#794 - Miesha Tate

He's like Metro PCS. Uh-uh. Because I see all those commercials that they do. We live? Right now we're live? We're on the air? Misha Tate, we're on the air. What's up? I just had to let Misha Tate know the world was flat. She didn't know that the man has been holding us down and fucking with us and giving us bad information. That satellites are bullshit and that the earth doesn't rely on gravity but it uses electromagnetism to make sure things get stuck. Where is this coming from? The world. The world. There's a lot of people out there in the world that are waking up. Do you know what being woke is? Are you aware of being woke? No. You don't know about being woke? Jamie's woke. Stay woke. Stay woke. You got to stay woke. Stay woke. So people think that the earth is flat? Yes. You can also use wokeness. Oh, my God. You could use it as like, you could say like, I have wokeness. You know what I'm saying? So it's enlightening. Just because you're the UFC bantamweight champion does not equal your wokeness. So what is wokeness? What is it? You're woke. You're woke. You're just aware. You're aware of all the bullshit that the man has been. Like the earth being round. The earth ain't round. The earth's flat as fuck. The earth is flat, and chemtrails are the government's spray in the skies, and there's no gravity. I actually do wonder about that. Here's square and stationary earth. Oh, is this a new one? That's one of the parts of the theory. You think chemtrails are real? Is that what you're saying? Well, I don't know. I kind of wonder what they are. Like, what are they? That's a good question. That's a good question. I wonder. The problem is when people take that and then they go right to conspiracy questions. Yeah, right. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I have questions. Like, I want to know what they are. What are they? When a jet engine flies through the sky and the jet engine encounters condensation in the atmosphere, it creates an artificial cloud. It's not an artificial cloud. It's an actual cloud. And the cloud is a direct reaction to the jet engine changing the temperature of the air in the atmosphere. It is scientifically proven. It's repeatable. They could do it over and over again. That's why when you see those things in the sky, those things exist when the jet engines pass through the condensation and it changes the temperature. And then they slowly fade away or not, depending upon how much moisture is in the atmosphere. Why do some planes do it and other ones don't? Well, because some planes are at different altitudes. You know how clouds exist in some places but they don't exist in other places? Because in Vegas there's people – well, maybe there's no condensation in Vegas. So I was like, there's flights coming in all the time. And you watch a steady stream coming in. And none of them have it. But then the little I don know they small I don know if they small planes They not commercial planes the little ones Those are the ones that make all the chemtrails So I like does that Well they call them chemtrails I don even know if I technically saying it right now I don know what they are What do they call them? They call them contrails. That's the real, the real, like if you ask a scientist, they call them contrails. If you ask conspiracy people, they call them chemtrails. Because they think they're spraying chemicals in the air. This is something that I had to like deeply study for this show that I did called Joe Rogan Questions Everything. I'm glad you're informing me because I wondered about this for a long time. I've heard so many, I've heard obviously most of the conspiracy part of it. Everybody hears about it. Everybody hears about it. I've heard that they're trying to like control the weather with it somehow. Well, that's part of the problem is that they are trying to control the weather. In different parts of the world, they spray, they do what's called cloud seeding. But cloud seeding is very different than what you're seeing when you're seeing these artificial clouds. What cloud seeding is, they'll spray a certain type of chemical into the atmosphere that will create rain. And they do it in Abu Dhabi. In Abu Dhabi, they actually do it every week. They do it once. So they've done it like 52 times a year. And it makes rain? Yeah. That's been going on for a long time. But that's very different than these artificial clouds that are being created by jets. That's just a side effect of air travel. Can that be good for you, though? The artificial jets are the rain. Rain. The chemical? What is rain? Well, it's silver iodine, I think, and some other stuff. Is it fine to breathe in and stuff? Yeah. I'm sure it's not any better than jet fuel that's burning in your sky above your head. Very true. That's the real problem. Yeah, and the gas driving here and all that good stuff. Well, people that live near airports, they have a significantly higher rate of lung infections and lung diseases and lung disorders. Interesting. Let me just think about it. Now I'm thinking about how far I live from the Vegas airport. How far do you live? It takes me like 20 minutes to get there, 15 minutes. Is that too close? You're probably okay. You're probably okay. Well, I think we're all fucked. Yeah. We're all fucked. We're all breathing in big dust. We're all living under the same flat earth. Exactly. Under the same flat earth. That's one of the problems with the whole chemtrail theory. Like, don't they live down here too? They're spraying the skies. Like, what are they trying to do? And the idea is it's either weather modification or that they're trying to change our behavior. That some people think it's their changing our behavior. I've heard of like it's something to do with crops too or something. They're trying to, I don't know. They're growing crops in Vegas? I don't think they grow shit in Vegas. Temple weeds. They probably grow pot now. There's probably a lot of pot grown in Vegas. There probably is. It used to be so illegal. Like if you went to Vegas you had to be like really careful about having weed But now when you drive around they have these giant weed doctor billboards and shit It really weird It like the call 1 on one side and then Dr Weed on the other side That's a weird place to live. This episode is brought to you by the Farmer's Dog. I think we can all agree that eating highly processed food for every meal isn't optimal. So why is processed food the status quo for dog food? Because that's what kibble is. An ultra processed food. But a healthy alternative exists, the farmer's dog. They make fresh food for dogs. And what does it look like? 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Just fast speeds, great coverage without the premium cost. With Visible, you get one line wireless with unlimited data powered by Verizon's network for $25 a month, taxes and fees included. Seriously, $25 a month flat. What you see is what you pay. No hidden fees on top of that. Ready to see? Join now and unlock unlimited data for just $25 a month on the Visible plan. Don't think wireless can be so transparent, so Visible? Well, now you know. Switch today at visible.com slash rogan. Terms apply. See visible.com for plan features and network management details. Liv, isn't it? It is, but I feel like Vegas is kind of what you make it. It's whatever you make it. Like if you want to go down to the strip and be crazy and be wild and hang out with all the hooligans that are there for the weekend you can But if not like just live in your little house and go hike the Red Rocks and go down to the lake It a pretty barren pretty ugly lake honestly It came from Washington State, so I'm used to a lot of greenery. Yeah. And it's beautiful there. And we've got the San Juan Islands. And you can go whale watching. And it's just gorgeous. But it rains way too much. We have a national rainforest up there, too. It's beautiful. Yeah, I'm a big fan of Washington State. Gorgeous. The rain can fuck with your head, right? Yeah. I couldn't, I lived there for, I mean, I was 18 before I moved to the eastern side, which is very different. Actually, a lot of people don't know this. So the mountain range divides the state in half. And on the east side, eastern side of Washington, it's super dry. It's like desert-y. Like there's actually tumbleweeds and sand dunes and all that. It's completely different on the other side of Washington. The moisture comes in from the ocean, hits the mountains, rolls back over, rains like double duty on the west side. And on the east side of Washington is really dry. And you're from Spokane, right? No, I'm from Tacoma. Tacoma. To Compton. To Compton? Is that what people call it? That's hilarious. Yeah. Is it ghetto? Yeah, it is. It's pretty ghetto. But I lived on the, it's really big actually. It's, I think if I'm not mistaken, I should probably know this things, but I don't pay attention to a lot of things as you'll probably find out. I don't know a lot of statistics and stuff. I'm kind of like, well, it was fly by the seat of my pants, like whatever's going on. It's cool. But I think it's one of the biggest like circumference, like the widest cities, like not most populated, but like most area in Washington. Anyway, so I live on the very outskirts, like near Puyallup. So I grew up on like five acres and like I had some land. I wasn't like in the heart of it, but it's a pretty cool place. So going from there to living in Vegas. But I guess like as you're a professional fighter, your days are probably so filled with training and recovery and eating. like how much time do you have actually have to even be in the city that you're in like none when i'm in camp yeah really not much um maybe on the weekends sometimes that's what's nice about it too is you can go down there and um just enjoy a comedy show i mean you come through often like a lot of acts come through kind of heart comes through a lot of musicians a lot of concerts so it's nice because everyone comes to you essentially you don't have to go travel to see anyone so if you want to just set the cup down for a minute and like take a break from the train game I want to go ride the the you know the big Ferris wheel that they have there the link right yeah they want to go ride that or do whatever you know it's nice because there's so much going on as long as you stay outside of it The link. The link. Right. Yeah. They want to go ride that or do whatever, you know. It's nice because there's so much going on. As long as you can stay outside of it. Right. Like you like in Henderson or something like that? I live in Mountain's Edge. So, yeah, for the most part, I don't ever even see this trip unless I'm driving by it and like to go visit the UFC offices or something like that. Well, it's a good place to live as a professional fighter, right? Because there's a lot of gyms there. There's a lot of great training there. There's like across the board. Strength and conditioning. 100%. Muay Thai, boxing. Well, and it's the home of the UFC. So it's nice there, too, because there's a lot of extracurricular things that I get to take part of because I'm local. I get to do a lot more charity things with the Boys and Girls Club. And just going and being a part of the UFC, I guess. I get to do more things. That's cool. Yeah. Now, your life is very different right now than it was a year ago. It is. How crazy is that? Yeah. A year ago, you were talking about not doing this anymore. You're like, I got to figure out what I'm doing. I was frustrated. And now you're the fucking world champ. I know. That's where I am. Talk about a freaking 180. Yeah, my career and life couldn't have been different a year ago than it is now. How strange is that? How that can just like that? Change in an instant. You just never know. What does that feel like? It's like when you wake up in the morning, you have to go, okay, there's the belt. I wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy. No, for real. I'm happy it's um it's enlightening it's fun it's it's great to be the champ I I love it honestly it's a completely different feeling and yeah you know a year ago I was so frustrated because you know when I lost to Ronda the last time I knew I had a long road you know and to to work my way back up but I thought I had done that and when I beat Jessica Ai it was announced like you know this is going to be the number one contender eliminator fight and then afterwards they're like yes it is you're going to fight Ronda then I felt like the carpet was kind of just pulled out from under my feet because they were like, just kidding. Holly's, you know, Holly's fighting and they announced it without telling me. So that's why I was so upset. Cause I was like, I don't take this shit lightly. Like I was training my ass off already. I'd already reached out to a girl in France. I can't say her name right. I think it's like Javri, I don't know, some French name, but she beat Rhonda in judo. So I'd already like been making plans with her to train with her and fly her over here. And she was changing things. Then I was like, I feel like such an ass. Like, I feel like an idiot. Like I look like an idiot. because here the announcement was made and I didn even know So I was kind of upset about that But you know we talked about it and we smoothed over and and I took it personally at the time but I don think it was meant personally it was a business decision and I understand that that at the end of the day that's what it was and it all worked out so the UFC is in a weird position because they're both a promoter and sort of a sanctioning body yep and that's really rare in matter of fact I can't think of any other sport where that exists yeah you know they have just this ability to decide Like they'll they'll just decide like this person gets a shot like the whole Conor McGregor situation is a perfect example of that. Yeah. Like all of a sudden if he had beaten Nate Diaz or if he had beaten Dos Anjos like Dos Anjos didn't get injured and he beat Dos Anjos. You fucking know for sure they were going to have him fight Robbie Lawler. Yeah. Like for sure. And they were just going to like figure out a way to do something with 145. And why wouldn't they do it if there were business people because that's where the money is. I mean, if he had beat Dos Anjos and then went on and fought Robbie Lawler, Jesus Christ, I mean, you're talking like a five million pay-per-view buy event. They'd have to do it. It would be insane. But if that was like a sanctioning body, like you've seen it before in like boxing, like someone won't take a mandatory challenger and they get stripped even when they just won the title. It happens all the time. Like where a fighter would just win the title and then they have this mandatory challenger who nobody knows. And they'll go, fuck that fight. I'm going to go fight Canelo Alvarez. I'm going to fight this guy or that guy. And then they get stripped. Because there's like five different sanctioning bodies. Boxing is way more of a mess. So there's pros and cons to doing it the way the UFC does it. But from a point of view of someone like you, it's probably much more frustrating. Well, you just never know what to expect. You get curveballs all the time in the UFC. You don't know what to expect. A lot of people were so pissed off at me for the Holly Holm not having the rematch right away. But it's like it's not my choice. you know yeah why would they piss off of you i don't know because they think that i like turned it down or i should have went in there like guns a blazing for holly and like put myself out of my shield like no we have to have the holly rematch you guys you don't understand but um yeah they call me up i'm like amanda july 9th i'm like okay yeah how do you say no to ufc 200 how the fuck do you say no no you don't you can't say no if that's what they come up with you're like i'm in. Yeah. And you know, it's like, dude, relax. Most people don't get immediate rematches in their career. Like unless you are Conor McGregor or Rhonda or, you know, someone that's really got a presence you don get an immediate rematch Like I didn when I went back in Strikeforce when when I lost to Rhonda I didn get an immediate i never gotten immediate rematch in my career i would have loved to immediately rematch cat when i lost to her but you don get it sometimes you got to work your way back up and you know hope for the best but we will i'm sure we'll fight each other again she's fighting a valentina shinshenko now yeah that's gonna be in chicago right yeah it's gonna be on the rumble johnson glover to share a card which is whoa yeah whoa that's gonna be crazy it is And they're both southpaws and strikers. It's going to be interesting. Yeah, Shevchenko's tough as shit, too. She's like a bulldog. It's going to be interesting. She's very physically strong. The way she fights, she's very physical. I feel like they're kind of both. I was just watching her fight with Amanda again the other day. I think I only got through the round and a half before I had to go because I was doing the Fox show the other day. And we announced the fight with Holly. That's why I was watching Shevchenko. And she seems like a counter-striker too, though. I always wonder when you get two people who are counter-strikers but elite strikers, what happens? Well, Holly is much more of a kicker, and Holly also is much more fleet of foot. So it's going to be interesting. But Holly's not weak either. She's very physically strong. Super strong. It's going to be an interesting fight. That's a really good fight. And for Shevchenko, it's super important. She's had a couple pretty good fights in the UFC, but this is the big one. It is. No, this is like the chance to put her on the map. Is it headlining? Yeah. Yeah? So it would be a big one. Is that the main event of that card? I believe so. I think that's the same card as Rumble Johnson and Glover. I can't imagine that that fight wouldn't be the main event. But I don't know. It might be on... Is it on Fox? Yeah. Is it a Fox one? Mm-hmm. That's going to be a big fight. It will be. It's an awesome card, period. That Chicago... Because Chicago's awesome. I love Chicago. Oh, my God. It's one of my favorite cities in the world. Have you ever had Molly's Cupcakes? No. You were going to say Molly. Are you really into cupcakes? Like you have this nickname, Cupcake. Is that real? Yeah. Are you a cupcake fan? You know what's weird? So recently, probably the last month, I've been working with a new sports doctor, Dr. Edwards, and he's changing my diet, which is great. So I've been eating more of a high-fat diet. Oh, okay. You know. Ketogenic? Yeah, ketogenic diet. And I've been staying away from a lot of sugars and stuff. And I feel really good. So I haven't been mowing down the cupcakes recently. But in the past, I've been known to put down, you know, a couple. And the moment you said ketogenic, there's thousands of people listening to this podcast like, no, not again, because it comes up so often because I've been doing that for five months. I've been eating nothing but that. Like, that's how I eat. Right. I lost like 10 pounds Yeah Brian lost so much weight on this diet Like his camp before was a struggle to get the weight down because he really big for 135 He gets up to like 165 He can get up to 170-ish. Yeah, I remember when he was making the cut the first time. I was like, ooh. Yeah, it was hard. But this one, he switched to that with a little bit of carbs. Obviously, if you're an athlete, you have to have some carbs. You can't do strictly fats and whatnot. But anyway, his weight has flown off. He's way ahead of schedule. He's doing really good. We're pumped about that. I'm eating shitloads of fats too and staying lean and healthy. I feel good. Do you do – what protocol are you following? Is it 60% fats, 30% protein, 10% carbs? No, I'm not that scientific about it. I kind of just listen to my body and I just eat what I feel. I feel like I've been doing it so long that I just kind of have a natural sense. it's like if I'm hungry then I just choose to eat something that's more fat based than something that's sugary or carby like what kind of foods are you gravitating towards so recently I've been so stoked about liver mousse liver mousse yeah it's like pate yeah yeah they're delicious like if you go to whole foods you go to the cheese section they have these little packages of moosed liver and they have different flavors and I got like a truffled one I think I ate almost the whole thing in one sitting, but they're not that big. I mean, they're like, you know, but I mean, it's kind of a lot of fat and the liver is really, really good for you. It's got like vitamin D and tons of vitamin C, I guess more than carrots. Like liver has crazy amounts of vitamin C. So it's like a super food. My doctor told me, I'm like, I'll eat whatever. I tend to like foods more when I know they're good for me too. Something like mentally in my brain just tells me this is good for you. You like it. Really? Well, I guess if you train as much as you do, that does totally make sense. Yeah. And beets. Beets. Beets are great for you. Beet juice. Oh, yeah. That sounds fantastic for you. Beet juice also, it mimics things like the endurance properties of things like certain mushrooms. Yeah. Like if you take beets, like Rich Roll, who is an endurance athlete, was saying that he found like significant advantages in taking beet juice. And that like blending beets and like a kale shake or something along those lines really gave him like an extra boost in training. Yeah. This is a little company called love beats. I don't know if they're little they could be big love beats You see a lot of a lot of them at the Whole Foods to have like the Cansby's and I was doing UFC embedded and I had beats on my salad I don't know if they're little. I don't know if they're little. They could be big. Love Beats. You see a lot of them at the Whole Foods, too. They have the Cansby's. And I was doing UFC Embedded, and I had beets on my salad. And then they reached out to me like, oh, we saw she had beets on her salad. We want to send her out some beet juice. Maybe she was having Love Beats. Well, actually, it was Love Beats. And they sent me out this. Oh, man, this shit's delicious. It's so good. And they have one that's beets and ginger. They have one that, oh, my God. It's to die for. I love it. Yeah, all that stuff. Like anytime you can get like powerful natural nutrients like beets and ginger. Yeah, and they come in glass too. Oh, okay. Which I'm kind of like, I kind of got on that glass. Drinking out of glass instead of plastic, I kind of got on that train a little bit. I don't know if you're on that yet. Well, it's definitely smart. I mean, plastic for sure can leach some chemicals. Yeah, we can taste it sometimes in the water. And I'm like, I feel like if I can taste it. And our body's made up so much of water anyways. So I think with a better water you put in your body, it makes more sense, right? For sure. I don't know. Well, the real issue, I think, is when people leave bottles of water, plastic bottles in their car. Yeah. And they heat up. Yeah. Well, think about how they get transported. It's not like they're in a cooler. Very good point. You know? I mean, you drink them cold. If it's cold, you don't taste the plastic as much. So they sell it to you cold or you put it in the fridge and you drink your water bottle and you don't really taste it as much. But if you let it get to room temperature, just buying it from the store, you'll probably taste some plastic. I wonder if anybody's ever done any studies where they've taken just arrowhead water and, you know, Fiji water from the shelf and just tested it and see how much funky shit is in the actual water itself. Yeah, I wonder too. But just the fact that I can taste it sometimes, like, I think I'll go with glass. It's like more natural. It's better for you, right? Yeah, for sure. So do you eat a lot of avocados, MCT oil, coconut oil? 100%, yeah. MCT oils. I've been digging this. Are you into turmeric? Yeah, sure. And curcumin? Curcumin, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the Dr. Rhonda Patrick show. Oh, my gosh. She blew my mind. I've listened to that episode like five times. She's been on like four times. I was obsessed with it. And I still have to go back over them with like a fine-tooth comb and write notes. I just downloaded the second one. So I've listened to the first one like five times. So I figured, like, I think I got enough of the information finally. She's so freaking smart. And then now I downloaded the one before the last one. So I'm about to listen to that one. Probably on the flight home. Yeah, she's spooky smart. Yeah. So she was talking about all that. And my sports doctor is in complete agreeance. So anyways, I don't know where I was going with that. What did you ask? Oh, eating. Oh yeah. Coconut oil um curcumin or turmeric and ginger I make like a tea in the morning and I eat that I like blend it up so it frothy and delicious Speaking of not eating a lot of sugar though I did UFC tonight last night and then we did Tough Talks and the kid Khalil, we had a cupcake eating contest. Oh no. Oh my God. I was wrecked for the rest of last night because I haven't been eating sugar. I'm competitive, So I'm just mowing down these cupcakes. How many do you eat? So they gave me like smaller ones for the weight class discrepancy. What? I know. But you know what? Actually, it was kind of a disadvantage because I had to peel more of them. I had to spend time trying to peel them out. So I think I ate four and then my esophagus just shut. And it was like, eh, like no, you're not swallowing another bite of this. So I shoved three more in my mouth and just like held them in the last 10 seconds. I was like shoving them in my mouth. So I think it was seven, but I spit three of them out. Now when you say your esophagus shut, was it like you couldn't swallow? Did you have milk? I did have milk, but there was just too much. There wasn't room for milk in my mouth anymore. It was just all cupcake. It was like I couldn't like. It was hilarious. The video is on my Facebook page if you're interested in watching. It was pretty disgusting actually. What did you feel like after it was over? Oh, I felt terrible, honestly. Like, I was, like, shaking. I was, like, uh. I was, like, I feel, like, I kind of had a gut ache. I was, like, this is a really bad idea. Isn't that weird that you could have eaten those things, like, a year ago? No problem. No problem. And then I just mouth four mini cupcakes, and I'm feeling, like, garbage. I was on the diet for a long time, and then I had a cheeseburger and a malt, like, a big-ass chocolate malt. And I was, it was a huge malt. It was, like, that big. It was all sugar. It gets you. I was wrecked. Sugar is kind of a devil, honestly. It is. But you just get used to it. That's the problem. And when you're used to it, your body seems like, ah, this is nothing. So when people, oh, here you are. Here you are eating a cupcake. See, I tried milk. Look at how full my mouth is. Watch. And they're counting down. I'm like, oh, God. This is so ridiculous. It's so gross. Oh, it's disgusting. It's disgusting. It's terrible. I like Kenny with the referee outfit on. I have three cupcakes in my mouth right now. My lips are literally bursting. like see if this was Fear Factor we would have made you swallow it and open your mouth that's the only way it counts I would have speaking of Fear Factor I always wanted to do that show I used to watch it all the time I would have talked you out of it like I could I could eat that disgusting stuff you think you could I think I could well you could probably eat some of it I ate some of it Really I was going to ask you What was the most disgusting thing that they made someone eat you think Blended stuff was the worst. Like, blended. The blended bugs and stuff? Blended pancreas and different disgusting, like, blended spleens. And there was some. And you know what's really interesting is one of the ways we made things more disgusting was expensive cheese. Like if you go to, what's it called? A fromage? I don't remember. I have an expensive cheese story. Do you? Yeah, but go ahead. But anyway, they go to this Beverly Hills store that sells like super expensive, like primo French cheese. And it smells like donkey dick. It's so bad. You open up the tub of it and you go, what in the fuck is wrong with French people? How are you eating this? This is mine. That's my disgusting stinky cheese story. It was in France. The first time I went to Paris. it was over Valentine's Day and Brian and I were on this really beautiful dinner boat thing and you know they bring out all this food and we're eating foie gras and like whatever and they bring out cheese and I am a cheese lover like I love cheese I could never give up cheese it's the one I would I would venture to say you know especially now for sure I'd pick cheese over cupcakes if I had to cut something out of my diet bye-bye cupcakes like I'm eating I'm sticking with the cheese anyways they bring this cheese on there's three of them one is fine the other one's like It's a little stinky, but I think I'll try it. The other one smelled like a rotting carcass. I kid you not. I believe you. It smelled like someone ran over roadkill, and then they served it up two weeks later after it had been in a steamy sock. I was like, people eat this? I'm like, what's wrong with it? I was like, get it away. I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole. It smelled so bad. There's a place in Beverly Hills where we used to send the people that work for Fear Factor to buy it. and you'd walk by this place and just they'd open the door and you'd be like, what in the fuck is in there? And meanwhile, people are paying a lot of money for this stuff. Oh my God. If it smelled anything like what that smelled like, I might have struggled to eat it. I bet it was the same stuff. I mean, I don't know what it was called. I would have to call my friend David Hurwitz and ask him what it's called. I like to think I'd be able to eat anything. I don't know. Well, you're pretty mentally tough. That's the thing. I'm sure you could get through it and then after it was over, you probably blank out that section of your mind that deals with that and just go into the zone, throw it in and then you're like, am I good? Yeah and then you run over to a garbage pail and bah That what happened I saw more people throw up than probably i would say like if you like look at my like me and like maybe catch cafeteria lunch ladies we probably seen the most people throw up in the world oh i bet i can't see i saw fucking people throw up every week i saw people throw i became completely immune to throw up you know i think would be more gross than the blended stuff i feel like as long as there was enough liquid to be able to to just swallow it i think I get through it, but I think what would be hard for me is the crunchy bugs. They're easy. Really? Well, for me, because it's- Bugs don't taste like anything. Yeah, but it's not the taste. Texture. Not the texture, the sound. The sound of it, like the shell crunching and then the guts exploding. I don't know. We were just talking about this- This is a disgusting topic. No, it's not. But that's like my- That's like- That or the big old caterpillars where they pop in your mouth. Oh, yeah. Like hearing something like that, I think is what would get me. I ate a tomato hornworm. That wasn't the best tasting thing in the world. No, yeah. That one popped in my mouth. Yeah, see, that's those things. I think that would be a little hard for me. But it's nothing. It's like that gum. Remember that gum they used to have that had the squirt center? It's good for your breath. You remember that stuff? Yes. Do they still have that stuff? I'm sure they do. That gum is like a tomato hornworm. You pop it, except it doesn't taste good when it squirts. It just tastes like, but it's like neutral. That would be a struggle for me. That's just my thing. I don't know. That's my thing is like anticipating the pop or the crunch. I'm telling you, you would just do it. I'm telling you. Yeah, I probably would. It's nothing. The bugs are nothing. I was in Mexico recently and they serve crickets. They have crickets like it was a snack that they left in the hotel. Yeah. Like fried crickets. I don't know. I guess if I could do it at my own pace and they were cooked crickets, I'd probably try one. Yeah, but it's not. It's pretty adventurous. Fear Factor's not at their own pace. Yeah, exactly. That's half the thing. That would be the thing. That you only have a certain amount of time. I remember one where they stuck like a, what are those? I don't know. It was like those spiders with like super long, long legs. Yes. And it was like trying to crawl out of the person's mouth while they were eating it. African. That was just like, oh my God. That would be... African cave dwelling spider. I ate one of those too. Really? Yeah. I ate a lot of shit. Well, it's alive. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Threw it in there. Chew it up. Can they bite you? They tried. Really? Yeah. I felt like a little pincher on my lip. Are you serious? Yeah. But I'm death. You just mouthing. Yeah. I mean, it's between me and a spider. You imagine being a poor spider, just some fucking gag for a TV show and someone's going to eat you. But um yeah the most bugs don't taste like anything I bet the ones that are really bad or poisonous They probably would fuck with you like if you ate a black widow probably tastes like shit nobody ever had But yeah, most bugs don't taste like anything. But yeah, most bugs don't taste like anything. I bet the ones that are really bad are poisonous. They probably would fuck with you. Like if you ate a black widow, it probably tastes like shit. Nobody ever had to eat like a live snake or anything like that, did they? No, no. Well, we can't give any. Like do anything with animals? We did. We did do some stuff with snakes. It was really interesting what people would get upset about and what people wouldn't get upset about. Like PETA, they would get really upset if we did things with rats or things with rodents. were particularly problematic. But people didn't get upset about things with bugs. There's a really clear hierarchy that people have with life. And people just don't seem to get that upset about bugs. But certain animals take... I kind of still almost feel bad if I was to eat a live bug. Part of me would feel bad. Really? Yeah. I don't know. What about lobster and throw lobster in a pot? Oh, I feel bad about that too. Do you? Oh, yeah. I prefer to just kill it real quick first. And then I'm fine with it. I think they're meant to be eaten. I'm fine. But hunting, it doesn't bother me. Like, but the the idea of them maybe experiencing an excruciating amount of pain before. Like, just just like stab it in the head real quick and then it's dead. You killed it humanely and then eat it. No problem. Right. I don't care about that. But they say that lobsters can't feel pain. But I say bullshit. I say bullshit, too. How do you know you're not a lobster? Have you ever been a lobster? No. In a past life. Yeah. It was pate. So I just say err on the side of caution. Just kill it first. Yeah. We used to go crabbing up in the San Juan Islands. We'd catch fresh Dungeness crab. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. We'd cook it within like an hour. They taste so much better that way. It's incredible, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Brian can't eat seafood to save his life at all. Like, he cannot stomach it. Like fish? Like he can't eat salmon? Anything out of the water. Anything. Even like seaweed. What? Anything that comes from the ocean. Psychologically? I think part of it's psychological. He just doesn't like it at all. He thinks it tastes disgusting. Like the taste of the ocean, like you get a lot in fish skin or like seaweed, anything that tastes, resembles the flavor of the ocean, something watery. He hates it. Is he from Washington State too? Yeah. So is it like an overdose of fish because everybody's up there eating fish all the time? No, because he lived on the, he lived in like the central Washington area, right on the other side of the mountain. So it's a little more like grainy and dry and a little bit farther away from the water. But he ate Dungeness crab. this was going to get back to you is that that crab that we caught that day and killed and boiled. And we had this sweet butter to dip it Well yeah actually like he ate it I was like yeah it was pretty good That the only seafood thing he ever eaten in his life that what is this jam what this video you showing me swarming crabs on a seafloor what you seen this oh my god is that real thousands and thousands of crabs where is this is uh off the coast in panama it says holy shit what kind of crabs are these does it say red red crabs red crabs i don't know the difference but and they're just covering the floor like sand. That's insane. When I read this, they said they didn't know what it was. They thought it was just the moving sand on the ground until they got to put light on it, and then they saw that it was crabs. Wow. Are they little tiny crabs? Is that what it is? I don't think so. They look actually like, I think they'd be pretty big. Crabs are the cleanup crew. Crabs and lobster. It's interesting how good they taste when you consider what they do. They just basically eat rotten things that sharks leave behind, other fish leave behind. They're just the cleanup crew. Yeah. We're like, gotta be grass-fed beef, but we can eat shit-eating crabs. Now, that's so crazy that Brian doesn't eat any seafood. Because I would imagine that, especially considering that he cuts so much weight, that would be a good source of lean protein. Nada. It's fish. His friends wanted to mess with him one time, and he was at a restaurant, and one of them had salmon. Brian's one of those guys that doesn't even want to look. If you're eating seafood, he doesn't want to look. What? yeah he does he's just so like so grossed out about it and um so he got up to go to the bathroom and i guess i wasn't there i wasn't dating but this was a long time ago i guess they picked up a piece of the salmon and like rubbed it all over the rim of his cup of milk and he smelled it and then through it like he went to take a sip he almost just he just like lost it because he's yeah he smelled it and i don't know did someone like force feed him a fish when he was a little kid or something i don't know i kind of wonder something traumatic had to have happened eddie bravo's got a weird thing like that really like yeah onions if you give him onions he'll fucking freak out. What if they're cooked? I don't think you can even eat them cooked. Really? Yeah, apparently he had a douchebag for his stepdad and his stepdad used to make him eat ceviche and the onions in the ceviche to this day just freak him the fuck out. He can't have onions. I have a thing with that with the chocolate flavored things. What? Yeah. What about cupcakes? No. You can't have chocolate cupcakes? Really? No, I don't like them. What? How the fuck do you not like chocolate? I don't like chocolate ice cream. I don't like but I like like milk chocolate No that is a freak Yeah no no I okay with this as long as it not anything chocolate flavor It has to be real chocolate It can be anything It such a weird thing But the thing is I was really sick when I was a little girl I was like five or six years old I almost died. I went to the hospital. I had to get a spinal tap because all my veins had collapsed. What? Yeah, I got really, really sick. What was it? I had Rye. Rye syndrome. I don't know what that is. I don't remember exactly the details about it. R-Y-E, like the bread? I don't know. Look it up really quick. It's bad, though. It almost killed you. Chicken pox. And then I had a form of hepatitis. Hepatitis B. That's what I had. All three at the same time because my immune system was down from the chickenpox. And then I caught that and then I caught hepatitis B. And yeah, so my parents took me obviously to the hospital and they couldn't. They had a phobia of needles for a while too. They got an IV in me barely. And you know how they're supposed to leave the IV in you and then like they change the tubing? Well, the stupid nurse pulled it out and all my veins were so collapsed they couldn't get a needle in anymore. more so they would come in i was just passed out they would come in on the hour almost every on the hour and i would wake up to like 10 or 15 people holding me down oh felt like 10 or 15 i was five it was probably like three people but i just see lights and i'd see people holding me down and they'd be trying to stick needles in the top of my hand in the in my ankles and the tops of my feet behind my knees like and they just hold me down trying to get fluids in me because i couldn't keep anything down. And so finally it was so bad that, um, they told my mom to like call it, you know, if she's religious to call like her pastor and like have them come. And like, they were like, yeah, like she's going to, you know, so they brought me in to give me a spinal tap. Oh my God. It was the most painful thing I've ever experienced in my life. Cause they take fluid out and epidurals, like I hear really painful too, but it's an injection as opposed to like removing the fluid, which is more painful. I don't know. I remember feeling the most excruciating pain in my life and then passing out. I was so weak anyways. It was pretty terrible. It was back to the chocolate part of it. Before I went to the hospital, I was running such a bad fever and I was throwing up and my mom thought, you know, let's give her ice cream. And she had like some Neapolitan ice cream downstairs. And she had, it was like the really cheap guy. We didn't, I didn't grow up, you know, with a lot of money or anything like that. We struggled. So it was like the cheap fake strawberry, the cheap vanilla and the really shitty cheap chocolate. And I had tried to eat some of the strawberry and the vanilla and I fell asleep and I woke up and I was really hungry and really thirsty. And I went in that all the chocolate had melted. So it was like a soupy bowl of warm ice cream And I took tried to take a bite of it because it just a little kid and I lost my shit I puked everywhere And to this day it ruined it for me like ruined anything chocolate flavored, but I can do like dark chocolate, a real chocolate, but it has to be quality. So if somebody brings you like a soupy bowl of Neapolitan ice cream right now, you just, yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it is mentally fucked me forever. Look at the definition. Jamie, pull that back up again, please. Look at the definition of rise disease. I mean, it's, look at this. Rare but serious condition that causes swelling in the liver and the brain. Yeah, I had liver damage. Like they said it was permanent. Whoa. Most often affects children and teenagers recovering from a viral infection, most commonly the flu or chicken pox. That's amazing. I've never heard of that before. I didn't even know that. I never looked it up. But I knew that I had some liver damage. They actually told me to. Aspirin's been linked to this. Look at this. Use caution when giving aspirin to children and teenagers. And that's exactly when, that's why. Yeah, that's why that happened because my mom told me she called the hospital and asked them, like, my daughter has chickenpox. What should I give her or whatever? And they're like, oh, just give her aspirin. You know, give her some aspirin to help her with that. And that's what caused that. And then it was just bad. It was really, really bad. It's so weird that it's connected to aspirin. I wonder what the fuck the factor is. I didn't even know that, actually. But I just know that, like, that I had that and then I had liver damage. They actually told me that I would probably never be able to excel as an athlete because of that. because of your liver damage yeah because the liver and like i don't know if maybe that's why i'm like so maybe you should show up maybe i shouldn't blame blame my like my my lack of uh of paying attention to situations and knowledge of things i can never remember people's names maybe i would say i get punched in the head for living maybe it was that like brain damage and liver damage all those things can't be great but if anybody said that you would never make it as an athlete yeah they told me like yeah yeah exactly the doctors were like yeah she's probably We can always have an issue as an athlete to excel. Now, have you ever got a liver toxology examination or something like that? No, I never had. Seems like it would be a good idea to do. My mom always told me, she's like, you should do visualization of your liver healing itself. So I used to try to envision my liver growing. Oh, you had one of those moms. Yeah. She never told me to visualize anything else, but I remember that now. This is bringing back memories. She's like, you should try to think about your liver being healthy. I don't know if it helps. I use visualization now a lot. Visualization absolutely is beneficial. I mean, the mind has all sorts of weird properties. I don't know if it helps. I use visualization now a lot. your liver being healthy. I don't know if it helps. I use visualization now a lot. Visualization absolutely is beneficial. I mean, the mind has all sorts of weird properties that we don't totally understand. That's why placebo effects work. We don't know why they work, but it does work. It's statistically proven that if you have a positive attitude and you believe something can help you, it can help you. But the problem with that is people use that as like an excuse for charlatans like psychics and palm readers and tarot card readers and and healers like healers are a big one there was a guy that was working with a bunch of ufc fighters back in the day that people would call like the witch doctor and this guy was like doing all these like these things do you remember george saint pierre um not not do you remember george saint pierre obviously but you remember george saint pierre um they had this thing that they used to do with him when they would like rub his back and rub his sternum they had like i never understood what it was yeah it was like this voodoo shit that this guy had talked these people into doing like a bunch of fighters like even fucking randy couture was going to this guy really yeah and the guy turned out to be a total hoax i met him and i just like right away because i'm so used to hoaxers i'm so used to being around bullshit artists and examining them as soon as you started talking about like the meridians of the body and this and that i was like oh you're full of shit you're full of shit and you got deep in with these people you're rubbing on them and you're opening up their chakras oh fucking for sure you are well it's like those people that do the funny like chi videos i feel like it's like a cult almost sometimes these people they're like you know i can make someone flip over by just doing this or like whatever they do the weirdest things and the people that that they convince to like it takes two to do that obviously because it's not real right so the person doing it and the person getting the move or whatever done to have to you know that person has to agree to do it yeah and then it's always so funny to me when you see them get approached by someone who doesn't believe in that that at all and they're like fucked up they're like okay do it to me and they're like okay and they really they really like think that it's gonna work and the person's just standing there and they're like no it's not working they're like it's not working oh you know well they think it's gonna work they think it is gonna work like even the bullshit artist thinks it's gonna work or you ever see the guy that was like trying to chop uh chop uh was it those um not a pineapple i say pineapple but a coconut trying to chop with like his hand He was trying to set like a world record You guys should pull that video up It hilarious For chopping coconuts With his hand With his bare hand He was like a karate guy Did he break his hand He chopped the boards I think he might have Yeah I don think you could break a coconut with your hand No. And it was funny because he had a news crew there and he had 20 coconuts set out on this bar. And he starts just hacking at one. Hacking at one. Hacking at one. Yes. And it... Well, you watch the video. It's hilarious. I mean, I'm like... Why does this guy think that this would work? He's one of these guys. I'm telling you. Oh, he's got a karate outfit on. And look, there's a metal bar underneath that. So watch. When he misses. Oh, no. No, no. He misses? Well, yeah. Oh, fail. He does miss. Oh, my God. He hits the fucking. Oh. Fail. Oh. Fail. Oh, my God. He hits the bar. Look, his hand's hurting. Oh, yeah, for sure. He had to pull away. He doesn't want to do it again. He doesn't want to, but he's like, I got to. And he's like, okay, no. She stepped in. Thank God. Why was he thinking that that would work? Wouldn't you practice that before you got on television? You imagine thinking that you can karate chop a fucking coconut open. How about just hit the earth and wake up people in China? The fuck is wrong with you? That's what I'm saying, though. So, yes, the mind is a very powerful thing. Well, there's a gang of videos of these guys that are doing those chi things on people. And then their students fall to the ground and start twitching. And there's a great one with this guy in Harlem. Had this, like, kung fu school. And he had all these students. And he's like doing all this like literally like Dragon Ball Z type shit on them. Like, ah! And they would fall to the ground and start twitching and spasming. And it's like really shitty acting. But they are into it. I think when you're in a cult like that, and that's what a lot of those martial arts are. They are a cult. I think almost all traditional martial arts have cult-like attributes, which can be beneficial. like the discipline and the desire to please your sensei or your your sobom nim or whatever you want to call them is like it's intense and you know yes sir and they bow and all this stuff and they really believe that their instructor cannot do any harm there's like a lot of good in that because it makes you like have this really intense desire to succeed and this intense belief in yourself but it's not realistic obviously in a lot of traditional martial arts and until the UFC came around we didn't really know how unrealistic it was yeah but if you remember like Pat Smith when he fought that ninja guy and like UFC one or two I think it was UFC two I remember which one it was but he fought some guy and this guy was doing these like in that you remember they used to have the video video of the guy training before the fight and the guy was like throwing all these techniques around flipping people to the ground and grabbing their neck and fucking karate chopping the top of their head and they'd fall to the ground oh the ufc has come a long way long way in a short amount of time right i mean think about like football from 93 yeah and then football in 2016 it kind of looks like football. Still the same. But the UFC in 93, look at it. It's chaos. But Pat Smith was a real fighter. This is the guy. Look at it. He just came charging at Pat Smith and tried to... I don't know why he clinched up with him. I just know his name. And Pat Smith got on top of him and he just dropped elbows on him and smashed this poor dude's head open. It was awful. Look at this. 12-6s were still allowed then. 12-6 is the dumbest fucking rule. Oh, don't get me started. Look at this. And this is the best part about it. Pat Smith walks off and the fight's not done because he's a kind man for walking off because the referee is saying the fight's still going on. Are you serious? Yeah, yeah. Oh, this poor guy. Yeah, that guy got smashed. What's this guy's name again? Oh, no. We don't even need to bring up this poor guy's name. But he probably thought, it was big John McCarthy all lean and healthy looking. He probably thought that it was real. He probably thought that what he was doing was real. And he didn't know until he got in there with a guy like Pat Smith that what he was doing was just some malarkey, some mall, strip mall malarkey. There's a lot of that out there still to this day. It's amazing. Yeah. It kind of makes you wonder sometimes the world that we live in. Well, it's that same. It's the mind, like the belief in what you can do, what you can't do. Like it can benefit you, but it can also fuck you up. Like it can benefit you if you're talking about your own health. like if you really believe that something's healing you it can heal you but there's like physical limitations you know like if you believe that melvin manhoef can kick you in the liver and nothing's gonna happen guess what that's not true you can chop coconuts with your hand oh that guy there's so many of those people though so many of those weird one of the first podcasts i ever listened to of yours was a guy talking about a cult that he had been involved in i can't remember his name either but it was like it was really fascinating he was talking about his story and how they basically took him in. And you remember what I'm talking about? Oh yeah, Steve Hassan. Yeah, he's actually a cult. Is that how you say his last name? H-A-S-S-A? Fascinating, though. And how they really warped his mind Like he really got into believing that his family was against him And now that he removed from it he like I was totally mind manipulated Yeah He in the Mooney He was in the Mooney That's where, that's what he joined up with. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, it's a weird story because that guy now works to help people get out of cults. Well, he should go help some of these, these high G people. I know. I'm sure you've seen the one with the old Asian man who fights the young karate guy. Have you ever seen that one? This guy, they show him with his students and he's doing all this stuff and they go flying across the room and their body twitches. And he decides to have an actual no rules fight with this young Kyokushin guy. And this Kyokushin guy just fucks him up. Grabs a hold of his shirt and beats his face in and high kicks him. And it's so brutal because the man looks like he's like in his late 60s. Yeah. He looks pretty old. Yeah. And not stout. And it's not like, you know, a healthy old 60 either. He looks like he's got a little pot belly. And this dude just beats the piss out of him. And a guy like a beating like that from a young, strong guy who was much bigger than him, too. The guy looked like much stronger than him. Like, that's not something that old guy is going to recover from. Like, he might be fucked forever from this. That's terrible. But in his mind, he thought that he was going to fucking kung fu this dude. Do you believe it? Like, have you ever researched much about hypnosis and how? I've been hypnotized. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, Vinnie Shorman did it. Well, Vinnie Shorman, I don't know if you know who he is. He works with a lot of fighters. He worked with Joe Schilling. He's worked with a lot of MMA fighters. And he does what he calls himself a mind trainer. And what he does is he can talk to you and put you in a state of mind. it's a very weird thing like it's not what people think it is it's not like take off your pants suck my dick it's not like that like you're you're aware kind of but it's like an altered state of consciousness it's almost like he puts you in like it's like you're under a drug or something like that so so i i just recorded a podcast i just started my own podcast and what is it how do people find it misha tate the misha tate show get the fuck out of here what did you come up with that name i don't know man i'm starting to think about that one a lot how about the cupcake hour. Right, the cupcake hour, yeah. So I sat down with Marc Savard, who does a comedy hypnosis show. Oh, okay. He's been doing it for like 10 years on the strip. And absolutely fascinating. When you think about the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, and how the conscious mind really is kind of the tip, just the tip of the iceberg, but there's so much more. on the strip and absolutely fascinating when you think about the conscious mind and the subconscious on the strip and absolutely fascinating when you think about the conscious mind and the subconscious mind and how the conscious mind really is kind of the tip just the tip of the iceberg but there's so much more beneath it and your subconscious mind is we're talking about how the power of mind and he says you kind of go in and out of hypnosis states all the time like when you're driving and you start daydreaming or you know you're sitting you just kind of space out you're not really looking at whatever you're looking at anymore you're in you're in a daydream yeah or at night You know, that's kind of a state of an awake hypnosis and that you can kind of go in and out of those yourself. You do all the time during the day. But a hypnotist can kind of guide you into that and then plant certain good seeds. You know, I guess they're bad seeds if they wanted to, you know. But I always thought of that, too, like a kooky guy who's going to, like, make you do dumb shit while you don't know what you're doing. But that kind of was fascinating to me because he talks about how he helps people who have, like, phobias, for instance. Someone who has a phobia of a dog. He's like, so fear is like one dog. This dog bit you when you were a child. You're scared of that dog. Phobia is this dog bit you and you're scared of all dogs now. Some people are so terrified they get these phobias they can't even leave their house. They're so scared of their neighbor's dog walking by and that's going to jump out of anywhere and bite them. So they're crippled by these fears. And he could put them in a hypnotic state and kind of go back and remove that fear essentially. That makes sense. I mean, I think that there's, as he said, there's a bunch of layers to the mind. But I think that one of the most fascinating aspects of it is when they do those comedy hypnotism shows. Those comedy hypnotism shows are 100% real. I've seen them live. There was a guy named Frank Santos who was a big comedy hypnotist guy in Boston. And his son still does it, Frank Santos Jr. But Frank Santos would do this show, weekly show at Stitches. and all these comedians, we would come from all over the town to watch this because we couldn't believe it. We'd be like, how the fuck is he doing this? And he would get people, and he would know when they were under and when they weren't under. He would know when people were faking it and when they weren't, and he would get them off the stage when they were faking it. But the people that were really under, you could see they just were baffled. And he couldn't explain why it would work on some people and why it wouldn't work on others. He didn't really know. Yeah. I asked Mark the same question because he'll invite as many people that want to volunteer out of the audience as you want. So he'll get 30 plus people up there and he'll just pick people off as they aren't into it. But he has people doing the craziest funny things. Yeah It so funny It bizarre because you like how are all these people in on this Well they not They really do Frank Sandoz used to have this person This is like in the 80s back when Madonna was hot If you said you're going to have sex with Madonna now, guys would go, hey, what the fuck? She still looks good for her age. For her age. She does. That's the big part, though, for her age. She still looks great, but everyone knows. Even if she looks great, everyone knows that bitch is like 60. I say bitch with all due respect like a bad bitch but you would watch him he would talk someone into believing that they were having sex with Madonna and these guys would orgasm in their pants so you would see them go he would tell them and now you're going to come in your pants and you'd see the guy go when you're watching it you'd be like what in the fuck is this real you almost want to go dude I want to see inside your underwear let's see it Yeah, let's see if it really worked. I want to see if it worked. Let's see the proof in the pudding. But Frank tried to explain it to us. He had worked with people where he would help people quit smoking and things along those lines. But until Vinnie Shorman did it to me, I had no idea. So I still haven't been hypnotized, but I think I'm going to try it. Well, he's going to be in the United States. I'll connect you guys together. You would like it because he's used to working with fighters, and he's great about setting a mindset. I think Ian McCall worked with him too. But he's great about putting you in a certain state of mind and working on various aspects of like maybe your performance or your attitude. That's what I'm interested in. Yeah. It's interesting. That's all about staying woke. Woke. Stay woke. I've been woken. He's trying to woke you. I want some wokeness. You've got to achieve wokeness. It's super, super important to achieve wokeness. Yeah. I mean, the mind is a really fascinating thing. And I think that especially for fighters, I would have to say that it's just one of the most important aspects of your ability to perform. Like physically is one thing, but the ability to like you're inside the cage, the pin goes into the gate. Are you ready? Are you ready? Let's get it on. I mean, that is the craziest moment in all of sports. There's no moment like that where you I mean, think about like a basketball player, basketball players. even if there's a lot of pressure for a three-point shot if you miss that three-point shot you're gonna get another shot somewhere in the game someone's gonna hand you the ball luckily or if not someone's gonna hand you the ball tomorrow or someone will hand you the ball next week but if you say if you fight you know there a huge difference between team sports and individual sports too for sure to the death there's nothing as extreme as a cage fight yeah when you guys i have to laugh when people say like that we're scared to fight someone you know like people are like oh you're scared to fight holly again like you can't listen to those people scared is not a relative like it's not a term that i feel like fighters really we don't we don't have scared the way normal people have scared you know yeah like a normal person would be scared to to to get off their couch and go to the gym, you know, to, to spar or something like that's what we do. Like we live like what most people would, you know, shit their pants to do on a day. And you would have to be a fool to not know that it's a dangerous fight. So it's not a matter of not being aware of the danger, but it's a matter of managing the consequences or like, I think you did a fantastic job with the Holly fight. Like literally you did in that fight other than the fifth round, which is the most amazing part of it, but you did everything. Like when we were talking about like what you have to do to beat her, I'm like, she's got to stay on the outside. She's got to vary her rhythm. And she's got to let Holly come to her. Like, she can't rush in. Because if you rush into Holly, it's like rushing into Machida or rushing to anybody who's a great counterstriker. You saw the Ronda fight. Ronda just came bulldogging at her and tried to out-bulldog her. And you can't do that with Holly. She's too fast. Too good of footwork, too. Her striking is so precise. Her counters are so clean. And her movement's very hard to read. Like, it's very unpredictable. I remember a couple times I tried to maybe come forward and get her to the fence, and I couldn't tell whether she was going to jet out to the right or the left. She was just like two steps back, left. And I was like, ah! I was like, ah! I couldn't even tell. She gave no indication of which way she was going to go. Yeah. Well, you just did a fantastic job of varying your approach, too. Your speed was different. You did a lot of fainting. You varied things up a lot. And you could tell she was almost waiting for these moments to happen when you're going to come forward, and then you wouldn't come forward. and then it becomes like a test of patience. Like who's gonna get outside of their comfort zone? Who's gonna take chances? Who gonna engage And she also has that weird stance too where she kinda halfway stands like a boxer and halfway stands like a karate person Yeah She throws like a lot of sidekicks a lot of front leg techniques Yeah. She's a tricky one. But we put together a really good game plan. I was happy with that. Fuck yeah, you did. I was happy with that. But it was the fifth round. The fifth round was crazy. God, when you grabbed a hold of her and then eventually got her back and got her to the ground, it was so crazy because every aspect from your initial entrance to the takedown to getting her back, there was nothing 100% about it. It was all touch and go. It was all a scramble. It wasn't like you had complete total control over maybe like Damian Maia versus Rick Story. Damian Maia gets Rick Story's back. He's got him locked up, and then he anacondas him and squeezes him, and then he gets him. It wasn't like that. It was like you were fighting for your fucking life. And you knew. There was no time. There was no time. You were likely down by at least one round. And you were headed into the fifth and final round. And maybe if you won that round, you could have got the decision. But fuck, you're fighting the champ. Who knows? Who knows what's going to happen? You take her back. And then when she tries to shake you off the top and you hang in there and you hang in there and you see her. And I watched it. I'm like, oh, my God, she's going to go out. And when she went out and you climbed off her and she was unconscious, like, holy shit. Holy shit. What a moment. That was incredible. It was incredible. It was one of the best moments in all of women's championship fighting as far as like an extreme, extremely dramatic moment where you're trying to accomplish something. She's fighting tooth and claw. Neither one of you are exhausted. So it's not like anyone's like physically compromised. It's just a fucking mad scramble between two killers. And you get her. And you got her back. And then you get her back. And you sink the choke in. And she's trying to fucking shake you off. And you hung in there. And when she rolled and you're on top of her and you hung on to it and you realize like, oh, my God, she's going out. And she didn't even tap. She was throwing punches in the air while you were choking her unconscious. I kept thinking to myself, I'm like, when is she going to tap? It didn't in my in that instinctual moment. I'm so used to in training you get people in a choke You know they tap so I'm waiting for that tap and I'm like good God like when is this girl gonna tap like I know I've got her when is right, you know tap and it and then then I felt her like I saw her You know from my peripherals kind of do do something I wasn't quite sure if she was tapping or what she was doing until I watched the video later And I felt him pull me off and I'm like that's the feeling that we fight for is that her, you know, from my peripherals kind of do something. I wasn't quite sure if she was tapping her, you know, from my peripherals kind of do something. I wasn't quite sure if she was tapping or what she was doing until I watched the video later. And then I felt him pull me off. And I'm like, that's the feeling that we fight for is that feeling that that feeling of like, I did it, I established my dominance. You know, it's a, it's a, you know, it's a prideful sport in some ways, you know, it's hand to hand combat with someone else. It's like, you know, I did it tonight. It was better. It has to be prideful because otherwise there's just certain sacrifices and certain fires that you're not going to walk through. Like, you have to have every fucking motivation. You have to be zen, but you also have to have an ego. There has to be so many things going on for you to achieve that highest level of greatness. It's like walking on a tightrope. Yeah, oh, yeah. There's people that are just like that perfect balance. You know, they're walking between buildings that are, you know, hundreds of stories high. You know, and then it's like, it's kind of like that. I mean, you have to have the perfect balance and everything has to meet perfectly in that moment, including the training camp not over training did you ever hear that video that um the video is not that good but the audio is is awesome it's between the fourth and fifth round and it's my corners what they're telling me between the fourth and fifth round it's such an emotional video for me when i watched it it makes me relive that moment and brian came in there and essentially he was like misha you've got to get after you gotta you have got to put your chin down and mike tyson this chick and that basically means just get after her like get get in there get after it take the risk risk getting knocked out go for broke and um it goes you know plays into the round and basically he was just telling me like fucking mike tyson or like get after her you know bulldog or do whatever you've got to do he's like because you're running out of time and i remember in that fifth round still trying to get out of that that mindset of like i have to find the perfect opportunity i have to be patient because the whole training camp was you know patient but persistent you know patient but persistent no one run into anything because you you know you'll get caught you get knocked out, you'll get need, you'll get kicked, you'll get punched. So don't do that. But you got to look for the opening when it's the right timing. It's all about timing. And after I took her down in that second round, and I just beat her up that round. She was so, so cautious in the third and fourth and so perfect. You know, her game plan was perfect, too, to beat me to stay just far enough out of the range and keep me from not wanting to come in. I couldn't find a perfect opening. I couldn't like get in on anything. There wasn't mistakes that she was making. and then in the fifth round I just decided you know you gonna have to you gonna have to take the chance of getting knocked out this is this is what it boiling down to now You got like three minutes left on the clock and now it do or die It either you go for it you do rush in she catches you you get knocked out you know you gave it everything you got, or you've got to make something happen. You've got to finish the fight. The question was really like whether the second round was a 10-8 round. On all three judges' scorecards it was. Yeah, us watching it. That's what the judges said. Yeah, well, it should have been. But what I meant was the question watching it was like, when you were headed into the fifth round, what my question was, was I wonder if she got a 10-8 round for that second round. Because if she did, then this is an even fight. So what's happening right now? How are the judges looking at it? Technically, going into the fifth round, it was even. Yeah. It was tied. That's crazy. That was such a crazy moment. That was another time in the post-fight interview where I almost cried like a bitch. I get so emotional. Yeah, it was incredible. Well, it's so hard to explain to someone when you're there and you get to see someone like you who's worked so hard for something for so long. So when I said to you, how does that sound? What does it sound like? You're the new women's bantamweight champion of the world. What does that sound? And you were just so overwhelmed. It was so crazy. Just to be right next to you while you were saying that. when you said, I've been waiting for you to say that for so long. It was a crazy moment. It was crazy. Yeah, because you know what's crazy? You talk about the mind and the power of it. I had visualized that moment so many times that I felt like I was confused and that it was hard for me to distinguish that that was the real moment. I would imagine it was so intense. It was so surreal. I would imagine to this day it probably seems fake. Yeah, it's really weird. Does it? Yeah, sometimes I have to go back and be like, man, that really did. It really happened. It really happened. Right there. Oh, I was pumped. Jay, you think? Yeah. I was so excited. If you had like, if auras were real, you know, like fucking if you had chi, it was coming off your body. For sure. I would have blown back the whole stadium. Everyone would have fallen over and been shaking. Papers flying, cups flying through the air and the carpet would rip. Goodness. That was the best moments of my life for sure. I can only imagine. I mean anyone that watches that sport that moment when you choked her out and the whole exchange of the fight even like that really the whole fight because a fight is like I mean in a weird way I mean, we call this martial arts and there's a lot of people that have a problem with that. But in my mind, there is an art to what you guys did in that fight and even what Holly did, because up until that fifth round, I mean, like you said, especially the third and fourth, she was doing what she wanted to do. So she was, and there was a display going on. There was a performance going on, on top of this being a competition. To watch it, as someone sitting there watching it and calling it, I mean, this is a work of art. And to have it end that way is such a masterful performance. It was such a masterpiece moment. And to me, it's like one of the best moments in MMA. Because it's such a fucking hard thing to achieve, to become a champion. And for someone like you who had tried and tried again. You won the title in Strikeforce. You're trying and trying again. You're trying to make this happen. And, you know, you think you're getting boxed out. And then the Ronda fight didn't happen after you beat Jessica Ai. And then all of a sudden you have this opportunity. And it comes together in one of the most powerful ways we've ever seen inside the Octagon. It was amazing. Well, thank you. That was quite a great narration of everything that's had to happen to make this come true. And it's crazy because it was the same month, 10 years to the month that I had my first fight. Wow. It's been 10 years, yeah. So it's crazy because you think 10 years ago there wasn't even, I mean, women's MMA was a joke. I mean, to me it wasn't, obviously, but to most people it was a spectacle at best. Something they kind of threw on the card is kind of like, oh, ha, ha, watch the chicks fight. you know right hopefully a tit will pop out you know that's so true it's so true though because they didn't respect us as athletes you know that's that's what we that's that's the that's the honest truth that's the uphill battle that it was like nobody took it seriously we didn't make any money we were fighting for breadcrumbs at best what kept you going during those times? Passion. It's cliche as it sounds. Um, just the desire to, to want to be fulfilled. And I felt like that was the most fulfilling thing in my life It wasn college It wasn it wasn there was nothing else that was as fulfilling as that But what is it about fighting that attracted you to it when there wasn any clear future Because you, you were in it at a time. I didn't think about the future too much early on. No, I didn't think about it as something that was, this needs to be lucrative for me. This needs to be, you know, coming to some of the, it was, I was probably three years into my career. before I even thought that I could maybe like actually possibly make a living at this. So it was just something that I was doing to feel alive. Wow. Yeah. It was just something that I was doing to make me feel accomplished. You can't put a price on how something makes you feel. You know, a memory, an experience, happiness, you know, those emotions. People say, you know, like the day that they got married, the day that they had their kid, the day, you know, those are like mile markers in people's lives. Like, I guess if you ask someone on their deathbed, what were the moments that made you feel alive? Like, what did your life amount to? What, you know, what was that those key markers in your life? And all of my fights have been markers in my life. That's more than most people can say, you know, so I guess it was such a sense of, of fulfillment. And the fact that it was so hard, it was so hard. And so many people were so against me. I think that made me really determined to because a lot of people, my grandpa, my dad my grandpa was really he was really chauvinistic to be quite honest he was not he was embarrassed that his granddaughter was a fighter and he would give my dad a hard time all the time like why you let your daughter do that he's like I don't let her do anything she's she's her own person I'm not proud of it but is he still around my grandpa he's not but he um had a big change of heart when I when I actually lost my title to when I won my my title against Marlos Coonan you know he really became obviously a big fan you know he's like I'm very proud of you I'm talking to my neighbors about you he's like I was wrong and I lost my fight to Ronda right right when he got diagnosed with cancer and um that's eventually what passed away so I went straight from that fight down to see him to see how he was doing and my dad was down there visiting he lives in Florida so very very far away and I told him I was like grandpa I was like I'm really sorry that I didn't win this you know when it makes me emotional it's like I'm sorry I didn't win this fight for you and he's like it doesn't matter you know and I think that's the last fight that he ever saw you know, when it makes me emotional, it's like, I'm sorry, I didn't win this fight for you. And you know, when it makes me emotional, it's like, I'm sorry, I didn't win this fight for you. And he's like, it doesn't matter, you know? And I think that's the last fight that he ever saw. Unfortunately, but you know, he's like, Hey, you had a lot of heart and I'm still proud of you. So, yeah. Were you attracted to other extreme sports when you were younger? No, because I wasn't raised that way. I wasn't raised with like extreme sports. Like, um, yeah my dad still saw me as he didn't like segregate me I wouldn't say but he saw me as a you know as a little girl like he didn't take me four-wheeling or um you know riding dirt bikes or anything like that he took me downhill not downhill mountain biking but it kind of turned into that we like rode for miles out to a lake with my with my little brother and a friend of his and then um I remember I was like riding back and there was like big rocks and like boulders and And my dad and his buddy have had downhill mountain bikes made for. I'm riding like a little street bikes, but they're expecting that I'm just going to be able to like, I'll just carry it down the hill or whatever. I try to bomb down the same rock hill as them. I eat shit like bad, eat shit. I still have scars on my elbow actually here from when I fell. And I just got up and my dad says, this is like one of the moments I realized you were different. He's like, you just popped up and you're like, brush your elbows off. You got back on your bike, bombed down the rest of the hill and beat all of us home. He's like, you were just crazy. He's like, I never saw anything like it. I thought we were going to have to like, you know, call medical help. And I thought, because he's like, you ate it hard. And it was like. So it was just something that was just in you. I guess. Just deal. I don't know. My mom always told me, and this is something I realized when I was talking to Mark, hypnosis. He's telling me about how much children can be affected by people who are negative in their life. people who can, you know, you're never going to amount to anything and how that can affect the subconscious mind, you know, having a dad who's like, you suck, you're terrible, you're never going to be, you know, you're never gonna be anything, how that can create crippling ripple effects that translate on all the way through the rest of that person's life. And I said, well, what if it's the opposite? Like, what if you had a parent that was telling you that you're amazing all the time that you could do whatever you want, and they really, trueheartedly believe in you? He's like, Oh, yeah, that can that can be amazing, you know, amazing, too. And it made me start thinking because my mom and I, we've had a really rough relationship the past three, four years or so maybe maybe longer It been a struggle or it getting better but I will give her a ton of credit that as as a single mom for part of my life growing up and um even not you know single she she never made me feel like I wasn't capable of doing anything if I if if anything she always made me feel like I could be and do whatever I want and I could be the best at it like most people when I would I was five six seven eight years old and I want to be an astronaut Like every little kid, they're like, yeah, yeah. You know, oh, that's, you know, or my grandpa was the first one to be like, that's not realistic. You're not going to be, you know, not going to be. My mom was like, no, you will. She's like, you will. Like, if that's what you want to do, that you will. It's like she's like, Misha, whatever you want to do, you will be the best at it. Well, I think it's probably good to have both. It's probably good to have someone who wholeheartedly believes in you and someone else who's like doubting you. Yeah. You get sort of like a little motivation to prove them wrong. Oh, yeah. The other person. right because i i feed off of that i love proving people wrong love it you're a very even-tempered person which is very unusual for a fighter you're very feminine but you're also very flat i'm very relaxed yes you're very like this is misha like this is how you are like it was really on when you were on the ultimate fighter with ronda it was when it was highlighted the most yeah because she's so manic she gets so hot and it's one of the reasons why people love her so much is she get so fucking crazy and she's so competitive and angry that like when you guys did that wall climbing thing and that she's like, fuck you. And she's giving you the finger. Like you're just like, you just, you're level. But how was that? When did, when was that your whole life? You were like that? Or is that something you learned how to do? I've been pretty easy going my whole life. Um, the thing is I don't like to be stressed out and I don't like to be pissed off and I don't like to not be happy. So I do everything within my power to not be stressed out. Like I could be about to miss a flight or has something and I'm like well what can I do now you know I'm just like right and it sometimes it's a bad thing because I don't plan ahead enough or I'm not really good with time management because I don't want to be I don't ever want to rush so even if I'm late to something I don't like to rush you know and it's just sometimes that's a bad thing I'm not the most organized person because I'm so relaxed about everything that I'm like no my taxes I'll do those later you know like that kind of thing that sounds like a great recipe for life though I mean, no one nails it on both ends. No one does. But this way seems good Yeah You know I save all my tension and stuff I guess for when I get inside the cage But I like to be relaxed I just like to be chill I don like to be pissed off I don like to be stressed out Like, what a miserable life. Yeah. I feel like, you know, some people are just angry all the time. I'm like, they're like perma-scrooge, you know? That's true. They're just all the time angry. I'm like, do you not even realize how bad your life must suck? Like, what if you just, like, looked at things differently? You'd have a way better life. I'm like, I never want to be that person. I remember Mike Tyson when he was in his prime and they asked him about something and he was talking about being angry he's like I'm angry all the time, I'm angry at my dog I'm angry at everybody, I'm angry at the mailman just get the fuck out of my way when he was in his prime he was just a ball of fury he was just this wrecking machine which is like a lot of people associate that with being a championship level fighter, like almost you have to have a certain level of discontent you have to have a certain level of anger to motivate you. But with you, I think if you could look at like a person's graph, like a sound graph of how they speak, like their whole life, mine would be all over the fucking place. It'd be like up and down, it'd be all crazy. But yours, I feel like it'd be like this, like flat, little tiny ups and downs, like very minor ripples, like a little bit of, like a flat lake where the water comes in a little bit. But it's nothing fucking crazy. There's no tidal waves. There's no chaos, no tsunamis. Yeah. But you're just flat and steady. I try to be. Not always. I'm still a woman. But that's so unusual for a fighter. Thanks. Like this flat level sort of way. And I say flat. It almost sounds like a pejorative. But I don't mean it that way. I mean like it's almost like a zen. Like you have a very zen thing going on. Yeah. I used to have issues with anxiety a little bit when I was in high school. and I would like have my track meets and something and I would have anxiety attacks. I actually used to have a problem with it. And I guess I've always been a very open-minded person and I always ask myself questions whenever there's something wrong with myself or, you know, an issue that I'm having, I ask myself, why am I having that? You know, and then, and then it comes full circle and I was able to answer those questions and then I've never suffered from anxiety since. So I kind of put myself in a Zen state of mind early on in my career because I hated it so much. It's like, I don't want to live having anxiety issues. Like, why do I have that? Why? Why? What am I afraid of? You know, it's like, well, I'm not, I'm not afraid enough to where I'm not going to do it. So let just not make it a big not make it something I don like Obviously I do like it That why I doing track Obviously I like MMA That why I doing it I don want to make it something I hate I don want to make it something I don enjoy That so rational That not why I do this I do this because I love it So let not make it something I hate ever. I try not to. That's a very rational approach, though. It's very unusual for people. Yeah, like there's nothing in this life, like if I want to do it, that fear is going to stop me. Fear is a realistic thing. It happens. Yeah, it's scary to get in the cage. It's scary to think about losing, you know, and I've tasted the most bitter losses you could ever dream of. And it's devastating. It's crushing. That's the most scary thing. It's not getting beat up. It's not breaking your nose or breaking my orbital bone or letting my arm get snapped in half. That's not the scary part about fighting and what I do. The scary part is not being adequate enough. Not being good enough that you're 100% wasn't good enough. That's scary. That's really scary. And I've had that I've had to face that point blank right in the face many times before. And it's the hardest thing to do. Bar none. It's the hardest thing to look at yourself and be like, I didn't, I wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. No one else can be responsible for that. I fucked up. I didn't do it. I have to own this. And to come back from something like that and think that you can still, you can still get it back, or you can still do it again, or you can still get better, you can and learn from that, that's also the challenging part of it, you know, and that's something that I've had to, to get to this point. I've had to get over those situations where I thought that my world had ended. You know, my second loss to Rhonda was the most devastating. The first loss was devastating. The second loss was, like, it was horrible. I thought my world was coming to an end, and, you know, and nobody cared about my family and friends, but the rest of the world, they don't care think of a shit they don't care about second place they don't care you know and um they're mean people are harsh they're mean on social media you have to get thick skin quick nobody teaches you how to deal with that either there's no mma social media 101 or like you don't you just sink or swim you figure it out or you don't either bothers you or it doesn't you know either you yell back at everyone or you don't you know like well you're in the first generation that's ever had to deal with yeah there's never been anybody in the last 10 years this is a new occurrence yeah and they They don't teach you how to deal with it or how to not let it affect you emotionally. But no one knows. No one knows. I mean, this is a total new field. Learning experience, absolutely. Especially for someone who does what you do, which is the most exposed an athlete ever gets ever. Like if you lose a tennis match and the world says, hey, you fucking suck at tennis, you're like, Especially for someone who does what you do, which is the most exposed an athlete ever gets ever. Especially for someone who does what you do, which is the most exposed an athlete ever gets ever. Like if you lose a tennis match and the world says, hey, you fucking suck at tennis. You're like, oh, whatever, bitch. Yeah. You know, you can move on with your life. But if you're like, you know, Ronda beat you again, you fucking dumb hoe. You're like, oh, my God, I can't believe this. A hundred percent. Why are people so goddamn mean? Yeah. Yeah. And it's fighting. It's like the most primal thing. So everyone, what other sports always boil down to when they don't like another person is fighting. That's like the most primal way to deal with something. So once your sport is fighting, then people like feel like they have more justification to talk shit, even though they're just like, gosh, I have to laugh because John Jones and Daniel Cormier, when we were in New York, they opened up the questions to the audience. Big mistake because these little pipsqueaks, they got on the microphone or like, so Daniel Cormier, I just want to say I have a really important question for you. how's it going to feel when John Jones kicks your ass again? You know? And I'm just like, you idiot. Like, if you were, you wouldn't have the balls to say that if it was just you and Daniel in this room and no one was going to know the outcome of what happened after you said that. Well, the fact that people feel so safe that they can say something like that to a killer like Daniel Cormier. Right. And then they did the same thing to John Jones. Did you ever see what they did to Rashad Evans? Rashad Evans was at a photo signing. And this guy comes up to him with a picture of, you know, This is an iconic photo of when Lyoto knocked him out where he's like kind of crumpled up against the cage. Yeah. And this kid, this little skinny fucking kid with a smile on his face wanted Rashad to sign that. And Rashad crumpled it up and threw it at him and looked at him like, are you out of your fucking mind? Like, do you know what I could do to you right now? Like, are you trying to hurt my feelings? Trying to make me feel bad? Trying to punk me in front of all these people while you have a camera on me? Because you're filming it. Like, your friends are filming this reaction to you sticking it. I mean, just this callousness and also just being oblivious, like oblivious to like, why would you want to do that? Yeah. Why would you want to say that to John Jones? Why? I don't get it. Why people want to be- Because these fucking dummies grow up watching pro wrestling and they don't understand that this is real. Yeah. Like you're saying, how's it going to feel to get your ass kicked again? What? Who said that? Like they were expecting like some fucking fake thing. Right. It like you just get oblivious to the idea that you hurting someone feelings for no reason And you can also get caught up in it emotionally Like you know people get caught up Like I watched Conor McGregor social media after Nate Diaz beat him and holy shit I was saying to my friends, I'm like, I hope he stays offline for a few days. Yeah. Just don't go anywhere near a computer for like a solid week. Oh, yeah. Because it's just the cunts. The cunts of the world. Just the deluge of twats. And they wait for it. Oh, they love it. People hate their own lives. The thing is that nobody wins in our sport forever. So you're going to have to face that at some point. It's one of the most exciting things about it is that it's so volatile. Like the Chris Weidman-Luke Rockhold fight to me is like a perfect example of that. I often see Chris Weidman training. I watch videos of him training. I'm like, what is going on in his mind right now? Because Weidman was so dominant. And even in that fight, incredibly competitive. And he throws one kick. One crazy wheel kick. one ill-advised wheel kick. Rockhold takes him down and smashes him. And I just wonder, like, how much does that kick haunt him? How much does that fight haunt him? Like, what is going on in his mind? Well, here's a guy who destroys Anderson Silva, beats the fuck out of Lyoto Machida, Vitor Belfort smashes him in the first round. You know, you watch his fights and you just go, okay, like, what is this Rockhold fight going to play off like? And then when Rockhold beats him and beats him down the way he did and destroys him, you're like, oh, changing of the guard here. These moments, these pivotal moments of your whole life changes. You go from being Chris Weidman, UFC middleweight champion of the world, one of the best fighters on the planet, to Chris Weidman, former UFC middleweight champion of the world, now hoping he gets a shot at his title in a rematch. And now that he's got it and it's going to happen soon, it's like, whoa, the drama and the buildup. I can't imagine being him right now. Like the tension that he's under right now and the pressure and what how much emotional connection he has towards this attempt to win his title back and how intense it's going to be once they get in there. Yeah. And they're really starting to not like each other. Last time I was here for Fox, I think it was about a month or so ago. They were they were there and there was some tension. Of course. They were in studio and you could tell Chris was just he was not he was, you know, he's pissed. He's not happy with the situation. And Luke Rockhold's kind of like, you know, he's happy. He's got the belt. He was kind of boasting it around a little bit. And he kind of ribbing Chris You could tell like trying to get under his skin a little bit And Chris is like you could just tell he like upset well they were kind of friendly before that which is weird yeah you know they were friendly before that like for a long time like there's photos of the two of them together smiling and not anymore yeah well my god beats you down like that like and you lose your title the way Weidman did yeah but Brockhold's fucking good he's fucking good I saw Holly um once since since the fight and i was really actually kind of nervous about it because i was like she was um at the jones osp fight that just happened and um we were both of the vip party and my friend heather clark used to train heather joe clark she's actually fighting this weekend in rotterdam anyways she was like you should go and talk to him i was like yeah i want to i just i don't want to come on like how what do i say what's up bitch yeah like what what do you say to someone that you just you know you took their title say hi i don't know that's what i did you know i just went up and was like you know how are you and she like she gave me a hug she's like you know i'm just really bummed i didn't get that rematch i'm like i know i was like don't worry i was like we'll we'll see each other in the future she's like yeah she's like i hope so she's like i hope you still have it she's like you know i want to i want to uh see you again in the future i'm like yeah i totally get it i've been in her shoes before i know how bad that sucks and she wants that back but you know we were friendly but it's amazing how both of you are so nice like holly is one of the nicest people. She's so nice. She's such a sweetheart. Ridiculously nice. If you didn't know she was a fighter, you'd be like, no fucking way. And then you find out she's a 19 time world boxing champion. Be like, what the fuck are you talking about? I know. How's that possible? How's that nice lady a killer? Yeah. Some tomfoolery. It doesn't make any sense. She doesn't fit the mold either. Like both of you guys are really interesting representatives of MMA and great representatives because you break that mold. I'm not a fan of her manager though oh yeah yeah why i don't know i don't even know if i've ever met him in person i probably haven't maybe i have if i did it wasn't memorable anyways um i guess he went like dana went down so dana dana told me this dana went down to albuquerque before this fight ever came together of her and i right and he said look you guys need to wait for ronda trust me that's the big money fight that's the fight you want to wait for he went down there he told me He went down there to tell them, don't fight Misha Tate. They didn't want to give me, the UFC did not want that fight to happen. Right. They wanted the rematch to be the first fight. And Holly's manager told him, we want Misha Tate. And Dana said he threw up his hands and was like are you fucking kidding me He like she been the baddest you know other than Ronda for years now And you want to take her lightly You think you just going to walk through He like yeah we got this Like she going to be a tune fight Who's her manager? I don't even know his name. Okay. I don't know. He's an idiot. But he told Dana that they thought that I was going to be a tune-up fight. Well, people get crazy. You know, people get crazy. Look, Rhonda's people got crazy, too. Everybody gets crazy. People get crazy. Like, why did Rhonda charge after? People get crazy. Why did she try to stand with Holly like that and charge after her? That's not the right attempt, right? You know what she did to Paige? What? So Paige was also at that VIP party. And Paige and I have spoken. We're friendly. Don't know her that well. But anyway, she felt the need. She came up to me. She's like, Misha, Misha. She's like, I have to tell you this experience I had with Rhonda. And I'm like, oh, what? And she's like, well, we were at a Reebok deal just recently. And she's like, we were at a shoot. And she's like, I was trying to find her so we could get a picture. and the Reebok people were like don't ask Ronda for a picture and she's like why she's they're like just don't do just stay away from Ronda don't ask her for a picture she's like okay and I guess Ronda came later that day and like seeked her out and just like cussed her out like they've never really had a conversation either she's like I don't know Ronda like you know other than hi bye that's it like I guess she came up Ronda came up was like fuck you you fair weather bitch how dare you cross me blah blah she's like cross you what are you talking about and she's like you congratulated holly home for beating me so fuck you you fucking fairweather 115 pound like it just like went off on page and page came and told me and i was like honey welcome to my world she's like oh my god she's like i'm glad that i saw this side of her so i know you know i'm like well and she's like you know because i didn't understand she's like i told her on it like i'm sorry if that offended you, but you're not allowed to congratulate whoever I want. And, um, she's like, because, you know, I congratulated Rose Namajunas when she beat me. I was like, you know, congratulations. You whooped my ass. That was a badass performance. And she's like, you know, I just simply told Holly congratulations once when like, it wasn't anything, you know, anti Ronda, but Ronda gets just ripped her new one. Wow. Like you have to be on team Ronda for life. Yeah, I guess I've never been on team Ronda, so I'm good. All or none. Damn. That's crazy. I mean, people love both ways. It's interesting. Like, people love your way, but people also love, like, shit talking. True. You know, people love Nate Diaz for that. People love... people love both ways it's interesting like people love your way but people also love like people love both ways it's interesting like people love your way but people also love like shit talking you know people love nate diaz for that people love they love the drama but they also love someone like you who can walk up to holly and hug her yeah yeah i'm somewhere in the middle though because i get a lot of flack for you know my mouth like so i just can't i say what i'm thinking and i'm i'm pretty transparent and sometimes people think that you know i get a lot of flack oh you're fake or this and i'm like not really like just because you know i'm like I'll say this like I'm a fan of Conor I am I like his fighting style and I you know his antics at first were kind of like wait who is this guy what is it you know and then I'm like man props to him he's done amazing things like good for him and he's done really good things for our sport but when he didn't show up to film that commercial like I'm not you know I'll be honest like yeah it kind of rubbed me the wrong way because um people are like oh he does so much more media than you guys do yeah he probably does you know he probably does I do a lot he probably does more I agree. But I don't have a private jet flying out to pick me up and bring me back and fly 20 people of my crew with me, too. He does more so he gets more. When they bring him to Vegas, they put him up in a penthouse. You know, they make sure he has everything that he needs. I don't get that. You know, that's fine. You know, he's earned that. He's in that spot. No problem with that. But I think three months out from a fight camp, you know, you have a private jet coming to pick you up with you can bring 20 of your teammates. You probably work out on the jet if you want to on the way there because it's yours. It's private. Do whatever you want. Wow, you could probably hit Mets on the jet. here. And we don't know what we're doing for this third segment of the commercial that was supposed to be Connor and Nate. So can you please come back later that day and film that segment? And that was during my practice time. So I had to come back and you know, I did it. So it was like company woman, but like, it was just frustrating because it's like, dang, you know, if I had known about this, I could have planned my training otherwise. But now I kind of have to like scramble to get my second workout in and it affected me. So yeah, his decision did and it probably is actually you know I haven made any more money in the sport yet because of Connor A lot of people are like oh you must have got a bigger payday because of that last one No because I wasn the champion so I didn get any more of like I didn get any pay I didn get any more money And now he's like not on this fight cards. I'm like, you know, but it's whatever. You know, it's Conor's deal. And I don't hate Conor, but I'm going to say how I feel, you know, and I would say it if he was sitting here too. I'd be like, dude, why did you do that? You probably. Well, I feel like there's a bunch of issues here. And the only way to really get a firm understanding of it is to sit down with everyone involved and say, what was communicated? Your manager, did he know what the appearance schedule was going to be? Like, did you guys agree to this? Did you understand what you were getting into? And that's it. Maybe it's a misunderstanding, you know? Who knows? It's hard to say, but the way he went about it was ridiculous. Like saying, I'm retired. Thanks for the cheese. And then saying, I'm not retired. and then saying, I'm glad the UFC decided to give the fans what they want and I'm going to be on UFC 200. And everybody's like, what? And so what he's doing is he's kind of using the media to try to get this thing to pass through. But he doesn't understand Dana and Lorenzo and Frank. That's never going to work. You are either in or you're not in. And they're real clear about that. They have to set a precedent. So like if you say, fuck you, I'm not doing media, they're going to go, oh, well, okay, fuck you. You're not fighting. Yeah. Hold on. I'm Conor McGregor. We're the UFC. Yeah. This is what it is. They've made many stars. They'll make many more. And we might lose millions of dollars because you're not on UFC 200. Yeah. Well, Dana said that he, he, he had put, they put 10 million into promoting this already. 10 million. He's like, we're way over budget, you know? So that's why it was like, you've got to show up and do, you know, that's how Conor was made. Yes. Is through that stuff. Exactly. Exactly. At what point do you get to decide that you don't have to do that anymore? If that's what made you who you are, don't you kind of have to like, does that make sense what I'm saying here? It makes sense. At what point do you get to decide when you don't have to? Like I use the machine and now I don't. I just want to hop off now that I'm here. I don't know. Don't you kind of have to keep it the same? I think so, but there is also like a fine line, right? Like you can do too much. Like when I was watching the Jose Aldo media tour, when they were going all around the world. I'm like, okay, I understand that you want to promote this fight, but how much of this is helping the actual fight itself And how much of it is just Conor McGregor constantly talking shit at press conferences and grabbing the belt and all that I mean that really kind of what selling How far out from the fight was that I don't know. They did a lot of it. But apparently Conor was sick. He was like, I'm just constantly fighting off a cold. It's really hard to get in shape. Really hard to train because every week you're traveling from here to there and there to here. It's just you're constantly getting beaten down. And you know what it's like. Have you ever flown to Brazil and fought? No. I've flown to They're four fight cards, though. What is the furthest you've ever had a flight a fight? Japan. Japan. So that's an interesting one. That's a long flight. It's like 16 hours, right? Yeah. What is it like, like, adjusting and then competing? I try to start adjusting my schedule at home, like, blacking out my windows a little bit or, you know, like, to make the time frame. But you never get fully adjusted. But my mind frame is, like, when push comes to shove, when fight time comes, whether it's 2 in the morning my time or not, like, I'm going to be game. so I just look at it that way but it's not fun like I remember three weeks out from my fight with Rin Nikai which I didn't even want to I didn't want to do that fight because she was so unknown she was undefeated I'm going over there to like fight on a newly blooming fight pass and I was like this is like feels like it does nothing for me and like and if she wins it springboards her you know then she'll be 17 and oh she'll have a judo background they're gonna want to make that fight for for her and Rhonda I know that's what they're trying to do so they're trying to use you know business use me as that springboard and it's like i don't really want to do this but i did it but three weeks before the fight they had me fly to japan to do some promotional stuff and i was flying longer than i was even on the ground and they said like ticket sales went up and everything was really good but yeah that was exhausting so i do i understand three weeks before yeah that's hard really hard you're peaking right really hard you're ramping it up three weeks in super hard and after my fight with uh holly like i got to spend a little time in australia and then I went straight from Australia to New York, spent a day there, did a full day of media, went to Connecticut to ESPN, did a full day of media, went to Toronto, did a full day of media. And it's just like, it's non-stop from like, you start your first interview at eight in the morning. So you pick up at like seven and you go until seven at night. And even while you're driving to the next place, they'll have you on the phone with the, with the, with the, you know, with the radio interview, you know, I mean, there's no break. it's all it's it's pretty intense it's pretty crazy it's pretty exhausting so I I get it I have been in those you know those shoes before but um you know it I don know maybe there more extenuating maybe he was hurt or something maybe he didn want people to see like maybe i don know like what if there even something like that like what if he had like hurt himself or something and he didn want like nate to know or yeah who knows i don't know who knows and it's also he also had to realize there was a lot of work that needed to be done to beat nate yeah like he hit nate with some of his best shots and nate was fine with it and it was a real problem i think that's more what it was is that he was just obsessed with beating Nate and I I get that too I don't take that away from him for a minute like he wanted to stay home and or he was in Iceland I guess training and he wants to train to be Nate I get it totally get it yeah I get it too it seems like the only way also I felt like but then again he could have brought his whole gym with him you know sure well he could have tried I mean it was going to be a difficult time just trying to find uh the the moments to train and to stay in shape and then obviously being exhausted from flying and I think it was a quick turnaround to, you know, like as far as like, I don't think he was supposed to be there more than like two days. I honestly think he's better off not doing it. I honestly think he's better off like sequestering himself for a few months, like really focusing on what went wrong, how to correct it. I agree. And can you correct it? Yeah. I mean, do you like when it comes to the ground game, what I saw on the ground, I was like, boy, this is a long road. Like you've got a long road to beat a guy like Nate. Yeah. He's so much further along in ground and pound, jiu-jitsu, positioning, everything. When I was watching Nate beat him up on the ground and choke him, I was like, whew, that happened quick. Yeah. This is not like – like Weidman and Rockhold was a prolonged beating before Rockhold eventually stopped him the next round. Yeah. But with Nate and Conor, it wasn't that prolonged. It happened pretty quickly. Yeah. And when you see that, you go, ooh, like this is going to be, there's a lot to overcome. It's not insurmountable. It takes a lot of time to build those skill sets. They don't come overnight. You can pick up your cardio pretty quick. You can do a lot of things. But you can't build a skill set any faster than it's going to go into your muscle memory and be in your rep. You've got to put thousands of reps in. There's no way around it. Yeah. There's no way. There's no way to fast forward through that. There's no way to cut the corner. There's nothing. You can't. It's repetition, repetition, repetition. What also it highlights all the various eccentric aspects of your training that people are like hmm Is this what makes Connor great? And you know and then you know Nate calling it touch but in the park like they do it all these cartwheels and various eccentric aspects of your training that people are like hmm is this what makes connor various eccentric aspects of your training that people are like hmm is this what makes connor great and you know and then you know nate calling it touch butt in the park like they're doing all these cartwheels and stuff that video was so funny hilarious oh my god i was dying hilarious so when this all you know he's doing all these this work with this movement guy but then you see what happens when it actually comes to fighting skills and you go, Ooh, maybe this is not the way to do it. Like, because like, I've talked to a lot of people that were like, this stuff that he's doing is utter horseshit. Like this doing cartwheels and being obsessed with movement. Here's the movements you need to be worried about. Okay. Moving your feet, throwing kicks and punches, take down defense and jujitsu on the ground. That's it. You know, understanding takedowns yourself, taking people down if you must, trips, sweeps, all that stuff. But all this cartwheels and what this guy was explaining to me, and I don't want to name any names because he's a prominent guy. He was like, you have to understand that there's a limited amount of energy you have in your time training. And you are not perfect at all these other aspects of MMA. So if you are not perfect at all these other aspects of MMA, you have to say, okay, how much of this stuff is going to help me? Well, a guy like George St. Pierre, he looked at gymnastics and he was like, you know what's going to help me? if I can be stronger physically. And there's no better way, I think, as far as manipulating your body than gymnastics, like doing the rings and developing. It's proprioception. You're learning how to manipulate your body in all kinds of contorted positions, being upside down and understanding where you are when you're upside down and where you're going to be with the momentum you have. You have to calculate that. Your math is doing constant algorithms and math equations, essentially, when you're fighting, too. You know, weight distribution, where are we at? Especially when you tie up with someone else and you have to feel their weight and you have to manipulate it in a way to get it where you want, whether it's against the cage or whether it's on the ground, your body is using a equation. Yeah. You know, your mind is equating how much force do I need to make this happen? How little force? Like, what if I go the opposite direction because they're pushing into me? There's all these different things that you have to over. There's no other way to do it than than a trial and error process and over and over and over and over again. Yeah and you look at someone who like really good at one aspect of MMA like Yoel Romero who just a ridiculous wrestler And you go okay like how much touch butt in the park is that guy doing How many cartwheels is he doing Is he tumbling No but I bet you he does 100 double legs a day Oh, yeah, at least. You know? Well, he's doing all kinds of crazy shit. And then 100 single legs and then 100 body locks. But until Conor lost, everybody was like, this is what we need. We need a movement coach. I need a movement coach. And it still might, I mean, as we said with George St. Pierre, It has massive benefits to get that kind of coordination, physical strength. You know what I do like about Conor, though, is his balance is impeccable. And that could be part of that. He's never over himself, at least with the striking part of it. The ground is a completely different thing. But when he's in striking range and it's just his body, his eye-hand coordination is incredible. And his balance. He's never too far over a punch. He's never too far back. He's always centered. He's always centered. He throws a kick. He never gets, you know, you see people kick and they miss and they kind of like stumble, like their weight's off balance. Or they kick and even land and even when they put their foot down, it's kind of like it's not a good landing, you know? Right. Like I'm not like the world's best kicker, but when I watch Connor do it, it's like he kicks or push kicks and sticks. Mm-hmm. He is like a gymnast in this sense. Yes. You know, they do those flip and then they want to just boom, stick it. Like and he's really, really good at that. Well, in that sense, maybe that's where the movement does benefit him. I think so. that he never is over himself in his weight distribution. Isn't it the case that whenever someone loses, though, everyone always second guesses what they were doing, even if what they were doing was getting them to be like 16-0, totally undefeated world champion. When you'd make a mistake or something goes wrong or something goes right for your opponent, we should probably say, immediately people start questioning everything you did. Yeah, definitely, all the time. It happened with me when I lost to Ronda. Like, oh, you've got to change this, you've got to change everything. But as long as you're winning, people are like, yeah, keep doing what you're doing. It's working. And then you lose. They're like, change everything. It's like, geez, that was quick. Well, that's also the Ronda criticism in the Holly Holm fight. Everybody was like looking at her like a dominating Betch Coheo with stand-up, beating Sarah McMahon the way she did, Alexis Davis beating her down the way she did. And you go, well, look, Ronda obviously is getting so good at striking. She's such an elite athlete that she can do what she's doing to anybody. And then her trainer saying that she could go box women professionals and knock them out. And so you get this thing in your head that you can do what you have been doing Yeah And then you fight someone like Holly and you go oh well okay Yeah There so many levels It's one of the more fascinating things about martial arts is that there are so many levels. Yeah. And there's never, it's never ending. It's like a never ending story. Yeah. It really is. Right? Yeah. Is this a song that never ends? It just goes on and on. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's literally, it's, you never, and just when you think you have it all figured out, boom, there goes the curveball. I think that's what's addicting about this sport, though. Like, it's safe to say it's like a drug. It's addicting. I think adversity, in some weird way, I'm definitely addicted to that. I like it when things seem insurmountable or they look too hard or other people don't believe that I can do it. That's such a weird quality because most people have the opposite. Most people are like, I like it when I know I can take a nap. I like it when that couch looks soft and I'm going to walk over there and plop myself down on it. And you're like, I'm going to run up that fucking mountain with no air. See how I fare. See how long I can go before I pass out. That's a weird quality. Yeah. I don't know. It is weird, but I like it. I don't know. I like that about myself because I know anytime I ever get into a hard situation about anything, it's like, I can get through it. I've seen worse. Well, you definitely have proven that. There's no doubt about it. And you've proven it inside the octagon just leading up to this fight. Obviously, you proved it in this fight. But you proved it leading up to this fight. The Sarah McMahon fight, I think, was one of your most impressive fights. Because you got her down. And you were, I mean, she's a fucking silver medalist in the Olympics. And you were dominating the top position. You out scrambled her. You stayed on top of her. And you beat her down. And I was like, that is a big victory. You're in a heavy top game. You do. We should grapple sometime. Okay. Uh-oh. I'm scared now. Uh-oh. Well, girls say we should grapple sometimes. Yeah. That always gets odd. It's like that got weird quick. Yeah. I'm sure you do. I'm sure you do. But it comes from wrestling. And I think just experience and knowing, you know, wrestling can translate. A lot of sports can translate well into mixed martial arts. I happen to think wrestling is one of the best translations, you know, as opposed to like someone typically boxers coming into the sport don't typically transition as well. kickboxers, you know, because they have so much more to learn. I feel like the fundamentals of wrestling kind of they they they encompass a lot of what you need in MMA And if you the better wrestler you can decide do I want to stay on the feet or I want to take it to the ground It dictates Right It dictates So with that being said I think I learned how to use the pieces that work for wrestling in MMA and take out the ones that don Because there's a lot of stuff in wrestling or any other sport that you're going to bring over that doesn't work for MMA. Because MMA is a sport of its own. and I think maybe like McMahon like she's such an elite level wrestler that she's so ingrained with just wrestle, wrestle, wrestle, wrestle that it's hard sometimes with the more elite you are at something to like water it down again essentially and that's kind of what you have to do is you have to take pieces out for mixed martial arts. There's some things that you don't want to do because you get choked if you do that. When you're in wrestling the last thing you want to do is be on your backs, you turn over and you arch out, you lift your neck. It's like oh man if you try to do that you try to stand up the way that you would in a wrestling match you're gonna get choked you can't do that you got to keep your chin tucked and then you got a hand so there's things that you you have to relearn and i think when you're such an elite elitist at something sometimes it's hard to relearn those it's a very good point and i think you could also use that same point when you're talking about strikers learning takedown defense and that like a lot of strikers like to stand up really straight and you know as soon as they get involved in exchanges with people they fall into their old striking ways and that's when i got like george st. Pierre who was so good at being unpredictable like you never knew if he was going to take you down if he's going to stand with you one of the most flawless fighters when you say as far as like a game sticking to a game plan being disciplined never getting emotional never getting away from the game plan well in his prime and you look at the during his run and no one keeps a run up forever but during his run I mean he beat everybody they put in front of him and he fought in some incredible fights where he fought some really, really dangerous, difficult guys and managed his way through the water to victory. And that's all you could ever expect from a champion. Yeah. And people say like, oh, well, some of his fights were boring or he played safety first. Like, Jesus Christ, he fought the killers of the killers. And he had five rounds. And during those five rounds, you know, Carlos Condit head kicks him and drops him. You know, Matt Serra knocked him out and won the title. He's had adversity. Yeah. But he beat everybody. Yeah. Like, you can't ask for more. Yeah. Like, what do you think would happen if he just... There's this mentality that some fans want where they want a guy who wants to bite down his mouthpiece and just swing away and, like, come on, seven, and hope for the best. That's so retarded. Like, that's not what martial arts are about. No, 100%. People... People... swing away and like come on seven and and hope for the best that's so retarded like that's not swing away and like come on seven and and hope for the best that's so retarded like that's not what martial arts are about no 100 people people i think sometimes tend to enjoy the excitement of amateur fights more because they're more chaotic like people don't know what they're doing so it's just like stick to two people in there that kind of know how to throw punches and maybe kind of know how to wrestle and they just go balls to the wall because that's like that's all that they know that they're confident in yeah it's like just go as hard as you can well it's also like a really good debate between two very articulate and very intelligent people. No one is going to get the real upper hand real quick. There's going to be points and counterpoints. There's going to be back and forth. Both guys are going to be very well prepared. Both women are going to be very well prepared. You're not going to get a very clear winner right away unless something crazy happens like Aldo and McGregor. Right. Like Aldo's just so mad at McGregor from all this fucking shit talking he's been doing for months and months and months that he just runs at him and gets clipped. Is that crazy? Oh, for a guy like Aldo, that's got to be maddening. Oh, yeah. You hold the title for nine fucking years or however long he held it. And then 13 seconds. Oh, my God. I've never seen Aldo do that. He was so emotionally charged. Yeah, he was very upset. And that just goes to show how much the mind is a powerful thing. If you think you can or think you can't, you're right either way. It's really derived from your mind. And you can have all the skills in the world. If you don't believe you can do it or whatever, if you don't have the confidence in your mind, you won't. It's just interesting. Or if someone puts a seed in there and like Connor, I just think that he was so good at the mental warfare and, you know, Josie never had to deal with that. Never. That was the thing. It was like it was all respect. Everyone that he fought shook his hand, respected him, realized he's this killer. I mean, and he was the reigning featherweight champion for as long as there was a featherweight champion. He was the first, the original. He held that title for longer than anybody and was flawless. I mean, he had some amazing fights. But he started his show like some chinks in his armor towards the end. Like the second fight that he had with Chad Mendes, like that was a real war and a real grueling fight. Whereas, you know, the first fight with Mendes, he just looks insane. He looked tremendous and stopped Mendes quick. So I think nobody rides for free. They train so hard in Brazil, too. They insane No doubt Oh God Novo and Yao in particular yeah They go to war There a good saying about training smarter and not harder sometimes or working, you know, usually it's working. But same thing goes for training. Overtraining is a big thing in this sport. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because I wanted to talk to you about that because you had mentioned that in the Holly fight that you had made sure, you know, when you're training for a five-round fight in particular, how do you make sure that you're at peak performance level but you're not overtraining? Like who designs your program? Well, you know, I think a lot of it depends on athlete input. Someone can design a program, but if you show up one day and you're supposed to be pushing sleds, you know, or do something heavy and hard and you're like, I'm exhausted. Then they're like, okay, we need to dial it back. Do you monitor your heart rate? Yeah. Yeah. I wear like a polar heart rate monitor. Do you take it in the morning when you wake up? We do the HRV and see where I'm at. And that's really, that was helpful. What's an HRV? The heart rate variable. Okay. So basically it tells you how your heart is recovering. So when you first wake up in the morning, from my understanding, the more that your heart is kind of like irregular maybe for a better sense of terms, it means that it's responding to things like quickly. If it's kind of sluggish and it's kind of like not really reading that kind of quick reaction, then you're tired, that your body's still broken down, it's not recovered. You're kind of looking for that irregular kind of good bouncy, you know. I don't know if it's a rhythm, but there's something that the HRV reads, not just the heart rate, but something about the heart. And it reads it, the heart rate variable, and tells you whether you're actually recovered or not. And who goes over this stuff with you? Do you have a... No, not really. My sports doctor. I'll go over it with him. So you're basically calling the shots? Yeah, and it's really easy to read. It's either green, orange, or red. If you're in the red, don't kill yourself that day. Like it tells you it's, it's, you know, it's very simple. Like anyone can do it. Wake up in the morning. And if your heart rate variables in the red, that means like this should be a relatively easy day, either a rest day or relatively easy. Maybe just go for a nice run. Like just let your body recover because you don't realize you don't get stronger while you're training. You don't get stronger while you're lifting weights. You're actually damaging your body. You're actually going backwards. You get stronger when you're resting. Yeah. You're recovering from the work and that's what makes you stronger. That literally what it is is when you resting after you worked out hard and after you tore everything apart I mean if you work out 24 seven there no chance to repair and heal and grow and get stronger So you know it just goes back to that that science and that balance of like when to push hard and when to, when to not push hard. I think that our sport typically has a lot of really tough people who don't like to ever think, you know, they're just in that work hard mentality because we're fighters. We're like the toughest people, but a lot of times they don't stop and think like, it doesn't matter how tough you are. Like science is science, buddy. You know, it's, it's, it doesn't matter. Like going, I'm just going to work out hard. I'm going to push through it. I'm going to spar hard today, even though I feel like crap. Like, I mean, there's something we said maybe for mental toughness, I guess, you know, you're going to go in there and you're going to push through it. There's times for that. But, um, I don't question my mental toughness. So I just listen to my body. You know, I don't, I'm not at a point in my career where I have anything to prove as far as like how tough I am. That's again, Zen Misha. Yeah. My coaches always tell me like we're not we don't need to prove how tough you are misha we already know that so let's just uh if you don't feel like sparring today we'll spar tomorrow well that's one of the things that i think really does trip up a lot of fighters is that they're so tough and they figure out how to push through injuries they figure out how to force themselves through situations but then they get these these damage to their joints or damage to their back or and A lot of it comes from not recognizing the difference between an actual injury and pain. Just a little bit of discomfort and pain is normal. It's constant. It's never going to go away. Everybody who does martial arts experiences that. But for someone like a Cain Velasquez, it almost becomes like a detriment because he's such a fucking gorilla. And he just knows how to push through everything that he blows everything out. He blows his shoulder out. And then he blows the other shoulder out. And he blows his knees out. He blows his back out. I mean he's in my opinion when he was at his best he's the greatest of all time it's between him and Fedor those are the two possible heavyweights and the Fedor one always has to have an asterisk because he was fighting in pride and it was you know the steroid era you could do whatever the fuck you want not saying even that he was on it but who the fuck knows but that I don't think the guys that he fought even though he looked amazing against them I don't think Hong Man Choi is at the same level as like Junior Dos Santos when Junior Dos Santos was at his best when when Kane fought him. It's so hard. And I think even Junior Dos Santos was overtrained for one of their fights Yeah And you know they talked about it like they had measured his creatine levels and his blood and he just hadn recovered correctly Yep. That's a big part of it. It's very common. Which is being so tough. Because you see people go, you know, whether it's a three-round fight or a five-round fight, sometimes you'll see people gas out like a round and a half. Yeah. You know, a round in, you're like, oh, they must not have trained hard. No, it's probably that they trained too hard. Yeah. That's probably what it is. They were probably still beat up. sometimes like i will go like fight week and i'll be in the workout you know the mat room that they have in the hotel and sometimes i'll see these guys in there and they're just going i mean they are going they're hitting mitts they're just you know they're ripping the big takedowns and they're just you know blowing it all out i'm just like thinking dude it's the fight week calm down the hard work should have already all been done like this week is about recovery yeah and usually it's like people not like foreigners that are still in that mindset of like they're a little bit more old school mentality i feel like some of those gyms still haven't caught up to the the idea that it's not always about how hard you go well matt hughes told me that he used to train hard up until the day of the fight he just trained hard he's like i always trained hard and you know that's what i did with wrestling yeah fucking work though work for him well you know but he was you know, he was a high level athlete for a long time and he knew how to, how to harness what, and you know, it's not saying that it can't, that it can't work, but I still think that there's something to be said about preserving the longevity of your career. You might not be able to do that as long, you know? Well, with a guy like Matt Hughes, it's so hard to, to say that now because he was such a pioneer. I mean, he was at the early, early days of the UFC and was one of the great champions and one of the greatest champions ever. And when you look at his title run and his reign of the 170-pound division during his heyday, you've got to say this guy sort of paved the way in a lot of ways, especially for a wrestler that developed some really good submission skills. I mean, he's got some excellent submission victories, including that armbar that he submitted George St. Pierre with. I mean, he had some really good submission skills for a wrestler. Yeah. He was incredible. He was ahead of his time a little bit, you know? Yeah, well, definitely ahead of his time and, you know, an important pioneer if you look at the overall game. Like there's these moments where a person emerges and they go, okay, we haven't seen one of those guys before. Like Yair Rodriguez is a perfect example. You look at the overall game. You look at the overall game. Like there's these moments where a person emerges and they go, okay, we haven't seen one of those guys before. Like Yair Rodriguez is a perfect example. Like this fucking guy. I watch that guy fight and I go, Jesus Christ. Like here's a new thing. Here's a guy who's like this elite taekwondo guy who knows how to do everything else too. But he throws these taekwondo kicks like a normal person throws a jab. They're a part of his arsenal. He's throwing jump and roundhouse kicks and wheel kicks. And he's doing shit that, like, you've got to get ready for this because this guy's going to do this every round. And this is a totally different type of engaging. You've got to be aware of things coming from all these crazy angles. And they're coming fast. These wheel kicks and the jumping roundhouse kick that he hit Feely with. Yeah. Like, holy shit. That was crazy. Fucking crazy. And he's one of these new guys. It's like he's got so much skill. We used to train with Feely. Did you? Yeah, in Sacramento, we were part of the Team Alpha Male. And it was funny. Like, he's come such a long way. Like, he used to have, for some reason, he had, like, a house arrest thing on his ankle, like the band things. He had to train with it on? Yeah, he had to train with it on, but he did not want to train. So I guess he got permission to, like, go to the gym. And I don't know what it was, you know, what it was for. But it's a funny story because it's like I just remember him back then. And he was just still, like, you know, still relatively new to the game. And now, you know, he's doing well. And then obviously his last loss. Well, he zigged when he sort of zagged. And that's just what happens in the game. Yeah, he got caught. And he also fought a guy who is one of the elite of the elite right now. At 145. And unpredictable. So wild. Yeah. And his fucking ground game is really good, too. I hear he can do everything. Yeah. That guy is something, man. And I knew he was something. But Feely's something, too. He's a tough fucking kid. And I thought that was going to be a great fight. I was like, I'm really interested to see how Feely navigates the kicks. Because that's the big thing. Is he going to try to kick with this guy? Is he going to try to maybe just bear down? Do you watch Glory at all? A little bit. Did you see Raymond Daniels and Joseph Valtellini? No. Valtellini is a traditional Muay Thai style fighter. And he just kept his hands up high and just chopped the legs and chopped them down and eventually knocked them out with a head kick. but Raymond Daniels is this wild motherfucker who throws jumping spinning 360 turning sidekicks to your face and all this wild shit and he was a point karate champion who eventually got into kickboxing And he so wild with his kicks Just he hit this guy with a touch, front leg sidekick, and then spun in the air and hit him with a spinning back kick to the face. How do you train for people like that? Who can recreate that style? You'd have to get someone like him. You'd have to get a karate or a taekwondo champion to train with. It's all you can get. You know, well, it's people that don't understand that there's there's there's some skills that these traditional martial artists have, like traditional, like a lot of karate guys and a lot of Taekwondo guys in particular. There's some things that they can do with their legs that the average person just can't do. And if that karate guy or that Taekwondo guy like a Yair Rodriguez learns wrestling, learns jujitsu and learns kickboxing and has all that shit at a really elite black belt level, like you're fucked. Do you know someone, a good friend of yours who can do weird things with his legs? Eddie Bravo. Oh, yeah. Good Lord. Yeah. That guy is like, he's like Gumby. Well, he's been stretching his legs like that, like religiously for a decade. Was he not that flexible like growing up? No, no, no. So he just keeps doing it. Eddie, when you watch TV with Eddie, Eddie will never wear shoes. He doesn't wear shoes. He puts his fucking feet everywhere and it kind of freaks people out. But Eddie will sit there and he'll just like be like stretching himself out. So he'll be sitting watching TV. That's pretty good. I'm pretty flexible too. But he'll be like sitting there and he'll hold it. And he can do that without like pulling on it. Like he doesn't have to have arms that pull his legs in these positions. So he could just like tuck his legs into places. And all of a sudden you're like locked up in a go-go plot. And you don't even know how the fuck he got his leg there. I know. I grappled with him once like years ago. He was like really tricky. But he's like, dude, you're like grappling with a dude. Does that feel good or is that? Yeah, that's always a compliment. As long as people don't say I look like a dude, I can grapple like a dude all day long. That's never an issue. I dread the day when people are like, oh, you don't look like a fighter. I'm like, that's good. I really dread the day when people are like, man, you look like a fighter. Whoops. Went too far. Yeah, I pushed the edge of the envelope and I didn't come out on the winning side. Yeah, you grapple like a dude is an okay. Like, you make out like a dude. Yeah, no, that's not. What? Yeah. How do you know? Yeah right Where this conversation going Yeah Oh that got off real quick it there is a definite difference between um watching some women grapple and what some women can do and there's got to be some benefits to like being a woman when it comes to grappling there is sometimes like i'll grapple some guys and i don't realize it's much different to be like man you're so flexible or like you've got you know your ankles I tried to ink lock and it was like most guys would attack but he's like you were fine I was like you know I don't know have you ever seen this thing that ballerinas use and this is I think it's a new device but it's like you slide your foot into like this it seems like a rubber sheath it's like there's a flat board and there's like this rubber sheath and you slide your foot into and you do these exercises with your foot and somebody put it up on one of the jiu jitsu pages that I follow on Instagram and they were like this is like the best way to prevent foot locks like literally because it just strengthens it strengthens it and stretches it to the point where you know like if someone gets you into like a foot lock and they're pushing down like a toe hold as they're pushing down on your foot it's the hyperextending of the ankle that gets you to tap because you're like oh I think something's going to tear and then people tap and this gets your foot into this flexible position where you kind of strengthen and make it so flexible that you can't get tapped in certain ways. You never tried that? Do you have it, Jamie? Is that what it is? Huh. That looks similar. That's similar. It's pro-arch. Is that what it's called? Oh, that looks like it's making it like where your feet are. Yeah, like the arch of the ballerina foot. That's probably like strengthening to be able to stand on the toes. What is that? You're wearing Birkenstocks? Ballet is brutal. Ugh, the feet. Their feet are so... They're so wrecked. So nasty. So bad. Oh, God. It's like I thought my feet were bad. I knew this girl who's a ballerina, and she had to have her feet fixed because her toes, she had smashed her toes for so long, like doing like point and trying to stand on her toes, that she had to get like she had these scars over the top of her feet where she had to get her toes like realigned and get her ligaments repaired. Ballet is a hard, hard sport from my understanding. Like I don't think they get enough credit. Well, they also have to starve themselves. You have to be tiny. Did you see that swan movie? Was it Black Swan? Yes. Yeah. Freaking fucking crazy. It was insane. Yeah. Right? I was like, oh. Yeah. I don know That not a woman empowering sort of activity Yeah I posted a picture of me with a scale the other day like weighing myself People are like 147 They're like freaking out about it or whatever. I'm like, yeah, I weigh, you know, almost 150 pounds. But they're like, look, that's good. It goes to show you don't have to be 100 pounds or 110 pounds to look good or be beautiful or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not ashamed of what I weigh at all. Like at all at all. I don't care. I could weigh 160 pounds as long as I look good and feel good. Like, you know, people were just kind of surprised that I, I guess a lot of women have like numbers in their head that you don't want to go over. Yeah. Like 135 is like the peak. Don't get bigger than this bitch. Yeah. You know, I think it used to be like 110. My mom's best friend growing up, she was, um, she was Vietnamese and they had, they had a rule, but she was half Vietnamese. So the Vietnamese side of her family. So she was a little bit bigger bone. Gorgeous. Beautiful. like exotic green eyes dark black hair like half Vietnamese really really pretty and um her family was so hard on her because she weighed over a hundred pounds like you were supposed to be under you're supposed to be 99 or less because they're all super tiny but she was half so her she got her half of her white dad's side and she was like 109 or something and like you you lose weight Lynn Lynn you lose weight you're too heavy too heavy really yeah yeah oh yeah and she had just she had eating disorders and stuff like that like later because she was so just mortified that she weighed more you know they didn't want her to weigh over 100 oh that's so crazy the number you put a number on things numbers yeah it doesn't matter to me how do you look if you look good what doesn't what difference does it make like obviously being a fighter you're going to be denser i mean how anybody wouldn't understand that a woman like you what are you like five seven five six five six at five six 145 pounds you're gonna have a ton of muscle i mean you have to if you're doing all the grappling you're doing what kind of strength and conditioning program are you on um i go usually like two three days a week and i go to this place called phase one sports and they work with a lot of athletes like we're the boxers and football players and things like that so um i do like the most that i really do for like actual lifting weights is probably power cleans or like hang cleans. Like I'll, you know, flip a bar. That's, I think really good explosive movement for, um, like for wrestling and things like that. Um, I do sled pushing and do a lot of body weight stuff, a lot of footwork and, you know, um, we kind of mix cardio and weight. So we'll do like, he'll like do one lot of body weight stuff, a lot of footwork. And, you know, we kind of mix cardio pushing and do a lot of body weight stuff, a lot of footwork. And, you know, we kind of mix cardio and weight. So we'll do like, he'll like do one set of the workout that's strength based. So it's like anaerobic, and then we'll like run sprints. So kind of like to simulate a fight, like you're going through a combination and it's anaerobic, you're throwing five, six punches, and you're doing that without oxygen, anaerobic, and then you do something where you know, you circle away and you move or something that's aerobic you know are you coming for the takedown that's kind of an anaerobic movement and then so it simulates the fight so we do a lot of um i don't know it's not really anything super rocket science i don't think but i like it it works for me have you always done a strength and conditioning program i love strength and conditioning and um in high school and stuff i lifted a lot of weights i got criticized a lot actually in high school because i was pretty buff in high school and i wrestled you got criticized yeah i got criticized by girls or boys actually by guys mostly i think the girls were kind of scared of me even though i was like never confrontational i never like fought people i was like pretty nice to everyone but um like i don't know the girls were probably like if they knew if they would have messed with me i probably would have wrecked them you know but i was just kind of like passive i was a people watcher um and uh yeah like the guys were like man stop lifting me should you're getting too buff I'm like, maybe you need to lift more. Were you wrestling in high school? Yeah, I wrestled in high school. What was that like? That was hard, man. Actually, my first half of my season was terrible. Were you wrestling dudes or were you wrestling girls? Primarily guys. That's ridiculous. I was the only consistent female on my team for all four years. What the fuck motivated you to go do that? Did you just like wrestling dudes? Yeah. No, actually. that was that like I said it was terrible like my first day oh my gosh well I'll get to why I did it I did it because I can't play basketball that was really the reason why I didn't do it well did you want to play basketball no I hate basketball well that's probably why you can't play basketball because I bet if you wanted to play basketball you'd figure out how to get really good at basketball probably so don't say you can't play basketball well it would have been a long road maybe I could have but it would take a long time yeah but as if MMA isn't a long road yeah but it's way more fun but isn't it crazy though that the odds of you getting famous as a female basketball player are non yeah there was like I mean WNBA still exists right name one famous wnba player name one go ahead ready go you can do it but female fighters at the time it was ridiculous if you were in high school and said one day i'm gonna be a female cage fighter people like this is a crazy bitch get away from her she's out of her fucking mind yeah meanwhile you're famous yeah the ufc was just barely coming out i think then you know it was like so i don't know it's crazy. Um, so I decided to do it out of default because I want to do it to do a sport, but I was really reluctant to play basketball or even try. Didn't like, it just didn't appeal to me. Didn't click. Can't dribble the ball. I don't shoot well. Like I didn't pee a couple of times. I'm like, this is not the sport for me. I can't jump very high. Like everything is just like, not, I'm not made to play basketball. And so I went out for wrestling. Um, and I was like, yeah I guess I'll try this and uh we didn't tell my dad at first either because he would have probably like been mortified he was mortified when we told him but it was too late by then I was already like I was already in it I was like I think my mom thought I was gonna quit so she like tried to hide it from him for like you know two three weeks or so like thinking oh she's not probably gonna like this but I loved it girls were on the team with you one other girl it was my best friend Sharon and it was actually her idea I never probably would have thought of it we were in honors English class, little smarty pants. And she looked at me and she's like, you know, I really want to do a sport, but I don't want to play basketball either. You want to go out for wrestling? I'm like wrestling. And I always thought wrestling was so weird. Like in middle school as a kid, I'm like, what are they doing? Like they're these boys in these tight suits, like rolling around. This is weird. Um, so I had this like distaste for wrestling, but I was kind of like, well, it's better than basketball probably. Yeah, sure. Let's try it. wow yeah that's how i mean it's nothing against basketball but i just i just can't i don't know how did you know that you liked it wrestling yeah well the first day i got my ass kicked bad like i left with like matt burns all over my body and my face like i didn't know what i was doing they tried to get me to quit they didn't want the girl they did not want us there they meaning the teammates or the teammates and the coaches really yeah the coach yeah the coach was kind of an ass like he was only there for one year he actually ended up getting he ended up getting fired but anyways um yeah they did not want us there so I think they thought like if we make this as hard on them as possible they'll just quit because that's like you know I think they had had like a couple years before like a girl come out and like they didn't they never last like they never made it past the two weeks so I think I I kind of felt that and I was like you just I was like I going to prove you wrong I going to stick around I going to do this And I was like and I sure as hell know I can get any worse I was like, so the law of diminishing returns says I'm bound to get better. And yeah, I kept coming back every day. And it was the hardest thing that I've ever done. I think that's why I liked it so much. It was fucking hard. Really, really hard. And they did a lot of conditioning, a lot of, you know, but I loved it. I didn't mind that at all. Like, I love that stuff. I love working out. I love conditioning. I love pushing myself. The part that was the most challenging was the actual wrestling because they didn't want to teach us anything. They didn't want to teach me anything. I remember they put me in there with a guy who placed like third in state and he just wrecked me. I was like, can you at least show me a double? I was like, I don't know anything. I don't know how to do any of this stuff. Like, can you show me? So you're just a body? Yeah. They're like, nope, just go wrestle. And he just embarrassed me. What a shitty fucking wrestling coach. Yeah. Well, I don't know. they didn't want us there. Was that the first time that you knew about yourself though that you liked to overcome adversity like that? Do you like difficult challenges? Looking back on it I think so because I didn't realize how tough I was until I got through a wrestling season. I'm like holy crap that was really hard. High school wrestling is brutal. For people who have never done anything difficult too it's probably like their first introduction. Most people don't stay. You start out with a big team and half the people drop like flies yeah really quickly you know and a couple kind of dwindle out and you're left with like a few that are you know really there to do it and especially with me being so terrible like i lost um i mean i probably lost about every match that year i never wrestled before you know i was competing against guys um i can't remember exactly uh i think i beat a girl like later in the season my first year and i lost my very first wrestling match was actually against another female which was rare and it lost by points, but she was like a senior. So, you know, it was whatever. I just tried to, no, I got pinned. That's a lie. I remember I got pinned. She was a senior. It was like second round and I didn't, I just didn't know very much, you know? And, uh, then I went on and actually my senior year, I ended up wrestling varsity. Whoa. Yeah. That's crazy. So you went through freshmen, sophomore, junior and senior year. Yeah. All four years. All four years you wrestled yeah that's amazing I loved it whoa I live for it that's crazy yeah in the senior year you were a varsity wrestler right what in the fuck at what weight this is the hilarious part okay so so I was good but I wasn male varsity good You know I love wrestling I worked hard I came early I stayed late I did all that but, um, I wasn't that level. Right. But, but the thing was, is that we didn't have 152 pounder. We had two 145ers. So I wrestled 145. I didn't know how to cut weight. So it's just what I was walking at, at the time. I was heavier, almost heavier in high school than I am now. And I didn't know anything about diet. I didn't know anything about anything. I thought when I, Joe, this is how stupid I was. I thought that when I had to make weight the next day that I needed to eat the most low calorie foods. So I would go like get the jar of salsa, which has like, I don't know how many thousands of milligrams of sodium, which is going to help you hold water. I didn't know. It's like, oh, it's five calories per serving. Let me eat this whole thing. And then like, I'm sure it was like a balloon the next day. Like, it's no wonder like I couldn't cut any weight. well there's no science they didn't teach you shit about cutting weight nobody nobody taught me anything about cutting weight except you throw a garbage bag on and run around yeah you know and so anyways um there was two 145 pounders no 152 pounders so what they would do is basically i was a sacrificial lamb we would both weigh in at 145 for varsity and they would decide which opponent was more likely for the guy, our guy teammate to beat. And they would match him up so that we could get a win. And they would put me with the tougher opponent so that our guy that had a chance at winning could win because they're like, they knew either way. I probably wasn't gonna be able to win again. I mean, these are tough guys. Like I've been wrestling four years. They've been wrestling their whole life, right? And they're cutting weight. So half the time I'm wrestling 152 pound men. like I'm weighing in at 145 on the varsity team and just getting you know oh my gosh did you beat any dudes? I did but not in varsity I didn't beat any varsity guys but I beat some other guys I made them cry I made a few guys quit it would always get back to our school too it would always get back to our school too like oh yeah that guy you beat last week he quit quit the team yeah it would come back to our school because obviously there was a you know a rival school Or whatever, but somehow it would get back to a yeah, like I guess he quit the team I wonder how much that fucks with their head. I don't know I Don't I didn't care whoa I scold I didn't care of course. I mean yeah, well you can't know people are not gonna make it Yeah, you gotta keep going one time. Do you know what a Saturday night ride is sure? I didn't care. I didn't care. Of course. How could you? Well, you can't. Some people are not going to make it. Yeah. You got to keep going. One time. Do you know what a Saturday night ride is? Sure. Yeah. Why don't you explain it to people? It's the most important thing. So it's basically, I'll tell you the story. I got by like 152 pound state placer. I weighed in at 145. I remember he wrestled for White River. And he went out and just bulldozed me right over. And Saturday night ride pinned me. in like 18 seconds. I mean, he crushed me. But it's the most embarrassing and like, it's the last, like if you're a girl in high school, that's the last way that you want someone to pin you. So basically they, they lay like straight on top of you and then like a starfish position and they wrap your arm, both of your arms with their arms and wrap their legs with your legs so that you can't, you're just starfished out on your back. And like, I was like, what an asshole. Like, you know, he did it on purpose. Well, why does that? But if it was effective, why is that more embarrassing? Just because your legs are all spread apart? And it looks like a sexual position, kind of, you know? Because they're like right on top of you, stomach to stomach, chest to chest, groin to groin. Yeah, there it is. Yeah, that's close. Well, that's someone mounting, grapevining someone. Let's see. Oh, it's not really pulling up. Go down again, the black and white one, right? Yeah, that's kind of like it. basically um sort of but he's kind of doing more of an arm bar so just imagine the same thing amount with uh double grapevine yeah so it's just kind of you know what i mean it was just like demoralizing yeah no i get it damn it and it was so fast he was like but usually actually i didn't get pinned on in varsity because i was so flexible it goes back to that like people couldn't turn me over even the varsity guys like i would that was my survival technique was like my shoulders were so flexible that if like in in high school wrestling you can't go past what's potentially dangerous So you're not allowed to like dislocate someone's shoulders. So it's like they would try to turn me and my shoulder, my arm would just be going, going, going, going, going. And they would be like, you can't go past that or you're going to dislocate her arm. You know, so it was like that was my my Hail Mary. It was like, I'm really flexible and I'm super tough. And I would just would not let I would have let my arm dislocate for sure. I was not going to let him turn me. That's one of the interesting things about wrestling, isn't it? It's like there's some things that you would do in a fight that you're not allowed to do. Yeah. Well it collegiate wrestling So it there different styles there collegiate which is like more safe for schools you know these are kids And then you get into freestyle wrestling which you can throw people and slam them In collegiate you have to kind of set them down You're not allowed to just like pick someone in the air and go, boom, you know, throw them. You have to kind of put them down. But even in freestyle, like remember when Mark Schultz fought in the Olympics and ripped that guy's arm apart, got him in a Kimura and sort of tossed him with a Kimura and just yanked his arm backwards. yeah i mean that you got disqualified for that yeah which were in the ufc would be an amazing move yeah well i guess it's just a different mindset i guess they think of wrestling as wrestling and fighting as fighting it's different it is but it's like it's effective grappling it's like the use of your body against their body yeah it's interesting in that way but i think for wrestling i don't know if you're supposed to use like joint manipulation i think maybe that's the difference right it's supposed to be like that you can control their body like with your weight on top of them not necessarily like contort their joint in the wrong direction so that you know that's jujitsu that's that's where jujitsu comes in do you remember when um matt hughes fought ricardo almeida and choked him out but with a like a front headlock yeah which is a move that is actually used in wrestling all the time that was a fascinating some wrestlers have adapted more of that stuff too like they put that in there more let's like start putting some pressure on the throat and folding people over it and they try to sneak in there a little bit who's so fucking strong when he gets a hold of you in that position he's pushing yeah he's pushing against your your arm and it's pinning against your neck and then he's squeezing your neck on the other side he's choking you out like just like i had an arm choke but in a reverse position yeah it's pretty good yeah i was amazed when i saw that fight that he did that that he was able to choke out ricardo almeida who's a jujitsu black belt but more amazed since then that no one else has been able to do it. Yeah. Have you wrestled? Did you ever wrestle? Yeah, I wrestled in high school. You wrestled in high school? One year. Yeah, it's hard. Why didn't you do it the other one? Taekwondo. So I was doing both. Oh, you were in Taekwondo. Yeah. I just decided that Taekwondo was easier. I like that. And I like kicking people. Wrestling is one of the hardest things, isn't it? Well, it was also that I had to do it at school. So it was like, I had to stay at school, which I fucking hated. And I was just a zombie. Yeah. Like after I was so sore. I remember like we used to do We'd do these sprints upstairs and shit and carry each other across the football field. And I was so fucking sore. Yeah. I just remember thinking like, fuck this. Or we used to do like what they call the gut busters I think because they literally make you want to vomit i was doing both at the same time too i was doing taekwondo and wrestling at the same time i just had determined i wish i could have done more extracurricular like school activities besides just what was offered by the school that was one thing is like we were so we struggled a lot financially growing up we didn't grow up in a privileged household by any means and they couldn't afford my parents couldn't afford to put me into gymnastics at the time you know right but i'm glad because i think that for that's what i wanted to do i actually wanted to do gymnastics instead of wrestling but they're like you know we just it's too too much right and uh but i'm glad that i didn't come from super privileged because it just gives me a whole different perspective sure you appreciate what you've earned i'm sure yeah when did you start striking when did you do any sort of striking martial arts um 19 when i was 19 what did you start out with um i think it was just kickboxing yeah just normal like learning to throw kicks and normal you know it was kickboxing for mma i never did any like just straight anything it was always about it was always about mma and obviously i had wrestled so the goal was always to grab people and get them to the ground right so yeah i started with kickboxing learning how to throw basic kicks learning how to throw basic punches but like before my first fight i think i had like maybe four weeks of striking which is like nothing nothing that's crazy it's crazy well in those situations like i had a buddy of mine who was a jujitsu black belt really high level jujitsu guy and he's taking an mma fight and we had a conversation about it before and uh i was going well how how much striking are you doing and he's like once a week i get together and i do this i'm I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, listen, do you know what you can do to guys on the ground? Well, someone can do that to you standing up. Yeah. And if all that guy has to do is keep you from getting a hold of him, and you're fucksville. You have to be understanding that there's a difference in the consequences as well. Oh, yeah. The consequences of being in there with a dangerous striker are one wrong move, and you get clipped with something, and you wake up. Yeah. It's such a different thing. But so many people that are really good at one thing, they think all I have to do is do my one thing and they won't be able to stop me. Right, well I went into my first fight kind of ignorance is bliss too. Not thinking like, you know, if I can't do this, I just didn know how devastating it could be to get like kneed in the face Now up in Washington state they don allow amateurs like to throw full on knees to the face They don No they don allow it like an amateur fighting I think in California and stuff like that too. Like now there's more regulations and they don't allow it just because a lot of times amateurs are still learning and just such a brutal blow. Right. A knee to the face. I mean, that's a hard, there's no protection. It's straight like knee bone. You know, that's pretty brutal. My first fight, Oh my gosh. You know, I went out there, I wrestled her. I pretty much just all, that's all that I knew. I don't even think I threw a punch on the ground. Like I took her down like the easiest I've ever taken her down. And I think I forgot that I could punch. Cause I was just, that's all I knew was wrestling. So I just like wrestled her the whole time. And then the second round I came out and I threw a one, two, one, two, and I tried to grab a hold of her and she put me in a tie clinch. So her and her husband owned like a, owned a tie school up in Canada. So she was a really good striker no wrestling or really much grappling a little bit and i didn't know what it was i didn't even know what a tight clinch was much less how to defend it so she just starts kneeing my face off and the only thing i can think to do is shoot so i'm just shooting into knees because bam bam bam and they're like one of them caught my nose just clean on busted it flattened my nose and um i was like in such shock and you know because this is the first time i've been hit really like you don't you know you don't take blows to the face in wrestling so I'm just like whoa what is going on here what am I doing and she kind of like pushes me down and like because I'm still shooting but I kind of like slump out of the you know off of the legs a little bit I'm a little bit stunned obviously and she spins around and takes my back she's trying to choke me and I just I remember like I had this epiphany moment it was like the world stopped you know and she's still trying to like fight me and beat me up and I remember she's trying to choke me and I have my hands like this and and it's such a vivid moment because it's how I got this this is how I started my career it was my first fight ever and I'm watching this pool of blood and there's a steady stream like not even dripping like it's just pouring out of my nose and this pool of blood is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and she's still trying to choke me and punch me and I'm thinking like this bitch oh that's exactly what they're like oh my god hell no and i got pissed i got pissed i lost my temper in the fight i started bucking her off and that's when the fighter really came out of me because before that i was just i was hell no. And I got pissed. I got pissed. I lost my temper in the fight. I started bucking her off. hell no. And I got pissed. I got pissed. I lost my temper in the fight. I started bucking her off. And that's when the fighter really came out of me. Cause before that I was just, I was still wrestling. I was like, you know, competing. That's when the fighter came out. I got fucking pissed. And I was pissed. Not only that my nose was broken, not only that I got hit, but that she had my back. That was like, that was what pissed me off. Like the rest was kind of like, eh, you know, but I was the wrestler. Fuck you. Like get off my back. Like you're the striker. You're not allowed to be there. So I like started bugging her and she fell down into the guard position and I stood up above her and I reached to the ceiling as high as I could. And I just started raining down punches from the standing position and the blood is going everywhere. Like she's soaked in it. I've got it all over me. I'm just bleeding like a stuck pig everywhere. And I remember her face kind of like wincing like trying to weather the storm and that's how the second round ended and then i went back to my corner and like um the head the head coach was like we can't let you go back out for the third round because your nose is just so like we don't know how bad it is and i was super bummed because that was the turning point in the fight for me that's when it actually became a fight and i was like i really wanted to go back out in the third round and just whoop this girl's ass I got so pissed so you lost the fight but you learned a lot about yourself yeah the ton and I had to go home that's bringing this back full circle this is where my my very chauvinistic grandpa at the time but you know he's kind of sexy so for old school like he was like you know women do this and men do that women don't do this so you're not allowed to do that and what are you doing how to come home oh my god that was the most dreadful drive I ever had because my nose was literally like three times the size. I had no definition between my the bridge of my nose and my cheekbones. Like it just went straight out. It was flat like a lion. And then it just went straight out to my cheekbones. That's how bad it was. I mean, it got broken bad. And then over like the next night, like I could barely even open my eyes. And I had two giant black raccoon eyes. So it was like, there's no hiding it like in and you got to look your grandpa straight in the face. And he's like, tsk, tsk, I told you, you know, and you're just like, that's what he said to you. Oh yeah. Oh man. He was just like, you know, he just wouldn't like, would not lay off of it. This is why you shouldn be doing this This is absurd This is ridiculous This is embarrassing And my dad just like you know he so embarrassed Like he was just yeah he was embarrassed And I in the back of my mind I know that I can say anything at the moment But in the back of my mind I was thinking I not done I got to do this again. In the back of my mind, I was thinking because everyone was like, well, good, she think good thing she got that out of her system. Like she'll, she'll surely never do that again. Thank God she got this, you know, she learned her lesson early. And I was thinking, uh-uh I was like I can't I've I've got to get back and I gotta prove that I can do better than that I was like it was too embarrassing you know I'd have to face everyone that was telling me like I shouldn't be doing that and you know what everyone says to you like before you like at least back then everyone would say to me don't break your nose that was like my pre like good luck you know like people say like oh go kill it not meaning break a leg you know people were like the other way like well you know good luck in your fight don't break your nose fuck no you know it was so embarrassing i think i missed like a week of call a week of classes too because i had done it over like a break so i had like i don't know it was like i don't know winter break or something and then i i missed like a week because it was still so bad did you have to get it fixed no i probably should have it's still not fixed but you can feel it it's like you can feel the like disassociating my septum is like it's do you breathe out of your nose at all not very well yeah to be honest about the right side like i could barely and this is a good day have you ever had thought about having it fixed yeah yeah i have i have but um yeah hopefully one of these days just did it recently yeah it helped him a lot yeah yeah i did it i didn't do it till i was like 39 i my whole life i had a fucked up nose nose oh it's amazing i feel like i always sound really nasally now too like i listen to myself like i'll probably go back and listen to this podcast but god i sound nasally i used to be just like you i'll be like one side was like three quarters closed the other side was totally useless i had no breathing out of my nose it was just all fucked up in there but now it's like yeah and then but yeah that's nice i'm jealous way to rub it in joe you could get it fixed yeah but then i was wondering like don't they have to like shave it down? No. No, it's inside. Straighten it? Yeah. Some people like open up the, like they open it up, but then it makes it a little bit weaker or something to get broken again. No, I don think so You know I think well they shave down the turbinates the inside like there these bumps inside your nose Yeah It hinders the opening or it makes the opening smaller They shaved that down. They cut out the inside that's all calcified too for me, which is like cauliflower, you know, just like cauliflower ear. You get that in your nose as well. I feel like I'm asking for it to get broken again though as soon as I fix it. Like this is like. It's going to get broken again probably anyway, right? If you keep fighting. Yeah. But I think that like at least you have more of an opportunity to breathe and your cardio will definitely improve. True. That's one thing I've thought about. Although you have very good cardio already. Thanks. But if you breathe out of your nose, I'm sure it would help you in a lot of ways. Yeah. I have to look into it. Yeah. I mean, like when I was a kid, I went to a doctor like when I was like 19 or 20 and I had a real problem with it. And the doctor said, look, unless you stop fighting, you need to just deal with this. And then once you're done competing, then do it. Yeah. and I just left it alone. But then I'd snore really bad, and when I'd take yoga class, I couldn't breathe out of my nose, and finally I just bit the bullet. But after I did it, I made a YouTube video about it, because I'm like, oh my God, all these people saying that it was really bad, like, fuck, it's nothing. It's nothing. Yeah. The operation was nothing. What did they, like, did they put you under? Yeah, but I mean, when it's over, everybody's like, oh my God, it's so awful, you're miserable. Did they re-break your nose? They definitely get in there. They didn't like break it and reset it though or anything? No. No, because they didn't need that? It's broken up here. Like you could feel like it's all where I was. I broke it when I was five was the first time I broke it. Yeah. And then I broke it who knows how many times after that. But the inside was where it was all fucked up. It was just. And he said it was one of the worst he'd ever seen. Yeah. He's like, boy, this thing has been broken a lot. He said, I don't know how many times you broke it. I'm like, I don't know either. But I mean, compare my nose though to like Vanderlei. You remember when Vanderlei. Vandelay's one of those guys if you look at Vandelay's like first fights didn't he shave down like his everything bones and stuff too yep to like not get cut well that was Nick Diaz Nick Diaz had his bones shaved down and he had scar tissue removed but with Vandelay he probably had that done too but he had a bunch of scar tissue removed because he had so much scar tissue that his eyes were drooping like severely and his nose was flat I mean just flattened there was nothing left yeah so he had a piece of cartilage removed from his rib and then they redid his nose and he had his nose made big so that he could breathe out of it better. Like he like had the... And this is while he was still fighting Oh yeah Don you remember when he fought in the UFC He looked one way like he fought Chuck Yeah And then he looked like a completely different person I guess I didn even notice the nose because I was so focused on the bone structure. I feel like maybe... He had a lot done. Yeah. He's crazy, too. I've trained at his gym before. Mad man. He spars all out. He tries to kill people. Yeah. No, he fights. He's a mad man. There's no sparring with Vandal Age. No. He's fighting. Yeah. Yeah. I've talked to people that sparred with him and they were like what in the fuck yeah he just kills people like no mercy like give me more training partners I break more yeah that's just well that was like more of a Russian accent that's not what he sounds like at all but it was like mean like that I'm here to fight a lot to fight to fight yeah that's Brazilian there we go for me to fight is important they just make him really mean until like like he's chewing through his training partners that's what it was like that guy got fucked over he really did I was so upset when they tried to give him a lifetime ban And, you know, what they did was really wrong and sent him on his tailspin. Then he said a bunch of crazy shit about the UFC. And it's like the whole thing made me really sad because they were trying to make an example out of him. But look, that guy never failed a drug test. I don't know who the fuck knows what he was doing. He definitely did some shit, especially in pride for 100 percent. I mean, when he fought Cro Cop, he was 218 pounds. You know, that's not from creatine. He did some shit. 100 percent. Right. But back then, you were allowed to do whatever you want. In the UFC, he never pissed hot. He never got caught. So to have this one time where he ran away from a drug test and to say that he's banned for life, it's ridiculous. It's just a total abuse of power and a really callous abuse by these people that are a part of the commission because they are responsible for this guy's livelihood. And they just decided to treat him as an example and not respect him as a pioneer of the sport. What my thought is, you should treat him as if he pissed hot. Look, you ran away from a test. Guess what? You're automatically pissing hot. So it would be like nine months. Right. And instead they said life. And I'm like, that is crazy. You can't take away a man's livelihood. No, he would have been better if he, yeah, like if he would have pissed hot technically. Yes. Much better. Yeah. Much better. He would have been back fighting already. He'd be already scheduled right now in the UFC. He'd probably be still in the UFC and still fighting. And now I guess he's going to fight for Bellator and he's got to fight overseas because they reduced his suspension to like, I think they gave him a couple years. UFC and still fighting. UFC and still fighting. And now I guess he's going to fight for Bellator and he's got to fight overseas because they reduced his suspension to like, I think they gave him a couple of years or something like that, or maybe even less. But they. That's a long time in a fight career though. Fuck yeah. Especially when you're 38. Yeah, as it is. I mean, what is he, 38? He's got to be right. Yeah. 37, 38. It's, um, it's so weird too, because the TRT thing, which was around for quite a few years And you saw the rejuvenation of Vitor and Dan Henderson, these guys that were on TRT that all of a sudden started doing really well again. Yeah. And just it's such a gray area. Like and then that's that gets removed. And then like everybody's got to go back to like your normal hormone secretion. Yeah. Oh, what do you how do you feel about the IV ban? I don't like it. Yeah. I don't. I don't. Well, I don't like weigh ins. This is this is what I feel like. I feel like we have to move away from this weight cutting thing. Because there's a difference between this sport and any other sport other than boxing. And I think that the head trauma aspect of it makes weigh-ins 24 hours a day extremely problematic when we understand the science of rehydrating the brain can take as much as 70 plus hours. So that to me says that we're doing a bad thing. We're doing a silly thing and we're letting fighters compete compromised. I think someone like you and someone like Holly, you're a similar size. I think you guys should make an agreement and the UFC should say, okay, look, Misha, what do you weigh right now? You weigh like 146. When you're in peak condition, what do you weigh? Oh, 143. Holly, are you cool with 143? Yeah. Okay. Well, let's just weigh you guys during camp. We'll weigh you guys sporadically and we'll give you a couple pounds to play with because realistically the difference between a 143 pound person and a 145 pound person is nothing. It's just not enough. And as long as no one's dehydrated, let's take hydration levels. That's an interesting concept though, but think about this for a minute. Wrestling weight classes typically are about five pounds apart until you get into the bigger ones. So in theory, five pounds makes a big difference when you're talking about manipulating someone else's weight because you're five pounds less, but they're five pounds more. So it's almost like if you think about it, a double, like in my mind, it's almost like a double. Five pounds can be a lot if there's a lot of wrestling. Striking, I don't think it's, doesn't mean anything. Jiu-jitsu, maybe not as much but maybe getting someone to the ground or being able to sweep someone I mean it can matter like a lot It depends how big you are Five pounds to a 300 person isn that much Five pounds to a 115-pound person is a lot. It's a bigger percentage of their body weight. That's a big point. Like when you're talking about like a straw weight or something like that, that's a big point. And I think, actually, I think Holly walks around like 160-something. Does she? She's a pretty big girl. Well, I just feel like she is. Yeah, you can tell. I really feel like there's got to be a better way to organize weight classes. And I just don't know if forcing someone like Holly to compromise her body to get down to 135 and then rehydrate up to like 150 or whatever she does. Well, weigh-ins came into the whole play because of like betting. Like back in the day, that's what they would like want to show off the fighters and get people to bet on them. Like who do you think is going to win? So it was kind of like more of a showing than really like a weigh-in. And like, look how big this guy is. He weighs this much. And look how big this one, which one do you think is going to win? And they would get people to bet. And that's kind of how weigh-ins came about the day before to try to get people interested in the fights. Is that what it was? To boast the fighters. Yeah. To get their shirts off and get them on a scale and show how, you know, the size difference or whatever, you know. But didn't they used to do the day of the fight? I don't know. Maybe. I'm not sure about that. In boxing, it was the day of the fight. Yeah. I'm pretty sure, though, that that's like where that kind of came in. And then I think they started making more weight classes and that's how it got, got like more specific. Like you have to be a certain weight. And I understand that you want to wait, you want people to be within a certain weight of each other. But then the problem is like, you can't, there's no way to really monitor that. Right. You know, like some people blow up between their camps and other people don't, you know, and how do you, yeah, like you said, how do you really regulate? Like, what if I said, you know, I walk around at 147 and Holly's like, well, you know, I walk around at 162. Then you're like, well, then you can't fight each other. But it's like, she's like, well, when I diet and I do this and I come down, I can make the same weight as Misha. How much does she cut, though? Does she cut way more than you or does she lower her body weight? I'm sure she lowers the body weight. I'm going to guess and say she probably cuts from about 150. But I could be wrong. See, then you're only dealing with a few different pounds, right? Like, would you say you're like 146? Yeah, 147. So you're dealing with three pounds. Yeah. So that not bad But that not cutting weight It not dehydrating I think we need to measure the amount of hydration that in the the body then what you do is what they instilled in the wrestling programs in high schools essentially they weigh you but you also have to pee into a cup and you have to be a certain amount hydrated and then they tell you you can't go below a certain weight because that would mean you're dehydrating yourself that's that's definitely a smart You weigh in on a scale and then like also you have to test the hydration of your urine. And so you'd be able, I mean, that would be really the only way to ensure people are not dehydrating themselves to make a weight. Otherwise, you do have to be the same weight though. I mean, to be fair, you have to have a 135 pound title. You'd be 135 pounds, like, you know, it can't be roughly. It should probably be a diet thing more than a dehydration thing. I just think that also it's just, it's such a dangerous sport already. and to add this extremely dangerous weight cutting aspect to it, like the guy in Brazil who died last year from weight cutting, that can happen. It's happened in high school wrestling. It's happened in college wrestling. And it's happened in MMA a few times now. It's not a good thing. No, it's not. And the IV ban, from my understanding, it's kind of silly because they say, well, because it can mask like, what is it, EPO or something? It can mask certain types. You have to talk to Novitsky, but it can mask certain types of performance enhancing drugs. Right. So, so from my understanding, what I understand is that cyclists used to use it like right before they knew that the person was going to come and test them, they would hyperhydrate their blood so that it would look like it was a normal, like a normal consistency or whatever. Hemocrit level. Yeah. Yeah. Hemocrit levels that they would be dehydrated, you know, high, Oh, hyperhydrated. So there wouldn't be as much when they would draw it. But the thing is, is in our sport where, first of all, were monitored for at least probably three hours before our fight. We're taking the venue and a commissioner does not leave our side at all. There's no way to like cheat. There's no, you're not going to IV up for, you know, a real quick 10 minute and like, no, like they're in the bathroom with you. You're completely monitored. And I feel like maybe if they were going to ban it, maybe they could do it under like a medical, like if you need an IV afterwards and like you have to go to the hospital and get one administered or something like there could be a way around it because the thing about cyclists and other sports that they banned it and then they just transferred it over to MMA, it doesn't add up because we do cut weight. Yeah, I agree with that. It makes sense. Because they're not taking that into account. The only thing that I would say is that what they doing by the IV band is they checking plastics that plastic residue that comes from the tubes in your body And that could be from blood doping So blood doping could be one way that you could have an advantage, an illegal advantage over your opponent. And they could eliminate blood doping by eliminating IVs because this, the small trace amount of plastics that show up in your blood from use of an IV in the bag and the tube and all that stuff you could actually use that with blood and gain an endurance advantage over your opponent wait i'm i'm you're saying by by using the iv and putting like like injecting like an epo is that you're saying through or what are you saying no by blood by putting blood like blood doping you know blood doping you take blood out of your body you weigh in and then once you weigh in then they reintroduce that blood back in your body you have much more blood because your body's replenished the blood that was missing. Now you all of a sudden have a massive endurance advantage. That's what EPO replicates. What EPO replicates is what they were getting by just blood doping. That's what blood doping is. Just pulling blood out of your body, storing it in like a- And then you put your own blood back in? Yes. You never heard of this? Well, I've heard of EPO, but I thought it was like- Well, that's what EPO is. EPO is a drug. Right. So that simulates it, like your body to, like you were at a high altitude. I knew about that, but I didn't think about like taking your own blood out and putting it back in. Wouldn't you just have too much blood? Yes, you would have too much blood, but temporarily it gives you a big endurance advantage. Eventually your body brings your blood back to baseline, but that's what EPO is doing. What EPO is doing is accelerating the amount of red blood cells your body produces. What blood doping is doing is reintroducing blood that you pulled out. Once your body's replenished that missing blood, now you're throwing even more blood in there. It's probably actually safer than EPO. Yeah. Because EPO can cause strokes. And EPO is tricky stuff. Yeah. But it's also a drug that, you know, a lot of fighters have gotten caught for. Yeah. Well, I thought, because I didn't think about that, but I thought EPO is like you can tell when it's, I guess, like the color of the blood or something or a little bit different when it's, or when you have EPO in your system, like they can tell if it's fake. Well, they didn't used to be able to test for it. Right. Now they can. Now they can. But I think there's two issues with the IV. The main one is the masking of other performance-enhancing drugs, but another one is the possibility of using these masking of other performance enhancing drugs. But another one is the possibility of using these bags and these tubes to add additional blood to your body. Yeah. So but I've also been told that that can be worked around with a glass syringe and with a glass container for the the blood or or IV fluid. So I don't know if that's true either. Yeah. So weird. Well, there's going to be a lot of moves and counter moves. You know, like, Nowitzki was saying that they figured out a way to make testosterone out of animals. They're taking testosterone from animals. It's indistinguishable from the biotestosterone that your actual body produces, versus like the stuff they make now, which they make in some sort of a laboratory environment with wild yams. That's how they make testosterone. With yams? That's one of the reasons why a carbon isotope test can differentiate between exogenous testosterone and testosterone that's naturally produced by the body. That's crazy. It's fucking nuts. Isn't that insane? Well, I mean, you're dealing with this massive, massive sport that's just so crazy that there's, and, you know, I mean, I don't have to tell you, there's the edges that you gain. I mean, the edge that you got, think about all the strength and conditioning that you did, all the crazy drills you did. It all came down to that moment in the fifth round where you knew you had to take Holly down. And in that battle, which was so touch and go, it was like she was countering, you were dragging her down. It was a struggle. Any little edge, any little edge there is the difference between you walking away the new champ and you losing a decision. Yeah. I mean, any little edge there. Yeah. And that's where it comes down to people, and that's where people get fucking shady as fuck. Exactly. Right? Shady as fuck. It's got to be the hardest feeling in the world, though, to know that the reason why you did win. Wouldn't that be? I feel like that wouldn't be satisfying. It can't be. It can't be. I don't know. Or if it is, then it's just like, why would you do a sport like that? I don't know. I think sometimes people do it because they think other people are doing it, too. I remember Fitch. I had a conversation with Fitch once, and he was like, I would never do anything. This was back when testosterone was legal. And he was like, I wouldn't do anything until I'm done. He goes once I done fighting he goes yeah I would definitely take hormone replacement therapy when I older and all this jazz But right now he was I would want to know that I did everything I did by myself but then Fitch pissed hot no then he got caught you know it's but he was fighting Paul Harris and everybody knows Paul Harris might be doing a little something something you know and so I think maybe it was one of those things where he's like look this is not a level playing field I'm not gonna I'm not gonna cheat myself while this guy's doing something yeah well and that's the problem was like you know everyone starts cheating then you either have to or there's gotta be a way to combat it and that's the asterisk on the pride days you know like that's the one thing you have to look at you gotta go man amazing times but who knows what the fuck everybody was doing yeah who knows what everybody was on yeah 100 yeah it's just scary it's it's really interesting and it's really interesting that this sport is so it's it's so popular now and there's so much riding on it that it really sort of highlights all this this moving and pushing of the boundaries and trying to achieve an edge you know how much can you achieve through supplementation like natural things cordyceps mushrooms and b12 and natural supplements and yeah how much can you achieve through that and how close does it get to illegal means yeah i don't know and i think when money gets involved it always changes things too politics change a lot you know it changes a lot so people are willing to do whatever they can to get that win and get that paycheck i guess some people not everyone but how do you have a plan for how long you want to do this you know i used to i used to think i had a plan that plan went out the window i just i turned 29 i just turned 29 last August. And I still feel pretty damn good. Like, you know, it's weird that I feel that, you know, technically, I've been doing this for 10 years, but I still feel like I have so much to learn and so much to offer. And I feel like I'm learning so quickly, like, man, you know, I talked about the law of diminishing return all that I don't feel like that applies to me for some reason. Like, I still feel like I'm just evolving so quickly and so rapidly, especially with my striking because it wasn't something I ever focused on before. Is that, that sounds weird. Like I didn't focus on it. When did you start focusing on it? Um, I started focusing on it more right before I fought Ronda, focusing on it. But I I moved my camp to Las Vegas like halfway through that training camp which was it needed to happen but it was bad timing in that I just I getting like a couple new coaches and we don have the lingo down yet And it it's like a language you learn between your coaches and we didn't have that. So there was definitely some hiccups, but, um, after that, you know, I've won five fights and won a title, you know, so I think I definitely made the right move. Just maybe the timing was bad, but I started focusing on it, you know, six weeks before that camp. And then since then, I've been working with my coach, Jimmy Gifford, you know, and he's helped me tremendously and focused more on my strength and conditioning, actually making a regiment and doing, doing all the things that I guess you're supposed to do as a professional athlete. Cause before what I was doing just was kind of, I was a little bit ignorant and, you know, I worked hard, but worked harder and not smarter kind of a thing. Now I have people back me. I was, you know, a nutritionist. I have a sports doctor. I have a strength coach. I have a striking coach. I have a, you know two MMA coaches and wrestling coach and they've got it all like and I feel like I finally figured it out finally have a good gym where I'm at and everything too so well that's where it all comes together right is when your dedication matches your talent matches your focus and your desire and it all comes together yeah and now as a champion do you feel like do you do you have more confidence now being a champion do you feel different like do you feel like yeah I fucking did it 100 i belong here it's one thing to believe you can and it's another to know you can you know believing you can i mean that's important that's crucial you have to believe but it's entirely different once you know you're like now i know not not only do i know but everyone else knows too you know it's a different feeling it's a whole different animal it's a whole different ball game like i something's changed inside me that that i can't explain something's just different and I feel like I hit a new level. You feel very satisfied when you're saying this. I can tell. Super confident, super satisfied, super confident. I'm still hungry. I still feel like I have a lot to accomplish. I think I have a really tough match in Amanda, actually. You definitely do. Amanda Nunes is no joke. No, she's no joke. I remember, did you watch her fight with Julia Budd in Strikeforce? She knocked her out with that one punch. Julia Budd was the bigger, stronger girl and a striker. She knocked her out. She's got one-punch knockout power. She showed up against McMahon. You know, she beat down Sarah McMahon. She beat her down. She hit her so hard that she just made her want to quit. And then she climbed on her back and choked her out Like man she good She well She very dangerous You know I think that she might have an issue with cardio If I was going to pick at something that might be something Maybe she's not as efficient in the cage. But she's been working to change that. You know, she knows this is a five-round fight. I can't rely on someone getting tired. Right. That's never a good game plan. Like, okay, I'm just going to try to stay out of harm's way until she gets tired. Well, she seems to explode in fights and then drain the gas tank. She's trying to stop people. And if it doesn't work out that way, she has a little bit of an issue. I think like nine of her wins or something or first round finishes. She's a monster. Yeah. Very, very strong striker. Very physically strong person too. And she's kind of like a brown or black belt in jiu-jitsu and a brown or black belt in judo. Yep. Very well rounded. There's not that many girls in her division that are that well rounded. So she doesn't have a lot of holes in her game besides seeming to hit a wall sometimes in a fight. Yeah. And I think with her, one of the things that I said about Holly in the Ronda fight is you look at how accomplished Holly is outside of the UFC, and you wait until the moment when she can put it all together inside the octagon. And she might put it all together inside the octagon when the moment is the biggest, when she has to rise to the occasion. When you push her back against the wall, it might be when you see her at her best, and it turned out to be exactly that. and someone like Amanda, she's going to realize like, this is the time. This is the opportunity to put it all together. Can't half-ass a thing in training, the thing with nutrition, the thing with your mind, she has to show up a hundred percent focused. And so for someone like you, you have to look at her, like her potential and look at all of what she- Yes. The best of her. The girl that beat Sarah McMahon. That's the one that I'm training, you know, and even better than that girl. Cause we have to assume she's evolved, but that's the best I think I've seen her look. So I have to assume like, She's going to be better than that even. Do you have goals as far as like what you want to do with the title? How long do you want to hold it? Do you have any thoughts in mind of like must beat opponents? Like is getting Ronda back in the octagon? Yeah, that's important. I need that. Like that has to happen. That's very important to me. And I have Amanda ahead of me. I do not want to look past her because I think that would be a huge mistake. It's not one that I want to make as a veteran in my career. That would be a rookie move. but you know in the back of my mind of course like the fight with Ronda is something I want to happen and you don't know when it will happen it could be anticipated for November I've heard that be tossed around in the UFC that you know she's planning on coming back and maybe it might be Madison Square Garden that would be great I want to focus on that I want to focus on Amanda and it could be anticipated for November. and it could be anticipated for November. I've heard that be tossed around in the UFC, that she's planning on coming back, and maybe it might be Madison Square Garden. That would be great. I want to focus on that. I want to focus on Amanda. But I know in the back of my mind, and I want that fight. I want that to happen. I think it's so important to me in my career to go and beat Ronda and prove everyone else. I've been an underdog in most of my fights. I've been the person that people have always counted out in my entire career, my entire life. most people are telling me you can't you couldn't you shouldn't you wouldn't and I'm you know that's I'm fine with that I'm perfectly fine with that I am at the best point of my career and Rhonda is at the worst you know she's going through what I've already been through oh you know time and time again and I have built myself back up from that point time and time again I know that I can do that I'm confident in that here I am standing the strongest that I've ever stood and I've already been through that. I've already been head kicked and knocked out. That happened to me before. Like I picked myself up, pulled myself up on my bootstraps, put one foot back in front of the other and worked, got my Strikeforce world title. I lost to Tyrande, picked myself back up, put one foot in front of the other, got back on the horse, fought, fought, fought, fought around again in the UFC, was devastated, crushed, thought my world was just falling down around me, coming to an end. Got back up, put one foot in front of the other, got back on the horse, and now here I am the world champion. You know, I know that I'm tough. I know that I have what it takes to beat Ronda. Many people don't believe that. That's okay. I've been in this position before. Most people didn't think I was going to beat Holly. Most people didn't think Holly was going to beat Ronda. It doesn't matter to me what other people think. It matters what I believe and what I know. And the question mark is, how is Ronda going to come back from this? I know what I've been hearing from Ronda in the media and the press. She's been a little quiet lately, but before that it wasn't what I would have expected to hear from someone who really wants to come back and who's really really a fighter at the core she's a great athlete she's a great fighter she's accomplished a lot of things credit where credit's due you know I give her a round of applause for everything she's been able to accomplish but I'll tell you what every time I've ever lost in my career I went bananas to get back in there ballistic I was like I have to like right now just like Holly was like, they're like, when do you want to fight again? She's like, tomorrow against Misha Now that what you want to hear when someone has a devastating loss They want to get back in there right now and face that person right now or or someone else just get that loss off the record Erase it When I lost the cat Zingano I freaked out I freaked out I called Sean Shelby and I was like, get me another fight right now. He's like, your nose isn't even healed. I don't give a fuck. I want to, I want to fight. I want it now. I want to know when it's coming up, like right now, or I'm going to freak out. I don't know what to tell you, but I'm going to lose my shit if I don't have like a fight on the horizon lose it and then I hear Ronda like I'm gonna take a year off and I'm gonna you know I'm gonna do this I mean I'm like that just doesn't sound like someone who really wants this anymore and I think that fight might have broke her I could be wrong but I think something inside of her is different than it was before um maybe she's not broken but it's different because how much do you think a factor is how much of a factor do you think success is in terms of she's doing movies. She's she was the darling of all these late night television shows and everybody wanted to hang out with her. She's doing these commercials with, you know, Seth Rogen on television. How much of a factor is that? Well, she has security now. She has job security outside the UFC. So she doesn't really need that anymore. And I think maybe that's also something on her mind is like, does she really want this? because winning is awesome. It's great. It's easy. It's like when you win, everybody loves you. Everybody supports you. Everybody's there. Everybody's on your train. When you lose, fucking sucks. It sucks. And only the people that really love you are still really, really there for you. Everyone else is just like, oh, whatever, loser. And then you have the social media, you know, white knights that come out and want to tell you what a piece of shit you are and how you're never going to accomplish anything and you'll never win another fight and you might as just quit and retire, blah, blah, blah. So you have those people and you have to make a choice, you know, and, and my choice has always been to do, to, to, to keep fighting, you know, to, and, and it, I just don't, I don't recognize, there's a lot of things I recognize in Rhonda that I can, I can recognize her greatness. I can recognize, you know, her championship. I can recognize things. I don't identify with that. I don't identify with sitting on that loss for a year. I cannot understand it. If it was me, it would have eaten me alive inside and out. I couldn't have done it. I couldn't be making a movie. I couldn't be doing that. It would have just... I don't think she has a choice. I think if you have movie contracts I think you have to fulfill them Do you I don know Does Connor have to but it different but showing up for press conferences is one thing yeah but i don think i think she could have she could have fought because they they said they had anticipated for her to come back at ufc 200 they wanted that and they and and dana said she could have but should she she could have but should she well i think the could have and should she was because she had to do a movie for three months so like doing the movie for three months would have taken three months outside of our camp and you've done a movie before you know what it's like you're on the set all day it's 16 hour days it's long and grueling you don't have time to train yeah but after a loss like that i think you really have to have enough time to actually focus and then on top of that to getting getting flatlined like that like you have to have a some time to recover to recover your head yeah absolutely i just don't know if a year that would i'm just saying that would crush me i wouldn't be able to do what she's doing right now right i wouldn't physically be able to like to deal with that for a year and and if i had to i think it would eat me alive like i think i'd be so depressed and so i'm pretty sure it's eating her alive too yeah but but how do you sit on it for a year then how do you do that do what you gotta do can't i couldn't well you know it's all speculation we only we don't know until she comes back and then but the other thing too is like you know She's like, you know, she had her, you know, her downs, her really, really low, which I empathize with. I've been there. You know, but then she said, you know, I was thinking about, you know, these all these negative thoughts. And then I looked up on the show. She said this on the Ellen show. I looked up and I saw Travis Brown and I realized, you know, I've got to stick around to have his babies. And I thought, like, what went through my mind is like, I got to get back and get my title back. I got to get back and like win a fight. Like it just seemed like her mindset was different than what I would expect a fighter's mindset to be. Does that make sense at all? Like what I'm saying is like it didn't seem like her motivation was to fight and win. Again, there was other things. Now, I'm not saying she's not going to come back and be great or come back and fight. I'm not questioning that. I'm questioning where her true motivation is coming from because I think while she was winning, it was so awesome. Like she like well yeah I want to keep doing this Of course I want to keep I keep crushing girls I demolishing them I a star All these great things are coming Now she already has that She already making movies She already has millions of millions of dollars Is her true motivation Was it just you know keeping that undefeated streak because she talked about that so much You know I will retire undefeated And then she even said like I don't, you know, I'm questioning what am I doing now? Like, you know, now I'm not going to ever retire undefeated. So what is my, you know, maybe I meant for this, maybe she doesn't really know that was her identity was like, to be undefeated in this sport. So if that's not the goal anymore, I just don't know. Like, I feel like I sent something off. I sent something is not right in her mindset. And I think she's going to come back and I think she's going to fight. I think she'll fight hard, but I just don't know if she still has it after a brutal loss like that. You know, is she still hungry enough? Those are fighting words. Yeah. Is she hungry enough? That's the question. What you're doing right now is you're throwing up the bat signal, right? Yeah. Well, that's how I feel. You're laying it down. Man, I get a lot of shit because people are like, oh, you know, I don't apologize for anything that I say. Unless I really said something that I didn't mean to say that was hurtful to someone. And I'm like, oh, I fucked up. But honestly, if it's my opinion, it's my opinion. If you don't like it, I'm not going to apologize for my opinion. No, I don't think you should. For anything that I have to say about the way I feel about Rhonda, the way I feel about any of these situations. So I'm going to be as transparent as I am. Well, I don't think you're saying anything disrespectful either. and I don't think you're saying anything you should I think as a champion and that's what you are you you're analyzing someone's mindset and you're totally entitled to that yeah and I have a lot of respect for Rhonda as an athlete you know a lot you guys think you'll ever be friends after all said and done no never I don't think so no no I think she thinks that I've done so many things and like I don't think she would ever I think she blames me for things that I didn't even do so I mean how do you even get around that right you know like I heard when you guys did your interview she said something like that I called a promotion and like tried to get Chris Beal like um mess with him before like his fight or something that that I guess he I guess he was contracted to another promotion and he wasn't supposed to be while he was on the ultimate fighter and I guess that Dana received a call and then they thought that I she thought that I like did that. I'm like, first of all, I didn't even know he signed to another organization at all. And if he was, it wouldn't have even crossed my mind. Like you said, I'm too easygoing to even think of something like that. And I'm not malicious by any means. I have nothing against Chris Beal, but I think she thought that. It didn't even wouldn't have even crossed my mind. It didn't even wouldn't have even crossed my mind. Like I'm too like you said, I'm too easygoing to even think of something like that. And I'm not malicious by any means. I have nothing against Chris Beal. But I think she thought that I tried to like mess with him. Like I called the promoter of whatever organization, little small contract. Don't even know how I would have known that. Right. How would you even know that? How do you know? But this is the same girl that ripped page for for congratulating Holly. She has her way of thinking and she's going to hate me until the day she dies. And I'm okay with that. That's fine. We don't need to be friends. That's okay. You know, I'm perfectly fine with that. All right. Yeah. Well, listen, congratulations on everything. What you did in that Holly Holm fight was fucking amazing. It's awesome. Thank you. And I think you're a great representative for women's martial arts, for martial arts, period. But as a champion, I think you are a great representative. Just your personality, the way you carry yourself is very admirable. And I think you're a great role model for people that are coming up and looking at what a champion behaves like. I appreciate it, Joe. Thank you. Very kind words. Thanks for being on the podcast, too. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for finally having me. It was a lot of fun. Anytime. Let's do it again. Did my fans finally bother you enough to get me on here? People bother me constantly. There's nothing I can do. I only have so much time. Thank you very much, Misha. For sure. All right, folks. We'll be back Friday. with Ian Edwards. See you then.