Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlYatkrOtMY
the jurgen experience don how did you when when did you you you started out was like ufc eight was that your first fight noah's first in the ufc yeah boxing and kickboxing before that right no kickboxing i did boxing um i think i had eight fights and um i think i was two and six or two five and one i don't know because i fought my first two is don fry and i won those and then i had an argument with my trainer and so we split and then so then i fought under jrfry why'd you change your name well that was my name growing up as a junior so jr and that's how i was in you know junior high high school and then um you know what my dad mom called me and then i think i changed my name because of uh contractual you know oh you had some deal with the manager yeah right there's a lot of those sneaky deals huh yeah but um that was more the trainer and you know i don't know if that was because they were really good guys uh art mart tori was my money guy who you know they they the two munoz mike munoz and his father al brought me to art art wrestled at asu back in the late 60s and art uh he's a billionaire you know and so he was in interested and i mean he he basically funds asu wrestling oh really yeah oh that's nice half his pocket yeah and he's done so much for amateur wrestling in the us i mean he's like the top dog because he used to have what's called sun-kissed wrestling team uh so that was his baby and he steamrolled that and um then like i said uh the munoz brothers or mike and his dad took me to art or so i just give it a shot after he called um geez the coach at oaky state um jose to double double check on me you know so did you started out wrestling did you wrestle
as a young boy no sir when did you start wrestling uh as a freshman in high school and then when did you box uh when i got out of college oh so uh most of it was you know that's fairly late in life to box right oh yeah oh yeah that's why i was two and six so when did you hear about the ufc um i was a fireman you know i just did the boxing and then got out did started doing odd jobs for you know a year year and a half and uh then my wife at that time we had a couple horses you know and being a collie dresser you got a bit of an eagle when you so i don't get well hell i could do that so uh still going around with a farrier named stoney newfang and then stoney got me interested then i um got tired of that wasn't really making good money but you know for the time he's giving me five bucks a horse you know teach me you know pull the shoes um shape the shoe you know and all that good stuff well he he did the technical work on the hooves and then um i said you know somebody told me about being a fireman about you know working 10 days a month you know and wrestling i said hell that's the job for me you know 10 days a month i can do that you're doing the 24-hour shifts you stay there at the firehouse yeah yeah so i got on the phone called up all the cities in the city arizona nobody was hiring so i called up santa fe new mexico they said yeah we're gonna run a test and so i went over there and tested and passed the test and then i went to uh my buddy jerry packetball he's got me into wrestling um when i was in high school come over here later please so i wouldn't stay at jerry's house in santa fe and i went through their i think it was like a six month or more um academy you know in the fire department yeah really six months yeah wow it was a
hell of an academy it really was and so from there you thought about fighting no i had already fought no but i mean in the ufc oh no um from there we were there a year year and a half couldn't afford to live there you know you know in santa fe you're either real rich or real poor you know this is 30 years ago so i don't know how it is now but um probably similar probably like the whole country now right yeah it's supposed to be nice though santa fe a lot of people good friends from there beautiful yeah you never been no never been oh you gotta go i don't even think i've been in new mexico except driving through once really yeah where'd you drive through it i was a kid i don't remember it yeah yeah you didn't obviously you haven't gotten through see uh john jones no no jackson winkle john i want to go down there and check out the gym though how come you haven't she's just a busy man don fry just a busy man so when you when you first heard about the ufc so you were a firefighter then or well back to the back to the half yeah you know like i said we were in santa fe for a year year and a half and then couldn't afford to live there and uh so i got on the phone and said well [ __ ] you know we still had horses and still paying farrier so oh [ __ ] i could do that so i found oklahoma horseshoeing school in oaky city and so i moved my wife back home to my parents house you know and i went to oklahoma horseshoeing school for their 12-week program oh wow and so i did that and then when i came back to uh arizona sierra vista um hooked up with a guy named um oh jesus um tyler basinger tyler is a magician as a farrier just a magician and he paid me five dollars a horse you know and fed me lunch and uh and you know so i was learning how to
shoe horses from him you know do an apprenticeship start my own business i got on as a firefighter reserve you know the place called fry fire department yeah fry no relation is the old man uh had a outpost store outside of fort with chuca you know 150 years ago and also a whorehouse this is like old-school western [ __ ] yeah wow and so then i then i had some time i worked at a um psych facility too you know site facility psychological oh psychological facility yeah what'd you do there like restraining patients yeah yeah what's harder horseshoeing or restraining patients we're sure i broke a kid's arm so you know just the headlocks you know they they did a breakout where you know 20 or 30 of them run off and then you got to hurt them back in and really boy a couple of them act out and one of the guys had the kid restrained for he had him from behind had his arms pinned kids started slamming his head into his face so i just walked up to the headlock and we landed snapped his arm oh no yeah that kind of kind of put a damper on things yeah was that the end of your restraining patient [Laughter] so how does it make its way to the ufc do you remember when you found out about the ufc yeah then i think that was still a year or two before so this is like 92 something like that yeah and then um i started doing judo you know because i needed you know i needed something to do you know right uh you know you're 22 24 years old you you know you used to be a college athlete yeah you know you still walk around with an erection right i understand and um so i started doing judo and advanced really quickly in that and um you know so then then we're i got on the bisbee
fire department in 94. arizona yeah yeah shout out to doug stanhope he's the king of bisbee yeah that's what i hear i met him one time yeah at the uh airport oh yeah yeah he says you're a firefighter it used to be this [ __ ] this was probably 15 18 years ago oh wow and um yeah we're the helen arena so you were talking about when you first heard about the ufc yeah in 92 i got on with the bisbee fire and then we were sitting there watching something on tv and saw dan clip a dan dan severn uh-huh and uh then he was doing some kind of bodyguard work for robin from um who's a radio guy in new york robin quivers howard stern right oh really no [ __ ] it was a great t-shirt yeah wow everybody says sushi dance is a great t-shirt and so uh they you know then we saw dan fight and i called him out and said [ __ ] you know i said dan don fry remember me yeah what are you doing donna's just playing fireman playing horseshoe you know can you say this ufc stuff can you get me in on it and he says yeah so he ended up getting me some fights probably about five or six fights you know around the country and uh you know check's still in the mail you know um was this pre-ufc yeah yeah oh so you fought mma before the ufc oh it was it was warehouse fighting yeah by the mma isn't it right right so right and hp is what they called it back then yeah no holds barred right so you wear shoes you do whatever you want it was a bare knuckle yeah yeah in your day and even in the ufc eight it was you're still allowed to fight bare knuckle yeah yeah but i wore gloves because i hit heart yeah you know yeah and smart gloves are made to protect your face right they may protect my hands
who's the first guy to wear gloves in the ufc was it tank yeah smart smart move he hits hart yeah um holy [ __ ] i remember your fight with tank what a [ __ ] fight that was my god you know and it didn't make uh top 10 of the one-round fights oh i don't have no idea why it doesn't well it's because there's so many great fights it's arbitrary who makes top 10 but i think it should have been in there that was a classic nobody knows nobody knows anything about ufc 100 and b of war you know i do you do you know and you were there i was there the new fans yeah they should go back because that's that's the history of the sport catch new episodes of the joe rogan experience for free only on spotify watch back catalog jre videos on spotify including clips easily seamlessly switch between video and audio experience on spotify you can listen to the jre in the background while using other apps and can download episodes to save on data cost all for free spotify is absolutely free you don't have to have a premium account to watch new jre episodes you just need to search for the jre on your spotify app go to spotify now to get this full episode of the joe rogan experience