JRE MMA Show #173 with Benny "The Jet" Urquidez & William "Blinky" Rodriguez

Summary

The Joe Rogan Experience – MMA Show #173

Guests: Benny "The Jet" Urquidez & William "Blinky" Rodriguez
Date: January 21, 2026
Host: Joe Rogan

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Episode Overview

This episode of the JRE MMA Show is a wide-ranging, deeply personal, and historic conversation with legendary martial artists Benny "The Jet" Urquidez and William "Blinky" Rodriguez. Rogan explores their impact as pioneers in kickboxing and martial arts, delving into their fighting careers, the origins and evolution of modern martial arts, and their lifelong commitment to community outreach and mentorship. The trio discuss everything from brutal no-rules matches of the 70s, the importance of the Jet Center gym in LA, the rise of MMA and changes to martial arts values, to the transformative power of forgiveness and community leadership.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Jet Center and LA Martial Arts in the 1990s

• Joe Rogan shares his early LA days, training at the Jet Center (00:16–01:04), noting its tough, diverse crowd and outreach to gang members.
• The Jet Center's dual legacy: martial skill and social impact (03:54).

Notable Quote:

• “You brought them to a place like the Jet Center where they can learn discipline, learn how to fight, build real confidence…” – Joe Rogan (03:54)

2. Personal Tragedy & Community Work

• Blinky Rodriguez recounts losing his son to gang violence and the subsequent creation of an anti-violence nonprofit (01:25–03:54).
• Forgiveness as a transformative force, leading to peace initiatives and direct reconciliation with the man who killed his son (100:57–102:21).

Notable Moments:

• “No mothers crying, no babies dying. To this day, I still continue to press in...keeping violence in the middle of it and dealing with it.” – Blinky Rodriguez (02:41)
• “The power of forgiveness is more powerful than my left hook. And I had a good one, Joe.” – Blinky Rodriguez (101:27)

3. Early Days of Kickboxing and Muay Thai

• Benny’s introduction to Muay Thai came without knowledge of the rules or techniques; his experiences fighting much larger opponents, and the brutal, no-rules, no weight class contests in Hawaii (05:22–08:43).
• Discussion of the invention of shin guards for kickboxing due to the brutality of leg kicks (13:38–14:45).

Notable Quotes:

• “I tell you, it was when my brother asked me, what would you want to fight? Thai, you know, and I said, what’s ‘Thai’? …Honest, I thought that was his name.” – Benny Urquidez (05:22)
• “I created the first shin guards.” – Benny Urquidez (14:16)

4. Evolution of Rules & American Kickboxing’s Identity

• The formation of the PKA and debates over rules (ex: no leg kicks from “waist-up” kickboxing, then incorporating sweeps and different sanctioning bodies) (20:04–24:11).
• The importance of leg kicks historically, and how techniques like the calf kick have only recently revolutionized MMA (21:40–23:58).

Notable Quotes:

• “If you’re not kicking calf, thigh, body and head, it’s not international.” – Blinky Rodriguez (23:45)
• “It would have probably flourished in America and been as big as MMA.” – Joe Rogan (29:57)

5. Technical Evolution & MMA’s Trajectory

• How rule changes, promotional strategies, and the influence of pioneers shaped American kickboxing and MMA.
• The impact of the Gracie family and the growth of MMA from the 1990s on (107:31–109:25).
• New generations of MMA: young fighters are now well-rounded, technical, and more athletic than ever (105:20–106:35).

Notable Quotes:

• “Martial arts has evolved more since 1993 to 2026 than it did in the last 10,000 years.” – Joe Rogan (35:00)
• “The kids of today, they can do everything. They could submit you, they can take you down, they can kickbox with you. They could do it all.” – Joe Rogan (105:20)

6. Old School Training vs. Modern Awareness

• Culture of “gym wars” versus today’s emphasis on safety and longevity – reflecting on sparring practices and the insufficient understanding of concussions in previous generations (46:00–47:36).
• Thai approach: high frequency, light sparring, and the economic reality of fighting as a livelihood (48:55–49:39).

7. Martial Values & Warrior Code

• The gradual diminishing of the Bushido (“prosciutto” as repeated in transcript) – a code of honor, discipline, humility, and respect (57:18–58:09; 79:24–81:49).
• The role of martial arts in personal transformation, self-discipline, and helping people out of difficult life circumstances (89:42–94:29, 90:44–93:26).

Notable Quotes:

• “There was power in that code of honor, of strength, of knowing.” – Benny Urquidez (57:31)
• “Martial arts was a vehicle for developing your human potential.” – Joe Rogan (80:37)

8. Women's Pioneering Role in Combat Sports

• Tribute to Lily Urquidez, Blinky’s late wife, as a trailblazer in women’s boxing and kickboxing, and the first woman with boxing, martial arts, and kickboxing titles (58:09–74:47).

9. Gene LeBell & Legendary Encounters

• Benny’s stories of training with Gene LeBell, old school “tough guy” lore, and the cross-pollination of martial arts (62:12–66:11).

10. Modern MMA: Challenges & Innovations

• Problems like eye-pokes in MMA gloves and potential equipment reforms (76:01–78:05).
• Dangers of “gaming the rules,” cheating, and the necessity for an honor code (79:24–80:15).

11. Impact of Martial Arts on Human Development

• Martial arts as a life path: discipline, confidence, overcoming anger and trauma, learning real self-defense and respect (90:44–94:29).
• The profound benefit to even non-fighters (professionals, at-risk youth, ex-cons) from training in martial arts and experiencing personal growth.

Notable Quote:

• “Your battle is in the gym tomorrow…and you’re going to learn and grow…your battle is inside yourself.” – Joe Rogan (84:45)

12. The Future: Giving Back

• Benny is considering opening a new type of gym—a haven for learning self-defense, personal truth, and healing (117:28–121:19).
• The importance of a community-oriented academy that brings people together from around the world (118:17–121:02).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |------------|---------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:41 | Blinky | “No mothers crying, no babies dying. To this day, I still continue to press in…” | | 14:16 | Benny | “I created the first shin guards.” | | 23:45 | Blinky | “If you’re not kicking calf, thigh, body and head, it’s not international.” | | 35:00 | Joe | “Martial arts has evolved more since 1993 to 2026 than it did in the last 10,000 years.” | | 46:52 | Benny | “Nobody actually understood a concussion, right? Hey, all right. Shake it off. You know, it'll be okay…” | | 80:37 | Joe | “Martial arts was a vehicle for developing your human potential.” | | 101:27 | Blinky | “The power of forgiveness is more powerful than my left hook. And I had a good one, Joe.” | | 107:31 | Joe | “What is it like for you two men as pioneers, like real, true pioneers in the earliest days of martial arts…?” | | 117:28 | Benny | “I've been doodling again...I'm talking about a gym...a safe haven where people will come to learn their truth.” |

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Jet Center & LA Roots: 00:16–03:54
• Blinky’s Anti-Violence Non-Profit & Forgiveness Story: 01:25–03:54; 100:57–102:21
• Origins of American Kickboxing & Thailand Fights: 05:22–14:45
• Rule Evolution & Calf Kick Discussion: 20:04–23:58
• Early MMA and Influence of Muay Thai: 29:28–34:33
• Pioneering Women’s Combat Sports: 58:09–74:47
• Benny/LeBell Stories & Gene LeBell’s Influence: 62:12–66:11
• Martial Arts as Social Transformation: 80:37–94:29
• Jet Center Legacy & New Gym Vision: 117:28–121:02
• Closing Reflections on Martial Arts & Life: 121:02–121:28

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Final Thoughts

This episode stands as a testament to the enduring power of martial arts—not just in fighting, but as a tool for personal and communal transformation. Benny and Blinky detail the gritty, rule-breaking past that built the foundation for today’s MMA and reflect on the personal costs and values that come with living the martial artist’s life. Their stories of innovation, honor, and forgiveness highlight the importance of remembering those who paved the way, not just for sport, but for the healing and growth of entire communities.

Transcript

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Joe Rogan Podcast.

[Joe Rogan]

Check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Gentlemen, what's happening?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Ah. Where do we begin?

[Joe Rogan]

Where do you begin? Let me tell you. When I first came to Los Angeles in 1994, there was two places that I had to go. One of them was the Comedy Store and the other one was the Jet Center. And I started training the Jets center in 94 before you guys shut down because you had the earthquake and you had the roof damage. So I was there before that happened. And I took your classes, I took your kickboxing classes because I remember it was very scary because you had a bunch of gang members in there because you were doing that sort of outreach program where you're helping young gang members. So I had a spar with gang members. So I was training at the Jet center until it shut down. And then I went briefly when you guys reopened in North Hollywood, I went to that place for a little bit, too.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But then I started training at Majiro Gym, which was in the Valley. But legends. You guys are legends, man.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Well, thank you, Joe.

[Joe Rogan]

True pioneers in martial arts, for you.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

To remember, really humbled me. You remembered. You mentioned my son and why I was starting that.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And you don't even know what it's grown into since that day that you've seen.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, tell the story about your son and how that whole thing started.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Well, you know, unfortunately in some communities, drive bys aren't uncommon. And so when it becomes a generational curse, you know, and kids are getting killed, sometimes randomly, that happened to me. It came knocking on my door in a valley that's got 2 million people knocked on my door. And I was just. I was. I'm going to put it this way. I had a calling on my life to do something about it because it became a situation where families and community was like, well, yeah, well, that's what happens in our community. And I was saying, that is not what happens in our community. This is our community. And so I began to move. I began to move, ironically, with some churches that had that kind of ministry in their ministry and march, peace marches, etc. But my son got shot while he was learning how to drive a stick shift. Wow. And it took his life. And that's not normal and that should not be common. And so I'm still at it.

[Joe Rogan]

You're still doing that?

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Still going 36 years later, put a organization together and real. Some with real lived experience, others with degrees, and really put together a whole nonprofit that Speaks directly to it, where it's at. And so at the end of the day, yeah, it's over when we say it's over. You know what I mean? And ironically, what led the charge for me, at least, Joe, was forgiveness. The forgiveness that only God can give. I gotta tell it the way it is. And that forgiveness ended up taking me to the neighborhood that killed my son. And we had a huge meeting in that neighborhood, in the park. And a peace treaty kicked into place. No mothers crying, no babies dying. So to this day, I still continue to press in with a whole different, how would I say, integrated service delivery, but keeping violence in the middle of it and dealing with it.

[Joe Rogan]

That's awesome. And it's awesome that you brought them to a place like the Jet center where they can learn discipline, learn how to fight, build real confidence, you know, learn real martial arts skills and also real martial arts mentality, especially when it's coming from guys like you, you know, I mean, I remember when you knocked out Jean Yves Therio. Jean Yves Therio was the fucking man. He was the man. Everybody was terrified of that guy. And you, I believe you knocked him out. A left hook, is that correct?

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Right leg, left hook.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

The most traditional Shotokan sweeps.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

But you turn it over with the instep and you know what I'm talking about, and you reset and come back with the money. Yeah, but it was. And he's a bad dude. He went on to have a great career.

[Joe Rogan]

Amazing career. Yeah. I mean, he's one of the all time greats in kickboxing. And, you know, it's just. I think it's important for people to recognize the real pioneers. And Benny, you are a real pioneer. I mean, there was no one like you when you emerged. When you emerged in the kickboxing scene, the karate scene, there was no one like you. And, you know, you went undefeated and you took on people of all sizes. And to this day, there's amazing highlights of you on the Internet that people still bring up because, you know, you were. I mean, you were fighting ties when you had no training like that, you know, you. You were getting low, kicked by those dudes and still found out a way to win. It's pretty crazy.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Well, you know, I tell you, it was when my brother asked me, what would you want to fight? Tai, you know, and I said, what's Thai? He said, muay Thai. And I said, I'll fight him. Honest, I thought that was his name. I had no idea what Muay Thai was at the time. And so we took it on.

[Joe Rogan]

Where was the first Muay Thai fight that you had?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Matter of fact, it was at the Olympic auditorium when we first fought in Los Angeles. Yes. Ernest Hart fought the first tight champion, and that was the main event. And I tell you what, when I first got kicked in the legs, my eyes bulged out of my forehead. I said, I mean, I have strong legs, but I've never had anybody try to break my legs. And so it was a rude awakening, but it was the best thing that ever happened to me because he took me to the streets. He really did. Because when he started elbowing, kneeing to my face, and I said, oh, you want to fight that way? Okay. I didn't understand it. I just thought that.

[Joe Rogan]

All right, did you know what the rules were?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that's crazy. So you didn't know they were going to use elbows or knees? No, that is crazy.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

All I knew is Muay Thai Narang.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Noi Narong Noi was. Was the guy that he fought that night, Lone Pingi Stadium.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he was a great champion as well.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh, without a doubt.

[Joe Rogan]

That's so crazy that you didn't even know what you were in for. Like, who. Who was the promoter that set that up?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, actually, believe it or not, my brother Arnold was asked, you know, he says he was calling me the world champion because in 73, it was called Full Contact Karate. And Blinky and I, we know, we went to Hawaii, and no rules, no weight divisions, no nothing. So for the.

[Joe Rogan]

How much did you weigh back then?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

145.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And so I ended up beating, actually 160. And Blinky, there was four of us left after we fought five, six times on Friday, and then we fought a couple more times on Sunday.

[Joe Rogan]

You fought two days?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah. There was that many. No rules. It was just weight division. I mean, there was no weight division.

[Joe Rogan]

It was just brackets.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's it. So Blinky ended up fighting. There was four of us. I fought Bernice White, and I told Blinky, I said, you know what? This guy now, he's, you know, he's 245 pounds. Dana Goodson, 6 foot 3. And I said, blinky, they don't want to see you and I fight. They want to see David and Goliath. They want to see me fight him. And I said, so if you don't knock them out, you're not going to win, because this guy, they're kind of, you know, wanting to keep him up. And sure enough then. And I said, blinky, if you don't knock him out. You don't, you know, hurt him, hurt him for me. So. Because I knew I was going to fight him next. So that's what it was.

[Joe Rogan]

So he was a 240 pounds.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, 245 pounds.

[Joe Rogan]

And you were 145.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah. Wow.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

You could pick them up and throw them around. So I got them tired.

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[Joe Rogan]

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[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

There was no rules. I actually threw him. I pinned him on the ground. He started to roll me over. I spit my mouthpiece out. I bit him on the chest.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh my God.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

He palm strike my face. And we got up and my my teeth markers on his chest. He said, you bit me. And I said I was getting tired.

[Joe Rogan]

So how did they. Did they have submissions? Did anybody know submissions back then?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

No. Well, you know what we did because we in judo, we're black belts and judo men. Back in 60, we were already doing judo and Mickey and I were already boxing back then. So we had a good idea of the contact. It's just there was no rules at the time. No rules, no weight divisions. It was just elimination. So that happened for almost two years, from 73 to 75. And then it started. That's when I first heard of Muay Thai.

[Joe Rogan]

Are there any of those no rules fights available on video? Can people watch any of those fights?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

Are they online?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

Where are they?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Actually, there's some, but you know what? Actually I'm doing a documentary and were bringing a lot of. I have film from 69 to 96.2millimeter miller. I mean, I'm talking about beat him out. And they're actually putting together old fights. So you'll see blink and I way back then fighting black and white. And then.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, there's some available online that are. So this is you against. How do you say that guy's name? Kayat Bandit. Nagoroni Kayat Bandit. So is this another Muay Thai guy? Yes.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

So was this after you had fought Muay Thai already previously?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes, because I started to recognize what it was about.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Mm.

[Joe Rogan]

So how many Muay Thai fights had you had before you fought this guy?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Two.

[Joe Rogan]

Two. So when you trained in this, like when. So after the first fight, did you bring in a Muay Thai guy to train with and explain you elbows and show you how they're thr their techniques or how did you. How did you learn how to deal with these guys?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Basically, somebody had black and white was filming and I kind of looked at it and I went to an old gentleman that used to do. Actually do clothing and shoes and so forth in this leather shop and I asked him, I said, I want to protect my shins, you older man. And I said, I want to protect my shins. And you have something. And he brought out some pad. And I said, yeah. And I told him, I want to put it around my shins. So I created the first shin guards.

[Joe Rogan]

You were the guy who invented the shin guard?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, that's great.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And I told him, how do we keep it together? And he said, and he's the one that brought out the Velcro. And so he put on. He sewed on Velcro on it. And so I ended up asking him, can you make more of them? And I started giving to him. That's how. Because we were doing. We were doing leg checking because we were watching them, but it was hurting us. Like, what the heck? You know, how did they do it?

[Joe Rogan]

So you guys were doing bare shin?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

So bare shin, leg kicking, training hard.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah. We didn't know any other way.

[Joe Rogan]

So what were the Thais doing back then? How were they protecting their shins?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Well, you know what they have spray, numbing spray. They were spraying their shin.

[Joe Rogan]

Like lidocaine?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah. They were putting stuff that kind of. Like, you couldn't. They couldn't feel it. They couldn't feel the impact.

[Joe Rogan]

So after you invented shin guards, is that how shin guards made their way to Thailand?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I'll put it this way. When I went to Thailand and to work with some of the Thais, I looked at them, I said, oh, they're finally. Because they didn't have them, I said, oh, you got shin guards here. And I was surprised, but a lot of them didn't even use them still. And some of these high up in the hills, the way they train, they didn't train with shin guards. They just sprayed their shins and. Oh, my God.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Kick banana trees.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I've seen that. I've seen Bulkow kicking banana tree and cutting it in half.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah. See the problem with that, as I was talking to Blinky, I said, you know, we got a lot of nerves on our shins. And I said. And so we had a doctor that was one of our students, and I asked him about that. He says, once you break, you know, you tear all the tissues and the nerves of your shin. He said, later on, it will affect you. This is the reason why I started designing so we can. And I mean, these were like homemade shin guards.

[Joe Rogan]

So did you ever work out with a Thai man, like a Muay Thai fighter, who was showing you how they do the techniques, or did you only learn it from film?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I only learned from the film. Wow.

[Joe Rogan]

Was there any Thai guys in LA at that time?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

No. Wow. At that time, it Was. There was none.

[Joe Rogan]

When was the first Muay Thai gym started opening up in la? Wow.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

It's hard to remember because we weren't tracking with them. We were just figuring out how to fight them and give them whoops. Give them, like, lateral movement. Because everything was linear. Everything was linear. So the American side of kickboxing, obviously you had more hands, but they would clinch. Once they clinch, they nullify that. So we were just making adjustments along the way.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Especially in Japan. This is basically when we really start, because they started bringing us back there one right after another. They started bringing us back there after, you know, I took their belt. And they couldn't believe Americans just went in there and took their belt from them. And they didn't. They didn't like it, they didn't want it. And they kept having us come back, taking that, trying to take that belt back.

[Joe Rogan]

In Japan.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

In Japan never happened.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow. And you gotta realize, like back then, this is like post Bruce Lee movies. So martial arts had exploded, karate exploded worldwide. Everybody wanted to learn martial arts and Japan was kind of at the forefront of the kickboxing movement. Right. Because they had. They had had a bunch of Muay Thai guys fight Japanese guys, and the karate guys lost to the Muay Thai guys. And then they had to adjust. And then they got rid of elbows and created kickboxing because they wanted more excitement. They wanted to get rid of the clinch and get rid of the elbows and so. And then K1 was formed out of that.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

It's like, you're like really, like Patient zero, like, you know what I'm saying? Like, the real mixed martial arts movement really began with you guys.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

True. It's.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

You know, I was going to say, you know, there was a. There was a phase there because you mentioned Chuck Norris earlier, that he raised money in Detroit and he had done into the Dragon, so he had that notoriety and he had a cattle call. So fighters came from all over Southern Cal to his dojo in Santa Monica. And it was single eliminations to the knockout to see which five guys would represent la. And the same was going on in New York. The New York Dragons, Detroit, the Detroit Dragons, dc, the DC Dynamos, and then the Texas Gladiators. Those were the teams people were vying for and we participated. I ended up becoming the middleweight starter. Benny was the lightweight. And then Steve Sanders, who was an old name in traditional karate, three of his guys from the Black Karate Federation, Ernest Madman Russell, Danny Ferguson, Sugar Bear, we were the LA team. And what's crazy is that you won as a team. If you went out there and knocked the guy out or you got knocked out, they got 25 points. And so it was an accumulation of points that you would get $1,500, but the losers got 700. So that took off. And the last tournament or fight show that they had was in Detroit. And after that, that's when things started going in another direction. But it's just interesting the way that it evolved.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Have you ever heard of the pka?

[Joe Rogan]

Yes, sure.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Okay, so the PKA started with Don Quine, Judy Kwan, but only that was from the waist up. And only because they were protecting Bill because he didn't like getting kicked in the legs.

[Joe Rogan]

Superfoot, no walls.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Exactly, yeah. And so in there.

[Joe Rogan]

So that's why they decided not to have the legs kick. Because Bill only had one good knee, right?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

He had one knee that was messed up, which is why he only threw like left kicks. This episode is brought to you by Paramount plus the new era of UFC on Paramount plus comes out swinging. Show stopping highlight machine Justin Gaethje collides with Liverpool phenom Patty the Baddy Pimblett. It's a must see main event plus sugar Sean o' Malley faces off against Song Yu Dong in a stand up war filled with high level striking. Stream UFC 324, Saturday at 9pm Eastern only on Paramount plus visit paramountplus.com UFC to get started.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yeah, it was just predicated upon that. But they just waist down. See the fight with Johnny Stereo, he was a, you know, you know, waist down, no kicks. But there was a sanction by the WK that allowed leg kicks, leg sweeps, and that's how I was able to set him up with that. But at the end of the day, I mean, yeah, I mean, so when.

[Joe Rogan]

You say leg sweeps, you were allowed to kick below the knee.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

Interesting.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

You could kick and I would set him up with the kick between the ankle and the calf.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, what's interesting now is like that is one of the primary weapons of MMA now is the calf kick. It's interesting, right, because people kind of slept on the calf kick for a long time.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Well, people that are dancers, they like to dance in the ring. You went for the calf and they were flat footed and they couldn't dance no more. So you want to stop somebody that was dancing, you go right for the calf and they become flat footed. But if you had some people that had good right hands, you kick them in the thighs. They couldn't lean on that front leg to Hit with the right cross. So there was really a method of combat, of warriorship in there that we develop over the years, that we knew how to take power from our opponent.

[Joe Rogan]

It's just crazy that it took so long for MMA to recognize the potency of the calf kick. Because, you know, I talked to Daniel Cormier, who was a two division world champion. I talked to Michael Bisping. Michael Bisping became a middleweight world champion. Never got calf kicked his entire career because the calf kick kind of emerged after he became a champion. Now what's really interesting is what's happening right now. So in kickboxing and in Muay Thai, people thought, oh, the calf kick doesn't work there because the Thais know how to block it. Well, the Japanese fighters, the Kushin guys, are now dominating some of the Thai guys because they kick calves. There's this bad motherfucker from Japan named Yuki Yoza and this, you know who he is? That dude is lighting these people on fire because he's constant combinations and chopping at the calves and chopping from the inside and the outside. With every combination, he needs crippling ties to the point where they can't move and they're getting beat up and knocked down. There's another guy, Masaki Nori, and he's doing the same thing. And he just beat Tawan Chai, who's like one of the best Thai guys. And the way he beat him was brutalizing his calves. Just kicking the inside of the calf, the outside of the calf, stopped all the movement and then caught him with a left hook.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yeah. And that's why, for me at least, going into that fight with Bill Wallace, it was like, if you're not kicking calf, thigh, body and head, it's not international.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Because everywhere else in the world, the. That's what they're doing.

[Joe Rogan]

Because you guys had already experienced that, whereas a lot of the karate guys, they hadn't.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

They hadn't.

[Joe Rogan]

They hadn't experienced it yet.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

So the fight with Bill and I was the first live broadcast on CBS Sports Spectacular to air.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yeah. So. And the irony, you know, and it is what it is, look it, I get it. I think any fighter, any champion, just a fighter, period, rather, you know, get knocked out than get robbed. Right. Knock me out, you know, do it. More power to you. But so then, you know, that was kind of what lingered, lingered within there. And there was a time we were almost going to rematch and it didn't happen. But at the end of the day, the fight with Joe. Excuse me, what's his name. Oh, my God. I'm having a senior moment, Joe. You don't have those, though, Joe.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I don't have them soon.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yeah, yeah, but Johnny's Terrio, you know what I mean? That was the difference in that fight, that I could kick the calf. And so when you got a money move that you've developed over the course of time, because we were Kenpo Shotokan at first, and you know, Kenpo, you had a little flash, but with the Shotokan, it was front kick, it was right leg sweeps like that. And so I was able to utilize that technique. And it worked for me to come back with the hook the way I did. But at the end of the day, man, it's been a long journey from there.

[Joe Rogan]

It really has. Well, we got to see some glimpses of guys who were skillful with leg kicks fight guys who didn't know what to do with them and then their progression. Because a good example is Don the Dragon Wilson when he fought Denis Alexio. Dennis Alexio was a scary man. He was a destroyer. And back in the day when Denis Alexio was fighting, it was all above the waist stuff. And then he agreed to a below the waist kick with Don Wilson, and Don Wilson just took his legs away. He just kept kicking. I mean, Dennis Legso was a tank, man. That guy was a powerhouse.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

We knew him with Don.

[Joe Rogan]

Don just kept chopping at those legs, chopping at those legs. And eventually, Dennis could barely move.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, actually, Dennis ended up fighting one of our fighters.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

No, no, it was not Dennis. It was.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Well, I anyway, use from Australia and.

[Joe Rogan]

Stan Longanitas.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

The Thunder from Down Under.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I remember that dude.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And I think he broke Dennis Alexio's leg.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

His femur.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he broke it with a leg kick.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yes, he did.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. There it is.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Boom.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Right there.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Right there. He.

[Joe Rogan]

I think it was in Hawaii. I think it was his lower leg.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Was.

[Joe Rogan]

It seemed like it was his lower leg. Yeah, right here. Boom. Yeah, he checked it. Oh, yeah. You see a buckling. Oh, God. Was that Dennis Alexio's last fight?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's the last time I've seen him.

[Joe Rogan]

Fight, because, I mean, how do you. Most guys, when that happens, it's over. That's crazy.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Well, Stan the man came to stay at the Jit center for a while, so he lived. He lived in town with us for quite a while.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. My friend Shuki Ron from Majiro Gym said that he was training with Stan Lajanides, and he said he got a hip replacement because Stan Langinides was kicking his leg so hard with the pads on, you know, where they hold this, the shield. He said he had to get a hip replacement from getting kicked that hard. How crazy is that?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, back then, it was not how hard you hit, it was how right you were hitting.

[Joe Rogan]

Sure.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And that. And he. Yeah, man, when he hit, he hit that target right on the money.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, it looked like Dennis was trying to check it, and he didn't.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, even the impact, it was the way he shot, the impact.

[Joe Rogan]

Just sheer power, too. I mean, just right on that. Right on that shin bone. Crazy. Yeah. I mean, it's. But the thing is, unfortunately, what happened was PKA Karate became a thing. Whereas, remember, you had to get a minimum amount of kicks, eight kicks per minute.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

You have to do math while you're fighting.

[Joe Rogan]

But it was also. I'm sorry, a lot of the guys were not good kickers. And so what it became is guys who weren't that good a kicker and then they would box, and it was kind of sloppy boxing. And so it lost a lot of the appeal to the American public, which was unfortunate, because if they just allowed low kicks from the beginning, and we got to see the guys from Japan, we got to see the guys from Thailand, we got to see you guys do all your thing, it would have probably flourished in America and been as big as mma. Because this is something that I've been trying to push with the ufc because, you know, one championship fight, they do a real good job with it. Where they have. They'll have Muay Thai fights, they'll have kickboxing fights, and they also have mma, and they also even have grappling competitions. But I've been trying to say to the ufc, like, if you. Like, a lot of times people boo when people go to the ground. Well, here's a solution. Have some fights where it's just stand up fights. Have some fights, MMA gloves, Muay Thai rules, you know, where you don't go to the ground, like, have that. I mean, it would be incredibly exciting and have, you know, like. Or you could even do a whole promotion of it. But in America, unfortunately, kickboxing, because of the PKA and what they call it, the kick of the 80s, remember back then, that's what they called it, right? PKA Karate, the kick of the 80s.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

Brad Hen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, there was. There was a lot of guys that were really good. Jerry Trimble, he was really good. I met him once on a set. I think we did Like a commercial together or some. I forget what it was, but I met him when he's been doing a lot of acting. But those guys were really good. Of course, Rick Rufus. Rick Rufus was outstanding. And he changed the course of his life. From fighting a tie, too. Well, he got broken down by that one tie dude.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

And had to learn leg kicks and had to learn what that's all about. But if they had allowed that on TV from the beginning, I think PKA karate would have been hugely successful, you.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Know, in the PKA because of Bill Wallace. It was from the waist up. And so my brother and Howard Hanson started the WKA World Karate. And that's when we went to Japan and we started saying everything went. Because in Japan, elbows and knees and so forth, because they're Muay Thai fighters over there. And I figured, okay, yeah, then to me, there's no rules. Let's go.

[Joe Rogan]

It's interesting because in K1, they eliminated the elbows.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

They just wanted less cuts. There were, like, too many people getting cut and fights were getting stopped from cuts.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

And we just want more action.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

But, you know, the really purpose of that is because, you know, the insurance behind it. I mean, people were getting. I mean, I'm talking about just their lips opened up across their eyebrows. And I mean, they were getting from the elbows, like, they were like axes going across your face, you know, with elbows and so forth and brutal.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

But the tide. They wanted to catch you with the elbow because they wanted you to bleed because the fight's over.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, they're so good at slicing.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh, yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Downward angle.

[Joe Rogan]

And that's what really cuts you open, especially to the forehead. And the forehead bleeds like crazy. You know, it's the one decision to benefit. Bill Superfoot Wallace probably screwed over kickboxing in America. Kind of crazy, because then Bill Wallace became the first commentator on the ufc, which is ironic. The first commentator on the UFC is Bill Superfoot Wallace.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I'll be doing.

[Joe Rogan]

Which is crazy, because, like, this is no rules, Bill. Yeah, this is, like, this is. Rules are completely out the window.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

That's right. That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

It's. It's very unfortunate because I think the development of kickboxing in this country has been stagnated, you know, and it had a. It had a shot for a while with Glory. Glory was doing really well in America. They had Last man standing in la. Remember that?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

A crazy event. Amazing event. But for whatever reason, it just didn't take hold. It was so exciting. But it just never. They had it. I believe they had it on Spike TV for a while. It just. For whatever reason, it wasn't promoted correctly or it just didn't catch with the American public. And I genuinely don't understand it.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Couldn't get the sponsorship either, Joe.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, you know, but it's. With the views come the sponsors, right? And it's really just about presenting a package together and making it exciting for people to see. The thing is, with the UFC in America, the UFC is so popular that if the UFC is coming to town, everybody's going to go see the UFC. Every time the UFC's at Philly or Houston, it's like, let's go. And you get. Tens of thousands of people want to come out to see the ufc, but with kickboxing, you gotta sell it on these people. You gotta sell it to them. And it hasn't been sold properly yet. But the thing is, the product is there. There's great strikers out there. Like for Jamie, pull up a clip of Yukiosa. This cat freaks me out because, like, his combinations, man, he's so lethal. And it just. You see guys who just don't know what to do with the fact that he's taken away their legs, like, right away. He does this weird thing too, where he hooks their legs, too, and throws great boxing combinations, too. But he's like. Everything is just constantly chopping at the inside of the legs. He throws high kicks and everything. He's just. And he's just brutalizing these dudes, and it's constant. No matter what he's doing, he's chopping your legs, taking your legs away, going inside, going outside. The kid's very good. And you know, that Kyokushin background, you know, you guys know as well as anybody, it's such a brutal style, and they have to learn boxing afterwards, because the Kyokushin competition is all punches to the chest only. But look, if you can learn how to kick, you can learn how to punch. It's just a matter of putting the time in. And this dude has put the time in. He does a sneaky thing, too, where he throws a low kick and then he hooks their calves. And it works even on the ties. I mean, just when you see a tie getting his legs destroyed by a Japanese, you realize, wow, this sport has really changed.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

That's without a doubt, sport.

[Joe Rogan]

One of the cool things about combat sports is that you see a new person rise, doing something different, and when they do, everybody else has to sort of catch up, and then the techniques evolve and you See everybody rise to the level of whatever this person's at, and recognize that there's new techniques that people are using. Because, you know, martial arts has evolved more since 1993 to 2026 than it did in the last 10,000 years. And it's really because of exposure and because people like you guys went out there in the early, early days and laid it all out on the line to find out. Because when I started doing martial arts was 82, 81 or 82. And back then, no matter what you. 81, no matter what you did, you thought your style was the best, and no one really knew. You know, if you did karate, you thought karate was the best. If you did Taekwondo, that was the best. And there was no competition where everybody went together that we knew of, other than we heard about your fights that you guys had in Hawaii. Everybody heard about that was like, legendary. Like, Benny and Blinky went on a line, they fought everybody. No rules. Like, no rules who won. But we figured, oh, the strikers won. Striking's the way to go. It has to be like, the best strikers won. But then you watch the ufc, like, oh, geez, what are they doing? Like, what is this? Brazilian cat is strangling everybody with a GI on. This is nuts. And it changed martial arts again.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

But, you know, everybody's looking for the next biggest thing. And so far, you know, I mean, where do you go from there from UFC where you can throw ground in, pound and so forth? When you do technique standing, everybody sees it, but when it goes to the ground, everybody's looking at the monitor because they can't see nothing.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And so a lot of people were thinking, it's boring. But they didn't realize there was a skill on the ground. But nobody seen it, and it looked boring, but when you got up. So they were paying some of the fighters to stop the opponent standing instead of going to the ground?

[Joe Rogan]

Well, there's a lot of promoters that definitely encourage fighters to not go to the ground.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And discourage them when they did go to the ground, because they knew they could take a guy down and just hold him down and beat him up a little bit and win. And the promoters, it's like, we're not interested in you. Which I think is not fair, because it's all about fighting. And if a guy can hold you down, you have to figure out how to get up. And if otherwise, we're pretending. We're pretending these techniques work. Because if a guy is like a world class wrestler, some Division 1 All American, he takes you down Holds you down. You gotta figure out how to handle that, otherwise we're lying. Because the sport is about combat. It's about fighting. It's the sport of fighting. Fighting is a man that can hold you down. If he could hold you down and beat you up, why is the referee standing you up? Why is the referee giving you an opportunity to fight? But you have to figure out how to get up. You have to figure out either how to submit him off your back, sweep him, or stand up. Those are the options. A referee standing you up because the crowd's booing, that's crazy.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, that's really true, though. It's. I think that the crowd, you know, they want to see action, and they can't see it on the ground, but they don't realize there's a lot of action going on the ground, but they don't see that. They want to see. You know, it's almost like everybody at a car race, they want to see the racing, but they want to see a car crash, you know, and I don't understand it, but they want to see the car crash.

[Joe Rogan]

They want to see something happen. They want to get excited. But that's casuals. You know, the casuals are the ones that boo when the fight goes to the ground. You can't change the rules for the casuals, you know, but there's. That's the problem when business gets involved in sport.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, you start altering the rules to make it more business friendly, which I just don't. I don't agree with. I just don't think that's the way to do it.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Well, when you're talking about warriors, you know, you're talking about trained samurais.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

They're trained. Hey. To actually get in there and do their job and back away.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

But again, you know, right now, the promoters, a lot of the promoters are looking at, how can I fill my seats?

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, they don't care about the fighting. They care about, how can I bring. Okay, he's popular. He'll bring more people in the seats.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And that's all they're looking at.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, it was my job in the early days of the ufc, when it first got on television, to explain to people what's going on when it hits the ground. So it was my job, you know, back in. I started working for the UFC in 2001. Well, I started in 97, then I started again in 2001. And very few people other than martial artists understood jiu jitsu. You know, I had been training at Carlson Gracie's. And then by the time 98 came around, I was training at John Jacques Machado. So I was training every day. So I. I knew jiu jitsu, and I. And so I had to explain it. Like, I was sitting next to my girlfriend, like, okay, what he's going to do now, he's going to throw his right leg over the side of his neck and he's going to trap that arm. Okay, now he's fucked. Now he's in trouble. Now he's going to hook that leg under his ankle. He's got the triangle. He got the triangle. And I had to get people excited about it. Like, I was excited about it, but also kind of talk them through it because they didn't know what was happening. You had to explain, like, why are his legs wrapped around that guy's neck? This looks gay. Like, what the hell is going on? You know, what is this? And you realize, no, he's cutting off the blood to his brain with his legs. And they're like, whoa, that's nuts. You're like, right? That's what Mel Gibson did to Gary Busey and Lethal Weapon. They're like, that's crazy. It works like, yeah, that's a real technique he learned from Hori and Gracie. And so the early days was a lot of it for me was about kind of explaining to me, to people that are at home, what was happening and talking them through it. Like, that was the main part of my job. Once the fight got to the ground. Now everybody understands now everybody knows what a chokehold is. Everybody knows what a arm bar is. Everybody knows. So now it's just about explaining whether or not he's in danger or he's free, where the elbow is, where the knee is. And it's just kind of letting people know, like, whether or not he's okay or not. But they know what's going on now.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Even though they know what's going on on the ground, they still want to see him get up. You hear the crowd get up.

[Joe Rogan]

You know, there's nothing like a knockout, and there's nothing like a head kick knockout. Head kick. Knockout is the ultimate. When someone lands a head kick knockout like. Like Leon Edwards versus Kamaru Usman, he's losing the fight. Fifth round. Boom. Head kick. You see Kamaru go down, the crowd in Salt Lake City goes nuts. That is the ultimate expression of martial arts is the kick, right? And a head kick that scores a knockout, like, that's a Bruce Lee movie, you know, that's true. That's what everybody wants to see. They want to see it in real life against a trained, skilled opponent. I get that.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's the car crash.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, that's the car. It's the skillful car crash.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Exactly. Yeah. All of it is skillful, but the more they know about it, the more they understand the skill it takes to get there.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

So you shed the light on it.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

You know what I'm saying? Once people like you said understood the damage that's going on and the need to know the technique and that art.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Form.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Makes you the winner, at the end of the day, who's getting their hand raised.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

You know what I'm saying?

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And then you got those that can do both. They'll dazzle you with a spinning back kick to the chin, or they'll take you and put you in a rear naked choke. You know what I mean? So that's the other part of the game. But, you know, when you start talking about back in the era that you understand and we understand, it was the Buddha heart that was the transition, was the spirit of it was the essence, you know what I mean? It was that tradition that really brought more mystique to the martial arts. More tradition in a way that people honored, you know what I mean? So it was kind of like you start seeing the different transitions that came. See what I'm saying? And, you know, it's just like, you hear people, it's like a guy's out, he hits the ground, boom. The referee don't get there in time, but he takes another whack or two.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know what I mean?

[Blinky Rodriguez]

So then that's the part at least. I'm like, wow, man, you want to make sure that he don't get up. But at the end of the day, those couple of extra shots can create the damage. More damage.

[Joe Rogan]

Absolutely.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

More damage.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You see what I'm saying, Joel?

[Blinky Rodriguez]

So at the end of the day, I mean, hey, it's vicious. You gotta be conditioned. I mean, you gotta put in the work. Without a doubt, you know what I mean? Cause exhaustion has made cowards of many.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

You know, so, yeah, I mean, so that whole Buddha heart, that, the tradition, that atmosphere, that spirit, little by little started dissipating, and then the new era starts coming in, you know?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, I believe the injuries that in, you know, the ground and pound or whatever, but the injury even standing up, you know, getting knocked out, standing in, hitting the mat, you know, a lot, you know, a lot of promoters are saying, you know, we want to see that. But again, the insurance Policy, I mean, to get the insurance to cover a lot of these fighters is brutal. Yeah, but you have to be, that's it. It's brutal. And you have, it's a lot of grounding, a lot of jarring of the, of the mind and the body. Eventually it's going to give out, you know, and so some of them don't last two, three years and they're great at what they do, but you know, by the time they finish, it's hard for them to make a living.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Especially if they're married and so forth. I mean, you've got to continue on life so they try to make it safe enough. But at the same time, when it comes down to the art of war, it's mental warfare, it's physical warfare, it's even spiritual warfare, the energies that are coming at you. So educating the public to what it really takes and what it is that we're doing in the ring, in the cage, what is it exactly? Okay, it's entertainment. But there's a skill, there's a skill that we're using to be able to go in there and stop an opponent without getting hit.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, it really is a test of your spirit because it's a test of your spirit just to be able to discipline yourself, to get a condition and train properly. It's a test of your spirit to be able to fight at the level of your actual abilities under pressure. And what I, when I describe martial arts competition, I say it's high level problem solving with dire physical consequences.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Very well put.

[Joe Rogan]

That's what it is. It's just like that's what you're, you're going against a skilled guy who's trying to do something to you and he's moving, you're trying to do something to him. And any mistake, boom. And then the referee's got a light in your face and next thing you know you're like, oh my God, you don't know what happened.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I mean, you have two type of fighters. You have a checker player who take two hits to give one that don't care. And then you have a chess player that don't like to take any and give the 4 or 5 and 6. They're doing combinations. Exactly. They're the ones that do combinations.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that's why it's important where you train, you know, and the gym that you guys had set up, the Jet center, was legendary for developing champions and legendary for teach, teaching proper technique and showing you the consequences of the moves and also teaching people that you don't have to spar to try to kill each other all the time. You know, you could spar. Like, some of the best sparring I ever got was at the Jet center, because the place when I. This is after I've been done fighting. When I lived in Boston, when we trained, it was war. Every time you sparred, you were just fighting. There was no one pulled any punches. No one pulled any kicks. Everybody's blasting everybody full blast. It was terrifying. And you saw a lot of guys get knocked out in the gym, and then they'd be back a couple days, days later, and that's crazy. That's crazy. We know that now. Back then, we didn't even think about it. Everybody just came back. You just came back, you started training again. You had a headache, and you just dealt with it.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Nobody actually understood a concussion, right? Hey, all right. Shake it off. You know, it'll be okay. You know, sit down for a while. Have some water. Okay, back in, right? And so you went back in with a concussion, not even knowing that you had a concussion, other than I had a headache or I was a little dizzy, but I'm okay again. Let me get back in. Because, hey, you didn't want to feel like.

[Joe Rogan]

Hey, I didn't want to feel like a bitch.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right. I can't hang. And so you get back in there with this. And so that's what's going on with a lot of these fighters. They, you know, before they go, I mean, they're training for their fight, and they get a concussion, and then next week, they're going into a fight with a concussion, not even knowing they had a concussion.

[Joe Rogan]

Happens all the time. I know one guy who got knocked out twice in camp, and then, like, one of them was less than two weeks before his fight, and then he got touched on the chin, and his fight just went out cold because he was already fucked up.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

He came into the fight, like, severely compromised. It's like going into battle with a hole in your armor. He was already messed up. And, you know, there's, like, there's a time and place for hard sparring, because I think you have to have some hard sparring to understand that, hey, you can't just block something like that. You're gonna get your arm fucked up. You can't just have your. You're gonna have to deal with the fact that hard shots are coming your way. So sometimes you're gonna have to spar hard. But technique sparring is so important, too. One of the reasons why the ties are so successful is they play spar. Like, they fight every week, so there's no reason to get banged up. So when you watch tie fighters, when they spar over there, they're like, o, oi. They touch each other. They just touch each other. They're not trying to hurt each other. Cause like, once a week they have to go fight hard. So they don't fight hard when they're training. It's like their fighting is like their one hard sparring day. Because some of them literally are fighting once a week. You get these guys that are 22 years old, they have 200 fights, which is crazy. Crazy.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

But, you know, again, if you're fighting for lifestyle as eating for your family so forth, when you go in there, they're fighting, right? There's no sparring session. It's a fight. And that's how they bring home food to their families. So when they go out there, I mean, they're fighting at five years old, they're already trained. Three years old, they're already training by the time they're 10 years old, they have so much experience of the fight. And some of them are done by the time they're 22, 24, you know.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, they've been on 300 fights by the time.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's it.

[Joe Rogan]

It's crazy.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

It is crazy.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. And a lot of it over there is motivated by gambling.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

So when people watch Thai fights, they go, why they take the first round so light? Well, it's because that's when everybody gambles.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And they can switch rounds. Yeah, switch opponents.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, do they? Sometimes.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

That's what I understood.

[Joe Rogan]

They switch opponents in between rounds.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Opponents, my God. Who they're betting on.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, right, right, right. Switch opponents while. Yeah, that they're going to bet on. Yeah, they do that all the time. I mean, there's so much gambling going on. When you go to a Muay Thai fight in Thailand, in the beginning of the fight, you see everybody waving money around and pointing to people, and everybody's like, set in bats. So the first round, those fighters are just kind of like setting the pace and just experiencing each other's timing. And then the second round comes in, all the bets are in, they start ramping it up, and then they start really fighting, which is alien to a lot of foreigners. They go over there and they try to go wild in the first round. Like, you gotta let the bets get in. And they're like, what? What are you talking about? Like, no, no, no. It's an agreement, a silent Agreement. When you go out there for that first round, for that first round, you're just feeling each other out. That guy's not gonna try to knock you out. He's just trying to feel you out. He's gonna try to land some shots, couple hard leg kicks, maybe a teep, but really, he's just waiting for that second round to open up.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Exactly. And that's, again, it's a way of life to them. And, you know, a lot of them, their parents are selling their kids when they're very young because they can't afford.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And they're.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

They're in the.

[Joe Rogan]

And the kids take on the name of the gym, and that's all.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

They're upstairs. They walk, talking, sleeping, dreaming. In that gym. They don't go outside every day. That's all they do. They're trained for fighting. And, I mean, I've been to a couple of them, and that's it. They don't see nothing else. They just train and go upstairs. They do it, and the next day they do the repeating, and then they go to the fights.

[Joe Rogan]

It is crazy because the money from the gambling is what led the sport to be so huge, and the sport becoming so huge over there is what led them to be so good. And that all that money and gambling led it to be one of the most fierce fighting styles on earth. Because while the rest of the world hadn't figured out the knees and the elbows and the clinch and the leg kicks, the ties had been doing it forever. They had already been doing it for a long time. It took a long time for the rest of the world to catch up to what Thailand had figured out just from allowing people to fight for money.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I mean, you're talking about in 75, just understanding the word Muay Thai, right?

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Thinking there was a guy, yeah, what.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

The heck is that?

[Joe Rogan]

That is such a crazy story.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And then, of course, the leg checks, counters, and you start. We started getting the idea, okay, okay, this is how you fight them. And then you have other styles for American bread fighters that didn't have part of that game in their repertoire of Arsenal, you know what I'm saying?

[Joe Rogan]

Right, right.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And I think that's what the other thing that the PK did. It didn't give anybody from the PK a chance to learn, you know, internationally what was going on in the world. Not to put them down, because, you know what? That was all part of us moving forward back in the day, learning. But, you know, when you come up through Shotokan, you're going to know how to sweep, and you're going to know how to front kick, you know what I mean? And so that, that was on the traditional side of the art.

[Joe Rogan]

But yeah, it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate because I, you know, even Dana White, when I talked to him about it, it's like, ah, people don't care about kickboxing. I'm like, it's just because it was sold badly in the 80s, that's really all it is. Like, if it was around today, I genuinely believe it would. If kickboxing had gotten the same sort of promotional push that the UFC got way back in 2001, I think it would be just as big as boxing, just as big as mma. I think it would be huge.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Right now I'm going to agree with you because there are a lot of excellent stand up fighters that are really colorful.

[Joe Rogan]

Absolutely.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And use all their weapons. They can use elbows, knees, feet, jumping. I mean, things that. No, everybody don't do that. They didn't want me to throw spinning back kicks. It doesn't work. I said, really? And I've been showing them for every time they said, I made them eat the words. Because again, the art, if you do it right, it looks fancy.

[Joe Rogan]

It doesn't work if you're not good at it. No, like, everything doesn't work if you're not good at it. You try to punch Floyd Mayweather, you're not going to hit him. It doesn't mean punches don't work. It just means you're not good enough at it. That's all.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know what I mean?

[Joe Rogan]

It's like, it's interesting that people don't see that. Even coaches don't see that sometimes. You know, Terence Crawford learned how to switch hit, you know, because Terence Crawford is one of the best switch dance fighters ever since Marvin Hagler. And one of the reasons why he did it is because his coach told him he can't do that. His coach is like, don't do that. Stay orthodox. Stop messing around. He's like, what? He's like, I could fight this way too. He's like, no, no, no, you can't. He's like, oh, okay, I'll show you. And he would call it, start fight southpaw, and then like, start fucking people up and switch hands on him. And they're like, oh, no. Because it's an amazing skill to have, but it's only amazing if you develop your southpaw style as good as your orthodox style. It doesn't mean that you can't do it. It means it has to be at that leg if you want to land a spinning back kick. It doesn't mean you can't land a spinning back kick. It just means your spinning back kick's not good enough to land. Benny Orquidez can land that spinning back kick.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I mean, I'm softball, I'm a lefty, but I fought left forward because my brother said, don't let them know you're lefty. So he trained all of us, even my sister was lefty and we all trained left forward. But when we struck, you couldn't tell that we're a softball. So we started left handed and working this and. But that was his logic.

[Joe Rogan]

It was also the benefit of that is you had a lethal left hand kick. So your left side kick, that front kick, the side kick from the left side, and the front round kick from the left side was fast as fuck because you're a naturally left sided fighter.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right. Yeah, that's right. You know, I think that it's just each decade as we go, you know, as Blinky was talking about the prosciutto way, you know, there was a, you know, you had honor, there was an honor system and all that. And then in the 70s, it started to change. When full contact karate came in, it started to change. And then kickboxing in 75 and on, people were, you know, we're not martial artists, we're, we're kickboxers. Then Muay Thai came. Oh, we're Muay Thai, we're not kickboxers. And ever then we're UCI fighters were not Muay Thai fighters. I said, you know, so every decade it changed, but again, you needed to learn from ground one and the ground one was internal. The I am concept of what you tell yourself with that, you know, and there was an honor system going on and there was a code of honor between warriors and that got lost.

[Joe Rogan]

That's right.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And there was power in that. There was power in that code of honor, of strength, of knowing. And they said, well, how do you know? I said, I just know. But they said, how do you know? I said, I can't answer you that other than the fact that I just know.

[Joe Rogan]

The tenets of a warrior code that you would learn in traditional martial arts were very important. That's why everybody would bow at the beginning of the class and everybody would kiai at the same time. There was a, there was, there was a rigid structure to it and they would not let anyone trash talk. There would not. There was no yelling and swearing. There was no none of that.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

You don't even wipe the sweat off your head.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. There was bowing and, you know, it was the beginning of the fight. Everybody, like, bowed to each other, went back to the corner. There was no trash talk. There was no. None of that. It was your. Your words will be spoken with your weapons.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's it.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

I wanted to just add, you know, Benny mentioned his sister. Well, I was. We're worn cousins. I was married to Lily. Lily was my wife and she passed away. But she was a trailblazer for women.

[Joe Rogan]

Absolutely.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Boxing and kickboxing.

[Joe Rogan]

Absolutely.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

We were in battles in. Both fought. Madison Square Garden, 1978, you know, also. And just paying homage, you know, because she also pioneered and was taking the forefront, you know, fighting at the Olympic, fighting at the Forum, fought in Japan, traveled the war and fought and represented well and trained hard, you know what I'm saying?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

So, yeah, because actually at the fights, my sister Lily, she actually fought first. Blinky would fight, and then I would be the last to fight. So all three of us, when we traveled the world, introducing kickboxing, my sister Blinky and myself, we all fought at the same card.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

So the night. Bobby Chacon, if you remember that name.

[Joe Rogan]

Bobby Chacon, Sure.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Okay. Bobby Chacon and Alexis Arguello, we fought on their card, both of us. First husband and father, wife. To fight on a boxing card like that. Under that, right there.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And I grew up with Bobby. We grew up with Bobby. He came out of the San Fernando Valley, little featherweight.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, his whole style. He's a bad man.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yeah, his whole style.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I was his sparring partner for a while and started busting up my nose and giving me black eyes. I said, one time he hit me with such a beautiful right hand, my leg came up automatically and he started taking his glove off. I'm not sparring with you. No, I said it was a reflex. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring the leg up. He said. He started taking his glove. I don't want to spar with you no more.

[Joe Rogan]

Did you hit him with the leg or just pick it up?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

No, I picked it up. He hit me with a nice right and automatically my right leg came up. And by then he just. He told Joe Ponce, I'm not sparring with him no more.

[Joe Rogan]

The craziest thing about all this is you guys were trailblazers and there was very little money in it.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me?

[Joe Rogan]

Very little money.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

We paid our own wages to get there, to fight.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

We paid them to fight?

[Joe Rogan]

Really?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

No, we didn't I mean, when I say we did, we paid for our own gas just to go out there and actually fight. So it was very little money.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, there was no money and glory and big houses and cars and the things that fighters look forward today just hard.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, just the love. Just the love of the sport, building it.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, I don't think you guys get enough credit. And it's one of the reasons why I really wanted to have you on to talk about it, because I think the sport needs to recognize the pioneers that blaze the trail. And you two are one of the most important pioneers that blaze the trail in martial arts in this country. And, you know, you did it back when no one knew what was going on. You gotta. People need to understand. 70. Like, when did you guys first start fighting? When did you have your first kickboxing competitions?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Actually, it was in 73. It was called Full Contact Karate. And we already was fighting in 64 martial arts. And that was, you know, bare knuckles, hitting the ground. We were already sparring in then.

[Joe Rogan]

And then no one knew about it back then.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

No.

[Joe Rogan]

We have to realize, like the Bruce Lee movies, when did they start coming out into America?

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Like, when was the early stage?

[Joe Rogan]

So this is like almost 10 years before that.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah. Crazy. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Like real pioneers, man. No one knew about it. That you had heard about judo. People knew about judo, maybe some people had heard about karate, but it wasn't that popular in America.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

The first thing was actually popular was the boxing, Right? Of course, after the boxing.

[Joe Rogan]

Boxing has always been popular.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And then other than all the other sport. But boxing was when it came to the art of war. And then it was judo. And I started actually judo in 60, and then 63, we started Kenpo karate.

[Joe Rogan]

Is that where you met Gene Lebell?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes, exactly. And I tell you what, talking about the master of disasters.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, yeah, he was awesome.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Ponsonagi. Here we go.

[Joe Rogan]

I got a chance to meet him because one of the guys that I first trained jiu jitsu under, I took private lessons from this guy Silvio Pimento. Oh, yeah, you know Silvio?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I do.

[Joe Rogan]

And he's a great guy. Shout out to. And he was a Gene LeBell student. So he had a bunch of nasty tricks that he had learned from Gene Lebel, along with his jiu jitsu stuff. So he showed me a lot of, like, different chokes and different things and different variations that Gene had developed. And I was like, man. And then I finally got to meet Gene. What a character that guy was. He is such a character.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Gene was one of those type of warriors Sensei, that saying, if you want to train with me, don't be afraid to get choked out. And before you can actually train with him, he choked you out. He choked you out. And he would go and get lipstick and put it around your eyes. And then when he wake you up, you had all of a sudden, that was Sensei Jean. And I told Sensei Jing, I said, get it over with, just choke me out. Get it over with. Because I knew that I knew automatically, like he was being easy. I said, just do it. Get over. I said, I'm not afraid, just do it. And took me before or not I was out and I was back up again. I didn't even know I was out. And he said, you took it like, you know, like a charm, man, you know, I said, I said, you know, since then, if I'm not afraid to die, what can you possibly do to me? He said, healing. And I said, yeah. And then he grabbed my big toe and put me in pain all the way up to my forehead, all the way back down to the other big toe. And I said, I'll never say that one again.

[Joe Rogan]

Your big toe. He had a big toe submission.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, he grabbed my big toe right at the edge of it and he put his nail in it and oh my God, my eyes were bulging.

[Joe Rogan]

Gene told me a story about when he was old. He was, I think he was in his 70s. Some kids were breaking into his car and he went outside. Did you hear this story?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

There's two guys who were talking, they're like, get the fuck out of here, old man. He's like, oh, really? He grabs this dude fucking hip, throws him out of the concrete, boom. Grabs the other dude, chokes him unconscious. He fucked up two dudes when he was 70 years old.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

In front of his house.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Matter of fact, I did a couple of movies with him.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

His mother was Eileen Eaton. She owned the Olympic Auditorium. Oh, wow. I mean, the Olympic Auditorium was the spot way back then, man. You had some big time fights going on.

[Joe Rogan]

Big time fights.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Gene LaBelle and always, he was always humble, you know what I mean? And he wore his humility very well.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he was very self deprecating and joking about himself and being silly. But man, you shook that guy's hand, you're like, this is a fucking gorilla. It's Gene there. He is such a great guy.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes, he is actually.

[Joe Rogan]

And he had one of the first mixed rules fights when he fought Milo Savage.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

That even predated the karate fights or the mixed martial arts Fights that you guys had in Hawaii.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

He fought Milo Savage, who was a boxer and he wore a gi. And the GI was so smart because Milo got tangled up in the gi and Gene grabbed him and strangled him.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, matter of fact, it was Muhammad Ali at the time we went to fight in Japan and he was the main event. I was a semi event.

[Joe Rogan]

Was that when he was fighting in Noki?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, he stood on the ground, I, I went and I knocked out my opponent quickly because I wanted to see the fight. So I stopped my opponent.

[Joe Rogan]

Who did you fight? Do you remember?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I can't even think of his name.

[Joe Rogan]

See if you can find the undercard. Benny's fight on the undercard. Because that fight with Inoki was crazy. Like, I don't know how they talked Muhammad Ali into fighting him.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, it was a five rounder and it was, there was, there was not supposed to be no decision. It was five rounder and so forth. And they both got paid great money. But I was telling in the dressing room, I was telling Muhammad Ali, he's going to go for your legs. And he starts saying, I'm so fast. I said, Mohammed, he's going to go for your legs. And I said, sure enough, after I fought, I didn't even want to go to the dressing room. I just wanted to stay there. And when they came out and sure enough, the first thing Tony did, jumped, went to the ground and did a flying round kick to his thighs.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

After the second round, Tony Inoki went out there and started going to his ground. And Muhammad Ali jumped on the, on the corner of the ring and was kicking him on the ground as he was holding onto the ring. It was at the time, it was funny to see it. But after the five round, I'll tell you, Muhammad could, I mean, they had to carry him.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, his legs were up.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh my God.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, they were really badly damaged. And for a guy who relies on his legs as much as Ali did, that's a crazy fight to take. Because if he got side kicked and hyperextended, his knee and it was never the same. Yeah, it would compromise his movement. That was float like a butterfly. That was a big part of his style.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's true.

[Joe Rogan]

And I just can't imagine how anybody allowed him to take that fight. Like, if I was his manager, I'd be like, there's no way you're taking this fight. This guy's gonna ruin your legs.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, first of all, it was always about whether it was about the money or Not. But it was about, you know, doing something different.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And Tony Onoki being, you know, Muhammad Ali here in United States. You know, Tony Onoki was the man.

[Joe Rogan]

He was the man in Japan. Pro wrestling. Yeah.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And so that's why they went and it was packed the place.

[Joe Rogan]

Did you find a video? Is it available online at all? I was looking for the. I mean, I can only find stuff about the. The event was called the War of the Worlds, and they also showed it Andre, like on tv, on the screen. Wow. Andre the Giant. He fought Chuck Wepner.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Wow.

[Joe Rogan]

That's crazy. So that was in New York. Yeah, that was a TV event. It says like 10 rounds direct from New York, and this is 15 rounds direct from Tokyo. Oh. Pay per view or something. Oh, wow. So they even a co feature will appear local to your area. Oh, wow. But there's no video available. Look, I'm still looking, Right? Just their fight, that was for.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That was a great fight, though.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, Their fight was crazy. Their fight was crazy. When you look at Inoki kicking him, you're like, this is just nuts.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

He jumped right to the ground.

[Joe Rogan]

He was a big guy. Oh, yeah, he was a big guy.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

But you know what? He wasn't full Japanese. He was half Japanese, half something else. But he was tall and he had a square jaw that was. And his thighs.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, he was a big dude.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh, yeah, without a doubt.

[Joe Rogan]

Is this the promotion for the fight? Not the actual fight itself?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I don't know.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, there it goes. Oh, it's not showing you the actual fight, but there was a lot of that.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I wonder what. What? They paid Ali to do that.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Because, like, that seems like a crazy decision.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

They took him right to the hospital.

[Joe Rogan]

Look at that. Drops down, kicks the legs. This is it. Lifting his legs up.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I'm in the corner. I wonder if you can see me there, But. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But it's just getting your legs kicked like that. If you don't know what the hell's going on, like, that's going to destroy your legs.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh, yeah. I mean, right after that, went right to the hospital. They had a drain. They had a drain. I mean, his legs were full of fluid. They had to drain it out.

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, man. Yeah, I heard he got infected, too. Didn't he get infected in the hospital? And he was there for quite a while.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

That's terrible, man. That is so terrible. It's just. I just don't understand why anybody. This is 1976.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah. How was the undercard?

[Joe Rogan]

There was Ali the champ back then.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I Think so, I believe. I think so.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow. Just nuts, man.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yep.

[Joe Rogan]

He was wbc, WBA Heavyweight Boxing Champion. Wow.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I trained with Tony Onoki.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah. What was that like?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I'm telling you, the way they trained there, they had these. I mean, working. I mean, they didn't use weights, but the strength. His grip was like a vice grip.

[Joe Rogan]

And they used the steel clubs.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, the steel clubs. But he had all that was just natural movement. And so I even tried. So they had smaller ones for me. But I trained with him for a week. And I tell you what, every day I got up, man, because those muscles I've never used before, Right. Oh, my God.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, a lot of those guys learned strength and conditioning from Carl Gotch.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

And Carl Gotch was a legendary catch wrestler. And Carl Gotch went over to Japan and trained a lot of those guys. Like a lot of Sakuraba. A lot of those guys who eventually became big time mixed martial arts fighters, they started with catch wrestling. And Carl Gotch was one of the beginning guys that came over to Japan and taught a lot of those Japanese pro wrestlers a lot of the different submission holds of catch wrestling. And his big thing was conditioning. Carl Gotch is legendary strength and conditioning guy. Like, his routine was absolutely brutal. In order to be able to train with him, you had. Before you could train with him, he had to know that you were in physical condition. So you had to go through this program to get yourself up to. I forget what the requirement was, but it was some insane requirement of physical conditioning. Before he would even teach you anything. Like, you had to be in shape. Like, you got to have a gas tank, you got to be strong, you got to be agile, and you got to be able to move well.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, my mother wrestled at the Olympic Auditorium. Really? With actually Sensei Jin on the same card. And then my. Actually I fought. I fought there at the Olympic, you know, and. And so. But. And then my sister Lily, she did roller derby at the Olympics.

[Joe Rogan]

That was a rough lady. Yeah, that's crazy. Roller derby's tough, man. I've watched some of that. Yeah, I went to see an event of that live. It's like those girls get slammed.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh, yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

So little quick vignette. Lilly was in a fight on a Bobby Chacon card at the Olympic Auditorium. So they did an article on Bobby, and in the article they mentioned Lily, that she's had over 50 street fights. And when she read that, she was like, why would he say that? Because he was pulling for her. You know what I'm saying? Just crazy. Stuff like that. But yeah, she went in there and she was throwing them down and then out of the ring. You'd never guess it by looking at it, right?

[Joe Rogan]

Never guess it.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Never guess it.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that was interesting because there was no real female boxing presence in this country back then.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

Really didn't exist like before Lily. Like who?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Like there wasn't.

[Joe Rogan]

There was no one.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Lily's the one that actually a bunch of girls got together and Lil is the one that actually started boxing because they were saying women can't box. Women can't box. She was knocking people out. She was knocking men out at the gyms and that's when they decided, well, let's see what's going to happen. Sure enough, she went out there and she was the first woman to have a boxing title, a martial art title and a kickboxing title.

[Joe Rogan]

That's amazing.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

She was the first one.

[Joe Rogan]

That's amazing. And then there was Lucia riker in the 90s, right behind. Fantastic. She couldn't get any fights. Women didn't want to fight her. She was knocking people out dead. And she was a kickboxing champion as well.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

Started out Dutch kickboxing champion and then went into boxing and could never get that fight with Christy Martin. Christy Martin was the big name.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Right.

[Joe Rogan]

And she could never get a fight with her. Yeah, it's like Christy Martin was the first one in America that really broke through and became a famous female boxer.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But before her, and then there was of course Layla Ali and there's been a few other ones. Clarissa Shields, right now, who's the greatest women of all time. And it's like there's, you know, it's those people, they owe it to Lily in a lot of ways. And just like martial arts fighters owe it to you guys. If someone didn't step in in the very early days and blaze that trail, no one's going to find out what's on the other side of the woods.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Hey, Joe. But after you saying that, you know, Sensei Ben is going to be inducted the Saturday, this coming Saturday.

[DraftKings Announcer]

Really?

[Blinky Rodriguez]

At the Martial Arts Museum. So it's going to be, it's going to become. He's going to be inducted to the Martial Arts Museum.

[Joe Rogan]

That's awesome. That's awesome.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Actually we have the first three finger glove. This was in 73. The first three finger glove of striking and grabbing. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that.

[Joe Rogan]

Like in Game of Death, those Bruce Lee gloves. Yeah. That needs to be redone. You know, one of the big problems with MMA today is eye pokes. It's a giant problem, and I think it could be at least 80 solved by covering up the fingertips. We don't need the fingertips for grappling. You never grapple like this. You never interlace your fingers.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

So if you could just cover it up like an old school Everlast bag glove, just do that, because you could still grapple, no problem. It's like if you've got padding over the knuckles, just extend the leather over the tips of the fingers, make it like a mitten, put it under the hand like this so your hand will slide into it. The same way your thumbs will still be free. So you still have. Unfortunately, you'll still have some pokes from the thumbs, but way less when you don't have eight other things to poke with.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right.

[Joe Rogan]

I think that can be done. And I don't think that takes away from the MMA sport at all.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

No. Because again, you know, a lot of them, some, they're striking and they're striking with their fingers open.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And I mean, some of them, I mean, they're, they're. I had this once guy that had his finger stuck so deep that they. They actually had him. I mean, that's how deep his finger. When he jabbed with his finger open.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that happened recently with Tom Aspinall.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

With his heavyweight title. He was fighting Cyril Gane, and Cyril Gane poked him in the eye a couple times, but one time with both fingers in both eyes, he poked him. And his right eye is fucked up. He's already had one surgery. He's gonna have a sex second surgery soon.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

How many detached retinas?

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Over the course of time?

[Joe Rogan]

Oh, a countless number. I mean, you're going to have some detached retinas from fighting, period. There's no way to avoid it. You're getting punched and kicked and elbowed in the eye. It's going to happen.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

But the mma.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes, but it's going to be less of it. I mean, look, Chigray Leonard had a detached retina, and that was just from boxing gloves. You're going to have some detached retinas, but I think you'd have a lot less eye injuries if you covered those damn fingers, fingertips. And it's just we've gotten used to these MMA gloves that they have today. It doesn't mean that that's the only way to do it. They need to figure out another way.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Gotta take care of the fighters 100%.

[Joe Rogan]

And also make the sport better. Because if fights don't get stopped from eye pokes, it's more exciting, it's better. You don't want to fight. Stop from an eye poke. So the fight will go on. They'll be better fights. It's a better product.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

The same thing. Back then they were fighting with 8 ounce gloves, but there were horse hair in it. And a lot of them were putting their glove in the spit bucket. So making the horsehair wet so it get real solid and it start to.

[Joe Rogan]

Guys would cut a hole in it and take their squeezy bottle, their water bottle, take that little. The straw part and stick it in there and squirt water into the horse hair and pat it down.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right. You know, that's what we thought. That's what we started.

[Joe Rogan]

We remember Margarito, he got caught.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

He got caught using plaster of Paris inside of his or whatever. It was something that when it got wet would harden up like a rock inside of his. His hand wraps.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Like hitting them, hitting them with a brick.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, yeah.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's why, that's why the rep. I mean, they would come and check your wraps. They were marker to make sure before the glove going on. Because they were doing a lot of.

[Joe Rogan]

Crazy things, a lot of dirty.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, Margarita got away with it long after people had already been checking things too, which is really crazy.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

But you know, you're always going to have cheaters. That's just how the sport is.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

I mean, you know, it's. Again, when you call it a sport, there's got to be. There's got to be the bushuda way of honor system and respect and so forth. When you're talking about a sport.

[Joe Rogan]

Right.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

But when it becomes away from a sport, then it becomes a money. You get away from that prosciutto way of really code of honor between warriors. Back then, even they're samurais, they're assigned to the dead. But there was a code of honor and they knew what they were there for. Just like you know what you're going in there for. But now there's rules and either you go by the rules or don't do it.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, I mean, I think if people had a martial arts code of honor, it would be just as exciting and maybe more interesting.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

So in agreement.

[Joe Rogan]

And you would also develop a lot better human beings.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

Because instead of a bunch of kids imitating people talking trash, what you would have is a bunch of kids that imitate very respectful martial arts people. Very respectful, true martial artists.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Very well put. Yeah, absolutely.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Therefore, self defense, it's not to be.

[Joe Rogan]

Aggressive and self improvement, you know, that's the other thing. It's like my instructor had a saying that martial arts was a vehicle for developing your human potential. And I never forgot that. I was like, if you could get great at martial arts, you could get great at anything. At anything. It's really just a matter of like taking that knowledge that you learned about yourself and going through the fire and learning how to be a great martial artist and you could apply that to anything.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

It's supposed to be a way of life.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

It's supposed to teach you, you know, about honor and dignity and respect and so forth. That's basically what it was all about.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, that's what it's supposed to be about.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah. And even though it's about defending, self defense is defending instead of, you know, being a striker, learning how to defend it. Slipping and moving and defending. But it got turned around and it became striking, you know, instead of learning how to. Because I would put my money on a good defensive fighter than a striker because it's easy to go out there and strike. But if you don't know how to defend, striking back at you.

[Joe Rogan]

Right. Well, one of the most humiliating things for a fighter is they think they're a good striker and then they get in there with someone who has impeccable defense and they can't hit him at all. And then they get confused.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

They get countered.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, they get countered. They get confused. And you know, it's also, what caliber of fighter are you training with? Which is probably one of the most important things for young fighters to understand. You will imitate the atmosphere of your gym, period. And the level that is the top guy at your gym. That is the level that everybody aspires to. If you are training with a bunch of champions, you're training with a bunch of high level guys who you will aspire to be at that high level. If you are the toughest guy in your gym, if you're the best guy in your gym and you, you're not a world champion, you're not the best in the world, you're just pretty good. Like, you're not going to grow in that gym. You got to get out of that gym, you got to get out of that gym, you got to go find people that are going to test you and put you in danger and put you in a position where you're going to have to learn and grow. And that's the only way.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And that was, that was the Advantage of training at the Jet Center. We had people coming from all over the world, all over the country. You had nothing but people that you had to aspire for. You had to reach for the stars, you know what I mean? Make it happen. And with condition being the name of the game, you know what I mean? So, you know, and from time to time, there was wars in the gym, you know what I mean? But there's other times where there was, you know, we're going to learn today. You're not just going to start swinging from left to right.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, it was the Mecca of kickboxing. And like I said, like, when I was living in Boston and when I was kickboxing in Boston, people would talk about the Jet center with, like, hush tones, like, you gotta get to the jet setter. Because I was telling people I was moving to la. They're like, oh, you gotta move to la. You gotta go to the Jet Center. And I knew about it. I was like, oh, it's one. Like, one of the first things I did. Like, one of the first things I did. I showed up for work. I did all the things that I had to do. I was working on this TV show. Then I went to Van Nuys. I was like, I gotta go sign up.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Come on.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's beautiful.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Hey, Joel, So you mentioned that. And, you know, because you could sling them pretty good yourself, you know what I mean?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Oh, yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And you leaned over and ripped the body shot to that one guy you were. You were sparring with. He went down on one knee. And if I'm not mistaken, you mentioned, man, I thought, holy crap, I'm gonna get shot in the parking lot.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And then he walks up to you and he taps your glove and he says, good shot.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

You see what I'm saying?

[Joe Rogan]

I remember that.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

I was nervous sparring those dudes, but.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

That was part of why I had them there, you know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, it's not about violence. And that was giving them that lesson that they needed to learn, you know what I'm saying? During that time of their life. And now we've grown it into something now where we've done over 200 sporting events with rivals.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Tackle football games. No, no, no. Handball. Well, softball games.

[Joe Rogan]

People need to learn that the division that we have with each other, we look at us versus them, it's mostly. It's not real. It's like they're just human beings. Just like you're a human being. And it's way better for them to be your friend than for them to be your enemy. There's no need to have enemies like that for no reason whatsoever other than tribal gang bullshit. It's not real. It's like. And the thing about martial arts is it teaches you the real battle is inside yourself. The real battle is learning and growing. And unfortunately with young men, like there's this desire to show how hard you are and that you're macho but you don't have any skills. You don't, you're not really macho. So you have to like posture and be louder than everybody else. And martial arts teaches you like, man, your battle is in the gym tomorrow. Like you get back in there tomorrow and get better and then learn why you got hit and then get better and learn why you're throwing your left hook wrong or why you're throwing your round kick wrong and train it and work on the bag and put in your time and you're going to learn and grow and then you're going to realize like, I've been fighting my own self for this whole time. I've been fighting nonsense and I've been making enemies that don't exist.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

We had a guy that came into the gym, 6 foot 3, 230 pound, Mexican American, which was a rare commodity back in 1980. And he had just done five years on a manslaughter and he wanted a box. So I started working with him. Not long after I get a phone call and it's a parole officer. And he says, hey, I hear you're dealing with Alex. And I said, yeah, I'm dealing with him and he's doing just great. I said, you know, I'm a private entity and I'm going to work with this guy. I don't got to chase him. He's in the gym all the time. And so took him to the diamond belt. He won it, took him to the golden glove. He won it, took him to the state title, he won it. He earns the right to go to the nationals in Beaumont, Texas.

[Joe Rogan]

Is this Alex Garcia?

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Alex Garcia. So I was his trainer, manager at that time, all them years, take him to the world. He earns the right to go to the world. Box off, wins the world. Box off, goes to the world Games fights who? Teofilo Stevenson. Oh, six foot seven, Cuban. There was a three time Olympic gold medalist. Alex fights him for the gold on ABC Rally World Sports. Wow. And he doesn't win, but he lost to Teofilo Stevenson from Cuba and he wins the silver medal and he's the first in the Hispanic community in Mexican America, and to win a medal or to fight in even that category, that weight division.

[Joe Rogan]

I remember I was just talking to my friend Joey Diaz, who's Cuban, and we were talking about TFL Stevenson, that. That was the guy that they were trying to get to fight Muhammad Ali when he was in his prime. Because they were like, you know, muhammad Ali might be the best world, but he might be the second best because this is Cat in Cuba that is a bad man. And Tfilo Stevenson was a bad man. He was so good. But he was just locked into Cuba, locked into that amateur program, and we never got to see him fight professionally.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And back then, they wouldn't let them fight pro. Nope. Fidel Castro would not allow that. And didn't he. Didn't he come out with Muhammad on the COVID of Time magazine? Like they were kind of teasing people with that fight, perhaps.

[Joe Rogan]

I mean, there was a lot of talk about it. I remember in the 70s and the 80s, there was a lot of talk about that, about him fighting, you know, and then him. You know, him eventually defecting and coming over to America, but it never happened.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

But the thing with Alex that showed somebody that's gone away and come back home can make it if he could win the silver medal for the United States of America in the World Games. When we had boycott at the Olympics, that was just part of the proof. And so now when you're getting guys into union jobs, you're getting guys with tattoo removal that's going on. You know, you're doing advocacy in the courtrooms, and you're just being able to roll out. There's education going on, and there's a response to yellow tape. The cvi, the community violence intervention programs that are now nationwide. They've become a movement.

[Joe Rogan]

And when you say tattoo, you talk about gang tattoos.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yeah, tattoos. But, yeah, mostly, you know, just things of people's past that holds them back. Yeah. So now, you know, there's another thing that's going on with tattoos, you know, where it's no laser removal. There's some new technology and stuff that I'm talking to people about that you don't have to go through. Getting laser and ow and ooh. And you can hear that laser going off. So what's it about? It's about meeting the needs of people. It's about touching lives. You know what I mean? It's about showing them another way and having the ability to open up a door that they can get through, a path. Absolutely.

[Joe Rogan]

That's the thing about a lot of people, they don't know how to make the first step. They've made some mistakes in their life. Their life is kind of a mess. They don't know the first step. The beautiful thing about a fighting journey in a gym is it allows you a martial arts dojo, allows you a path. You go in there, you start, there's some rules. I'll see you tomorrow. Like, okay, I'll see you tomorrow. And then you're in there tomorrow, and then you start getting a little better. And then you learn growth. And you understand, like, if I work towards something, I could build towards something. And now I'm seeing progress, you know, and now I've got a brown belt, you know, now I've got a black belt. Now I'm a. I could tell people I'm a black belt, like, like I did something, I accomplished something. And I think that's one of the great things about belt systems and traditional martial arts is it gives you a sense that you've got. There's a rite of passage. Like you've made, you've gone through this thing and now you've moved to another level. And now you, you're supposed to behave like you are at a different level. Now you're a senior student now, you know, now you're one of the elite students in the gym. You're held to a different standard. It's very important for people.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, a lot of times what happens is a lot of, A lot of them come in with a lot of emotions, anger, fear, frustration. And especially with the jets gym, we were able to tap in and put fear to them in a sparring way. It would bring all that emotion up. And then we had a chance to reprogram that. That was the best part about the gym, is to bring up what everybody hides until you're threatened, right? Once you're threatened, I don't care what you hide under your bed, in your closet, we'll come up and then you get a chance to reprogram the way you're perceiving it, the way you're looking at it, and help them to heal, not pat it or forget it or act like it doesn't heal it so it doesn't stop them on their journey. And that's what the Jet center was all about, is being able to bring that up, mirror their truth, help them look at really what they're really all about and continue, let them go on their journey. And that's why the Jet center was so successful, because we had A chance to really mirror their truth and bring all that that they hide and bring it forward. And they felt safe enough. They felt, to actually go there. Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

And you get to see them go through that and develop real confidence.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

Instead of this bravado, this false confidence, you're trying to make people feel like you're confident and scare them off. You develop silent confidence. We really know how to fight.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

True. That's true. So that's what. That's what makes the art, you know, so unique, but so needed. And in the art, it gives you a foundation to build on and in your life and no matter what. We've had all walks of life that come through the Jet center, all walks, I mean, and the ones. I mean, we had so many different attorneys coming in, and we used to call them the fighting attorneys. There were six, seven of them, and they were, you know, in the gym, they were so humble to each other. They love each other. They go outside all of a sudden, they don't know each other. I said, what's wrong with you? You just finished spying with them, working with them. And they said, he's an attorney. I said, and. But it brought character out of them. It brought their heart and let them mirror the really truth on their journey and where they were going.

[Joe Rogan]

Also for an attorney to step into that world and be around both these young gang members that are learning a new path and then professional fighters and like, you know, you're in a different world of discipline and willpower and focus that will help you in everything you do, will help you as an attorney, will help you as a doctor, will help you as any in anything you do, and certainly help you as a human. As a human, just get through life. There's nothing that's going to be harder in life than, other than the loss of a loved one, nothing going to be harder than your hardest training session at a real fight gym. It's just that is that makes the rest of the world easy because your hardest thing you volunteered to do and you look forward to doing it again, and you do it every day when you could do. Like I always tell people, martial artists are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet in your life. They're some of the nicest people because they don't have anything to prove. Like, when I introduced my friends to, like, guys, I'm like, what do you, like? I was talking about George St. Pierre yesterday.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yes.

[Joe Rogan]

I was introducing someone to George C.P. i'm like, what do you think he does? He's like, I Don't know. Seems like a nice guy. I'm like, that is one of the baddest motherfuckers that ever walked the face of the earth. He's a two division UFC world champion, one of the greatest of all time. They're like, no way. I'm like, yeah. I mean, like, he's like, how you doing, my friend? Like, super nice, super friendly. Like, yeah. He's got nothing to prove. There's nothing to prove. So he can be a nice person. He can be a nice person and not feel weak.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

He can be himself.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Yeah. Hey, Joe. So, you know, you made mention right now one of the hardest things to do is lose someone. And so, for me, I wanted to share a little bit that in 2023, I got a phone call that was something that I could never anticipate. It was January of 2023, and it was a call that was made. One of my sons called to tell me that he had talked to a friend of ours that does a lot of work with the prisons, has a lot of entrees on big time boards, and that he was at one of the prisons and an inmate walked up to him and asked him if he knew me. So he said, you know, do you know Blinky? And he said, yeah. He says, why? And the guy says, because I'd like to talk to him. And he said, well, why? He said, because I'm the guy that murdered his son. And so my son's telling me that our friend wanted to know if I would consider talking to him on the phone. So I had just entered into a season of fasting and praying, me and my wife, now we're going to celebrate 10 years, Gloria, you know, And I said, I don't know. I was grappling, Joe. I was grappling. I was fighting with it. And then I heard a gentle voice, and it was, say yes. Say yes. So I called my son back and I said, tell him I said yes, but I don't want to talk to him on the phone. I want to see him in person. And so that's exactly what happened on January 30th. We drove up to the prison, and we get there, and first we stop and get something to eat, and then we get to the prison, and the seal is right there waiting. And when we get there, he says, yeah, come on through. And so me and this guy went through, and he says, you know, we don't normally have meetings on Monday, but everything's fine. We're going to be okay. So they walk us through we walk through, get out to the back door, and there's the yard. The yard, the barbed wire, Everything's right there. We start walking. We go into a building to the left. Now, I thought I was going to be talking to somebody behind glass, but it turns out that they're asking me, what do I think about this room? And I'm like, in my mind, why are they asking me what am I thinking about this room? You know what I mean? Because that's up to them. But I look down the hallway, and there's a door. I said, what's behind that door? And the CO tells me. He says, that's a chapel. I said, can I see it? We walk back down the hallway. He opens the door, and there's a podium right there, and there's about 15 chairs. So I said to him, can we use this room? And he said, yes. So at that point in time, I need to go to the restroom. So we walk out of the building. He takes me to the restroom. When we come back out, my friend, the one that was setting it all up, he's not there, but there's an inmate. I can hear him saying, hey, Blinky, thank you for the letter to the parole board. I got a date. But I'm in another dimension, Joe. I mean, I'm, like, somewhere else. So a couple of minutes goes by, and I hear my buddy. And he says, hey, Blinky, this is David. And when I pivoted out, he was right here in front of me. This guy that had killed my son. And the words that came out of his mouth, Joe, I cannot even. I didn't have a second to try to digest it. But he says to me, can I get a hug? And when he said, can I get a hug? I grabbed him and I embraced them. And I began to weep. I began to weep. I began to grab. I began to travail. And he began to weep. And that was a Holy Ghost moment where the spirit of God was moving on that whole issue. And we went from there into that chapel, and we spent a little over two hours talking. The CO that was there and my buddy, they were sitting in the corner of the room. And as I'm talking to him and we're going over because my wife, before I left the house, she says, remember, he was just a young guy. You know what I mean? He was probably confused back then. So now I'm talking to him, and now we're going over different things that took place. And I hear that voice, tell him, talk to him. So I said, okay. I said to him, can I have the privilege of leading you to the Lord? And he said to me, yes. He says, yes. Tears started coming out of his eyes. I stepped a few feet over, I put my hand on his right shoulder over his heart, and I let him. And he began with a contrite heart. He began to weep and cry. And I came to realize, because it took me a long time to unpack, that once I left there and I came home into the chair where I always sit to read and wow, it's like, what just happened? What did I just do? What just took place? And at the end of the day, Joe, it was, I leave 99 to go get one. And that's what I grasped, that. That one life, that one person under the. So that's why I've always said since then that the power of forgiveness is more powerful than my left hook. And I had a good one, Joe.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Daddy did I just.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Nice and short, man. But the power of forgiveness, Joe, reconciled. It gives you a chance, man, to rekindle the fire. It gives you the opportunity, man, to live life without carrying a heavy yoke on your neck that people carry. It's powerful. I can't articulate to you in words what forgiveness is, but forgiveness is divine. The love that's required, the humility that's required to forgive unconditionally. And that's why I trust in Christ.

[Joe Rogan]

That's a beautiful story. It really is. That's a beautiful message. And it's incredibly powerful of you to forgive that man and to be able to recognize that he made a horrible, horrible decision that affected your life and everyone around you. But he's just a human being, and we're all capable of doing something terrible if we're in the wrong environment with the wrong people around us and the wrong lifestyle, wrong decisions, you know, but we're all just human beings.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And that's why I'm still doing what I'm doing. I had to say farewell to my brother Ben, because we owned the jet center together. 50. 50, man. And it was just that type of calling, Joe, that said, go. And so here I am now, 36 years later, hard. You know, it's still jumping and it's still working.

[Joe Rogan]

I went there 32 years ago. That's when I first started. That's when I made my way to la. That's when I first came to your gym and took your classes. Do you still have a gym?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know what? Right now, I'm just doing a lot of traveling. I'm running my documentary Right now and working on the documentary and so forth, and just doing a lot of traveling.

[Joe Rogan]

I've seen a lot of videos online of you teaching seminars and teaching people. You're still doing a lot of that?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

A lot of it.

[Joe Rogan]

Do you enjoy that still?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know what? I've always thought I was a better teacher than a fighter.

[Joe Rogan]

That's crazy. You're one of the greatest fighters of all time.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

The fighting I can do, but the teaching I love, really. I love being able to get somebody and turn them inside out so they may look at their truth and see that we all have talent and we all have a gift. It's just giving a chance to see that. You know, I really take a lot of pride in seeing somebody that I can see that they doubt themselves, they hesitate about. And to go out there and really look at themselves and start to love themselves, there's no better feeling to see somebody come up from being very mink and weak to something that's so strong and doing something great for society and for.

[Joe Rogan]

That's amazing. Do you ever get any professional mixed martial arts fighters that reach out to you for training?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Absolutely, yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Who have you trained with?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Well, you know what? Right now, basically what I do is I don't talk about any of them, I just work with them. And everybody asked me, but I said, you know what? I don't care who you are. I care about what you would think that how I can help you with, if it's mental, if it's physical, because when it comes down to it, 80% of it is mental, 20% of it is physical, but 99.9% of that is spiritual, which is internal. This is what I work with. Iman. And so some of the fighters, I said, I prefer not to know who you are, just other than what you want from me. And from there I can work with you on that. And so a lot of people want me to go and see their fights. Why they're cage fighting MMA and stuff. There was only one time I went. I believe I went one time because in the beginning there were great technicians in that cage, beautiful technicians. And it got lost. It got lost somewhere around. And then every once in a while, you'll find somebody that stands out like a sore thumb. It's just beautiful technique. And you can see they really love what they're doing.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, the young guys coming up today are some of the most technical I've ever seen. Yeah, it's. It's an amazing time because what we're seeing now is these kids that are in their 20s that, you know, the UFC really became popular in 2005 from the ultimate Fighter. So you're seeing kids that were really young when that was happening, and they grew up watching Anderson Silva, John Jones, Vitor Belfort. They grew up watching these elite fight Conor McGregor, and now they are the newest version of that. And the thing about martial arts that's so different is we really didn't have a chance to see mixed martial arts on television at all until 1993. And so you're seeing this incredible. There's no sport other than mixed martial arts where you look back at 1993 and look at it in 2026, and it's totally unrecognizable. It's so much different. But MMA, it is. And these kids are so technical. It's like we were talking about today. The kids of today, they can do everything. They could submit you, they can take you down, they can kickbox with you. They could do it all. They don't have a weak spot in their game. And those are the elite young fighters of today. And we're seeing a lot of those now.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

A lot of them. The only thing you can't coach is heart.

[Joe Rogan]

Right? Right. You can't coach hard. I mean, you can teach it in a way. They can learn it from the pain of not having heart and the. The shame of not having heart. And you decide, I'm never going to be that person again. Like some people say, like, heart is either in. You either have it or you don't. But, man, I don't believe that. I think it's something that can be grown just like everything else, just like technique, just like everything.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Condition does a wonderful job. Right.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

But that's the journey.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes, the journey.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

The journey is finding that that's the journey. You know, the good, bad and ugly shows up, that it may teach you something about yourself.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

And that's the mirroring of your truth.

[Joe Rogan]

What is it like for you two men as pioneers, like real, true pioneers in the earliest days of martial arts in this country to see where it is today and to know that you started those first steps?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, it's for me to start something, but in a way of the Bushuto way, of the code of honor and respect and so forth. This is what I felt that we were doing, building up a way of life where warriors will fight with dignity and honor and respect and along the line when actually, my last fight was in 95, 94, I got my last fight. And then it started to change because the Gracies came in in 90 and 95. It started mixed martial arts all the way up to 2000. And then cage fighting was huge, man. Just everywhere. But I wasn't really. I was following some of it, but I didn't like some of it. It didn't leave a good taste. And. Because when I saw some of these guys were on the ground, just pounding this guy on the ground, I thought, wow, was that me in the street? Once upon a time, when I was young, and I said, so a lot of it. That I didn't want to take their livelihood from them because I didn't want to hurt them to the point where they couldn't make a living if they were married, if they were sis, you know, So I always had that in my mind and my heart. That to me, it was a sport. When somebody hit the ground, I said, get back up. I pinned a lot of people, but to hit them on the ground, I just get back up.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, but it's an important part of fighting.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

That's right. Yeah, that's right. But again, you know, the fight game, again, there's a difference between the fight and the art of sport. Because in the art of sports, I mean, you do a lot of that on concrete and wood. Whole different ball game on the mats. Because there's two different flavors of understanding. One, protecting in the street and hitting that kind of ground and so forth. Because a lot of times at the Internationals, it was concrete. That was in 64, 65, how we fought on concrete, taking down sweeps, but letting it back up. There was a code of honor, even though we swept and took them to the ground, you know, and some will reverse punch to the ground and then let them back up. But again, I just think that sometimes when you're on the ground and there's somebody's livelihood, you know, you're thrashing, and the idea, okay, I understand what it takes, you know, to hold that hand up as a winner and what it takes of the rules, but I've always got turned around when I see somebody jumping on somebody.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, that's understandable, considering in your day, that wasn't. That was frowned upon. Yeah. But today it's one of the most important parts of the sport.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

But as for me, I'll tell you, you know, you mentioned how it felt to be a pioneer, a true pioneer on the front end. I feel privileged to be a part of that. To be. I mean, it was such a robust time. It was so exciting. Exciting. It was rich. There was richness in the air. We were thriving we were pushing, you know, first it was that, the trip to Hawaii where we end up in a semi comedy thing where if you don't knock them out, you're not going to win. Well, by the way, when we got to the airport, Dana Goodson was caddying there, he was taking the luggage and he seen us. Hey, you guys double teamed me, you know what I'm saying? But it was just, the atmosphere was rich, it was thriving, it was special, it was a special time, you know what I mean? And so I didn't want to cheat the game because I knew for a fact the condition was king. Being in tip top shape because there's one thing being in shape but being in tip top condition. Now you almost could radar what someone's going to throw. You could catch it, you could see it, you could feel, feel it, you know. So being on the front end, even though, you know, we got limited recognition, it wasn't always about the recognition. It was about the art, it was about life, it was about how you treat people. And I'm grateful, Joe, I'm grateful because still today it's about people, it's about service, it's about being able to open a door, give an opportunity and touch a life in the same way, you know, Benny's talking about, you know, the emotion and you know, what that allows to happen to an individual's life. Well, we're approaching it in a multi pronged approach, you see what I'm saying? Where the basic needs of opportunity that a lot of people don't get a second look, it's just like next, next, next you take the time to talk to them, you know what I mean? And I want to say this, I want to say this. You wear humility so extremely well. It's really, I mean, I mean, I'm just saying, Joe, you know what I mean? That's what I sense, that's what I discern in my spirit. And I've been running the race a long time, Joe. I've been running the race a long time and there's an anointing that breaks the yoke of bondage. There's an anointing and it flows, Joe. And if I left here without saying that, I would be so disappointed in myself.

[Joe Rogan]

But anyways, well, my humility is honest. I mean, I know who I am and I'm just a person like everybody else. And the beautiful thing about martial arts is it, it teaches you that, you know, it teaches you who you really are. Not, not image and what you're portraying, what Who. What is your real spirit? Like, what are you really capable of? What can you really accomplish?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know?

[Joe Rogan]

And who are you? And you have to learn that. And that's. That's the beautiful thing about hard training and learning and competing is you. You have to learn who you are.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, that's the journey.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah. It just doesn't come without loss. It doesn't come without, you know, you have to go through some shit.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

The good, bad, ugly shows up.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah, all of it. It's. It is a part of who you are. And when you guys are seeing the sport, the crazy thing about your time was that there was no other motivation other than the journey because there was no money, there was no fame. I mean, you obviously got a lot of notoriety and respect amongst martial artists and amongst people like me. But the general public, you know, if I say you don't know who Blinky Rodriguez and Benny the Jet are, they're like, what? Who's that? And martial artists know people who've watched the movies know, people who saw Black Belt magazine, they know. But you were doing it in a pure sense, you know, it wasn't just a vehicle to become famous. It was because you were trying to figure out who's the baddest man on earth. And there's only one way to find out.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

True.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Truth speaks for itself.

[Joe Rogan]

Truth. Truth speaks for itself. So do you have a desire at all to have a gym now? Do you ever think about what it was like when you had the Jet Center?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, there's something that I've been drawing in my mind. Just like when the Jet Center, I was drawing on toilet paper in Japan, actually, in Japan. And I had an idea and I started drawing on toilet paper because I didn't have anything else. So I started drawing the Jet Center. And I told Blinky, I said, blinky, this is our gym. What do you think? And he looked at me and he said, I dreamt about that after I showed him our toilet paper. This is going to be our next gym. This is going to be the gym of what we're going to do. And he had a dream about it right before that.

[Joe Rogan]

Really.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

The Kill Plaza in Shinjuku.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Came downstairs, he was already there to eat. And he says, blink one day. We're not going to lease or rent no more. We're going to own this gym. And he pulls this paper out and says, this is. And he started pointing it out. Jacuzzi, steam room, sauna, cold plunge. And he just start going through it. And I'm looking at Him. And I'm smiling. Ben says, hey, you think I'm crazy again? I said, ben, I dram that gym last night. I dram it, you know, wow. The proof is that it was. What we said is when we walked into that bowling alley at 14540 Fryer street.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Right?

[Blinky Rodriguez]

We closed a two and a half day escrow on that property with $4,000 down.

[Joe Rogan]

Wow.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

And it was that we started a month later with the construction and building of it.

[Joe Rogan]

You can feel it in the building, man. I remember very clearly the first time I walked in the room. I was like, wow. I was like, I'm really here. It was crazy. I didn't get too nervous entering the fight gyms, but that gym, I got nervous because it's like the, the legendary history of it. You guys really did something very, very special. I was real sad when the roof got damaged and it went under. I was like, man, this is the end of an era.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

But to end, to answer your question, I've been doodling again. Oh, but I'm talking about a gym. There will be a safe haven where people will come to learn their truth. Learning defense, self defense, but learning about themselves, mirroring their own truth, that they will be able to feel safe and to be able to release all that people or they've been taught these emotions of anger, fear and frustration. They get a chance to release it and feel comfortable and feel safe enough to do it that they may go on their journey. This is the next gym that I already started doodling at. I didn't do it on toilet paper.

[Joe Rogan]

But actual paper this time.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah, actual.

[Joe Rogan]

Where are you going to plan on doing that?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Actually, that's the key location. That's the key. Because again, this one will be different than anybody's ever seen. And it will be a place to come from all over the world to look, to mirror their truth.

[Joe Rogan]

So do you think you're going to do that in California?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Maybe. Maybe. You know, I mean, born and raised.

[Joe Rogan]

Yeah.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

You know, and, and you can take the kid out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the kid, you know, so we're, we're still. But right now I already drawing. I already finished drawing.

[Joe Rogan]

But hey, California could use something like that.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah.

[Joe Rogan]

Really could.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Yeah. Because I, I've already, believe it or not, I've already done nine pieces of equipment that nobody's ever seen. Five, Five machines that nobody's ever seen. And it's all about a. Mentally, physically and spiritually endurance, you know, to take you to the next level that you never thought you can get there.

[Joe Rogan]

So if you do something, when are you planning on doing it?

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Well, right now, I'm just taking one day at a time because sometimes you go jump ahead of your time. A lot can happen in one day. So I take it one day at a time. But I've already started it, and we'll see where it goes. I really can't answer. You win. But it's on the making.

[Joe Rogan]

That's beautiful. That makes me very happy. Because you've got a lot to teach people, Both of you do. And you, with your outreach, you have a lot to teach people.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

We've actually talked, you know, at one point, you know, about us buying a huge building and having a gym there, but also servicing people there right out of there. You know, the people that come to our office for tattoo removal or moving their lives down, up the road a little bit. All that comes with the programming of the different services. I'm not going to inundate this broadcast with this, Joe, but at the same time, we've had that conversation. You know, it is about humanity. You know, it is about people.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

People need a place. People need a place to come, and they came from all over the world. When they get a chance to hear something like this, they will come from all over the world to mirror their truth, to look at themselves, the purpose and reason why they exist, why they're here, what are they doing? This is the kind of place in my mind is what I've designed. That's why I design equipment and all that for this place.

[Joe Rogan]

Well, that makes me very happy that you're considering doing that. I think that would be amazing. And I think you're right. I think people will come from all over the world to train there and to learn there. And I really hope that happens. I really do. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. It's an honor.

[Blinky Rodriguez]

Thank you.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

My pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. And it's good to see you again. Good to see you, too. Good to see you still bobbing and weeping.

[Joe Rogan]

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

[Benny 'The Jet' Urquidez]

Okay, thank you, everybody.