Latest / Veteran Wellness Podcast / Randy Couture: From UFC Champion to Fighting for Veterans

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Randy Couture: From UFC Champion to Fighting for Veterans · Veteran Wellness Podcast

• John Adams: Some of that is our training is our worst enemy because what if we're trained to soldier on. Suck it up. Suck it up and stay laser focused on the task at hand and accomplish that mission. You don't ask for help, you don't show vulnerability to do any of those things. No we're told as men in our society that from the jump, which is a lie. And then our training on top of that exasperates that mentality of like, ⁓ I'm not asking for help. I'm I'm fine. It's okay to show vulnerability, it's not weakness, it's courage. It's the opposite of weakness and and that's the flaw in the mentality that I see that has to change. Every veteran has a story. Some stories change lives. Welcome to the Better and Wellness Podcast with Eric Lawrence. So Randy Couture, I heard you're famous. I suppose that depends on who you ask. It may be infamous. So what did you do in the Army? They trained me as an air traffic controller. ⁓ 1982 is when I went in. Eighty one, if you remember, eighty one, eighty two is when Reagan fired all those air traffic controllers. ⁓ Strike. So all those military guys that went through that same training, even though the civilian world doesn't recognize those schools, you have to go through ATC school all over again as a civilian. ⁓ really? Yeah. At least that was the case back then. Yeah, that would be easy. ⁓ all the military guys got out and filled those spots. Got it. So they were very, very hard up for air traffic controllers. I qualified through the ASVAB and and they said, Hey, we'll give you a five thousand dollar enlistment bonus to be an air traffic controller. And I was interested in aviation. Yeah. I I was gonna join because I wanted to fly. Yeah. ⁓ aspirations back then were zoology or or forest service and and flying for the forest service possibly. ⁓ that would be cool. so the army was gonna number one help me support this new family. I had a kid on the way when I signed up and then he was born in August and I left for Basic in October in in eighty two. ⁓ they figured out pretty early I could wrestle. I heard that. Yeah. ⁓ won the post tournament at Fort Rucker ⁓ in AIT in air traffic control school. And then my first duty station was Hanau, West Germany, Fleagle Horse Kasern. I'm working out in the gym over there on that small caserne and some lieutenant walks up to me and says, You wrestle? And I didn't have these back then. I got these in the army. Real ears. The cauliflower. The cauliflower. And I Yeah, I wrestled in high school, it was a state champ, my senior year. I said Man, we got a team. You want to join the post team? And I'm like, hell yeah. So this guy would check out a band every weekend and we go to a different base in Germany. You know, five million soldiers stationed in Central Europe at that time of the speech of the Cold War. And combative sports like boxing and wrestling were very big because of they're in line with our mission. Yeah. So I met Coach Winter that year. ⁓ Who was the all army wrestling coach? He came over and did seminars for all the guys stationed over there and he was recruiting. He was looking, you know, at the guys that were that were winning those tournaments. I ended up that year, my first year winning the the fifth court championship in both Greco and Freestyle. I'd never wrestled Greco before. I was gonna say that. And I'd only wrestled Freestyle once, honestly. ⁓ but ⁓ just I'd started wrestling at eleven to get the attention of a deadbeat dad and and that never worked. He never saw me wrestle a match. But ⁓ I seemed to find the place I flourished and and clicked. And all my friends and those wrestling coaches became very important guys in my life. And when I needed to kick in the ass they were the ones that stepped up and did that. Yeah. And and when I needed a little encouragement, like, hey it's gonna be all right, you're you're gonna be fine, they were the ones that did that too. So You know, that was Coach Case bear in junior high, Coach McAboy in high school, Coach Winter in the Arnhem. Yeah. And then it was Coach Smith and Coach Burnett and Coach Say at at the college level when I got out of the service at twenty five and went to college. So I did everything backwards. Yeah, you did everything out of order there. So sort of worked out. Seeing you sit there in freshman college would have been impressive. Yeah. Freshman. Forty five year old freshmen. G I. Yeah. Fits right in, old man. Yeah, he fits right in. ⁓ Yeah, that's like the guys coming back from Gewatton and going to college. I hear horror stories, you know, they last about an hour. And then they're already cussing and spitting and you know, getting in trouble. Yeah. It was an adjustment for sure after six years in the uniform to figure out how to go back to school. Yeah. To study, to get in study mode again and yeah. What were you studying? ⁓ I was studying four language and literature. I was interested in German. I wasn't sure if I was gonna go international business with a German degree or or teach. And eventually narrowed it down to teaching. finished my degree in ⁓ ninety two and and then needed to do student teaching to f to get to get time the jobs as a teacher, was gonna teach German and coach wrestling. And I ended up getting hired at Oregon State as an as an assistant wrestling coach in a division one program. So I ended up teaching wrestling classes at the college and and then coaching. Did you teach it in German? No, I didn't. That would have been a challenge. But I didn't wrestle for a German club team in in Germany. But they don't shower, so why would you wrestle ⁓ they shower. They just don't have the same sense of personal hygiene that we do, the deodorants and the colognes and all that stuff. ⁓ yeah, we had a German national that worked in in the ⁓ radar room with us and Mr. Moss. He was a great guy and an amazing air traffic controller, but I think that sweater would stand in the corner by itself. yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, but up there in Oregon, that's when you started your ⁓ team, wasn't it? Yeah. I got out in eighty eight, went to Oklahoma State for four years, got out at ⁓ college in ninety two, finished my degree in Got hired at Oregon State University. Obviously that was the closest I'd been to the Pacific Northwest in a long time. A long time. So ⁓ eventually left my coaching job to pursue fighting full time. And it was hard down in Corballas, this small college town in the middle of nowhere, to find workout partners and, you know, great Matt Room and a and a bunch of wrestlers, but I needed to learn jujitsu, I to learn striking and all this other stuff to be a well rounded fighter. And so I ended up moving with my wife at the time, Trisha, to ⁓ to Portland area, Gresham, Oregon. And ⁓ met a bunch of people in Brazil, Jiu Jitsu and and JKD, Jeet Kune Do, ⁓ Matt Matt Ponton ran three JKD schools in Oregon. That's where I met Robert Paulis, Nate Corey, you know, these guys became part of this team and part of my journey in in figuring out how to be a well rounded fighter and and try to be the best in the world at that. Yeah. ⁓ and that, you know, again, I was close enough to Seattle and home and mom and all of that. But far enough probably about as close as I wanted to be. But far enough away. But far enough away that that there was still some autonomy there and and ⁓ immersed myself and I left my coaching job in in ninety eight. Back then MMA wasn't cool. It was struggling for sure. You know, Senator McCain speaking out about it, you know, obviously he was had deep roots in boxing and we were challenging boxing in pay per view numbers. So politically he he set out on the war path to get the sport banned, which he was fairly successful. He got us thrown off the people's choice pay per view carrier by calling us human cockpiting and what are these gladiator games and all this crazy stuff politically. It's amazing. Because we were challenging boxing and in pay per view numbers. And then this new exciting sport, you know, which was highly unregulated at that time. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. And there were really the only four rules on the books back then. Yeah, it was legit then. Couldn't eye gouge, couldn't fish hook, you couldn't ground strike, and you couldn't throw strike. That was it. It was all anything else could go. All comers. Wear shoes, don't wear shoes. Wear gloves, don't wear gloves. Wear ahead, you know, I mean you could almost do anything you wanted. Yeah. And ⁓ so it was the Wild Wild West. It was definitely different. ⁓ I was looking at it through you know, Rustler's eyes. I'm sure how rustling was gonna fit into all of that. ⁓ but it was it was a a wild time. And then we all ran towards regulation. The guys that were running the sport were running towards regulation and acceptance and boxing had been around for a hundred years. Nobody understood ground fighting. Nobody understood, you know, even John Wayne picked the dude back up before he pasted him again. That's true. You know, this was kind of ingrained in our in our social structure. American culture. This wasn't This wasn't a fair fight on the ground. What are you two doing down there? Nobody understood it. Ground and pound was for bars. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. So running towards acceptance as a sport as a legitimate sport. We were looked at as a fringe sport. And ⁓ so guys like me that were kind from that Olympic Resident background give us some credibility. Exactly. Legitimized what was going on. They didn't embrace us that way and USA Wrestling was scared of of MMA Far. They didn't want they didn't want to get involved because they weren't sure what was gonna happen. They thought people might be dying. And that, you know. That's why people were watching. You know, there've been lots of deaths in boxing. Really, to my knowledge, only been two or three deaths in the sport of MMA. Because of the medical checks and the safety procedures that are in place. Well now there's rules. Well, and we ran towards a rule. There were twenty two rules now in the sport. We went to a ten round to you know to a ten point musk system in rounds like boxing. Okay. Because again, running towards regulation, boxing had been around for over a hundred years. So we understood boxing. Now we had to make people understand what this was and what we were doing on the ground and the technical aspects of the sport. And that these weren't two criminals getting in the cage and eating the hell out of each other. That's what they thought. Yeah, but you couldn't have been gotten paid very much back then. Was still I mean, I was making twenty five thousand dollars a year as an assistant wrestling coach at Oregon State University. Yeah. They offered me twenty thousand dollars for my very first fight show. ⁓ But I had to fight twice that night. ⁓ Yeah. It was a tournament format still back then. And then my very next fight was a super fight against Vitor Belfort and they offered me twenty five. For for that. And that was within a three month stretch. Well then that makes the transition easier. You know, and now the head coach Joe Wells is giving me a hard time about taking time off to go train and get ready for these fights. And I'm like, Coach, they're paying me more for this one fight than you pay me for the whole year. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, Look, I don't think it's good for wrestling. I don't think it's good for the university. I'm s quite surprised actually the athletic director let you do this. I I'm not a fan of it. And and what are you gonna be? You gonna be a wrestling coach, you're gonna be a fighter? ⁓ my coach, you know. Yeah, gotta feed the kids. Yeah. I I'm still pursuing the Olympic dream in that last quadrant. You know, I came up short in ninety six as the number one guy my weight. ⁓ had to make a decision, was I gonna go another four years and try to make the two thousand team. Took me a while to come to terms with that, and that's you know, ninety seven's when I started fighting. So now I'm juggling both fighting and trying to make that Olympic team in two thousand. ⁓ yeah, two different disciplines. Totally different. One was suffering when I was training in the U and and I was having so much fun training in MMA because it was you know every practice I was learning something new. Yes, new where the minutiae that I was working on as a as a high level competitive Grec Roman wrestler was was monotonous and and drudgery almost frustrating. Drudgery 'cause there you already know. ⁓ and you know, knocking at the door of being the the best guy in my weight class, you know, certainly in this country I I accomplished that a few times. But at the world level the the best I ever placed was ninth. And now I find this crazy new sport called No Holes Barred and my fourth fight in, I'm fighting for a world championship. I'm like, what just happened? What the hell? Yeah. ⁓ so the universe Yeah. It it it was really wild. Your fourth fight. My very fourth fight. My third show. Jesus ⁓ was a world title fight against Maurice Smith in in Yokohama, Japan. ⁓ And you know, twenty five thousand screaming. No, not screaming. Japanese are doing They're small, yeah. They don't scream. They just look the American fans go nuts. But ⁓ it was weird in Japan because you could hear a pin drop from that meeting. It really ooze and oz and claps. Yeah. Not like the American fan base is like Make him bleed. They're not all liquored up, you know. Yeah. Well they're not partying in the parking lot pre-game. Probably not selling sake in the arena. Yeah. That's true. But the the Japanese understand fighting. They like they like fighting. Yeah. I mean the sumo, the karate and all that. They love it. I mean we all grew up watching Bruce Lee and in many ways the first mixed martial artist. ⁓ totally. You know, broke down a lot of barriers ⁓ certainly style wise because he was all about what was affected. What worked. Exactly. Yeah, but if that was your fourth fight, I mean it only you know, you only won the UFC a couple of times. So as Samantha says, the only Uncle Randy won it six times. No Samantha. Seven. Snow six. He was six. Yeah, I know. She loved messing with you. But yeah, she's awesome. Yeah, but When did UFC come in on that? Because that took a while. 'Cause they last founder, didn't they? My first fight was UFC. UFC 13, yeah. There was no amateur shows back then. There was only one other what was it called? Extreme Battle Cade was the only other promotion that was doing MMA shows back then. Yeah. it was a very, very new sport. Obviously, you know, Hori and Gracie and and Art Davy came up with this format. The Gracies in many, many ways revolutionized martial arts. ⁓ yes. And you know Commercialized it. A lot of the Hollywood BS went away when you could see two real combatants get into a cage and settle things with barretue rules. And they were intense. And and you know it was all about promoting Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. That was the Hori and Gracie's school. I mean they had these house fight, standing house fight with a fifty thousand dollar check, any s any martial artist from any school in the in the in the country of Brazil could come challenge their number one student and take that fifty thousand dollar check home if they beat their student. I don't think they ever gave that challenge. I don't think so. And that was the grounds and basis for what the Holzbart and and MMA and the UFC became well I mean if if that I mean it could have went bad quickly with for the whole system. You know, if somebody would have got if somebody would've died, ⁓ it would have it would have Lent fuel to McCain and and others that were speaking out against its fire, that this was dangerous and this and and most people didn't understand, like I said, the ground fighting and the grappling and and that, you know, wasn't just about going out and punching some guy in the head. Yeah. ⁓ it was a lot more technical aspects to to the sport of MMA than people understood. Yeah. What was your hardest fight? ⁓ my gosh. ⁓ When the UFC well in Zufa, Dana White, Lorenzo, and Frank Pertita bought the brand in two thousand and one, ⁓ they had signed Pedro Hizzo to a nine fight deal, the biggest deal anybody had ever signed. There's this big, strong Brazilian black belt in Jiu Jitsu who'd been trained in Holland by a bunch of top kickboxers. ⁓ That's who they wanted me to fight. I was their heavyweight champ when they bought the brand, so they kind of absorbed my contract. Got it. And I'm this, you know, forty year old heavyweight champ that they didn't think was very marketable. They were sure that Pedro was gonna beat me and bring in the South American four crowd. ⁓ we had a knockdown drag out fight at Trump Taj Mahal in in Atlantic City. My first time seeing my mug on a billboard and there's a whole bunch of first in that one. But ⁓ now that now ⁓ this new company was doing pyro and all this crazy stuff for our interests and stuff and and ⁓ you know, not just walking out of a tunnel. I mean it was a a a bigger production. And the downside to that for me was all the smoke. ⁓ trivial. ⁓ even double. ⁓ I I didn't even think of it and and in that particular fight. I couldn't put my finger I mean, had a great camp. ⁓ went out and put him on his back and and almost pounded him out in the first round. He got out of the first round and now I'm sitting on the stool going what what the hell? Dan Harrison's looking at me, the you know, ten second flapper goes off, seconds gotta get out and and I gotta go to round two. He's like, What are you looking at me for? He literally yelled at my face. The hell are you looking at me for? Let's go. So that's what you need to find It was a knockdown drag up fight. ⁓ some people thought think I lost that fight. And I went back and analyzed it and thought, well, I won't I clearly won three of the five rounds. But he he knocked me down with leg kicks. ⁓ that was the first guy to execute leg kicks against me. Maury Smith was my first title fight, a great kickboxer. But I every time he picked up his foot, I close the distance and put him on his back. Yeah. And back then in that format there was no five round you know, it wasn't a five round system where every five minutes you're standing back up again. ⁓ he keeps so once you put him on his back, he he had to find a way to get up. Or he didn't he couldn't get back up. Yeah, he's pokered. So for fifteen minutes in that title fight and then two, three minute overtimes, he was on his back looking up at me. ⁓ he was pissed. ⁓ where Pedro was so strong in his hips and legs and his kicks wheel kicks so so quick. That I couldn't key off those and just too fast taking him down. Couldn't telegraph on anything. I did end up, you know, taking him down in in three of the f of the five rounds, but he made me pay. I limped for six weeks after that, but Yeah, you mentioned that I got a dent in my left quad. You kept right in the same spot. People discount the leg kick, but man, you there's that nerve there. Well imagine I mean think of your tibia from your knee down as a bat. Yeah. That bone is it's just it's just like a Louis Bill slugger. And now all your core is gonna swing that bone leverage at soft muscle tissue. Yeah. It sucks. Yeah. And oddly enough, after that first Pedro fight, of course they I was due to renew my contract with Zoofa, the new owners. They said, Well, we want you to fight Pedro again. Automatic rematch. But ⁓ it won't give you a new contract. Damn it. I'm like, okay, I'll fight him again. Yeah. And I went to Seattle and trained with Mo Smith, the kickboxer that that I bought at first and yeah. And the second fight was a completely different story. That was one first fight in Japan. Yeah. I mean my first fight in Vegas, sorry. and I kicked him. He never got one kick off. Really? And then I T KO'd him in in the third third round. He didn't make it out of the third round. So put an exclamation point on the first fight that I had won it and legitimately ⁓ made the adjustments thanks to Maurice Smith, the guy I fought in my first final fight. Yeah. He fixed my stance. I was still in a wrestler stance. That's why they were wearing out that lead leg. ⁓ yeah, 'cause it was three percent on the front leg and four moving quicker. Exactly. They can't bring it up to check a kick. Yep. And then he you know, he taught me a bunch of stuff punching properly and fixed some of those things I was doing wrong as a wrestler and And ⁓ how to check a kick, how to kick, all those things during that camp. Maurice enlightened me. Yeah. Then the cat wouldn't have been ready for that because he was fighting the old Randy Pro. Yeah, he didn't ex and there's always, you know, that the the guy who won the first fight has to guess what the guy who lost the second fight is gonna make adjustments on. Now I won the first fight, yeah. But I still knew I needed to make adjustments. I did not want to get kicked like that ever again. You didn't want to permanently Yeah. I was like, Wow, no. So I made a lot of adjustments thanks to Maurice in in that fight camp. And that was my first time going up to Seattle, training with Matt Hume and his whole school up there in Kirkland and you know, Matt's ⁓ an amazing practitioner of the sport. And Maurice, you know, him and Maurice were were good buddies and ran a crew out of the same gym up there in Kirkla. But you were running different weight classes too, weren't you? I was a heavyweight for the first half of my career. And then after my I lost ⁓ Rico Rodriguez and then I lost well actually Josh Barnett and then Rico Rod Rodriguez. ⁓ and so I was on the bubble, probably gonna get cut. They were looking for an excuse to get rid of me anyway. Yeah. As this old heavyweight that they didn't think was very marketable. ⁓ So two losses, supposed to fight Andre Orlovsky in the heavyweight division ⁓ that spring. ⁓ was looking at frank frankly, looking at retiring from the sport. It was time to maybe think about doing something else. And and I think that was exciting to my wife at the time that you know we were gonna have a baby and she's gonna settle down and maybe just run a gym or be a normal, you know Kind of a normal guy, not off doing trinity camps and seminars and stuff all over the country. So I accepted that fight. Andre got hurt, couldn't find a replacement on three weeks' notice. Yeah. Sure. So they said, hey, you know, we get this idea. You've mentioned that you could make 205. Do you want to come down and fight Chuck Liddell for the interim championship? Tito is the champ. Tito, for whatever reason, won't fight Chuck. Chuck wants his shot. We're gonna strip Tito. Yeah. We want you to fight Chuck. Well, I think they were setting me up. They thought Chuck would be bush. Yeah. And now he'd be the new interim champ that will put more heat on Tito. I would I would finally be out the door. Yeah. And obviously that didn't go that way. I ended up taking Chuck down in in all three the first three rounds. And by the third round had worn him out. That I was surprised that Randy Couture. Now he's the interim champ. Yeah. and that's the only time they ever asked me to say something in the rain. I said, Hey, if you win this fight, we want you to call out Tito. Because obviously Tito won't fight Chuck. Yeah. And and ⁓ so I said, you know, I called Tito out after that fight. And that very next fight was me and Tito unifying the The two titles. The interim title I had just won and the championship title that he was still sitting in. ⁓ that's brilliant. And that was I think the first interim title they'd ever done. Now the interim titles are the thing. Yeah, but that was good marketing. Yeah, it's exactly what it is. That was just good good marketing. ⁓ but that's how that all went down and put me back in ⁓ the championship belt again at two ⁓ five for the first time. I don't think I've been two ⁓ five in a long time. Maybe one day in my coffin or something, but I wrestled 198 for the national team for a long time and then after the ninety six trials, they changed the weight classes and they moved they eliminated two weight classes in men's wrestling to make room for women's freestyle. at the Olympic level because the Olympics have gotten so big for qualifying, you know, not anybody can just go to the Olympics now. They created regional qualifiers and had to qualify each weight class and they wanted to make space for women's freestyle. Again in Title Nine and Gender Equity and that's a whole nother can of worms. But I had always embraced women's wrestling. I thought it was important because of everything that was going on with Title Nine. And the same thing was true when I transitioned to fighting. I thought, Man, we need we need a female counterpart in this sport as well. Yeah. And so eventually women Gemma came along too. Fastest growing sport in our country right now is women's wrestling. No kitten, or the MMA. I mean, everybody in your brother watches it. You know, and we we've seen how I don't know how many, but it's some great talent. You know, amazing. Yeah. ⁓ Shannon Williams, Trisha Saunders, those are the two first female wrestlers in freestyle that won medals at the world level. And they wrestled for the same club I wrestled for. ⁓ well that's polite. ⁓ And ⁓ they were both very good wrestlers. And I literally get to see them train and prepare for their competitions and the passion they had for other sport was just as strong as any any of the guys I knew. So probably more. So it's like there was another layer of the onion. They had something to prove that. Yeah, no point in the flag. And nine times out of ten, the same in that women's MMA, those are the best fights of the night 'cause they are just wide open. I think so. Yeah, they they they just they just get asked. Yeah, vicious. I I'm I don't want to fight on. Not I but in all this ⁓ combat you may have gotten hit in the head a couple of times. Yeah. A little bit of yeah trauma to the brain, maybe? Yeah. I think ⁓ As I developed this public platform and and became a public person in nineteen ninety seven through fighting and being on pay per views and on T V and on a more regular basis. ⁓ and then nine eleven happening, ⁓ I started seeing what was going on in in in the group of people that I knew from the military and and ⁓ wanted to find a way recognizing that was a very formative time in my life from nineteen to twenty five years old. I think I believe wearing that uniform, I developed the competence that I could compete on a national and international scale. I don't think I had that coming out of high school as a one time state champ. Yeah, you wouldn't and and through those teammates and that coach and and all the things I won my first world championship when I was in the uniform, the CISM military world championships that summer of nineteen eighty eight. Again, competing at a very high level against all the other countries ⁓ and their soldiers who were wrestlers. That that's a pretty big fly right there. So of course then the college coach is like, Who the hell is that guy? He's just an alternate on the Olympic team. I've never seen him before and the phone starts ringing, so I've got to make a decision. Am I gonna stay in the in the uniform and keep doing what I was doing? Or was I gonna get out and take one of these scholarships and go wrestling college? Again, Coach Winter could have been selfish, man, you need to stay here, keep winning for me, keep wrestling for me. He's like, No, man, you're crazy if you don't take that scholarship at Oklahoma State. That's the best wrestling school in our country. And and you're nuts if you don't take that ⁓ take advantage of that opportunity. So we pushed me in the right direction. ⁓ I think I had some competence now being an alternate on the A team as a soldier that I could compete at that level. Now I had to figure out how to go back to school. Yeah. And and and how to get back into collegiate style wrestling, which is a whole nother animal. ⁓ and I believe in that. four years at Oklahoma State I developed the competence that I cannot just compete but win at that level. I mean that big difference. Honestly, one of the best programs. John John Smith's arguably one of the best wrestlers we've ever produced is a six time World or Olympic medalist. And he was my coach. Yeah, you can his first year at Oklahoma State was my senior year. And ⁓ okay. So you know they just had an amazing program. But corn fed corn fed boys there. I mean they're there's bruisers. I mean their football teams and everything are just monsters. Yeah. So it was a great place to be, great place to wrestle. I had a couple of other offers to go at other schools and that was the one through coaches' advice that shows and and I knew the first week I was there. See, we just proved the point on his T VI because he was talking about something else. And then he tangented out. So But yes, seeing learning to take care of of your body. I mean you're trying to run a Ferrari. Yeah. I love that analogy. At at the highest level. So why are you putting soda pop and all this bullshit? Would you put old tractor oil in your in your Ferrari and expect it to run very well? No. We just start thinking of our bodies in the same way. We're using our bodies as a tool. You gotta keep them sharp. You gotta keep them in tune, or they're not gonna run very well and not gonna run for very long. And that's the truth of the matter. So getting hit in the head Both in wrestling and and in fighting was something I had to I had to think about. And weren't allowed to do T or T, you weren't allowed to do a a lot of those other things that are gonna help. Mm-hmm. You know, special operations guys don't have those issues. They can use some of those modalities. They are now and and ⁓ yeah, it was allowed in in a competitive combative sport. There was a window there for a little while that some of the guys were doing it and they closed that window 'cause they were abusing it, frankly. Of course. Really tell it too far. I chose to use natural modalities, Tonkat Ali tribulus, you know, all these other natural substances that force my body to recover. Phosphorylesterine, to work on that hypothalamus and and the adrenal glands that we're putting so much stress and pressure on, do the training process and getting that body in shape and dealing with the stress of walking out of that tunnel, dealing with all the media, all the other stuff that's in just wrapped up in that endeavor in a combative sport. I don't think it's that much different than what our dads are going through when they come back from a combat general. No not at all. Obviously in no life and death situations in MMA. Yeah. But a lot of our men and women women since nine eleven putting themselves in harm's way, fighting the war on terror and coming back messed up. Yeah. And I was seeing some of this first hand. I got to go to Iraq in ⁓ six and spend twelve days on the ground went to five five or six different fobs. couple of the fobs actually has she had wrestling mats, me and Rich Franklin. ⁓ yeah, top Pulled the mats out, grappled with a bunch of the guys on those fobs and ⁓ certainly a stark experience for me as a former soldier to be in a combat zone, having done a bunch of that training but never had to put my foot on the line. Yeah. And you know, 129 degrees, I'm like, where the hell am I at right now? Yeah. Surfing sun. Yeah, I'll get to fly the C one thirty, you know, into striker. Yeah, tactical approach and Rick Tranquilin was like, Holy shit, what is this? And I you know, having been an air traffic controller in the army and having a bunch of those pilots and student pilots fly us out to flight following locations as a as a student and trying to make us sick in those he in those helicopters And then getting, you know, going to aerosol school, all you know, all the other stuff I got experienced. You went to dope on a rope? I did. I was a dope on a rope. Yeah. It was fun. I went to PLDC there at Port Campbell as well. That was my last studio station. ⁓ I enjoyed it. ⁓ you know, basic was a a cakewalk. Well, yeah, you were fit. So comparing that to a wrestling practice was nothing. Come on, bring it on. Yeah, they couldn't handle that. So ⁓ yeah, but with these TBIs, you've seen it at the gym and we've seen it everywhere else. Yeah. It can get catastrophic really quick. Yeah. When a guy, you know, does it Does you start to hear it in their speech, you you know, in their decision making processes, it starts to affect all aspects of their life. All relationships a hundred percent. ⁓ and some of that is Our training is our worst enemy because what we're trained to soldier on. Suck it up. Suck it up and stay laser focused on the task at hand and accomplish that mission. You don't ask for help. You don't show vulnerability to do any of those things. No we're told as men in our society that from the jump, which is a lie. And then our training on top of that exasperates that mentality of like, ⁓ I'm not asking for help. I'm I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. Yeah. And we have to change that narrative. It has to be okay to ask for help. Yeah. And you know, I got asked to speak to all the sergeant majors who were career counselors in the European theater via Zoom. Strat Flessis, who's a sergeant major, asked me if I would do this. And I'm like, of course I'll do that. That'd be amazing. I have a station over there. This would be f this would be kind of fun to reconnect with all the guys that are over there doing those jobs now. And and he introduces me and then starts off by explaining where he had been, you know, looking down the wrong end of his pistol and I'm like, Dude, you really want to tell all these other Sergeant Majors that story? I stopped I was amazed. I stopped him on the street. I didn't know him from Adam. He was in uniform and he's walking by in DC and I said, Sit down. We gotta talk. I said, are you getting ready to jump off a bridge? He goes, Yeah, pretty much. And that's where all that started. And we have to self police too. So I I was amazed That that he was that open and showing that vulnerability to to over two hundred other Sergeant Major career counselors in the European Theater. I'm like, dude, you the balls the size of church bells to tell that story to that group of people. That's awesome. Well, I think he had the competence because he was he was getting ready to ETFs. He was getting ready to finish his time in service. So he's like, Something needs to be done, I'm gonna put it on the line ⁓ and step up to tell the story. When it's okay for Sergeant Major to ask for help 'Cause he ended up going to counseling for a while and getting himself straightened out. He had to. And that trickles down to you know, spec four E one that that, you know, doesn't want to ask for help and is struggling with the things he's seen and done in combat. Well, that's part of what this podcast, I'm trying to bring the old heavies in, that their names are something. And the youngsters should listen to them and go, We did this wrong. You have a chance to, you know, be a little more Gentle on yourself on how you do this. Be much more proactive on on modalities and or preventing the injuries. Let the burbado down. It's okay to show vulnerability. It's not weakness. It's courage. Yeah. It's the opposite of weakness. And and that's the flaw in the mentality that I see that has to change. Well, you put your money where your mouth is, building your foundation. And your foundation's helped a load of people. I saw an opportunity to give back to a group of people that was very formative in in my journey. Yeah, nineteen to twenty five. I learned a lot in that in that time frame. Some of my best friends still come from wearing green. And now with this public platform being a fighter and a professional athlete, I get a chance to highlight some of the struggles and and find a way to raise awareness and give back. Financially I saw Five or six people in that ward that day in ⁓ seven we got to do a barbecue at the Fisher House. ⁓ me, Don Fry and Ken Shamrock all went out there. A buddy of mine, Mike Davis, the guy that built that green chopper line, he set that up. He's from Richmond, Virginia, so he's right down the road. He said, Hey, let's do a barbecue at at the Fisher House and and go see a bunch of our our men and women. So we went to Fort Mead, we stuffed care packages for an afternoon. And then we got to go Walk towards at Walter Reed and the Walter Reed. Well, there were two separate facilities back then. Yeah, my kids used to do that. Yeah. And and I met at least five fresh off the battlefield wounded guys that couldn't get weight to get their prosthetic so they could go back to their platoon. Yeah, of course. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slow your roll, brother. ⁓ which was amazing in and of itself. But to a man, a woman, I heard all these financial horror stories. ⁓ mom's been down here nine months with me while I'm on my twenty second surgery. Yeah. And their car got a boot on it in the parking garage and now it's fifteen hundred bucks and we can't afford to get the boot off. We're gonna lose the house if she can't go home. I mean it was this kind of craft that was like, what? What the hell? That really stuck out to me. And Uncle Sam, frankly, wasn't holding up their side of the contract of the agreement. Yeah, is what it boiled down to. And it was too many of us. And so it became apparent to me that we were gonna have to step up and and do our best, link arms and and help as many of our brothers and sisters as we can, because Uncle Sam can't do it. And that's whole that whole year two year process and ⁓ six, ⁓ seven, go into the combat zone, then going to the towards that next year is what started this process of me trying to find a way to get back, trying to w find a way to help these men and women that already sacrificed so much. Yeah, it's helped me. I mean it's helped a lot of people, you know. I've sent a lot of friends over there and w when they need it, that's the time they really need it. No one's asking out of ⁓ you know, no one gets to the point where they'll ask and they're bullshit. Yeah. It w it doesn't happen that way. Yeah. It's usually passed when they actually need it. They get to the point of asking for it. Yeah. And I and I think again, ⁓ being willing to step up and show that vulnerability, to let those walls down, to let that messaging that's been beat into us for so long, both from society and then from our military training, that it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to say I I'm struggling. Well, that's why I'm gonna harp on this with a bunch of the different episodes because if you get enough of the old guys that are legends in these different units, mm-hmm, if the kids don't listen to them, they're not gonna listen to anybody. Yeah. And now you can all we can do is try. You know. But you but you put your you know, your money where your mouth is and and the foundation has been instrumental to a lot of people, probably saved a lot of lives. Yeah. There's no doubt. Just trying to do my part and I met a much a bunch like you and and a and a bunch of others that are amazing humans ⁓ that are navigating and finding their way through and and you know linking arms. Op Fob, I've got my first annual October ride coming up here in September. You know, J.R. does a great job with that facility in South Carolina and Ridgeland, Folds of Honor. I mean you can start going down the line on all these dog clips and we've done a bunch of equine therapy, sponsored some some retreats. Well retreat that needed Of extra help shedding and and getting cutting through the programming and the walls and the other stuff. Different modalities for the retreats have been ⁓ using the psychedelics, using you know all of that ⁓ at the at the ground level, making all that stuff acceptable. Yeah and you know, we share this warrior spirit. I never had to go onto a combat zone. I never had to do a lot of the things I trained to do. And now they were pumping those fights. over to the combat zone for free for all those men and women that hope so. And so i they figured out I was in the army and now there was this connection that we had. So if I'm saying it's okay to ask for help, it's okay to show that vulnerability and that is actually courage. Yeah. Then then they s seem to respond to that. Yeah. That's so critical. And and that's where you know the podcast is the new battlefield. I mean we could reach without asking anybody. You know, Mother May I You know, if people get it and they get that message, you you don't know where it's gonna go from there. You know, catching something before it's an issue. It's just that goes boils down to being a good human. And and and you don't realize you're planting seeds when you when you open a door for somebody, when you help somebody, when you you know, everybody wants to see the news and talk about all the negative shit and see the car wreck or the train crash or the well, you know. How how many people talk about the all the good things that people do all the time? Yeah. We don't talk about that crap. And that's the the good stuff. That's the stuff that needs to be highlighted. ⁓ well. There's gotta be fire support amongst elements. What do we have to do today to get you through to tomorrow? Buy fire support today at VSSBooks.com. As we get older we realize this and we have to, you know, pick what gets your attention and then what you actually push on, you know, down the stream. Because I mean everybody kind of does that when they're younger, but hopefully they figure out and done it through different psychedelics retreats. I've learned on what's important and not important. Yeah. There's so much of that. Yeah, you know. And ⁓ we really focus on shit that's really not important at all, typically. We We s sweat a lot a lot of minuscule crap that doesn't have any really ⁓ any real effect on you. No. And that's all stuff we need to learn to cut loose, stuff that doesn't service us anymore, doesn't take care of us in any way. We drag around a whole bunch of programming and and a whole bunch of stuff. We're bombarded with it from the time we're little kids. And the TVs and now these phones, you know. The dichotomy of that. alone is remarkable. Yeah. Any time to be alive, right? In in in human existence right now. Get in real time from Gaza and all these other places and and there's no hiding to you know But we're gonna cross into the At the same time we're all doing this instead of this. Exactly, yeah. I mean So there's this disconnect because we're gonna run into the times with AI where we can't believe anything we see. That's our that's every bit of that is see the stuff they're manipulate. I did digital renderings of myself for Expendables Four in four different costumes. I think they could've put me anywhere and made me say anything they wanted in that movie. That would be funny if I could get a hold of that. We can make some special PSAs. Yeah, thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing that. I might have to learn AI a little better. After I get my dog to talk. What do you mean? ⁓ I already do. Now the philosophy. Yeah. That's all he'll be the Malanois philosopher. The stoic. He'll be in your chair and yeah. Sitting there with some interviews on you. What a jackass he is sometimes. Yeah, I know, but you know, we've always kind of seen How we have to help each other and others because the guys won't volunteer typically. You know, and you almost gotta guilt them into getting help sometimes and I'm not ashamed. Yeah, they tell you going into basic for credit allowed. Never volunteer for anything. Yeah. Yeah, but if you know, if you you've you're identifying that your situation's going downhill, it's sooner to nip it in the bud sooner. Because all it's gonna do is cause more issues everywhere around you. Yeah. And if a a buddy and they always say no one's coming to help. Bullshit. I've had people go, Hey, stop what the fuck you're doing. Yeah. You're being an asshole. Let's figure out why. Cut the shit. You know, and then ⁓ well, y your brain looks like scrambled eggs. Got it. So let's work on the brain. You know, and and everybody's always knowing it's you got the right people around you. Well, that's one of the programs we're fighting. Yeah. We all remember the commercials during the Reagan era. Here's your brain on drugs. You know, they villainized this stuff for a reason a long, long time ago. Certainly THC and hemp were villainized because of a threatened cotton industry. Yep. It was all money. Ford made a car and had fuel out of out of hemp. Look at big pharma and the psychedelics. And and ⁓ You know, everybody wants to villainize them. They have villainized these things and they're hugely therapeutic. ⁓ it's amazing. Well it doesn't treat the symptom, it actually treats the problem. You know everything else just masks the symptoms. Yeah. It numbs you out. I mean the VA gives you thirty two bottles or something. Yeah. And fix anything. Self medicating with alcohol or Or both. You know, smoking weed to to escape and and That's not what those things are made for. You're kicking a can down the the the road. You're not fixing anything. I get reached out to by guys' wives. ⁓ They see what's coming. They they We always forget the family. And and family and they're like, Man, I can't get through this guy. Can you maybe he'll listen to you? Yeah. And and you can get him to let down the wall and and and ask for help. And that's been ⁓ something that's happened quite frequently. Well, and that's where I like Your foundation is military. It's not special ops because we're kind of spoiled in special ops. There's so many foundations and things and this and that. I'm like, what about Joe Snuffy? You know, the the spec four infantrymen with four tours. Yeah. You know, I'm like, it's it's I'm not gonna say the word fair, but it's bullshit that I I want us to be military wide like your foundation, not just focused on, you know, ninjas. So call yeah. Yeah. Where they have a zillion people out there I I touched. Getting to work with a lot of guys like you, you know, Dale McCallan and what he's trying to build in in Virginia Beach and and all the modalities and stuff that he does with with frog belt canine and you know, like you said, Folds of Honor, done sponsored a bunch of equine therapies, some Ibigain. Do you do that one G B shoot? Yeah. I've done that four times now and Great group and they're helping specifically Graham Barets and their families. Well, I can't believe they let Kenny G near you to be your partner though. We'll s we'll send us Kenny G. We'll do a Kenny G episode. ⁓ no one will believe that. We had a great time. He was awesome. ⁓ he's a hoot. Yeah, he's a hoot. A lot of fun. But he was definitely one of those old soldiers. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah. Beware of the guy that's lived this long in a in a in an endeavor that most people don't survive that die young. Yeah. Yeah, there's we got a cast of characters. They're incredible, but no matter how funny they are or how matter tough they are, they all need help. Yeah. You know, and I want to be able to crack that shell on and go, hey asshole, this is what we're doing. You know, you can watch the first time, the second time you're in with the rest of us. Yeah. You know, because everybody's got a little trepidation on on you know Lamort's brother Dave got me to do ayahuasca for my first ever. And I'm like, I dude, I I don't even drink anymore, man. You know, and we jumped right into there and it purged so much stress and anxiety. I was off my anxiety meds the next day. It just you can't even predict what it's gonna do for you. So you can't poo poo it without trying. I've done two I journeys with Dave. I was supposed to be in that first one with you because of the heart attack. And they had me on a statin at that time. Yep. I didn't realize what the statins were and I dug into that and got off that. ⁓ you know, using using the beetroot and the red yeast rice and all these natural things, the the Italian burgam. Okay, here's how brilliant some people are. When they walk to the hospital after they have a heart attack. Well, I didn't think I was having a heart attack for crying out loud. I thought I popped a rip. When you called me in Toby, you had a heart attack? I'm like, what did you have a heart attack for? well I I I knew I had polycythemia, very thick blood. Yes. And obviously every year to get licensed as a fighter for fourteen years, you do a whole blood test panel and they do a C T scan, make sure you're not out there fighting with brain lesions and and all the other stuff. So part of that process is as we ran towards regulation and again this didn't happen till two thousand and and two thousand and one as we ran towards regulation that some of those things came on and you had to do that. And then at thirty five years old still fighting, they wanted me to get a chest x ray too because of my my so through this process of getting licensed as a fighter, found figured out or found out that I had very thick blood. I right at the top of normal for hematocrit and hemoglobin. ⁓ At fifty five after I retired, I'd let myself I didn't let myself go so much, but I stopped doing all the things I was doing. Yeah. To to run the Ferrari. Yeah. ⁓ why? I'm not running the Ferrari anymore. Not walking those Ferrari into a cage anymore. And so I stopped doing all the chem panels. I stopped doing I was still doing some of the supplements that I had been doing, but I finally got off my butt at fifty five. went got a colonoscopy. I went and got my blood chem panel again and see where I'm at and I Doc's like, dude, your testosterone is like one seven. ⁓ jeez. And I'm like, what? Where's your skirt? Yeah, exactly. I was like, no wonder. Wow. Yeah. So I started the TRT, which something I'd never done. And ⁓ I should have gone back on all the regimen that I was doing when I was fighting instead of sticking a needle in my butt. But I did that. ⁓ and what they didn't realize is that I was at the top of normal. What does the side effect of TRT? It pushes you way over normal. So it was probably a contributing contributing factor to got dehydrated in a workout, had a plaque rupture in my diagonal artery. I had been in a car wreck back in ninety four, broke ribs, punctured a lung, and they think I probably damaged that artery. Scarred up through dehydration, I had a plaque rupture in that artery. My blood did what it was supposed to do, ran to that rupture, created a clot. That included the entire artery. So I was thirty minutes or so away from Croaken. Yeah. Walked over to Cedar Sinai and you thought it was NASCAR, man. When they put me on the EKG and realized what was going on. Because they I don't fit any category for that. ⁓ man, it w it threw me on a gurney and the clothes were being cut off as I was being wheeled to the elevator to go up to the cath lab. I mean holy hell. Yeah, it was crazy. And ⁓ man. cardiac ICU, how is anybody sleep in that place? Yeah. Yeah. Damn, you know, two days, two nights there and and they're like, Well, we don't know what to do with you. I mean, you you know, you you're obviously healthy. Well I've got a workout, it's three. Exactly. This was, you know, this happened on a Tuesday. They're cutting me loose on Thursday. Like, look, we're not sending you a rehab. You're you're free to go work out. So I was literally at the gym on Friday, doing the same circuit again. What could go wrong? And ⁓ you know, taking it easy and try you know, trying to listen to my body, but ⁓ and then I I started dumping blood with the T R T. Every month I had to dump blood to keep my n my levels down in normal range. And I'm still dumping blood, even though I stopped the TRT last September and went back to the old regimen of the Tribulus and the Concatoli and the Maka and all the other natural substances that cause freeze testosterone and Sunlight. Keep our gonads producing it instead of sticking an outsource source in that I felt like my gonads had shrinked up to small negatives to that. Why I why I wanted to go off the TRT and go back to a more natural regimen. Yeah. So yeah. For a sixty three year old, that's not too bad. Yeah. How often do you test that though? Twice a year? Three times. ⁓ quarterly. Quarterly? ⁓ I'm actually due to do my labs again. I got that text yesterday from my doc. Yeah, guys gotta figure out a program because there's a lot of foundations also that'll do just that for you. That'll work great, yeah. Starting with the peptides too. ⁓ yeah, no, it adds up. Yeah, the peptides are a new thing. Yeah, the peptides are not not fully figured out yet, but once they are I think they're gonna need a huge help because then you'll be able to target repair and recover. A lot of guys are getting a ton of of assistance from peptides. I I just saw Tim Sylvia at my Quad City ride. He comes to that ride every year. Somebody I fought. Yeah, yeah. But we were friends before we ever fought. And that's how this fighting thing works. Yeah, he's a great guy and he comes and lends his platform to help the foundation. We do guest bartending. He doesn't even drink, but he'll go in and do guest bartending with me. He rides his bike on the ride. He does a bunch of stuff with with with us for the ride up in Quad Cities. He's lost. Well over a hundred and twenty pounds. Really? Yeah. Wouldn't recognize him. Yeah. And and all through using peptides. Really? I need calling. Yeah. He's I gotta We got we gotta crack the code on that. We can turn guys up, you know, because the better the the the better the foundation is, the better they can handle the stress, the bullshit. You gotta keep working out, you know. I think the first step is recognizing it and being willing to say, Hey man, I'm struggling, I need little help. Yeah. No, a hundred percent. That's a big step though. It is a huge step. Yeah, I usually would have to wait until things were cataclysmic. Sometimes we have to bounce off the bottom before they recognize that they they need a hand. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a lot of them ZMOs. But you know, w we we can help with that a lot. Because I've pushed a lot of guys over to your bunch. Changing the narrative. Yeah. That's what it's all about. Well, that's what we're gonna try to do. So so thanks for the gibber. You better. Pleasure. And ⁓ I'm sure we'll do this more often. The horses were okay. They didn't make much noise. Yeah, and the dog and the cat and none of the usual suspects here. Yeah, I was gonna say we lucked out, so so appreciate it.