Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFBR_E3HTEI
so this has been a wild ride for you huh yeah it's been a long road you know nobody could have imagined basically from uh looking back from my life that we're gonna get here you know today i have to talk with uh great people around the world you know such as you and uh being the biggest sport podcast ever you know and to be about to fight for the ufc heavyweight championship of the world too before they suck on time for the second time yeah yeah the redemption the redemption what was the first time like for you what was was the feeling of the first fight like for you oh um i had two different feelings uh from that fight first uh obviously i was very um upset and disappointed that i didn't win the fight and you know i as everyone who is fighting for the title you want to get out there as a victorious but uh to be honest i always look in that fight and since uh the fight day just after the fight i look at it and i'm like this is good like um i learned just too much in that fight because i even though i was in the level of fighting for the world title you know but i still have some some missing part in my game and in my experience i i remember i was asking my question in myself like okay how did it looks like to go into three rounds right basically i'm going to a potential five rounds that i never been in three rounds how did it look like how is it to prepare for this kind of fight and i had this fight like six weeks six weeks earlier so i was having a lot of questions then after that fight at night i'm like okay i get it yeah it's a very big learning experience right yeah yeah cause you were smashing everybody everybody you were knocking everybody out so you had these very quick fights yes very quick very quick rise and uh didn't spend enough time in the
octagon to like have those experience even though i was almost like you he was almost four years three years and a half since i've been four years that i'd been doing the sport but uh didn't spend enough time in the octagon to have that experience i think uh in one night i have a uh it i cover more than what i've been spending in the octagon from the rest of my career no no i'm sure it's um it's got to be uh a difficult thing to figure out how to pace yourself for a five round fight when you've only been knocking people out quickly before that yeah also you know some people uh get here while they're being profession when where they've been having a at least added lives for a long time maybe wrestling maybe doing some different sport at school or at college but uh i never get into that stuff you know growing up i was just like finding my way to survive then i end up finding myself in somewhere that uh i never been there you know the so the experience was just crazy how old were you when you had your first training your first uh martial arts training oh that was in uh summer october 2013. that was my first wow yeah so just eight years ago yeah and two years after that i was fighting my first fight in the ufc and i remember basically like at first when i went in the martial art it was just for fun to curiosity i'm like oh he's fun oh it's good i like those uh kick [ __ ] you know but i didn't like seeing myself being a um [Music] ufc fighter and people was like oh if you put yourself into this you can become a ufc fighter and a ufc champion you can have a ufc belt wrapped around your way so i'm like whatever you know you don't care about it until i have the ufc contract
like two years after that i'm like okay this might be the opportunity that i i have been looking for so it's time to capitalize and uh showcase my talent and show the world and shock the world how many fights did you have before you fought in the ufc six fights six fights and did you have them all in france a few fights in france just four in france i had four friends a fight in france and you know in france the ground and pound is not allowed when he goes that was back back then because mma was still illegal so when he goes on the ground he's just turned into grappling grappling game game really yeah so i had three a four fight in france one in switzerland and one in bahrain bahrain so when did they find out about you how did ufc find out about you um that was um that was my coach fernand by the time was working with a a manager named uh thiago a brazilian guy so they kind of like push um thiago has a connection with the i mean he was a manager so fernan was all the time sending him a text message and um videos that he would uh forward to the ufc until and i was still like yes but uh he hasn't fight nobody tough yet yeah he hasn't get tested uh a real test yet until i fought this guy in bahrain named uh william badulte and i knocked him out in the second round then i gained my ufc control right after that what was it like the first fight in ufc was it different whoa uh that was a crazy experience you know i didn't i didn't even know the rules back then i remember i was in uh orlando and i'm like man this is the time like i'm going to fight uh to be seen in the whole world um so this is my the time to take my opportunity to showcase uh my talent to prove that i can do something then i'm like okay so what is this up what it is about mma what how mma works what is the rules how
it goes and i couldn't get it like they didn't know the rules but because you you got used to no ground fighting punching on the ground because there's no ground and found in france yeah even though i was just doing it for two years and remember at first he was just for fun right so didn't really was there to become a professional fighter you know uh all i care about at the time was boxing then uh i found myself i found myself there in two years then i'm like okay what is the rules again uh how he works okay uh if he's trying to take me down i can't do this like trying to figure all those out it was very stressful and i'm like guess what at the end of the day it's just fine i mean uh i don't know if this guy is doing some kung fu [ __ ] but he's just fighting we're gonna figure it out you know it's just men between men you know right yeah we're gonna figure out i mean you know i'm a tough guy you know so i cannot handle it why did you transition to mma and not not go into boxing it's not like a transition and i didn't have a choice you know i was prac i was doing mma because when i get in when i went in france i was a i didn't have a paper so i was illegal so i couldn't work and i wanted so bad to do [Music] sport and i was doing boxing and mma but the mma was the one that was more open and giving me opportunity like having a ufc contract as an mma fighter was a big deal and didn't have much you know like boxing wall it's kind of like a a very complicated business you have to know somebody they have to like line you up it's very complicated but mma was just easy you know people out then i'm like who is that guy we want that guy it was pretty pretty easy and made me wise yeah boxing you have to be connected to the right promoter yeah yeah and that takes time yeah and
uh basically uh regarding my situation back then uh i had a lot of oats you know uh coming from nowhere nobody knows me with my accent and you know uh in french when you have accent it's not a good thing it's not what's it like over there it's frustrating because the the way that they look at you when you speak with your accent you know you don't feel comfortable you can like let let yourself express yourself you just feel bad about yourself you know just seeing people react some people reaction sometimes and you didn't have a resident card you was like a migrant so it was kind of together was a tough situation to deal with uh basically in the boxing business because they're gonna go see this promoter talk about you but who is that guy where it is come from oh you know it's hard to have created from someone 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 by 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