Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eEf9Kn-Nyg
[Music] Train by day Joe Rogan podcast by night all day but you have a responsibility of greatness there's there's very few people that ever get to the position that you not just were in when you won the title when you were the youngest ever UFC heavyweight or light heavyweight champion not just that the youngest ever UFC champion not not just that there's the there's also responsibility that comes with potential right it's not it's not just like what you've done and you know it's what you could have done right you you fought Alexander gipson be honest about that how much did you train for that fight I trained I trained for the fight but but I um I definitely I had this thing where I just felt invincible and uh I did a lot of wild stuff leading up to the fight I definitely didn't give it my all as far as partying and not sleeping right M partying drinking staying up all night yeah yeah I mean when you win a fight like that where you weren't 100% does that sort of almost reinforce this idea that you could do anything you want and then man imagine if I trained next time if it's someone big I'll train like yeah so I have this I'm going to share something with I'm not sure I've ever shared this with anyone else before but I had this crazy thing that I would do um where I would party one week before every fight and I did it throughout my whole career and uh and this was stupid but it was this mental crutch that I had I literally would one week before every fight I would go out and I would get blacked out wasted and my logic was if this guy were to beat me somehow um I I can look myself in the mirror and say that well I lost because I got hammered the week before the fight so so it was a built-in safety net it was a safety net yeah exactly so I did it my whole career I I would go and get hammered one week before every fight have you ever worked with a sports psychologist no but now but now I don't U my um my open St PR fight was the first fight that I did not do that it was my worst performance so I see I don't think it was your worst performance I think you were very unjustly criticized for that fight because I think oen St PR is
a very tough guy he's a very difficult fighter he's very strong he's got a brutal left kick he's athletic he moves well I believe it was a good performance but it was my worst performance see I think oven St p is a really tough guy and it was a tough fight and you hadn't fought in a long time you were off for how long how many months 16 months or something um yeah it was it was over a year yeah it was a long time over a year had a lot of stuff going yeah lot of pressure you're fighting a guy who' been pretty active and fought some good guys had a great victory over Shogun and looked real good in a lot of his fights and was an up andc Comer main thing about ovin that really bothered me was um he was he was the most um well he was season he actually has been fighting longer than I have a lot of people don't realize that but he was just so um green and raw still like uh skill-wise skill-wise like I I don't um I study everybody extensively and then I come up with their patterns um I figure out the way they Flinch I figure out their first favorite punch their second favorite punch their third their favorite combinations the their setups to their takedowns when they clinch what side of their head's going to be on literally everything I know everything about every opponent what side they're going to shoot whether it's going to be a head inside head outside what am I going to do about that you know I figure out everything why they shoot what what area of the kids they like to shoot everything um and uh with oven St PR he he he he doesn't know what he's going to do he's he's so um unorthodox unorthodox um you know and he gets these random Knockouts from these weird angles and he just Wings stuff and he almost closes his eyes and next thing you know he's knocked somebody out you know so the scary thing about him was uh he's so unpredict and so and I had a lot on the line um so I just said you know what this guy is uh he's in a shell pretty much the whole fight he was Defensive the whole fight and uh and I just thought I I coose through the fight um and not really risk anything uh which I felt like I let myself down because um normally I would just I mean normally when you get someone like that you just you know take them out you know you should I should
have just been able to take him out but I was content with winning and I think that was I think I think that was one of the first fights where I actually just wanted to get the win get my money go back to uh what I my actual goal which was DC um instead of um wanting to finish this guy like normal so I had to really question I really questioned myself on why um why I was like that why I was content with [Applause] [Music] [Applause] coasting