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- [00:00]
A
I mean this is. We already know this is a happy ending because you're in the hall of fame.
- [00:04]
B
Yeah. Yeah. It worked out well. Thank God. My first rib in my collarbone cutting off my blood flow with my one of my arteries. So my arm blew up. I had a blood clot in my lung, a blood clot in my bicep. I ended up biting his ear off.
- [00:23]
A
The fight with and Hound was my favorite character.
- [00:26]
B
I could see why and.
- [00:29]
A
But the fight with him in the mountain was like 35 minutes and heavyweights don't fight like that guys was like you can have the. All the other little guys. It should have been bam bam. But you know, epic. Short and sweet.
- [00:45]
B
They get winded the big guys.
- [00:46]
A
Yeah. Oh yeah. We always. We never have. I never have like I just.
- [00:49]
B
We just start shooting shit. The new one though. A Night of the Seven Kingdom.
- [00:53]
A
Oh no, no. That I'm all about. I just saw the first one.
- [00:56]
B
I read the graphic novel. It's so good and it's so. It's like I'm watching the graphic novel come to life.
- [01:03]
A
You're going to laugh at this but the reason why I'm. I. I was so into that is he was tall. No seriously. Tall guys never ever get the role in battle movies. How first we're always the ones beat up and killed.
- [01:19]
B
Can I just.
- [01:19]
A
You understand the guys that he has to fight now there's jobs potentially for me because that guy's so tall you have to have bigger knights usually. I usually get my ass kicked in every movie I've been in. The guy that I always whoop my. And it was often was I always outweighed him by weigh ins wouldn't help at all because I usually tripled him in weight. Was a foot taller than him. But it's the smaller guys who dominate Hollywood fighting.
- [01:45]
B
Can I just.
- [01:45]
A
And that's. And that's fine.
- [01:47]
B
Can I just go back at you with this? I don't want to start off taking my blade out but as a guy. 5 6. As a man. 5 6.
- [01:55]
A
As one of the most respected grapplers on the planet, sir. Let's. Let's. You're not some fight. You're not Greg Gutfeld. Okay. You're not. You're not a little.
- [02:03]
B
No, no, I. I know. I know I get to fed myself.
- [02:06]
A
Don't judge a man by the size of his stature. I was just talking about in terms of.
- [02:09]
B
In terms of Hollywood. Look at what. Look at what they did with. With Logan Wolverine. I love the X Men growing up.
- [02:17]
A
Wolverine Was supposed to be smaller. That was the whole point. Why you loved him.
- [02:20]
B
Oh, yes. But then they give him the Hugh Jackson, who's Hugh Jackman, who's six' two. He's. He does a great job with it, but he's not Wolverine. A Wolverine's supposed to be short.
- [02:29]
A
They did it and they were trying to make a joke, but when he hopped out of the bar.
- [02:32]
B
Oh, yeah. That wouldn't. That wouldn't work either. That wouldn't work.
- [02:35]
A
No. But the whole point. Cuz Sabertooth and all that stuff. But that series. I was. I was one of those things when I saw it was one. It's weird. I don't know if you're like, type of when you see a trailer for something.
- [02:47]
B
Yeah.
- [02:47]
A
It's either I'm in or I'm out. One trailer. I see it. I'm like, I like this. Sometimes Game of Thrones just got too. It just got. I. I think they just. They had. They had something and just. It just went all over the place and. Can they ever recover from the most shocking murder in the history of series television?
- [03:12]
B
Which one? Oh, which one are we talking about?
- [03:14]
A
When they cut the dudes, the star, the head, the hand.
- [03:17]
B
Oh, Ned Stark.
- [03:18]
A
Yeah. When they cut Ned Stark's head off, I knew nothing.
- [03:20]
B
Game of Thrones. I started watching it. I loved it so much that first season. I went. And I'm not a huge book reader. I got this. I got the second book to find out what happens. I liked it so much, I went back. I got the first book. I read all. I might have read five books in my life. It's all Game of Thrones.
- [03:38]
A
Doesn't that say a lot about your personality? Because that's how you train. Oh, well, you had to know everything.
- [03:43]
B
I have to. I have to love something to be all in or my ADD or kick in. Even with the Game of Thrones books, I made the font real big. I put on my iPad. So I don't care, you know, I sleep and makes me tired. But I. The problem with the series is when it got past the books.
- [03:59]
A
Yeah. They started going in their own crazy. The finish was terrible. You just killed his mother. He yells and leaves. He takes his. The dragon takes his. But you killed my. I'm gonna melt the chair. That it made no sense.
- [04:13]
B
Maybe the only fact that he killed my two brothers, he smelt that he's also a Targaryen. Maybe he gave him a pass, I.
- [04:18]
A
Don'T know from the other one. The Targaryens didn't do well, with the wrong dragon.
- [04:22]
B
That's true. See, House of Dragon. I'm not too.
- [04:24]
A
No. Couldn't stick with it. I wanted. I wanted to get behind the Mad King, but I just couldn't move on. But speaking of Game of Thrones, because it's a series, how one guy starts. Your origin story.
- [04:34]
B
Yes.
- [04:34]
A
What led you to this, to this life? Because.
- [04:38]
B
Oh, wow.
- [04:38]
A
When I think now and when you talk about the sport of, of grappling, ufc, fighting, guys were doing other things.
- [04:50]
B
Yeah.
- [04:50]
A
And it migrated into it, like amateur wrestling, boxing. Although typically, boxers don't do as well because they forgot to use their legs.
- [04:58]
B
Yeah.
- [04:59]
A
And the leg is always there in wrestling, if you get in trouble, grab the leg, because the leg's always there.
- [05:03]
B
You'd have to know more than just now.
- [05:05]
A
Guys are. Kids from a young age are doing, I think, the next 10, 15 years. We're gonna see monsters that we couldn't have imagined because it's muscle memory. It's. They've grown it because to be boxing, they want to get the kid in there. They want him 9, 10 years old, starting out. Box.
- [05:22]
B
Yeah. Well, with my origin story, I, I, we didn't know. How old are you? I'm 51.
- [05:28]
A
52.
- [05:28]
B
All right. We could have went to high school together. When we grew up, you didn't know what real fighting was, who's tough, who's better, the karate guy, the wrestler, the. So you didn't really know. You'd watch something. Wow, that Steven Seagal stuff looks wild. Or. You know what I mean?
- [05:42]
A
Yeah. You see the stuff on tv. Yeah.
- [05:43]
B
You know, and then you had your own experiences, maybe fighting in the streets. So you see, you know, you kind of had your opinions, but then my father, When I was 17, my father showed me these tapes of the Gracie family, and it was called Gracie in Action. And it was. This is Before Mixed Martial Arts, 1990. 1991. Around there, there was the Gracie family fighting other disciplines. Jiu jitsu, verse, boxing, wrestling. And it was these valet tudo fights from Brazil where they were just getting everybody down and taking them down.
- [06:17]
A
Well, once they got. Because you see a guy in the back, you think, kill shot.
- [06:20]
B
Yeah.
- [06:21]
A
Until you've ever seen a tiger or a lion fight.
- [06:23]
B
Exactly. And it's like, oh, even in the videos leading up to it, they'll show, like, them taking a guy down, then they'll go to a lion taking out a buffalo. So. Yeah, that was the premise. That was the idea of it. So I was just. I thought this was amazing as a kid who used to. I was a scrappy kid. I'd be, you know, fighting a lot and whatnot. So I was just like, wow, if I ever meet one of these guys, I'm in trouble. You know what I mean?
- [06:48]
A
Yeah.
- [06:48]
B
You know. So what happened was when I was, I was graduating on in 1992, I was working at a pizzeria and delivering pizzas. There was an event that kind of changed the course of my Life. See in 1992 there was no UFC and there was no. You couldn't make. There wasn't. This wasn't a sport, you know what I mean?
- [07:09]
A
And what was it when I was trying to remember when they were doing just the tournaments where guys were just beating the hell out of each other. Brian Kilmeade and Jim Brown were calling.
- [07:17]
B
Yeah, yeah. That wasn't. 1993 came out.
- [07:19]
A
That's when it started.
- [07:20]
B
Yeah, yeah. So that was, you know, the pre Zuffa age, that was the seg, I believe. But when that, before that came out, I didn't know what I was gonna do when I graduated high school because I wasn't for the books. I was, I was figured I'd go into the military. So I got my parents signed me up to do on a delay entry program where at 17 I can go into the marines. And that's, that's where I thought I'd be going. You know, that, that's what I would make my life. I got into a street fight at the pizzeria I was delivering pizzas for. I got into an altercation with a guy over the phone. Long story short, he came down there with a bunch of guys. The, the. I ended up. He got me. It was me and my pizzeria boss. It was a bunch of them, one on one fight. We were face to face. He got me around the neck like this. I ended up biting his ear off. Right now we were outnumbered, whatever the case may be. It's what happened. So you know, because of that incident, The Marines in 1992 didn't accept me. And I will never forget my, my recruiter was a nice guy. He was a short guy from, from down south from Georgia. And he was like, Mister. I'll never forget it, Mr. Sarah, I'd be an honor to be in a foxhole with you any day. But I have my superiors and they didn't accept me, you know, so I didn't know what the hell I was gonna do. And then in Black Belt magazine, do you remember that?
- [08:41]
A
Yeah. Oh yeah.
- [08:42]
B
Kids now, kids nowadays. But there was no Social media. There was this.
- [08:45]
A
No, it was. It was. I had. I had ring, I had the WWE and I had black belt. I had WWF magazines back then and pwi, like, who the top guys were in boxing and wrestling.
- [08:54]
B
I had a lot of the same. And so I seen in Danbury, Connecticut, they were going to do a hoist and horon Gracie Jiu Jitsu seminar at this. Juke at this guy. Ron. Ron something rather Jujitsu academy or something. It was at a gym in the Easy, actually. So I took a road trip with a buddy of mine to Connecticut, and then I just literally fell in love with it, man. Because before then, martial arts was all Carters and forms. I had a wooden dummy in my garage. I used to do wing chun, kung fu with my father. Second, I got into a real fight. I ended up grappling him anyway, so I knew I had to do this. And then shortly after, Henzo Gracie moved to New Jersey.
- [09:31]
A
And so, I mean, this is. We already know this is a happy ending because you're in the hall of Fame.
- [09:36]
B
Yeah. Yeah. It worked out well.
- [09:37]
A
Thank God you're a former ufc, UFC Welterweight champion. So when did it occur to you, because life throws so many curveballs at. And you think, you know, like, you just pointed that out. And then there's that moment where you're doing what you want to do, but circumstances, life, or even failures, training or things are not getting. It was there before you got to the point where you were exhuming this championship pedigree. Was there a moment where you're like, I don't know if this is for me or. I don't know. Because one of the things that I had a problem when I was younger was I couldn't control my temper in fights. I always tried to end people. Yeah. And it's a big difference. When you're with somebody who's calm, cool, collective, and is expecting bad weather, you being off, just throwing and aggressive, he's going to use that. Especially with jiu jitsu, they're going to use your momentum. You're going to look bad. Sound good? You, you know, you come in, I'm just going to take his head off, and you're super aggressive. Was it the training, the discipline? What was it that. Because you. Oh, in all your fights, whenever I watch you, I never saw you emotionally, like, freaked out. It was always aggressive. Very know, like very in the moment. Look very calm out there.
- [10:46]
B
Oh, that's. That's a. That's a very big compliment. Thank you so much.
- [10:49]
A
If you can Play your sport in water. And I call it slow motion. And people see that, it's just, it's just there's a certain guys, like I remember when I was playing ball, I'd look across at the guy and if the guy was like this, I'm like, oh, I got him.
- [11:00]
B
Yeah.
- [11:00]
A
And then there's this guy.
- [11:01]
B
I, I try. I, I always would pride myself in being prepared, you know. I was really lucky to be with Ray Longo out of Long island, who's a. Still one of my best friends. He was my, my standup trainer and, and Henzo Grazie. Who took me under his wing and he took me out of a security guard booth because I'd have to do to learn Jiu Jitsu. I was taking the train into the city, training at, at 6pm and then I'd go back to Long island to. And I, you know, at 19, I'd be at an SD Lauder. I had a little phone booth the size of a phone booth. I'd be doing. You're doing basically that. Yeah, but it was just an empty building. So, you know, it was. So I would be tired one day in class and then Henzo's like, look man, you're training like shit. I go, hey. I go, dude, I'm like, I'm exhausted. I'm up all night. I get a little out. I can't really sleep great during the day. And he goes, man, forget that, work here with me. So, dude, the next day I was, I was there. I remember I went to the one of like a CVS at the time, somewhere in the city. I got rubber gloves, I'm clearing the, cleaning the urinals. I was just so happy to be doing Jiu Jitsu, just teaching for Henzo. And then not only that, Henzo took me to. I was a purple belt and he takes me to Japan to corner him in a rings competition where he had to fight more than once to give me the Eagles. You need to see what it's like, you know, behind the scenes. And so, I mean a lot of, A lot of cr. You know, a lot of. I can't praise my instructor enough. Took me under his wing and you know, between him and Ray, I was always prepared. The only fights I ever really had a hard time in is when leading up to it, I feel like I wasn't 100. Like, you know, you always banged up.
- [12:42]
A
Yeah, the father time comes for us all. And there's.
- [12:44]
B
Oh yeah, that too.
- [12:45]
A
You saw my walk today. His cold, my joint. My knees were in the Hips are like, yeah, you're gonna walk around today.
- [12:51]
B
No, I'm with you, man. I was about to say, before I got my knee done, we could have had a race. It would have been hysterical.
- [12:55]
A
Oh, yeah.
- [12:56]
B
Well, I got a brand new knee here.
- [12:58]
A
You know what's crazy is because I was. We had the storm, right? And I live in Wellington, Florida. So Monday flight was canceled. Oh, no. Oh, no. Daddy's stuck at home in the sun. The weather was beautiful.
- [13:09]
B
Oh, dude.
- [13:10]
A
Then they're like, oh, man, there's no flights in Tuesday. And I, and I just remember going, oh, no. And then I, I, My wife's like, well, can you fly out of Orlando or something if you need to be there? And I was like.
- [13:23]
B
So you're from Florida?
- [13:25]
A
Well, that's where we live now. Yeah. My daughter, My son is a baseball player and he does a little jiu jitsu. His. His, his grandfather is Tonga. He was King Haku in the wwe, but he, before he got into rest, he comes from a wrestling family, but he was a sumo champion. Oh, he rolled. He has one and I. He has one of the nastiest ankle breaks you have ever. While he was. Because he was, he didn't have the girth.
- [13:50]
B
Yeah.
- [13:50]
A
He had the Tongan strength and muscle, and he was quick.
- [13:53]
B
Okay.
- [13:53]
A
But he rolls his ankle and there's this picture of him. He's the guy who's catching that. I don't know if he's even still with us, but his ankle, you could see his foot was supposed to be this way, but you could see the bottom of his shoe, and it was barefoot. So, you know, that's not even, you know. So once he shattered that ankle, it was like, now what? I'm not going back to Tonga with, you know, because he was fighting for his whole family. So it's a whole thing when you're trying to bring your family up. He ended up some guy said, hey, you should try wrestling and come to Montreal. And, and that was the first. And then he went there and then he led on to become, you know, wrestling ended up being his, his path to American citizenship and American way of life. But, and he's. He's regarded as one of the most toughest of all, you know, wrestlers of all time. And I always laugh when they talk about, although he's legit and you have to be a tough guy to knock his daughter up, you know, so. But he's the best grandfather in the world. And it's crazy because he's known as this. When people talk about him as a wrestler. He was my favorite wrestler. Ironically how like how life works out. But when they talk about him and I'm like, I don't know who that is because that's not pa. I watched Pa cry when my son gets a bass hit. You know what I mean? Like there's that, that side of, of.
- [15:08]
B
Yeah. How old your boy?
- [15:10]
A
He's 14, six. Five and a half. Pitches left, hits right. He was doing jiu jitsu we were using because he wants to play football. But I won't let him play in padded football.
- [15:24]
B
Okay.
- [15:25]
A
For the simple fact that he's in. When you're that big as a kid, they're going to make you play age groups up. So you take, you take at the time when you take a 12 year old who's physically stature as big as a 14 and 15 year old, but you put them on the football field or if you even put them in the ring, that kid's going to get murdered. My son's going to get smoked. Then you have confidence is gone on this. Listen, baseball, let's work on hand eye coord and let's do the little things in the gym. So he go. He's been training for football for the last four years. He just didn't know it yet. So when he, when he gets there. But it's the same. It's one of those things where you, you want to kind of find your past. So he's in Orlando. My daughter who was playing soccer and she's the baby.
- [16:05]
B
Yeah.
- [16:05]
A
And was doing really good in soccer. And then lo and behold gets on a horse one day and says daddy, I need to ride horses.
- [16:10]
B
And I was like nice when they find their own passion.
- [16:12]
A
Yeah, they're the most expensive passion in the world.
- [16:14]
B
The horses.
- [16:15]
A
Oh jumping. And so we ended up moving to Wellington, Florida because she's got to be there six months out the year to jump. And when I got out there with the weather, I was like. Because I lived in Tampa for a long time. My wife is from Louisiana, but convincing.
- [16:30]
B
Her so great though having the kids into something. My oldest was doing dance and she's 16. She was doing dance as from three years old. My middle, I have a 16, a 14 and a 12. They all train. My oldest left dancing and she was good competitions to go for title, doing this and that to pursue the family trade. She has a, she's had many jiu jitsu matches, super fights. She's got a kickboxing match in two weeks.
- [16:56]
A
How difficult is that for you to watch?
- [16:58]
B
You know What?
- [16:59]
A
It's. Well, every time my daughter jumps, I die a little bit. Yeah. You know.
- [17:02]
B
Yeah. It's wild because, you know, I had to first go through it with my wife when I won the title. And in 2007, my. You know, I got married. I got. I won the title on April 7th. Next month, May 25th, was my wedding. So I had it and I was fine. And this is with the biggest upset ever. So I was facing going into my wedding off.
- [17:24]
A
Yeah.
- [17:25]
B
But, you know, so when I won the title, my wife never threw a punch. She was straight. Adrian.
- [17:31]
A
Right.
- [17:31]
B
Just show up at my school with the Inoki bring.
- [17:33]
A
She didn't hit you with. You can't win though, right?
- [17:35]
B
No, she's.
- [17:37]
A
Yeah, I never got over that.
- [17:40]
B
Started with the Rocky movies.
- [17:41]
A
Yeah.
- [17:42]
B
Adrian started off so sweet, and what a bitch he became.
- [17:44]
A
But money changes people.
- [17:46]
B
Oh, man. I have a whole bit about that. But with this. So then to lose weight between my kids, she would do the kickboxing. So now fast forward to present day. In her late 30s, she had six kickboxing matches, one amateur kickboxing fight, had an MMA fight at 40, and one beautiful fight. And she just had a boxing match for some. A tough Canadian girl, and she won that. Got her nose broken in the process. Now she's retired, she's teaching at my academy. But it's such a. It's such a contrast to when I first met her.
- [18:16]
A
Right.
- [18:16]
B
You know what I mean? But.
- [18:18]
A
Well, you. In any good marriage, you both rub off on each other.
- [18:22]
B
Yes.
- [18:22]
A
Certain things, like you get from her usually a little more patience, a little more understanding, less aggressive, you know, and then. Although my wife never had any desire to wrestle, but. But she could cut a promo on me all day. So they're part. That's part of it.
- [18:36]
B
I never thought that'd be her. Her path at all, but boy, is she. She's so good. I have a teacher at my school now, and now she's training my daughter along with Ray Longo, my trainer. My. Today, my wife took her over to my buddy Ray. Ray Longo. I'm sure he has four champions he's holding for my daughter. So it's just a beautiful. That makes me emotional. I see my. You know, so it's so great.
- [18:58]
A
Yeah. And you should. But that's. It's crazy because they never expect gladiators to have hearts.
- [19:03]
B
Oh, man.
- [19:04]
A
But there's nothing. You have to have so much heart to go. And it's not. I always tell people, whenever you're competing, whether it's sports, there's a respect there. Nobody wants to lose. Nobody trains to lose. And when that moment hits you, though, I always think about the guy who's the same when he wins, the same as he lose because of respect for the game. Now, listen, you win a chance, you have every right to cheer and celebrate, but also you pay respect to the guy who. Who came up short. With certain exceptions. You know, I always leave the hype out before everyone's talking shit because they're trying to sell tickets, you know?
- [19:41]
B
Yeah, sometimes.
- [19:42]
A
Yeah. And then sometimes it goes a little. Little too far.
- [19:44]
B
Yeah.
- [19:44]
A
Like, I love Chael to death. Chael's.
- [19:46]
B
My guy's great. No, Cha's great.
- [19:47]
A
But Chael is probably the greatest shit talker that's ever walked the earth.
- [19:51]
B
He did it with class, though, but he did it.
- [19:53]
A
He did the. He also did it with the guys. Didn't know they were insulted till it was over. Like, he. He throws it. It's like a grenade.
- [20:02]
B
Well, Chael's great because Trail he'll say all that stuff, but at the end of the day, that he is a gangster. He knows how to handle himself. That time when he shot, he went to Brazil as public enemy number one. Shot. The ultimate fighter versus Vandalay Silva. Vandalay Silva wanted to street fight him. He knew the rules of the street. He knew. All right, look, he didn't want it. He was trying to diffuse it. Then he knew it was gonna happen because Vandeli was right in his face, pushed him away. I can't let you get close. He knows he's about to get sucker punched. Yeah, so he had. It's. It's. He knew it was gonna be on, so. All right, let's go. I like, chill a lot for those reasons, you know what I mean? But nowadays, these guys are the dirt bags. You talk about people's family.
- [20:40]
A
Yeah, there's lines. There's lines.
- [20:41]
B
It's gross, you know, you're not clever.
- [20:43]
A
Enough to just talk about your skill set.
- [20:47]
B
It's so funny with Chael, though. One time I was. We were both fighting on the same card, and I was fighting Matt Hughes. And leading up to it, I was very. I was letting people know what I think about him. And I had no problem doing it because I thought the guy, you know, was a dick. And I would say it publicly and because I knew I was gonna face him, you know, it's not like I'm talking some shit and be on a keyboard.
- [21:06]
A
You're not gonna back it up.
- [21:07]
B
Hey, man, I'll be there to answer my words. Yeah, I'll be there to answer for my words. So I was in the. Yeah, he's such a. But it wasn't to just sell the fight. It was literally how I felt. So I was in the Jacuzzi, we were all cutting weight, and he was in. And he goes, this is one of my first times meeting Chao. He goes, let me just tell you, I think it was brilliant how you sold this fight. And he's telling me, I'm like, oh, thank you. He left. I go, dude, I just really think the guy's a ticket. I didn't really try to sell, but it was just. It was nice that he. He was, he thought that it was. He thought it was from me trying to sell tickets.
- [21:34]
A
Passion is respected.
- [21:36]
B
Yeah. Yeah, it was great. But I wonder if he. I think, I guess he's always such a salesman, and he does it so great that he was giving me compliments on selling it. But meanwhile, I was just stating how I felt about the guy. You were just selling it anyway. Yeah.
- [21:51]
A
Speaking of keeping it real. So when in your career. I know for me, I, I, I. With wrestling, I, I forget what it was. I forget who I was wrestling, but it was a moment. Usually whenever I would grab a guy or snatch a guy, I would never even. It was just, you know, and I was kind of known for that Kurt angle would always be like, hey, Tyrus can throw anybody my thing. And it was the night I went to do it, and I felt everything like, you know, just. And it took where it would take me a day to recover because I was from the school where. Here's the thing about the big guys in wrestling, you can't put your hand up. You can't do the things the little guys do, because everything you see when someone punches you, there's safe places to be punched. I've been in the punched enough. Bouncing clubs and bodyguarding and growing up the way I grew up to where, like, you know, you roll the. Hit me here, hit me here, hit me here. Just don't hit me right here. Yeah, you knock my tooth out, I'm you up. So, you know. But like, I got known for, like, oh, hey, Tyrus, a good guy. Wrestle. Because you can hit him as much as you want to. It's not a. It's a compliment because I know it is a compliment because the guy in the first row with his iPad looking for the fake punch, is it getting it in the ring and sometimes.
- [23:02]
B
But you're getting it.
- [23:03]
A
Yeah, well, sometimes you'd be in the ring with your buddy and be like, beer's on me tonight because we gotta, we gotta go to work.
- [23:09]
B
Okay.
- [23:09]
A
You know what I'm saying? Like, hey, this is how much has worked out before.
- [23:13]
B
And I heard guys the finish, because I heard guys say they just like, like Hulk Hogan and this one and that one, they would meet up and.
- [23:20]
A
Just okay, those guys are full of okay. But no, no, call it out in the ring is something. It's gonna be crazy though, no. Well, because unlike everything is patterns in wrestling. And so you know where you're going. The problem is too many guys worry about how to get there. Like, I know in the, like, I'm the bad guy. Come on, everybody booze me. I know that I'm going to do some shitty things.
- [23:42]
B
You were the heel.
- [23:42]
A
I'm the heel. I don't switch either. I know what they cheer for, so their booze give me self esteem. So I know that in the first five minutes or three and a half minutes of our match, he's got to out wrestle me. He's got to embarrass me. That's why I cheat. That's why I'm insecure. That's why I talk shit. Makes sense. You know the guy who usually does the most barking can't fight. He's the worst fighter. So you have to establish that. So I know that whatever we do, I'm gonna let him counter. So I'll be like, hey man, just shine. What do you do? What are your things I need to look for? I do this, I do this, I do this. And then when it happens, you get a natural reaction. Now there are guys who will write down everything they're doing. And I always would say the same thing. I'm not going to remember that shit.
- [24:23]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [24:24]
A
And if the crowd like, oh, at this point, I'll fire up. What if the crowd doesn't like what you did? What are we. You still don't fire up. So here's what we're going to do here. What is your best three things you like to do? And if the guy's going over, I'll do my thing. I'll beat the. And when it comes time to slip in a banana peel, I'll give you the wink, hit your deal. Boom. We'll get in the back and get out of here.
- [24:41]
B
So it's just experience, huh? Like you had to learn to have.
- [24:45]
A
It's a, it's a, a pattern. This is what it's supposed to be. Good guy out wrestles you bad guy cheats, beats him up then a couple times because he's a good guy and has heart. He keeps fighting up. The crowd's like, oh. And then you cut him down like, you guys, I'm winning. And then eventually, like at the end of every movie, the villain up and the good guy saves the day. Wrestling went wrong when we started having the bad guys out wrestle out, talk. The good guys stone cold it up for everybody because he's the most, he's the most pop. Even though he was a baby, he was a heel. He kicked his boss's ass, dump beer on people, told everybody to shut up, kick you in the gut. Even if you're a woman, you'd catch it. Anyone else does that in any other form of life, he'd be arrested and booed immediately. Yeah, he, he, he stuns your grandmother. You're going, oh my God, I love him. So it, it change, wrestling changes because old school guys would go out there, but there was like they would beat each other up, but everyone knew where they were going.
- [25:36]
B
Gotcha.
- [25:36]
A
So that's the thing, you guys is completely different. You have to use your muscle, your muscle memory will take you in situation, your situational combat. And it's real in terms of like you have no idea and you're one, one duck. When you should have dodged away from.
- [25:53]
B
Being lights out a zig when you shouldn't have zig.
- [25:55]
A
You put your head down the wrong way, you end up asleep.
- [25:57]
B
Yeah.
- [25:58]
A
So it's, you know, boxing, same thing. You keep leaving your arm down, keep leaving your arm down.
- [26:01]
B
Just less weapons to look for and use. Yeah.
- [26:05]
A
So for me, what was, was there a moment in time when you were getting, you're a champion, you got a household name. Was there a moment when you're like, it's time or I, I feel like I gotta, if things are getting harder than they should, usually it's in the training.
- [26:24]
B
First it was mentally, then it was.
- [26:26]
A
Well, you become civilized.
- [26:28]
B
Well, what happened exactly? Exactly. I used to hear my name mentioned if somebody wanted to fight me or anything. And again, I got in it before there was money in it. I got in it because of my.
- [26:37]
A
I was, I still wish they had pensions and better.
- [26:39]
B
No, I get you, I get you. I did all right, I did all right there in the end. I, during, towards the end of my career when I won the title and whatnot. But I am so fortunate for the, the Ultimate Fighter because there was a one season they did the, they called the comeback. So my, you know, I had some Losses that definitely could have went the other way. BJ Penn fight was racing.
- [27:00]
A
That was a classic.
- [27:00]
B
It's a close fight.
- [27:01]
A
You know, I had you up by.
- [27:02]
B
Thank you so much. I thought I won. But you've been, hey, you listen. You know, I just thought you had.
- [27:08]
A
More aggression, more activity and more strikes landed.
- [27:10]
B
Thank you, man. And shoot, that was ages ago. But I. There was a couple of fights where I felt could have went the other way. I don't think my record reflected my skill set. Again, I'm fighting the best guys on the planet.
- [27:20]
A
Yeah.
- [27:21]
B
But that season of the Ultimate Fighter, by winning, that gave me a shot. It was a tournament. I won it, got a shot at the title, pulled off that upset. So things went great. I feel like I lived my Rocky movie, but as far as calling it quits, I was made as the underdog. I love that whole lead up to the George fight. Everything that if it was a movie of my life, it would end with that. Then it would say I lost the rematch, I knocked out Frank Traegan, whatever else. But I lived happily ever after. But there was a time when I heard my name mentioned in an interview. A guy said, I don't even know who it is. Said he wanted to fight me next. And I was about to go walk with my kids, were young at the time, go to go take my wife with them to the park. And I'm like, I didn't give a shit. And that was a bad sign. For a guy that's got to fight in a cage.
- [28:05]
A
I'm like, ah, you're civilized. It's family time. Right now. I don't have time to because before he said my name. Who is this?
- [28:12]
B
Oh, 100%.
- [28:13]
A
Oh yeah. Oh, when you want to do it?
- [28:15]
B
When you want to.
- [28:15]
A
I'm free.
- [28:17]
B
You get too civilized. It's no good. And then shortly at that, around that same time I was training one day my arm blew up. I ended up getting a long story short, I got blood clots. I have something called thoracic outlet syndrome. I probably murdered the pronouncing how to pronounce that. But my first rib in my, my collarbone was cutting off my blood flow with my one of my arteries. So my arm blew up. I had a blood clot in my lung, a blood clot in my bicep. I went to emergency room.
- [28:44]
A
Blood clots are some scary shit, dude.
- [28:46]
B
I dodged a bullet. I dodged a bullet. I went to the emergency room. My wife was pregnant with my 12 year old now. It was horrible. Came to the you know, so they had to blow it out of my arm. I had to get on blood thinners. They had to take my first rib out. I left the sport.
- [29:00]
A
Then, yeah, I. My. I was wrestling. It was always one of your buddies, right? And he had. He grabbed a chair and I was like, listen, you can't, you know. And he's like, ah. But, you know, I was like, you can't not do it. So I decided to be creative. I said, hey, there was this move called the Garvin Stomp. Ronnie Garvin and Randy Orton does it sometimes, but he stomps on every one of your pressure points, okay? And you can't move. You're paralyzed for like three seconds, right? He hits you in the jaw with it. I said, what if we did that with a chair? Now in my mind, he's doing this, so that's not, you know, so I'm leaving my leg out there for that. He was in the moment. He was fired up. He had the crowd. I took a bump. You know, when the big guy goes down, especially a big mouth with a mouth like mine, that they want to really see me get my ass kicked in the nwa. Really. We didn't give it to him. We waited a long time before someone finally gave me, which is you. You. You build it. And finally some guy's kicking my ass, which they've been waiting for me to get my ass kicked a long time, right? And he first shot with the chair, I watch all the skin go off my leg. Just bam. I was like, oh, that's not good. And then 20 shots later, he did every one slam. So when it was over, my wife was in the crowd. And when it was. When I went back to the dressing room, she was like, looking at me. She was like, we're not doing this anymore. There's pieces of you. How does this happen? You know?
- [30:21]
B
You didn't get a clot or nothing, did you?
- [30:22]
A
I had to go through the. Looking for the blood clot on my leg was probably the longest. You're bored. And at the same time, you're like, what? What you. You. Cuz they got to do like an Ultra. It's a. It's, you know, when the guy found.
- [30:35]
B
I was talking with the guy who's a jiu jitsu kid, and I was talking to him, and he's looking like he was on my arm. And then he got quiet, and I'm like, what's up, man? And he couldn't tell me. He couldn't tell me right away. So it was very it was a crazy experience, but I dodged a bullet with that.
- [30:49]
A
Yeah. I got. Like I said, it's funny when your body says.
- [30:53]
B
Oh.
- [30:54]
A
You know, it's. Yeah. And you want to.
- [30:56]
B
You.
- [30:57]
A
I'm lucky that I was in the position that I was in. In life to where I could just sit and talk on a microphone or.
- [31:03]
B
In front of someone when it's time to walk away.
- [31:05]
A
Because I. There's a lot of brothers that I. That I know physically can't go anymore, but they don't have a choice.
- [31:13]
B
Don't you feel great? Like it's a similar thing? You with the pro wrestling, me with my MMA career. We made it through the other side.
- [31:20]
A
Yeah.
- [31:20]
B
Like, I'm not. I see you on gut feeling.
- [31:22]
A
No, no. I'm saying because that wasn't the plan. When I got mouthy and was like, I want to do this and I want more of this. And they're like, we'll let you go for six months. You'll come crawling back.
- [31:31]
B
Yeah.
- [31:32]
A
You know, And I was like, you.
- [31:33]
B
Gotta feel great about that.
- [31:34]
A
And I didn't have to, but. But I know just as talented guys that were two one. The fear.
- [31:40]
B
Yeah.
- [31:41]
A
Of the other side is a real thing.
- [31:44]
B
When they leave the game, you're saying.
- [31:46]
A
Sometimes the game pushes you out.
- [31:48]
B
Yeah. You know, they gotta be prepared for what's next.
- [31:52]
A
They never were because they thought you. You know, it. You think it's forever. And it's a crazy thing when you're on top, especially combat sports, boxing, NFL, ufc, wrestling. To a certain extent. There's a sense of invincibility there.
- [32:07]
B
Especially when you live in. It's rock star life. Yeah.
- [32:09]
A
And when that first L hits.
- [32:12]
B
Yeah.
- [32:12]
A
Your entire life is to erase it.
- [32:14]
B
Huh.
- [32:16]
A
And that. You know. And you can't. And some guys can't get over that.
- [32:19]
B
Yeah.
- [32:19]
A
Because it's not like you got beat up in an alley and you just didn't tell your homeboys what happened.
- [32:23]
B
Everybody sees it.
- [32:24]
A
You got 10,000 comments from guys who have never picked up anything besides a spoon telling you how you need to do better on your backboard.
- [32:32]
B
Oh. It makes you humble. Especially dealing with. When you first lost. That's when you deal with all the morons. You know what I mean? And the guys that. Sometimes you get it from people you don't expect. I had a cashier at the gnc. I used to like this little guy. And after the BJ Penn fight, he goes, I felt you just didn't have a. Just didn't want it enough at the.
- [32:48]
A
End you clearly don't want it.
- [32:51]
B
You're a cashier bro.
- [32:52]
A
Being a big monster. Every time I would lose. Right. Rey Mysterio beat me every time I wrestled him. And he was supposed to.
- [33:00]
B
Yeah.
- [33:01]
A
How could you let a guy the size of your leg kick your ass? And I. And you protect the magic show. And it gets to the point where I would be shopping with my family, like, do you even feel safe if someone broke in your house? Like, he's a big guy, but Ray Mysterio's 150lbs just kicked his ass. And I just remember going, sir, you're 40 years old, buddy.
- [33:23]
B
Is this what keeps you up at night?
- [33:24]
A
You know why he kicked my ass? He's like, did you have bad training week? No, the writers.
- [33:29]
B
Yeah.
- [33:29]
A
Wrote it that way.
- [33:30]
B
I think you got to point that out.
- [33:31]
A
And I was like, it's sad that I have to tell you this now. If you were four, I would play along with you. Yeah, man, I just. I hurt my hand, so. I used to do that all the time. Hey, sorry. Hey, he caught me. I'll get. I'll get that son of a.
- [33:42]
B
Don't you worry.
- [33:43]
A
Yeah, but what a grown ass man is. And he's stuck in front of my family. Excuse, bruh.
- [33:47]
B
Yeah, see, I can't have that. I can't have a little different.
- [33:49]
A
There's no script for you.
- [33:50]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [33:50]
A
Well, no, no, because then they like to say when you win, it was fake anyway. That's the. That's the thing that cracks me up about people who've never done it. But to continue on that. Was there a point where there was the fear, like, if I stop fighting, what am I going to do?
- [34:09]
B
You know, I was always equal teacher as I was fighter. I had my.
- [34:13]
A
That's not easy to do because a lot of guys who are great fighters can't teach.
- [34:16]
B
You know, I came Henzo gave me or brought me in early on with my teaching, having teaching at the Henzel Gracie Academy here in Manhattan as a purple belt. As a 20 year old, 19 years old. So at 26, with a couple of my UFC checks and some money I saved up, I opened up my first storefront and lived in the basement of it on East Meadow, my hometown. And then I used when I got some bigger checks. Like nowadays my life now after fighting, I do my two podcasts, UFC Unfiltered, which is.
- [34:43]
A
Which is phenomenal.
- [34:44]
B
Which is the. Thank you. It's with Jim Norton. I've been. I have over 900 episodes. We're doing it for like nine years. And I love doing it with Jimmy. If you love mma, it's a great podcast. And also I do my own thing on the Matt Sarah channel on YouTube. Geeking out with Matt Sarah. It's more movies talk, UFC and fighting too. I do movie reactions. And then I'm at my school. I still. I'm at my school six days a week. Still a Sarah BJJ in Huntington, Long Island. It's the perfect post fight career for me.
- [35:10]
A
Not to mention though, but this, it's a great lesson to the guy because we've. And I'm not mentioning names, but we see the guys who stayed too long.
- [35:17]
B
Oh no.
- [35:18]
A
As soon as they talk, you're like, oh man.
- [35:20]
B
You know, I get it, I see it, I get it. It's heartbreaking. That's why I say guys like knowing.
- [35:25]
A
Being man enough to know when to say when. Because society will be like, oh man, he's. He's scared now. He doesn't have anymore. No, no, I had it. I did it. And it's okay to move on.
- [35:36]
B
It's upsetting to me when the guys that don't think about what's next. And then there's two. There's two times, there's two sides, there's guys that just don't know what else to do, they wait, stay in way too long. Then if they go on to bare knuckle boxing or some other weird shit. And then there's the guys that. All right, now I got. Now I'm 40 something. Now I got to get another. I got to get a state job for 20 years. I got to start a career where I should be retiring, which I'm not shitting on. If they're happy doing it. Some guys love doing it. I'm happy I'm not doing it, you.
- [36:04]
A
Know, brother, hey, I was. If I went back to work in construction, I'd be a miserable prick.
- [36:08]
B
Every day I feel like I stepped in shit every. I'll never take for granted what I got. When people bring up that St. Pierre fight to me in front of my kids, I go, oh, thank you. Just don't watch the rematch. I'm very. I try to take. There was a saying, never let any wind get to your head or loss get to your heart. And I like to live by that words.
- [36:26]
A
Yeah, I'm the same way. Because we all take Ls.
- [36:28]
B
I know you got a hard out, but I wanted to really bring up you being in a comic book, man. I'm a comic book guy, man.
- [36:34]
A
Do we. I Have.
- [36:34]
B
You have extras?
- [36:35]
A
I have extras in my office. I'll get it to you.
- [36:37]
B
Is it your. Is it about you?
- [36:38]
A
Yeah, it's. Well, there's the. The. The pre. One right there. No, man. Yeah, it's. It was my idea. So I had this idea when I was in wwe. So I'm a kind of a. I'm kind of a science junkie, right? I'm really into mother nature and biology and stuff, so I breed fish, right? So I.
- [36:56]
B
Okay.
- [36:56]
A
It's like, I have to. Fish tanks are my hobby. I have a giant fish in my office. I just always found it since the time I was a kid. I get in front of a fish tank, I just kind of. Everything slows down.
- [37:04]
B
Yeah.
- [37:05]
A
Relax. Yeah, it's like my. My church. So I had this. I came up with this. This idea, like I was researching, because when I was living in Tampa, when we had horseshoe crabs everywhere.
- [37:16]
B
Yeah.
- [37:17]
A
These things come up and they die. They flip over. And they'd be right in with the condo that we were staying. I'd come walking out and there'd be horseshoe crabs everywhere. And I spent all, like, Frisbees throwing them back in the water. Like, guys, 20 million years or 2200 million years of the planet, I get back in the water. So I'm doing this thing right? And I finally was like, what is wrong with these things? And I started looking them up, and then I found out that a horseshoe crab can never get sick by the same thing twice the antibodies in their body. So if you give a horseshoe crab a cold and he survives it, he can never get a cold again. I was like, what? This is an amazing power. What if he gave a comic?
- [37:52]
B
No. What if he came with disease?
- [37:55]
A
Yeah. No, if he lives through it, he's fine. He'll be back. Be back in the clubs two, three weeks tops. So I was like, man, imagine if a person had that kind of DNA. Like, you shot him.
- [38:06]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [38:06]
A
He lives. You can't shoot him again. His skin. So that was the. The precipice was like. I was. I took it myself. Wrestler talk shit to the promoter one day, promoter said, get the out. End up working in a shitty job as a security officer with some guy taunting you to scrub floors, and no one gave a shit that you were a world champion.
- [38:22]
B
Yeah.
- [38:23]
A
They're treating you like shit. And I befriend one of the test subjects there. It was this. They had this orangutan that could sign and talk.
- [38:31]
B
Yeah.
- [38:32]
A
So he was like, who? I talked to the story this was the press. And the awesome guy from dc, man, he. He. He made it into life. But the idea was that I get injected in this vat, you know, And I turn. End up, wake up one morning, I'm blue. But I keep changing. And during the course of the stuff. Now, originally I had wrote it not for kids.
- [38:56]
B
Is it one Gray? Is it a graphic novel?
- [38:58]
A
It's a graphic novel, but it's not an ongoing series.
- [39:00]
B
It's. It's a one we.
- [39:01]
A
Because we've sold so much, it is now just like my daughter. My daughter's book I wrote with her.
- [39:06]
B
Oh, that's beautiful.
- [39:07]
A
So all of a sudden, he gets injected. And originally it was that I was failed. Wife leaves, Kids don't want to see you. So I tried to off myself. Oh, this. I fell into the vat.
- [39:20]
B
A mature comic.
- [39:21]
A
Yeah. But then I realized, who does that help? I would never read. I would never let my son read a Green Lantern or Iron man suicidal off of himself.
- [39:33]
B
Yeah.
- [39:33]
A
Because whether you. Whether he turns around or not, the kid might not get that far in the message.
- [39:38]
B
I'm with you.
- [39:39]
A
So I changed it. Yeah, they were gonna inject the. The orangutan, and my dumb ass ran and tried to, like, no, he's my friend. And I got hit.
- [39:47]
B
Were you a comic book guy, by the way?
- [39:49]
A
Oh, yeah. You have to.
- [39:50]
B
Me too.
- [39:50]
A
So I just say I'm gonna try to do things. If it. If it. If it hits, great. If it doesn't, screw it. I tried, you know, and so it just kind of. And then when he called me, he's like, bro, we've sold 20,000 in, like, one day. It's like, bro, this. And then I sat down, I said, look, I'm gonna read through it because make sure the credit. And I. I enjoyed the hell out of it. I'm not gonna lie. I enjoyed. I was like, who came up with this? Like, I almost had to pinch myself. Like, I. I like this dude. Talented. So. And I think I'm trying to do this thing where we get people back into reading. I want my kids off the net. So bedtimes. That's why this book is so big. And I went out. Just an example.
- [40:28]
B
Look at that.
- [40:28]
A
I found a real artist.
- [40:30]
B
This was your horse right here.
- [40:31]
A
But see, this is how I read stories. How my mom read stories. They read the story. And I found a cool. I wouldn't get any chat. GPT. And so I found this cool Brazilian or Colombian. Sorry, Artist. That was at one of my daughter's horse shows. And he helped me make this book. And so.
- [40:48]
B
That is so great.
- [40:49]
A
And the only book that was beating us was Harry Potter. And I'll take that. Hey, I'll take. Because you ain't touching Harry Potter.
- [40:54]
B
No one's touching her.
- [40:55]
A
19 Top 10 children's book one through nine, Harry Potter. And I got a snapshot of Georgie's little great adventure. So my thing is like, guys, just try. Doesn't matter if it works or not, just try it.
- [41:06]
B
If that's an ongoing series and you need to take down some bad guys and you need some help.
- [41:12]
A
Speak. No, hey, we get me in there, we can get injected with something in there.
- [41:16]
B
I inject in anything you need.
- [41:18]
A
You got it, man. Hey, I gotta. I know you gotta, but hey, can you come back? I want to talk more about fights. Some of the. I love the mental thing where you talk about those moments, you know, where you're like, ah, the rematch, this and that. But I think people realize that those weren't failures. No, they're not at all.
- [41:36]
B
Just in the moment. I lost in Atlantic City one time. My wife's first time there to see me. She was with my father in law. That loss, why couldn't I win? This fight almost knocked him out. Because I lost that fight. It led to the ultimate fighter. I didn't see it coming. I didn't know it was.
- [41:52]
A
You never know where to grow.
- [41:53]
B
One door closes, but you gotta.
- [41:56]
A
You gotta hear it when it opens.
- [41:57]
B
Yeah.
- [41:57]
A
No one's gonna walk you in there.
- [41:59]
B
And then. And you gotta just seize that opportunity.
- [42:00]
A
And then you build your house.
- [42:02]
B
Thank goodness I built mine.
- [42:03]
A
Yeah. Yes, sir. Thanks pleas.