Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fGR_d9DNpU
[Laughter] [Music] all day leon what's up i'm good how are you dude uh first of all fun hanging with you last night it was a good time then the first time seeing you um live i was saying to my my management manager you're so effortless just like talking right but it's still funny it was like if you can approach fighting like that like make it um effortless then you're doing a good job well i think some guys can at certain stages right like there's moments in fights where don't you feel like you're in a zone sometimes and it's just everything's flowing saturday night saturday night yeah i felt good all backstage because um leading up to the fight everyone's at room rest ring russ so i was kind of waiting for some feeling to say where's russ right but i felt great backstage and preferred fighting would with no crowd did you really yeah can you get you get to do to the apex and it's like you get there you wrap your hands you warm up you fight he's not hanging around for five hours backstage and just it's like a gym right you get there you warmed and just go compete so i i preferred it for sure do you prefer it because of the there's no noise no distractions no nothing and you can hear your coaches clearly oh yeah yeah instructions clearly i'm i'm a very good listener to my coaches so i wouldn't say i prefer it but it was i it was good i enjoyed it you have been in a very interesting position over the last few years where you are one of the top ufc welter welterweights but just big because of bad fortune just things just haven't totally lined up correctly fights have fallen apart injuries and sicknesses and a bunch of [ __ ] went down and you're until saturday night you you had been kind of ignored by a lot of fans like a
lot of people don't understand what the level you're at they don't understand i think they saw it for the brief moment it happened that you fought saturday night but then unfortunately there's the injury you know bilal has the accidental eye poke and it's another you know another unfortunate situation but at least during that first round yeah the first round they got to see your skill level yeah for sure i'll just get warmed up as well i got over the last year and a half i've learned so much that what i want to show and to have that that incident happen it's like it's one in a million right you when you when you're preparing the camp you're like i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do that and then when that happened i was like i thought i thought okay take five minutes late let it play out a little bit and then hopefully we can fight again but he's just he's always that bad there's always it was a not quite it wasn't a pokemon no i want to poke it it was like a knuckle if you see the pitcher it's like yo you'll kick it right so yeah when you're kicking you don't hold you don't hold your fist and kick like this right you kind of use it to momentum to swing your arm back and i was doing it it kind of just like grazed his eyes well not crazy kind of indeed but it grazed his eyes a bit and then but was it like the front knuckles it looked like it from the pictures yeah i couldn't tell i didn't feel it i thought it was the the the kid that got him in his body and then he fell down at the start you know the one started grabbing his eyes i was like oh [ __ ] i got i got i caught him in his eye you know right i thought was just literally the kitten i caught him because i did this and then i think dana put a photo on his instagram jamie i think it was a knuckle you weren't you weren't doing
this for sure it's uh so unfortunate man but i mean for you what i was getting at was that it has to be so frustrating here you are another ad blocker here here you are you have this long layoff yeah and fights keep getting canceled and then you finally get a fight you're performing really well and then this happened it's like the bad luck right the last the last year or so just one after another after the woodley fight i meant to fight woodley you know in london in march and um had that cancelled the week before on the sunday before the fight and then from there just bad luck bad luck [Music] so yeah it's like that yeah it's like the bottom of your finger yeah so it's not like it's straight forward it's like it's just getting in there that's terrible and it wasn't the eyeball right it's like the under the eyelid yeah you know because i saw below on sunday in the casino in vegas and his eyes was fine just the it's the lid um that was a bird's butt yeah he said the the vision started returning the next day and now he said there's no permanent damage so he's gonna be okay he got his lid stitched up yeah i wish him well so i feel good yeah he's a great guy and uh it was a great opponent for you too because he's so relentless he's you know he's constantly moving forward he's a tough guy he's durable yeah he's very very very very calm with a head kick in the first round and i kind of rushed my work a little bit i kind of went wild and started swinging swinging for him but i should have picked my shots a little bit better but he's tough he's durable but he doesn't beat me in any given day you know i i believe it will fight ten times i'll beat him ten times and that's just it is he was a a late stepping for hamzap fell out and i think you should go back work his way back up and then hopefully we can meet somewhere
down the line but for now i'm looking towards the tower shot i'm looking towards being a world champion do you think that uh the title shot is warranted just because your previous work and just because of the great first round that you had but i mean do you feel like there's any unfinished business because of the way that fight ended yeah um i don't believe so i think from the first round i'm normally i'm a slow starter right so if that's my if that's my first round you're not making it to the to the fifth you know so um i think everyone saw word fight was going and it wouldn't have made it to number five so i understand your confidence i really do and this is not to demean that at all but you gotta you gotta give the guy an opportunity right like you know what i'm saying like if here's my point if the fight went the first round if the ipoke didn't happen the referee just stopped the fighter but like what are you doing well you know where this fight's going well you don't know where a fight's going because fights are crazy like weird [ __ ] happens people slip god gets them in a choke like weird stuff happens you know people get injured you know someone throws a calf kick all of a sudden your leg goes numb you get hit with a punch weird [ __ ] happens you fights are crazy it's crazy but um you know what i'm saying though i know i know you're saying but i would have i would have won that fight clearly joe normally normally i'm i'm a slow starter in the first round right i know like so i would have i felt great saturday night and even them uh if i felt good bill allen's not beating me completely appreciate your confidence but as a fan of you yeah and as a fan of bilal yeah um i don't think it would be a bad thing to run back not straight away i'm looking to that's my nine my ninth fight right in a row um eight i won an eight five win streak four below
um i would have won the fight that'd be nine fight um without without loss from getting um beat by usman five six years ago so i feel like i've done enough work now to prove that uh i belong at least in normal contender fight or title fight you know so i i can totally appreciate your position but i can also appreciate balance no i know where it's coming from i would say if i was him i'd probably do the same thing right he's ranked number 13 and yeah this big opportunity's first main event um number three guy in the world so i know where he's approaching it from but i am looking looking for my own career right i want to look towards the tower shop i understand hopefully we'll get it yeah you've had all these weird situations where things fell apart it's uh it's very unfortunate and uh did you feel like the hamza fight was strange too because like here's this guy who's only had a few fights in the ufc he's got a lot of hype behind him because he's had like the mirror sharp fight was a great result he looked fantastic but then all of a sudden he's fighting you yeah like he was weird right because we will two weeks before that dana white came out on his r and i was never gonna fight leonardo no one in top five but then next week he's like leo you want to find him i was like you just said i'm too high ranked for him but um where do you think that came from i don't know i don't know everyone was turning him down you know and um everyone's turning me down as well so just okay you want to fight him i was okay look what about kobe is that cold said no what about mastodon mustard also now what about wonderboy wonderboy is injured that's okay you got the most hype in a division now um that i could like piggyback off to get to world title shot right and this was a kid don't know what build them up is
this this kid that can't be beaten is tough and so i was like okay i'll go out there i'll i'll fight him when i beat him i'll fight for the world towel and that was my plan right to use um this hype they're building around him to get me to a world title shot come on oh i'm always looking towards the tower shot right so anyway i can get there easier um other than your hamster to get there isn't it weird how hype comes along sometimes like some guys just getting them they just get washed up and hype and they're just flying down the river like what's going on i've been in promotion for so long i like eight second knockout and everything i did i did exactly what he did but like he said right just random just comes from knowing well it's like sometimes it's justified like remember when uh joaquin buckley uh when he landed on um how do you say his dumb how did he had the [ __ ] he's got a the the gentleman he kicked with that wild cat how do you say his last name that was a good kick it's a crazy kick holding on one leg does a jump spinning back kick to the face i was practicing it in the gym [Laughter] that's how you say it right um that's that's hype that's deserved but you know every now and then i mean that makes sense like then people were paying attention to them you know but every now and then like a guy will get so much hype and then it becomes like a thing of its own like people start paying attention to it more than anything and it's in it's weird like personality and hype it's so important for selling fights yeah 100 so important it's been on that since back a day right since boxing's like we can put the bums in the seat yep that's everything it's everything right so it's not really about skill set a bit about skill set but it's more about you can put the most bombs in the scene it's about everything right like remember when prince naseem ahmed would
come out on a throne and they'd carry him out yeah there's certain things that have to sell are you do you ever think about that like man maybe i should talk more [ __ ] or maybe i should be more flamboyant like how do i get more hype or should i just keep winning yeah i should just keep winning keep doing your thing right because yeah if i come out tomorrow now start dressing like everyone's wearing like robes and [ __ ] now since i wearing a robe and painting my hair pink and but what the hell are you doing you know so um you look desperate right yeah exactly weird so i feel be yourself um keep winning that's important and they can't deny winners right if you work hard and you win they can't deny yourself i'll win it my way in i'll feel more i'll enjoy it better when i went in my way so what has it been like going through this this law where you you couldn't get a fight um a lot of ups and downs obviously he got um especially this does my fourth camp before fort below um kind of woodley camp so it was it was a lot ups and downs but i i use that time off to to grow it right i kind of changed my mentality like hey so sitting around and bitching and complaining about no no no would want to fight me use it as like a blessing um use it to improve your skill set use it to improve your mindset and that's that's what i did in the last year a year and a half you know i use it to approach the game different if you control if i can control what i can control which is all i have to do is turn up to training that's it right i can't control mastodon or kobe not fighting me but i can control training and that's that's what i did i control what i could control and turn up to the gym working hard dedicating myself staying disciplined because i know one day i'm gonna fight
right so instead of sitting around and complaining and not growing not learning maybe i'll use it i use it into my favor it's it's a blessing and i have grown leaps and blades since my last five and a foot rda and uh it was i feel good i feel good now when you say improve your mindset like what do you mean by that just the way i look at the game you know um as before i was kind of fighting to win not not to hurt them you know and i'm fighting now to hurt him i wanna i wanna i wanna be a world champion don't feel like winning is enough now you know because i'm on an a5 win streak that's the third most in the division history um is gsp one i think or no camaro's one i think gsp and i mean so now i'm just fine to to hurt them and to cement my my name in the division and that's my mindset now i'm not fighting to win no more i've won enough of i know i can beat them you know and the more win the more confidence i get and the more the more compete against these guys the more i know i can be a world champion you know i was coming from the uk they all taught everyone tells you that uh key from the uk you can't wrestle you can't do this you can't do that and i'm proving it fight by fight and i'm going to achieve being a world champion coming from the uk and it's going to be it's going to mean so much for the kids coming under me that's my motivation to to be a world champion so this was like a conscious decision do you remember making it you remember deciding like i'm gonna stop trying to just win fights i'm yeah i'm gonna decide to hurt people yeah yeah i thought we were like a day but i was my mind just over the last euros a year and a half my mind just changed in that you know you you got everything to be able to to to do this why why i don't know what it was it's kind of just fine just to it's like i don't know for you kind of fine just to like win right i think could the money as well like in ufc's like if you lose get half you pay
but now like saturday night it was like a flat fee right so we didn't lose a job i gotta get i get the same money so and still when i didn't perform the best of my abilities so you should probably change that as well but um yeah i think the mindset changed over time like just one one day it's like over the last year or so my mindfulness changes do you ever work with a mental coach or anything like that no no never no i don't believe it really i don't know don't believe in it because i i got teammates that do it you know and work with um coaches but my life experiences helped me um in in the position i mean what what specific life experience um just coming from where i came from you know um a lot ups and downs as i came from some ups and downs is like the norm to me right i i i i look forward to to to facing that adversity so when i do face it i know i can get through it and so that that's what it is really i look forward to adversities so i know i've been here before i've been doing this as a kid you know so um is i i i look forward to it when did you get started martial arts how old were you 17 17 yeah yeah like straight into into um mma i didn't start oh really yeah i didn't do nothing before was like hanging around on the street with your friends and into martial arts that's interesting because when you watch you kick you would swear that you had like a traditional martial arts background yeah i did i did everyone said that everyone said that i had my gym but i did nothing at all before it went straight from now i'm hanging around the street with my friends too one day a gym was getting built um in my area my mom said try it out i tried it out and just stuck to it wow and i fell in love with it and i fell in love with striking first um even though doing all of it but the striking just caught my attention and then um in the grappling come later it's so
interesting now that you're seeing like a whole crop of kids that are evolving that came straight into mma nothing else yeah i can't i can't imagine like another like 20 years because my son now is he's doing martial arts it's just kickboxing and on jiu-jitsu so i can't imagine like their generation what they're going to be like right because right every every fight every year there's like a new technique that's coming out and like that calf kick like that's like a new technique of last what couple years yeah four or five years yeah exactly so i'm looking forward to see how far mma goes and what what's the next thing that's gonna come did the calf kick did like did that uh surprise you like the popularity of it yeah quickly it became like an in so such an important technique because you land a few of them just three or four of them and then the guy's [ __ ] i first had it when um i went to aka and um luke rocco did it to me this is like five years ago um and he kicked my calf when i was sparring but i didn't feel it when i was sparring after the after the spa my legs was dead for like a week you know so i thought that's a good kick but i got like skinny shins i'm like scared to like break my legs so i know i i never try but uh it's a good good technique right when you see like the anderson silver break yeah yeah my i got some boring legs bro so i'm not a woman kick in the car if i'm like body kicks lit i kept the the fires in the body and the head but the car feels like a technique too as well right you got to get like the meaty part edition so it's a good technique to use it's just so strange when you see like the dustin poirier fight the first fight with connor and then the second fight with conor how different it was not kicking the thigh but instead kicking the calf like shut him down right shut him down yeah
she like but three kicks it landed you think i don't know i mean you'd have to go back and watch it it was i think it was a few but i think watching watching the countdown like kind of approach the game like just like just boxing right you can tell you like a boxing coaching and that's what he was doing so for that looks like there's a good technique to use to if you're gonna fight him you're looking at his what he's doing in his training camp you're gonna kick him right he's a boxer so um fair play to dustin yeah like he did an amazing job but you know connor has that southpaw stance heavy on the front leg puts a lot of weight down there especially when he throws his backhand you know and he turned it perfectly he throws it back and he kind of like slipped to the inside and landed a kick it was a good technique to use yeah um when you see techniques that that are sort of new to the sport it's uh do you start looking like what's going to be next like what what is it going to be an axe kick like what is what's the new thing that people are going to figure out how to do i know i'm not trying to think because the coffee came from nowhere right i'm trying to well winston henderson was the first guy yeah he was the first guy i remember him being effective with it to like stop people it wasn't as effective for some reason but he was using it i mean it was definitely doing damage but he wasn't like a lot of guys are stopping people [Music] um yeah i'm trying to think what technique could use right because elbows are already in yeah i don't know i don't know i remember when anderson yeah that was crazy against tony frickland right yeah that wasn't in his prime is like a favorite my favorite fighter man to this day is i think he's the goat you know from how easy made it look people forget because of the
the end of his career yeah if you just stop looking at the end of his career and go back and watch like the dan henderson fight dana white sent me the dan henderson fight the other day he goes watch this fight again he goes he [ __ ] throws dan henderson around who who throws dan henderson around like this the goat the goat man when he was in his prime i remember watching when i was i was like 18 years old and watching silva perform you know and stephen bonner he was like mm-hmm i was the japanese oh god that was forrest griffin yeah crazy yeah he's good he's good well he was just uh his timing and his precision was just so amazing like when he front kicked vitor in the face like god damn i'm trying to be trying to learn that kick now for inspiring for like years i just can't get the timing of it you always go like straight up and just like skip the lip or something but you get it get like under the chin right yeah to knock them out but it's a good technique to use i think to land it as well if you look them in the eye and then get get them staring at you then go bang then you land it right we're looking in the chest when you're sparring what that's the idea you look in the chest they're looking in the eye you freeze them a little bit then you go bang you know and that's how i caught bilal on saturday with a head kick i looked him in his eye he looked at me then i dipped then he followed me followed my eyes and then i kicked him in his head um i think anderson looked down i think he did one of those where he looked down then he kicked up i think that's what he did to veto i'm pretty sure did he yeah i think so see if he can find it the uh anderson silva ko vitor belfort did look in his eyes first though to like freeze him then look down and go up i don't remember but i do remember thinking that he looked at the body and then threw it to the face that was good yeah good which
is a sneaky thing to do right totally look down and kick nice good anderson was a master he really was man i remember the first time he fought chris lieben uh the odds were like he was favored but not by much and i remember telling my friends bet the house bet the house of the brazilian like this [ __ ] is on another level like they don't even know yet let's see it here here it is see he's looking down whack boom [ __ ] perfect front kick and before that i remember i had a conversation with someone i'm like yeah you really don't throw it to the face like most people didn't yeah to the body right yeah go to the body with it most people didn't think that that was a technique that you could use effectively to the face especially on a seasoned striker like vitor that was insane oh look dana white got caught he wasn't even watching right back that up again you can see dana white's playing with his phone look at that see him look at him look at him there he wasn't even watching how dare you dana missed one of the greatest kos in the history of the sport and then after that lyoto machida did it to randy couture he did it jumping front kick yeah he was good as well in his yeah you can't just like fell off right well you know i mean how when i fell off but how long can you compete at that level you know it's like for some guys they can sustain it for 10 years since some guys it's only like three or four and what age do you think prime is in mma would you say i think it depends on how you train i think it depends on the amount of damage your body's taking whether or not you've had serious injuries back injuries seem to [ __ ] people up more than anything because knee injuries are bad but yeah you can recover from them at least unless it's bad meniscus tears ligaments seem to be you could recover from them but it depends for
i think for most fighters it's in the 30s it's like 30 to 34 35 that seems to be the prime and if you're natural that's when the wheels fall off right around 37 38 it's it's yeah yeah that's when you go to one fc and you want to see for real right now bro yes g stuff you ready to go listen man we're just telling the truth we're just telling the truth now i think you're prime mma um yeah about 30 to 35. when they were doing trt though didn't you think it was kind of crazy like when when you saw vitor like when vitov vitor fought rock hold and when vitor fought bisping and he just had muscles coming out of his the brazilians at one point like owned mma right then once you saw the came in all fell off which is weird but well i'm not saying on juice but it's a weird thing clearly some it's somewhere on juice yeah yeah there's no way they weren't and vitor was on trt i mean it was it was an open thing you were allowed to have it and which is strange because like the thing that young people have is you it's like this weird balance right you're young you have this incredible body you move fast you heal quick but you don't have the knowledge and experience that an older fighter has but then if you take an older fighter yeah and then you fill them up with juice now you got some weird situations because now you got both you got a guy who's got experience and then you got a guy's body behaves like a young guy's body nah um i've never touched no g so i understand i don't know you're young yeah yeah when you hit like 40 you might you might be like dude someone says leon come on over to singapore we got some big fights for my body was good last week i felt good last week so i was jet last week so it's all good now how old do you know 29 yeah you're still yeah you're not even in your prime yet nice coming yeah exactly so i'm being all these guys you know so i think everyone above me like
35 34 if it wasn't for 33 44 mastodon 36 they're all like old no not old but all like older men you know so i'm not the youngest guy in in the top five so were you surprised that they decided to have uh usman and maz vidal too um surprise no because i know like it says about money right putting asses in the c and um i think if the fight 10 out of 10 times i think usm pro win nine probably um it's a good entertaining fight for the fans but martial artists is uh yeah one of them fights right it's like it wasn't just going to go out there and probably grapple him again probably um i want to see what what moz vidal can do with the camp you know because clearly he wasn't prepared physically you know i mean take a fight on six days notice there's no way you can really be prepared he was training he wasn't you had like wrestling coaches like i remember watching him um he was he was like getting good good good training and you know we weren't like sitting on on a couch for the last like six months then take six days and and four right but you know as well as i know there's a difference between just training yeah and then preparing for a fight right yeah yeah um what do you think he beats him no i'm not saying that but what i am saying is there were some very interesting moments in that fight where he was out striking him yeah but you know kamara was just so strong it's such a good result and finger dropped him um bro dropped him the other day so um it'd be a good fight i've been watching it for sure you know but um i think if i had to put money on it i'll probably go um wasn't it for the for the win again well once he you know i mean once a guy beats a guy he's always going to be the favorite to fight again but it's just
it's just uh it's an interesting fight i i just i'm very i'm i'm excited to see how moz vidal performs with a camp no it'd be good it'd be good i'd love to see as well but i can't see what he could do different you know he's gonna come out again be what he'd what he does he's in swing sing a thing for the fences and try to knock him out he wasn't gonna um high guard and just grapple him and i was going to see what he does different unless it catches him and knock him out i was currently um what he does differently when uh you and mozart all got at it at that post fight press conference london like did you expect that a fight was going to come after that that you would eventually um yeah for sure 4k next that's that's my next fight right straight away and to have it like now it's like two years two for two and a half years it's like we're still in fort yet i've been calling him out ever since and the ufc wants it uh but you just keep turning it down and said uh no you don't want to fight well that's the weird thing it's like you're at an elite level the top of the food chain in terms of your skill level yeah but you're not as known as you should be with the skill level that you have it's just i mean it's like it's it's like you're the best kept secret in the division it's weird yeah it's it's a weird thing but it'll change yeah it's gonna change 100 it's coming i can feel it it's changing you know slowly but i think number number one should fight number two right number two two number three is right number four and that's the way it should be right but it's like i'll have to actually like go to like number 13 to fight below that to go to fight hamza because all these guys are like devious right they were just demanding like kobe for example just demanding title shots like just got beat like one fight to go um you know knocked out one fight ago right no he
he beat tyron after that yeah so yeah yeah so tyrone then beat tyrone and yeah um in fourth sense right so far to his mind then he'd be it was just tyrant right there's one fight right i think so after that i think it's just a woodley fight yeah i'm sure it was pretty sure so i don't i don't think you deserve a tower shot he just got beat like convincingly you weren't like a it was it was a close fight to be fair but it did get stopped you know so i don't think she'd get a touchdown straight away um so that's a fight you would like because we fight yeah now yeah for sure 100 um obviously i went to the tower shop we're not defying um the only reason why i would say it'd be better for you to fight someone before the title shot is just to get the hype out yeah just yeah so that with the pay-per-view gets built up so that you you'll get more money yeah yeah bigger deal not for sure i won't be sitting around and waiting for the i'll be fighting you know so we're trying to we're trying to get it and uh kobe is a weird weird one so we don't know what's gonna happen but we're trying to get a fight done yeah well the one thing that does come with colby is a lot of attention and that's that's the good the good part of it it's a it's like and it's a good fight technically you know um i think i think the top all the guys are all similar right and skill set what they're going to do when they fight me right yeah you know they're going to come to wrestle if a fighter or someone is going to come to wrestle kobe's and they come to wrestle um bilal doesn't come to wrestle don't i know what they're gonna do you know it says it's easier to prepare for them you can um i was saying before you kind of like swap them out so when when hamzap fell out i was like okay put anyone in because they all can do the same thing anyway so swap another one in and that's that's what it was so normal they're all gonna try to yeah yeah i do yeah i didn't try grappler
that means nothing to me you know i've i feel good when the grappling i feel good or just striking and um i just can't wait to show my skill set and show what i'm about i haven't done what i could yet in the game but i want to show it and i'm going to show it when you put when you put together a camp like say if you get a kobe fight yeah and do you who designs your camp do you design everything yourself in terms of like when you do strength and conditioning when you run when you spar when you hit mitts um yeah i i'm a head coach like really nah i think i like one culture i said this is my head coach right i got like coaches for different different martial arts and they all come together and um well i put them all together and they communicate like that but i've got like one person that say okay you have to do this you have to do that yeah do that i prefer it that way as well because i feel with head coaches um from my experience it's like you do it my way or no way you know i mean you can't train 10 guys the same way right i think that's what coaches do like we've got one person they train them all the same way but i might be different i'm tall and southpaw he might be short and orthodox he can't train me the same way you train him you know so um that's that's what i do and i feel comfortable i feel i feel good doing it that way so you should i don't think nothing's wrong with it just for me i prefer um obviously i talk back and forth with my coaches and um we run game plans together you know i mean so if i don't agree with it okay let's say my coach my fragging coach coming to me like okay for this fight you need to throw a head kick i'll be like yeah but i don't want to freak it this fight because i don't think it's going to work for this guy you know and um if i watch him and see what he does so that's what i do right i watch the person i break him down and say okay everyone got habits right that they do
um some people like to pass to the left something people like pass to the right so if you can if it's good at passing to the left you can make him pass through his right if he's not good then you're gonna have more success and that's what i try to do basically all over the game so if he's good at jabbing um if you take away the jab just by moving um out of the way of it then he has to throw something else which is not natural to him and that's where i approach the game really just try to try to throw them off for what they're what they're good at but take away from them and let them use what they're about and so if you put together a camp so you basically just have all these people that you work with you work with the wrestling coach jiu jitsu's coach striking coach and then just you decide how the how the fight's going to play out based on how you're watching tapes you're watching yeah yeah i want to watch tapes no they sent information as well you know i'm not just like mastering it all myself they sent like okay this is what he does and then i'll look a bit okay what would you do to to to counteract that and if they tell me they tell me i'll be okay it feels good to me then i'll do it but if it doesn't it's not natural i think it has to be a natural movement right if you're kind of like forcing yourself to um like for example this fight with bilal the coach was okay you need to throw the uppercut the back uppercut okay it dips into it but inspiring us weren't [ __ ] sorry or not yeah that's hilarious um yeah for inspiring i was trying to try to do what he told me today but every time i was throwing up a cup the guy was catching me um over the top with it with a with a hook you know i was like just doesn't this didn't come natural to me so i just said i don't i don't use that technique for this fight because every time i'm trying to inspire and i'm getting caught with shots and
um in boxing that's what happens right a lot of times you guys throw lead uppercuts yeah yeah yeah when boxing they get off nice like canelo's for example he's yeah he's good with it you know like you just like touched you go bang and it's good it looks good but in boxing the guys are like they're more like top top right here right so you can work the body a bit more and um but i mean mma you guys are more like elusive and they got different guards you got lung guards tight guards everyone's different so um yeah i think boxing and striking is two different things do you work with boxers at all bucks yeah sparring yeah yeah yeah you know if they go to box syndrome it's like a war right like oh yeah yeah in the uk especially if you're an mma fighter if you go take a boxing gym you're like okay my coach is always always tempted like jameson but okay you spot this pro and then he's like it's always like just coming up bloody and just having it having like a tear up it's never like a place but it's always like a you're going to smile a boxer you're going to have a wall that doesn't seem like a lot of fun [Laughter] how do you approach sparring do you think that you should like you see like max holloway like his last fight didn't spar at all and looked [ __ ] amazing like one of his best performances against calvin keator um i got a teammate that does it as well tom breeze yeah he's the same way he's freeze doesn't spark no really yeah his last two three fights is he's saying he doesn't want to do it um that's interesting yeah yeah um so i think each each to the own right how does he do it does he do drills where he just like simulations of yeah yeah like situations like play play spa you know um just like rangefinders shots really he's not really getting like hit properly so um for me i prefer sparring i support twice a week um in camp do you play do you place bar
like do you do you touch light or do you blast like do you have like full full power sparring sessions one in camp so one one one spot a week would be big gloves which is you can hit hard you can go harder in big gloves and then um on the saturday there's a little glove which is the bumper gloves and that's more like play spa that normally ends up like a grappling match because it's small gloves it always it's hard to pull these shots right in small gloves so um yeah so it's like one hard on a wednesday then saturday is more like a technical working through your techniques yeah because it's so interesting how the thais do it because they fight so often that when they spar they're just kind of touching each other playing with each other and it's interesting if you talk to guys like you know john wayne parr guys who trained in thailand he said there's a lot of wisdom to that because when you spar hard you don't try things you know you don't you you're always worried about the consequences but you can you can hone your fine reflexes by just light sparring because they're you don't worry about the consequences as much and they're already tough they already know how to fight yes there's so many different philosophies when it comes to yeah it's all different right because russians russians do the same thing in wrestling they yeah um they rested for like five hours a day but they just like drove not like going hard hard hard you know did more just like just drilling technique and just your play play technique you do not resist you know and um so if you add up over the years they're probably way more hours in the gym than what you're doing if you're going hard hard hard every day so i see what i know i see where they're coming from but i think it's different i think you have to for me anyway you have to get that that that hit right when someone trying to like we're not trying to knock you out but they're coming at you um full pace and
you can get your reflex and you're getting your shots in i'd like to fill the shots before going into a fight because let's say i didn't spar for the whole camp i'll be paranoid but can i still take a punch you know so i want to feel that i can you know i think it was different how many years were you training before you had your first fight um i thought i met your fight like six months in oh and i won a beat like a blue belt he's like um it's like i told my gym dude like a tournament it was like a in-house tournament like a smoker yeah yeah yeah in that store and then some blue belt came and then i did it and i won the tournament after i trained for like six months and that's what kept me kept me in the gym you know and having like positive feedback from all the coaches and [ __ ] so um yeah about six months in had my first amateur fight so you just took to it like yeah striking and martial arts seems like something that normal normal because i was a good fighter anyway from like young on the street and in school and [ __ ] so but you just didn't have any coaching at all you just knew how to fight on the street yeah oh yeah street street fight is a street fight right yes um um have you also um i know coaching until 17 didn't start learning um what it was and that's it and did you stop street fighting when that happened um i just started know but later on yeah because i had a street fight now for a while but um at the start you're kind of just like testing out your skill set or just to see yeah see how it works you know good people on the street really especially in the uk they can't they're not very good fighters you know and they kind of swing wild and getting up in the tussle and that's it well you can pick your shots good and see openings it's a different ball game yeah that's a a terrifying thing if you
don't know how to fight and you're talking [ __ ] and then you see a guy moving you're like oh christ you know of like two guys fighting and one guy's talking all kinds of [ __ ] that he realizes like halfway and oh my god this guy actually trains he knows how to fight yeah he i think it's gonna be a bad night right i've been out before you know like bounces like a doorman and like we're wearing like gum shields and but i've seen these guys in the gym right and they can't they're not really they look tough but i can't fight you know and i've brought them to the gym before and like okay you just spotted this kid that's like 17. he's like a little skinny kid and the skinny kid beats them up you know and and like humbles them and it's just it's a mad thing when you can fight it gives you i think gives you confidence as well to to not fight when you when you do go out oh for sure you know and yeah last week i put my son my son in it how old was your son now he's eight eight yeah yeah yeah that's a good age to start exactly so um i think it gives you the confidence to you know you know what you're about i don't need to go out and be tough and and improve it and i think that's what martial arts did did for me he kind of calmed me down as when i was younger and i was fighting it's more just about proving yourself right so yeah yeah that [ __ ] talking and things like coffee yeah sure brother yeah thank you i'm sorry if you want another one of those monsters we got those two in the back perfect um cheers good man i need some of this coffee after last night it was a good night it was a lot of fun hanging out afterwards too chappelle and those fellas they go hard like that every night do that i was done after like two o'clock cause i got i gotta go dave's got a philosophy behind it though it's actually well thought out like he's like the the hang is important he's like it's
not just about doing shows it's like the hand actually makes you funnier and we talk about comedy during the hang you know it's always talking about jokes and talking about that's what i said to my coaches um this week because i was sitting down i was like okay this is this is like the this is what we're going to remember right the hanging around in in in the hotel we don't really remember the fight so when you're old you just when you remember your window you lost right but what you remember is that the the banter that you had with the coaches and that that's that's what stands for coaches last week that we treasured these moments you know this is what we'll work for and just enjoy it camaraderie yeah man yeah that that's that's all about that's what you're going to remember when you owe it what's up there's a similarity in the way fighters and comedians hang out with is that not too many people understand you guys like you yeah you know like fighters and your your coaches and your training partners and the people you work with they know you yeah regular people would never understand the amount of sacrifice and commitment and what it's like to go through hard sparring sessions what it's like to go to hard strength and conditioning like that you're always pushing yourself constantly pushing yourself and they get it like so it's it's hard to relate i'm sure to other people yeah for sure but to be fair all my friends they they train as well you know so to all your friends train yeah um most of them train since i since i got got in it they're all kind of like when it went in as well they don't compete they don't like businesses and do um other [ __ ] but um they're trying martial arts but either boxing or strength conditioning to do something so they can't understand it and they tell me [ __ ] out of
i don't know about him oh really yeah about fights it's in this fight i was like nah i don't i don't watch it because in the uk it's like three in the morning but they stay up and watch it you know whether i'm not staying watching fights it's like if you get you know there's so many different disciplines that you could follow if you start paying attention to muay thai or paying attention to boxing or or jiu jitsu it's like you will not there's not enough time there's so many matches you could watch yeah it's too much i enjoy boxing i love watching boxing um mm i watch mma as well but if i had to choose i like watching boxing really yeah do you think you'll ever box do you think um like when you saw connor fight floyd yeah like if an opportunity something like that yeah 100 i'll do that for sure but i enjoy i enjoy sparring boxes as well you know um i enjoy switching stance as well and so i'll probably box one day i'd love to try out you know because i got good hands so we'll see but it's not like nah nah nah not now my goal now to be a watch ufc world champion right after that i'll probably look down that um that rubber butt let me mention i wanted to achieve this gold and i'll move on so you were saying that you uh you don't have a head coach so you just have head coaches in all these different disciplines but so do you do you have a strength in conditioning coach that you use yeah um john johnny um um reynolds he's i've been working with him now for about eight years and not yet about eight years six six to eight years before i was working working with his brother his brother was anthony joshua um that's his head um head um strength conditioning coach then went from his brother to johnny now he's my conditioning coach and works together now for for a while and how many days a week do you do that stream conditioning um [Music] two free times a week yeah so it's tuesday
thursday and then on saturday we either do hills or we do tracks or something but yeah and do you schedule it so that you do that and then do you do it after you spar do you do before like how do you do you do it on days where you don't spar like how do you yeah i don't know i don't know days i don't spell save uh i probably tuesday morning if i spot wednesday i do tuesday morning then i have like a light a light um tuesday night then i spa heavy um wednesday didn't like uh pads wednesday night so i kind of like do it it's like hard medium hard if you feel tired i'm not good at it i'm good at listening to my body right so i feel tired i know i'm tired i have a day off and and i think that's what it is our coaches sometimes like one head coach right now you have to you have to come training be tough do this do that you know but i believe you should listen to your body if you feel tired that day have a day off i think it's more mental right like i need to train i need to do this but you don't if you're you're tired you'll be way more better if you had like one or two days off and then come back and try and fight so um i think it's more mental than anything so this is like trial and error you figured it out yeah i figured it out over the years yeah yeah i figured over the years and like i said i think it's mental for example look at it's just a diet look at flight mayweather right i'm watching um countdown to other days like having like mcdonald's and [ __ ] yeah yeah it's a lot of victims you know it was like well it's really good yeah i think so but it's part of that is like to show people no no i don't give a [ __ ] you're eating a cheeseburger some people would do that and like [ __ ] them up mentally oh [ __ ] at a burger i'm going to lose the fight or that you lose the fight bro just chill do you think yeah yeah do you use anything to monitor your recovery like do you use a whoop strap or anything like that would you like to
check your now the the pr game with that ring the um oh and orange yeah yeah i tried it this is hard to keep remember to put it on and take it off and we're basically doing like unboxing or jiu jitsu to leave it on it's like no you can't do that what happens to fingers no you know that's why they develop those silicone rings when fingers get sheathed have you ever seen that no no no it is horrific wedding rings what happens is they dig into your uh the meat of your finger and it pulls the finger meat and the muscle completely off because the metal from the ring like if you're in a bad situation i know what guys have happened and it came out the skin came off oh yeah terrible i know guys have had it happen in rolling where like say the ring will get pinned like this and it'll just pull back the meat google yeah you should show it people should see it because i know i know guys who roll with wedding rings on and uh i've seen him do it and i'm like hey man take that [ __ ] thing off oh my wife she doesn't i'm like listen to me [ __ ] you're gonna hate that [ __ ] you're gonna lose your finger like you you will lose your finger like it's possible to lose use of your finger show you what i'm looking at i don't look at it for a long time okay just bust it out there wedding ring did you google wedding ring sheathing yeah finger shooting injuries yeah from wedding rings um there's some horrible ones man i don't see any of these are these wedding ring ones did you put go pull up a wedding ring no i mean wedding ring finger sheath there you go that's what i'm talking about look at that click on that one that's what happens like literally it pulled the guy's [ __ ] finger off the wedding ring digs into your hand it dings digs into the the meat of the hand and it just tears it right off you got to be real careful with those things that's why they invented like
michael chandler has a company um jesus uh the best ones what do your rings yeah groove life that's right thing they make great belts too but they make uh they make a silicone like wedding ring that just it cannot yeah it it won't [ __ ] your finger up well just take the ring off when you're trying to put it back on yeah you should yeah [Laughter] it happened to jimmy fallon a couple years ago and cooking something like slipped and fell and went to grab you know i don't know like the island oh really there's many people doing random things like that that's why groove life i think invented those i think it was a a i believe the story was it was an alaskan uh hunting guide that figured it out and he he's the guy that invented that uh that specific type of ring um can you tell jeff to bring the monster in for the gentleman sure and tell him to uh get me one of them oh just bring some of those kill cliffs okay thanks yeah it's coffee the drama my fault yeah last night yeah i'm telling you those guys do that every night i don't know how they do it and then they got the rona and didn't even get sick yeah it's crazy both of them donnell rollins and dave chappelle both got the rona and had nothing just overlapping days they were just they just quarantined their hotel room and i said no symptoms no symptoms no [ __ ] now i've done i had in december in the last like six kgs i don't know what's that in pounds um i lost my smile my taste i like two weeks off because that's what you meant to do and went back to training and um my body just felt weak you know i was i had to pull out the fight so that's was that a situation where you were training hard and so your immune system was kind of broken down and then you caught it yeah yeah i believe so because that's like um yeah i think i think that's what it was i was working so hard in camp then your body just just just shut shut down right and then
you know when you had two weeks thank thank you yeah we had like two weeks off and try to go back at the same intensity that you was two weeks ago you just can't do it right yeah yeah i'm sorry i had to pull out that humza picture of his sink where he coughed up blood in the sink is [ __ ] crazy but apparently he has um he's had lung issues before he's had um some sort of uh lung issue in the past you know um what is that called when not pneumonia but something that a lot of people get that uh god damn it i'm trying to remember that it's a very common disease that people get with uh with coughing and maybe that's it i think it is i think that is it i think it's bronchitis i think hanzo has uh bronchitis too so that on top of yeah getting corona [ __ ] him up pretty soon he's recovering good yeah he said he was going to retire i sent it but then he's like no son i know dana said no boy it's hard look dana doesn't want anybody to retire which is kind of crazy like he's he's still letting uh khabib hold on to the belt yeah i know but you know habib has he's got his own life man you can't tell him you know i think he's gonna come back though do you think so yeah i think so why i don't know just i think he's always training he's always around the fight so if he wants to have some time off i think he's gonna come back i think they should set up khabib versus gsp yeah does gsp wants another fight that'd be good and i think he can make 55. i think he can make it yeah he said he said he can make it yeah this should therefore do it for you know will be perfect right if that was me i wouldn't want to go out 29 i'll have to get that free man just again yeah it would be annoying well i just i think you know he made a promise to his mother and after his father died
i just don't think he's gonna come i could be wrong but i think i think how long do you feel should leave it forward to the strip not much longer how long has it been now when did the fight last well he fought justin it was during the the covid right because they fought in abu dhabi with no audience yeah i think that was six months ago maybe something like that yeah probably him a little bit longer probably because he's been so dominant i think you should give him to just a little bit longer to see what he's going to do yeah i mean unless he says i'm done you know now well look at what they did with jon jones you know they just basically stripped john jones he said i'm gonna go up to heavyweight and they said okay and that's it he abandoned the belt and then they stripped him right away i mean he easily could have held onto that belt while trying to try a fight or two at heavyweight who's gonna fight for the lightweight like about if the d strip the light heavyweight down or the lightweight belt that's interesting right i don't know i don't know i think oliveira should be fighting for the title but i think dustin poirier should be fighting for the title two and they're gonna have dustin versus conor again that's the plan yeah that doesn't make sense for the title not why oliveira is around i think oliveira is supposed to be yeah he's a beast man that kid is so impressive and he's a guy that has had you know these ups and downs in his career where he's lost and he's come back and he's lost and he's come back and and you see where he's at now he's skill set-wise he's he's up there it's on another level than he's ever been before the tony fight with ferguson i was super impressed yeah he's good um i think skill set wise i think he's for me
i think he's out number one probably for skill set you think so yeah uh him very clean right yeah him chandler um dustin connor uh well you know there's a lot of people in that division it's a great division it's i mean it's packed but it's like nobody can give china to the show i mean he had that super impressive knockout of hooker yeah puts him in the top ten and makes a big deal but maybe one more yeah you know at least because how many people have been in the division for so long racking up wins they'll be furious you know now for real um yeah i think oliveira and dustin should fight for about you know and then after that let chandler fight i don't know i think oliveira and dustin but you know it doesn't matter what i think because they're going to have connor versus dustin again because that's where the money is that right that's going to be crazy they're going to do that in front of a live audience that's going to be nice that one who knows i mean kind of was catching me some good shots you know just like shut him down but um yeah it's gonna be hard you know it's gonna be hard to figure out because conor did hurt him he did rock him dustin admitted he said in the first round he said he rang his bell yeah but ultimately dustin won so you got to think he can win again and i don't know conor never switches stances either it's very rare he doesn't doesn't box doesn't like his power hand is for sure his left hand yeah he's going to spin yeah yeah yeah so if you entertain him fight if i put money on it i'll probably go i think connor can do it again if if he just fixed up his his stance a little bit earlier in his career he was a bit more elusive right now just like heavy heavy on his legs so i think connor can do it if the fight again i'm sure he'll make an adjustment yeah it's just crazy seeing a guy pull up in a yacht you know to a big fighter he's doing shadow
boxing on a yacht and meditating on the yacht it's like wow like if he did win that way that's like the most baller [ __ ] ever yeah no i couldn't do that in fact he kind of had to be like zoned in right i couldn't be being on yachts and i'd like to be like isolation immoral my coaches chilling talking i couldn't do it i think it's too much to do a lot right you got to focus on your job at hand is to perform so um yeah if it did do it though it would be cool did you go through a bunch of different processes to get to where you're at now where you know exactly what to do like the week of the fight you know you know what's best for your mind you know what's best would you try to distract yourself what are you trying to do i tried five weeks i tried uh treat it like another week right i think if you build up to be something that is not that's normal happens right because you sit in your room kind of like overthinking the fight what's gonna happen and it never does and the more i compete the more fight i think you just think crazy [ __ ] in your head what's gonna happen in a fight and it never plays out that way so i learned to be like you know what just treat like another week you know i mean if eat what you normally eat obviously you gotta cut weight but on fight day i eat what what we eat on aspiring day i was eating like normal chicken rice fish eat like i don't really eat heavy on an um sparring day and um i like to go for walks i go for like a long walk fight day my team just like fight day yeah yeah yeah i like that's a lot of [ __ ] long walk just like bantering my team and just make it feel like a normal day i don't want to build up to be something it's not and i do this every single day you know and um if you do that way i think you have a
better success in than like just sitting in your room figuring out it's going to be it's like playing a shoot in your head right um when when you say go for a walk like do you find that that like relieves uh nervous energy like why do you like the um i don't know i always enjoyed on fighting going for like a long walk i don't know what it is um i don't know i don't know i can't put like a finger on it to say this is why i do it you know i just i was like to go for a long walk stretch my legs out um i have a little banter of the team just chill to shoot like another day like like i'm back at home in my gym and i'm on the way to the gym um that's it and it's not really i can't i can't think why i'll do it but that's what i like to do you just always like yes i would like to do it do you meditate at all no nothing nah nothing um nah nothing else i don't know my mental strength i don't know i don't know where i got it from but i'm like mentally i'm like quite solid right but i think just from like my upbringing and my trials and tribulations i've been through in life and it's kind of made me who i am right i know that i can get over struggle i know i've been there before i've done it before i can get over it and i think the more you struggle you you get more armory more solid right and i think that's that's what it is just build me up to be a while yeah yeah it's uh there's an interesting mindset that comes from people that have been through really tough things in their life you know like uh i spoke with uh francis ingano and he was talking about his journey [ __ ] crazy [ __ ] crazy like you think about that guy 14 months to get out of cameroon and to get all the way to spain only to spend two months in prison and just sort of swallow his money and [ __ ] that was at work all of it was crazy the whole story is crazy like that guy's been through so much that to fight for him is probably a religion yeah it is what it is
yeah yeah i'm the same like i've been through so much that fight like a fist fight just like it's a fist fight right now you're not gonna die what's the worst [ __ ] that you've been through um worse i don't know i don't know like one worst thing you know just like the duration of life you know i don't think it's that one thing like this is the worst thing i've been through but i've been through um a lot you know like what kind of church um i don't know i don't know it's hard to put a finger on it like i don't know just like struggles in life yeah yeah just i was born in jamaica obviously um came to uk when i was 10 11. um my dad was in was basically the gang leader basically oh really yeah in jamaica so basically in jamaica it's like um streets right we call it lanes was like streets it was like um [Music] we're one street fight with like the neville street down like free streets down the road um in my area my dad was like the leader of the gang right so he came to the uk um before us he was like he's like sell jokes and wait whatever he did to bring back money back into the community to buy guns and do what they do what he does you know and um i came from that then from there he he brought me my brother um and my mom to the uk um to obviously for safety obviously and then boston birmingham and then he passed away when i was 13 13 years old so i was in i was in the uk for about two to three years then he died when i was 13 and then how did he pass away um i got shot got killed in um in london um when i got a phone call i was like 13 years old i remember like being being in bed right now my mom got a phone call at two in the morning and so i heard that phone rang and she's like the uh i heard her crying right i was like oh [ __ ] so like she will she
walked me upside down um just got killed in um in london but it's like a weird feeling right because i've seen since since i knew my dad he's always been the same person right he's always been in in that life you know so um i wouldn't say i said i expected it well it was like a shock right because i knew what you did i know that's like that's the life right yeah you know and um so it was mad it was right what is it like growing up when your father is running a gang it's got to be [ __ ] crazy like just knowing as a kid he's like do you feel normal because yeah yeah he's just normal right everyone he's [ __ ] up because i liked it when i was a kid right because i'd all like the latest [ __ ] because he he was like sending [ __ ] from the uk and like having like a bi i'm not i'm like a bicycle when he's in jamaica and like a remote controlled car as a kid that's a big deal you know and i had all had all that and um obviously everyone around the area know where it was and so as a kid it's like my dad is this guy you know he was a special person yeah exactly you know so um look looking back at it now and knowing exactly what he did and what what i got into it's um it's wild right but i understand the sacrifices that he made for his family in these different opportunities i know looking looking at it from like now when i'm in the uk's in the uk if you're broke you can go to the council and give you money you know in jamaica if you're broke you're broke there's no help no one's going to help you and give you nothing so if he decided to to to risk his life and provide for his family then you do you have to do you know and i i would love him for that i respect him for that and and that's it yeah it's very difficult for anybody else to yeah to judge if you're not living in that in that situation yeah exactly it's hard
to to explain to my friends and like you start to like tell them right because like you just don't get it you you you live in the uk you got basically a full-back plan if if we go dead broke in the uk i can go to to to the council and you can call it's called signing on and they'll give you like basically a month like a week or double that's it just give it like a weekly wage right in jamaica there's no sign none you know so you have to you're going to hustle or you're going to do something there's no opportunity for jobs or especially come from from from the ghetto there's no opportunities to get like um go and get like a nine to five and because the area alone marks against your name you know so he did what he needed to do he provided for the family he did a good thing by bringing me to the uk and bringing my brother and my mom to the uk and now i'm able to provide for my family and give back to my family you know so did you ever worry that you were going to go down that path yeah i was going down that path um [Music] when i was a kid so when it passed away i think that's when i got more like rebellious um towards life right and i was gone on a path for liking gangs and doing um [ __ ] like that you know so um to age six about 16 17 my mom brought them to the gym and mma is what took me out their life you know because i was spending so much time in the gym um that weren't hanging around in the street no more my friends you know and i think emma made 100 save me from that life do you think that also the training itself like relieves you of some of the stress and keeps you from being aggressive and keeps you from like having to prove yourself with other guys um yeah for sure i think what what kept me in the gym is that the positive reinforcement right to have someone say
to you every day oh you're good bro you you can do it you can do that you i think that as a kid um it helps you man it motivates you to to want to do you want to be there right you want to be in an environment when everyone's telling you good stuff and they're saying no i mean you can do it if you work hard you can do it you can achieve you can be with you as you world champion when i was on i won't train for like a year you know what i mean and this is this is what my coaches was telling me and people telling me in the gym so um does that kept me in the gym for sure when you talked about how you want to achieve success so that other kids can see what can be done that's that's important to you yeah 100 that's like my um one of my main motivations you know if you can touch it is is different right you can see on the tv but if you know someone in your area that grew up like you um in that situation as you um and and he achieved it then you should feel like you can do it as well and i know i know michael bisman was the first um champion from the uk but he did it living in in the states right he did it from america so for me from being in the uk it was hard to be like okay i can be a user a champion azaka you did it you did it from another place he didn't do it from where i'm doing it from you know so i was respecting for doing it but i want to i want to achieve it coming from the uk so the kids behind me can be a look leon did it he came from from the mod you know and yeah and he achieved it by sticking with his team working hard and um dedicating himself and that's my main motivation to to give back to the kids because i know what it feels like to to struggle in what to go for hardship do you do any traveling i mean you said you went to aka and trained there for a bit do you do travel around to different gyms at all in bed in the uk you know you said you trained uh aka yeah yeah yeah yeah
yeah i've been okay twice i think like six seven years was that to work on your wrestling yeah just yeah i do do i work my wrestling my first time went there for i think for the camarilla camp um [Music] wrestled um but yeah that's the only time i traveled and then from that that's that's what i'm saying if you listen to other people um it [ __ ] you up right because when i was coming like young in the uk all these guys were telling me even my coaches and now my coaches when i'm training partners uh you have to go to if you want to be successful you have to go to america to to improve you know so i started believing it and that's the reason why i went to aka you know when after the commercials and fight fought um and i lost i came back to my tomorrow to um to the uk i was like you know what i can i was winning up until that point you know i was i won all my fights um in my early career and just by being being my team and believing my team wants to start like looking elsewhere and i need to move i need to move if not bro don't fix it right i'm winning with these with these guys what i need to move um so i started believing in my team believing in myself um obviously the older get the more i learned the game and i studied the game and um that's it really it's also a situation too i mean you [ __ ] kamaru usman yeah he's a beast i mean the the man is the champion for a reason and his wrestling is phenomenal he's good he's tough and he's durable he's he's a good fighter good boy champion was it a unique experience to face someone that's that good as a wrestler um a little bit a little bit but at the time was i i didn't look at the game the same way look at the game now right i approached it from a defensive point of view so i went in there thinking don't
told him take me down don't take me down you know i wonder what a defensive mindset to to towards the contest you know and um that's that's a total wrong way to approach to get approach a fight like that and that's how i played out yeah that makes sense so that's the good thing about this quarantine about this uh pandemic that it's allowed you to think things through and yeah things um yeah think it through um tied up with some areas that i need to tighten up on and it gives me time to grow just physically and mentally you know because when you when in training camp you're not really learning much really you just prepare for this um certain opponent what shots you're going to use for this opponent you know and i mean not really fight three times a year that's like there's a lot of camps you know you're not growing much in between because i rest like a month back in camp again you know so so what is like the difference between like a training when when you're in camp versus when you're trying to learn and grow like what kind of [ __ ] are you working on everything so when you're trying to when you're in camp you you're doing specifics to this opponent so okay unless this guy's a a wrestler i won't throw like like leg kicks earlier in the fight because you're gonna take me down um so you're mimicking the game for this guy but when you not got a fight coming up um like i have in the last year and a half i had time to just free grow my my skill set and if you want to learn i'll learn it no because i'm prepared for nobody and preparing myself and and and and grow myself you know so that's what i've been doing i'm working my wrestling major my striking everything just been trying new techniques up you know trying out different stuff and that's what it is pushing my elbows you know i've been working my elbows and
um just adding new tools to my arsenal are you gonna go to uh the fights next weekend are you still in the country for next week no they've leave because i know you're going to vegas yeah yeah i'll go vegas and um [Music] today and then i'll leave on monday i'm back to uk on monday damn it's too bad that was a good one to see live have you seen any of them live or you just only fought live where there uh no crowd have you seen a a a fight card at the apex center no no no no no no no no i've seen um like crowd event live i've been to apex and watch it live they're so different so different to watch it live i'm i'm imagining it must be pretty insane to fight like that where there's no crowd but yeah to watch it like that too i i think i prefer it i really don't i said my coaches i was like i should prefer that it was like quick you know like in and out you weren't like no no i get it for you yeah yeah yeah right now [ __ ] around you know just like you get to the apex okay leon you got yeah wrap your hands okay okay you got like three more fights you're on i was like what the [ __ ] so it was just quick you know no time to think around like make energy get you just like you get you get there rap warm up walk fight i liked it it's good it's interesting um next weekend because stipe versus francis is in that small cage i don't know how to do that this is crazy for those two giants i don't know i don't know who benefits bro friends that's right because if yeah if it's coming out explosive like you did you need a combination strike yeah yeah yeah if it does that then it's two steps in the back of the cage so that's the problem yeah it'd be good francis is such a unique guy because like all he has to do is touch you you're going to be there next week oh watch it yeah yeah yeah for sure i'm going to be there i
i don't want to miss that yeah he's a powerhouse friend assistant i met him in vegas his hands i've shaked his hand he's like it's like a giant brick solid bro yeah he's he's a unique guy because he really just has to touch you yeah anybody he touches they're like it's different as all right when you believe in your powers are he believes in his power right he believes in his power and also he's lost you know he's felt the sting of defeat twice in a row because then they lost to derrick lewis right afterwards oh yeah yeah so and he was very tentative in that fight and then he comes back and he's he knocked out curtis blades knocked out junior dos santos i mean he's a he's a monster now he's yeah he's coming to his own yeah i think he's believing in himself as alan uh especially his cardio you know he's he's known i can go five rounds you know i mean so he's i like watching him he's also got a real camp now you know now he's with extreme couture and yeah yeah and where was he before i think he he was talking about it on the podcast i believe he said he trained for it in france i think he was a lot of the training for stipe was in france but i think uh it was just he just didn't have the the best situation in terms of like training partners and and how to get set up that's good um i've had to um yeah i think it's probably get steeper at this time this is a smaller cage you know it's tough though man it's so hard to bet against the guy the guy always figures out a way to win i mean stipe like a lot of people bet against him in dc with this the last fight you know that adjustment to the body shot was good oh my god to adjust mid fight that was incredible yes that's well that fight and he knocked him out in that fight and then he beat him again in the rematch so you know two victories like that over dc it's pretty [ __ ] huge but he's the most successful heavyweight ever
yeah sure it's hard to say who the goat is for me kane kane claudia okay kane was a monster yeah i watched that fight um kane versus fedor would have been the [ __ ] oh yeah i'd never ugh you know in the prize as well in the primes kane vs fedor would have been [ __ ] amazing yeah i called you accountable yes when junior santos when he just from around i think his um fight number two just set the pace so that uh his face is all like transformed he puts a piece on you that's inhuman yeah i was watching it thinking i don't know how how he keeps that pace for five rounds you know but he did it i don't know how he does it either i don't he had like weird genetics yeah that's the only thing that could explain it because i talked to dc he goes dude he would take three weeks off and then come to the gym and out cardio everybody and he goes it didn't make any sense caught you okay he said he like no one that's a one in a like a hundred million people that's a heavyweight that has that kind of cardio because most heavyweights they just they have big power but they can't put a pace on you like that yeah he sets the pace and keeps it that's that's what's good about it you know you don't really fade really no um he keeps the pace and he's and he's wrestling and striking he's doing everything you know he's not like lying on you and trying to like austin he's like he's constantly beating the [ __ ] out of you he was in wrestling yeah he's he was a guy that was almost like too tough for his own good too like his body kind of gave out his knees started going his back went and he's got all kinds of surgery shoulder surgery knee surgery back surgery yeah i said oscar mentality right just trying for everything you know you're injured yeah [ __ ] it you've worked for it but that's the problem right it's like you're almost too tough for your own good yeah but if it wasn't like that he probably
wouldn't wouldn't wouldn't be as good as he is maybe so it's like where do you go you know it's hard to say do you find that it's hard to achieve balance like that like when you when you're training you got to know when to pull back but then if you're a really tough person like you're like [ __ ] it keep going and that's when people get injured do you do you have a problem with that balance or how do you find that balance um a little bit i kind of know how to my body or my body feels you know um especially i i know in the morning and i wake up i feel like my ah i'm gonna have a light day today you know so i can tell how my body feels and um to what i'm gonna do that day so if unless i got like two sessions scheduled in i'd probably miss my morning one and then go to my evening one or four feel [ __ ] i don't take the whole day off so i know i have to listen to my body and white knees and how to when to your body you're not looking at a heart rate monitor no that's interesting none of it um do you get massages yeah yeah i get massages um every week in camp i don't know i use chirotherapy cryotherapy yeah that's it um the cold chamber once a week as well so i use both i do i do both of them um this campus isn't chiropractive um kind of like a bad like injury on my back now so um are you using saunas at all oh no no no i hate so because i've gotten weight yeah i hate it i did i did it once in a fort in brazil uh like never again is now i hate it now how much weight do you cut when you uh make 170 um so normally i'm like about 90 kg i don't know what what's that in pounds i'm like a kg guys 90 kilograms is what is 182 that's like 190 something yeah 190 191 i think let me see yeah i'm are you okay why the [ __ ] didn't the united states pick up
kilograms it says 198. okay why didn't the united states pick up the metric system so [ __ ] stupid were they one of the few countries america america america i think that's what america yeah they tried it when i was a kid they tried the metric system on us yeah they were teaching us the metric system and they're like the whole world's going to convert to the metric system and the united states tried it for like a couple years so [ __ ] it nope and they went nah that was like i think when jimmy carter was president i'm pretty sure and then reagan came along said [ __ ] you and [ __ ] the metric system this is so dumb well [Music] know i don't know about pounds i don't want to wear myself in pounds like what the [ __ ] what what from that uh ac dc song whole lot of rosie isn't isn't doesn't see 16 stone in that song isn't that what it is that's part of the lyrics of that's i remember like being a kid going what the [ __ ] is he talking about weighing in at 16 stone like what is 19 19 stone oh that's big that's a big gal what is that heavyweight what is 19 stone let's guess was it like nice heavy it's the biggest 260. oh jesus that's a big girl squat whole lot of roses where the [ __ ] did stone come from i don't know because when we do the weigh-ins in in england we they yell it out in stone yeah yeah and then i would have to say the the weight no i didn't do it oh my god i'm [ __ ] i'm an idiot i have no chance i'd have to have my phone out hold on hold on i'm gonna figure this out because it's 13 something right it's not just 13. it's 14 pounds just 14 even oh okay that makes it easier i guess but either way um yeah the kilogram thing is confusing i don't understand why we never adopted yeah i don't know but i always use kg so even my nutritionist is like what do you weigh in like
like five weeks normally like 83 kg five week and then i cut down from there to to make um water weight so um yeah i don't know where it came from so your last um few days are you uh water loading loading yeah so a water load well it depends um how much i have to get off but i water for about four days probably so sunday to about wednesday so it's not a drastic cut no no no i kind of i like to get it down in in camp right i don't like to crash yesterday i think it messes up your strength and your cardio for sure if you just crash it right so i like to get it down to a point where i'm comfortable cutting it you know so yeah it's not really bad not too bad when you see those guys that cut big like did you see rodolfo vieira's last fight no you know viera is that a massive brazilian jiu jitsu guy he fights at 85 but he he's a gorilla i mean the dude is so jacked he did he fight he um [ __ ] pull up uh rodolfo vieira's record he fought this kid who was um a young guy who was a huge underdog anthony hernandez and anthony hernandez survived and then started putting them on it was a amazing performance by hernandez because he was a huge huge underdog in the fight because look at that picture of vieira get a picture of your the dude is a gorilla i mean he's just like carved out of granite look at that six-pack come on who the [ __ ] wouldn't want that six-pack jesus but uh just gassed out hard did he yeah real bad real bad by the end of the first round well you know what he cut i want you to go a lot a lot he looks so big when he's in the octagon he looked like he was like 215 something like that that's too much if you've got too much and put on too much it's detrimental to your performance so
i try to maintain it a little bit to not crash it do you think it's possible that they could ever get to a point where there's no weight cutting um nah don't think so ah that's what everybody says yeah no no i can't believe that i can't see it i think unless you put like put like loads of weight like boxing does it like loads of weight classes right then probably but no i still i can't see it now i wish they did want more more weight classes yeah i wish they had more weight classes maybe not as much as boxing but i wish they did it every 10 ml uh 10 pounds i think i think there's a lot of weight limits where there's just too big of a jump like 85 to 205 that's a big jump that's crazy that's 20 [ __ ] pounds no other no other champions in between there that's nuts um yeah but in boxing it's kind of like ruined the boxing as well right because some different belts and different work classes is like you'd be welterweight like was like four champions in there he's like but that's this that's happening kind of in mma with all the different champions and different organizations you know there's like there's there's legitimate champions in other organizations now like uh like pitbull in um bellator is a legit champion uh douglas lima is a legit champion like they've got some legit champions yeah um damn cough they got legit guys no i know but i think he put add more wear classes just water water it down and maybe but then but you're you're built for 70. like it works you got lucky if you were one of those guys it was between 85 and 205 you're like [ __ ] yeah it's a big jump yeah easy tried it right and yeah i think i think if if you bill just bought it up a little bit more you had more success yeah like all you did just didn't cut weight and just like um when to fight as john jones he's like been building now for a year yeah is he
said that that's how he was going to do it too and he said that john was making a mistake and you know i just think if you're dealing with grapplers man you need that weight yeah for sure 100 you know if it's just a kickboxing match maybe you don't need that weight you know because izzy's so fast i know he's doing good he was catching him catching him with good shots about the bigger guys holding the shots well beholves is an interesting cat because you know he's a champ now at 38 years old the way he put it on dominic reyes i was like holy [ __ ] he can crack i mean yambohovich can [ __ ] crack he has some of the best punching power i've ever seen in the light heavyweight division because he hits guys with weird punches he hits guys with like short shots little short shots and [ __ ] him up [ __ ] solid yeah he's good he's fred he's 38. oh [ __ ] yeah he made his debut in the ufc when he was 31 and uh you know worked his way through and figured it out and now the top of the food chain at you know an advanced age 38 is pretty advanced and he's it looks [ __ ] great i wonder what he put put sat down to to having success now in his later career you know i wonder what it is i don't know maybe it's maturity maybe it's experience you know maybe train smarter i don't know but his [ __ ] power is extraordinary is you know even the way where you approach the fight is he i thought he wasn't just not out clashing on the feet you know but he was it a good man on the feet you know yeah he's out driving him in everything in the jabs there's always extreme consequences with that guy you know because you know izzy always had to be careful because all it takes is one shot from that dude yeah you know there's the powerhouse it's um the division without jon jones though it's like [ __ ] like jon jones is the division yeah you know he's i think that he's been through like
three generations of fighters right i mean he really is undefeated you know they have the one loss that was uh yeah matt hamill but he was smashing him yeah it was just a disqualification which is ridiculous but you know yeah i think going for the goat i think i think jones should be to go there's it's hard to say because different world class is right yeah khabib a lot of people have the argument that khabib's ago but i think in terms of accomplishments no one's accomplished more than john john exactly i know like i said it's been through three generations of fighters you know it could be it's good to what you did but you don't done it in a short period of time right so i think if you had a longer career probably yeah well if john goes up to heavyweight and wins the heavyweight title yeah the discussion's over there i'd love to see him versus francis that'll be good francis versus anybody is so so nerve-wracking i want to see francis derrick lewis again i want to see a rematch of that fight because lewis was here last year his back was pretty [ __ ] up going into that fight yeah he fully knocked out blaze level eight yeah crazy crazy power he's the only guy in the ufc in the heavyweight division that has that same kind of power that francis does like you you can't make any mistakes with with either one of those guys both guys have crazy power that blades knockout was brutal [Laughter] it depends who you find and what what stands to go for me because it's a hard shot to land well he just said the way he was describing he said curtis bends in when he uh goes for a shot he doesn't go down and drop to the knees and drive forward like a lot of other wrestlers do yeah he bends down and so they knew it and they were timing it and they were yeah scary the powerhouse is good my friend says often francis probably beat him again if
the fight if the pick he knows man it's a good it's good it's a good fight though it's one of those things though like francis can't get hit by him no nobody can get hit by derrick lewis like he can knock out anybody yeah like both guys can knock each other out what does he weigh you know derrick yeah it's got to be 270 275 somewhere around then and i think he cuts a little weight to get down 265. hold on the chin yeah and his [ __ ] head is this big is it just so [ __ ] giant you know he can take it too but do you remember when sean jordan knocked him out sean jordan hit him with a hook kick he's like crazy [ __ ] it was like real early in derek's career but uh jordan hit him with uh a [ __ ] hook and sean jordan is this really big football player dude yeah you see if you can find that fight it's crazy and ufc yeah yeah he hit him with a hook kick and then like you look at him you're like this guy's not throwing a hook kick because he's built like just like like a football player he's built like a lineman he's so huge and he gets his heel up there and i think derek was like what the [ __ ] did i just get hit with clean out no he dropped him and then he finished him off if i remember it correctly it was quite a quite a while ago i want to say it was like yeah see there watch this this is early isn't that crazy like how does it even get up there i know watch this with a little like out of nowhere i know that the lead leg is all right yeah well that he kind of switched it right before he threw it oh suddenly he got on top and then beat him up and then finished him this way see watch how he does this like he switched it he kind of switched it yeah that's a wild kick to see a big dude a giant dude like that but he's a crazy athlete sean can do backflips and [ __ ] which you know for a 260 pound heavyweight is
pretty nuts to see so i love to learn the the the spinning sidekick there it is i wish i had a bag here yeah i'd love to learn it i've been trying to do it but always even my knees are too high or something this doesn't feel solid you know yeah it's a thing that you have to start out with a sidekick you learn how to throw the sidekick properly first and then learn how to do it in the air learn how to do the the turning side kick in the air yeah because everybody does it on the bag but if you learn it on the back the problem is you get used to spinning instead of turning like you do it in the air so that when you extend the kick it goes straight so that every time you so like i when i learned it i learned it on the line like you do a line on the floor of the gym so you would turn and then make sure the kick is on the same line as the heel yeah so you turn and kick and then extend the leg turn kick extend the leg and then eventually go to hitting things but if you do it that way then you learn how to get the weight to go forward yeah because when people do it in a bag you kind of get used to spinning your whole body [ __ ] your ankles up too because you you'll catch it with your toes you're catching with the ball of your foot and it hyper extends your hand you're landing with the heel right yeah you want to land it with the blade the blade of the foot have you ever stopped oh yeah yeah yeah that was my [ __ ] good that's the only it's the only video i have of me uh fighting in the taekwondo tournament on is knocking somebody out with a spinning back kick you got it on there yeah can i see it it's on youtube it was a 19 when i was a wee lad a wee lad yeah it's uh it's it's a a brilliant technique because there's so much torque in it you know that that nice good looking the movement has your legs there it is boom how's that last thick as he went to kick his arm right
yeah it's he's it sucks yeah it sucks getting hit with that is terrible i mean you see it in the ufc when guys get hit with it yeah horrible horrible has anyone stopped anyone in the ufc with it i think people throw it yeah um not like to stop the fight it has it's been a while i know uh who's the last guy to do it i'm trying to remember people who've stopped people charles mccarthy got stopped with it back in the day yeah i can't remember in a recent fight someone got spinning um and get like dennis seaver didn't dennis ever used to stop people with it i think he stopped somebody with it i don't know man it it'll work though now it's a good it's a good technique for sure there's a dude in one fc that's got a [ __ ] wicked one there's a lot a lot i want to say yeah that kickboxing like little gloves right yeah yeah i like watching that can you kind of use it for for mma right to what the techniques you use because some people because smaller gloves your block is different but these guys are yeah this dude look at that guy kevin how do you say that or bill belen gone spelling guns yeah he's a beast man this kid has got one of the best spinning back kicks i've ever seen and it's it's off the side it's a sidekick it's a turning side kick look at that boom see how straight it is it's brilliant look at that turns boom i mean it's like getting hit by a car yes it's the timing of well you probably can use it as well to set up your spinning back face as well right oh yeah for sure i mean just some guys that come from that taekwondo background they they learn how to do it and then they learn everything else that's the key i think oh look at that i think the key is like then he throws a wheel kick too the key is learning that first like when you're a young kid and then learning all the other stuff later because i think spinning yeah learning how to do like those kind of techniques sidekicks and turning sidekicks yeah
and then learning take down defense and striking muay thai and everything else later why because tae kwon do is only effective if you know all those other things like like when i learned taekwondo one of the big wake-up calls was when i started fighting and kickboxing and i was sparring against boxers and kickboxing and just getting [ __ ] up because my hands were terrible oh your range was different yeah and my hands suck yeah cause i was just kidding because taekwondo is just all kicking but the thing about all kicking is you you get really good at kicking kicking because you can do things that you really can't do if a guy's punching yeah right you really can't get away different ranges are right different range over crowded shots exactly right exactly it makes sense but you could develop leg dexterity if you're doing it that way and then once you get proficient at it then you learn all the other stuff and then you could actually apply it and i tried to do it before um i found a good condo coach in the uk to just use the site add tools to my arsenal right but um there's like a video of me teaching gsp is that yeah and if you find the video of me teaching gsp the thing about that video is that like you could see how i break it down you can see what's what's important about extending the foot and like the difference between the way some people like to do it where your knee is low and you kick up but you lose all the power in it and the key is like having the knee up that's why doing it in the air is so important well for the balance in the air see like i was uh we were i was trying to show him like the difference between the way he does this is him yeah i don't know if this is before before i showed him or really it wasn't in the beginning no because you weren't here i skipped ahead in the video where there wasn't even anything going on
oh i thought i thought i was showing it there i guess i think i know i think it was way before that man man they were just wiping the mat no no no watch watch i'm wiping the man off at the beginning but i think i had already thrown a kick by then i think it's the very beginning i don't need to taekwondo for i mean i started yeah there it is it's the very beginning i started when i was uh 15. i did karate when i was 14 and then when i was 15 i got really into taekwondo but uh yeah i'm wiping the mat down because the beginning of it is kind of [ __ ] up but if you watch that video i break you can learn from it i break it down how would you set it up from let's say that i'm softball right so they're going to was my right then you spin right how'd you when was your first you're timing of it when someone's coming at you it's the best because you can catch them you can set it off off a round kick like you throw a round kick and then immediate like the round kick is almost like a setup throw the round kick and then boom go into it there's a lot of different ways to do it but catching someone coming at you is the most effective because it's a it's such a ruthless counter because their weight is coming forward and then you you can crash oh it's horrible that's horrible so this is landing in the solar plexus yeah it's like a knee when you're running a good knee in the solar plexus oh yeah texas we're not your man body shot's like a crazy technique right just shuts your body down yeah even if you land it properly well you're such a good athlete if you just found someone who is a taekwondo coach that could show you how to do it right you would pick it up yeah now i was trying to find something so well yeah yeah i'm trying to find some i'm gonna round out says like head kicks body kicks um
but i i don't forget the it's the the turn yeah your turn i'm almost like falling short i can show you afterwards just the shoulder part of it it's not it's not hard to learn but the thing is like you got to learn it on the air the learning it in the air is the best way to do it yeah you can keep your balance right yes it's keeping your leg here i'm like falling over yeah it's the whole idea is to get the weight going forward as you kick like sometimes people kick and when they hit things they're actually bouncing off you want to just make sure the weight is going forward yeah yeah that's me a bounce off so oh i'll work on it's a good technique to use you know um i'm always interested in adding adding to my arsenal yeah um that's why i did my elbows and started using my elbows in a court i caught an announcement with a good one you know in rda and even cowboy he was a good technique i realized in mma the inside fighting not many fighters at school and fighting inside to get like lock up over under the underside of grappling or we throw through legs stumps knees to the body but they're not very schooled in school and like using the tie up to opening for elbows and finis you know so i thought i had to add that to arsenal and it's it's been working good have you done any training in thailand no have you ever wanted to do that i'd love to go i'd love to go there i would say every year i'm going to town this year but never i never get to go that seems like if if i was fighting like that would be like the place i would want to go the motherland go to the motherland and learn like one of them crazy gyms that's outdoors right yeah i mean it's just watching on youtube it's like oh it's a padme right it was like apparently he kicks him then like he goes to kick then i just kicks his legs away yeah there's some there's some bad guys
over there that are hilarious they they're just it's just amazing that this one country figured out this incredible way to fight it's really wild it's effective [ __ ] yeah it's effective it's crazy it's not it's not big either right like in the uk anyway um it's not like a popular sport you know like paige didn't get paid much in but it's weird really it is weird because everybody likes a tannin yeah exactly yeah everybody likes stand-up fights but yet muay thai for whatever reason as a pro has a pro sport never really took off in america look at glory glory is big it's uh it's not that big yeah too before it's not being in the uk unfortunately well i went to watch uh rico um yeah um and i remember we were just a fight i come in before and i went to holland to watch him he's like 30 thousand people in the arena i was like what the hell oh they don't [ __ ] around and holland he came to the uk to have um to have a fight and he didn't sound much you know and um but when i went to holland i thought it would be the same thing but it was like big arena with 5000 people no it's huge in holland i mean kickboxing and holland is so i mean they think about all the champions ernesto who's you know rob cayman you know who i love to watch goku gokansaki yeah turkish tyson he's a bad [ __ ] i like to watch him man yeah combinations together no he's wicked you know his the fights in glory glory and k1 they're so exciting but for whatever reason it just never took off in america like boxing or like mm-hmm in the uk it was just weird because it's striking right everyone loves seeing knockouts and so i i don't know what it is to i don't know they don't know either yeah no one no one knows like what it takes to make it big yeah it's weird really but i love boxing because it's got a long history behind it you know and you can trace it back to back in like back to
slavery days and stuff like that so that's the reason i love boxing you know i love to watch like old school documentaries and just the mindset of the fighters um back in the day and where they approach their game we were just talking about uh haggler before um the the podcast started and how crazy it is that he's gone it's i just can't believe it it's just i thought that guy like he was so he was so disciplined when i was a kid i remember you know i talked about it in this instagram post that i made they had some um some profile of him when he was prepared i think he was preparing for a mustafa ham show and he was running on the beach and it was that's what i wanted to ask you about i've been watching you and tyson was on the podcast right he's like he's running into the snow screaming wow yeah and i was trying to find it all week for five weeks [ __ ] man i wish i could find it wasn't it i thought you know where it is no i couldn't find no i'm not looking for it too no one can find it yeah i mean i mean like top it in war and future there's like threads about i heard rogan talk about it yeah yeah i can't find it nowhere i thought where did you see that i'm not trying to find it some local news shows like i was i was probably like 15. yeah and i remember just watching it going because he was starting and he was doing sit-ups and push-ups and you know he was just so disciplined nice nobody was more conditioned than hagler nobody like he was just when he fought mugabe he just just kept the heat on him just kept the heat on [ __ ] that fight was crazy mugabe was putting people to sleep i remember i was working at this boxing gym and they were talking about mugabe like long before he fought hagler everybody fought this dude and gained brain damage he like
he knocked him out he's like the guy was never the same again it's like there's certain guys that just have punching power that's just out of this world and mugabe was one of them do you remember julian jackson um no i don't think so [ __ ] julian jackson was another one he had this they called him the hawk he had this crazy punching power i mean he looked he looked like a solid guy but for whatever reason when that guy would touch people they were just stepping up julian jackson is like one of the most ferocious power punchers ever in the history of boxing yeah i love i'm watching him all week which is weird right because i've watched haggler for like about a year two years i've been watching him but for some reason um i just felt that energy last week on fight week so from sunday to um when i got to got to vegas i was just watching and watching him watching him um i was posting my instagram even posted on my instagram um all week i was posting him and then um just before i left um to go to the apex i was watching his fights and i went to my room to have a i just posted him like an hour ago that's [ __ ] crazy crazy yeah but like i said he's disciplining the way the way he worked and that's inspiration um inspiration to me you know and i watched his documentary that he first thirty fights i think he didn't get paid no more than like he said like twelve thousand dollars or something because there was no like no one nobody wants to fight him you know and just i took inspiration from that you know what else i love he got out on top he's like i'm done trying to get a rematch of sugary leonard sugar leonard said no one. i did two yeah i thought he won when i watched it it was a split decision right i think it was and so he just said good i'm done that's it out on top and the rest of his life spoke well
never had problems with uh you know what what do you think it is because some people yeah like like for example ali you know i don't know i took a lot of punishment but for some reason some people get it some people don't get it what do you think that is well there is a gene i think it's uh what is the gene that is makes someone more likely to get cte i think it's apoe4 i think that's what it is but there's a gene variant that uh rhonda patrick discussed uh dr rhonda patrick discussed when she was on the podcast that it it specifically makes people more susceptible to uh to cte yeah but it's also it's like heavyweights man i mean you think about the punishment that ali took from frasier from foreman i mean the big guys yeah i mean trevor berbick those were terrible terrible fights to watch but he just was getting battered and you know he and also larry holmes was his sparring partner yeah right so i mean just imagine sparring with larry holmes all the time a week yeah yeah just that's where a lot of the damage comes from unfortunately yeah and this is what max holloway's thought process is about not sparring he's like i want to keep my head fresh so when i fight i don't have you know i'm not going in there already banged up yeah you know and it's like i already know how to fight yeah me i don't support i can't but in camp i spa you know but um when i'm not in camp i don't spare at all i do like i do like obviously wrestle sparring justice bar but i don't do headshots um spa but in camp i support headshots yeah yeah so i think everyone's different right it's like flopsy it works and you work see that max holloway looked [ __ ] great last time before you know i can't argue with that so it's like you can't argue with him right he's his way work for him so he's such an interesting guy too because he's so unassuming like if you met him you would have no idea yeah i'm in vegas if you're just
hanging out with him he's like oh he's this friendly guy who's just a stone cold [ __ ] killer when he gets in there you know now he's good but he's that durable as well you know he's yeah you know he knows what he's doing but he doesn't throw like power shots he's like tactical just just in your face you know touching touching touching and i like him he's good he's amazing you know i'm really interested to see next weekend volkanowski is going to fight uh brian ortega that's an interesting fight um yeah i think what do you think well you know what when you see how good max holloway is then you got to appreciate how good volkanovsky is yeah because volkanovsky beat him twice second fight was very close a lot of people thought max could have won that fight but bottom line is everybody else max is running over yeah you know i mean except dustin dustin poirier but that's at 155. that's not difficult you can't it's not easy right you can't judge him from that performance because that's not his work class he he tried that's not his work class you know i wonder if he does it again and if he does it again i wonder if he decides to gain weight this time i wonder wonder what his approach is going to be but then it's going to be hard to come back down to 85 middleweight right maybe i was like if i was if i wouldn't do it again not now anyway unless i'm going to want to move up permanently then i'll build like john jones is doing i'll build my body into it you know so well there's good fights for him at 85. um the winner of kevin holland and derek brunson that's a big fight that's a big fight if holland can win um holland i mean that kid's a star yeah he can win i think he wants to fight darren taylor's all right yeah well darren tales going to fight vittori marvin vittori gave uh izzy one of his hardest fights that was that guy is [ __ ] good nah he's good he's good yeah victoria is
probably one of the most underrated guys in that division nice tough that was a good fight i probably got darren but i think that that'd be a good fight yeah and calvin gastelum is now going to step in and fight robert whitaker which is interesting too did the fight before or does meant to fight before they were meant to fight before i believe they didn't fight it no i don't think they ever fought before i think they were meant to fight and something happened i'm trying to remember they did um tough right didn't did they no i didn't do it oh no i saw a picture over there just really both in tough clothes i don't know if they're in the house together or what i don't know i like dana white's tuesday night contender series better than tough because i don't want all that drama [ __ ] and arguing over who ate who's asparagus whitaker and gaston were scheduled to fight when whitaker was still champion 2019 whitaker's home country of australia uh canceled the morning of the event when whitaker was hospitalized and underwent emergency surgery for a collapsed bowel and internal hernia oh that's right that's right it was the day of the fight oh that's right that'd be good whitney could look great since um getting beat by um izzy yeah you look [ __ ] amazing the sidekicks like it does to the knee as well is a good technique to to to use against wrestlers anyway well he learned it from yoel you know yolo [ __ ] him up in the first place he said he's in it yeah well he hurt his knee he [ __ ] up his knee in the first fight doing that and then that should be illegal no how are you going to make it illegal no you can't make it illegal you can't make it illegal i know people are people saying i should make it illegal for you i know even wonderboy said that like how do you how are you saying that did he yeah he said he uses it though right wonderful i guess you use it because it's legal yeah but you wish it wasn't legal i
guess maybe i think that's why yeah yeah leave it how come heel hooks are legal then it's like the elbow the 12 to six elbows that's ridiculous put that back in yeah throw it back in there it's gonna do every angle yeah it's so dumb well do you know where it came from big john mccarthy told me that it came from the athletic commissions had watched espn and they remember they used to have those karate demonstrations where they break bricks they thought that that was too powerful that that technique was too dangerous the [ __ ] the [ __ ] did it exactly that's where it came from that's why the 12 to 60 is illegal it's so dumb that's mad i didn't know it was a reason that's the reason and it's still illegal which is really hilarious it's like a legacy rule it may not make any sense now i think just i mean why this this elbow's harder yeah exactly yeah i think i can generate more power [ __ ] um this way then coming down this way yeah it's a more natural movement yeah yeah because you're throwing your shoulder in it this is just like put your eyes into it you know yeah so what i think you should put back in there i think so too there's a lot of things that should be back in there i wonder if uh knees to a grounded opponent like what did you think about that al jamaine sterling peorian ending um i think if it was hurt right if it's generally hurt then i think um he's justified but um if it wasn't hurt and he just did it just to get a towel and then it's different but it was a clearly an illegal shot it was clearly illegal but why is that illegal that's my question like if you have two hands yeah and you have one knee down why is it illegal to hit someone with a knee i don't know why you can do this why why would it be illegal i can kind of get it if your both hands are on the ground yeah maybe i kind of get it
but even then i don't get it uh i think the problem is the cage that's the problem the cage yeah because if there was no cage here this is my i go with this every every few months i go on a rant about this that they should just have it like a basketball arena like if you're playing basketball right there's no cage around those guys yeah they're running around they have a big space what about like put them in the middle yeah what about like war wrestling and [ __ ] yeah but why why wrestle but why but why wall wrestling see that's the thing it's like you're using that the wall becomes a part of the the strategy yeah you're pushing someone against it or you're pushing off of it to get back up but if you just have just open space first of all it's easier for everybody to see yeah like they do a lot of kickboxing tournaments like that or they don't have rings now they've i've seen kickboxing tournaments where they just lay mats out did it yeah yeah yeah like amateurs smokers yeah i just there was one on um uh there's a [ __ ] one of those muay thai pages i was watching them a couple of days ago but if if that was the case then you could do all sorts of [ __ ] that you can't do like knees to a downed opponent because the the problem is if someone's trapped like if you're trapped against the ring against the cage the allergens he was in the middle of the right clicking right you just like that's why it seems like that should be it's kind of seems like that should be legal to me you can punch him but you can't knee him why why can you punch him in the face if the guy is down like that why is it okay to elbow him in the face but you can't knee him i don't know i wonder why why yeah why it is what he chose to do that you know but he's like where did jordan lie right yeah you have to draw the line somewhere so i guess otherwise again like stomps i don't believe stuff
should be like legal stomps on the foot to the head oh you don't think it should be illegal no yeah it should it should be illegal should be yeah yeah right that's like remember pride with these some vandalised silver knockouts were ruthless he's just stomping on dude's head that that's like barbaric right he's just like it's kind of barbaric yes where do you draw the line to sport and madness you know like soccer kicks like that was the other thing about pride they allowed soccer kicks it made it exciting yeah wild [ __ ] for the for the for the general public what the [ __ ] is happening getting stomped in your head and i used to think that they should have no gloves i used to think that you should be able to fight with no gloves because i was like well why is it okay to hit someone with a shin but your knuckles have to be padded that doesn't make any sense can you [ __ ] hands bro break right well it's also the cuts yeah like when you watch that bare knuckle fighting championship you realize people just get sliced open nah you have to have gloves i finished this change i think you should look looking like changing the gloves i don't know what you could change it too is a question you know onyx um trevor whitman's company has the best glove yeah they're the best i mean they're so superior to the gloves they use now yeah they're completely it's like you you you uh would know this better than anybody that the ufc gloves make your hand wanna yeah yeah yeah just pads there right nothing stops it from doing this yeah you know it it almost like forces your hand into an open position you got to fight against yeah yeah yeah yeah to close your feet especially when you get raps on yeah it's not naturally like this anyway but you have to like you said you had to fight to close your fist for sure but think it's going to prevent a lot of hand breaks because i think it's if you don't know better the grappling part of it this is
uh this that's a boxing glove um see if you could get to uh trevor whitten and his uh mma gloves i was just looking around for a good day oh if you go to i'm pretty sure if you go to his uh website if you go to onyx his uh onyx um i don't know what he calls is it onyx equipment sports onyx sports it's uh it's this the best mma glove i've ever seen uh by far and i know the ufc was that's the uh his boxing glove again there's uh does he have a um menu where you can see the equipment there it is yeah um he came uh huh uh-huh where is it just his training glove yeah i finished look into it does he not have it for sale that's the only glove on there what he doesn't have it for sale yeah i guess he doesn't have it up there that's so weird i wonder why it's not on his website i know uh you can find it somewhere but i wish i had a pair so i could show you yeah i finished at least looking to do something to do to close you know it's been the same gloves now for how forever yeah forever so boxing right there to like move up from back in the day yeah like even prides gloves are better prides gloves like there was way less eye pokes and pride and i think that was part of it because they're current they had more of a uh like like it's more form fitted to a fist but the the whitman ones are by far the best no nothing anywhere i know how to find it okay it's just a it's just a way better design the way he has it and the knuckles are way more protected it's like it forms around your knuckles it's really absolutely that's it um that looks like pride dude that one on the left yeah that's the one on the left is the prime glove but you can see in that one how it's curved they got to do something i thought maybe even there's a way to cover the fingers no i don't record the fingers you want a grappler right i know but would it be
like you remember those old school bag gloves yeah yeah yeah couldn't it be something like that where it covers the fingers that way you could kind of yeah kind of your grips and you want to fill the grips right now it's like what actually might be better in a way because like you'd have uh like your hands get slippery yeah if you had the texture of the leather yeah you could kind of hold on to things maybe that's like feel i'd like to like feel like i could help you feel the if you're in the gloves you can like probably start slipping off or whatever it is when you're solid because i'll play around with grips it's different how often do you do straight jiu jitsu um once a week once a week that's right i i i wrestle um three times a week three four times a week you know so i like grappling i don't really focus much on on jiu jitsu jiu jitsu i like mma juices like mma grappling right i don't really focus and just doing gay jiu-jitsu you know right i just do i do all do grappling you know which is war wrestling open my wrestling um rolling so um yeah i never really i used to but as i get other get older i kind of just do specific for the sport i'm doing it mma i i don't care about not being a black belt you know you don't care at all no um my coach is cute i have to i hate the ghee right yeah [ __ ] i think it's stupid because you [ __ ] you're grappling with it with a guy he's grabbing your collar he's like he's not realistic you know but if you're free of flowing you got no tap on he can work free movement is better for me you know um but my coaches give 10 money i need to do it to get my belt but i can't do it yeah it's kind of weird for mma fighters i think for mma fighters nogi is what much more easily applicable but some people like the gee for the defensive purposes like because you have to get out of things
correctly like you have to really like arm bars and things like that you have to be very technical and getting out because you can't just explode because you're wrapped up so you have to like follow all the correct steps and the thought process is that if you learn how to grapple correctly with the ghee your defense would be better um it definitely makes it more tighter you know i mean when i roll guys that's that that doo diggy they're definitely more like more tight you know but um for me i was going to do mma right i'm not i don't want to compete in jiu-jitsu yeah no never you never want to um i used to know as a kid when i was younger um i used to do like jiu-jitsu tournaments and stuff like that but um now i just want to form up my my game and write mma everything you do you have to fit into mma you know so yeah yeah you're so focused on your career you have to right yeah i think it's hard to like take time off to go do like a pure jiu-jitsu competition also you can get injured obviously exactly and get injured and um so yeah i think everything you do you should do it so it benefits your art and what you're going to do in mma um you know but you should own i've got teammates that do compete in both mma and jiu jitsu and i mean they they enjoy doing jiu jitsu i enjoy i enjoy mma i enjoy doing all of it you know do you think you'd take a kickboxing fight um that's more you're yeah yeah yeah yeah for sure um yeah 100 i love striking i love boxing i love kickboxing so it's this possibility for sure you know i mean depends on opportunity what comes up but um i love a boxing fight more than anything you know i got uh i got good good boxing when uh i'm like a weird one right i cannot adjust my style to do what i want to do so if i want to do i can when i go to boxing gym i can i can be a boxer you know i can same guard that they have and so um
yeah i think it depends on opportunity how long do you see yourself fighting um it depends i don't know eight probably 47 38 37 38 yeah i don't know i might get to figure out something i feel good i keep going you know so uh something right with like modern yeah science exactly learning how to recover better and yeah exactly so oh it all depends on um what's i got you know what 10 years probably then they're probably a hangout start teaching is that what you want to do when you retire you want to be a coach yeah i want to um i'm all about giving back right so that's um i started like a charity as well in it with me me darren tale um jimmy manuel in the ufc to do it on knife crimes in the uk because in the uk also guns are illegal not even the police carry guns you know but knife crimes in the uk is like big you know so um i saw the charity that's gonna help with like at receive that's involving and stuff like that and we'll partner with the police with um a charity that's called legacy in the uk um they're already in the field and we're trying to basically um go there teach classes um if the kids obviously show up and behave then we'll pay for that gym membership for the year and just stuff like that anything to do with giving back that's my that's that's my passion you know and what is the name of your charity um from the name of it it's called knife youth coming youth mentoring program um part of the ufc they they sponsor sponsor sponsors kit um um and like finance and helped us and because one of my friends um got killed last year um knife crimes you know and i've lost so many friends from knife crimes from getting stabbed that if i can do anything to give back and to help um that's my passion well that's a very worthy cause man it is a giant issue in the uk right
because it got crazy it might he got stabbed in on father's day oh [ __ ] [ __ ] up he's his cousin his cousin called him out to for like help basically on father's day he had his daughter daughter with him they [ __ ] took his daughter to to um in the car to go pick his cousin up and then [ __ ] got stabbed with his [ __ ] and then bled out on the floor in his neck oh jesus christ so yeah anything you can do to like help with anything to do with that i'll i'll help you know and so that and working with uh um young up and coming fighters yeah yeah 100 as i said i want this why i want to achieve being a world champion coming from where i come from right so i can just show them that you can if you can touch it like i said it's more realistic so that's my my passion to give back to these young kids and um especially kids that's at risk or coming from broken homes or poor families and um if you can help one or two help them right so that's it well leon um i'm glad you got some attention from your last fight and i'm sure you're going to get more but i just want more people to understand how good you are because it's it's so rare that someone gets to the level that you're at and just for unfortunate circumstances doesn't have the same amount of attention you know usually when a guy's as good as you are everybody [ __ ] knows i think a lot more people know now but it's it's getting there you know i want everybody saying it's getting there you know um i've been fight by fight it will come i think obviously getting more push from the ufc as i would be good as well you know i mean so um yeah fight by fight more beat these guys out there the more beat the guy they think that's good yeah they're recognized for sure right so you're gonna go and talk to the ufc you're flying to vegas tonight right yeah and do they have a timeline do you
know about when they'd like to see you back well i would like to be back straight away because that file's like one round right i didn't get to to get getting my flow so um straight away really i feel the same may dip we're trying to get cold coverton right so we'll see what he says probably may may early june may okay so we'll see but i want to be active this year a long year and a half off so if you're banging them out i'll keep hanging them out all right brother well thank you very much for being here i'm a fan i appreciate you thank you thank you and goodbye everybody [Music]