonna get him today i'm super excited to beat up this guy and do this because in training there's not any consequences if you can't do it so for me i have to like be like oh pretend like this guy's just at my gym and he's being a punk i just got to put up in his place do you ever train with the gi on any um jordan um not too much when i'm in camp but i did i've done it like twice the past month you know just to get a sweat in oh is that why just for the heat you don't actually

like why does anyone use a gi anymore i had nick rodriguez on the show he's no gi i asked i think i had chris montanillo uh on the show and i was like hey should people do gi or no gi and you know i think i said to him he goes well it depends on what you want i go i want it so if my boy's making out with a girl in an alley and someone comes in there he can defend the girl he goes no gi and i'm like why does anyone do gi anymore i feel like humans we love the fluff like we don't just want to learn what's useful we want to learn like what is interesting or fun and we want to have like kind of cheat codes and the gi gives you so many different avenues of attack and control that allow you to kind of break the rules that would actually happen unless you're fighting somebody in traditional 17th century japanese like where um but a lot of people

is that's what a gi is it's it's 17th century shit okay yeah it's like based on it's it's exactly the kimono it's a kimono old school kimonos um saying that's why it's made of that material and that's why you know it crosses over on one side so i mean i guess if you're going if you're fighting some like weeb from japan you have a pretty good chance you know maybe finally get to show off that geek um work but humans we like the fluff we like the ceremony we like feeling like oh yeah we like to wear something that's like distinguishes you from other people like i think the whole idea of like belts i understand it like from a business perspective and like a ranking perspective to be able to see how good

somebody is from an outward marker right but like nogi it's just like it don't matter what belt you are i choked you out you know like that's the hierarchy and people like to have a hierarchy it's like this is where you belong people like to know that and in nogi it's like there have a hierarchy. It's like, this is where you belong. People like to know that. And a no gi, it's like, there's a lack of hierarchies. And I feel like it makes a lot of people anxious about where they fit in or like where they size up to other people. What belt are you? Do you do the belt thing? I'm a purple belt.

I was a blue belt for eight or nine years because I got my orange when i was 15 and i hadn't worn a gi for eight or nine years so like one day i went to gi and i'm wearing orange other like okay well you're old so now you get a blue belt and then i was teaching the kids class and my kids like why are you just a blue belt coach jordan then like all the blackouts in my gym like as i was like leading the kids in a warm-up they had talk about purple belt and they promoted me in front of the kids like it's a travesty you put a blue belt for this lot so maybe eventually by that pacing I should be a black belt when I'm 40 so but since you never put on the gi and you never put on the belt I mean is that something that even happens at your gym at syndicate? Do they even do belts there?

Not really. They only do gi for three classes of the week. A lot of gyms don't emphasize it anymore, especially because from a business perspective, people got to buy the kimono. The gloves classes are always smaller. Especially now that no gi is exploding and gi is kind of not dying, but it's definitely stagnated. More people are interested, like, in the no gi because it's easier to understand from a lay person. Like, a regular person, like, if they watch jiu-jitsu for the first time, they're watching a bunch of lapel work and worm guard.

They're, like, they're just pulling on each other's clothes. You know, it doesn't look very impressive but you watch someone just like grab a camorra or armbar somebody or strangle somebody you could see that you may not understand all the in between but like when someone's caught you're like oh what's this what's happening everyone even they have no idea what's happening they get super excited when they watch someone lock in a submission because we know how the body is supposed to look and when people contort the little alignment or something it looks threatening yeah so i definitely think no geez go what was the word you used gee is saturated what was the word you used a word that was too big for me what say it again stagnating oh stagnating okay i know that word okay sorry sorry um yeah it it it's it's interesting uh and when i take the kids to the tournaments

um there's fewer kids who do no gi they're bigger they allow a wider age range and a wider weight range because there's just fewer kids who do it but i just feel like um just from just interviewing a bunch of you guys and jujitsu guys that no gi is where it's all headed especially in the united states and it's more functional i think yeah 100 and it's just and plus the gi is like painful you know like i'm getting laser hair removal on my neck because when i do gi like it will like rip up my skin i get a bunch of ingrown hairs and something a little pansy thing to do but like i hated that. So I just stopped doing gi because I didn't like my neck being hickeyed up.

I always had hickeys walking around. I have bald spots that the gi would rub off parts of my beard. So I'm like, no, gi is just painful. Getting gi choked, first off, puts you unconscious way faster because of the leverage. That's never fun. But also, it's just painful. You leave and you feel like you got velcroed everywhere are you gonna do any other um i see a lot of these guys now do not a lot but i see guys like doing other stuff like james kraus is doing stuff cowboys doing other stuff um are you going to be doing other stuff besides ufc and are you allowed to do that? Does the UFC contract allow you to dabble in other types of combat sports?

If you're not scheduled for a fight? Yes. Um, I would like to like, uh, I did a jujitsu tournament in September. That was fun. Right before my fight was,

um, my fight was, my fight was scheduled and signed. So I got to like, kind of have fun. I haven't done jujitsu in like about a decade. So that was pretty cool. Where was at where was that at that was just naga in las vegas so just here and how did that go um i got i i didn't get i got like four i guess

technically but um i what's it called well my first two rounds pretty easy because people don't like doing takedowns or wrestling. So they pulled guard, and I just dominated them and got a pass. But then I faced this really good American national champ, but I didn't know that. And he caught me in a good heel hook and stuff. So yeah, he kind of knocked me out of the bracket. So that was frustrating. Do you tap extra fast knowing that you, you, you can't be, you need your body to make a living? Oh yeah. Like I, I tap so fast, like in Jitsu, I'm like, dude,

first off I paid to be here. So I ain't going to pay. I ain't going to pay to get injured. Um, but I have, like, do I feel like I could have fought through things more? Like, yes. If that was, like, my why for training and stuff. Like, it's definitely different. Like, in jiu-jitsu, when people jump on you to go for a gi, and I'm like, flashback, like, six months ago, I killed a person doing this. So, like, why would I train to defend that? I spent a lot of my time doing that.

So it's definitely a different sport. And a lot of people kind of separate the self-defense martial part of the arts. So that's a little frustrating for me. It's kind of more of a practical martial arts. I like to do things that work if somebody wants to hit you or stomp you and stuff and the sports kind of move away from that and that's good that's good it makes the sport more entertaining and more approachable but for me i'm like well if it was a real fight i would have dominated you even worse and i hate to be that person and and and you were okay with that taking forward it doesn't affect you it's not like

you walk away with like wait a second second, I'm a UFC fighter. Wait, I'm a professional fighter. You're like, okay, I got the warm-up. I got the training. I got in some reps that I wanted. Oh, no. It doesn't – I mean, I hate to lose. I'm competitive.

But no, I mean, as long as – especially if they do recognize me, they do know who I am, it's like they know the rules. That's different. You know, I've, I've taken away a lot of my weapons to, you know, play your guys' game. And it's like when MMA fighters go into boxing, except jujitsu, I'm not gonna get knocked out and embarrassed. It's like the real man, you know, goes up and fights under the more dangerous rule set, but you're asking me to

protect you. You want to protect me as a man, but you want me to protect you as well. That's just a very interesting dynamic for me. And you did it as a purple belt that tournament? Since Nagata is just by experience level, so I was in the black

belt and eight years division so yeah beat it i like beat beat a nice two black belts and then um one got me so i not too bad yeah no it's great we when we had um nick rodriguez on the show i i said something to him like hey like when you when you put someone in an arm bar, do you just go and then watch them and then stop when they tell you to stop? Like, like how does that work? Or do you act? And I didn't really think he was going to answer this question is yes. I go, do you really try to break their arm? He goes, dude,

I go in there and I'm trying to fucking snap their arm off or break their leg. And like, if they don't tap, that's what's going to happen. And I'm just like holy shit because i i guess i guess even when i watch the ufc i think they know you know what i mean like the fighters know because you do so much training where you don't snap off someone's leg you know like you get to a point and then you got you look at the guy right or you're like hey what the fuck you better tap. But it's not like that in the ring. Like when you put someone in an arm bar in the UFC or in any of these fight fights you've been in,

like you're just going all the way. Like you're just trying to just break the arm off like a chicken wing. Yeah. I learned my lesson in my second amateur fight where basically like, and it's funny video, like basically I'm arm barring him. And you seem, like, grimacing because I don't want to, like, stick his arm into my armpit to, like, snap it. And then I very slowly do it. But then, like, it pops out and he taps.

I'm like, what an idiot. You know, like, I will break it. But, like, winning is more important to me important to me than not wanting to hurt you. It's your job to protect yourself at the end of the day. My fifth pro fight, I think it was for LFA, I put a guy in a heel hook. I popped his knee. He didn't tap. And I'm like, okay, pretty stupid.

And I put him in an arm bar scenario and popped his shoulder very bad. Didn't tap. And I'm like, okay, you're not protecting yourself, cool. But then I blocked him in a choke 30 seconds later and he tapped. I'm like, why of all the things not to tap to, choose a thing that's not going to hurt you. And I'm like, oh, I'll see. And I'm like limped through the airport.

It made me angry. I was like, dude, first off, you're not going to beat me on one leg. You're not going to beat me with one leg and one arm. You're not going to make me choke you unconscious too. So now I to beat me with one leg and one arm. You're going to make me choke you unconscious too. So now I just get more annoyed when people don't tap. And even in training, like unless like they're a high level, if you're stubborn, I'll very slowly like go to your end range. Like I'm not going to jump into anything,

but you want to have an ego. Like it's your medical bill kind of thing. And it's not my fault as long as I give you the time and opportunity to take care of yourself. Yeah's nuts it's nuts when i when i hear that or see that and do they teach you when i hear that and see that i'm like man i don't know if my kids should be doing this sport um do they are there rules in gyms like do they tell you when you first go to a gym or is your training and coming up or no this is just stuff that's known everyone has to have enough common sense to figure this out on their own it's really a thing that like people generally just like we all kind of like do personal exploration and stuff like

kind of discovered okay this is a d-bag move this is what you do like as long as you give people the opportunity to like protect themselves they generally know your fault um and also a lot of people they don't they just even in jujitsu mma they don't know how to break a limb or pop a knee from i feel like a lot of submissions people get caught in it's more of a concession hold like people are panicking and well that's interesting because nick said told me that too I think he said yes a lot of people just tap too early also on the other end he said they tap too early and so they don't get the experience of trying to get out of a tap get out of a submission introducing TD insurance for business with customized coverage options for your business because at TD insurance we understand that your

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19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Yeah, and it's led to like a lot of people, their offense not being very effective because they can't accomplish what their move's threatening. Like if I have a knee knee bar but i have the wrong mechanics yes i can hurt it'll be very painful and uncomfortable for me to straighten somebody's leg but like i need you need some pretty good power and a good optimal angle to really

hyper extend somebody's knees more powerful joint in the body so like for me especially because i've been grappling for like 11 years now like i know how now, like, I know how to break a leg. I know how to blow a knee, break an elbow, shoulder. And it's not a concession hold with me because I've been burned too many times in training and in competition where you don't want to, like, hurt somebody. And you very slowly put on the, you know, the pressure to get breaking pressure. You very slowly put on the pressure to get breaking pressure. And they're not defending in a very controlled way. They are defending of all their might, all their ability.

So it's like, why would I give 40% of my offense to 100% of your defense? It's like, no, I got to break you. And you got to stop me from doing that. And if you can't, then you have to tap, you know? And that's one thing. Dona hair is really good at teaching just how to break a leg. That's why they're,

they're the best leg lock gym in the world is because people know I don't get to use my flexibility on this. Like you're snapping these ligaments. I'm not going to be able to train for a year if I don't tap to this. And people usually choose the rational decision in those situations to not power through and try to grit their teeth. Yeah. Yeah. Man, it's a crazy sport you're in. I hear the guys, you know, I guess what makes the news is guys complaining that they don't get paid enough, that they don't make enough money for what they do.

And then on the other hand, I hear you say that because of the little bit of success that you've had and the steps you've taken, that you're able to not have a day job now. That fighting is your day job. With the money you've made, you're able to support your family for the next year or two. Did I understand that correctly? And what makes you different? Um, I, I just, especially if you're a fighter, you're generally like sacrifice a lot of working opportunities, maybe even schooling. So as soon as you get some semblance of money, you're like, Oh my gosh, baller, you know, this, this, and this, but even. I bonus my first fight.

And then after I paid all my coaches and management agency, it was only like $49,000 after the bonus and the pay. And that's a pretty decent amount of money if you're not trying to splurge. Unless you're in Cali, in Las Vegas, that's just myself. That's several, at least two years of rent. For me, it was like, no, I'm going to take care of my biggest expenses first, and I'm going to be patient. I'm not going to jump ahead into liabilities that I can't keep up with.

A lot of fighters, especially, say, if you're married, they get to the UFC, they make their first paycheck, and maybe it's only $20,000. They're like, okay, this is going to be my normal. I can get a new house. I can do this.

I can start feeling like a deadbeat. And a lot of fighters, they extend themselves so quickly and not realizing how fickle a lot of the things in this sport are. And do I think we get paid more like yeah 100 like fighters definitely have a short end of the stick we don't have any power and um fighters are too combative with each other to want to really work together and do some like group bargaining so until we solve our own problems, it's going to be shafted pretty hard. For me, it's like, if you know our situation is crappy, why are you making it harder on yourself?

Why are you living life stupidly? Why are you buying nice stuff? We're NFL players. You have to compete and you have to win to get money. to compete and you have to win to get money. And a lot of fighters just, they're just not smart with their money. And they're not realistic about what their future is. Everyone plans their budget off of a win. Like, Oh, if I win, they really do that. That's just seems so crazy to me. I like what you do. That's what I do too. I, I see your rent or your mortgage as your runway. So if you can have an, if you know, your, your mortgage is a hundred dollars

a month and you have $2,400, you put it in a bank account and you just gave yourself two years of runway, you'll figure out the food and electricity. You know what I mean? But now you have shelter for two years. Just hide that, right? Yeah, I really like your thinking. And that's how I view it. I really view it as runway. Always give yourself as much runway as you can. And who wants to live in a $3 million house, but you have to worry about the price of gas and avocados? I'd rather live in a fucking shitty house and fill my gas tank up when I want. Yeah, at the end of the day, as long as there's like a roof over your head, like you could skip on other things.

Yeah. Like we have evolved over a million years, not wanna starve to death, you know? So as long as you have a roof over your head, you'll find a way to hustle and get something else, take care of yourself. It's like, I like the one quote, it it's like you don't lack opportunity you lack discipline you know like yes you can get lucky if you get a bunch of opportunities like it'll help you out in

life but like discipline at the end of the day will get you farther than luck or connection to will because i know plenty of people who make a lot of money, but they're broker than I am because they don't have the discipline. So discipline really is everything. Happiness, money, success, freedom. It's at the kind of the center of all those. Yeah. Discipline gives you freedom you know like you have to hold yourself to a certain like if there's a speed limit and it's 75 it does not affect you if you're always disciplined and stay

at 70 a lot of people don't want to put don't want to like follow rules they set for themselves they want to feel free but like when you feel free without like the bounds of like discipline like that's when that's when consequences happen yeah and consequences lack your free like um lessen your freedom constrict you and for me like nothing is more important than taking care of my family you know making sure we're secure so i don't care if i have like a crappy 2006 chevy that like it has two doors and then like doesn't look cool and i haven't like upped my lifestyle to match my income like i get to go to bed at night knowing like if i blow out my knee for a year yeah like we're good yeah and nothing's better than having like that freedom and that peace of mind knowing

that like hey like unlike all my like i have family members who were like surgeons and lawyers, but like they take a year off their, their life would fall apart. I have all this for me as I feel so lucky and so blessed because I feel like I have so much because we remain disciplined and it's just a nice place to be, you know, peace of mind. You really can't put a price on it. How often do you train at the performance Institute?

I'm, I do train the condition in there twice a week. I do training condition in there twice a week. I do physical therapy there four times a week. Oh, wow. Awesome. I use the ice pool every day. They have a sauna and a spa. I'm there all the time.

I'm there at least five times a week. For people who don't know, will you tell us what the Performance Institute is, how far it is from your house, how long it's been around? Just tell us about it. Yeah, Performance Institute's been around for about four years. It's basically a headquarters where they give fighters everything that they would need.

Because the main goal is to keep fighters in Las Vegas. That way, if there's a last-minute fight, they can have people there. But they have nutritionists, sports scientists, weight room, recovery, physical therapy. And the UFC owns this? It's theirs? Yeah, and everything's free for the fighters. Basically, they give fighters all the things they complain about that they don't have,

and they give them access to it for free. They have to come to Las Vegas or Beijing, or they're about to build two more, like in Mexico City and one in South Korea. So basically, they're giving fighters build two more, like in Mexico City and one in South Korea. So basically they're giving fighters access to things that make fighting expensive. And it's just a hub. And they take your information, kind of like social media. Like if you use strength and conditioning,

they have to do diagnostics on you. So that way they could put you inside like a chart and compare you to other people in your weight class. So it's all, you know, they're all just trying, they're planning for the future. Like they're trying to make fighters healthier. And it's actually kind of cool because that's why you've seen a lot of these fighters move up, move up in weight classes and just have healthier weight cuts because the UFC performance Institute and all the nutritionists on staff, and they know exactly what weaknesses you

have. When you do a body diagnostics test and your VO2 max, they know exactly what weaknesses you have when you do a body diagnostics test and your vo2 max they know exactly how to help you and that's why i'm like dudes like training is not expensive anymore like and they're about to build a hotel next to the institute too so they're basically going to have a hotel that will be a few dollars a night so fighters from all around the world can fly in, stay at the Institute, and have cheap housing here. So that way, we could actually focus on fighting. The goal of the Institute was to up the standard for UFC athletes, and it really has done that.

And I live 10 minutes away from it. I have access to all these perks year-round. Do they teach classes there? perks year round. Do they teach classes there? They don't teach classes, but you could train a few UFC champions there because everyone's there all the time. So it allows you

to network also because say if like, you know, Francis Ngannou is a champion. He's there every day. Brandon Moreno, he's a 125-pound champ. He's always there. It allows you to network. And when fighters have communication with each other, especially when theyative like adverse like um where everyone you kind of see everybody as like an adversary right and it was kind of like a neutral ground where fighters can talk about sponsorships

talk about this this this and this and i think it's a really good um i think it's a really awesome thing that we have and a lot of fighters don't take advantage of it majority of the fighters still don't use the institute is it pretty empty in there when you go in there pretty empty especially when you think of the size of the roster i see the same dozen and a half people a lot of people they're like and i understand the paranoia they're afraid like say for like, you go there, you get the body diagnostic test. They know exactly how good your cardio is, how fat you are. And a lot of people are afraid that if the UFC has the information, they could, like, use it against you.

Like, say, if they're pissed off at you and they know you're not in shape, they'll give you a fight with somebody they know is in great shape, you know. So a lot of fighters are, like, kind of scared offc having the information on them out of the fear that they'll get taken advantage but i think that's a fair concern but um for me it's like especially because like i score high and all those things i guess because like i'm i'm doing well like i don't want to worry about them using my information right but um i understand a lot of fighters and their um apprehension at letting the ufc know everything about their bodies, what they're doing, their injuries, this, this, and that. It can be uncomfortable for somebody to have all that information on you. You know, it's funny when you say that to me, I'm like, oh, it's not that big of a deal.

But that being said, when you said there was a sports psychologist on staff, I immediately went to that place in my head. I was like, Oh, if I was a UFC fighter, I wouldn't go to that sports psychologist. Cause he's fucking, he talks to all the fighters and I don't want to talk to the same guy who knows all the fighters. I don't want him to know, like, I don't want him to tell him my daddy issues. And then he, you know, it just seems like I just would, I would just have trust issues there so i get it can you bring guests there can you bring a friend there yeah you bring you bring four every fighter can bring up to three people holy shit yeah and if you have like a group of friends like you have several ufc fighters you can basically bring an entire team of people like

some people just like basically they have like five ufc fighters they'll bring about 15 people that's a that's a team and also a lot of coaches don't like the pi because it gives fighters a way to kind of break away from toxic environments because you can just meet up with some ufc fighters you like or maybe you've already fought before so there's not you guys aren't going to fight again and you get good training with like quality people and i have to worry about all the fluff and you have control but you could bring so you could bring a coach there and two fighters and be like okay listen uh jordan levitt has a fight in three weeks we're going to come here every day your your guys's job is to push the shit out of them and your coach basically can just take you guys there you guys can train uh sauna ice, repeat three times a day and just fucking grind there.

Yeah. Man, that is so cool. Say that again. Yeah. And a lot of coaches don't like that because fighters a lot like Aljamain Sterling and like he's like a champion. And the 125 pound champ, they're constantly at the PI. They organize their camps around them. And that used to be super expensive to kind of get your own space,

pay the mat fee, fly out training partners. But who doesn't want free recovery, free food? Who's the 125 champ? That's Moreno? Yeah. They just do their own camps. They bring in five or six people that they really like trust yeah and there's good quality work in and what if their competitor was there doing the uh camp also what would happen is there enough when the ufcpi when

they see two people in similar rankings or they know they have beef they have a list basically they'll make you have the schedule things so you know you only get this place for an hour but since no one used the pi really and especially because they're opening one up in mexico and then china and brazil like they're gonna have one all of the major fight hubs soon so it's only gonna get less crowded and so it'll basically give ways for fighters to kind of organize their own camps and have a neutral ground and i think it's a really awesome development um can other people from the outside buy memberships there no no there's no like you can't like put down two hundred thousand dollars and be like okay i want access no no i mean if so basically ufc fighters they get precedence so

even if like there are people who will train with the strength and conditioning staff but they're only allowed to train outside athletes if no ufc fighter scheduled for them time for their time and if ufc fighters says hey i won't work out this time they have to kick the other person out so like i saw caleb plant like it was like fox canelo like five six months ago he was there yeah but either way for a fighter to open up you know you see nfl players and this this and that but they're all on fighters um schedules so but but you can go in 20 is it open 24 hours a day for you um no it's open for like it's open from like eight to seven so 11 hours but all the day hours and you don't and you don't have to sign up like like like you could if like you like if we get

off this call and you're like fuck i'm just i feel like going over there and getting an ice bath you can just go over there and do that yeah that's what i tell i'm gonna do after this you know you know pick up my meal prep and yeah just chill and they do the meal prep over there for you too yeah they handle all fight week and i guess they'll they have to make you three meals a day like you could honestly and they'll even they'll make meals for you over the weekend like if you're a fighter you don't even get your food they handle all your food expense if you're okay being on the menu how the hell i don't get why every fighter who does who's not attached to where they live doesn't move to vegas and get on that bandwagon the food thing alone sounds amazing

yeah like they and like we have four nutritionists on staff and you know they'll make the meals they'll tailor them around what you need They could tell you the daily expenditure of your calories. They could really just take all the guesswork out, just like the Olympic training centers are, and fighters don't like it. Man, that must be hard for fighters who use that place. And then if you get cut from the UFC, that must be a – Yeah. Because you could just be addicted to that place um when um uh that guy i had a chris on the show montanillo and he took a last minute fight with 10 days notice against

sean o'malley yeah one of the cool things that i that i was happy to hear is that he got a four fight contract because i always thought oh shit i bet you they just like they're like hey here's 20 bucks get in there and fight him and then they cut him loose that's what i would have just assumed and it's cool that he got to fight um sean got to have that crazy uh debut and then he has and then he had three more fights he has three more fights on the card um is that the same way it is for the way you came in did the the Contender Series guys get four fights? Yeah, basically every contract is a four to six fight deal. For everyone?

Yes. Okay. So basically, but the UFC could cut you any time they want. So it's not really like the contract that protects you. Say if you get a four fight contract, but you lose your first two, you're out. Even if there is four fights in your contract, because the contract doesn't really have anything that kind of restricts UFC's ability to like handle you as like a fighter and they're stable.

But, but yeah, like Chris Monta, I can't pronounce his last name right now. Basically, he's like over Monta, knee, you Monta, knee, you. Yeah. He, he has so his last name right now. Yeah, Montanil.

Yeah, he has so many followers on Instagram now because his fight with Sean O'Malley was crazy. Yeah. And he probably gets a good contract because he's so popular and stuff now. So now that he's made good money for his last fight, he has so much time and stability if he chooses to live that way to prepare for his next fight.

And a lot of fighters, they just don't want to do the business aspect of it. They don't want to build their brand, which gives them more negotiating power to leverage what they have. And yeah, it's a good era to be a smart fighter who focuses on the outside things. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So they basically – so that's interesting. So it's really not even a four-fight deal. No.

So basically, if you win, it's a four-fight deal. Okay. You know. Which is kind of a no-duh, right? Yeah. But generally, if you win two fights in an impressive fashion in a row you renegotiate your contract anyway i know very few people who like just go through their four fights and they win them and then go to their next contract because generally if you win two in a row

you get to renegotiate your contract and make more money anyway so four fight contracts the first contract are very rarely actually finished because they're either renegotiated or you get cut beforehand. Right. And is that on every fighter's mind in every fight? Like, oh, shit. Like, this is – every fight is a job – another job interview. Yeah. It is stressful.

interview yeah it is stressful um because unless you've won your fight before like there's always a chance you could lose you lose your you get kicked out if you lose so i mean i think i should theoretically i think if even if i lost this one i'd have to lose the next one to be cut unless it was very very embarrassing and dominant but um generally speaking the, the UFC tries to give you the benefit of the doubt in terms of like winning and losing, especially for your first contract. And as long as you win one of your first, like three, you generally should finish your first contract.

So it's a little nerve wracking, but you know, other jobs, if you have a really bad day at the office, they could fire you too. So, yeah. I'm guessing it also depends on what weight class you're into. I'm guessing that some weight classes are super duper competitive. I have no idea which ones they are, but I mean, if they have a class with like 200 guys versus like, I mean, it seems like the, the heavyweights would be an easier place to hang out than the weight class you're in your weight class seems just really impacted like the the comp of

the there's more people applying for the job yeah a third of the roster is lightweight so holy shit that's a true stat yeah it's it's ridiculous so lightweight division is bigger than all three women's divisions put together. Oh my god. That's only active fighters. There are some fighters that are still on contract, but they're not very active. The lightweight division

is huge. I think it breaks up to basically 30% of all fighters are lightweight. So the lightweight division is huge. I think it breaks up to basically 30% of all fighters are lightweight. And then featherweight's the next biggest one, bantamweight. And then it's crazy. So yeah, my weight class, it's very competitive. There are several win streaks in my weight class that are bigger than five. No other weight class has that. But since there's so many damn people in lightweight you could fight you could you could climb the rankings without fighting like dozens of other people but if you're a heavyweight you

can't skip eight people in the rankings you know um there's not that many people and there's some people like you know who's fighting this week on your card is Cub Swanson. Yeah. And it's like, how long has he been in the UFC? It's crazy. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, he's been forever. You know, Cub Swanson gone to the UFC like the same time as Cowboy did. So he's been there for a while. And there's a bunch of guys like that.

Or like even Oliveira. I mean, he had to win like nine or ten fights in a row before he got a bunch of guys like that or or or like even even oliveira look at i mean he had to win like nine or ten fights in a row before he got a chance it's title yeah it's nuts it's a crazy division no like a lot of fighters they don't you know they don't especially the upper division they just can't you can't compare it like israel adesanya he was champion in like seven fights you know because the weight class is relatively small so you win seven fights in a row like and he's a champ in like two and a half years that will never happen at lightweight because there are there are 95 ranked fighters at lightweight like they had the ring is like 95. So Chandler almost pulled off something weird,

right? Yeah. Cause he went from Bellator and then he got one fight to give him a title fight. Yeah. Kind of annoying, but, um,

yeah, but you know, the rankings don't really mean anything in the UFC because if you're popular, they'll give you a fight. They'll give you any fight that you want as long as it makes sense money-wise. If you have the following,

the rankings don't matter. Conor McGregor will get a title fight for no reason because he's Conor McGregor. Right. From just the looks of what's going on on Twitter, he's already demanding another title fight. Yeah. And then if he builds the hype then

ufc will cave and he'll get a title fight after losing his last three yeah yeah do you think he's done um i don't mean like done like he's gonna retire but do you think his his best days are behind him oh yeah most definitely um it's just con Conor McGregor had like the same problem as, not the same, but very similar problem to Anderson Silva. Conor McGregor is a pressuring counter fighter. It's like he doesn't really lead very well. The moment people realize that, wait, if I just counter McGregor, he's not nearly as dangerous and he can't hit me nearly as hard because I'm not running into all these punches. He's not nearly as dangerous, and he can't hit me nearly as hard because I'm not running into all these punches. So I feel like now that people are not scared of him, they know the trash talk. They know if they ignore the trash talk, it's not going to mess with them too much. He's very beatable now.

He's been beat every way. He's been beat by knockout and submission and injury. Some people know what to do to him now and he looks human a lot of the great fighters that really have good streak it's like basically like their aura or their reputation didn't have to work for them

right it happened to Ronda Rousey too right once someone cracked the code then it was just like oh shit yeah it broke her psyche and also it kind of made everyone realize oh this person's human like amanda noon has this past weekend like yeah that was nuts i love amanda and stuff but like you know she's in the two least competitive divisions for women's mma and she's they consider her the quote you know because uh

she won both belts but there's like five people at women's featherweight so that belt shouldn't really count because you can't even do a top 10 rankings they made it so that way cyborg could have a belt because cyborg was too big to come to 35 and then amanda nunez she's been champ for it seems like a very long time but she only defended her bantamweight belt six times and ron arouse did that in two years so it was kind of nice to see the undefeated she's unbeatable and then kind of like you could she got broken she got broken as soon as she met some adverse adversity and it was kind of a nice thing to watch and i feel like it's going to make the women's division better as a result because now everyone's like wait yeah we

can we can beat unbeatable people we can you know you all you're telling me i need to have the right game plan it doesn't matter if you're better than me as long as i know how to approach you i can beat you and it's always nice because every division kind of has that moment where you realize that the dude the man can get beat and makes the division more competitive i i liked i like uh penya i don't want to say anything this is going to come across negative but she almost doesn't even look like a professional athlete like i know and and yet her she she is is the term made her wilt you almost said i think that you were gonna you were basically saying that you enjoyed that's the part that you like you didn't use that word will but i've heard other fighters on the show say that or basically that is like the feeling you want as a fighter

when you feel the other guy wilt and that's basically what she did to nunez right i mean she basically just stood in her face long enough that Nunez's spirit was broken more than actually physically beating her. Yeah. A lot of people, especially if they're a bully and they're used to being dominant, the moment you're not dominant, it's like, dang, what I usually have done

that makes me successful, I'm not doing that. And people break. First person who flinches loses kind of thing and a lot of a lot of times like some people you're just not going to beat them the first few minutes but fatigue makes a coward of us all adversity makes a coward of us all his view lasts long enough and like you like endure everyone will break eventually or at least they'll flinch the moment they flinch you have an opening so it was nice to watch penya kind of lose the first round pretty bad and she's like well basically i just gotta go out there and not die i'm gonna break her of my

will and that's what she did and it was very beautiful thing to watch um other fights that you know uh basically uh um poirier gave fucking olivera everything in the kitchen sink i mean it's crazy that olivera survived those 56 fucking face shots in the first round and then even sean o'malley i want to say in that fight against chris i i heard him in an interview afterwards saying his knuckles were still sore two months later. And he claims if they wouldn't have stopped the fight, he was going to knock Chris out. But another part of me thinks that if they would have let that go four rounds, that Chris was going to win. That basically he was fighting a zombie and it was starting to get into his head a little bit. Yeah, and I definitely,

and they ended the fight super early because whatever. But normally. So you didn't like that stoppage? You didn't like that stoppage? No. I find that interesting from you because I know you got the big heart and you're like, all right, enough, enough of this beating.

I feel like, like if I'm a fighter again, like Maul, like, yeah, end end the fight you know but when you look you can tell from the opening bell that chris's idea like i'm gonna walk through things i'm not gonna get finished and i feel like at that point he earned the 20 seconds more he wasn't gonna get any more hurt in those last 20 seconds now that Sean O'Malley was tired. And I feel like sometimes a fighter earned the right to see the bell. Like Calvin Cater versus Max Holloway should have been ended.

Ah, yes. Yes, that was hard to watch. That was immediate. I don't think he's ever going to recover from that. I don't think he's ever going to be the same fighter. It's because his ego is too big and his corner... You're saying Calvin may to be the same fighter it's because his ego is too big and his corner you're saying calvin may never be the same fighter yeah yeah certainly he took the most significant

strikes of any fight ever you know and it's not like it wasn't competitive the first few rounds it was you know but i feel like when you've gotten pasted for like 20 minutes straight that's why you should be able to trust your corner. You should be like, okay, my fighter doesn't have it. If you know he's going to go out on a shield, why the hell would you send him out there? If you have hope, that's when you push someone out there. If you don't have hope, there's no reason to go. You know what's crazy, Jordan?

That fucking guy, Calvin Cater, Rob Font, and Chris Montanillo, those guys are all in the same camp. Yeah. Their heads are like anvils. Yeah. Are these the three toughest guys in the world? Like, what the fuck? Yeah, imagine how hard they spar if they're that tough when the lights are on. Yeah, it's crazy. Did you watch the font um jose aldo fight yes i did it must it must be very frustrating to look because rob font was winning every round until he'd get dropped like jose had the exact you know he won the only way he was gonna win like i going to hit him hard and he hit him hard every round on the

rounds you know and it's frustrating to see somebody like do better than somebody the entire time than like get damaged the last little bit so Rob Font like you know he definitely could have won that it's just

fights are decided by like three or five instances. And they happen just not to be any of his instances that he like had the advantage in. Some fighters don't watch fights. Why do you, do you watch like, like do you watch fights? Like, did you watch the whole card last week? I don't watch the whole card. I watch like fights I have emotional attachment to, or I watched my division.

Okay, makes sense. It's a big commitment of time for me. Yeah. The baby, and Saturday is kind of a half day. So if my teammates are on it, and it's not my division, I kind of watch it after the fact. Okay, what fights were good? I look it up. Okay.

Yeah, that makes sense. Is the fight free at the PI? Yes, I'll be on ESPN, not pay-per-view, so I'm pretty excited. But I mean, the pay-per-view, can you go to the – have you ever been at the PI when a pay-per-view is going and you're like, oh, it's free here? Oh, yeah. It's empty. It's kind of cool.

And they don't play it at the P.I., sadly. Oh, they don't? They don't? No, they don't. They play the same reruns on the TV all the time. So that's one downside. They don't give you a damn remote for the TVs. Dude, just go to the front desk and just tell them, hey, can you get the pay-per-view? That makes no sense. They got to show it at the P.I. Right. desk and just tell them hey can you get the pay-per-view that makes no sense they gotta show it at the pi right um derrick lewis is on them on in the in the main event this weekend are you gonna get a photo with him i hope so there's a few people on that card i've been wanting to meet for a long time angela hill i have to get a picture of her yeah that's a little social media homie derrick lewis wonder boy is there oh yeah it's a

pretty it's a nice like end of the year card and i'm kind of even i'm a little frustrated because all those names that means we're all competing all the other less known guys we're competing for those that one bonus is going to be left over so that's a little but i'm pretty excited to meet a bunch of people i've looked up to um the good news, is that a lot of times he gives more than one bonus. Yeah. For the last two weeks, he gave six last week and then four the week before. So. Yeah.

Crazy. I, um, he is, uh, Derek and you, um, are, I really liked both your personalities. I haven't had the opportunity to speak with Derek, but I just liked that he is who he is. I like you cause you are who you are um you know these it's just nice to see people that are um they didn't they didn't open the dictionary and be like okay i should behave like this to be a fighter i should say this to be a fighter so i i'm kind of excited it would be it would it would warm my heart to see you post a picture of you and Derek together. I'd be like, yeah, the homies are together. They're cut from the same cloth and they're brought back together.

that on your YouTube channel, you have not posted in 10 months, a review of a book. And I think that that is a huge mistake because we all know that you're a voracious reader. Everyone always asks you about your reading. And I think that it's, I think that you should do a book review for every book you do, even if it's just a couple minutes. So those are the words I want to leave you with. That is my New Year's resolution. Did you refuse every book? Because I still filmed them. Oh, you're just not posting them? I just haven't posted it. Oh, even better.

Dude, get on it. I know. My family's like, no, you should do it. Especially because I enjoy it and everything. It's just editing is the hardest part. Cutting things out. So definitely my goal for next year. When I get this file, I'm going to get a bonus,

and I'm going to get all these videos posted and made. Awesome. So you don't just do it in one take? You don't set your iPhone up and be like, okay, guys, here's the book. It's Michael Singer's Untethered. I just read it. It took me three days to read it. My favorite part is it's not like

that it's like you're actually editing them yeah they're usually about like 25 minutes because i ramble a lot and then i'm like okay that's not important let me cut that out kind of thing so yeah i kind of just like talk to the camera and my wife will ask questions about it i answer it and then yeah oh that's cool yeah i'm just i'm technologically like stupid so it um you could do the whole thing on your phone dude you should you could do the whole thing on your phone you could like literally uh a friend of mine uh john brzenk is the world's greatest arm wrestler who ever lived he just fired up a youtube channel and he's just been just doing these shows and it's nuts it it's so basic. And then he just hits send and it goes up to YouTube and he gets, you know, fucking 500 comments. Yeah. You got to do it. People, people will start eating that up. It,

it makes you, um, it makes you, you, and I think it's just a tremendous role model for everyone out there in the world. You even said that, like, what did you say? You only read 26 books last year? That was like an all-time low for you or something I saw in one of your interviews? Yeah. Since I started reading, like, 26 is like the least amount I've ever read. Yeah, that's nuts. Yeah, it's the baby.

My baby being the Nick Yu kind of like put me in a little bit of like depression, you know, which is the NICU. And yeah, we're all just at home. And that kind of like knocked me out of like my groove for a little bit. Then even when she was home, like you're all worried that your baby's gonna get sick again. So for like maybe like first month, my baby was born. Like I didn't read a single page. I was too busy, worried. Just on alert?

Yeah, just at night. I would watch her for hours. What was your deal? What was up with her? Why was she in the NICU, Jordan? I don't remember. She just wasn't good at breathing. So she was born, and she would just stop breathing.

And her heart rate would drop. And so she would turn blue and just pass out wow and the doctors never really did figure out so it was just very jarring and definitely still have a little insecurities about my baby you know yeah is it have there been any incidents in the last few months not the last few months she's only had two episodes where her we got her little outlet and like heart rate monitor too, just to make sure she only ever had two. She had one at a time where she turned blue and she,

we like woke her up and she like was fine. She kind of like got her color back real quick. And then one time where her heart rates dropped, but we're basically, we'll have another kid as soon as we're used, as soon as we're comfortable for not sleeping with a heart rate monitor on. So yeah. Oh, good on you. You're comfortable with her not sleeping with a heart rate monitor on. Yeah. Oh, good on you. You're going to love it.

The more, the merrier. Yeah. Oh, it's – there's nothing better. Hey, did it make you soft at all? When I was talking to James Krause, he was saying having kids can make fighters soft. Did it make you soft at all? It makes a lot of fighters soft. So does marriage.

A lot of fighters, like, they um a lot of fighters like they fight because it's like part of their identity like oh i'm this i'm hard and so once they their edges get a little smoothed out and you have a kid and you play dress up or you play peekaboo it's kind of hard to be a killer but i never was a killer so i think it actually makes me a better fighter awesome all right dude i'm super stoked to watch you fight i really appreciate your time jordan i look forward to um talking to you again and continuing our relationship uh saturday 1 p.m pacific standard time on espn plus that's where i watch it right that's normally where i watch i. I just do it on Apple TV. Jordan Levitt is fighting Matt sales.

Everyone. That's the only fight you need to watch. Watch that one. And then come back at the end for Derek Lewis. You're in. You're good. The rest of the day for yourself. Thanks,

ma'am. Thank you. You have a good one, man.