JRE MMA Show #179 with Josh Thompson & "Big" John McCarthy

Summary

The Joe Rogan Experience MMA Show #179

Guests: Josh Thomson, "Big" John McCarthy
Date: May 27, 2026
Host: Joe Rogan

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Joe Rogan welcomes legendary MMA referee "Big" John McCarthy and former UFC fighter and analyst Josh Thomson for a deep dive into MMA’s ever-evolving landscape. The conversation spans current controversies, historic moments, technical insights, athlete health, and the state of the sport both inside and outside the cage. The trio dissect judging and refereeing, weight cutting, rule changes, great fighters past and present, and broader issues affecting combat sports and society.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Refereeing, Commentary, and MMA Media Transparency

• Referees on podcasts: John McCarthy describes how, upon returning to refereeing, he was limited on discussing certain promotions and fighters due to regulatory commissions, leading to the "McCarthy Mondays" podcast segment focused on broader topics ([00:27–01:06]).
• Transparency and voice: Joe argues referees should be able to publicly explain their decisions.

  "Everybody should be able to have a voice, especially referees … that’s a benefit to everybody." (Joe Rogan, [01:41])

• Regulatory pushback: Commissions worry outspoken referees create controversy, but the panel agrees this dialogue is vital for improvement ([01:22–02:12]).

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2. MMA Rules: 12-to-6 Elbows, Side Kicks, and Inconsistencies

• 12-to-6 elbow rule: Joe and John criticize the outdated ban (still enforced in places like New Jersey), calling out the lack of logic and consistency across commissions ([02:12–03:38]).
• Dangerous techniques: They discuss which techniques, if any, merit being banned, with Joe suggesting the only real argument is knee sidekicks – but John counters brain damage is the greater concern.

  "We should then ban kicks to the head … what’s worse, a knee or a blown out brain?" (John McCarthy, [03:53])

• RIZIN rules and stomps: John explains why soccer kicks and stomps aren't as dangerous as they appear if properly officiated ([05:30–06:04]).

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3. Iconic Fighters & Historic Moments

• Shogun Rua, Fedor, Aleksander Emelianenko: The legends recall iconic performances and the legendary stoicism/ruthlessness of Russian fighters ([06:30–11:23]).
• Fedor Emelianenko’s physicality:

  "I worked out with Fedor … the one thing I always thought … he’s got to have some kind of just hard strength … No, he’s fast. … Everything he does, he just explodes into." (John McCarthy, [10:25])

• Effect of size and speed: Discussion on Fedor’s advantage as a smaller heavyweight, but how Ngannou’s sheer power changes the game ([11:11–12:12]).
• Technical breakdowns: Fedor’s ability to beat Mirko Cro Cop, legendary left kicks by Cro Cop and Edson Barboza, and the evolution of striking in MMA ([12:28–16:32]).

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4. Athletic Backgrounds and Physical Advantages

• Soccer & wrestling as foundational sports: The movement, cardio, and suffering of soccer and wrestling give athletes an advantage in MMA ([18:05–20:18]).
• Dehydration & same-day weigh-ins:

  "Weight cutting is the grossest thing in MMA. … They should figure out a way to stop it." (Joe Rogan, [21:07–21:09])

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5. Weight Cutting: Dangers & Solutions

• Why it's problematic: All agree it’s the most dangerous part of MMA, but solutions are elusive due to incentives and regulations.

  "…You're leaving small bits and pieces of yourself in that damn cage every time, even when you win." (John McCarthy, [32:21])

• Random weigh-ins, upper weight mandates: Joe suggests random checks and restrictions (no more than 10 lbs above fight weight at any time), but John details legal and logistical issues ([21:48–24:06]).
• Case studies: Alex Pereira’s dramatic weight cut (from 185 up to 250 lbs off-camp), and Anthony Johnson’s struggles leading to missed potential ([24:45–33:04]).
• Fighters’ health post-cut: Many fighters have revived or improved their careers moving up a weight class (Max Holloway, Dustin Poirier, etc., [27:34–28:33]).

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6. Judging, Corruption, and Scoring Fights

• Controversial decisions: The trio diagnose the recurring issue of bad judging, especially when traveling to non-UFC markets ([47:09–52:06]).
• Adelaide Byrd and scoring scandals:

  "Some people have done this in the past … all you have to do is make it a split decision. ... and someone’s making a ton of loot." (Joe Rogan, [48:58])

• Should the win bonus exist?

  "It shouldn’t be dependent upon judges’ decisions. ... No one’s trying to lose." (Joe Rogan, [53:33])

• Improvement ideas: Five judges doesn't help much, but real-time apps (like Verdict) generally align with good scoring ([52:30–53:00]).

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7. Consequences of Fighting, Health, and Retirement

• Permanent damage: The group focuses in detail on brain trauma, CTE, and the long-term consequences of fighting, referencing cases like Travis Ludwig, Joey Beltran, and Tim Sylvia’s broken arm ([65:00–68:44]).
• Coaches, families, hard choices:

  "You can only crash that car so many times before it’s a piece of junk." (John McCarthy, [69:20])

• Admiration for early retirement: Khabib Nurmagomedov’s unblemished record and personal discipline highlighted as the gold standard ([70:24–71:09]).
• Khabib’s dominance:

  "He’s the most dominant fighter inside … the cage." (Jamie Varner, [71:09])

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8. Changing of the Guard: New Generations & Prospects

• Dagestani work ethic: The relentless, clean lifestyle and training intensity of fighters like Khabib and Islam Makhachev as a case study for success ([75:05–76:39]).
• Contrast with ‘party’ fighters: Drinking and lack of discipline cited as career-killers ([76:43–77:22]).
• Emerging wrestlers and heavyweights: Gable Steveson and other prospects dissected; potential for a quick rise in a shallow division ([81:42–82:31]).
• Frustration over super heavyweight limits: Calls to scrap the 265lb cap, referencing freak athletes that would “melt your piss cup” and Pride-style openweight glory ([84:48–91:26]).

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9. Technique Evolution & MMA Innovation

• New submissions (e.g., McKeeotine, Genie Choke): Technical innovation highlighted as a continual process, catalyzed by unique body types and cross-discipline creativity ([142:02–142:27]).
• Striking evolution: Front kicks, calf kicks, and other overlooked or re-invented techniques gain prominence ([142:27–144:13]).

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10. Broader Issues: The Business & Social Problems

• MVP on Netflix & new promotions: Approaches like Netflix’s new MMA league and Scott Coker’s $60M backed promotion discussed, but with skepticism about long-term impact ([135:27–137:00]).
• Marketing challenges: The UFC’s ability to create stars is strained by oversaturation—now "card names" drive interest more than deep familiarity with fighters ([137:19–138:04]).
• Fighter pay & careers: Calls for more options, better pay, and cross-promotional integration to benefit the sport and individual athletes ([136:41–137:00]).
• Social commentary: At the close, the group addresses problems like homelessness, drug addiction, and political dysfunction in California and the US, connecting it back to broader themes of discipline, societal decay, and leadership ([156:24–163:00]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On transparency for referees:

  "Everybody should be able to have a voice … that’s a benefit to everybody." (Joe Rogan, [01:41])

• On the arbitrary nature of some banned techniques:

  "It doesn’t make any sense. The old rules are fucking stupid. ... 12-to-6 elbows are too dangerous? Nobody believes that." (Joe Rogan, [03:11])

• On Fedor’s abilities:

  "No, he’s fast. And I mean super fast. … you’ve got to work really hard to try to stay up with his speed." (John McCarthy, [10:25])

• On random weigh-in enforcement:

  "Let’s say you fight at 170. You cannot weigh more than 180. ... I’ll show up at your house at 7 in the morning … 175. This is not good." (Joe Rogan, [22:01])

• On retiring healthy:

  "That’s the start of your next life. … You can’t identify yourself (only) as a fighter." (John McCarthy, [69:46])

• On Khabib’s legacy:

  "He dominated people that nobody dominated. ... He is the most dominant fighter inside." (Jamie Varner, [70:45], [71:09])

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Key Timestamps by Segment

• Refereeing & Media Transparency: [00:27–02:12]
• Rule Changes & Dangerous Techniques: [02:12–05:38]
• Iconic Fights & Pride Era: [06:30–13:05]
• Fedor Breakdown & Heavyweight Analysis: [10:25–14:05]
• Weight Cutting Crisis: [21:07–33:33]
• Judging Scandals & Solutions: [47:09–53:33]
• Fighter Health & CTE: [65:00–68:44; 98:14–103:32]
• New Prospects & Wrestlers: [81:42–91:26]
• Innovation in Submissions & Striking: [142:02–144:13]
• Promotion/Business Issues: [135:27–137:19]
• Fighter Pay & Marketing: [136:41–138:04]
• Social Commentary (Homelessness etc.): [156:24–163:19]

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Engagement & Tone

True to the JRE, the episode blends technical expertise, spirited debate, and storytelling, driven by the expertise and world-weary humor of all three hosts. The tone is irreverent and deeply informed, frequently alternating between nostalgia, comic tangents, and hard-hitting realism regarding the brutality (and beauty) of combat sports.

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Final Thoughts

This episode stands out as a celebration of MMA’s past and present, with insider analysis on everything from rulebook minutiae to superstar psychology. Whether you’re a practitioner or a superfan, the conversation delivers practical insights, big names, hilarious stories, and sobering warnings about the toll of violence—both in sports and society.

Transcript

[John McCarthy]

Joe Rogan Podcast.

[Joe Rogan]

Check it out.

[John McCarthy]

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train My Day. Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day.

[Joe Rogan]

Gentlemen, live. What's happening? Good to see you.

[John McCarthy]

What is up?

[Joe Rogan]

I enjoy your show. Your show's excellent. You guys have a really good MMA show. It's really.

[Jamie Varner]

Thank you.

[John McCarthy]

Thank you. I kind of blew that.

[Joe Rogan]

How'd you blow up?

[John McCarthy]

We can talk about that. I got to talk to everybody.

[Joe Rogan]

You guys are not doing it anymore.

[John McCarthy]

I stepped back away when I started refereeing again.

[Joe Rogan]

God damn it. You got to go back to doing it. You guys are great. You guys are a great combination.

[John McCarthy]

I think I might.

[Jamie Varner]

What we did is. What we did is we started doing McCarthy Mondays, because when he went back to refereeing, he's not allowed to talk about promotions, not allowed to talk about fighters and what's wrong and in the things that possibly, you know, can make some changes. And so we just started McCarthy Monday where we just talk about, like, the Joe Schilling situation. That's something we could talk about. Right? Like, it's something. So I just. I created a show for him to just only do on Mondays.

[John McCarthy]

He created.

[Joe Rogan]

Nice.

[Jamie Varner]

Well,

[Joe Rogan]

he created it.

[Jamie Varner]

I was just trying to find ways to keep him involved.

[Joe Rogan]

I love that you're refereeing again. We need great referees. But I wish you were out there doing both. It doesn't make sense to me that you can't do both. Like, it's not like you're not going to be a great referee while also still being able to comment objectively about promotions. It's important.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, it is important.

[Joe Rogan]

It's important.

[John McCarthy]

Look at transparency. What? Where's ever the problem with that?

[Joe Rogan]

Exactly.

[John McCarthy]

But you get these people that.

[Jamie Varner]

Oh, no.

[John McCarthy]

Because you might say something that is going to create a problem, and it's like, it's not a problem if it's the truth.

[Joe Rogan]

That's ridiculous. I mean, if that was the case, why, how come I can do it as a commentator? How come all these guys can do it?

[John McCarthy]

Because you're the best.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, but I mean, everybody should be able to have a voice, especially referees. You should. Like, if something happens and you're a referee and you could say, here's my perspective. This is why I did what I did. And you have it on a podcast on a regular basis. That's a benefit to everybody.

[Jamie Varner]

So that is what I'm trying to create.

[John McCarthy]

I believe you're right.

[Jamie Varner]

But what you. But what you run into is you run into some issues where the referee says too much, and then people come back at him and Then the commissions have to answer for it. And then the fighters dig on them and then good.

[Joe Rogan]

People are talking good. That's how shit gets solved. That's how you don't have like two. One hand down does not in. It's not a downed opponent anymore. Why? Because we complained forever. 12 to 6 elbows, they're legit again. Except in New Jersey.

[John McCarthy]

You see the problem. Yeah, the goddamn problem.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, we were in New Jersey, I was like, you got to be kidding me. How the do you guys not have 12 to 6?

[Jamie Varner]

You can't make it any more complicated for the referees and the fighters.

[Joe Rogan]

It's so dumb. It's the dumbest thing.

[John McCarthy]

It's so unfair to the fighters themselves because you. When we. Look, I was part. I wrote those things out and they were passed by the abc, but we gave six months. Six months. Because you got to give the fighters time to train to make sure that they get it right. Okay? And so it's put it in. It works great. And now you expect them to go back to one location in the middle of a fight. Exactly. One location. And now they're going to automatically go back to the old rules. It's like, do you realize what you're doing to them?

[Joe Rogan]

It doesn't make any sense either. The old rules are fucking stupid. We all, we all agreed. Everybody, no one was like, no, no, no. 12 to 6 elbows are too dangerous.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yes, there was.

[Joe Rogan]

Was there people.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah, you're not your broadcast partner.

[Joe Rogan]

Shut the up. Which one?

[John McCarthy]

Dan Cormier.

[Joe Rogan]

No, I swear to God, he says some crazy. He does say, DC, I love you. I love

[John McCarthy]

12 to 6 elbows. He goes. I think that rule should. Absolutely. That's dangerous.

[Joe Rogan]

I swear, if we're going to ban anything. And I don't think we should ban anything, but if we're going to ban anything. Sidekicks to the knees.

[John McCarthy]

See that right there, Right?

[Joe Rogan]

I don't think we should.

[John McCarthy]

Okay, no, you shouldn't.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't think we should. But I'm saying if we should. There's an argument. You're going to blow out a guy's knee.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

His career now be the same.

[John McCarthy]

We should. Then we should absolutely ban kicks to the head and knees to the head. And we should. We should ban. Yes. Because.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

What's worse on knee or the blown out brain?

[Joe Rogan]

I'm agreeing with you. I don't think we should ban anything.

[John McCarthy]

There you go.

[Joe Rogan]

There's one thing that does bother me. Like the Cleo Roundtree Modestus Bakovska's fight. Remember Knee Went sideways. I was like, oh, yeah. Oh, he's fucked for a year at least, if not forever. But not forever.

[John McCarthy]

Okay, but what's the difference between that and we'll say, you know, Edson Barbosa.

[Joe Rogan]

Terry, Terry, Adam.

[John McCarthy]

Terry, Adam. And that kick to the head, you don't think that that was more than a year? You know, it was really.

[Joe Rogan]

Was never the same again.

[John McCarthy]

Exactly. That's my point.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, yeah. I mean, that was like getting hit by a meteor. Oh, that was crazy.

[John McCarthy]

I mean, it was absolutely perfectly executed. Beautiful technique that it absolutely altered. And we talked, by the way, it

[Joe Rogan]

was first wheel kick, K.O. in the U.S. absolutely.

[John McCarthy]

It was.

[Jamie Varner]

I didn't notice it.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Crazy.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. But you look and you go, there are those fights and we say it all the time and you know, you as the, as a referee, as a fighter, you know, with him.

[Joe Rogan]

Here it is, right?

[John McCarthy]

Here we go. And watch this thing.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, I mean, just that one was just insane.

[John McCarthy]

But you, the fighters themselves, they get paid to get damaged. I hate to say that, but it's the truth. That's part of their pay is they go in and they're going to accept some damage, but you don't want them to have unnecessary damage. Right?

[Joe Rogan]

No, I would think we go rising rules because there's something to be said for that.

[John McCarthy]

I do look at. I've. I've advocated for knees on the ground for a long time. It's never going to happen.

[Joe Rogan]

My position is it's better in a ring because you can avoid them a little bit if you're mobile.

[John McCarthy]

Right.

[Joe Rogan]

If you're still conscious and you have defensive capability, you can move around knees and kicks with. When the cage happens and you're butted up and someone stomps you, that's a totally different.

[John McCarthy]

First off, the stomp I don't ever agree with. And the reason why is this. Name me. The fight that you saw that a stomp was an effective technique when the fighter was not already seriously hurt. Doesn't happen.

[Joe Rogan]

Sakuraba.

[John McCarthy]

Sakuraba used to do it all the time. After he hurt people, every time he tried to do it, when they weren't hurt, they just moved and he was Mongolian stomping on nothing. Go ahead, take a look at him.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I'd have to go back and watch it.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, there was. There was Minoa and Phil Barone. He did that a couple times with him when Minimal couldn't get the takedown because I was there cornering him for that fight. There was that fight, then there was. And then Shogun and ninja. Remember when they used to like

[John McCarthy]

ninja and shogun, the brothers together? Those guys were phenomenal, Adam.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, and we people that only saw Shogun in Pride. Missed it. Oh, yeah, you missed it. Excuse me.

[John McCarthy]

In the ufc fighting against Quentin Rampage Jackson was. I mean, because a lot of people didn't, you know, going into that fight, you know, that's Rampage. You know, this. This guy's young. He absolutely just annihilated Rampage in that fight. And it was like, oh, my God, he's way better than I ever gave him credit for before that fight. That fight was. That was a coming out party for. For Shogun.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he was a lethal striker. Lethal. And all those Curitiba guys were so h. Super aggressive.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

His brother was just as nasty until he, you know, he started. Got a little chinny after chinny started fighting big guys. Yeah, that was the problem.

[Joe Rogan]

Didn't he fight? Alexander didn't. Who did he fight? He fought some heavyweight, right?

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah. And he got.

[John McCarthy]

He fought quite a few.

[Jamie Varner]

Crushed.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But he fought one guy where it was like, what is this? Why is he fighting this guy?

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, I can't remember who it was.

[Joe Rogan]

It a millionaire.

[John McCarthy]

Alexander A million.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think it was that.

[John McCarthy]

I think it was.

[Joe Rogan]

And it was like one of those fights. Like. No, no, no, no, no. This is a real heav. A big one with nasty striking.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, I mean, he was nasty.

[John McCarthy]

He was good.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he had some smooth striking.

[John McCarthy]

People don't give the millennikos as a whole, Alexander was a little bit off, a little bit crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, a lot.

[John McCarthy]

Okay, I'm just.

[Joe Rogan]

How about the dead baby on his back? Like the death holding a baby tattooed on his back? Like, that's a choice. That's a. See if you find Alexander Emilianenko's back tattoo. You look at that, you're like, what is going on in your mind that you like? This should be on my back permanently.

[John McCarthy]

But that's the brother. And then you have Fedor as the guy who was even better.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

And look at Fedor is. You know, he was such a good guy.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at that tattoo.

[John McCarthy]

There you go.

[Joe Rogan]

What does it say in Russian, Jamie?

[John McCarthy]

Jesus,

[Jamie Varner]

that's.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that is the craziest thing. The baby's got a sword and a crown. Oh, yeah. And then death is like, yes, let's kill everyone right there.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

It's not even a good drawing. It's like, that's some Russian prison.

[John McCarthy]

That's just. In Russian 100.

[Jamie Varner]

He's 100 committed.

[Joe Rogan]

That's a ballpoint pen and a sewing needle.

[John McCarthy]

Yep.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, they did that in a Russian prison.

[John McCarthy]

100 urine and ash, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

That's a lot of time. God is with us. Are you sure? Are you sure? Based on.

[John McCarthy]

And then you got.

[Jamie Varner]

His brother's brother has no tattoos.

[John McCarthy]

No tattoos.

[Joe Rogan]

He can find completely different small, little

[John McCarthy]

wooden cross on his chest. You know, as far as I know, right?

[Joe Rogan]

He's so stoked.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, he's awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

Alexander Milaninko. James Thompson fight. James Thompson was an animal. Built like Greek God. Comes out, like, terrifying. Huge.

[John McCarthy]

The best is the look on Alexander's face throughout all of the things. I'm going to fall asleep right now.

[Joe Rogan]

Just completely stoic. Look at Thompson. So worked up.

[Jamie Varner]

Starts pounding his chest.

[John McCarthy]

He's shaking. Look at him.

[Joe Rogan]

He's ready to. He just stepped out of a bar. He' no flexing at all. Doesn't even lift his hand up all the way.

[John McCarthy]

Hey, everybody got the belly hanging out a little bit. It's awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

Look how chilly looks.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, I'm gonna get.

[Joe Rogan]

Look how chill Fedor looks, too. Like, no worries at all.

[John McCarthy]

None.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at James. He's so hyped up. Alexander's like.

[John McCarthy]

It's like.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like, I'll have Swiss cheese and mustard.

[John McCarthy]

Yep.

[Joe Rogan]

He's ordering a sandwich.

[Jamie Varner]

He rocks him, too, right off the bat.

[Joe Rogan]

James comes charging.

[John McCarthy]

Charging at him. Puts him down. But he wasn't hurt.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like he fell down.

[Jamie Varner]

That hurt.

[John McCarthy]

That hurt James. That hurt James.

[Joe Rogan]

Once he starts connecting. Oh, yeah, they had that Soviet style fluid boxing that just whip punches.

[John McCarthy]

Look, I'll tell you what I worked out with Fedor, and it was. It would. It was a great moment in my life. If you're gonna sit there and say, well, if you can get your ass kicked, it's a great moment. But the one thing I always thought, you know, before, you know, watching him reffing him, I go, he's got to have some kind of, you know, like, just hard strength, you know? Right, right. No, he's fast. And I mean super fast. When he explodes and his hands are down kind of. So it's hard to see when shots are coming and everything he does he just explodes into. And you go, oh, I get it. Because you got to work really hard to try to stay up with his speed when he all of a sudden is exploding. And then it's like, oh, he doesn't get tired. And you're starting to get tired because you're having to match that RPM that he's At. Right.

[Joe Rogan]

And he's not a big heavyweight.

[John McCarthy]

No, he's not.

[Joe Rogan]

Which I think is a real benefit.

[John McCarthy]

I think it is, dude.

[Joe Rogan]

Until you're fighting a guy like Ngannou.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And I'm like, yeah, there's a problem there.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Because that guy can be patient.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

265. Naturally. Nuclear power.

[John McCarthy]

And Ngannou hits you anywhere in the

[Joe Rogan]

head, it's a problem.

[John McCarthy]

You're in trouble.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it's a real problem.

[John McCarthy]

He had Philip Lens hit him on the basic.

[Joe Rogan]

Almost.

[John McCarthy]

We didn't say the temple hit him almost to the top of the head. And look, he was out. He means not be able to control his body. That guy's got the ability to hurt. You know, when he fought Kane.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

You know, Take a look.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

It wasn't a great shot. Right. But it hurt him.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. He's got crazy power.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. Just not.

[Joe Rogan]

But Fedor was a different thing because Fedor had that, like that Russian style of movement that you see like Dimitri Bival has, where they're real relaxing.

[John McCarthy]

Exactly.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And the footwork, that little bit of a bounce.

[John McCarthy]

He's got that little bit of a bounce. In, out, just sits there and wait and he waits for your motion to come where he wants it to be. And then he changes that distance and just crash.

[Jamie Varner]

Fedor did a really good job of coming around your guard as well. So it wasn't just a big straight right all the time. You know, Rich Franklin used to do that as well. He'd come around your guard, you put your hands up. And Fedor had a. He did a great job with that coming around and landing the big overhand right. And then he'd come up, uppercut, then he'd take you down or hip toss you, body lock you.

[Joe Rogan]

And if you took him to the ground, off his back, he's got one of the quickest arm bars in the game, which is nuts. Transition Choi.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

He looks like a little foot tall dude.

[Jamie Varner]

He looks like a little kid.

[John McCarthy]

He's all stretched out. He looks.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like in this piano, you go.

[John McCarthy]

He's off the ground completely.

[Joe Rogan]

He was great everywhere. And, you know, you think about him as being this overall picture of like one of the greatest, if not the greatest MMA fighter of all time. But people forget, like, his standup was so good that the CRO Cop fight was mostly stand up.

[John McCarthy]

He wrote. He wrote the blueprint on how to beat CRO Cop.

[Jamie Varner]

Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

Which. You gotta be him to do it, though.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

The thing. I mean, he. First of all, his his standup has always been real dangerous, but also, it's like the way he was able to check that left kick. He was doing a lot of, like, lifting the knee up and catching it, like, up high.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, but how many people had you seen that would back CRO Cop onto his back foot and march forward?

[Joe Rogan]

Nobody.

[John McCarthy]

Exactly. And that was. That was. The difference is when looked at it, he told himself, nope, I'm gonna. I'm gonna make you go backwards. And it took a lot of what Crow Cop did, and it just nullified. A lot of it was.

[Joe Rogan]

A lot of it was the threat of the grappling, right?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

That was a big part of it.

[Jamie Varner]

Well, not only that, because then Fedor didn't have to worry about if he did slip and fall, if he threw. If he threw a big shot and he got cut from underneath. If he did fall to the ground, Pro Cop was going to fall into the ground. He could just hop back up.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

So there was that. And then on top of it, too, when you fought him in a phone booth, you have to. You're not worried as much for that head kick to get there. If I'm within, you know, inches of

[John McCarthy]

you, that left kick was.

[Joe Rogan]

There's this picture of Heath Herring where the shin is, like, halfway into Heath's ribs. Oh, it's.

[John McCarthy]

I know exactly what you're doing.

[Joe Rogan]

You know that picture? Yes, I do. Crazy. You see, Pro Cop's shin is just so deep, you just feel your own liver.

[Jamie Varner]

I've seen the Vanderlei ones, because Vanderlei has. His ribs were just tore up from. From there.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at that picture. Look at that picture, bro. That's crazy.

[John McCarthy]

Do you know how much that hurts?

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, that is actually.

[John McCarthy]

I do. Yeah. Well, that's. That's the part where you look with people and you go, you know. Do you realize what. You know? Yeah, that would hurt a little. No, no, no. Your entire body is going. I quit.

[Joe Rogan]

He had such explosive power, and he. To me, he was, like, the first guy to figure out how to transition from kickboxing to mma, because he did it with explosiveness.

[John McCarthy]

But Maurice Smith, come on. You got to give. Maurice Smith. I got to give you.

[Joe Rogan]

That's true. Maurice. Maurice was the first. But CRO Cop was in that same era. He's doing it in pride.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And all those other guys, like Ernesto Hoost, it didn't really work out for them when, like, he only fought Bob Sapp in a kickboxing fight. But even when they were fighting, like, bigger, like, CRO Cop up. Bob Sapp. Like, same era. Yeah, same time. Not.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, exactly, same time period, Same same.

[Joe Rogan]

Was that elusiveness. Whereas, like guys like Peter Ertz, that wouldn't translate as well in MMA elite strikers, but they wanted to get into a rhythm. They wanted to like, get into situations and exchanges. And with CRO Cop, it was as these one shots were coming at you like nuclear missiles. And it was a different threat. It was a completely different threat than a lot of other guys because he was so explosive.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, yeah, he's. CRO Cop was. What a great guy.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, he's awesome.

[John McCarthy]

As far as you know. And. But his left kick has to be the best left kick there's ever been ever in the sport of mma.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. I don't think you could even think of a second place, like, who's got a better left kick than CRO K? Maybe Edson Barbosa. Switch kick. Yeah, that switch kick was preposterous.

[Jamie Varner]

Quick, so accurate too.

[Joe Rogan]

In his prime, he would kick and I'd be like, is there something wrong with my eyes?

[Jamie Varner]

It was so fast.

[Joe Rogan]

It was just like a 120 pound guy. Yeah, it was so fast.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, they. Dana called me a couple of times to fight him and I was like, ranked number three. He was like, just, I think hit number 15. I'm like, no,

[John McCarthy]

give me a higher rank. Sorry, not that, it's not that I. It's not that I would find. Yeah, give me a higher rank.

[Joe Rogan]

Make it make sense.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, help me, help me, help me

[Joe Rogan]

this time in my life. Make it make sense.

[John McCarthy]

Back when he came in, though, you got to look at me at Barbosa, you know, he's been there a long time now, when you think about it, still going. But when he came in, it was like, dude, this is a next level of standup ability with what this guy can do. Yeah. And it was like, man.

[Joe Rogan]

And oddly, mostly kicks.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like his boxing wasn't threatening. Like his kicks were. It was not equal. It was mostly kicks. You're right.

[Jamie Varner]

No. If he could, I developed something along the Jose Aldo level of boxing where he ripped the body, came back on top of the head.

[Joe Rogan]

Those kicks, I mean, Aldo's takedown defense was nuts.

[Jamie Varner]

Probably the best, I think probably the best in the sport that we've seen.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, honestly, other than BJ in his prime.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, right. With the one leg hop.

[Joe Rogan]

DJ in his prime was ridiculous. His balance was insane. Yeah. But I think he's the only guy that didn't get taken down by Merab when Marab and him fought three crazy rounds. I think Merab went for like, 90 takedowns or something, and I don't think he took more. I don't think Marab took him down. Yeah, I think Murab mostly won that fight up against the cage, hitting him with punches, working for takedowns.

[Jamie Varner]

Cage damage extremely underestimated Jose Aldo's takedown defense, people.

[John McCarthy]

It's the fun. You know, you take a look and Aldo doesn't. Now all of a sudden, it's kind of like the Anderson Silva thing. All of a sudden it's like, you know, well, let's talk about the very best in the 145 pound. And. And look at Alexander Volkanovsky is right there. He's phenomenal. You know, I'm not saying don't forget what Jose Aldo did.

[Joe Rogan]

Absolutely.

[John McCarthy]

I mean, through the wec, into being the UFC champion, all those fights, man, I'll tell you what, that guy was absolutely nuts as far as how good he was at one time.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I think it was also because he was an elite soccer player and the ability to, like, if you watch a live soccer game, a professional soccer match, you're like, oh, Jesus. Like, oh, they're athletes. They don't get to slow down. They don't have a. Like a. There's no halftime. There's no, like, big break for commercials. There's no bullshit. They just go, there's no timeouts. Giant fucking legs. They all have insane leg power because they're just sprinting all day long. And you go, oh, well, that would translate perfectly to MMA for kick, for moving, for footwork.

[Jamie Varner]

Think about all. It's not just that, right? It's. It's the stop and go. Stop and go. Like in a real fight, right? I get a takedown, I get to rest for a second. Then he postures back up and gets back to his feet. I got to go again and spritz again. Get the takedown. In soccer, same thing. You run hard down the line. Oh, ball gets turned back. Now you kind of jog back a little bit. Now the ball gets played to you. It's the stop and go of sprinting, just like a real fight.

[Joe Rogan]

This episode is brought to you by the Farmer's Dog. Here's a fun fact. Research shows that dogs who maintain a healthy weight can live up to two and a half years longer on average than dogs who are overweight. Isn't that wild and also kind of obvious at the same time? So why is feeding vague scoops of ultra processed kibble still the status Quo. For most dog owners, healthy alternatives exist. And trust me, I know. I buy one. The farmer's dog. I use it for both my dogs. They love it. They eat it up quick. It smells good to them. It smells good to me. It's human grade food. The farmer's dog makes fresh food for dogs and my dogs love it. Their recipes are made with real meat and fresh vegetables that are gently cooked to retain vital nutrients. They also portion out the meals to your dog's nutritional needs, which helps avoid overfeeding and makes weight management easier. And isn't getting more time with our four legged best friends something every dog owner wants the answer to that is yes, obviously. So try the farmer's dog today and get 50 off your first box of fresh, free, healthy food. Plus get free shipping. Just go to the farmersdog.com rogan this offers for new customers only. Yeah, it's interesting. There's a bunch of different bases that if you come from them, they have a big advantage. It puts you in a big advantage in different sports.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, soccer and wrestling. Those two things, the grinding of the wrestling and just the cardio fatigue and understanding that I can push through when I get tired because there's nothing more satisfying, you know, in terms of when you run down the line, the guy plays the ball into the corner and you got to beat that defense defender there and then you cross it across and you're. It's that sprinting down there to beat him. But then also too, in wrestling, knowing that you can break another human being, like I need to break you mentally grind on you and hang on you. Those two sports, I think are huge for.

[Joe Rogan]

For the sport and getting used to suffering. Dehydrated.

[Jamie Varner]

Right.

[Joe Rogan]

There's a big fact.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, the weight cuts to suffering.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, but the weight cuts and having to compete on the same day as weight cuts is a big difference. And for people that have never done that before and don't know, it's hard. Even 24 hours is hard. Weight cutting is the grossest thing in mma.

[John McCarthy]

It is.

[Joe Rogan]

They should figure out a way to stop it.

[John McCarthy]

I totally.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't know what the way is.

[John McCarthy]

There is. You're talking about one of the most.

[Jamie Varner]

There is no way.

[John McCarthy]

One of the most dangerous things that you do with like think about this, Joe. Every, every sport, soccer, football, baseball, basketball, they all have team chefs, they all have all these things. As far as we want our athletes to be as physically ready and have the right nutrition and all these things. What's the sports that we go and we starve our athletes and dehydrate them 24 hours before the dumbest thing ever.

[Joe Rogan]

24 hours before the most demanding, most dangerous sport in the world.

[John McCarthy]

Yep.

[Jamie Varner]

But Joe, even if we did it the same day, fighters would still cut weight to try and make that weight. They would still do that to themselves.

[Joe Rogan]

The question is, I wonder if there's a way to prevent that. Like the way to prevent that, I would say, is everybody, here's your mandate. No one's getting out of shape anymore because we're going to have random weigh ins. So we're going to just show up at your gym.

[John McCarthy]

Can't do it.

[Joe Rogan]

But, but could you like, let's say you fight at 170. You cannot weigh more than 180. See here, here's the you on any given day, I'll show up at your house at 7 in the morning. Josh, get on the scale. 175. This is not good.

[John McCarthy]

You could do it as a promotion, you can't do it as an industry within the sport. And the reason why I'm telling saying that is first off, you have all these fighters. We'll say they're all everywhere, okay? All over the world. And for a, for an athletic commission, we'll say the state of California, state of Texas, they have to have that particular fighter licensed for them to say, we want to weigh you. If they're not licensed in that state on that year, they can't, they can

[Joe Rogan]

sit there and go, but if it got adopted by the ufc, I bet most of the organizations would adopt it.

[John McCarthy]

But again, that's the UFC as a promotion.

[Joe Rogan]

The UFC has talked about and the

[John McCarthy]

UFC has the money to actually do that, but it's going to cost them a lot of money. And you know, look it, I understand why the promotion doesn't want to lose money.

[Joe Rogan]

Just wait to be better. I think guys would be in way better condition.

[Jamie Varner]

Absolutely. I think we've seen and it's exactly

[John McCarthy]

what you're talking about.

[Jamie Varner]

They stop cutting as much weight.

[John McCarthy]

You could sit there and you know, the only way an athletic commission could kind of do it and, but this is bad on promotions is an athletic commission can sit there and say, you are allowed to weigh no more than £5 more than that. Weigh in weight. Okay, but here's your problems with it. First off, the promotion can lose fights. The promotion doesn't want to lose fights.

[Joe Rogan]

True.

[John McCarthy]

Okay. And the second part is what's saying that the, the fighter themselves is not keeping themselves dehydrated to make that five pound. And now they're going in even more dehydrated into the fight, which could cause them more problems.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, they couldn't be dehydrated through their entire camp. And that's where you institute randoms.

[John McCarthy]

That's why your randoms would work if, if the promotion was doing it.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, but it would have to do it sport wide.

[John McCarthy]

It'd be almost impossible.

[Joe Rogan]

It would have to take a long time to figure out how to do it properly and not lose fights because there's too many guys that around. Oh, you know, there's. Right. There's too many guys that like, look, how many times did Jon Jones not really train?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, like the Gustafson fight, the first one, they said he didn't really train. 10 days, showed up a little bit here and there. Didn't really train. So if there's a guy like that, what are you gonna not let him fight? Like, what are you gonna do? Like. Yeah, but then you lost 226. That's too much.

[Jamie Varner]

You also have guys like Michael morales right now, 170 pounders walking around like 210, 212, 205.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, there's a few of those guys where I'm standing next to him, like Gregory Rodriguez. I'm like, how, yeah, how, how are you ever 180?

[John McCarthy]

How was, how, how was Alex 185 pounds, I stand next to him and go, you got to be nuts.

[Joe Rogan]

Nuts.

[John McCarthy]

It's unbelievable.

[Joe Rogan]

And at £185, nuclear power. But I don't think he took a shot as well.

[John McCarthy]

It didn't. There's no doubt about it.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

You can go back and look at his fights. He got hurt by shots that were not as hard as the ones he's taken at 205. Right. Based upon. Yeah, it's that way. Cut.

[Joe Rogan]

It's the point of diminishing returns.

[John McCarthy]

Right.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like there's a place where you're just doing it too much. And you know, you kind of love to see freaks. You love to see a guy like alex weighing at 185. You're like, good luck with that. Good luck with his 226 pound Amazon warrior that pretended to be 185 for five minutes.

[John McCarthy]

For five minutes.

[Jamie Varner]

But you take a look at. I'm so surprised how he can make the weight. When you pass by him, you see how tall he is, how big he is. And you see him with the face off with Cyril gone right now, you're like, how would this Guy ever make 185.

[Joe Rogan]

He's 250 now.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Which is crazy.

[John McCarthy]

I saw him last week and it's

[Joe Rogan]

like, like, dude, 250 means that's almost 70 pounds difference, man. From his UFC debut, the only thing

[Jamie Varner]

makes me believe that we're going to see a better Alex is because he doesn't have to cut his kill himself,

[Joe Rogan]

but he also put on muscle.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

And there's an issue, but exactly there again, diminishing returns. How much is that muscle going to do? This is where you try to, you try to tell all fighters and you know it's Joe, if when you were fighting in Taekwondo, did you care about the strong guy or did you care about the fast guy?

[Joe Rogan]

The difference is MMA with grappling. The, the difference is with weight. Like, if you get a big heavy guy and he gets on top of you, you're all your speed is gone.

[John McCarthy]

Absolutely, you're right.

[Joe Rogan]

Gone within the first three or four months.

[John McCarthy]

But the problem with being the bigger, stronger guy in the lighter weight class is you're never the faster guy. And so you've got to be able to maul that, that person to be effective. And it only lasts for a certain amount of time. If you had to dehydrate yourself to that point where speed is always there when someone has it to a point, unless they get tired. And that speed is hard for you to handle.

[Joe Rogan]

But there's guys that were big for the weight class and had ridiculous speed, like Conor McGregor is a perfect example now.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Connor at 145 was fastest as Conor

[John McCarthy]

was absolutely dehydrated to the point of being a concentration camp victim. Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

He looked like death.

[John McCarthy]

I mean, it was unbelievable.

[Joe Rogan]

However, once he got in there, he was fast as.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, unless, look, he used to, he used to lose so much. At 145, he was, he looked like that. He was killing himself.

[Joe Rogan]

I remember the weigh ins, like interviewing him at weighins, like, this is crazy.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, my God.

[Joe Rogan]

But then you see him the next day. Awful.

[John McCarthy]

I know he looked good, but he's feeling good. He, he was also. What was his age back then? 26, 27.

[Joe Rogan]

Right, right.

[John McCarthy]

You can't do that now.

[Joe Rogan]

No, you can't do that now. No. It gets to a certain point in time where you have to realize you're cutting too much weight and it's actually ruining your career.

[Jamie Varner]

But I think the evidence has been pretty clear when you see guys go up in weight after killing themselves for so long, they've had success.

[Joe Rogan]

A lot of guys had. Look at Max.

[Jamie Varner]

I Was just about to bring him up. I just had Dustin Poirier on the podcast yesterday and. And we were just talking about how he's like, look, Max, the first time he came up to 55, didn't put the weight on properly. Second time put it on properly. He's like significant difference in power, mobility, movement.

[Joe Rogan]

And the BMF fight with Gaethje. Yeah, come on, man. That's. Yeah. That guy should have never went down to 45 again to fight Topuria. It's too much loss.

[John McCarthy]

Because we had that argument about that. That exact thing of he would. Josh was saying, look, he should never. It was a championship fight.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

He was getting a world title fight at 145. Yeah. Right. And I said, look, it's a world title fight. I understand why he's going back down. He's going. He's making a huge mistake. It should never take. Take it. He should stay at 155. You know, work yourself into a title fight. And I go, I understand why he's taking it.

[Jamie Varner]

That made him the number one contender. He beat Justin Gaethje.

[Joe Rogan]

He couldn't find. I understand why he took the fight. 45 might. Maybe he would have favored that fight with Ilia because Ilya is a smaller guy than Islam. Because if you think about it, Islam, he smothers everybody.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, he does.

[Joe Rogan]

And his striking is dangerous as of course, you know. Yeah. But it's like that guy's. He's so terrifying once he gets a hold of you. Like he supports everybody.

[John McCarthy]

He's a whole lot better in the stand up than people give him credit for.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, he is.

[John McCarthy]

His stand up is actually really heck Volkanovsky. Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't care if Volkanovsky took it on 11 days notice. He still head kicked.

[Jamie Varner]

He's got a sneaky left head kick, high kick. It's nasty.

[Joe Rogan]

He people up standing up. And that's part of the problem is that like you get accustomed to thinking about this.

[John McCarthy]

You're worried about the takedown. Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

And then all of a sudden, bing.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah. My point was though, was that there was no. He put the weight on properly. He looked fantastic against Justin Gaethje. And then to go back down there to fight Iliad, I was like, it doesn't make sense. You're the number one guy or number two. It is. You kill yourself to give it down.

[Joe Rogan]

Back down.

[Jamie Varner]

And then he gets knocked out. Which we had never seen before.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that's Roy Jones Jr. Too.

[John McCarthy]

Right?

[Joe Rogan]

Remember when Roy Jones Jr. Went up and fought Ruiz and Then he went all the way down to 75 and got knocked out by Tarver.

[John McCarthy]

Yep.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like, I don't think your body wants to go back down again. You put on all that weight over like a year. You're lifting weights, you're looking. Max had like a ridiculous strength and conditioning program. He put real weight on. He looked very good at 55.

[John McCarthy]

When Max fought Aldo the first time for the title, he. He weighed, you know, obviously weighed in at championship weight. 145. The Night of the fight, Joe. Now, he was in street clothes, but they put him on a scale. 178.

[Joe Rogan]

What?

[John McCarthy]

Swear to God. 178. Now he's still. He was still clothed.

[Joe Rogan]

That's crazy. But he's wearing rocks in his pockets.

[John McCarthy]

Frank Shamrock with quarters in his pockets.

[Joe Rogan]

Pockets. Let's. Right when he fought Tito, let's. Let's just be real charitable and say his clothes weigh 10 pounds exactly. That's crazy.

[John McCarthy]

You're looking at more than 20 pounds. But that's crazy. Happens all the time. The. The show that just happened in California. They know it doing with that. The MVP. The one guy I can't, you know. 27 pound difference in weight at 170 pounds came in 27. 197. Who was it? I want to say his name was

[Jamie Varner]

the guys right before. Saladin.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, Parnas.

[Jamie Varner]

Free.

[John McCarthy]

Free. Mod starts with a Z. I want to say. I can't. I can't think of it. But £27.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, obviously the biggest one was Rumble Johnson. Rumble Johnson was the craziest. He would weigh 230 and make it all the way. But basically, what Morales is doing right now. MVP EVENT on NETFLIX Fazil.

[John McCarthy]

Fazil.

[Jamie Varner]

There.

[Joe Rogan]

Namo Fazil recorded the Highest weight gain, 27.2 pounds. That's insane.

[John McCarthy]

Can you believe that?

[Joe Rogan]

That's insane. That's so much. He got into cage at 198 for a 170 pound fight. I would love to get Morales on the scales like right before he fought Sean Brady.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, excuse me, sir.

[John McCarthy]

Sean Brady.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, he's huge.

[John McCarthy]

Sean Brady is a thick human. He's not super tall, but he's thick. Oh yeah, he is put together. And Morales made him look like a lightweight.

[Joe Rogan]

Like he's in the wrong division.

[John McCarthy]

Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

I was trying to make sense of it watching it on tv. I thought maybe it was the camera angle and then they shifted. I was like, no, he's still bigger than him. When he's further away, he's further away.

[John McCarthy]

He's still bigger. He's way bigger than him.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it was a. That's a crazy situation where a guy can do that. And it's like the Pereira situation, 8085, too. When a guy can do that, how long can you do it? That's the question, you know, because you're basically killing your kidneys every time you do it. You're just taking a little bit out of them.

[Jamie Varner]

That was the problem with aj, you know. Yeah. Like, I. I used to coach and corner AJ early in his career when he first came into the ufc, and that was his problem. He'd make weight. Sometimes he'd make it, sometimes he would. He missed weight a lot to the point that affected.

[John McCarthy]

Did.

[Joe Rogan]

Whatever happened.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

God, that's horrible. Yeah, that's horrible.

[John McCarthy]

Again, you're leaving small bits and pieces of yourself, of course, in that damn cage every time, even when you win.

[Joe Rogan]

He died. I was like, no, there's a true

[Jamie Varner]

science to cutting weight. And he just. He didn't have it down. Like, he. He wrestled, you know, NC2A. He wrestled Division 2. Like, he was a really good wrestler. He knew how to make weight. But then trying to kill himself to get to 70 every single time.

[John McCarthy]

Which he never had to be at.

[Jamie Varner]

Which, yeah, he never had.

[Joe Rogan]

Never had to be out. I mean, he has massive power. He did great at heavyweight. He beat our Lovsky at heavyweight in

[Jamie Varner]

the World Series of fight a long time ago.

[Joe Rogan]

He was still super legit.

[John McCarthy]

Broke our Loveski's job.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, not stupid. Super legit. Now guy wins bare knuckle heavyweight championship at like 100 years old. Dude, you gotta love it.

[John McCarthy]

And fought it smart. Yeah. Look at. There's a. You take a look at Andre Arlovski and people say whatever they want about his career is amazing since UFC 28 was his first show. Okay.

[Jamie Varner]

Went all the way.

[John McCarthy]

Went all the way into today's day, basically, and. But he changed his style. You know, Arlovski was a big power puncher for a long time and then was getting hit with big shots and said, you know what? I'm going to be a volume guy. And he was successful with it and didn't take near as much damage.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he fought a lot more technical lot slicker. Yep. Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Didn't take big chances.

[Joe Rogan]

He beat a lot of good guys, too.

[Jamie Varner]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

Beat Travis Brown when Travis was prime.

[Jamie Varner]

Yep.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, that's. That fight with Travis Brown.

[Joe Rogan]

Amazing.

[John McCarthy]

Was a freaking awesome fight.

[Joe Rogan]

Awesome, awesome, awesome fight.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, look at here.

[Joe Rogan]

He beat Rothwell. He tore Roswell up, which is A lot of people were super surprised by that.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

A lot of people thought, you know, Roswell's a tank of a man.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And he's a scary big puncher, and he just looks hairy like a bear. He's scary.

[John McCarthy]

Rothwell's close to £400.

[Joe Rogan]

That's crazy. Is that real?

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, it's real.

[Joe Rogan]

He's really that big?

[John McCarthy]

He's that big. Unbelievable.

[Joe Rogan]

But meanwhile, he's the one getting busted up in this fight. And it was because, you know, Arlovski was just fighting. Very clever. Just so tough after years.

[John McCarthy]

You watch this fight right now, they think that this fight gets stopped for that cut on his forehead. That is not why he has a cut on his eye running up into his tear duct. And that's why it wasn't that big of a cut. But anytime it goes to the tear duct.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, right there.

[John McCarthy]

There's the doctor saying, oh, no, it's over. Over.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah. To touch on what John was saying, though, is it really just comes down to how he changed his style of fighting. He either fought you all the way in or all the way out. He fought you in that phone booth so you couldn't get off big power shots to avoid being knocked out. Because he went through a phase where he was getting clipped a lot, getting hurt.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

So he made that adjustment. That's good on him.

[Joe Rogan]

And all those years in the game, never lost his enthusiasm.

[John McCarthy]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, he's a character.

[John McCarthy]

He's fighting influencers at shows.

[Joe Rogan]

Have you. I draw that in the little kid. That was crazy. Imagine those dumb kids, all right.

[Jamie Varner]

Little running around trying to get him. I was like, what are you guys doing? Are you crazy?

[Joe Rogan]

Do you know who that is?

[Jamie Varner]

The best part was that the film Florister kid goes, hey, you can fight my bodyguard. Bodyguards in the background going, sure, yeah, let's do it.

[John McCarthy]

It's like, yeah, I'll find him. That's a good idea.

[Joe Rogan]

If your bodyguard doesn't know who Orlovsky is, you need to get a new bodyguard.

[Jamie Varner]

He's telling him that my bodyguard will fight him.

[Joe Rogan]

I was like, oh, Jesus Christ. Did you guys watch the Rico Verhoeven Usyk fight?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yes, I watched the ending.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah. I thought it was a. I don't

[Jamie Varner]

say robbery because I guess apparently Usyk was up on the scorecards. Two. Two to one.

[Joe Rogan]

That. That's robbery. That's the robbery? Yeah, that's the robbery. If that's the case, that's a robbery.

[Jamie Varner]

He was up.

[John McCarthy]

I guess I thought, first off, Rico Verhuven. And you know, we know what he's been in kickboxing and he's been fantastic.

[Joe Rogan]

Greatest of all time.

[John McCarthy]

Unbelievable.

[Joe Rogan]

Greatest of all time.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. And you can look back on certain people, you know, Ernesto Hoost, how great he was. Badahari was a badass.

[Joe Rogan]

All of them were awesome. But Rico accomplished more than anybody. Absolutely. He's been undefeated for like more than 10 years in kickboxing. That's nuts.

[John McCarthy]

Yes, it is.

[Joe Rogan]

That's nuts.

[John McCarthy]

Especially with the amount of rounds comparatively and stuff, because you can have a bad round and it can really affect your fight, just like mma. But this fight, I really thought going in, I go, look, Rico will do okay for the, for the first couple rounds and then it's going to start to get to him. I was shocked by it.

[Joe Rogan]

He, he fought very clever and he,

[John McCarthy]

he didn't fight, he didn't fight big. He actually created the problems of closing that distance every time. Look how close he get. He kept on getting into the phone and he would do work and it was causing Usyk nothing but problems.

[Joe Rogan]

Also, Rico is known for his discipline and his fitness.

[John McCarthy]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, he's a guy who always has tremendous conditioning. And I, I think there's a lot of heavyweights that would be surprised at the work that this guy does and the pace that he could put on. So a lot of people like, oh, he's going to get tired. He only fights three minute rounds.

[John McCarthy]

Honestly, I was thinking, it gets past five rounds, I'm wondering how he's going to be able to hold that pace.

[Joe Rogan]

The guy's such a cardio fiend and he's always shredded and it's just he's so used to combat too, that like getting in there, just fighting Usyk, it's not a big deal.

[John McCarthy]

That right hand right there was, I mean, beautiful, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

He was winning 8 to 2 in my eyes. I thought he was winning 8 to 2 going into the 11th round when the fight was stopped. Now, the fight shouldn't have been stopped the way it was stopped, but also that was in eight seconds after the knockdown. So after he gets knocked down, he doesn't have his mouthpiece, so they have to go over the corner, they rinse off.

[John McCarthy]

That's a mistake right there.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, the whole thing's a mistake. It takes like 30 seconds and then the referee stops it when he's still standing, moving around.

[John McCarthy]

Look, if there's one, one of the things that changed in boxing since I look, I referee box boxing now.

[Joe Rogan]

So here it is right here. This is the end. We could watch it real quick. So this is the end. Look at all this time. So he's up and he goes over.

[John McCarthy]

This is a mistake right here.

[Joe Rogan]

Lumbering over to his corner. Hey, come on over.

[John McCarthy]

Watch the first. Watch the first thing that happens and this is what we'll talk about. Oh. Oh, it dropped. Yeah, that's on purpose. Of course I'm doing that on purpose.

[Joe Rogan]

Of course I would. Any second counts. But then look at this. So he swarms him with some punches, but Rico's moving. He's covering up. He's moving. What is he supposed to do? Yeah, what is he supposed to do? That's a bad stoppage.

[John McCarthy]

I agree.

[Joe Rogan]

So if you're gonn stop it because you felt like the first knockdown was too much, why would you let him rinse the glove off? And he didn't take significant damage after that. It's a bad stop.

[John McCarthy]

No, that's. Well, and it's also the end of the round.

[Joe Rogan]

Second.

[John McCarthy]

It's the end of the round.

[Joe Rogan]

It's literally the end of the round. I think he actually stops it when the round's over.

[John McCarthy]

But you look as the referee, Joe, you know all of this, and if you don't, you're not doing your job. First off, you know, he's got a full minute. If I let this go one second, he's got a full minute to recover here. Even if I did think he was

[Joe Rogan]

a little bit hurt now, I think that if that was a legitimate eight count and they went right back to fighting, he would have stopped him there, maybe. I think he was really rocked. When you see him go back to his corner, maybe is the key word.

[John McCarthy]

See, one of the things that used to be, though, in boxing, it was always that you would, if a mouthpiece hit the ground, you had to take it to the corner, have it rinsed with water, and have it placed back in the fighter's mouth. Right? Okay. That's not the way it is anymore. Because of mma and the fact that we take a, we take a mouthpiece off of the ground and shoot stuff it right back in the fighter's mouth, they have now changed to the point of they do the same thing. And the difference is many times we'll hand the mouthpiece to the, to the MMA fighter because they have, you know, gloveless fingers. Right, right. And they put it back in. Sometimes we'll put her back in, depending upon situations. But in boxing now, you take it, I'll put it back in his mouth. I'll say, is that good? Boom. Fight. Right. You don't.

[Joe Rogan]

Is that.

[John McCarthy]

How does water.

[Joe Rogan]

How does that in Egypt as well? Do you think that's possible?

[John McCarthy]

You're talking about, you know, with. Under the unified rules of boxing now, which is North America.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay, okay.

[John McCarthy]

That's. You know, most of the time you go to Egypt, they're still fighting under the unified rules. But the refereeing is always going to be different. When you get a referee from England or somewhere, it's. It's a little bit different.

[Joe Rogan]

But I wonder if the referee rules are different over there if you're supposed to rinse off the mouthpiece before you put it back.

[John McCarthy]

No, what it means is you have not advanced as a referee to understand what we do now.

[Joe Rogan]

Right, but what I'm saying is, do they have different rules over there?

[John McCarthy]

This is what I'm saying.

[Joe Rogan]

Definitely not.

[John McCarthy]

You have not advanced as a referee. So to understand what we do now.

[Joe Rogan]

Mouthpiece goes down, you pick it up right back in the.

[Jamie Varner]

Can you.

[John McCarthy]

Yes.

[Jamie Varner]

So it's like when the UFC goes to a country that doesn't have a commission, they sometimes they'll bring Herb Dean, they'll bring referees with them so they know the rules to make sure that something like this doesn't happen. That referee hasn't followed up with the rules in a big time fight. So it.

[John McCarthy]

He's not, he's not gone and. And advanced his, you know, training to understand this is what we do now and this is why. Because we don't want. I don't want to take that time from Usyk, because Usyk did his job right. He hit him with an uppercut that absolutely blasted him. Puts him on mat, you go and he gets up, you give him a mandatory. Now his mouthpiece comes out. Am I going to walk it over to a corner and have that mouthpiece washed out with water? Which does what for it? Right?

[Joe Rogan]

Does it dis kill all the cooties?

[John McCarthy]

Exactly. Okay. And that's the real thing, you know, so it doesn't do anything. And obviously, if there's something in the mouthpiece, we remove the thing from the mouthpiece. But, you know, normally it's just spitting blood. If that's what's there, put it back in. Boom. Bring him back in as abruptly as you can. To make it fair for Usyk, who gained an advantage in the fight, you don't want to give the advantage to Verhoeven.

[Joe Rogan]

Also, his mouthpiece came out earlier in the fight as well. It's like, that's a bad mouthpiece for a guy who's A world class kickboxer. World champion.

[John McCarthy]

That thing should be so hard for you to pull out.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. It's odd that it kept falling out of his mouth. Rico with a boiling bite is nuts. Right.

[John McCarthy]

In the heavyweight division, do you remember Carl Parisian?

[Joe Rogan]

Sure.

[John McCarthy]

He would wear a boiling bite that wasn't boiled.

[Jamie Varner]

Oh, dude.

[John McCarthy]

Straight out of the packaging. That's the way people are, though.

[Jamie Varner]

That's wild to me.

[Joe Rogan]

Boiling bites are nuts. Well, it's also nuts. Here's a. We talk about this on the. The USC broadcast all the time. But I think it's nuts that you're still allowed to wear a Thai steel cup. I think it's fucking crazy. You have a. I would too.

[Jamie Varner]

That's all I ever wore. I can't believe I can't wrap my head around how fighters don't wear them.

[Joe Rogan]

100%. I agree with you 100%. However, it should be illegal. It's fucking crazy. You have a piece of metal on your dick. You have actual iron over your cock. And if a guy kicks it with his toe, it's going to shatter.

[Jamie Varner]

I've always wondered the north, south position. You just start humping their head, right?

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, dude.

[John McCarthy]

Giving them the business. There was one that did that.

[Joe Rogan]

Renovardi. Do you remember that guy Boss Rooting? I trained with him at Legends and he mounted me once and he almost made me tap. Yeah. By just digging his dick into my sternum. This is so rude. He grapevined me and I'm like, bro, you're killing me with this show. Carter.

[John McCarthy]

Carter. Oh, Shorty Carter used to wear an oversized cup.

[Joe Rogan]

Also awesome for Armbar.

[John McCarthy]

That's how Frank Mir broke Tim Sylvia's arm.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, yeah. It was off of. That completely makes sense.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But I think would have broken it if it was just as nuts.

[John McCarthy]

Well, as strong as Frank, as strong

[Joe Rogan]

as he was, how good his armor was in that position. That was a crazy situation.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yes, it was.

[Joe Rogan]

That was crazy because I don't think the people in the audience had any idea what had happened.

[John McCarthy]

Are you. If you go back to that, you know, because Herb Dean was a referee and Herb did a great job. But it was. I was actually in the corner of Tim Sylvia, you know where I was sitting. And I had Jeremy Horn and Matt Hughes and Pat Miletich are in his corner. Right. And they had this. I had the same view that they had. And what you saw was Tim Sylvia. But you saw his elbow out from that arm bar.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Away from the head. And all of a sudden Herb's stopping it. And they are going crazy. They're going, what are you doing here? You know? And they're calling him every name in the book. And I go right inside the octagon, and I go, herb, what did you have? And he goes, john, his arm broke. I go, his arm broke. And he goes, I heard it, and I saw it.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, you can see the vibration.

[John McCarthy]

And he goes, his arm broke, right? And so at the time, the person who was in charge of the medical staff for the Nevada State Athletic Mission, since it was in Nevada, they're looking at Tim, and Tim is, like, going. You know. But you saw Tim slowly stop doing. Using that one. Arm started going down to the side as reality started setting in and the pain started coming. But they basically said, there's nothing wrong with his arm, right? I swear to you, Herb's greatest response I've ever heard, he goes, x ray that, right? Because Herb never cusses, right? He goes, x ray that it's broken, right? And sure enough, straight across both bones.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, we could see it in the replay.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah, you called it out.

[Joe Rogan]

Forearm.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Because everybody was booing. I'm like, you gotta watch this. Watch this. What's that? What's that right there?

[Jamie Varner]

That's when I saw it the first time on tv. I thought it just shifted off of the cup, because sometimes you'll see that the bone will shift off, but then it. You can tell.

[John McCarthy]

Two distinct pops.

[Joe Rogan]

Had, like, that highlight where something bends like a piece.

[Jamie Varner]

Plastic.

[Joe Rogan]

It looked horrible, man.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, my God, that was hard.

[Joe Rogan]

He's broken more arms. Like he broke Noira's arm, that spiral fracture.

[John McCarthy]

Spiral fracture with the Kimura? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

He's nasty, man.

[John McCarthy]

No, that's. You know, it's funny because you. If you're around, you know, Frank and you're talking, he'll always say, oh, here it is.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't want to watch it again. Oh, watch it.

[John McCarthy]

Here it comes right here.

[Joe Rogan]

Pop, pop. Oh. Oh, God. And it's the forearm, too, which is, like, super unusual.

[Jamie Varner]

And everyone's wondering, why'd you stop it? Why'd you stop it?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, dude. Herb was getting booed out of the arena there, I remember.

[Joe Rogan]

And Tim is complaining.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, come on, bro. Like, you know what? Just. He has to know what just happened.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, he knows.

[Joe Rogan]

He's got. He's just such an animal. He wanted to fight with a broken arm, which, you know, literally, you might have to get it amputated if you did that.

[John McCarthy]

Oh.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, who knows what kind of damage you would have after that.

[John McCarthy]

That you could lose your arm.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

This is where. But you'll get people all the time, you know, I mean, some of the commentators and some of the shows, you know, oh, if he wants to fight, let him fight. It's like, shut up.

[Joe Rogan]

Shut up. Okay.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

This is.

[Joe Rogan]

You got to protect the fighter from themselves.

[John McCarthy]

Exactly. This is not life and death.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

If you lose a fight, I know it sucks, but it just sucks. And it's not life and death. It's okay.

[Joe Rogan]

Crazy situations like Carlos Ulberg, who knocks out your prohoska with a clearly blown out knee. Oh, yeah. Well, you're like, if that went to the round, at the end of the round, they would have probably stopped the fight.

[Jamie Varner]

Well, think about what. Santos, right. He ended up fighting jon Jones with two torn out ACLs or PCOS, right? Yeah, that's Jon Jones.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. I mean, and gave him a good

[Joe Rogan]

fight and gave him a great fight. I think that was a split decision.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, it was.

[Joe Rogan]

Which is nuts. Yeah, nuts. Like he could have won. We had like one more incompetent judge.

[John McCarthy]

Now we're going to incompetent judges. Now we're gonna have problems.

[Joe Rogan]

Whoever was judging the Usyk fight was incompetent. Those people were ridiculous. The fact that they didn't have RICO ahead is crazy. They just. I think when you got a guy like Usyk, who's arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, he's definitely in the conversation. And then you have so much money involved in him being undefeated and so. And whether the referee's corrupt or not, they know. Whether the judges are corrupt or not, they know. And if they things up for everybody, you know, there's like. There's some weird shenanigans that go on in boxing. That's. You remember that lady that scored. It was a Pacquiao fight against Tim Bradley. She sc. She was one of the ones that. She scored a bunch of fights.

[John McCarthy]

I thought you were going to talk Canelo against Triple G. There was a Canelo one.

[Joe Rogan]

Remember the first one scored bad. Yeah. There's a. She scored a bunch of fights where you're like, what the is this? And then you have to realize about betting props. Yeah. No, no, it's not Natalie Bird, though.

[John McCarthy]

No. Adelaide Bird was.

[Joe Rogan]

Was the Canelo versus Triple G. Very nice lady.

[John McCarthy]

She's a. Look at she. I'm gonna give her her props in this. First off, she doesn't do a whole lot of boxing, but she does do a lot of mma. Does a lot of the UFC still. And that woman watches More fights, TR goes to more trainings. She puts in all the time that you could imagine to always try to get better. She is asking questions all the time.

[Joe Rogan]

Time.

[John McCarthy]

Now, if you're gonna sit there and say, well, has she. You know, you know, can she roll? No, she can't. But she knows what, you know, if you, if you say, okay, what's this? She'll tell you. Yeah, what's this? She knows it. I'm sure she puts in that time. But, you know, you're always gonna have the. There's certain fights, no matter what, they're always going to be there. You know, as the judge, you always. You're trying to do your best. Yeah, but there's this one where she

[Joe Rogan]

was involved in quite a few, like, ridiculous ones. And the Tim Bradley, Manny Pacquiao one was a big one. One. And then they looked at some other ones, and then she stepped away from it. The problem is, and I'm not accusing this lady or anybody of this, but I'm saying that some people have done this in the past, is that all you have to do is make it a split decision. All you have to do is be one shitty judge. That even though is clearly for this guy, you say it's for that guy, and someone's making a ton of loot. Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

And especially in this day and age

[Joe Rogan]

with betting 100%, man, the UFC has a real problem. Oh, yeah, there's a real problem with quite a few fights. The FBI has looked into quite a few fights, and there's. There's one that they focused on the beginning because they knew that there was some improper betting, but now they're focused on a bunch of other ones as well.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. I'm going to say this.

[Jamie Varner]

I think that you can get away with it, John. To think that you're going to be able to get away with it.

[John McCarthy]

You're an idiot.

[Jamie Varner]

Just stupid.

[John McCarthy]

You're an idiot as the fighter, you're a fool. But if you, if you. If you were around the judging, especially in the ufc, because it's. It's mainly a lot of the same guys, you know, they. These guys are on text links. They are consistently. Every Joe, every UFC fight, my phone blows up. It blows up with fighters, it blows up from other officials asking question, what about that? What did you see? What do you think? And it's because, look it, there is. At times we get media and we get. Get, you know, people, you know, talking about our fights that call robberies. When there's no robbery, it's a close fight. Right. And if your guy.

[Joe Rogan]

You wanted your guy to win, did not win. Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Robbery. You know, I. I pointed it out to him. I had him sit one time. Hey, sit where the judge sits. Because you get one view, you as the commentator, you get that beautiful monitor that's in front of you. There's times when you're watching the fight live, and there's times when you're watching the monitor because the angles change. As the judge now, they put the monitor there for the judges, and, like, the UFC puts a great monitor there for them. But we didn't always have that right. And you didn't always. Many times you had the worst seat in the house. To be able to judge a fight,

[Joe Rogan]

especially if there's a post in front of you.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

And it's so different than what people think, and it's. When you are the one that's putting your name on that scorecard, you're signing it, you. You're. And you know, this counts. It's everything. It is everything to you, to. To be right. You want to be right. But many times what you're seeing, and that's why they're at the three different points, and that's why sometimes, you know, people get into this. Well, it was a split decision. Split decision is not always bad.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you think there'd be a benefit in having five judges instead of three?

[John McCarthy]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

No.

[John McCarthy]

I've worked with it. I've done it too many times. It doesn't change anything.

[Joe Rogan]

It doesn't.

[John McCarthy]

Doesn't change anything. I'm just being honest. If it did, I would say, yeah, we should do it.

[Joe Rogan]

But if you have two bad judges and three good ones, why do you

[John McCarthy]

have two bad judges? That's the question.

[Joe Rogan]

That is the question. But when you're on the road, let's be honest. When we're on the road, we do it. Let's not even name a state, but we show up, and we have to use these regular local guys. There have been issues.

[John McCarthy]

I'm not saying there haven't.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[John McCarthy]

I'm not saying there have.

[Joe Rogan]

There are bad judges.

[John McCarthy]

Yes, absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

I love cops. There's bad cops.

[John McCarthy]

There are.

[Joe Rogan]

I love dentists. There's some bad dentists. There's some people that do surgeries that don't have to do. Do them. You know what I mean?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like. It doesn't. It's not saying that the people that do it and do a great job shouldn't be supported and praised, and they definitely should. But it's also. It's like it would benefit, I think everybody to have a few more opinions. Like, I like Verdict. Have you seen Verdict mma?

[John McCarthy]

I bumped them up a bunch of times.

[Joe Rogan]

I think they're accurate. Like 99 of the time I look at the Verdict score, I'm like most close time out of 100 fights. Most of the time. I agree with the Verdict score score.

[John McCarthy]

There's many times, though, you can take a look at this. When I started teaching the command course and everything, people, oh, you got to teach stuff. I'm teaching people to take my job. Right. Okay.

[Joe Rogan]

But in the end, I need a lot of referees.

[John McCarthy]

Luckily, they need a lot of judges,

[Joe Rogan]

but they also need a lot of referees for the big ones where you can't fuck this up. Okay. You know what I mean?

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, that's.

[John McCarthy]

It's important, but it's not the job that people think it is. It is not as easy as people think it is.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, it's definitely not.

[John McCarthy]

And it's definitely the hardest job next

[Joe Rogan]

to being a fighter.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I think it's fighters number one, referees number two.

[John McCarthy]

Yes and no. And you're right as far as fighting is much more difficult as far as, you know, what it does to your body and what you have to put out into it and all that. Way more difficult.

[Joe Rogan]

Also the consequences of it up, Boom. I don't have the consequences. If I make a bad call as a commentator, it's like, oh, Joe's an idiot.

[John McCarthy]

Okay.

[Joe Rogan]

That doesn't mean anything. Like, nobody loses money. Like, somebody could lose half their fucking purse, which I hate, by the way. Yeah, I don't like. I don't like the whole win bonus. Everyone's trying to win, can't stand it, can't stand it. You should get paid. You're a prize fighter. You should get paid to compete. This is the number. Whether it's 200,000 or 2, it shouldn't be dependent upon judges decisions. It should be dependent upon you showed up, you fought your fucking ass off, you're trying to win. If you win, you're going to make more money. No one's trying to lose. Right? So it's like, what are we doing? This episode is brought to you by Bluechew. Listen up. Bluechew just dropped something wild. They're calling it Blue Chew Gold. And honestly, the name fits. The stuff is setting a whole new standard for performance in the bedroom. It's not your typical blue pill. It combines two ingredients for blood flow with two for mental arousal and connection. It's not just physical, it's the mindset, too. Bluechew gets it. Sex is not just about being able to perform. It's about actually wanting to. And I've got a special deal for you listeners right now. When you buy two months of BlueChew Gold, you get the third free with the promo code Rogan. You'll also receive an additional 10 off, plus free overnight shipping on your first order. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important safety information.

[Jamie Varner]

I'm okay with the win bonus, but it's got to be more skewed towards the show money. So give me, like, let's just. I'm using a round number of 180.

[John McCarthy]

20.

[Jamie Varner]

80. 20. Right. And then. Then you give me another bonus for a finishing bonus. If I give a knockout, you give me another 20 or 50.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, they're doing that now. You know, she's doing finish, but I mean.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

But I just don't like win bonuses. I think you, you know, the fact that there have been bad decisions and guys have lost half their purse when they need it, and it's. It's. You got robbed. That's when you really got robbed.

[John McCarthy]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

Not just a decision.

[John McCarthy]

Absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

You got robbed financially, which is crazy to me.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I think. Think fighters should get. I don't think they fight harder. I don't think anybody fights harder.

[John McCarthy]

They want to win.

[Jamie Varner]

They want to win.

[John McCarthy]

That's it.

[Joe Rogan]

No one's fighting harder.

[John McCarthy]

No one's fighting harder because it's just something sitting out there.

[Jamie Varner]

And.

[Joe Rogan]

And if they are, they probably shouldn't be fighting in the UFC anyway because they're not at elite, like, worldclass level. If they're fighting harder for.

[Jamie Varner]

If you're in the top 15, you're not going to fight harder because you're getting paid more. You. You've worked your way there to get there. Your pride is too involved. Your ego's involved. You want to.

[Joe Rogan]

Good.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah. You want to show everyone you're the best.

[John McCarthy]

I've always said, look, if you ask a fighter before the fight, hey, how much are you going to win for? If they're going to get a 40. 40, they're going to get a 50. 50. They're gonna say 100,000. They've already mentally spent that money, and trust me, it's always.

[Jamie Varner]

They've true.

[John McCarthy]

They've got that win bonus in there.

[Jamie Varner]

True.

[Joe Rogan]

Impulsive.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, it's.

[Joe Rogan]

Fighters aren't the best at saving cash.

[John McCarthy]

I know. You know, so, yeah, it's. But you take a look, you know,

[Joe Rogan]

when you sit there. Good at saving Money, though, is Strickland. You would think he'd be the most reckless guy. Very smart. Very smart with his money. Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

Like, most of these guys are buying jeans and shirts and glasses. Dude's buying Wranglers.

[Joe Rogan]

And he wears the same thing every day. Doesn't care. But he saves his money, man. He's got a lot of money saved up.

[John McCarthy]

Learning.

[Jamie Varner]

Learning how smart, smarting, how to be frugal is very important. Especially if you're an athlete. Any type of athlete.

[Joe Rogan]

Especially if you're an athlete. Like, Strickland still rides a motorcycle.

[John McCarthy]

That psychopath still ride a motorcycle.

[Joe Rogan]

That's. Why are you still. Oh, yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

You didn't learn anything from Frank Mir when he broke his femur. Like, I'm surprised, fighters Frank.

[Joe Rogan]

Me breaking his femur is what kept me from getting a motorcycle license. Yeah, that was the last one. Yeah. Two friends crashed, one friend wiped out and up his shoulder. And then Frank Mirror got T boned. And I was like, I'm out.

[John McCarthy]

It all comes down. There's the old saying, there's two types of motorcycle riders. Ones that have been down and ones that are going down.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

And that's just the truth.

[Joe Rogan]

That's the problem. I felt like I'm hurting myself so many days a week just doing jiu jitsu like that, doing that. On top of that, it's like, I don't want to risk.

[Jamie Varner]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Especially if you haven't been doing it. Because there's ways to ride and there's you. You don't ride. Like, you'll see, you can. I can watch people on the road. And I go, that dude does not know how to ride. And it's like, they're the ones.

[Joe Rogan]

That's what's scary. You get a license, figure out how to ride it, buy a bike, and you. You know, it's like you could go to a car dealership right now and pick up a Corvette ZR1. You got a 1, 000 horsepower car.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. And, like, who knows if you know

[John McCarthy]

how to really drive prepared to drive that thing.

[Joe Rogan]

That's a fighter jet on wheels. Exactly. Insane. And they just give it to somebody, but it's awesome. Yeah. Your parents are rich, so you have a fighter jet on wheels. Like, this is nuts.

[John McCarthy]

But you know what you're talking about Sean Strickland with How many cars do you need? You know, I tell fighters all the. How many cars do you need? You know, dude, I've had arguments with Rampage because Rampage got 8 million cars. Yeah. And I go, dude, how many Cars. Can you put your ass in at one time? Right. And it's like you're blowing through money that you can't get back.

[Joe Rogan]

You can't get back.

[John McCarthy]

You know, it's like you try to sell cars.

[Joe Rogan]

It's depending on what kind of cars you have.

[John McCarthy]

Some cars are, oh, if you're gonna do an investment, that's fine.

[Joe Rogan]

Muscle cars like that, they're always worth money.

[Jamie Varner]

I think if you're a fighter, you need to take a page out of Forrest Griffin's book. Right. With the Scion that he won for the Ultimate Fighter, he drove that thing into the ground. Door handles were off. He had to roll the window down to open the door from the outside.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, he's such a character, you know?

[Jamie Varner]

But, I mean, that's how you have to live if you're going to be a professional athlete, a professional fighter. That's how you have to live. Especially early in your career. You don't know how long it's going to last.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Also, there's something to be said for the comforts of nice things and luxuries. Kind of slowing you down a little bit. Not everybody. Not. Doesn't seem to do it to Arin Sorukian.

[John McCarthy]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

That dude, he breaks the whole rule book. Yeah. Rich kid, fights like a demon. Built like a Greek God.

[Jamie Varner]

He is such a stud, man.

[Joe Rogan]

Constantly competing in wrestling, doing. Doing everything.

[Jamie Varner]

He's wrestling this weekend here at Roth Wrestling in Arlington.

[Joe Rogan]

Animal.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, dude, I saw what I saw last. I said, just keep doing what you're doing, dude.

[Jamie Varner]

Killing it.

[John McCarthy]

Just keep doing what you're doing.

[Jamie Varner]

I think the best thing that could happen to him is not getting a title fight. That guy's built.

[John McCarthy]

No. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, he's capitalized on the bad situation that he put himself in, but it was also the headbutt with Dan Hooker.

[Jamie Varner]

Absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

That was crazy.

[Jamie Varner]

Well, because you're as. You're as promoter, right. You could have cost me all this money. If you get. If he gets cut.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah, it gets cut. They pull the fight.

[John McCarthy]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, my God. Can you imagine?

[Jamie Varner]

Like, come on, knucklehead.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, stop.

[John McCarthy]

But.

[Jamie Varner]

But I love watching the fight.

[John McCarthy]

What he's been doing with Raf, what he's been doing with his Nina drama stuff and all that stuff.

[Joe Rogan]

Hey, keep going, Keep going.

[John McCarthy]

People are talking about you.

[Jamie Varner]

Very smart.

[Joe Rogan]

And he is the most interesting contender for Eliot.

[Jamie Varner]

Absolutely.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Without a doubt. 100% other than Justin, which is going to be. Why Wild. But I think him, the skills that he has, the wrestling that he has and the size. He's a lot bigger than Ilia.

[Jamie Varner]

You know, I, I asked, I asked D.C. and Dustin both yesterday on my show. I want to. Why do you think people were over overlooking Justin?

[Joe Rogan]

That's a good question. I mean, when I look at Gates,

[Jamie Varner]

I'm like, he's got all the tools and the weapons. Ilya Topori is heavy on the lead leg. Justin Gaethje's got a heavy leg K kick. He's got a great uppercut. He's fighting the shorter fighter in Il Toria.

[Joe Rogan]

He's a bigger guy.

[Jamie Varner]

He's a way bigger guy.

[Joe Rogan]

He's not making 145 ever. No, he's a much bigger guy. He's a really good wrestler and he's a nasty striker. And he's also a kind of a savage.

[John McCarthy]

Like, he's not kind of.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I mean, like, like a real savage. Not like pretending like he. When he fought Michael Johnson in his UFC debut, he just threw himself at Michael Johnson. And he did the same thing with Patty Pimblett. Yeah, the Patty Pimblet fight. He could have fought that fight a lot cleaner. And he just said, you, I'm just going to walk you down and just blast you every chance I get and break you up. And that's what he did. And he's a scary dude, man. Justin's a scary dude when he's on and this is the last dance. Right. So you know that he's going to be hyper focused for this fight.

[Jamie Varner]

I just can't see why people are overlooking him. Like, they just look at him, they're like, oh, he doesn't have a chance. Going to get knocked out.

[Joe Rogan]

I think they're taking away so good.

[John McCarthy]

Ilia has done it to everybody. All these guys that are also really good.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes. In a row.

[John McCarthy]

In a row, three.

[Jamie Varner]

But let me, let me.

[John McCarthy]

Max Holloway, Alexander Volkanovski and D.O. bronx, Charles Oliveira.

[Joe Rogan]

That's crazy.

[John McCarthy]

Crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Three KOs.

[John McCarthy]

Yes.

[Jamie Varner]

I don't hold it against him, but also, is it kind of somewhere, is there an asterisk next to it? A little bit. Because Volkanovski coming off the head kick, knockout loss. Max holloway cutting from 55 to 45 after putting all the weight on, then getting knocked out. The one, the only one I would say no is Charles, because he goes up fights. Charles, Charles. You know Charles.

[Joe Rogan]

Max Holloway. Yes. Because he cut the. Cut the weight butt. That was his decision.

[John McCarthy]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

And no one should have let Volkanowski take that fight. You got head kicked four months ago into a coma. There's no chance you should be taking a fight with the scariest puncher in the division.

[Jamie Varner]

Is that a coach's corner family decision?

[Joe Rogan]

He's an animal.

[Jamie Varner]

He is an animal.

[Joe Rogan]

Fucking animal. He could do it.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, but see, that's when you have to have the people.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[John McCarthy]

Maybe in your corner, in your family or saying, hey, I think it's.

[Joe Rogan]

Honestly, in your family. I think you need like someone who loves you, someone who.

[John McCarthy]

Someone who is just absolutely, totally honest saying, you can't do this this fast. I'm not saying you can't do it, but you have to do these things to be able to make it to where you have a ability to take a shot like you used to. Because it's diminished at this moment.

[Joe Rogan]

Not just that, you have to take into consideration that he gets knocked out and then he goes right into camp. Okay, so you're not going to rest your brain.

[John McCarthy]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

You're just not. Even if you're just wrestling, you're not resting your brain. You can't.

[Jamie Varner]

Anytime your body, your body temperature rises, you're damaging your brain. Especially if you haven't let it recover yet.

[Joe Rogan]

And there's no way he let it recover. I mean, he got shinned. Shinned to the dome by one of the biggest guys that ever fought at 55. Islam's huge for 55.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Six foot tall.

[Joe Rogan]

And he takes the fight on 11 days notice with no camp and he's eating barbecue and drinking Fosters.

[John McCarthy]

See that? But like you, it goes to his mentality.

[Joe Rogan]

He's a all time great.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, no doubt about it.

[Joe Rogan]

He's an all time great. And you know, when you, you go back and look at his fights with Max, like he was the first guy to figure out Max. Yeah. You know, and then you look at what he did cleaning out the division. I mean, my God, I would have loved to seen a fair shake. I would have loved to see. I would have never advised him to take that fight with Islam on 11 days notice. I don't care what the fucking UFC says. No go Jon Jones. What does Jon Jones do? Jon Jones had an opportunity to fight Chael Sonnen with very little notice.

[John McCarthy]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

But he was already in shape.

[John McCarthy]

Dan Henderson fight?

[Joe Rogan]

Nope, won't fight him. Yeah, not gonna fight him unless I have a full camp preparing just for him. I'm not giving anybody any fucking chances, period. See ya. Bye. I'm the champ. And if Volkanovski had that mindset, he would have never fought in Islam unless he went Through a full camp again, because he almost beat him the first time. It was a really close fight the first time. The second fight he comes in, he's a little soft, he's not in shape, his mind's not right.

[John McCarthy]

Also, the difference in the weight cut for Islam.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[John McCarthy]

Islam was on 30 some hours compared to. Right.

[Joe Rogan]

He's on Australia time the first time. The second time he's like fully rehydrated. Much more time to recover. Yep. Much more dangerous.

[Jamie Varner]

It was more of the expectation that Volk thought, I'll just do the same thing I did in the first fight.

[Joe Rogan]

Of course, because he's an animal. That's where you need your brother. You need someone to go, dude, I love you.

[John McCarthy]

You're an animal.

[Joe Rogan]

You're one of the greatest of all time. But the brain is the brain. Like, there's just certain. You don't want to fight with a broken hand. Right. Okay. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean your hands, not. Your head's not damaged. That's damaged.

[John McCarthy]

That's the difference though, is exactly what you're saying is the brain doesn't hurt.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[John McCarthy]

It doesn't have nerve endings. And so you can't sit there and say, oh man, I've got this problem. Until you end up concussed. Right. Until now. All of a sudden the headaches are occurring and the bright lights start to bother you and all these things start to add up and you're starting to get mad about things that you can't understand. Why am I getting mad right now? Those are the telltale signs of. Hey, I need to step away for a while.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you remember when Travis Ludwig fought?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Who was it?

[John McCarthy]

Eastman.

[Joe Rogan]

Eastman. Marvin. Marvin Eastman. And he caught Marvin Eastman with a punch. It was just a regular punch.

[John McCarthy]

Just nothing.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. And then we found out later, oh, he got KO'd really bad, I think by Tito in training.

[John McCarthy]

Yep.

[Joe Rogan]

And it's like that's. That's it.

[John McCarthy]

He'd been killed twice. Twice in training.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, God. You know, these guys are crazy.

[John McCarthy]

You look and you go. And that's why he went out the

[Joe Rogan]

way he did, 100%.

[John McCarthy]

Because it was a weird off of something he never would have been hurt by.

[Joe Rogan]

It was weird. It was weird. It was like a straight left that caught him at the end of the punch.

[John McCarthy]

End of the punch. Hardly moved him. Hardly moved him.

[Joe Rogan]

Just fell back.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Cuz his brain was damaged.

[Jamie Varner]

You got to give your time, full.

[Joe Rogan]

A full time to recover.

[Jamie Varner]

Five days, up to. Up to six months. Eating more fats, more avocados, things like that to help your brain recover.

[Joe Rogan]

When Juan Manuel Marquez knocked out Pacquiao, Freddie Roach said, you're not doing anything for you year.

[John McCarthy]

That's it.

[Joe Rogan]

One year. And he got his chin back, took that year off, and he came back, actually recovered. But Freddy being a longtime boxer himself, and being around the game and seeing guys getting knocked out and seeing guys jumping back in too quick, he knew

[John McCarthy]

Freddie being one himself.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[John McCarthy]

Look, Fred, you know, people don't realize Freddy was actually a good. A good boxer. He was. He had a, you know, good amateur record. He was doing well in the process. You remember who his. His trainer was?

[Joe Rogan]

Was.

[John McCarthy]

His trainer was Eddie Futch. Eddie Fudge, who was the second trainer for Joe Frazier after Yance Durham died. And Joe Frazier, he was there for the thrill in Manila with Ali and stuff like that. Yeah. And Eddie Futch told Freddie Roach, son, you're taking too many shots, you're getting hit with too many good ones. You're not responding the same way. You're done. You got to stop. And Freddie Roach got rid of. Of Eddie Fudge and continued to fight as a professional and just kept getting knocked out. And that was the end of his career. And then he became the trainer and. And, you know, you can take a look at a lot of the issues that he has, but as much as you're looking at, you know, you're looking at that with Freddy, take a look at his brother Pepper, who took a lot less, is worse than Freddy. I mean, Pepper's gone now, but I mean, headshots and trauma to the brain, especially when you don't get it, the opportunity to rest and heal, it will absolutely take and burn your career.

[Joe Rogan]

No doubt. And there's no way to really tell. There's so many guys that are damaged, and we don't know, because you meet them backstage, like, hey, how you doing? Everything's great, but meanwhile, it's not great. These guys are struggling. They don't remember what you just said exactly. And then they're talking to people that repeat things over and over and over again.

[John McCarthy]

And you can watch. You know, I hate to say it, there was a fighter fought in the ufc, fought in bare knuckle boxing. Now he's now training guys, and it's Joey Beltran, okay, had a decent career, heavy puncher, took a lot of damage. And I'm just watching Joey Beltran walk off of stairs and having to go one step at a time with each foot, and you look and you go, damn. You know, and, you know, hey, he's been all, you know, he's a great guy, but it's like that's what all of this does in the end.

[Joe Rogan]

No doubt.

[John McCarthy]

You've got to understand that. You know, I always. I try to tell fighters all the time, look, you're a Ferrari. You know, you want to be a Lamborghini, you're a Lamborghini. But first off, it's like, you know, the whole Jon Jones thing is, you know, be careful of what you put in its gas tank. Okay. Same with, you know, other guys. You know, I don't mean to pick out on John, but, you know, we knew he's told the story of what he was doing, doing, and so be careful what you put in the gas tank and realize you can only crash that car so many times before it's a piece of junk. Right. And. And it's hard to get that through that. This is not going to last forever, and I'm not going to be the same forever.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

They just don't see it until all of a sudden it's there.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that's why it's a real bummer when you see coaches that, you know, love the fighters and they haven't stepped in, they haven't done anything, and they're. They're keeping training these guys because they'll lose them. Yeah, exactly. And that's what's horrible. It's horrible that you, you know, you have to. There has to be the kind of relationship where you get to a fork in the road and you go, this is what this is.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, it doesn't mean that your life is over.

[John McCarthy]

No. It's the start of your next life. Just.

[Joe Rogan]

You can't identify yourself. Well, Josh, you could speak to this because, you know, you fought at the highest level for a long time and you stepped away healthy.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah. And I did. I had this conversation with Dustin yesterday. I just said, hey, like, I feel like you could still do it. You're right there like, you're one fight away from fighting for another title again. And he's like, it was just the time. And I can. I completely respect that.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

I said, because he's having time now with his two kids, his wife. He's enjoying his moment. He just got done lifting. He was looking swole. And I was like. It was. I was like, it's good to see you. Came on the show, he's all sweaty, a little bit like, you know, he's enjoying this next chapter of his life. Life.

[Joe Rogan]

I like when guys go out like, khabib oh, absolutely. They offer him a bunch of money. He's like, no. Yep, Good. Did it. Done. Bye.

[John McCarthy]

And I hate when people try to rag him on it. It drives me crazy. They sit there and go, oh, yeah. But you know. You know, you could have done this. You could have done that.

[Joe Rogan]

Fools.

[Jamie Varner]

He gives zero.

[John McCarthy]

It doesn't matter.

[Jamie Varner]

He doesn't care. He doesn't. Look.

[John McCarthy]

Look at what he did.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

That's all you need to know.

[Joe Rogan]

Look, he dominated people that nobody dominated. Oh, yeah. And he did it in a crazy way. Like, speaking of Barboza, I remember that fight where Barbosa had that thousand dare.

[John McCarthy]

So do I.

[Joe Rogan]

In the first round, he's like. He was like, oh, my God, this is never going to go my way.

[Jamie Varner]

It's not.

[John McCarthy]

It wasn't going to.

[Jamie Varner]

Hey, I actually looked something up the other day. Khabib is the only guy has never bled inside the. The UFC Octagon.

[Joe Rogan]

That's crazy.

[Jamie Varner]

He's the only fighter to never bleed inside the.

[John McCarthy]

What have I told you?

[Jamie Varner]

That's wild. He's the most dominant fighter inside. Jon Jones being, you know, considered.

[John McCarthy]

Jon Jones is the greatest as far as you're going to say who's done it better as far as all the championship fights and all of that stuff. Jon Jones is the guy, right. He. The most dominant fighter I ever stepped into that cage with was Habib.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at this. Khabib never visibly bled, was severely bruised, or was knocked down during his professional mma.

[John McCarthy]

Who's the only person you ever saw hurt him?

[Joe Rogan]

Connor? Nope. No.

[Jamie Varner]

No. Well, Glau, you can say Michael Johnson.

[John McCarthy]

Michael Johnson. Michael Johnson had one where he gave. He gave a little bit of. I was doing that fight.

[Joe Rogan]

That's right.

[John McCarthy]

And he had. I was like, oh, yeah, that's right. Michael Johnson, he sucked it right back up.

[Jamie Varner]

I said, I go. I go, you hurt? He's like, brother, come on. You know, I wasn't hurt.

[John McCarthy]

It was the same. You talk. You talked about, you know, Michael Johnson against gaii, you know, and after that fight, because I did that fight and I told Justin, hey, congratulations, that was a great performance. You got hurt. You went through it. He goes, I never got hurt. I go, go, go. Watch the video.

[Joe Rogan]

I never got hurt.

[John McCarthy]

It's like, I never got hurt. Oh, yeah, you got hurt.

[Joe Rogan]

Those guys went to war.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, man.

[Joe Rogan]

The crazy thing was when Khabib was on top of Michael Johnson and he was saying, come on, brother, you know, I need deserve title shot. He was like, I don't want to do this to You.

[John McCarthy]

I don't want to.

[Joe Rogan]

And then when he almost. When he got him in the Kamora, I was like, please tap.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, you're saying, please tap?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

What do you think I'm saying?

[Joe Rogan]

It was so. I think the only reason why it didn't break is Khabib is probably being kind. Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Like, he's talking to him the whole time, the entire fight.

[Joe Rogan]

You have to give up. He's saying, you have to give up. Come on, bro.

[John McCarthy]

You know, I need to type to fight for Tyler title.

[Jamie Varner]

It's my destiny. I have to fight for the title.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. I need to fight for the title. You know this. I deserve this. You agree? He's like, you agree? He's saying that's why he's beating his ass.

[Jamie Varner]

Michael Johnson's like, huh?

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, he was just a dude. So everybody agrees.

[John McCarthy]

Everybody agrees. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

As he's beating his ass, he thinks everybody agrees. Well, how about when he was on top of Conor? Did he say, let's talk now. He's punching me in the face.

[John McCarthy]

Come on, let's talk now.

[Joe Rogan]

Let's talk now. Loved it. He was a monster dude. Khabib was. He was just so relentless.

[John McCarthy]

But it's everything to do with his lifestyle. And this is what. This is where you get into. You know, you've seen it too many times, champions, and there's been great champions, but when you become the champion, everything in your life changes. The things that come your way change. You know, you get. You get offered things that you didn't get offered in the same way before. You get all these opportunities. And all of a sudden, instead of going to the gym, you're spending the day on a plane, going to a loc to do something. Sometimes it's for the promotion that you're working for, sometimes it's for the UFC or whatever promotion there is. And because they're asking you. So you're missing that day of training, and then you're getting back on the plane, you're coming back the next day, and that's another day that you're missing. He never missed training. He never changed his lifestyle. He did everything the same. Yeah. And that's why he had the results. He got.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, for a super successful guy, he's still so hungry, humble. He's so, like, normal to talk to. He's so balanced. And it's that discipline that he has. He. Discipline and his. His religious beliefs. Like, he's just so. So rock solid.

[Jamie Varner]

The thing about him is that he tries to make sure he puts the guys that had helped get him there, tries to help them get elevated as well, you know, and that's it. It kind of what I'm trying to say is that how you've done with your guys, with your group of comics and friends, you guys all lift each other up. He does the same thing with the group of friends that he, he has. So not just like myself and D.C. and you know, Islam and those guys, I mean, like when they go to travel for events, he put, you know, he takes care of the house, he makes sure that it's all organized, makes sure that there's enough room for everyone, there's food, you know, obviously all the guys, other guys chip in, but it's like he's the one that's kind of organizing everything. He's the leader of that team. And I love seeing somebody that puts that much effort into guys that help get him there as well.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, no, he's a real leader. He's a real leader. And now that he's coaching, I mean, you imagine you're a kid, kid, and you need motivation. You're literally being coached by one of the greatest combat sports athletes to ever walk on God's earth.

[John McCarthy]

And. And one that did it right. The entire time.

[Joe Rogan]

The entire time. And is all about discipline and hard work. Like, you couldn't pick a better camp, especially if you're a grappling based guy. You know, like, send them to Dagestan two, three years. That's the greatest meme of all time.

[Jamie Varner]

I think what separates, you know, Islam and Habib and that, that whole group is that there's never a moment where they're not training. Like, I was in Chicago at one of the events for Bellator. We were there and I was headed down to the bar after the event. They were headed to the gym, passing me in the elevator. I said, come up and talk to me. So I was up there for an hour just chatting with them while they're riding bikes, you know, lifting weights, getting their workout in. And everyone else is down at the bar drinking.

[John McCarthy]

Wow.

[Jamie Varner]

You know, and so it's, it doesn't matter. They don't even look at it. They don't think about it. They just go right to the gym. They get their sweat on. They're up there for two hours. Hours. It's not, not. It's not like this intensity. 25 minutes.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, right.

[Joe Rogan]

They're just working.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And they're never letting themselves get out of shape.

[Jamie Varner]

No, that's it. And then you see them in the morning, right when they were living It. When they were training out of ak, in the mornings, you'd see them at the, at the track. In the mornings, they would just jog. But then there was little stations where you do sit ups and push ups. They would do those. And they would do it for two, three miles. And they'd come to the gym at noon and they'd do their workout. Sometimes hard, sometimes not, but they were always training, always working, and that's what separates them. They're not out at the club until 2, 3 in the morning. Morning, then trying to recover the next day. They're not drinking, they're not smoking, they're not doing the.

[Joe Rogan]

No, drinking is huge.

[John McCarthy]

Huge.

[Jamie Varner]

Huge.

[Joe Rogan]

If there's one thing that fighters up more than anything, it's partying.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Drinking especially, I guess, coke. But I don't have a lot of experience with guys that I knew that were doing coke, but I have a lot of experience with guys that were drinkers. And you would see them in the morning on like, they would go out Saturday night, Sunday they'd be up. They show up Monday to train, and they just look like shooting.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Because they had been partying too hard just two days ago. And you don't think that that's going to make a big difference. But if you're getting drunk on Saturday night, that's days before you're back to baseline days.

[John McCarthy]

Right.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, and you could get away with it when you're 23. Yeah, a little bit. Kind of. But are you. Because you're probably not as good as you would have been, and then maybe you're going to get hit with some shots you wouldn't get hit with, or you've been going to get tapped when you wouldn't have got tapped.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, but. And then you take a look. That's the big difference. If you go back and look at Habib's crazy career, go back and look at his first fight in the UFC and look at how bad, and I'm serious, how bad his standup was.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, yeah. It wasn't the best.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, no, it was. It was probably the worst. Okay. It was.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't think it was the worst.

[John McCarthy]

It was bad.

[Joe Rogan]

He did a lot of crazy. Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

But take a look at it.

[Jamie Varner]

Those were his.

[John McCarthy]

When he was at the end. Oh, yeah, it was. It was tight. He always was improving.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, he was everything. Remember, he dropped throughout crack. Connor, you know, with a big right hand, which was like. Everybody was like, like, holy. Like, that was a shocker.

[Jamie Varner]

I had several conversations with Shab about that. Because I went down and did his show a couple times in LA before that fight. And I said, look, stylistically Conor's the better striker. I go. But the, the intimidation of the takedown and the threat of the takedown for Conor is going to make him hesitant. I said, don't be surprised if Habib ends up landing some good, some good hard shots on the feet.

[Joe Rogan]

That's a giant factor, the fear of the takedown. How about Kevin Randleman when he fought Crocop, when he knocked him out? That was what it was. I'm fear the takedown, the thing thinking,

[John McCarthy]

the thought process of I can't let him.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, you get it. If Kevin Randleman and CRO Cop fought a straight kickboxing match with no takedowns, Jesus Christ.

[John McCarthy]

It's a walk. I mean, you don't want to watch it.

[Joe Rogan]

It'd be terrible to watch. Yeah, but that threat of the takedown is this factor that keeps you from being comfortable. It keeps you from finding your flow state.

[Jamie Varner]

That little hesitation opens up so many opportunities to get to catch them.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it's big. It's so big. You see it in fights all the time when a guy just has this extra element of the and when. So that's why it's so impressive when you see a guy like Pereira where there's no threat. The takedown. Yeah, there's no threat. It's not happening. He's not even thinking about taking down. He's just going to you up and now it's up to you to deal with that.

[Jamie Varner]

We just don't have the level of wrestlers these days in the 205 and the heavyweight division to compete with him on the, in the wrestling area.

[John McCarthy]

That's where, that's where you have someone like Stevenson coming in, Gable coming in the heavyweight division.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay.

[John McCarthy]

Curtis Blades can wrestle now. Josh Hook Hokut. Look at Josh. Hokut's the real deal. You know, he was a. He's a, he's a good athlete. Yeah, he's a good all around athlete.

[Joe Rogan]

He's a character.

[John McCarthy]

You go with the stick. It's great. Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

But also he put up. He put up.

[Jamie Varner]

Absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

He put up in that. Curtis Blades, hello.

[John McCarthy]

That fight as a heavyweight fight was awesome.

[Joe Rogan]

Awesome to watch, you know. Terrible for your dome, though.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yes.

[Joe Rogan]

And that's the crazy thing, that he's gonna fight Derek Lewis, who's the biggest knockout puncher in the history of the fucking heavyweight division. More knockouts than anyone. One. And he's gonna fight him, what, how many weeks Seven weeks.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, seven weeks.

[Joe Rogan]

Seven weeks. Seven weeks after a war. You see Curtis Blade's fists, they're like this.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, they're like that big.

[Joe Rogan]

They're gigantic. He's a giant, man. And he hit him a bunch. Oh, he did big shots.

[John McCarthy]

And what. Look, I get. I gotta give it up for Curtis Blaze. What a fight he put on because he took some damage, delivered some big shots as well. Mad heart.

[Joe Rogan]

Crazy, crazy heart. Because he just did not want to lose that talking, dude. That's funny thing is, like, Hokit will drop the. The act when you talk to him in real life and in. In the ring, you know, in the cage after the fight, I said, dude, that was a amazing fight.

[John McCarthy]

He goes.

[Joe Rogan]

He goes, I talked so much. I mean, he goes, I had one. I talked so much. And then he went and did it again.

[Jamie Varner]

Little Iliad Tori is out there trying to pick fights with.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, he just talks about so many people. He's just trying to get people upset and talk about.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, that's all. He's just pushing buttons.

[Joe Rogan]

Listen, that's the. The Conor McGregor game plan. Like, I mean, Conor did it the best. Chael did it. Chael was the first really, to do it in mma. Connor took it to another level, but

[Jamie Varner]

they kind of stayed in. They kind of stayed in their lane. Like, this is my weight class. This dude doesn't care if you're 135, 145.

[Joe Rogan]

He talks a ton of. He just wants controversy. He's basically like one of them kick streamers. He's just trying to talk as much as possible.

[John McCarthy]

He's. Look what he's done, though, man. He can fight himself. He can fight in the ufc. For a division that the UFC has, they need, man, they need these people.

[Joe Rogan]

I think Gable's the man. That's what I think.

[John McCarthy]

That's your nightmare.

[Joe Rogan]

That's Mike Tyson when he was 20. You know what I mean?

[Jamie Varner]

He's still. He's got. He's got some work to do. But I'm glad they signed him early, you know, try to develop him, hopefully, a bit. Little bit. Give him two or three more fights inside the ufc.

[Joe Rogan]

The problem is the heavyweight division in the UFC is so shallow that you could see Gable fighting for a title within a year or two.

[John McCarthy]

Three fights.

[Joe Rogan]

Three fights. Could be. Yeah, could be.

[Jamie Varner]

He's gonna have to learn a lot, though, in that process.

[Joe Rogan]

100. But he's got John in his corner. Yeah, you gotta.

[John McCarthy]

You gotta give him credit, though. He has shown that, you know, first off, he's super fast. Oh, yeah, okay. But he's also got a chin. He got kicked up into the head, neck area. He ate that sucker, you know, and man continued on, and you go, well, he's a tank. Don't let that happen again. Right, but don't let it happen, man. You've shown. Hey, he didn't let it affect him. He didn't back off.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, he's an Olympic gold.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yes.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, he's a winner.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

He is a small heavyweight, though. Like that hybrid style.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, but that's the best it is.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, he's 250. He's just not tall, but he's wide as his legs.

[Jamie Varner]

His legs.

[Joe Rogan]

How about when he had that dirty boxing fight and then leapt over the top rope?

[John McCarthy]

Literally, that's the whole thing.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, it was a box of tissues on the guy.

[John McCarthy]

The best one. The best one was when he had the first one and he hits the guy. The guy's out going down, and he's taking him down

[Joe Rogan]

cold. That's how fast he is. Yeah, he's. That's the most impressive of the prospects. But, you know, hopefully, this is going to excite that. Like when you have a. Like every division goes through these, like, peaks and valleys, and when you have a lull, hopefully, that's when. And people come in and they fill that void. And with Francis out of the UFC and looks like forever, which is a shame. It's a shame I don't. I tried to negotiate that. I tried to bring the two of them back together. I tried to have a sit down. Dana was not interested. He doesn't want to have anything to do with them. It's about interpersonal relationships, interpersonal exchanges that they had that I'm not. I don't know what happened exactly. I just know what Dana told me, and I believe him. So it's like, you have the best heavyweight in the world. World, and he's. He can't fight in the ufc, which is, to me, crazy. I mean, let's do Molly together. Let's work this out. Let's work this out, bro.

[John McCarthy]

We could do anything, right?

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, this is why I'm not a promoter, and it's why I'm not a businessman. But if I was, I would. I would go to dinner with him. Come on, man. I'm sure we could let our differences be a side. Like, he's not a bad guy. It's just, you know.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Sometimes people get upset. They say things like, smooth it out. Out.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

My experiences with Francis have always been super Positive. Enjoy talking to him.

[John McCarthy]

I, Francis has been nothing but kind to me and everybody I've introduced him to and stuff. He's always the best.

[Joe Rogan]

He's the scariest heavyweight on planet Earth.

[John McCarthy]

Dude, he's huge. He's huge, people. I, I, I was at an awards thing and, and when Misha Tate and Rashad Evans and I and my wife were taking a picture and all of a sudden there's shadow comes over the top of us and it's Francis with his arms out, like, hey, right? It's like, what the hell?

[Joe Rogan]

When you get a natur. 265, a guy's net and shredded cutting weight to make 265. That's, yeah, I mean he's, he, there was many fights where he was like 270. 275.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

He would drop a little bit of weight to make the 260, which is also stupid. Why is there a 265 pound weight limit for the heavyweight division? That's nuts. Isn't that nuts?

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. I know why.

[Jamie Varner]

Because you get those really big guys.

[John McCarthy]

It was Lorenzo, you know, Lorenzo was, you know, looking at it, saying here, I don't to want, want fat guys. Really. That's what, you know, because you had

[Joe Rogan]

big country, everybody loved big country.

[John McCarthy]

But it was at the time in, in mma you had no weight limit. Roy was lovable to a point.

[Joe Rogan]

Love Roy.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. No weight limits. And that whole thing was, he looked and said, I don't want, you know, a bunch of fat guys. We got to cut it off at a certain point because I'm not going to have super heavyweight, you know, anything. Never, they never did.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, not having super heavyweight is fine, but Mercury merge it. Yeah, it's, it's ridiculous. If a guy is like, value F, remember value.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

The Russian guy was 7ft tall. Holyfield let him.

[John McCarthy]

David Hay beat him. Remember that one?

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that's right. David Hay and David Hayes, a small heavyweight comparison.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Holyfield beat him too, right? Didn't Holyfield beat him?

[John McCarthy]

I don't think Holyfield didn't fight Value.

[Joe Rogan]

I think they did.

[John McCarthy]

Did they? I think look that one up.

[Joe Rogan]

I think they did. I might be wrong.

[John McCarthy]

I don't think, I'm not sure. Vanderfeld fought him. David Hay beat him.

[Joe Rogan]

I know that might be wrong, but there they are. Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, that's him.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. 2008. Crazy. And Evander Hollyville was a cruiserweight. Remember when he fought Dwight Muhammad Kawi who was 5, 7?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Kawi was a 57 cruiserweight. He would get underneath you and be, like, moving. He was like. He was a nightmare to deal with.

[John McCarthy]

He was. He was a mini Joe Frazier, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

He's a tank, that guy was. And he would pull his trunks way up to here,

[John McCarthy]

right under his nipples. Hits.

[Joe Rogan]

This is crazy. Oh. Value of one.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Highly disputed majority decision. That's where you get a referee.

[John McCarthy]

That's when. Look at that. Look at the age of Evander.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[John McCarthy]

46.

[Joe Rogan]

Which is crazy.

[John McCarthy]

That's crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it is crazy. It's crazy when you see these guys that, you know, like, wow, yo, Romero can do it. Okay, listen.

[John McCarthy]

No, he's a. He is a.

[Joe Rogan]

From Earth.

[John McCarthy]

Okay? This is where this whole, uh, UFO thing comes in.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, right here.

[John McCarthy]

Here is the proof of. Yes, there are aliens, and Yoel Romero is one of them. Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

Okay.

[John McCarthy]

He is built differently than every other human being on the face of this.

[Joe Rogan]

I told this story before. I don't know if you guys heard it, but this. This actually happened when the. One of his fights, he had broken into his orbital. The UFC brings him to a doctor. The doctor says to him, to the ufc, where did you get this guy? And they go, he's pretty awesome, right? He goes, no, no, no. I've never seen a human. Human built like this before. They said his tendons in his eye were three times larger than a normal person's. They said the orbital bone is already healing. Like, this is crazy.

[John McCarthy]

I need no medicine.

[Joe Rogan]

So then there's some questions. It's like, you know, listen, the Cubans are very connected to the Russians, who are very connected to science.

[Jamie Varner]

Well, it's wild.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, you gotta think if you had a kid and you knew this kid was going to be wrestling, bang, bang, bang, when he's coming up, you could make a totally different kind of kid. Kid. Oh, I remember, I read a story about this guy and his son started showing, like, androgenic effects very early on. They. They were freaked out. Like, the kid was get. Like his dick was growing, he's getting hair. They're like, what the is happening to this baby? And they realized that the dad had testosterone cream. So the dad was taking testosterone cream and he's holding the baby and, you know, bare chest to bare chest, it's trans transferring. It's. He's literally juicing up his kid.

[John McCarthy]

Have you. Have you seen Andre Smyv?

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[John McCarthy]

Holy Jesus Christ.

[Joe Rogan]

Jamie, pull up that guy, huh?

[John McCarthy]

Andre Smyev is a. He's a. He's kind of a hybrid. He's a bodybuilder. Power lifter, strong man, arm wrestler. Yeah, he's 350 pounds. I mean 20, 27 inch arm or something like that.

[Joe Rogan]

His hands, hands are so big. They look like catcher's mitts. Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

And that's.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at his hands.

[John McCarthy]

Have you heard, you know what?

[Joe Rogan]

2016 to 2026. Look at the difference. 2016. Look at normal. Look at his hands.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, look at his hands. Difference. His hands are huge because he. Oh yeah, everything. He takes a thousand units of growth hormone a day. That's 10 vials what he does. Yes. He's gonna die.

[Joe Rogan]

Whoa.

[John McCarthy]

You cannot take.

[Joe Rogan]

Is that real?

[Jamie Varner]

That's insane.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, a thousand. Oh my God. Look at the size of. Of them. That's so crazy.

[John McCarthy]

That dude does one arm pull ups at 350 pounds. I mean he is absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

And he's not. And he has a regular job.

[John McCarthy]

He's 27 years old. Look at him. He looks like he's 50.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he looks at least 50. Doesn't he have a factory job? I think he has a regular job. So it's not even. He's not even doing it for money.

[John McCarthy]

Oh no.

[Joe Rogan]

But it's crazy when you see him when he was young. Like, look at that. That's him. That's the same guy. I mean that, that looks like a regular athlete.

[John McCarthy]

He is a regular athlete. Athlete there.

[Joe Rogan]

And then all of a sudden he becomes this immense freak.

[John McCarthy]

He is.

[Jamie Varner]

He must have done a lot of testosterone to lose all his hair like that.

[Joe Rogan]

He did everything.

[John McCarthy]

Everything.

[Joe Rogan]

He's done everything there is. Whatever you got. Give me it. There's a lot of those dudes. Do you know about that guy? Tom Haviland?

[John McCarthy]

Oh yeah, in Australia. Dude.

[Joe Rogan]

That six foot eight.

[John McCarthy]

That dude. You take a look at him. He is. He's unique in the fact he doesn't do the normal workouts and stuff.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[John McCarthy]

He does basic, basic farm stuff. He picks up, you know, things. Farmer walks with stuff. That's ridiculous.

[Joe Rogan]

He does like a lot of. Picks up axles. Yeah. Weird dude.

[John McCarthy]

But he's six foot eight and let's say 330 pounds more. Not an ounce.

[Joe Rogan]

Trying to get to four. He was trying to get to four. So he's in the 390s. He was like this is building up to 400 pounds, but shredded. Yes. And. And preposterously strong.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like farmers.

[John McCarthy]

He's always, he's always working out when you can't see him.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. You see his back and he's always wearing clothes. Clothes, which is very odd. But there's Photos of him without the clothes.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And it's almost like he's building a masterpiece and he wants to reveal it once he's done painting.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

See if you can find some pictures of what he actually looks like. Because there is occasionally they show his body always takes all the stuff like that. Yeah, bro.

[Jamie Varner]

Wow.

[John McCarthy]

Look at him right there.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at that. That's.

[Jamie Varner]

Oh, he looks young.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't think he's that old. Okay. I think he's like maybe 30 or something. Something. It's nuts.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

He is gigantic, dude. Six, eight, three, eight, five. What the. What the. Now imagine if he wanted to fight MMA and they're like, well, sir, you've got to lose 110 pounds. That's crazy.

[John McCarthy]

You okay?

[Joe Rogan]

Hold on, hold on.

[John McCarthy]

Think about this.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at that.

[John McCarthy]

You're.

[Joe Rogan]

The.

[John McCarthy]

You're. You're the heavyweight that they want to put him against. Yes. There's a weight class.

[Joe Rogan]

No, listen, I think this should be a 225 and then should be kicked.

[Jamie Varner]

Chaos.

[Joe Rogan]

225 and then chaos.

[John McCarthy]

I agree.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, you. You and let the freaks in.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Let them Iceland dudes in.

[Jamie Varner]

Like, I mean, something. Some of the most entertaining fights in pride, right, Were the freak fights.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Well, here's the thing, though. That guy's gonna melt your piss cup.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

100.

[Jamie Varner]

So just like, Just like in Pride,

[Joe Rogan]

if you put that guy like one of them tester machines, it would ding. Like one of those cartoon things where you. You hit a mallet.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And it hits the bell.

[John McCarthy]

There would be fireworks going off, streamers coming down.

[Joe Rogan]

Chance, that guy's on the natural.

[John McCarthy]

Come on.

[Joe Rogan]

But that's just like pride, you know?

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, exactly. Like pride.

[Joe Rogan]

God, pride.

[John McCarthy]

Everybody was juicy. They just had the enhanced games.

[Joe Rogan]

I know, but only, Only one.

[Jamie Varner]

Only one world record was broken in the 50 yard.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. Yeah. Really? That was a 50 meter swim.

[Joe Rogan]

But they were wearing.

[John McCarthy]

Wearing a suit. That's illegal.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Because it makes you slippery.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

And it was. And it was a guy that had already beaten the world record, like, I don't know, a couple years back. Somebody's beaten them since.

[Joe Rogan]

It's no one, really. It wasn't that successful. And I talked to a friend of mine about it and he was like, I think first of all, they're not like monitoring everything everyone's doing. They're not optimizing them. If you really want to juice these people up, you can't let them do it themselves.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You've got to have like a whole program where you put them on this Stuff, but also like what are we doing?

[John McCarthy]

Did you hear what. You hear the reason why they're doing it?

[Joe Rogan]

Why they.

[John McCarthy]

The whole thing is kind of like Red Bull. You know how Red Bull does all the crazy, you know, different stunt stuff and everything. Their whole thing is they are a. They're a company that gives out or you know, puts out these monthly things of TRT and all these different, you know, things with testosterone stuff. So they did this whole thing as an advertisement basically for people to see that being enhanced is better and that you'll come and now sign up for it. I think it's $399 a month for your whole thing to be able. Yeah, 399.

[Joe Rogan]

The enhanced program.

[John McCarthy]

There you go. It's the enhanced program.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay, so when did they.

[John McCarthy]

Thank you, Jamie.

[Joe Rogan]

When we had them on. Jamie, did they bring this up? No, I don't think they did. Maybe they adopted this later. Cuz we had them on like about a year before they were going to do the games and they were tell. And I was like, let's go juice them up. Juice. Juice everybody up.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

What about a enhanced fight game? Games.

[John McCarthy]

The whole question is this. When you truly look at it. Because I look and say look, as long as you. If you open it up to everyone, then it's someone's choice. You're gonna hear all that thing. Well, you know, you can do it if you want. You don't have to do it. But it's different when you're lifting a weight or you're swimming in a pool. Right. Or doing those things or you're beating on another human being. It's just there's a difference. You're creating damage. In the Sport of fighting 100. Do you want to enhance someone? In being able to do that, you're

[Joe Rogan]

also enhancing your ability to take damage. You could take that into consideration. You're. You're going to get hit with less shots because you're going to have more endurance because you're going to be on epo. You're going to have.

[John McCarthy]

That's always good for you too.

[Joe Rogan]

Super good. Yeah, the strokes that you get on EPO are the best. But I mean like I gotta think there's a way to do all those things. If you're monitoring your blood work and you're being very careful where you don't go crazy like. Like the Russian cat. Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

You know people. That's human nature. Yep.

[Joe Rogan]

You're right.

[John McCarthy]

One step, take another.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep. Yeah, definitely.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And if that guy has skills, imagine that. Guy with like, oh, my God. Imagine if you got Fedor and you go, bro.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

You want to keep fighting? I got something. 49.

[John McCarthy]

But listen, that's only. That's only biologically I can make you think 32 again. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

We get you in a hyperbaric chamber every day for two hours, and this is what we're going to do. Testosterone in the morning, testosterone at lunch,

[John McCarthy]

testosterone at night, and a little growth after.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, growth is all day long. You're taking growth from the moment you wake up. We're gonna get you up to about 2, 9. We're gonna shred it.

[John McCarthy]

We're gonna peptide you. Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

I think part of the attraction to Fedor, though, is his. His belly 100, you know?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

You lose that, and I'm like, ah.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, imagine Lorenzo saying, I don't want fat guys to fight. And you see Fedor, he did everything

[John McCarthy]

he could to get Fedor.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, well, they did. They really did.

[John McCarthy]

No, he did.

[Joe Rogan]

I remember those days. There was. It was kind of crazy, like the. He was negotiating with some dangerous characters.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And Dana's like, we gotta up our security. This is getting. Just getting heavy with these guys. They wanted a piece of the promotion.

[John McCarthy]

That was. That was the whole. Yeah, everything. Everyone talks about that stuff, like it. It wasn't. It wasn't. Fedor, you know, faded. Fedor would have fought for anyone. And it wasn't the price of what, you know, he wanted for money. It was. Was M1 was associated. Vadim Finkelstein was Fedor's manager. He had M1 and he wanted a co promotion.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

With UFC and the UFC's. No. Yeah, we can't do that. That's the one thing we can't do. And that was. That was the end all right there.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Which is unfortunate, right?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, totally.

[Joe Rogan]

We missed out on the greatest matchup of all time between Prime Kane and Prime Fedor.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Prime Kane and Prime Fedor would have been. Been nuts.

[Jamie Varner]

Nuts. Yeah, nuts.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, absolutely nuts. Nobody had a gas tank like t. Kane. Nobody.

[Jamie Varner]

I just talked to him yesterday, Kane, and I was just talking about. I said, if there's one fight you can come back for. And he's like, ah, you know, I'm really, really like. He's not. He's just. He's completely checked out the fight thing.

[John McCarthy]

But I was like, checked out fight. He's doing a great job of training guys. To me, he's back doing it.

[Jamie Varner]

He's not. He's not. No, he's not. Just talk to Him?

[John McCarthy]

Yes, he was just. I was just talking at the, at the fights.

[Jamie Varner]

No, he's just like. No, I'm kind of like just disconnected. Like it's. He's just trying to get his life back.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, understandable, you know, Understandable.

[Jamie Varner]

That's the one fight. I said if there was one fight I could pick for you, it'd be Fedor. It'd be. That'd be the one fight I want to see out of him.

[Joe Rogan]

We missed that.

[John McCarthy]

It's funny because everyone talks. I agree with you completely. Everyone talks about, you know, the fight that they would have put together would have been Brock against Fedor.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

And I look and I go, yeah, it's probably not that good of a fight.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it's like Brock would. Had such a hard time standing up with that guy. Yeah. Fedor. Well, the good example, like the Brock fight, to me that was like kind of the craziest fight was Alistar almost juicy.

[John McCarthy]

Uber uber. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

The most juicy he ever.

[John McCarthy]

That wasn't juice, that was horse meat.

[Joe Rogan]

That was everything. That was horse meat. He definitely ate some horse meat.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But there was no doubt about it. He was also eating pills.

[Jamie Varner]

Oh, that guy.

[Joe Rogan]

There's a lot going on, but he was a monster.

[John McCarthy]

He was world class kickboxer now.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he's like a vegan now.

[Jamie Varner]

He doesn't look anything like he.

[John McCarthy]

He looks like he did.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

But he's back to his pride days.

[Jamie Varner]

Sl down.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

Well, back to his supermodel days.

[Joe Rogan]

Good for health, by the way. That guy's been KO'd a ton of times. Seems fine. Like he did the commentary during the USYK fight, the Rico fight, and it was like, guy is talking great. He's like smooth and articulate.

[John McCarthy]

It's not. And not everyone gets affected the same way. Right. And it is, you know, there is you. There's little factors and you can see the difference. There are guys, you know, that are been boxers with 70 professional fights. They do, they talk fine. Everything's good.

[Joe Rogan]

There's also a gene, I think it's called Apoe 4. And if you have that, like, what is it? How does it work? If you have it, you're protected. Or if you have it, you have the problem. So there's one, there's one gene expression that makes you more likely to get ct. Yeah. For whatever reason. Yeah. What is it? Put, put that into perplexity and see what it says about.

[Jamie Varner]

There's a gene that you have in your body that.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, some people have it and some people don't. And if. If you have the. Whatever it is where this gene expression. I'm a. I'm not the guy to talk about this, but Dr. Rhonda Patrick talked about this, and she was saying essentially that if you have this. Here it is. Apoa 4 appears to increase the risk of severity of chronic traumatic inseparability holopathy in people with significant repetitive head impacts, but is a modifier of risk, not a cause by itself. So. Meaning, obviously, if you have it and

[John McCarthy]

you're not taking headshots, you're okay. It doesn't do anything.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. But if you have it.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

So scroll back up again, please. A large Postmortem study of 364 people with RH1, 294 with CTE 70 without carrying APOE 4 was associated with more advanced CTE stage and. And higher tau protein burden in the frontal lobe, but mainly in those old older than 65. But that's just because they haven't been testing all the MMA fighters.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Or all the boxers, you know, because, like, if you really. You just testing regular folks or football players.

[Jamie Varner]

Probably.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like football players is probably in the country the most people that have had trauma.

[John McCarthy]

Absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

Because you think about high school kids, even junior high kids. Yeah. I mean, they did a study of. I forget how many different people, but they found that everyone. It was like 9 out of 10 had it in every group, whether it was high school kids, college kids, some level of cte, which is nuts.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Not just NFL, not just college, high school kids.

[John McCarthy]

Everything. Everything that we've learned and we know today, comparatively from here, I'm going to Florida for the association of Ringside Physicians. They have their annual conference and they put on all these different things and we, you know, put together programs for down fighter things and all these. This stuff. But we know so much more now, Joe. It used to be, you know, I would go and do a presentation for him, and it was, you know, one of the first things, you know, when I first did it, I asked him a question. The real simple question was, let me ask you this. If a guy gets hit with a shot, boom. And he's out going down and he hits the ground and the fighter comes in and hits him with a shot, is it possible for him to hit him with a shot and actually wake him back? Backup, everyone from back then. No, that's impossible. All it will do is intensify the effects of the first shot, all this stuff. And I took a dvd, I said,

[Joe Rogan]

let's watch what fight did you use.

[John McCarthy]

I had a bunch, you know, and it was a matter of. It was trying to show him, hey, all these things that we think are just not true, okay? When we have to. We have to branch out and start to figure this stuff out a little bit more. Because, you know, in boxing, it's different, because boxing establishes time for me to make decisions. MMA takes that time away because I have a fighter that is now, instead of walking towards or, you know, trotting towards a neutral corner or something like that, they're trotting towards that person to do more damage to them. And so you're making that quicker decision. And, you know, we've had too many fights where we have someone that, you know, they're out going down and then hit the ground and they're up, and you have to actually wait. You know, I just had, you know, one in last week with Jason Jackson is fighting his opponent, Jeff Creighton. And Creighton gets hit, and he's going down. And I'm going in to stop it, and I see he starts sitting up, and I go, I gotta wait. And it's like, I don't want to wait. Don't sit up. And he comes back. Boom, hits him, goes out. I stop it. But it's like, those are the ones that you look at and you go, man. To understand the way the human body, everyone responds differently in certain situations. But we've learned more as far as the human body will do weird things in traumatic situations. And it is the ability to hit someone and to take those synapses that are connected and to separate them. There is no difference in being able to hit them and putting them back.

[Joe Rogan]

That's crazy.

[John McCarthy]

They can get snapped the same way.

[Joe Rogan]

Isn't that crazy?

[John McCarthy]

In the nuts?

[Jamie Varner]

In the Hermes Franca fight in UFC 47. 47.

[John McCarthy]

Jesus Christ. Don't go back too far.

[Jamie Varner]

Too far. But we're in the third round. I catch his leg, and he throws a little loop on shot and drops me. I have the leg in my hand, and I'm just going. I can see my face headed towards the canvas. My eyes are wide open, but I can't put my hands in front of my face. My face bounces off the canvas. It wakes me up. And then I start fishing for legs.

[John McCarthy]

Wow.

[Jamie Varner]

It was just. I can see everything. I can hear everything. I just couldn't put my hands in front of my face. And my face hits the canvas. I wake back up, and he starts jumping on me. I start trying to fish for legs and trying to get to Guard. And that's how that goes.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[John McCarthy]

The first thought to go through his head. So I hope I didn't damage my face because I'm so good looking.

[Jamie Varner]

Right? Jealous.

[Joe Rogan]

It is a problem.

[Jamie Varner]

Jealous guys, jealous over here.

[John McCarthy]

I told you the whole time.

[Joe Rogan]

But actually you violated the stereotype that good looking guys can't fight. Oh yeah, there was a little bit of a stereotype that like good looking guys, when push comes to shove, they're gonna fall apart because they're too good looking. They don't want to get up.

[John McCarthy]

I don't think so.

[Joe Rogan]

Not true.

[John McCarthy]

I've seen too many good looking guys.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at Rico. Yeah, Verhoeven's a model. Yeah. Beautiful, man.

[Jamie Varner]

That Guy came to AK and trained with K in D.C. for a couple weeks. That guy's a murderer. Oh yeah, he's a murderer. And like when we were talking about earlier about the fight and him, the bot, his boxing is really good. His cardio like you guys were talking about is fantastic. But man, he has no fear of being taken down. He has no fear of any of these guys. Kane and DC didn't care. He didn't. He would fight them to the death. On defending takedowns, they were like, man, D.C. was the. As soon as they got, they touched gloves, he would just.

[Joe Rogan]

Right to the legs, you know, Right to the. Yeah, they offered him Jerick Lewis. But then the USYK fight came up and it was like, listen, this is $15 million.

[John McCarthy]

Oh yeah, $15 million.

[Joe Rogan]

And look what happened. I mean, amazing choice because in most people's eyes he won most of the rounds of that fight.

[John McCarthy]

Go, go back and look at some of the fights. That one right there. Okay. You know, it's the most recent. Look at Francis Ngannou against Tyson Fury and look at the scoring on that one. Go back to Conor McGregor vs Mayweather because no matter what you want to say, Conor won the first couple rounds because Mayweather didn't throw any punches. You, you don't. This whole thing about, oh, you're in general ringmanship, you're not throwing punches, you're not winning a fight. Okay? It's a fight, it's not a dance. It's not how pretty you look. And so you can go back and I can tell you, look, I've talked with some of the judges off of the Mayweather McGregor. They go, I may, I made a mistake. I made him. I gave credit where I shouldn't have given credit. It's like, how interesting.

[Jamie Varner]

You know, I think it's easier for the heavier weights Though, to go up to boxing and have a little bit more success than it would be for the smaller guys like Ilota to fight Bud Crawford.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, no, no, stop, stop.

[Joe Rogan]

Sorry.

[Jamie Varner]

You know what I mean? Like, that's my point. The level of boxing talent there with Bud and, and it's not, it's not even close. It's not even close.

[Joe Rogan]

Bud's one of the greatest.

[Jamie Varner]

Absolutely, absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

And, but Ilya could be if he just went into the boxing.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, the hands are insane.

[John McCarthy]

Bud Crawford could go to mma. That dude can wrestle, right? Okay. So I would love, I mean, obviously not going to happen just because of the money you can make. Boxing is not the same.

[Joe Rogan]

And also he's another guy that's like, I'm done, I don't have to do this anymore.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, dude.

[Joe Rogan]

I did all I had wanted to do. Multiple division weight champion, undefeated by, made a ton of money, beat Canelo and

[John McCarthy]

boxed the brakes off the ears off him. Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

When he was, when he was pity punching him and then hitting him with big shots. Like that's what you do to someone when you're playing.

[John McCarthy]

He had Canelo so absolutely frustrated during that fight. But I, I remember you watch. I was in New York, Gleason's Gym. Terence Crawford is there and he is boxing all these guys in and just playing, just absolutely, you know, come on, next one. Boom. And touch, touch. He never tried to hurt any of them, never tried to throw a big punch. You just look and you go, how good is this guy? He is that, you know, he's that guy.

[Joe Rogan]

One of the best switch hitters that ever do it.

[John McCarthy]

Oh yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

In my opinion, it's like him and Hagler, they're like right there together.

[Jamie Varner]

It's wild.

[Joe Rogan]

Greatest switch hitters. Cuz he could box you southpaw and all of a sudden he's orthodox. Oh, no.

[John McCarthy]

And dude, the, the funny part about him is, you know, you see it in mma. Guys will switch when they take a step and throw a punch, they'll switch to a different, you know, he does the same thing and he does it and then takes a lateral movement that had Canelo like, where the hell is he? Yeah. And he's going, hi, Bap. You know? Yeah. And you go, oh my God, he's so goddamn.

[Joe Rogan]

He hit Canelo with a straight left and then Canelo went to counter and he had the hand still out there and he threw it, turned it into a left hook.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And I was like, good lord.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

It was so pretty. You could see Canelo's like, here I come back, bang. He gets dinged with the left hook. I'm like that. That is crazy. Speed and precision and technique.

[Jamie Varner]

I've said this before. I've sparred with Robert Ghost, Robert the Ghost Guerrero. And because he lives in Gilroy and we would train together all the time, he would use me for the. I'd be in fight shape, ready for

[John McCarthy]

my UFC fights, his son's fight.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, just literally I'd show up. I was the first four rounds of a 12 round session. He knew. Knew a new training partner every four rounds. This guy would just piece me up. He would just toy with me and it was embarrassing. I'm like, I'm in the best shape of my life. But by round four, I was exhausted and he was barely touching me because you're working hard. Touch, move. Slip out the side, slip out the side. So good. And he wasn't, and he wasn't at Mayweather's level. He's fought Mayweather, but like, he wasn't that level of slickness, but he made it look like it when I was in there with him.

[Joe Rogan]

It's all in comparison.

[Jamie Varner]

So good.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, there's guys that look like. Look at Jack Della Madeleina when he fought Carlos Protest. You're like, Jack Della Madeleine is one of the scariest strikers in the sport. Then he fights Protest. You're like, oh, levels.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, there is a difference.

[Joe Rogan]

Levels.

[John McCarthy]

That's levels. That's what you try to. And everyone has this idea, we talk about it all the time. And I go, you don't understand the difference this much makes in the difference of how you compare in a fight with somebody.

[Joe Rogan]

Levels.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, my God.

[Joe Rogan]

Levels. Especially when you get a guy like Protest that had so many high level Muay Thai fights. That's the big difference. These guys that with only striking, they develop an understanding of positions and technique that's just not available if you're training the other stuff. Stuff too. And so then they get to this, like Pereira, they get to this super high level at this one thing and then they incorporate the other stuff. But that other left, you're not gonna catch them. You're not going to catch Pratez when it comes to Muay Thai. That step in tomahawk elbow that he does. Holy, dude. And he's playing and he smokes Marlboros and he drinks.

[John McCarthy]

He smokes Marlboros in the back, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

It's crazy. He's getting ready for the fight and he's smoking blunts.

[Jamie Varner]

What was the guy that fought De La Hoya that would come. Come out smoking cigarettes.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. But I mean, Mayorga was never at the level of Prata. Prata is like. Is so slick, man. Some of the. That he was doing to jdm, like, JDM is a killer. And he had no success.

[John McCarthy]

He was drowning.

[Joe Rogan]

He was drowning. And it was. It's also like, what is going on with his limbs? Why are they so big? It's like crazy. Like, he says he's six foot one. The out of here, bro. I want to. I want to measure your. Your height and your. Your length, because I think there's some.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, he's just all like, you know,

[Joe Rogan]

I think he did this for his reach. Like this. His reach is nuts.

[John McCarthy]

When you see him in there, he's

[Joe Rogan]

like all arms and legs, and the technique is so beautiful. It's so beautiful. The setups. When he. When you think he's punching, he's kicking the. Out of your calf and he's like slowly breaking you down. Slowly breaking. And then the knee. That knee that comes out like a jab. His knee is nuts, man.

[John McCarthy]

Did you go back to his fight, fight with Gary, you know, and you look at, you know, Gary was doing great that last round.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

You know, he came. He came back on it. And you look and you go, if

[Joe Rogan]

this was five rounds, it'd be a real problem. Hello. But it also shows you how good.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, absolutely. Now that's the whole point. That shows how good he is because he has gone against guys that are a real problem as far as stylistically, you know, his fight against MVP Ian Gary, did you, you know, fought as smart as you could fight and did a wonderful job in showing, hey, I'm multifaceted. I'm not just, you know, this one style fighter.

[Joe Rogan]

With Pratas, when he, when he knocked out Leon Edwards, I was like, oh, I. I knew he was really elite, but I'm like, Leon's so technical and he's so slick. Like, if it's just. And Prata is not going to try to take him down, I'm like, this is going to be a very interesting fight. Yeah, but it wasn't. It was. It was Carlos protest show. He put on a show show.

[Jamie Varner]

The relaxation, the comfort of being out there also, too, Leon understanding, like, I was the champion, I'm not the champion. It's hard to get back.

[John McCarthy]

He's had.

[Jamie Varner]

The mindset has changed a lot.

[John McCarthy]

It's been hard for Leon ever since he. When he lost that. That title fight against Muhammad. And you look in everything that's happened to him since. It's just, you know, confidence is everything.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, well, the Sean Brady fight might have been even more. Oh, brutal than that because Sean just mauled. Mauled him. When Sean gets on top of people, like what he did to Joaquin Buckley was bananas.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah. No, it wasn't.

[John McCarthy]

I, I look at that. And this is why Sean Brady won against Craig Jones. Okay? Now, it was an advantage as far as win, but he grappled against the real Craig Jones and showed that he

[Joe Rogan]

can stay with, you know, in that Craig was not allowed to use leg locks. You know that, right?

[John McCarthy]

That's.

[Joe Rogan]

That's it. That, That's a good. Crazy. That's a big. That's like fighting Ernesto H. And you only can kick above the waist. You know what I'm saying?

[John McCarthy]

That's if you're Rick Rufus, that's a smart idea.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But you know what I'm saying? It's like that Craig Jones, like, you got to give him his full game. You can't have him thinking, oh, I can't do this.

[John McCarthy]

That's true.

[Joe Rogan]

You take away 50% of his attacks,

[John McCarthy]

but Sean on the ground is really good elite.

[Joe Rogan]

But it was just the ability to hold him down was just shocking. I mean, it's like, God. And then when he was mounting him and he just like he was doing drills. Yeah, it wasn't. It was just like staying calm and just bang, bang, bang. It was like he was doing conditioning drills on a heavy bag. Like he was just sitting on a heavy bag, pounding on the bag time.

[John McCarthy]

He was, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

It's nuts.

[Jamie Varner]

I said this. Maybe I caught some flack for it a little bit, but I said, like, look, I think the Ian Gary fight and the practice fight for Islam, both those fights, I'm not saying they're easy fights because they're not, but you put. You put someone like a Sean Brady against Islam and that becomes a little more difficult. A little bit more difficult. Styles make matchups.

[John McCarthy]

Styles make matchups. And they may. When you look at someone's style, comparatively, it can. One person is easy for someone or they're very difficult for someone else. If you're going to put someone against Islam as far as it's going to be on the ground with him and give him difficult times, there's not a big enough.

[Jamie Varner]

There's not a big enough sample size for me with Michael Morales. I think Michael Morales could be a big threat on the feet.

[John McCarthy]

The rest are going to say, well, he beat. He beat Sean Brady, so obviously stopped him.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, yeah. But the the size, I think, of Michael Morales will give Islam some problems as well.

[Joe Rogan]

And Michael Morales can wrestle. Yeah, right.

[Jamie Varner]

It's not like he's an Ecuadorian national champ, I think, is what he was. And then, you know, he's obviously got power.

[Joe Rogan]

Athletic, super athletic.

[John McCarthy]

Islam doesn't do the normal wrestling.

[Joe Rogan]

Nope.

[John McCarthy]

His takedowns are different.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep.

[John McCarthy]

A lot of. Lot of foot sweeps, a lot of judo. A lot of difference in the way he does things.

[Joe Rogan]

And world championship experience. Yes. And also the years of training with Khabib.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, years.

[Jamie Varner]

What he does so well is he does it off a transition. As soon as you punch you guys in, anywhere inside the clinch, he's already hitting the foot sweep into the inside trip. Can't get it. Okay, I'll hit. I'll drop on down on a single or double.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, I'm excited about it. 170 is Amazon.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, dude, that Ukrainian cat.

[Joe Rogan]

Of course.

[Jamie Varner]

You know, look, he's good.

[John McCarthy]

He is absolutely the real deal. Yeah, he is good everywhere.

[Joe Rogan]

Everywhere.

[John McCarthy]

And his. His, look, his wrestling and his grappling ability, his submission ability is at the top of the field. It's right there with Sean Brady.

[Joe Rogan]

Am I lying?

[Jamie Varner]

No, no, it is. It is. I just. There's one guy out there, though, and he was just talking about him. He's the one guy that he lost to who's not signed by the ufc, and that's Jason Jackson. He's the one guy to beat him. I'd love to see Jason Jackson in the UFC.

[Joe Rogan]

Where's Jason now?

[Jamie Varner]

He just fought an MVP. He just fought an MVP one in, like, 10 seconds.

[John McCarthy]

22 seconds.

[Jamie Varner]

22 seconds.

[John McCarthy]

I had a hard night. I had 22 seconds and 17. It was very difficult. I was exhausted.

[Jamie Varner]

But he's the only one. He's the only guy to beat Yaroslav Famous.

[John McCarthy]

Wow.

[Jamie Varner]

He's fantastic on the feet. He has a wrestling background, but he chooses to stand. He's got like 30 jobs, a coconut stand, car wash.

[John McCarthy]

He's got all kinds of business.

[Jamie Varner]

He works. He works.

[John McCarthy]

He's a working man.

[Jamie Varner]

He's a working man, but he's very talented. I love watching that guy fight. I think he. Him. You add him against a Prothus or against an Ian Garrett, these guys would duke it out. It would be a great fight.

[Joe Rogan]

It's interesting when there's guys that are at that level that aren't known.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, he's a former champion.

[John McCarthy]

Jason. Jason's been there. He was. You know, you got to figure he was in the UFC as far as the The Ultimate Fighter, when they did that whole black zillions versus att.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that's right.

[John McCarthy]

You know, he was part of that.

[Joe Rogan]

That's right.

[John McCarthy]

You know, and. And he. He's just always been on the cusp of being brought back in, and then not. You're looking, you go, he's got all the talent in the world, and he's tough as hell. He'll fight.

[Jamie Varner]

He is tough.

[Joe Rogan]

So who is that cat, that heavyweight that just knocked out Han and Ferreira in?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, that's Sergey Bino.

[Joe Rogan]

And he's one of Fedor's boys, right?

[John McCarthy]

He is now, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

That dude.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, that dude. He's. Dude. That dude is yolked.

[Joe Rogan]

Yolked and moves fast.

[John McCarthy]

He's fast and he's got power.

[Jamie Varner]

But then you also got Nepal. Nemkoff's at heavyweight.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. Vadim Nemkov, he's another guy that's at

[Joe Rogan]

the top of the heat, that's not in the ufc.

[John McCarthy]

Vadim Nemkov is good. Yeah. And, man, he is extremely athletic.

[Jamie Varner]

He's not gonna. He's not a big heavyweight. He's got great lateral movement. He's really good with his hands. Beautiful kicks.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. He was a 205.

[John McCarthy]

He can 240 now.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

And he can wrestle. He chooses to stand, but he'll mix up the wrestling to kind of get you. Get you guessing.

[Joe Rogan]

And he's another Fedor guy.

[Jamie Varner]

He's another Fedor guy.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Yeah. That's another one. Like me training under Khabib. I mean, if you're a Russian guy training on a Fedor, like, good Lord.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

What a. What a crazy opportunity.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. But you got to live in Staria School.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you really? That's where they live.

[John McCarthy]

That's where they live.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, boy.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

No parties there. Nope. You better have snow tires.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yes.

[Jamie Varner]

You better.

[John McCarthy]

Thick clothing.

[Joe Rogan]

Thick clothing, snow tires, and hate. Comfort.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, my God.

[Joe Rogan]

You're sleeping on a futon.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah. There's a lot of talented guys that will come out of other promotions, but I just. I'd love to see Jason Jackson in there mixing it up with those guys. Stylistically, the matchups are there, and the protest and Gary and the.

[John McCarthy]

The 170s right now, and putting Yaroslav, when the UFC finally signed him, I said, thank God. Thank God, you know?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, me, too.

[John McCarthy]

He deserves to be there, and they need, you know, that kind of. And, look, he's gone in and proven, you know, dude. His fight against Joel Alvarez. Joel Alvarez is a good fighter. I mean, he made him look. Look absolutely like the guy didn't know hardly anything.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I watched it yesterday. I watched it again.

[John McCarthy]

I mean, you just watch the last takedown, you know, when he, when he airborne him. Oh my God. And you look at me and, but look at the ease that he did it with. That's the thing.

[Joe Rogan]

Spectacular technique.

[John McCarthy]

Oh my God.

[Joe Rogan]

The tightness of his grappling.

[John McCarthy]

And his, his training partner is Johnny Eblin. Ah, same guy that's training partner now for, for Sean Strickland. Those guys go after each other daily.

[Jamie Varner]

And Johnny will tell you he's the one that gives him the most fits inside the gym. The one that I spar with the most, the one that just gives me all the fits on the grappling, the wrestling. All those things go back to his, his fights too. In the past, when he fought Ed Ruth, he hip tossed Ed Ruth, took Ed Ruth down. Three time national championship out of Penn State. I mean, he was having success against him. It was a very close fight, you know, and he ended up winning the fight. But it was one of those fights, you're like, Dan, you walked away going, this guy can wrestle, this guy can stand. He's got, he's chasing submissions, he's trying to get finishes. I mean, he had takedowns against Logan Storley, a six time state champ out

[John McCarthy]

of south, four time All American Minnesota

[Jamie Varner]

and a four time out of South Minnesota. Just phenomenal, phenomenal wrestler. But he's able to have exchanges with these guys. Chasing anacondas, Dar's knee bars, everything. Extremely talented.

[Joe Rogan]

There's a lot of guys that I

[Jamie Varner]

would love to see to kind of mix in, because every time. Because when you look at the history of, history of the sport, you got like Strike Force. When it came into to the ufc, those were the best fights. And you start pulling, plucking. I'm not saying that a lot of these guys need to come in right now, but if you can pluck one or two guys for each division, loosen this whole thing up. Because for a little bit before the Paramount deal happened, you know, because I cover the, I cover it every fight, every week, right? And we talk about on the pod. It just simply put, everyone's like, man, these fights are trash. They're garbage. This. And I'm like, guys are being completely complainers like this. The cards are great. You guys are just, they're used to that, that the next level of like the, the Connors and the Al Stars. Yeah, on every card.

[Joe Rogan]

Just technique and just fighting ability. There's some amazing fights out there. Amazing fights.

[Jamie Varner]

When you add in someone, like, when Michael Chandler came in, there was a lot of hype around it when Patricio came in and. And Aaron Pico, when they came in, there's a lot of hype around it. It kind of puts a little shot in the armor to the weight class and gets everyone amped up. The fighters that are there that you have ufc, they're like, this guy ain't beating me. I'm not letting this bum from this. That's good promotion beat me. And then the fighters that are coming in are like, no, I'm. I'm here to shoot. I'm here to prove that I deserve to be here. So it. It kind of. It gets the fans amped up, it gets the promotion amped up, and the divisions kind of. It's a little. Little bit of a spark, so I'd love to see that happen a little bit more.

[Joe Rogan]

Absolutely, absolutely. You know, the Pico thing is really interesting. It's like, his last fight, he looks so tight against Pittsburgh Pitbull. He looks so good. Everything looks so smooth. Like, his boxing was flowing, his transitions to grappling was flowing. Fought intelligently. Like, that's the Pico that we needed to see.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. But you take a look at his first fight against Laron, and I always say, that was. That was a Pico that was pressing.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep.

[John McCarthy]

He was pressing that fight and making, you know, look at taking chances obvious. Absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

That he was coming.

[John McCarthy]

And you look and you go, this is the difference between, you know, that first fight in the UFC and wanting to do so well and wanting to prove how good you are and stuff, and then finally relaxing and just, hey, let the fight come to me. Let me show what I can do. And taking those moments when you get them, that's what he did in his fight against Patricio. And look, Patricio is good. And Pico. Pico could be so good. He just has to relax.

[Joe Rogan]

He's still young.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

He's had a bunch of pretty bad chaos.

[John McCarthy]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

He has the boys Borax one.

[John McCarthy]

And that's a problem.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Boards. You had the one against freaking Corrales.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah. He hurt Corrales, and then he got, you know, starched. He's had a couple of them.

[Jamie Varner]

Both those fights he was winning.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

And that's the thing is he was winning. He's beating Borich, and he was beating Corralis. The fights that he lost, I mean, so hyper aggressive. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And that's part of the problem, but it's also because he's so good.

[John McCarthy]

But he's got the best left hook to the body since Paul Daly.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, it's so smooth.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, my God, it's beautiful.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, his. Just his left hook, period. It's like such a whip. The technique is so smooth. It's so nice. So I got to ask you about the Joe Schilling fight, because there was. It was such a weird stoppage where Joe just decided, that's it, I'm quitting. So his opponent headbutts him.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And then Mike Beltron is a great referee. Takes a point away.

[John McCarthy]

He did take a point.

[Joe Rogan]

And then puts him right back in the same position.

[John McCarthy]

Okay, stop. That's not exactly what happened in the end.

[Joe Rogan]

It's not?

[John McCarthy]

No. Well, it is what happened. Yes, you're right. Right. But when. When you have a situation like that, you have the headbutt. Mike Beltran calls a stop, calls timeout. Right. Gets him up off of their feet and tries to put Joe. Joe's pissed. And I understand why Joe's pissed. You know, he's saying, hey, first off, Joe's 42 years of age. He doesn't come there to be fouled. He's trying to, you know, he's going to fight. Okay. You know, and. And the whole thing is. Look at the. Look where's. Look where his hands are. They're overhooked right now.

[Joe Rogan]

Okay.

[John McCarthy]

The other guy's got his hands on the ground. Right. Okay. So, you know, you don't want your hands on the ground. Okay. So Joe's in a decent part to at least if he wants to defend himself. So when he gets up, he's pissed off and everything. And then Beltran takes a point from the opponent and ask Joe, do you want to be. You want to stand up or do you want back on the ground? And Joe picked. I want to be back on the ground. Okay.

[Joe Rogan]

Why do you give your. Why do you. Why are you allowed to make a decision?

[John McCarthy]

You're allowed to make the decision because you were the one that was fouled. In a normal situation, he said, I

[Joe Rogan]

want to be back on the ground.

[John McCarthy]

Said, I want to be back on the ground.

[Joe Rogan]

That seems crazy.

[John McCarthy]

I agree with you. It's not what you would expect out of Joe Schilling.

[Joe Rogan]

World class, world champion kickboxer.

[John McCarthy]

Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

And so, you know, with that, you got to, you know, he's the one. If the person on top is the one fouling, normally we're going to say they're going to lose their position. Position. But there are many grapplers and people that have a hard time getting that person down. And so we. We went back to saying, all right, we're going to give the person who was fouled the opportunity to make a decision. Normally, we're going to put it back on the feet, but if you want to put it back on the ground, I'll put it back there. But you're going to be in the same position as you were when the foul occurred. Right. And that's what Mike Beltran went to do. And so he put. Starts to put him back, back. You have Abena is the opponent, and he starts to put his hands on Joe's biceps. If you watch when they start to.

[Joe Rogan]

When they put him back, put him

[John McCarthy]

back on the ground. Joe tries to do the overhook. You saw the overhook. And a Banit starts to put his hand on the biceps.

[Joe Rogan]

He did on the left bicep, right?

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. And so it's not a matter of, you know, Belchan wasn't there to start the fight yet. He's got to put him in that position. But Joe, Joe, once that bicep thing started happening, he got mad and he said, I'm done. You know, stop the fight. You can't make somebody fight. If someone says, I, you know, I want out of the fight, they're out of the fight. So Beltran was in a position where he says he wants out of the fight.

[Joe Rogan]

He's.

[John McCarthy]

He started. He fouled me. And he's. That's what he's saying. And now he feels like he's not going to be put back in that same position. But he hadn't been. It's not like Beltran started it. He's trying to put him back in the same position when Joe's kind of just losing his. Losing his steam and getting pissed off. And so, you know, I look at this, look, if you're going to be that pissed off, it's a good thing you're not fighting, because you don't fight smart and you're going to end up getting hurt. But he's the one that decided that.

[Joe Rogan]

So he has. He clearly has two overhooks at the end of the fight.

[John McCarthy]

At this time of the foul, he's got an overhook. Both sides.

[Jamie Varner]

Yep.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, sort of the right one's not totally, but.

[John McCarthy]

But he's holding the back of the triceps. So you're going to say, okay, so that's where he's at. Look where the opponent's hands are at. Opponent's hands are under his shoulders.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Okay, so that's where he should start. That's where it should be started. But he never gave Beltran the actual ability and time to say, no, no. Put your hand here. And you can see Beltran starts to, you know, as Abena starts to try to put his hands on the biceps, Beltran's starting to put him under underneath.

[Joe Rogan]

So it's not belt to go back to the ground.

[John McCarthy]

You know, that's the real question. And, you know, all I know is at 42 years of age, you know, you're looking and saying, you know, Joe Schilling can fight. You know, Joe Schilling, he was a gangster, no doubt about it. And he, at this point is, you know, is he looking to, you know, become a champion? No, he's not looking to be a champion. So I'm taking the fight for what reason? For money. And so I think he just looked at it and based upon. Well, this is not. Not what I expected. I expected a fair fight. I expected us to, you know, fight like professionals. And this dip is now headbutting me. He just got pissed, and he lost his cool with it. And when he wasn't being put back right away into that same position where he thought the guy is now trying to up again, take another advantage. Right. It just sent him off the end, and he said, I'm done. Right.

[Joe Rogan]

He just got too emotional.

[John McCarthy]

You got too emotional with it.

[Joe Rogan]

That's a bummer.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, it is, because Joe's a great guy.

[Jamie Varner]

When you fought at the level he's fought at, you expect a certain level of professionalism. And when you have these young guys that come in, there's no. It feels a little disrespectful, like you knew where you were at. Why are you trying to game the system right now?

[Joe Rogan]

Just headbutted him. Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Which is crazy.

[John McCarthy]

Oh. And there's a lot of people saying, well, you know, I don't think it really hit him. It hit him in the jaw. Okay. It didn't hit him head to head. And you're not allowed to use your head as a striking instrument. It's a foul.

[Joe Rogan]

And it's pretty clear that he was trying to do that.

[John McCarthy]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

It wasn't as simple as, like, positioning his head.

[John McCarthy]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

Try to get a better look.

[John McCarthy]

We say you can use your head as a steering instrument, as a third arm. You can press with it. You can do a lot of uncomfortable things with it. You cannot pick it up and bring it back to strike.

[Joe Rogan]

And it was clear that that's what

[John McCarthy]

that's exactly what he did.

[Jamie Varner]

I think it's just very awkward for a lot of people that see Joe Shilling in his past fights. He's been through it all. And then for him to get super frustrated this way, it was a lot of people question. I'm like. I don't question at all. Because you expect, like I said, a certain level of professionalism. Like, we know that we're both going out there to find fight and knock each other out. Why do you gotta cheat?

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, there's. There's a certain. There's a certain set of rules that we're doing this under. Right. And now you're taking those rules and just tossing them to the side like, you know, this doesn't mean something. No, it means something to me. You know, I'm 42 years of age and I don't expect someone to be following me just on purpose. And look at the whole. No matter what that was, you know, right now we use intent. Okay, that was intentional.

[Joe Rogan]

Right?

[John McCarthy]

You did something. I call it malicious. Malicious. It's a malicious attack on him. You know, you're maliciously trying to inflict an injury on someone through a foul.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah, no doubt.

[Jamie Varner]

Did you watch the MVP fights?

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[Jamie Varner]

What was your takeaway on that? The overall card, as well as the Gina and, you know, and Rhonda fight.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, look, when you're coming in as your first time putting on a promotion, there's no way it's all going to be smooth. It's not possible. You know, it's just. There's no way you. You're also. You're not dealing with the same caliber of names other than Gina and Rhonda and Francis. You know, the Mike Perry, Nate Diaz fight was. When was the last time Nate fought mma?

[John McCarthy]

It's been a while.

[Jamie Varner]

Probably six years.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, six years.

[Joe Rogan]

Somewhere around that, which is kind of crazy.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, right.

[Joe Rogan]

And Mike has been fighting bare knuckle and people up for quite a while. You know, dude, he's an animal, dude.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, he's.

[Jamie Varner]

He's found.

[John McCarthy]

He's found his sport, though.

[Joe Rogan]

20, 22. So four years. Four years ago, he beat Tony Ferguson.

[Jamie Varner]

But he's found his way.

[Joe Rogan]

This is.

[Jamie Varner]

This is stylistically his. The best thing he could do for his career is fight bare knuckle.

[John McCarthy]

Fight.

[Jamie Varner]

Fight boxing. This is the best thing for him.

[Joe Rogan]

And Mike is, like, uniquely talented at bare knuckle. Like, uniquely.

[John McCarthy]

He's made. Look, I'm being honest. I used him as my. My demonstrator for. Andy Foster is the executive officer in California. And he didn't like bare knuckle. I wrote the rules for bare knuckle. Long ago, Dave Feldman came to me and said, hey, I need rules written for me. I'm trying to legalize this. Someone that I knew hooked him up with me, and I said, look, I'll write your rules. I go, and I gave him two prices. I said, I'm not doing it for free. It's too much of a pain in the ass. So here's my two prices. My one price is you don't say who wrote them, and you just use them. And the other price is you say who wrote. And it was because I knew I was going to get in trouble for doing this. And, you know, oh, what does John McCarthy think he's doing now? He's writing rules for that.

[Joe Rogan]

Did you write the rules for slap fights?

[John McCarthy]

No, I don't like. I hate. I hate those.

[Jamie Varner]

But so you can't defend yourself.

[John McCarthy]

That's it.

[Jamie Varner]

That's the only rule.

[John McCarthy]

Dumbest thing ever.

[Joe Rogan]

So you're easy, you know, have you

[Jamie Varner]

seen the other where they just run at each other?

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, it's even worse. They're like, hold my beer. Yeah, you think slap fighting's retarded? Hold my beer. We're just gonna run at each other.

[John McCarthy]

And it's called. That's what it's called. Run it right. Those things are crazy.

[Jamie Varner]

It's crazy.

[John McCarthy]

But the whole thing with, you know, the Mike Perry thing is, you know, trying to get athletic commissions to start to understand, because they're all into this thing, Joe. It's like, you take a look at mma. I'm allowed to hit you with a shin to the dome, like you talked about. About, you know, I'm allowed to take my knee and hit it to your dome. I'm allowed to take my elbow and smash you. You know, even when your head's against the ground. I'm allowed to do all these things. But my bare fist is the big problem, Right?

[Joe Rogan]

Kind of funny.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, it's ridiculous. But it's perception, and perception is a real problem because people believe what they're saying. Oh, it's horrible. So, you know, Andy Foster was one of the ones that he. I don't. He didn't like it. And I said, andy, you know, I tried. Tried saying it's go through those whole things with the shin, the knee, the elbow. And he goes, yeah, I know. He says, I just don't. I don't like it. I said, annie, I need you to look at it this way. Then I Go. There are people out there that are made for boxing. Floyd Mayweather, Terence Crawford, Canelo Alvarez, they're made to be a boxer. They have all this technical skill. You know what, they're just unbelievable. I said, there's these guys, same thing in MMA. There's the George St. Pierre, you know, you got the Alexander Volkanovsky's, you got the. All these people, you know, that are, you know, Islam. Makhachev was the last one I used. I said, they're made for mma. I go, mike Perry was an MMA fighter. I said, he's not made for mma. He's a tough guy. I go, but bare knuckle, he was made for. I said, and this is a guy who can make a living fighting for bare knuckle. He can pay his bills, he can support his family fighting bare knuckle and become a star. I said, and possibly get, you know, sponsors and everything that are gonna make it so he can live the rest of his life. I said, and you're gonna say that you want to take that away because of a bare fist? I go, it just doesn't make sense to me. He looks at me, he goes, you're right.

[Jamie Varner]

The best thing that could have happened to him was him leaving. Like him being released from the ufc.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

You got an old timey ring. Andy Foster's calling. You put him on speakerphone.

[John McCarthy]

You want to do.

[Joe Rogan]

I don't want to put Andy under a spot like that, you know, And

[John McCarthy]

Andy's done such a great job. He does things that people don't realize, you know, there he's now got a license plate that's out for retired fighters to try to get them a retirement. He's got. He's got. He's got a retirement for boxers already that was set. He's been doing things to try to get a retirement fund for, you know, a Josh Thompson who fought 15 times in California.

[Jamie Varner]

19. I looked it up.

[John McCarthy]

Is it 19? Okay, I'm wrong. 19 times in California. He can get an actual retirement now. It's not going to be a retirement that he gets paid every month, or they'll give him a large sump of money that he can then go. He can go to a trade school, he can go to. He could buy a house. He can do these things as a down payment. Andy just put in a thing.

[Jamie Varner]

Thing.

[John McCarthy]

It just got turned down because of a staffer. It was Assembly Bill 2130 in California. And that assembly bill was no money out of the taxpayers money. Zero. Taxpayer money. It's about Sponsorship. A dumbass like me as a referee has to wear a sponsors thing on my shirt. That will then 75% of it went to retired fighters, 25% of it went to training for upcoming and in service officials, both judges and referees.

[Joe Rogan]

What's the negative?

[John McCarthy]

There is no negative. But you get these people in politics that sit there and go, oh, I don't like this. You want to know what their negative was?

[Jamie Varner]

This is in California, by the way.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, this is in California.

[Joe Rogan]

California is the best state for decisions that you.

[John McCarthy]

But their whole thing was, as we

[Jamie Varner]

both live in Texas now, think about this.

[John McCarthy]

We all, all. But their whole thing was. Well, that would allow the sponsor to say that they're basically part of California and they're running, they're doing things for California. It's like they are doing things for California. They're helping the people that put on entertaining fights and things for people here. It's ridiculous. There was nothing good. There's some great people in California. There are, sure. You know, and there's some great assembly people. I, you know, I just did a whole thing for, for Heath Flora, who's an assemblyman there, and he's putting up a bill about you being able to, if you protect somebody other than yourself and from somebody that's trying to do something, he's trying to make it to where they can't civilly go after you. Makes sense. Yeah, you're doing the right thing. But no, there's people fighting against it. It's just. Oh, politics. Politics suck.

[Joe Rogan]

They suck in California.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, yeah.

[John McCarthy]

My dad always used to say, think about the word politics. Ticks, Poly meaning many ticks. Blood sucking little insect.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. It's a bummer.

[Jamie Varner]

It's a bummer.

[John McCarthy]

It's crazy.

[Jamie Varner]

And then did you, did you see that cokers return into mma?

[Joe Rogan]

I did. Give me, give me, give me your time. I like Scott a lot, but good luck. You only have $60 million. Yeah, when I saw it was only $60 million, I was like, that sounds like a lot of money. Money. Until you think about putting on an MMA promotion and then, and then getting television production and then, you know, paying fighters and then securing venues and then having staff full time for like, maybe, you know, you got Tony Hawk with you. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm rooting for him. I, I think he did great when he was running Glory as well as when he was running Bellator back in the day. He's a really nice guy. I think. Think it's great for everybody if there's more competition I think this whole MVP thing in the Netflix thing is great. It stirred a bunch of cash into the organization. A bunch of people got more money than they would ever gotten anywhere else. Awesome. I'm. More options the better.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I think just, you know, I hope he could do it. Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

I, I think a lot of us, I think a lot. I think a lot of people do, because I think as they do, grow promotions.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Jamie Varner]

The fighters get more experience on a high level.

[Joe Rogan]

Competition.

[Jamie Varner]

Competition. You need to fight fighters from all around the world. I'm just excited for more promotions to be involved.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. More promotions is good. More options is good. More money is what we really want. The fighters need to get more money.

[Jamie Varner]

And it's always going to be the UFC here.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

You know, and ultimately it just comes down like you need more people to build up to get to that level.

[Joe Rogan]

Name a good XFL game that you watched. You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

It's true.

[John McCarthy]

Nothing wrong.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm sure there's great athletes, but it's

[John McCarthy]

the whole thing in United States, you know, you're part of it. You, you know, what you did with the UFC and how you made it exciting for people when you were calling fights. So, you know, it's a. People now, a lot of them, they don't even know the fighters that are on the card, but they'll. They'll turn it on when it says ufc because they believe in the product.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, right.

[John McCarthy]

And that's, that's what you're supposed to do as, as the company and, you know, and, and for marketing. But the one problem I do think that they have right now is they're unable to market people like they did when, you know, you and I were early in it and stuff. You know, they now are in a position every week, and so it's tough to market. You know, those, the guys who are not well known if you're not fight nights.

[Joe Rogan]

A lot of times, the casuals have no idea there's even a fight.

[John McCarthy]

Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

And some of them are insane.

[John McCarthy]

Some of the best shows we talk about all the time, it's like, you know, the, the card itself rates, if you're looking at it honestly, it rates a 5.5 on paper, and then you'll watch it and it's a 9.9.5.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

They're working to get to the top. That's.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, those are the ones. They got something to prove.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. And for hardcore fans, it's like giving them constant food,

[John McCarthy]

but it's giving them that dopamine it is the thing when you look at it, it's the hardcore fan that the UFC has, but the casual one's the one that puts it over.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep.

[John McCarthy]

And it's hard to get people to understand. You need to get the casuals, the ones that don't watch fights all the time. And that's the one thing I'll give. I'll give Ronda Rousey, man, I thought she did an amazing job of talking 100% and putting, you know, things out there the way she did. She made. She got people's attention. She did what was her job.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. And they. 17 million people are watching that.

[Jamie Varner]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

That's huge. It's all good for everybody. It's good for the sport. It's great for the sport. It's like, that's what we need. We need more competition, more. More eyeballs on. On it. And unfortunately for the cat, you know, the people that are casuals, it has to be a name, you know, it has to. Like, this Conor McGregor fight in July is going to be bananas. It's going to be bananas. I mean, people are going to go crazy for the return of Conor McGregor

[John McCarthy]

because he's a giant personality, but don't expect the same.

[Joe Rogan]

How could.

[John McCarthy]

He just can't.

[Joe Rogan]

He hasn't fought in five years.

[John McCarthy]

Right, Exactly. It's been five years. And that's. But that's the problem.

[Joe Rogan]

Might be more.

[John McCarthy]

Because they're gonna.

[Jamie Varner]

I think it is a little over five. It's almost six, I think.

[Joe Rogan]

Think it might be six at the time of the fight.

[John McCarthy]

It's. It might be six. I think it's five. I think it's five right now.

[Jamie Varner]

Dude, do. Are we expecting to see a Connor that look like Nate this last fight? Are we expecting to see a better Connor than someone that looked like Nate? Because they did not look good.

[Joe Rogan]

No, but Mike Perry did. And Mike Perry looked like a murderer.

[John McCarthy]

You know, I mean, like, Mike Perry is a murderer.

[Joe Rogan]

He's a murderer.

[John McCarthy]

And this is such a sad. You take a look at that when you're taking an older fighter, which Nate

[Joe Rogan]

is now, and you're 21, five years ago July. So it literally will be six years.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, but when you're.

[Joe Rogan]

No, it'll be five years. It'll be five years.

[John McCarthy]

When you're taking a younger fighter and putting them against the old dog, it normally doesn't end well for the old dog.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, the thing is about Max Holloway is like, Max Holloway is that much younger than Connor.

[John McCarthy]

He's not.

[Joe Rogan]

But the thing is Max has been in constant high level competition the entire time. Won the BMF fight. Fight, you know, beat Dustin. Like constant high level competition.

[John McCarthy]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

It's a different thing.

[Jamie Varner]

And I honestly believe him at 155 is the best thing for him, you know, but.

[John McCarthy]

But he's not 155 in this fight.

[Joe Rogan]

This is 177. Yeah. Honestly, he made no weight cutting at all.

[Jamie Varner]

Just no weight cut. Just kind of walk around.

[Joe Rogan]

And also knowing this is such a high profile fight, he's gonna. Max is always in insane shape, but in. Particularly in this fight, he's going to be in insane shape.

[Jamie Varner]

And his last fight he took almost no damage. Damage. He got. He got taken down, controlled back taken. And there was not a lot of damage.

[John McCarthy]

No, just frustration.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah, frustration, bro.

[Joe Rogan]

Charles looked like a fight.

[Jamie Varner]

He's so good. Yeah, dude, he's so good. Good everywhere too.

[Joe Rogan]

And on the ground. He's just so God damn dangerous. And it. Which is. Makes you think how good is Islam Just smushed him.

[Jamie Varner]

I can tell you he's really good.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, it's kind of crazy though when you think about. About how strong Charles's grappling is and how Islam just.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, dude, he called it. He called it. He said. He goes, he goes, islam is gonna submit Charles and. And he goes, and he's gonna submit it with a head on arm choke. And I said, kimura, I would say

[Jamie Varner]

either one for sure.

[John McCarthy]

I go, shut up. Yeah, okay, just shut up. He's not gonna do that.

[Jamie Varner]

I said he would do it before three rounds. He did it, you know, obviously very quick, but it was.

[Joe Rogan]

His grappling is just otherworldly. And he secures that Darce by crazy grabbing the forearm. I've seen a lot of guys try that now. A lot of guys are going to

[Jamie Varner]

that now because you don't have to get as deep. So you just go through and it's right at the top. And then cover, cover the chest with your. Or cover the head with your chest and just suck it in.

[John McCarthy]

You see people doing things all. You know, we always talk about, you know, back a long time ago, figure four in the body. We go, don't do that. They step the foot inside.

[Joe Rogan]

It's.

[John McCarthy]

It's gonna. It cranks you.

[Jamie Varner]

It's bad.

[Joe Rogan]

How about that?

[John McCarthy]

Crazy. Just had the girl do it.

[Joe Rogan]

Guillotine that A.J. mcKee does.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, the, the McKeotine.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. How about that thing? Like, how come no one's doing that?

[John McCarthy]

That's the whole thing. Look, okay.

[Jamie Varner]

Look at body styles.

[Joe Rogan]

When he did that, I was like,

[Jamie Varner]

wait, yeah, his body style.

[Joe Rogan]

He's so long.

[John McCarthy]

He's long to reach him, especially at 145.

[Jamie Varner]

He's huge for 145. Yeah, he's a big boy.

[John McCarthy]

But Grant Dawson just did the genie choke. Okay. How many times have you seen that done in competition? But I've seen it in the grappling room all the time, right? Guys doing it right. And all of a sudden people are like, never seen that. It's like, dude, it's been around forever.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, it's like when we talked about Edson Barboza knocking out Terry Edum. How did he get to that fight before? That was the first wheel kick. KO yeah. We've seen a ton of them since then, but that was the first one. Like, that doesn't even make sense. When Anderson Silva front kick vtor in the face, we were like, wait, hold on. You could do that?

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like, I remember Eddie and I having a conversation about kicks, and he goes, what do you think about front kicks of the face? I'm like, doesn't really land that often. Incorrect.

[Jamie Varner]

And then Machida does it to Randy, and then Machida does it to Vitor.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, my God.

[Jamie Varner]

So Vitor's been on the receiving end of twice on that kick.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, man. I mean, there's been a bunch of them now. Now you see a lot of front kicks to the face because it's such an unexpected thing, especially if a guy's, you know, you're getting hit to the body with it a bunch, and you're getting used to doing this, and then donk. It hits you right on the chin. It's just such a. Such an unexpected technique.

[Jamie Varner]

Every time we think that we're not going to see something new, something new pops up.

[Joe Rogan]

But the crazy thing about front kicks is it's literally the first thing you ever get taught. Yeah. When you learn how to kick, that's the first thing you ever get taught. The idea of there being a new use for the first thing you ever learn.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Is kind of crazy.

[Jamie Varner]

A little snap kick.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, nuts.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, karate, like, that's for day one.

[John McCarthy]

Just like that.

[Jamie Varner]

Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

And that's what it looks like, too, all goofy. And the fact that that's the. The kick. That. And then calf kicks, of course. Like, that's number one. You know, it's interesting because Cub Swanson's actually saying that he was the first guy to throw calf. Calf kicks. He was saying, like, no, no, go back to, like, 2011. I was landing calf kicks. I forget who he fought. They said he somebody up with a calf kick.

[Jamie Varner]

Well then I'll tell you before that.

[Joe Rogan]

Benson was one of the early ones for George Masvidal. Really?

[Jamie Varner]

Yes. He was doing it in strike force in 2007, 2008. Really well, I believe around that time.

[John McCarthy]

If you look at ATT is a team, they do calf kick kicks all the time. That is a huge weapon that they use.

[Jamie Varner]

You go back and watch Masvidal when he fought KJ Nunes and how he just destroyed KJ Nunes and he was kept kicking the calf to the head, kick to the body, shots to the box and he just.

[Joe Rogan]

People got how good Mazda when he knocked out Eve Edwards with a head kick. Like people really sleep on.

[John McCarthy]

Masvidal was slick.

[Jamie Varner]

He was so good.

[Joe Rogan]

When he knocked out Cowboy, he knocked out Darren Till.

[John McCarthy]

Darren Till.

[Joe Rogan]

How about that one was bananas. That step in hook. Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

Cuz that was a weight class above what he normally fought.

[Joe Rogan]

Yep, yep.

[Jamie Varner]

You know, he's. He was one of those things, but

[John McCarthy]

he was better when he went up, just like most guys are.

[Jamie Varner]

But he never got the credit he deserved. Everywhere he went, whether it was Strike Force into the ufc, he never got credit until he started doing things that people didn't think he could do.

[John McCarthy]

Right.

[Jamie Varner]

You know, when he knocked out, like you said, Darren Till, the running across the cage with Ben Askren, like those kind of things, things he had no love up until those moments. That guy was always nasty.

[Joe Rogan]

Always.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, dude. All the way back to his street fighting days with Kimbo.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[John McCarthy]

He had some good ones.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, that's.

[Jamie Varner]

I, I have this, I wanted to ask you this because I look at these guys now. What is it with the younger fighters that can't get past the old dogs? Like, Dustin doesn't have to retire. Justin Gaethje doesn't have to retire. They're still ranked in number two and number three. What are you seeing on your side that makes you think like, man, these, these young guys, these old guys, they're not going softly into the night. They're not letting these guys come by. Why can't the younger guys get past him? Well, Patty not being able to get

[Joe Rogan]

past Justin, like Patty was not at Justin's level with stand up. Yeah, no, Justin's levels like quite a bit. First of all, Justin is an elite grappler. So like what is Patty gonna do? He's gonna take him down. That's not it. That's no picnic. And standing up with Justin, Justin has like some of the Nastiest leg kicks in the sport.

[Jamie Varner]

I wish you'd use them more.

[Joe Rogan]

I know, right? Remember when he used to throw him from the clinch like he's in tight with you and he's kicking down on your legs like. And you're like, how are you moving your hips like that? He was an animal. He still is an animal. It's like he's not, he hasn't faded, you know, Justin's not faded. That fizzy fight Fizziev is an elite world class striker and he beat him up standing.

[Jamie Varner]

Yep.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he hasn't faded. Justin hasn't faded. He's just 36 or whatever. He is 37.

[John McCarthy]

I think he's losing, but, but you gotta have a passion for the sport. And I think Dana's, you know, says, look at, if you're not 100% in, don't do this. And he's right. And I think there comes that point where it just gets to that, you know what, there's other things out in the world that I want to start doing and things.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you think Justin's at that spot right now?

[John McCarthy]

I'm not too sure he's at that spot, but I think he's thought about it based upon some of the performances and the tight fights he's had. I think the, I think the fight with Max Holloway made him kind of think about. He had. That was a tough fight for him. All the way through.

[Joe Rogan]

All the way through.

[John McCarthy]

All the way through.

[Jamie Varner]

I think he, he lives a comfortable life. I think he lives a good life. He enjoys playing golf with the boys. You know, he, he's, he's another guy I know. He's like, oh, I spent, I've spent money, I need to make more money and this and that. But he also, to me, every time I take a look and when people talk about him, I think that he's done pretty. He's done really well for himself. I think he's doing well for himself. I don't think he's in any danger where he's losing the passion of it.

[John McCarthy]

Well, I did the Naked Gun, whatever, the second edition of the Naked Gun with Liam Neeson and we had Kamaru Usman and Justin Gaethje were two of the fighters in it. Right. And he was hysterical throughout the whole thing. Right. And he's such a button pusher with Kamaru. Kamaru said, okay, let's go easy. And all of a sudden Justin's doing something crazy and Kamaru's like, what the hell's wrong with you? He loves life. He Enjoys life. And I think that, you know, there comes a point where he always had that attitude, you know, when he was undefeated, he goes, someone's going to knock me out. He's honest about things and I love that about him. That he's, he doesn't sit there, he doesn't play the, you know, oh, well, we'll see. And so he's honest and he tells you, you know what, you know, this may be my last one. And he's thought about it. And if he's thought about it, it's telling you. It's a thought process. Is there. How far will it go? If he has a great performance against illustration, I think he'll stick around.

[Joe Rogan]

Maybe.

[John McCarthy]

Unfortunately, I kind of think I'd rather see him go away. I know that saying because I love watching.

[Joe Rogan]

I would love to see him win and go away.

[John McCarthy]

That's the whole point. That's what I said.

[Joe Rogan]

That would, it would be nuts if he, it would be awesome. He wins the title at the fucking

[John McCarthy]

White House and that says that's it. I've hit my bucket list.

[Joe Rogan]

The White House thing is odd. I don't like it. I don't like the idea of fighting outside at all.

[John McCarthy]

There's problems with it.

[Joe Rogan]

And then times June and it's D.C. and we looked it up the last time, like last year, Same day was 100 degrees.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah. Oh, that's.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Hot as.

[Jamie Varner]

And you add the lights.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, yeah, yeah, the lights.

[Jamie Varner]

You add the lights.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. That attracts bugs. How about dehydration? Oh, yeah, yeah. The, the bugs are a big one.

[John McCarthy]

Go back, go back to UFC. Yeah. With all those lights.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

Go back to UFC 3. See how hot it was.

[Joe Rogan]

How are they gonna do anything about the bugs? Because I know that Dana was talking about that recently. They were talking about maybe using fans hands. Is that enough?

[Jamie Varner]

No, it's not enough.

[Joe Rogan]

Bug strips everywhere. What are you going to do? Like, how are you going to stop the bugs? There's a lot of bugs.

[Jamie Varner]

Spray. That's pretty much all you can do.

[Joe Rogan]

Pesticide. The.

[John McCarthy]

That's good pesticide. That's good for the fighters. That'll. That'll help with their breathing.

[Joe Rogan]

I just don't think that you should compete in a world championship fight in a non controlled environment. I think it should be inside an air conditioned arena. It should be a controlled environment. Just like every, like you don't ask someone to do any of that. You don't, you wouldn't ask them to play a world championship basketball game outside in the sun. That would be Crazy. Yeah, right. You have to. You play in a air conditioned arena and that's how it should be.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, I agree with you, but I understand the whole thing and I get it. Too special. Listen, but it's gonna be a pain in the butt.

[Joe Rogan]

A roof. Yeah, build a roof. Like you've got all the money in the world, right? You're doing this. You want to do this for money. 4,000 seats. You build a 4,000 seat arena. How big is that? Get a barndominium, put it in there. You know, like we did ufcs. The troops. Yeah, we did them in the troops in hangars.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, we did. But. Yeah, they want that white house in the background.

[Joe Rogan]

Put it in the background on tv. Who gives a. It's just like when world class fighters are competing. I don't think they should have to compete outside. Look at.

[John McCarthy]

They're already. They're already putting it in.

[Joe Rogan]

Imagine if someone loses a fight because it's too hot out. Imagine if that becomes a factor. Imagine the dehydrated fighters, like the dehydrated fighters that are now being forced 24 hours later to fight in 100 degree

[Jamie Varner]

heat outside, under the spotlight.

[John McCarthy]

Go back. I swear to God. UFC 3 was in North Carolina and it was the hottest thing I've ever been in, in my life.

[Joe Rogan]

It was outside UFC 3.

[John McCarthy]

No, it wasn't. It was inside with no air conditioning.

[Joe Rogan]

Really.

[John McCarthy]

Inside the. They put. There was. It was a 3, 500 seat arena. They put 6,000 people into. Was under the lights. Had to be 150 degrees. Okay? It was. You saw everyone falling out. Hoist had the problem after chemo and stuff, you know, Ken Shamrock fell out. They all pulled out and stuff. It was Joe. It was the hottest thing I've ever been in, in my life. It was brutal.

[Jamie Varner]

You have to ask yourself as a fighter though, is this spectacle worth my career? Right? Like, is it worth me going out there and fighting in. In the. In these circumstances that I'm not used to?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, we did one outside at Abu Dhabi. That was when BJ Penn and Frank fought. And then. And that one, bro. There were bugs flying around. It looked like birds. They were so big. I was like, that's a bug. What kind of bug is that? Can that kill me? This is crazy. In the desert, man. There's some giant ass. You can hear it. Yeah, yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

Make sure your microphone's not picking it up.

[John McCarthy]

Sounds like a helicopter coming by.

[Joe Rogan]

You're outside, it's hot, you're in the desert. This is crazy. Like, why are we fighting outside?

[Jamie Varner]

No, because I think I had read somewhere where Habib had said, no, I prefer Islam not take a fight there at the White House. There's too many distractions. You got all the media. You got the. That whole week, plus it's outside. These are all things that your fighter is not used to doing. Why would I jeopardize his win streak? His. His second title? Why would I jeopardize all of that? Yeah. His legacy, everything, just so we can fight at the White House. I know it seems great. Yeah, I was. I fought there. But at the end of the day,

[John McCarthy]

you got to look at it.

[Jamie Varner]

I worked so hard to get here. I don't want to lose it over this one thing.

[Joe Rogan]

I just feel like you could put a roof over it. I mean, you got all this money. You're making a ballroom. Make a. Make a little. Do it just on a regular basis.

[Jamie Varner]

I mean, are they making. Are they finishing the ballroom?

[John McCarthy]

Are we going to get that Finish.

[Joe Rogan]

Make your own. Make your own Apex setter. Boom. Make a barn dominium. How hard is that?

[John McCarthy]

You know what I'm saying? Hard. Trust me. I just finished one.

[Joe Rogan]

Did you?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, my God. You're one guy. Oh, God. Exactly.

[Joe Rogan]

Get a team. United States civil engineers. Get the. The army to do it.

[Jamie Varner]

Jeez, man.

[John McCarthy]

So you're going to be at that one?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to be there. Allegedly.

[John McCarthy]

Allegedly.

[Joe Rogan]

If there's not a bomb that goes off between now and then, who knows? This world is crazy.

[John McCarthy]

I love what you did with the ibogaine with it, man.

[Joe Rogan]

Thank you.

[John McCarthy]

Way to go.

[Jamie Varner]

Well, what was the process on that? How long does that take?

[John McCarthy]

I don't care what the process was. Way to go.

[Joe Rogan]

Thank you. The process was me texting Trump.

[Jamie Varner]

Literally.

[Joe Rogan]

I'm not long. There was a lot of him on Friday. He showed up at the UFC on Saturday, shook my hand, and said, it's done.

[John McCarthy]

You're kidding.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, no, I'm not kidding at all. No, I texted him. He texted me back, are you looking for FDA approval? Sounds good to you. Me, I. I tell him how effective it is at helping all these veterans with ptsd, people with traumatic brain injuries, all these different things. People. I mean, we have a problem with fentanyl in this country. This is one of the best things that we've ever demonstrated. I'm like, listen, there's so many people that risk their life for this country. They come back and there's no help, and this is the only thing that they've found help. It. Yeah. And it's illegal. And that doesn't make any sense. You shouldn't have to go to Mexico to get treatment for something that you got because you were definitely defending your country. That's nuts. And so he. Right away, he was like, look, this makes sense to me. Like, he cut through all the common sense, and there was a bunch of people that were trying to get in the way of it. Of course, a bunch of people. I mean, the White House people that were trying to get. And he's like, you. You do it. And he, like, was telling them, just do it. Make it happen. And he made it happen. And that's amazing for everybody.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, no, it was amazing that, you know what, you stepped up because you are going to be helping so many people. I don't think. I. People don't have an idea of how bad it is and what that can do for them. So I think way to God. I. I was like, God, see, I. I always say, you always. You always talk about you're a dummy. I'm a dummy. I always tell people, I said, he's super intelligent. And you are, because you got that done. Just proves it.

[Joe Rogan]

I never asked him for anything else. I've never asked him for anything. Anything. Never.

[John McCarthy]

Maybe like, signing pin or something.

[Joe Rogan]

Gave me those. I didn't even ask. I've got a bunch of stuff.

[John McCarthy]

I got a pen.

[Joe Rogan]

I got a bunch of things. But I was like, if there's anything that I would really ask him for that is. It's bipartisan, supported, like, Democrats support it, Republicans support it. 85% of the country supports it, especially when it comes to things like ibogaine, which is not even remotely recreational.

[John McCarthy]

No, I haven't done people sick.

[Joe Rogan]

Everybody's done. It says horrible, you get diarrhea, but it's 24 hours of misery. But when it's over, you're a new person.

[Jamie Varner]

Good.

[Joe Rogan]

And look, and Rick Perry, God bless him, because if it wasn't for him getting behind it, that changed everybody's opinion. Here you have this Republican former governor of Texas who's talking about it and then talking about his own personal experiences doing it. You know, so him and Brian Hubbard, I mean, they really went all out. And when I had them on my podcast, not once, but twice to talk about this and the state of it where it's being passed. In Texas, they got $100 million from Ken Paxton. So. Which is. Yeah. No. Was it Ken Paxton? No. No.

[John McCarthy]

Who.

[Joe Rogan]

Who is it?

[Jamie Varner]

Corn. Corn.

[Joe Rogan]

Dan Patrick. Sorry, Dan Patrick. So Dan Patrick, who approved this $100 million for this ibogaine. Initiative. Like, these people all deserve praise. This is like, there's a lot of people that for the longest time that thought of psychedelics as being something that loses do. And then they realize, like, no, there's a lot of people that need help. And this could help.

[John McCarthy]

It could be a good side.

[Joe Rogan]

I was just.

[Jamie Varner]

I was just in San Diego last Monday, and then I was in LA on Tuesday, and it's unrecognizable.

[Joe Rogan]

It's crazy.

[Jamie Varner]

It's sad. Like, And I. And, and when you take a look at San Diego, it's always been beautiful, beaches in the background and. But it was worse than la. I was in the Burbank area and actually it was a lot nicer than San Diego was. And the Gaslight district was just displayed. Disgusting. What is it? A gas lamp?

[John McCarthy]

Gas lamp? Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

It just.

[Jamie Varner]

I couldn't believe it. I walked into a couple restaurants. You got homeless people stumbling in, trying to order, knock, trying to take food off of people's plates while they're there. I'm just like, what is going on?

[Joe Rogan]

No law enforcement.

[Jamie Varner]

That's right. It's the first time that I've went back and I've been back, you know, in the last three years. I've been back two or three times a year, easily. It's the first time I went back, I was like, man, this is not, not. This is not what it used to be. This is not. It was. It just felt. I felt like it. I felt like for the first time I didn't feel safe there.

[Joe Rogan]

God.

[Jamie Varner]

And it's weird to me.

[Joe Rogan]

And how do you get that? How do you bring it back?

[John McCarthy]

Oh, that's simple. You bring it back by doing the right things, common sense, things. Taking, you know. Dude.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, I understand. Do you think Chad Bianco does it? Do you think Steve Hilton does it? Like, who, who do you get to turn the state around?

[John McCarthy]

You know? It's your girl.

[Jamie Varner]

Your girl, Katie Porter. She get it done.

[John McCarthy]

Jesus Christ.

[Joe Rogan]

She'll scold everybody into compliance.

[John McCarthy]

But I'm sitting, I'm sitting outside, I'm sitting outside having dinner last night, and I'm watching a bunch of homeless guys talking to themselves. And, and this is the problem. I was a police officer for 23 years, okay? I, I've been out there with them. And you have people that, you know, they have serious problems, you know, and, and I, I understand, you know, the ACLU and stuff. They, they, they. Oh, it's not right to put them. No, it's better for them. And it's Better for the people that are out on the street just trying to live their lives, to have that person be put into a place where they can receive some medication, receive some help and try to get them back than it is to let these people just rot on the street and self destruct. And I'm watching and it's like, how is that so hard to figure out that it's better to do something with. With them than it is to just let them be? It's crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it's. We've lost our way, you know, as a society. And I think a great reflection of that is how many homeless people you have camped out on your streets.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Those are the places where they've lost their way the most.

[John McCarthy]

That's it.

[Joe Rogan]

And this is. Unfortunately, a lot of these Democrats run cities.

[Jamie Varner]

I owned a couple gyms in San Jose and just. It was tent city and along the highway, like, leading up to my. Along the road that led up to my gym, all those things. But you would see they would. They were stealing solar panels from people's houses and they would put them up on the sidewall so they could charge their cell phones. Like, they're smart enough to do these things.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Jamie Varner]

It's not as if, like, they're not.

[Joe Rogan]

They're just drug addicts.

[Jamie Varner]

That's a lot of.

[John McCarthy]

That's it.

[Jamie Varner]

And then in areas like that can

[Joe Rogan]

help with that 100%.

[Jamie Varner]

But things like in. In San Jose or San Francisco, they're giving them needles, they're giving them drugs, they're giving.

[John McCarthy]

They're giving them phones.

[Jamie Varner]

It's like, why are we. Why are we doing this?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, the other problem is the amount of money that's involved in the homeless industry now.

[John McCarthy]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

When you find out that California spent 24 billion in homelessness, what have they done? Nothing. Not only that, but the. They tried to do an audit on it, and the governor vetoed it. It's like, no, nothing to say.

[John McCarthy]

Why waste time?

[Joe Rogan]

It's only 24 billion guys.

[Jamie Varner]

Well, how much did they spend on that bridge that had the.

[Joe Rogan]

For the mountain lions.

[Jamie Varner]

Yeah.

[John McCarthy]

For the. Oh, my God. Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

What are we doing?

[John McCarthy]

Hey, hey, hey. That's okay. The mountain lions need a bridge.

[Joe Rogan]

They need hugs.

[John McCarthy]

They need.

[Joe Rogan]

It's. They need. They need to wake up. And the problem is that they're in this bizarre mindset, this liberal leftist mindset that's just not tenable. It's not. You can't defend it. It's not.

[John McCarthy]

That's because it's crazy work.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah.

[John McCarthy]

I, I always look at this. People talk about left and right, and most people are. I'm. I'm in the center. I mean, you know, it's like a

[Jamie Varner]

lot of people are.

[John McCarthy]

It's not, it's not where.

[Joe Rogan]

But you get labeled as being on the right. If you're not all the way.

[John McCarthy]

If you're not all crazy crazy, you're to the far right.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it's nuts.

[John McCarthy]

It's absolutely just nutty seesaw.

[Jamie Varner]

Well, I just saw something that I can't remember who it was. But they continue to talk about, you know, let's keep taxing the billionaires. Keep taxing the billionaires.

[Joe Rogan]

And do what with the money?

[Jamie Varner]

And that's the point, though.

[John McCarthy]

So why don't we just not gonna go away.

[Jamie Varner]

Why don't we just not tax the people that make under 200, 000?

[Joe Rogan]

That's actually something Jeff Bezos brought up. He said you should. Should the. The bottom 50%. The people that make the least amount of money. Don't tax them at all. He goes, because they're not contributing that much to the tax base anyway. And they would contribute more to the economy if they had more money.

[John McCarthy]

Absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

It would help everybody.

[John McCarthy]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

I think he's right.

[John McCarthy]

I always said 150,000 down. Yeah, you don't pay taxes.

[Joe Rogan]

That's a great number.

[Jamie Varner]

I also thought about it too, is if you were to take. If you got rid of the, you know, because they're talking about this housing shortage and all of the other things. Why don't we get rid of the low interest rates? You know, because I have like a couple of interest rates on some houses that I have that are at 2%. How do you get rid of those? Well, why don't you just raise my capital gains tax so I don't gotta. My wife and I or whatever, we can pay like less on that versus that 500, 000 threshold. Why don't you make it a million? So then I'll cash out on those and just take my money out and then I'll start putting it back into the economy again. Like, there's also.

[Joe Rogan]

You're talking like a sensible businessman. Like, you can't be doing that in California. I'll put you in jail.

[John McCarthy]

You could do it.

[Joe Rogan]

Put you in Twitter jail.

[John McCarthy]

You can do the death tax that he did in New York. I mean, look at what mom Donnie's trying to do.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that's nuts.

[John McCarthy]

Oh my God.

[Joe Rogan]

People are just going to bail out of that city.

[John McCarthy]

It's crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

It's these people that think like taxing the rich is the solution. And do what with the money? If you were doing a great job with the money and everything was accounted for and there was no fraud and waste, I'd be like, well, maybe you just need more money. But that's clearly not the case. You've got so much fraud and you're ignoring it. And then this Nick Shirley kid, oh my God, he exposes it everywhere.

[John McCarthy]

They go after him. Yeah, they go after him. You look at, you go, should be praised. Give that kid an award.

[Joe Rogan]

Give him a award.

[John McCarthy]

Here, I want Journalist of the Year. And he's not a journalist.

[Jamie Varner]

How, how much fraud do you think is in this country?

[John McCarthy]

Billions. Billions and billions.

[Jamie Varner]

I mean, Elon had said, Elon had said when he first came in, he goes, hey, I. I think it's close to a trillion dollars, maybe a little bit over.

[Joe Rogan]

He said it was so bad that he didn't want to talk about it too much. He's worried they'd kill him.

[John McCarthy]

You know, he really don't.

[Jamie Varner]

It. It's wild Joe.

[John McCarthy]

He's lying.

[Joe Rogan]

He ain't stupid.

[John McCarthy]

No, he's not.

[Jamie Varner]

No, he's not. He's anything but. He's not stupid.

[John McCarthy]

He's anything but.

[Jamie Varner]

But I mean to, to think, though, and think how much in California they've discovered or let's just say what, 200 billion at least. You know, somewhere around there that's on the low end. New York's probably in, in Chicago is. And then, I mean, but they've got to do it in all states. You can't just do it in the ones where it's LA and, and Chicago and New York. We've got to do it in all.

[Joe Rogan]

It's got to be in Texas. It's everywhere. There's fraud. And these people were profiting off of the fraud. They were funneling it right back into the parties and it's, it's dirty business.

[Jamie Varner]

Well, you didn't really think that that shovel the government pays for was really fucking $900. I mean, there's a lot of that

[Joe Rogan]

as they get a budget and they have to pay. They have to spend all the money,

[John McCarthy]

every bit of it.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. Otherwise they won't get the same budget next year.

[Jamie Varner]

Which is wild to me because the schools, the schools operate the same way. If the teachers don't spend a certain amount of money on these things and they don't get the same budget for next year.

[John McCarthy]

No, no.

[Jamie Varner]

Why don't we reward the people that actually save the money?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Jamie Varner]

It doesn't make any sense.

[John McCarthy]

That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. What is wrong with you? I want to know when are you coming to my class, though?

[Joe Rogan]

Your refereeing class? Yeah, when is it? When you have it.

[John McCarthy]

July 17th through the 19th. He's gone.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, I'm not even going to be in the country.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, okay.

[Joe Rogan]

But when are you doing one? Where are you doing them?

[John McCarthy]

Usually I do them in Vegas at Extreme Couture or something like that.

[Jamie Varner]

Like that.

[John McCarthy]

Because I need the gym to. To put people in cages with fighters.

[Joe Rogan]

If I can, I definitely will. I would love to see it. I'd love to see it.

[Jamie Varner]

Is there a location? We could do one that way.

[John McCarthy]

I don't have that way. You look at any time, you know you have my number. Text me if you have a question during the fight. The text.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like when you say the waiter.

[John McCarthy]

I get. I get them all the time, so

[Jamie Varner]

it's not just, wrap it up.

[John McCarthy]

I get them all the time. So it's nice when you know exactly what the referee can do, what, where they're going to go, and when you're looking, like, with, you know, a Mark Goddard or a Herb Dean, when, you know, if you go to the class, you'll know exactly, hey, this is what he can do, and this is. This is why he'll do it.

[Joe Rogan]

I'll definitely ask you. I promise. At the very least, I'll ask you next time Initiative comes up.

[John McCarthy]

No problem.

[Joe Rogan]

I'll have you on speed, Doc.

[John McCarthy]

There you go.

[Joe Rogan]

Maybe I'll put you on speakerphone at the ufc. Hey, everybody, Big John's right here. Don't do that.

[Jamie Varner]

It's.

[John McCarthy]

Yeah, it's the one thing that I'm always watching, and it's like, you know. And you guys are like, I don't know. I don't know. I'm like, this is the answer.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, yeah, I'll reach out. I promise.

[John McCarthy]

Love you.

[Joe Rogan]

Thank you, brother. Love you, too. This is fun. Let's do it again.

[John McCarthy]

Oh, absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

There's always going to be fights to talk about.

[John McCarthy]

Freaking A. I live up the street, so.

[Jamie Varner]

Let me know anytime.

[Joe Rogan]

All right?

[John McCarthy]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

All right. Talk to you later. Bye, everybody.