Latest / The Ageless Warrior Lab / Randy Couture: From Army to UFC Champion to Hollywood Star | EP 53

Transcript

Randy Couture: From Army to UFC Champion to Hollywood Star | EP 53 · The Ageless Warrior Lab

0:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't think of it as nervousness.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I think of it as excitement.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Nervousness implies something negative is happening.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: You're definitely not having fun.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: You're worried.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what do I have to worry about?
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Even if I lose this fight, if that's the worst thing that happens to me, I'm doing pretty damn good.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: But put it in perspective and take that pressure off of yourself and just stay laser focused on what you trained to do and go out and execute that.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: The rest of it's going to take care of itself.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Agency Warrior Lab.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm BJJ Coral Belt and Dirty Design member Dave Meyer, here to draw wisdom from Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and the martial arts, and explore how it applies to success in business, relationships, your long-term health, and making the most out of your life.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: What you're about to hear is a conversation I recently had with Randy, the natural couture.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: Randy is a former U.S.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: Army sergeant, a three-time NCAA Division I all-American wrestler, a former Oregon State assistant wrestling coach, and was an Olympic alternate for three different Olympics.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Then, without ever having fought an MMA fight in his life, he stepped into the UFC at almost 34 years old and was the first UFC fighter to win championships in two weight classes and remains the only multi-division UFC champion to have recaptured both division titles after losing them.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: He accumulated six championship reigns across the heavyweight and light heavyweight divisions before retiring in 2011 at 47 years old.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Beyond his amazing UFC career, Randy helped build Team Quest training other top-level fighters, founded the Extreme Couture Training Center in Las Vegas, developed clothing and media ventures, became a prominent actor in the Expendables and other Hollywood films, and has testified before Congress to gain more protections for fighters.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: He's also built nonprofits to support veterans.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Randy is an author writing his autobiography, Becoming the Natural, and co-authoring the technical manuals Wrestling for Fighting the Natural Way and Extreme Training, The Fighters Ultimate Fitness Manual.
2:16
SPEAKER_01: Randy is a true ageless warrior, and we had a great conversation across a lot of topics.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: So please sit back and enjoy my conversation with Randy Couture.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Randy, thank you so much for making the time.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate it.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Pleasure, man.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: Happy to see you.
2:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's great to see you too.
2:32
SPEAKER_01: Did you train at a straight blast gym at all?
2:34
SPEAKER_00: I did a lot with Matt Thornton.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Matt.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: So Matt is a black belt.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's how I met Robert Follis.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: That's how I met Nate Corey.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: I was coaching wrestling at Oregon State University as the assistant wrestling coach when I started fighting.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know what jiu-jitsu was.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: I was like, these guys are laying on their back.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: What the hell are they doing?
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And so I sought out finding after my first fight show and fighting twice in UFC 13.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: I needed partners.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: I needed training partners and needed to learn what these jujitsu guys were doing.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: And I needed to start sharpening some other tools besides just my wrestling ability.
3:10
SPEAKER_00: Ended up finding Matt Thornton.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Robert Follis was managing a couple of his gyms, one in Salem, Oregon, and one up in Portland, Oregon.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: And Nate Corey was training with those guys, and they became some of my best friends and some great workout partners.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so Matt is possibly the first.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Definitely one of the black belts of Chris Howder, who's I know Chris.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: Good friend of mine.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: We got our black belts on the same day.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Actually, with another guy, Rick Williams, all from Higgin Machado.
3:36
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, so Chris says hi.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: I told Chris I was going to come here.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Chris was awesome.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: He hopes you're doing well.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: I ended up doing summer camps and winter camps with Matt, and that's how I met Howder, you know, Hegan, a bunch of those guys through the camp process with Straight Blast Jim.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's awesome.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: You and I have never met, although I was there when you had a professional grappling league or something down in Los Angeles.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: You fought Jacques Array.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: So I saw that fight, which I thought was amazing because you were basically fighting his format, like submission grappling, and Jacques Array is just incredibly amazingly good.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: And you shut him down.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: That was amazing.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: Jake Shields was fighting in that fight, and Jake and I are old friends and training partners.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And he Jake's great.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he fought.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: Jake transferred, you know, works well out with us here at Extreme Couture in Vegas now.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Has been doing some coaching and teaching at the gym.
4:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Gotten to know Jake pretty well over the years, both through him fighting for the PFL as I was commentating.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: And then now for the last five or six years, he's been coaching at the gym.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, he and I are friends.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Jacques Array was with us for quite a while.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: We had Drysdale and Jacques Array in the gym at the same time, two world-class grapplers.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: And it was really interesting to ask their perspectives on the same technique.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: Because you all have everybody has little tricks, right?
4:54
SPEAKER_00: To make things work for them.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: And to watch two world-class guys explain how they do something and the dichotomy and difference in those two explanations was really, really interesting.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Drysdale's amazing.
5:05
SPEAKER_01: My last point of contact, and I hope you don't hate me for it, is Rico Rodriguez and I were training partners under Higgin.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, okay.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, obviously I met Rico early on.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: We were training out of Boxing Works.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: In Hermosa Beach, I know it well.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: I used to train there too.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: Tony and Scott.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And I was getting ready to fight Beator Belfort.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: That's why I went down to Boxing Works.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:27
SPEAKER_00: Because I knew I had to sharpen striking tools or I was going to get my butt whooped.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: And that actually put me on the outs with the head coach at Oregon State.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: I'd already fought UFC 13 against Tony Holima and Stephen Graham.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And he was like, What are you doing?
5:41
SPEAKER_00: This is bad for wrestling.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: It's bad for the university.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: If the athletic director says you can do this, then my blessings to you, but I don't like it.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: And then I won that.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: So then they want to throw me in that Belfort fight as a super fight in the next show in October.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Of course, all the athletes were coming back to Oregon State that August.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: And I'm asking to go to California to train with this boxing coach to get ready for that fighter.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: This guy's going to whip my butt.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, man, what are you going to do?
6:07
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be a wrestling coach, you're going to be a fighter.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Coach, they're paying me more for this one fight than you pay me for the whole year as an assistant wrestling coach.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think I'm going to be a fighter.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: And he said, All right, I'm going to open the position up.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: He forced me basically to make a decision.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: And I'm actually kind of glad he did that because I would have tried to juggle both of those things, and they both would have suffered.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: And you were mid-30s at that time, right?
6:32
SPEAKER_00: I was 33 going on 34 when UFC 13 came around.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: And then I was 34 that next October when I fought in that super fight against Belfort.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: And the winner of that was going to get a shot at the title.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: And the new champ was Maurice Smith.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: He had just beat Mark Coleman for the heavyweight title.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: So that December, I ended up fighting Mark, or Maurice rather, in Yokohama, Japan for a world championship.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: My third show, my fourth fight, and I'm like, what the hell just happened?
7:04
SPEAKER_00: It was crazy.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, riding over here, my podcast producer is behind the cameras, Ryan, asked me why I never got into fighting MMA, because I've been fighting Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for a long time.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: And my honest answer was by the time MMA started, like the first UFC, I was like mid-30s, and I was coaching like Rico Rodriguez and all that, but I never like it was I just didn't feel like to get it.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: And then I realized who I'm in the car driving to see, you know, when I'm saying, well, wait a second, you were winning championships at tier 40, so but you're unusual.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: Let's just say and I didn't want to put that focus in.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: I ran, I was working for a nonprofit, I still do in the day.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of my life's focus.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: The jujitsu for me has always been just sort of a fun thing, not a profession.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, it is a great thing and a great place.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: And like we were talking about, it becomes our sanctuary because the rest of the world goes away when you're on that mat.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's trying to choke you or punch you in the face.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: You are absolutely in the moment.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: You are not, your mind is not wandering anywhere.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's a relaxing place to be.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: And as we were talking about, I think that's true of any sport that requires that kind of focus, like, for example, motorcycling, downhill skiing, where the speeds are high, where you will be punished badly if you lose your attention.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Skiing was my favorite sport as a kid, as a young man, growing up in the Pacific Northwest and skiing in Stevens Pass, No Call Me Pass, White Pass.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: The Mare Brothers were from Washington State.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: One of my best friends was an elite skier trying to make the U.S.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: national team and broke his back.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: Our senior year.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: I was kind of close to that.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: Bronze Klomers, Rodon Clock Petey.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Those were the guys I was watching on TV when I was a kid.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: And I always wanted to be an Olympic skier, and somehow I ended up on a wrestling mat.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Wrestling is a good way to go.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to ask you about that.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: I want to ask you real quick about your nickname, the natural, because that implies, like, I don't know, natural talent and stuff like that, which obviously you have, but you're also known for being like an incredibly hard worker, like just the hardest worker.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: What's your thought on the balance between natural talent versus hard work?
9:04
SPEAKER_00: I think you have to be a total package.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: We see a lot of very, very talented guys that have gotten away with cutting corners and gotten away with not having to do the work and be diligent because they're talented.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: Right.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: But it's very rare to find that guy that possesses not only God-given talent, but has that work ethic and willing to be a student of the game and diligent and do that.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: Les Gutches is probably the best example of that.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: I saw coaching at Oregon State, probably one of the best athletes I've I ever worked with.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: His freshman and sophomore year, I could still score on him and take him down a bit.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: By his junior year, man, there was nobody scoring on that dude.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: He went two years in collegiate wrestling without an offensive point scored on him.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: Went on to win, you know, Olympic and world championship medals.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Was just one of those guys that was a student of the game, amazingly talented athlete, but also had that work ethic and that diligence and just applied himself.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: And that's what you look for as a coach.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: You're looking for both, yeah.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: I have a good friend, Joseph Lapera, who was undefeated in high school in Virginia.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: And he will say, No talent, pure hard work.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Just pure, pure, pure hard work.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: I want those guys as a coach, that's what I was looking for.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: The guys that had the work ethic.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: Because they were going to overtake the guys that were talented and had gotten away with cutting corners and yeah, but if you could find someone who has both.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and that's a rarity.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: That's just an absolute rarity to find a guy that that has both things.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't that talented, but I made up for it with hard work.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you entered in MMA, I think, without ever like your first professional MMA fight was your first MMA fight.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: Right?
10:37
SPEAKER_01: It's like you didn't have like a bunch of amateur fights or something.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: I got the call being on the alternate list for the UFC and got the call in three weeks' notice to did I want to fight?
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yeah, I'll do it.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: And three weeks later I was in UFC 13.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: So I jumped right in at that level, but it was different back then.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: A lot of guys did.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: There was no place to prove yourself or work your way up or any of the amateur ranks that exist now.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, my son had seven amateur fights before he turned pro.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: Right.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have that luxury.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: It was a new fringe sport that was gaining acceptance hand over fist very, very quickly.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: It was very popular.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: It was a bit of a freak show back then.
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Take Abbott, fresh off the bar stool, gonna knock your ass out.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, throw in haymaker.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Somehow a lot of people related to that.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: And then more Olympic athletes started making their way into it.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: More world-class grapplers and world-class wrestlers, and even some world-class boxers were in those early days.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: And thankfully, they ran towards regulation and legitimizing the sport.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Everybody thought we were criminals and that we were crazy because we got in a cage and punched somebody.
11:49
SPEAKER_00: It was really interesting back then.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, we have a shared friend, John McCarthy, who was a big part of that, making the sport safer.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: One of the best for sure, in reference to ton of my fights and talk about an encyclopedia of knowledge about the sport and about grappling from control tactics as a policeman all the way through to MMA and the rules that we all enjoy now.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: She was instrumental in all of that.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: So when you stepped out in that first fight in those days, obviously you were extremely accomplished, multiple-time All-American, Greco-Roman wrestler, been Olympic alternate.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: What did you feel like you were not an amateur at?
12:26
SPEAKER_00: And what did you feel carried you through?
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think my wrestler's mindset certainly carried me through.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And I and I'd lost some of the biggest matches you could lose in the sport of wrestling.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Twice in the NCAA finals, I was I lost.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: So I'd had those setbacks.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And I think that made me better.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: That made me tougher.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, as I forayed and made the transition from wrestling to the volatile sport of no-holes bars or MMA, whether we call it no holes bars.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, back then.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: I psychologically was prepared.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: And I think that was the biggest asset that I carried over from wrestling.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: We're on the national team in Greco, we had a sports psychologist that we could call anytime we wanted.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: And the minutiae that we were working on to tactically and technically get better was very, very small.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm in this crazy sport of you know mixed martial arts at every practice.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: I was learning a pig new move, and I was just, you know, smiling and having a blast, and I walk out of that tunnel, you know, smiling.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: People are like, this guy's a psychopath.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: What the hell?
13:41
SPEAKER_00: But I was excited to go out there and show everybody what I'd been learning and what I've been working on.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: And you did, you were a very well- I wasn't I wasn't afraid to lose it.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't afraid of having a setback because I already had some of the biggest setbacks you could have in a combative sport at that level.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: So and I guess what?
13:59
SPEAKER_00: The sun came up the next day, and the people that really mattered in my life didn't go anywhere.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: And that was a valuable lesson for me to learn.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: And a question that somebody asked me, what do you get more nervous for?
14:10
SPEAKER_00: A wrestling match or a fight?
14:11
SPEAKER_00: Because I was doing both in those early days.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, man, that's a great question.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: And I'm way more nervous for a wrestling match because of those setbacks and the potential that match was going to determine my outcome and making the team or not.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: I was way more uptight about that than I was going out and fighting some guy that might kick me right in the face and knock me out.
14:31
SPEAKER_00: So it was a big dichotomy between the two mental approaches that I was using at that time.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: And that question forced me to really examine that and and to cut loose a bunch of the crap I was dragging around on the wrestling mat that was taking some of the fun out of it.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Why do we go out on that?
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Why do we go on that mat in the first place?
14:50
SPEAKER_00: Because it's the most fun you can have.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: And I'd kind of strayed away from that because of those losses, because of those big setbacks.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: I've trained with Caesar Gracie team, Nate and Nick Diaz.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: And I remember I was once with Nate before a jiu-jitsu tournament.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: I think it was like a purple boat or something.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: He'd always already fighting in the UFC.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: And he was telling me he was feeling nervous about a jujitsu tournament.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: And I was just so surprised to hear that.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, but Nate, this is like it's just jiu-jitsu, you know what I mean?
15:16
SPEAKER_01: Like you're not going to get injured.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: Like you go out there on the TV camera in front of millions of people.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: But what we care about is what we care about, you know what I mean?
15:25
SPEAKER_01: And it is really kind of a mental gain.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: It's that fear of losing, that fear of looking silly, a feel of not accomplishing that goal, or letting not only yourself down, but your coaches and those other teammates down in those moments that a lot of times prevents us from achieving the things we trained to achieve.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: So staying laser focused on what I trained to do and letting the rest of that crap go was a huge asset to me.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: And BZ Hendricks, our sports psychologist, helped me create frames for those situations that were tripping me up and keeping me from winning those big matches.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: And that was all stuff I got to carry over into fighting when I made that transition.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: That not a lot of guys got exposed to.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: No, it was good that you had that.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm just wondering for younger people today starting out, there's still high school wrestling.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: And there's actually wrestling in before high school now.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: Junior high school.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: But now you've got high school wrestling, the fastest growing sport in our country right now is women's wrestling.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's exploding.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: Love women's wrestling.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: But now there is BJJ.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: Now there is schools teaching kids MMA and stuff like that.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a feeling of where people should start if what they want to end up is being a really well-rounded fighter?
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think this is a great endeavor for physical fitness.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: You're learning some skills, God forbid, you should ever really have to use them in a real-world situation.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: You have them.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: The old adage, I would rather be a warrior in the garden than a gardener in a war, comes to mind for sure.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: And my daughter started grappling at 14.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: When we opened Team Quest, she started working out with us up there at 14 years old.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Brought her out of her shell.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: She got a bunch of confidence from that.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: I never worried about her on her dates.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: I was actually more worried about her dates.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go ahead and get sassy with her.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: She's going to choke the shit out of you.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: So it's a great sport in that regard.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: Certainly a lot healthier, I think, than I should say healthier, but it seems like all the gyms have kind of become this fashion show and this dating scene thing now.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Where, you know, walking out on that jujitsu mat, the rest of the world goes away.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: You're going to immerse yourself for an hour, hour and a half in in this world where you're not thinking about your bills, you're not thinking about anything else, not the argument, not the raise, not nothing.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: You were completely in the moment and you're learning skills and getting your body in shape, and that's going to carry you down the road.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: So if you were advising a parent actually.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, they don't need to be in there sparring even with headgear at that age.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: Certainly at some age with protective equipment, they can certainly spar and perform all the things that we as a grown men or grown women in professional fighting perform.
18:09
SPEAKER_01: There's a school out in Marin where I am, a guy named Mike Valentine, who called practical martial arts, and he's amazing.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: He's got the kids wearing uniforms, so it looks like an official kind of a karate school, but what they are learning is punch, kick, take down, grapple.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: It's very safe, well-rounded.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing how young kids can start at that.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: My two senses on what people should do first, kind of what's available to you.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: I think you can't go wrong with wrestling, because that's just going to teach you an ethic and balance.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: I think BJJ is fantastic to start with that too.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: I've never thought like the striking arts were great for kids in the sense that you're going to get called into the office if your kid is punching another kid in the face, even in self-defense.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I think there's a responsibility that comes with martial arts in general.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And once you've put yourself in those situations in the training environment where there's that adrenaline, and you're going to get hurt, you're going to get hit, you're going to get punched, you see the ramifications of those actions.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And as a kid, that translates, you're a lot less likely at school than to be out picking a fight, or but you're perfectly capable of defending yourself and taking care of somebody who's maybe not capable of defending themselves.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: And that's what I generally see with the right mindset in martial arts.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: Those kids get in a lot less trouble because they know exactly what's going on on both sides of that equation.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wins in a fight.
19:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: You may have knocked that guy out, but now you're in deep crap.
19:32
unknown: Yeah.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: And you've got to be because you did that.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: And that's something we learn and we understand as we develop these skill sets.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: So wrestling is an individual sport.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: I've always, I played like baseball as a kid, whatever.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: But I've always gone to the individual sport.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: I personally just like I hold the responsibility.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: If I lose, it's my fault.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: If I win, it's my fault.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: But there is an importance of having like a team, especially in MMA and in wrestling.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: You still have a team, yeah.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: You need to have people who you can work against, right?
20:02
SPEAKER_01: What's your thoughts?
20:03
SPEAKER_01: Did you always gravitate towards the individual sport?
20:05
SPEAKER_01: And what's your thought of the importance of having a support team?
20:07
SPEAKER_00: I seem to.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: I started skiing at five, which is another individual sport.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And I remember seeing the skiers I admired.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: They were making those runs down that hill, and they didn't even have their skis on at the top of the slope.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: In their mind, that stuck out to me.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: Certainly ended up on a wrestling mat accidentally.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Best friends, older brothers, we were going to watch them wrestle in the district meet.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: We were sixth graders.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: They thought it was funny and threw us in the novice tournament at that district meet.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: So I pinned a kid with a headlock and got my first bloody nose, and I had no idea what I was doing.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Had never even been to a practice ever.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: This is a habit with you of starting new sports.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: And then that next year in seventh grade, I rolled into that same junior high school, and the P coach, who was also the wrestling coach, Mr.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Casepeer, he's like, hey, wrestling starts Monday.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: He remembered me from the novice tournament.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: And me and Bobby turned out for the wrestling team at that point.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: So that was officially when I started wrestling in the seventh grade in junior high school with Coach Casepear.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think he realized how much effect he had on so many young men back then.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there was no women's wrestling back then.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: My son, years later, he wrestled for Woodenville High School up in Seattle, and he had a female on his team who was a very good wrestler.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, I wrestled for a club team out of Phoenix, the Sunkissed Kids.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: And they had one of the first women's teams, Shannon Williams.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: They had some of the best wrestlers, female wrestlers that the sport had produced at that time.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Before the it was even an Olympic sport yet.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: And those gals paved the way for all the women now that are flourishing in the sport.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I see Bella Muir, Frank Muir's daughter, doing very, very well, won a national title in women's collegiate wrestling now, and is doing very well in Jiu Jitsu and will likely be A champion in the sport of mixed martial arts at some point as well.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a lot more women entering now.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: I think women, girls grow up maybe a little bit more shy of physical contact and sweat and that kind of stuff.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: And as that sort of changes and they get opportunities to train with other women, I think that makes it easier for them to kind of hop in with the phone.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think, you know, societal norms, you know, what's women's lib all about?
22:24
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole bunch of you know indicators that there's this thing for equality and certainly in treatment.
22:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think having our women's counterpart to our sport is very important because of gender equity, because of Title IX.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: We needed that female, yeah, that female version of our sport that takes that pressure off.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: All the Olympic sports at the men's divisions have been decimated by Title IX.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: What is the athletic?
22:50
SPEAKER_00: He gets scissors out and cuts these men's programs to be in compliance with Title IX and gender equity instead of doing what it was supposed to do adding women's programs.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Go out and do the hard thing and raise money and create women's programs to be in compliance with that gender equity.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: So men's swimming, men's wrestling, men's gymnastics, men's volleyball, all these Olympic sports have just been decimated on a national level.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing the result of Title IX on the international stage with our soccer players, our softball players, all these Olympic athletes that are flourishing and doing well in the women's divisions.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing the opposite in the men's Olympic sports because now you can add the other layer to that onion.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I identify as a whole nother.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's a good thing.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: I think you just need another division.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: I mean, whatever.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: It's confusing.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, okay.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: So you talked about how your high school coach had a lot of effect on people that he may not be.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Junior high school and high school coaches were important.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: My army coach was very important.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: I was a one-time state champ out of out of Seattle, out of Washington State.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: I got no love from the college coaches coming out of high school as a one-time state champ.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: Didn't go to the junior nationals, didn't wrestle the Greco or the Freestyle until I joined the Army.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And I joined the Army to support a new blossoming family as an 18 and 19-year-old.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: I thought wrestling was done for me when I signed that contract and took that oath.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: And little did I know, in the peak of the Cold War in Germany, my first duty station, five million soldiers over there.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And certainly boxing and wrestling were big sports for the military because of the combative nature of them.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: And I ended up wrestling in Europe, in Germany, for both a club team, a German club team, and on the military circuit over there.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: I ended up winning the Fifth Corps Championship and a U.S.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Army Europe Championship.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: It got me a chance to try out for the all-army team to compete against the other four services or three services that had teams as well, in the inner service championship, which was an Olympic qualifier.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: So here I am, first duty station.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: And this is all Greco Roman.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: One kid there, one kid on the way, and I wrestled both styles.
25:02
SPEAKER_00: I was more of a freestyle specialist at that time.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I didn't know.
25:05
SPEAKER_00: Because that was closer to collegiate style.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: I'd never wrestled either freestyle or Greco when I walked, joined the service, and the military services focused a lot on Greco.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Because why?
25:19
SPEAKER_00: All those guys would be competing against all these college athletes that are getting professional coaching at a highest level in freestyle.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Nobody, it's a redheaded stepchild in our country as far as wrestling goes.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: The military guys tended to focus on Greco because they could win national titles and make the national team and do all those things in Greco, it seemed easier than breaking into the ranks in the freestyle circuit.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: And we've had a lot of great wrestlers come out of the military, winning world championships and so on in Greco.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: So, in terms of being a coach, do you think a coach, especially for the high school, junior high at that level, where you've got like formative young people, do you see them as having responsibility beyond just teaching technique of being maybe, I don't know, a life role model, that sort of a thing?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: I think you're always teaching more than technique.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: I think you're teaching a mindset, you're teaching a work, ethic, sportsmanship.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: You signed up for the Marine Corps of High School Athletics as a wrestler.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: And when you lose some of those matches, guys lose their temper, guys get upset, especially if they're wired that way.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And so learning to take your wins and losses graciously and be a good sport and recognize that you're gonna get exactly out of this sport what you put into this sport.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: If you're cutting corners and not being diligent and doing the work, then that's probably gonna show itself on that mat at some point.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: And that loss is so important in your journey.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Those losses are way more important than the wins.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: They adjusted my ability and my trajectory and where I was headed because nobody wants to lose.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: We all train and go out there to win.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: And when you lose and have those setbacks, they force you to really examine yourself.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: So don't shy away from that.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: Embrace that.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: That's your opportunity to make adjustments and to change things and potentially land higher, mark higher, get higher on that podium.
27:12
SPEAKER_01: I call it sharpening the sword.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: It just makes sense.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: Iron sharp as iron, so one man sharpens another.
27:17
SPEAKER_00: Coach Anderson used to say that almost every single day at practice.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: What did he say?
27:21
SPEAKER_00: Tattooed right there.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: Skull boys, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.
27:26
SPEAKER_01: See, you know, it's funny, I look back, I remember in junior high school, I was already doing jujitsu before Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I did martial arts my whole life.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: But I wasn't necessarily into physical fitness, and I had a PE coach, right?
27:38
SPEAKER_01: When I think back of who were the teachers who affected me, one of the main ones I think of is this guy, Coach Patterson, who's probably not alive anymore.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: He was like a former NFL player, PE coach, and just he didn't let me get away with anything, but he was like fair and tough.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: And I kind of looked up at him and I thought, like, I want to be like him.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: And he said, like, start doing pull-ups.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: I remember my first day of school, I couldn't do a single pull-up.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: And by the end of my seventh grade year, I could pop off like 15 pull-ups.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: And he got me into this ethic of if you want to be tough, you've got to practice being tough every day.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was Coach Casepear.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Fair, very, very fair, but there was a boundary, and he was gonna adhere to that boundary.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: And when you cross that boundary, there was gonna be hell to pay, and that was the pegboard for wrestling for me.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: That's why that movie, Vision Quests, was not only filmed in Spokane, Washington, but when he climbed that pegboard, man, I felt that.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: I remember climb learning to climb that pegboard in June.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: So hard.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: So hard.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Took me a long time before I could finally get to the top and come all the way back down on that pegboard.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for me it was climbing ropes in an L.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: That was hard.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: I used to love that, yeah.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Coach McAboy loved the ropes, and we had three ropes at the end of the stage where we did all our practices, and you weren't getting out of that room every day at practice without getting your 10 rope climbs in.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: So you started, as we said, you started MMA much later than most people.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: Was there a benefit in your being more mature?
29:05
SPEAKER_00: I think there was.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: In some ways, I feel like I did everything backwards.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: I joined the Army at 18 years old, left for basic at 19.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: My son was born in August.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: I was at basic training by October.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: I did everything backwards, but I rolled into college as a 25-year-old freshman at Oklahoma State.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: I knew exactly why I was there, what I wanted to do.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: There were no distraction, there was no fraternity parties or any of that nonsense, really, because I knew exactly that was my purpose.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: That was why I was there.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't an 18 or 19-year-old kid that was like, oh, I'm out of home, mom's not here, I can do whatever the hell I want.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: And it just didn't have that mentality.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: I had this responsibility early on, raising a family, and that kept me in line and kept me motivated and kept me out of trouble in many ways.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Graduated in 29 and got hired at Oregon State and was coaching there when the MMA started and came across my bow.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: And I thought it was intriguing and interesting because the guys like Coleman and Fry were both guys I knew and competed against in collegiate wrestling and freestyle.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: Kerr.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: Kerr was later.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: Later, okay.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I had already started fighting, but Mark was who I wrestled my senior year in the finals of the NCAAs, who beat me.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, I was already a few fight shows in the champ when he showed up.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: And then he fought that one show in the UFC and then went to the Japanese market and made his name really over there.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: But he was a lot different human.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I wrestled him at 190, and then he was vying for that 96 Olympic team with Kurt Angle at 220, just yoked.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: And then he showed up, I think, two years later in MMA at 250, 260 with traps and abs and and all of that.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, he was an amazing athlete and a formidable guy.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: I would call you a master, certainly a master, a wrestler, master MMA.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just astonishingly good.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: What what would you say defines like mastery in something?
31:08
SPEAKER_01: Do you have you ever thought about that?
31:10
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean?
31:11
SPEAKER_00: What they say is you know, 10,000 hours, right?
31:14
SPEAKER_00: It takes 10,000 hours to master something, to master whatever it is, basket weaving, calligraphy, folding origami.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what it is, it's going to take you a while to develop a mastery of sport.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And I entered individual combative sport through wrestling at 11.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: And I've literally spent most of my life in that endeavor, wrestling in some way, shape, or form.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: And fighting was certainly just an extension of wrestling.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you ever look at yourself the same way maybe others see you, but I was just doing what I wanted to do, what was fun, which where my passion was.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: I found that thing that I was passionate about, and I just jumped into it with both feet and never stopped.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Never stopped pursuing, trying to be the best at it.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, I've talked about this kind of mastery thing with uh another black belt of Higgins, actually a coral belt, which is like this big seventh degree thing.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: Guy named John Will in Australia about like mastery, what makes it good.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: His thinking on that is yes, obviously you gotta put the time in.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, kind of, but maybe seeing things in finer resolution, you know what I mean?
32:19
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm not into cars, so it's an engine to me.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: Someone who's into cars will look at that and say, it's not just an engine.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: He'll start saying this is how many CCs.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I kind of think that it also has to do with that, like being able to see the nuance in detail.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Same thing in jujitsu for sure.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: Like someone will say that's an arm bar, and I'm like, there's 50 armbars from there.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: Like, is it this, is it that, is it this, is it that?
32:39
SPEAKER_01: And I imagine you get that in in wrestling and in the state.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: That's the unique thing about combative sports, certainly, but sports in general is they're experience-based.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: The more you put yourself out there, the more things you see, the more alternatives and variables are presented to you, and you figure out which ones are good and which ones work and which ones don't.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's individual as well, because we're all different psychologically, flexibility, strength, mentality, all those things that make us the individual athletes or individual humans that we are.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: That's a really good point.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: And then you multiply that times another person who has all those things.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: And no two fights are going to be the same.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: It's problem solving at its finest.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Every guy you face on that mat is posing a particular set of problems, and you have to figure out how to solve them.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: So, did you spend time before a mat watching the tape on people you're fighting?
33:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, kind of figuring that out?
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: That was something that came to me through being on the national team.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: I came up short in those Olympic Games, but I still went to Barcelona as an alternate and was part of the scouting crew.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: So we're filming those matches in the tournament because our guy and my weight or whatever weight is gonna have to wrestle that guy next in the bracket.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: So, how did he score?
33:54
SPEAKER_00: How did he get scored on?
33:55
SPEAKER_00: Where is he like to be?
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Where is he not like to be?
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And you're taking notes and filming that so that I could present that night to the coaches and that guy that was gonna have to wrestle that guy that next day in the tournament with all that on the line.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: So that was absolutely my mentality.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Certainly in college, we studied tape.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Every week wasn't that you weren't wrestling a ranked guy that was going to affect where you got seated in the national tournament, what really counted.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: So every week it wasn't important, but a lot of times, man, you got so-and-so who's ranked third, you're ranked second.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: You better be studying what this guy does.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: And not only is your team's match score on the line, but so is your ranking as you roll into the tournament that really counts at the end.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: So you study that guy.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Where do you like to be?
34:42
SPEAKER_00: Where's his attacks?
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Where did he get scored on?
34:45
SPEAKER_00: All those different variables.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Does he get tired?
34:49
SPEAKER_00: How's his conditioning?
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Can you put the heat on him and break him a little bit psychologically?
34:54
SPEAKER_00: You wanted to know those things to put yourself in the best position to win.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, I've worked with a lot of UFC fighters, and not all of them do that as much as you would think.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: Like you, I think you're a smart, you and GSP.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: I taught I've interviewed GSP too, and he's very much like you put your preparation in, and you absolutely, it's the same kind of thing what you were saying.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: It's a puzzle, figuring out what did he say?
35:15
SPEAKER_01: How he could be the, oh, I forget the word he used, but basically the worst thing that guy could possibly deal with.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, worst case scenarios.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: Make friends with that worst case scenario.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm facing Tito Ortiz.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: Worst case scenario is Tito takes me down and is now floating on the top of me, trying to elbow me in the face.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: That's the worst case scenario when you're facing a guy like Tito.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: He won 96% of his fights that way.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: So in my mind, it came down to a wrestling match.
35:43
SPEAKER_00: I could not give up a takedown to this guy.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: And of course, he's like, oh, well, this ain't a wrestling match, this is fighting.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, this is wrestling 101.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: And if you take me down, that's where you win most of your fights.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: So I cannot concede a takedown.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: I cannot let you take me down and put me on bottom.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: And I spent the entire camp having guys take me down and scrambling out of those situations and getting back to where I needed to be to win that fight.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: And that's the kind of problem solving you do every time with that preparation.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: You see the worst-case scenario, make friends with that.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: Put yourself in that situation a bunch.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: Noguera.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, that was a big fight for me in Portland.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people thought Noguerra was on his way out.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: He'd been knocked out a couple times at that point.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: And I did hit him with everything but the kitchen sink, and he was still standing there smiling at me.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: I actually wish I'd have made him wrestle me more.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: I might have gotten a nod from the referees or the judges, if I'd have not tried to strike with him as much as I did and made him wrestle me more.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: But where's his strength?
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Taking him down and putting him on his back is exactly where he wants to be because he's a world-class jiu-jitsu practitioner that has submitted a lot of the best guys in the world.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: So in my mind, I'm thinking, well, the last place I want to put this guy on his back because this is where he's really good and effective.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: And I should have had a little more confidence and my grappling ability and made him wrestle me more, put him on his back and make him fight from there.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: But I was still proud of that fight.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I did everything I trained to do in that fight.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: He had me in an arm triangle, not a lot of people get out of that situation, especially with him.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: And I had practiced and practiced and practiced being in that particular hold and managed to get out of it because of that preparation.
37:21
SPEAKER_01: So that making friends with the worst-case scenario, does that help you regulate your nervousness before a fight?
37:27
SPEAKER_00: I never, and that's something that changed for me when I made the transition too.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: And I recognized that I was making myself miserable for the next wrestling tournament and the next wrestling match, that my spot on the team might be contingent on that winner, that loss, having had those setbacks, and getting back to just going out and letting the chips fall where they may and having the fun that I always had in the sport.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: I learned that dichotomy, but I think you you just have to make friends with losing and realize the people that really matter aren't going anywhere.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And the rest of us BS.
38:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: But nervousness, I don't think of it as nervousness.
38:03
SPEAKER_00: I think of it as excitement.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: If you think about the same physical attributes you want to assign butterflies in your stomach, and oh man, I got to pee again, and my palms are sweaty.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: You think of that as being nervousness.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: But nervousness implies something negative is happening.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: You're nervous about something, your head's down, you're definitely not smiling.
38:21
SPEAKER_00: You're definitely not having fun, you're worried.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what do I have to worry about?
38:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm gonna go out there and maybe lose this match.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: But it's my opportunity to go out there and show everybody who I am and what I've been working on.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: I should be excited about that opportunity.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: If not nervous about it, even if I lose this fight, if that's the worst thing that happens to me, I'm doing pretty damn good.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: So put it in perspective.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: And take that pressure off of yourself and just stay laser focused on what you trained to do and go out and execute that.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: The rest of it's gonna take care of itself.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: So just before we leave MMA fighting stuff, because I want to talk to you about some life stuff too, if you got time, if you don't mind.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: What you take on BJJ generally as a art?
39:02
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: I think it's amazing.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, in many ways, it's wrestling inverted.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: But it's a very, very similar mindset.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: It tends to be a little more the path of least resistance.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Hoyce is a perfect example of that.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what they did in bringing this sport to the limelight and putting Hoyce out there as the smaller athlete against these some of these giants was not only in his mindset, but in how he approached those guys.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: They revolutionized martial arts for many of us in creating this sport.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: But here's this smaller guy, 180 pounds, that's dealing with these massive athletes and handling them very effectively, using his long levers, working off his back, doing all these things that that we're like, why the hell is he doing that?
39:49
SPEAKER_00: Brought it to the forefront, which was their goal.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was Horian's whole thing.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's amazing.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: And the opportunities I've had to do it, one of the first things I had to start learning, and eventually I got a black belt in BJJ.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Took 14 years, but I loved it.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: It was it's a blast.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: And I would love to be competing in it right now, but the neck just won't take it anymore.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: That's what ultimately led me to retire from MMA when I did at 47.
40:16
SPEAKER_00: Was I was going to keep messing around and grind out another camp and have to have a fusion.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: The discs from C4, C5 down to T1 are just tired of my crap.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: From wrestling and all the things we used to do as wrestling.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: All the heads.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Bridging, you know, all that stuff.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: Just overdeveloped neck muscles, straighten the natural cervical, the curve in your cervical spine.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: They put pressure on all those discs, and those discs have just degenerated to the point now where I don't want to have to have a surgery.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Everybody I know's got no range of motion and they're still in pain.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: And I know there's been advancements and all that, but is 63, does it really make sense?
40:52
SPEAKER_00: If you don't need it right now, so I think it's a great sport, and so similar to wrestling and what I've been doing since I was 11 years old, that I just think it's great.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: That PSL match that you mentioned up against Shakaray, it felt like a USA versus Russia duel, which I'd been in on the national team many, many times.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: And the elevated stage, the spotlight, the handshakes, the matchup, the whole thing was just amazing and a ton of fun.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: And in a lot of ways, at that time I had stepped out of the sport.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: I was going through a divorce and just not feeling like myself.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Lost to Chuck twice.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Just didn't feel like I was getting it done.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: And felt like I needed to step away.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: And then that match, nine or ten months later, came along to Rico Cipparelli, my trainer, to be in the PSL and grapple against Jacques Array.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: That lit the fire in me again.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, I got a lot more to do.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: And I came out of retirement, fought Big Tim, and got back into MMA after stepping away from the show.
41:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I didn't realize it had that effect.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, cool.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: And I'll link to there's a video of it online, and I'll link to that for people to watch on the show.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a fun match.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: I know you're very passionate about the business and fairness in the business of MMA, how fighters are treated, how fighters are paid.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: Is it getting any better?
42:09
SPEAKER_00: What's your thought on how certainly the pay has improved because why?
42:14
SPEAKER_00: The company has has made massive leaps and bounds in what they're making.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, until we unite and create, in essence, a players' association, just like the NFL and Major League Baseball has.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: We have a fighters' association, the MMAFA.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm a spokesperson for that organization, but it's a bunch of old guys like me that are retired.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: We don't have any skin in the game.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: We need these top echelon marquee names in fighting to stand up to the promotions and join the MMAFA and be willing to put their careers on hold or on the line until the promotions, because without the fighters, we're the commodity.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: That's right.
42:50
SPEAKER_00: Without the fighters, there's no show.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: We need that Kurt Flood from baseball that literally allowed baseball players to get paid the way they get paid and have a players' association.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: And certainly NFL has a players' association that and a voice in how they're regulated.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: We have no voice in how we're regulated.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: They're doing their best to keep us to 20% or under 20% from any single event that goes on.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: That's what's going to the fighters that fought on that card.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: Show me another professional sport where that's the case.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: The NFL and NBA and MLB are all making at least 50% going to those players.
43:26
SPEAKER_00: And the truth is we're 13 to 15% of the take on any given event.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: That's ridiculous.
43:32
SPEAKER_00: Very one-sided contract, 17-page piece of crap contract where they own all your ancillary rights and they control you, literally.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Right from start to vintage.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: The flaw in our sport is the promoter who has a stable of 650 fighters, that's the UFC, and the sanctioning body are the same guy.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: What's a sanctioning body do?
43:55
SPEAKER_00: Sets rankings of those athletes based on their records and creates You're gonna fight for the WBO or the IBF or the WBC world title.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: And the promoter has a stable of fighters that wants to get him into that ranking structure so that he can then eventually get a shot at that title and become a world champion.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: In MMA, it's the same guy.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: He's calling all those shots.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: So if Dana White doesn't like you or doesn't like your fighting style, you think you're gonna get the nod and get in the rankings or get a shot at that title?
44:25
SPEAKER_00: What does he seem to be rewarding?
44:27
SPEAKER_00: The guys that do this.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: Right, well, that create the controversy.
44:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's like no surprise, they just merged with two, the WWE, where this is what it's all about.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Running your head and talking smack is what the whole show is about.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows now for years that catch-is catch-can wrestling, or what is the WWE now, isn't real.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: It's staged, it's choreographed sports entertainment.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: So now are those fights in the UFC, is that sports entertainment or is that a real fight?
44:57
SPEAKER_00: I think they've created a little gray area here that that wasn't, in my opinion, a great idea.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: Prize fighting is prize fighting.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: But the sanctioning body and the guy who's creating titles that all those fighters in that promote in that promoter's stable want to fight for, the same guy can't have all that power.
45:16
SPEAKER_00: That's a flaw.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting that you're identifying a system a system-wide flaw, and which is going to mean hey, look, you sub in someone other than Dana White, and they might do the exact same thing.
45:25
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the system is all the other promotions are used in the exact same system.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting, the Muhammad Ali Act was passed in 1996 to protect boxers from this sort of thing.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: Bob Aram, Don King were taking advantage of a lot of boxers.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: And the Ali Act was passed in that regard to give boxers an outlet to fight some of those restrictive contracts, to create transparency in the sport, so everybody knew how much these promoters were making, and now those fighters could negotiate for their fair value in the marketplace based on that information.
45:57
SPEAKER_00: That there is no transparency in our sport.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's very interesting who was the athletic commissioner in Nevada State, which is arguably one of the strongest and biggest athletic commissioners in the U.S.
46:08
SPEAKER_00: when that act was passed.
46:10
SPEAKER_00: Lorenzo Fertita.
46:12
SPEAKER_00: The same guy that in 2001 bought the brand, the UFC in MMA.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: So I find it hard to believe that he didn't know exactly what he was looking at when he spent$2 million to buy this struggling brand in the sport of MMA and how to exploit those fighters, why that act was passed in the first place to protect boxers.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: What are they doing right now with Zoo for Boxing?
46:37
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to eliminate the Muhammad Ali Act and get it removed from federal legislation.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: So what?
46:44
SPEAKER_00: So they can exploit and take advantage of all these boxers the same way they have MMA fighters since 2001.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: From your point of view, what's the solution that broaden the Ali Act so it includes MMA?
46:57
SPEAKER_00: Broaden the Ali Act so it includes all combative sports athletes, not just boxers and mixed martial artists.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: What's the big pay-per-views now?
47:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:05
SPEAKER_00: RAF wrestling.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: Really getting traction on Fox, on the streaming networks, and highlighting freestyle Olympic wrestling.
47:12
SPEAKER_00: The grappling, Abu Dhabi, and and a lot of these big grappling organizations now are starting to break into the pay-per-view market and starting to pay, and there's starting to be professional avenues for wrestling and grappling.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: So why shouldn't those athletes in those combative sports be protected and have the same transparency that boxing has enjoyed since 1996?
47:34
SPEAKER_00: Eliminate those restrictive contracts, shouldn't own that fighter for the rest of his career.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: He should have options.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: Why is Floyd Mayweather able to go out and make hundreds of millions of dollars?
47:45
SPEAKER_00: Because he can represent himself as a promoter because of the protections of the All-E Act.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: And Conor McGregor had the opportunity to change our sport forever.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: When he got that boxing number and became a certified boxer to fight Floyd, his contract with the UFC was null and void because of the All-E Act.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: And he could have highlighted that and he could have put some pressure on the powers that be to change our sport.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: Separate the sanctioning body from the actual promotions, create those separate entities that create rankings and analyze those fighters' careers and rank them based on that stuff.
48:22
SPEAKER_00: And then all the promoters start negotiating with that sanctioning body to be ranked and to get a shot at that title.
48:30
SPEAKER_00: That's prize fighting.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: What we're engaged in now in MMA is not prize fighting.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: It's sports entertainment.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then you'd also like to see the fighters themselves stick together.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: Sure, I think we have to.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: It's the only way, why would these promoters change anything they're doing if we don't put the heat on them and are willing to hold out and say, no, I'm not doing that.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're paying me some great money, but until I get a 401k, until we get some health insurance, until we have a voice in how we're regulated and what this drug testing looks like and what all this other stuff looks like, we're at their mercy.
49:04
SPEAKER_00: That's the truth of the matter.
49:06
SPEAKER_01: Very interesting stuff.
49:07
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you're passionate about it, and it would be interesting to see what happens in the next few years.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: I think we're headed in the right direction.
49:12
SPEAKER_00: Certainly if fighter pay has gone up, and you got guys like Jake Paul, who's poking Dana White in the chest, and now MVP and PFL are in the process of merging.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping that Jake Paul does the right thing and starts paying the fighters better, giving them a voice.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: The PFL was certainly trying to do that, but were a little bit frivolous with their money, kind of put themselves on the bubble that way.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: And now it looks like MVP, Jake's new organization for MMA, where Rousey and Gina just fought, is going to merge with the PFL.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully they stay on ESPN.
49:44
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a great vehicle for them.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully they create some transparency and give the fighters a fair shake in what's being made off of those events.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: They have the chance to set the bar for the rest of the promotions in the sport and potentially take over the UFC as the biggest promotion if they do it right.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: That's the truth.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk a little about just a few things outside of fighting.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: First of all, acting.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: Super interesting thing.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: I know that's a big topic, but you've done some really great acting.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: Did that challenge you in a way that fighting didn't?
50:16
SPEAKER_00: It challenged me in a big way.
50:18
SPEAKER_00: Going into the 96 Olympic Games, Nations Bank was a huge sponsor.
50:22
SPEAKER_00: And they wanted to do a commercial in the Southwest region because that's where their banks are.
50:28
SPEAKER_00: The farm boy goes to the Olympics.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: And I get a call from USA Wrestling.
50:32
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you want to do this commercial for Nations Bank?
50:34
SPEAKER_00: You got to put on some sweats and run through the farm field and do pull-ups in the barn and for this commercial.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, that sounds cool.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: I'll do it.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, it happened to be a SAG gig, Screen Actors Guild.
50:45
SPEAKER_00: And then a few years later, I'm coaching at Oregon State, and I get a call from a guy who works for Kennedy and Wideman.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Kennedy and Wideman does all the marketing for the Nike, and they're doing a commercial about athletes and their scars.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: And they want a cauliflower ear.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: And this kid was a wrestler at Portland State.
51:06
SPEAKER_00: He's on an internship with Kennedy and Wideman.
51:10
SPEAKER_00: And he and all these actors that are coming in to show off their cauliflower ears, he's like, dude, those aren't cauliflower ears.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: Let me get you a cauliflower ear.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: So me and a couple other guys in the state of Oregon that all had pretty good cauliflower ears get the call from this kid.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: Say, hey man, send me a picture of your ear.
51:28
SPEAKER_00: It's a really interesting phone conversation.
51:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, my ear, really?
51:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
51:32
SPEAKER_00: So you take a snapshot and you send him a picture of your ear.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: And he said, that's a real cauliflower ear, right?
51:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, I end up getting a gig.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: What do you do on Monday?
51:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, can you fly to California?
51:43
SPEAKER_00: We'll hire you as a local hire.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: We want to put you in this video.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: So with Ronnie Lott missing his pinky finger, Peekaboo Street with her scars on her knee from her knee surgeries from skiing, the rodeo cowboy who got gored and lost an eye, my cauliflower ear.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: We all make this commercial called You Are So Beautiful.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: Going in, and it played during the World Series for baseball.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, the checks I got from this commercial, I was like, holy cow, what?
52:15
SPEAKER_00: I was amazed.
52:16
SPEAKER_00: And that was another SAG gig.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: So now fast forward to I think it was 2001.
52:21
SPEAKER_00: So you have your SAG card?
52:22
SPEAKER_00: I didn't pay my dues and get my SAG card, but I was half-heartlied in.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: I could have.
52:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
52:27
SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't interested in it.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't something I saw myself doing.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: These things just fell on my lap.
52:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:33
SPEAKER_00: And now the UFC's calling me in early 2001 saying, hey, these guys are doing this movie.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: They want some authentic cage fighters for this scene in this movie.
52:42
SPEAKER_00: But do you want to do that?
52:43
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, yeah, I don't have a fight coming up, sure.
52:45
SPEAKER_00: All I gotta do is drive to LA.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: So me, Chuck, and Tito are all three in Cradle to the Grave.
52:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:51
SPEAKER_00: And one week, seven days shooting in this underground garage for these underground fight scenes with Jet Lee and DMX.
52:57
SPEAKER_00: And I have one fight scene with Jet Lee, the star of the movie.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: And one line in the movie, let's go, chicken shit.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: That was my one line in the movie.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: I end up running Jet over.
53:09
SPEAKER_00: Director goes nuts.
53:10
SPEAKER_00: I just ran over the star of the movie.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: I was supposed to throw a right hand at him.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: He's supposed to dodge it.
53:15
SPEAKER_00: He didn't dodge it.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully I didn't hit him.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: I just ran him over, flattened him.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: He thought it was hilarious.
53:21
SPEAKER_00: He loved it.
53:22
SPEAKER_00: But now I have this opportunity to actually pay my SAG dues and get my SAG card.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm in a real feature film, and it was so interesting.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: It's like going to Oz and pulling back the curtain, seeing the dude pulling the levers, making all the smoke and fire.
53:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: And then that's exactly what it felt like.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: I was just immediately intrigued by it.
53:44
SPEAKER_00: I went out and started taking some acting classes in LA.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: I had a condo in LA at that time, and I didn't have an agent yet, and I didn't have a business manager or any of that stuff yet.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: But I started getting some more acting jobs.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: And nothing was going to get in the way of fighting or a fight camp.
54:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: But I started getting more acting jobs.
54:03
SPEAKER_00: And then eventually I got an agent, and the jobs started getting bigger.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: And eventually Scorpion King 2 came along.
54:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and that's the pre-prequel to The Rock's big breakout film Scorpion King.
54:17
SPEAKER_00: And I play the bad guy in that, and it was a blast.
54:19
SPEAKER_00: And we shot in South Africa.
54:21
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm I'm a full-fledged SAG actor, and the jobs just keep getting better and bigger.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: And now I get a call through my agent Ed Gersh.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: I've had the same agent the whole time since I started this in the early 2000s.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: 2005, I think, or 2006 is when I finally was able to get an agent.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Sylvester Salon wants you to come by his office.
54:42
SPEAKER_00: He wants to talk about this project he's putting together.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what?
54:46
SPEAKER_00: All right, when?
54:48
SPEAKER_00: So I show up and Sly was great.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: Super intelligent guy.
54:53
SPEAKER_00: I show up early, of course, U.S.
54:54
SPEAKER_00: Army.
54:55
SPEAKER_00: If you ain't 10 minutes early, you're already late.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: He brings me in, we're sitting on the couch, and the casting director's a little bit late.
55:02
SPEAKER_00: So she comes scurrying in and she's nervous because now she's been late for a meeting with Sly Stallone.
55:08
SPEAKER_00: And as she's rushing in, she bumps the bookshelf inside his front door and these action figures on there, one of them falls off and it hits the carpet.
55:16
SPEAKER_00: And it was Brigitte Nielsen, his former wife.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Jesus, where were you a few years ago?
55:22
SPEAKER_00: I could have used you.
55:23
SPEAKER_00: And we, of course, bust up laughing.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: And he can goes on to just explain the whole film that he's trying to put together.
55:31
SPEAKER_00: And he wanted me to play Hail Caesar, which is a role that was really written for Wesley Snipes.
55:37
SPEAKER_00: Wesley was having his tax issues at this time.
55:40
SPEAKER_00: So Wesley wasn't able to play the character.
55:42
SPEAKER_00: So he was going to rewrite the role.
55:52
SPEAKER_01: You studied German in college, right?
55:53
SPEAKER_01: I did.
55:53
SPEAKER_01: I have a degree in foreign language and literature.
55:55
SPEAKER_00: I studied German in college, and that was back to my service, my first duty station, and wrestling for that German club team.
56:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
56:02
SPEAKER_01: So we're back to fly.
56:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:04
SPEAKER_00: So that's where a bunch of that came from, I think.
56:07
SPEAKER_00: He'd obviously done his homework.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:09
SPEAKER_00: And then two weeks later, he ends up getting Terry Cruz to play Hail Caesar.
56:14
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, man, I'm going to be out.
56:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, I'm not going to get this role.
56:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, he went back and wrote Toll Road.
56:21
SPEAKER_00: That's what he wanted to name my character.
56:23
SPEAKER_00: If you're going to get past him, you're going to have to pay it.
56:25
SPEAKER_00: That's where Toll Road came from.
56:27
SPEAKER_00: So he rewrote me into the script to keep me in the movie, which I was amazingly honored that he would go to that trouble to keep me involved.
56:35
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, we've done four of those films now.
56:38
SPEAKER_00: That first film was the number one film that summer, was a huge success.
56:43
SPEAKER_00: And nobody, I think, does it as well as he does in that regard.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many Rockies were there, and now Creed and Rambo's, and now we've done four expendables.
56:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
56:54
SPEAKER_00: Those are one sheets from the second film.
56:57
SPEAKER_00: It was a great learning experience for me.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: Here's a guy that's been in the industry for well over 30 years and been at the top of the industry for that long, both as a writer, a director, and an actor.
57:08
SPEAKER_00: So all guys in an industry that you want to hang out with and see in Video Village and be around and rub elbows with, that's the guy for sure.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
57:17
SPEAKER_00: Certainly one of them.
57:18
SPEAKER_00: And then the ensemble cast of guys from Bruce Willis and Schwarzenegger and Harrison Ford and on down the line, Chuck Norris, and just so many amazing actors and athletes and martial artists.
57:31
SPEAKER_00: Me and Terry Cruz, Dolph Lundgren, us three spent a lot of time together in one and two.
57:37
SPEAKER_00: I just learned so much from that whole experience about the industry, about how to approach this thing.
57:43
SPEAKER_00: And like fighting, don't get caught up in the celebrity of it.
57:46
SPEAKER_00: Say, knuckle down, this is a profession.
57:49
SPEAKER_00: It's not about all that other extraneous BS, and frankly, that's what that is.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: Right.
57:54
SPEAKER_00: It's about the work.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: What do we do as athletes?
57:56
SPEAKER_00: We spend our entire lives boxing up our emotions and putting them to the side and staying laser focused on the thing we trained to do.
58:02
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
58:03
SPEAKER_00: And that's and now they want me to walk in front of a camera and let all that shit out.
58:07
SPEAKER_00: Show some emotion.
58:07
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh my God, I don't know if I know how to do that.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that is not an easy thing to do.
58:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
58:13
SPEAKER_00: And so as I put myself out there in more and more films, I feel like I learned more and more skills and ways to emote real things, get in touch with these characters, even to the point of eventually I got an acting coach, Barry Primus.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: I was I think in his 90s now.
58:31
SPEAKER_00: Writer, director, actor, been in both screen and stage.
58:37
SPEAKER_00: Been there, done that, and him and I just clicked immediately.
58:40
SPEAKER_00: He was recommended by a casting director.
58:43
SPEAKER_00: And I started paying him to come over to my house.
58:45
SPEAKER_00: I had a good script that they wanted me to read for and try out for, or be a character in, and I would send it to him, and he would go and make his notes, and then we'd get together, and he'd make me do a bunch of improv and do a bunch of stuff to find a way to tell the truth, to find a way to portray that character and tell the truth.
59:02
SPEAKER_00: That's what acting really is.
59:05
SPEAKER_00: And I learned a ton from him.
59:07
SPEAKER_00: But that same wrestler's eyes, that same wrestler's mindset, I applied to that profession.
59:13
SPEAKER_00: And with the tutelage of guys like Stallone, who's been at the top of the game for a long, long time.
59:19
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason for that.
59:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:22
SPEAKER_01: He's amazing.
59:23
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we all grew up watching Rocky.
59:25
SPEAKER_01: My connection to that was it's too long of a story to tell, but basically, I was in the crowd of Rocky IV, the fight with the Russian.
59:32
SPEAKER_01: Wow, okay.
59:32
SPEAKER_01: And that's because I was at school at UCLA in college at the time, and they came and they wanted a bunch of people just to crowd, and I agreed, it's a long story, to bring a couple busloads of students.
59:42
SPEAKER_00: So you've been a background extra.
59:44
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
59:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
59:45
SPEAKER_01: But it wasn't, it didn't show up, so no SAG card.
59:47
SPEAKER_01: I grew actually grew up in LA, so I have lots of friends who are actors.
59:50
SPEAKER_01: I grew up a lot of chances to peer behind that scene.
59:53
SPEAKER_01: Actually, my dad was a voice coach for Elvis Presley on Flaming Star, one of his movies.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: So my family's kind of in showbiz in that way.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, but I'm just curious.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_01: So the acting encouraging you to do what the sports was not encouraging you to do, which is bring out your emotion.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, some people fight with emotion too, but that can blind you, like anger is.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, anger, angry anger fighter is a bad fighter for sure, in my opinion.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_00: Certainly, emotions in the heat of it can get you into trouble.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_00: You become reckless or do things that you didn't train to do.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh or they, yeah, they just they take you out.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: But so did that experience acting, summonsing up emotions to tell the truth in an acting sense, did that affect your life in general?
1:00:36
SPEAKER_01: Better relationships or uh more open person now?
1:00:39
SPEAKER_00: It was certainly this process that I had to embrace and get in touch with some of my actual real life experiences, some of which weren't so pleasant.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_00: It was a lot like writing that autobiography, you know.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_00: So it was huge parts of it that were a lot of fun, reliving some of the fun stuff in your life, but there was also parts of it that were very painful.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_00: You're reliving some things that you almost bury and don't want to think about, certainly on a daily basis.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_00: And I certainly didn't want to be walking out on the mat or up those four steps in the cage in an emotional state.
1:01:09
SPEAKER_00: So there was definitely a switch that you have that you turn that stuff off.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_00: And now they wanted me to flip that switch up and let that slip out, and that took practice, it took putting myself out there and figuring out how to do that.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Barry, having a coach, came into play.
1:01:26
SPEAKER_00: I would read the lines, and I'm good at memorizing lines because it was a foreign language and literature major, and that's rote memory, learning a new language as an adult for sure.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: So, and then an air traffic controller before that.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_00: When you hear a call sign over the radio, you're writing that call sign down and then talking to this guy in very specific phraseology that you have to memorize and know all the emergency procedures.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: So that part of my brain worked very, very well.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_00: So learning lines and learning scripts and all that was pretty easy for me.
1:01:55
SPEAKER_00: But bringing feeling and genuine emotion to those lines was a real challenge.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_00: And Barry would say, okay, this guy's a dirty cop, and they want you to do this, this, and this, and this in this movie.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_00: Why is he a dirty cop?
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, what if he's had a divorce?
1:02:12
SPEAKER_00: And now you know he has to make all this money and pay all this back child support before his wife's gonna actually let him see his kids.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_00: So that's why he's doing all these other things.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, that part of the equation is something I've experienced: divorce and divorce with kids, which is a very terrible place to be.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: So he'd lay that layer over me.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's say those lines again, and boy, they would come out completely different with just that different layer of reality over why this guy's doing all these crazy things and saying all these things in the script.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_00: Finding a way to tap into who you really are and bring those emotions out when you're portraying that character.
1:02:53
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at a lot of the best guys, I mean, you know, Pacino and somebody, I mean, almost every role he's in, you still see that base human that you know, Al Pacino's Al Pacino.
1:03:06
SPEAKER_00: Some of him is coming out in every one of those characters that the the wheel, man, he was amazing in that.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's some of who he really is in that that's telling the truth.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_01: So Mark Kerr had his Hollywood biopic, right?
1:03:21
SPEAKER_01: Smashing machine.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_00: Smashing machine.
1:03:23
SPEAKER_01: What about Randy?
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: I think you've got a really interesting story.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_01: Is anyone talking about that?
1:03:28
SPEAKER_00: That's actually how the the book came about, the autobiography.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_00: I think my second film experience ever was a low-budget film called No Rules.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_00: It was an MMA film.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_00: This is again back in the early 2000s.
1:03:43
SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch, me, Frank Shamrock, Matt Lindland, Dan Henderson.
1:03:46
SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of us MMA guys at that time that were in this film in one capacity or the other.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_00: But I played the lead bad guy in this movie.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_00: It never went anywhere.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_00: It went, it came out on DVD back then.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was a big step up for me, learning a bunch about the industry, carrying a lead role, even though it was a bad guy in the movie.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_00: It was fun.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_00: Get to say and do things you'd never say in real life.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't something I ever saw myself doing, but something that fell in my lap, a lot like fighting.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_00: But the guy that wrote that film, yeah, Jerry Anderson and David Dunn.
1:04:18
SPEAKER_00: David Dunn played the lead character.
1:04:20
SPEAKER_00: I played the bad guy.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_00: Jerry directed it.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: Jerry is Pam Anderson's brother.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_00: The Pam Anderson.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_00: So this was kind of his step up for him.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_00: He'd been around her career his whole life.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_00: Him and David wrote this script.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_00: This guy, Jerry, uh, different Jerry, funded it and wanted to make the movie.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_00: We worked in Santa Clarita, and Jerry and David said exactly what you just said.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, we need to do a film about your life story.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_00: So they approached me with a script, but it was all about fighting.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_00: It was a fight movie.
1:04:54
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, man, that that's not really my life.
1:04:56
SPEAKER_00: That's something I do.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_00: It's not really who I am.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_00: And there's so much more to the story.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of passed on doing the feature film about my life.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_00: But after reading that and recognizing there was a whole bunch of stuff left out, there's something to say.
1:05:12
SPEAKER_00: I ended up finding uh a writer to help me write an autobiography, and that's what becoming the natural grew out of those guys presenting me with a script about my life.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, to my friends in Hollywood, read the autobiography, turn it into a I think it would be great.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_01: Because you just have really, I mean, just so much.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the stand-up thing you did to quit college and go into the army to take care of being a young dad like that, these are like hard decisions, and just it's just an interesting life.
1:05:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a success you've had.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_00: It was scary for sure.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_00: Scary getting out of the army too.
1:05:47
SPEAKER_00: I had two kids by the time I was ready to get out, was an alternate on the 88 Olympic team as a soldier.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_00: And now all these college coaches were like, Who the hell is that kid?
1:05:56
SPEAKER_00: Where did he come from?
1:05:58
SPEAKER_00: Because, like I said, I got no love out of high school.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_00: School and now I'm an alternate on the 88 Olympic team, and nobody knows who the hell I am.
1:06:05
SPEAKER_00: It was pretty interesting.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_00: So the phone started ringing, and I had to make a decision: was I gonna stay in the Army and keep doing what I was doing or get out and take a scholarship and get my degree?
1:06:14
SPEAKER_00: And Coach Winter pushed me in the right direction.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_00: He could have been selfish and kept me on the Army team and went in matches for him, but he said, Man, I think you're crazy if you don't take that scholarship to Oklahoma State.
1:06:26
SPEAKER_00: I was stationed there for a while at the Hall of Fame.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the best campuses in the sport of wrestling, and pushed me in the right direction.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's great that you had people like that helping you out.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned you retired because of the neck and injuries and things like that, which, you know, we abuse our bodies, even just in grappling.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, MMA, that's a whole other level.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_01: And as a bigger guy in MMA, right?
1:06:49
SPEAKER_01: I mean, a bigger guy's head is not that much bigger than a small guy's head, but a bigger guy's fist carries a lot more weight by hit by Lesnar.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was like getting hit with a canned ham.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_00: It was a giant fist.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_00: They had to come up with a 4X glove just to fit it.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_01: So you get out of that because of injuries, and then what do you do?
1:07:08
SPEAKER_01: I read in 2025.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_01: You hop into a race car.
1:07:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was something new, a new endeavor that a year ago fell in my lap.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_00: I have some good friends that have created uh Nitros Division in NHRA drag racing.
1:07:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:07:23
SPEAKER_00: And they he took me to my very first drag race, which is super intense.
1:07:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever been, but I mean you're looking at 24,000 horsepower on that starting line with two cars, and you feel it.
1:07:35
SPEAKER_00: It snaps your eyes wide open.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_00: You cannot, I mean, it's amazing.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_00: The vibrations, yeah.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_00: And I never thought of myself doing that.
1:07:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was 12, 13 years ago that I went to Pomona to the October races, and it was amazing, and I've been a fan ever since.
1:07:49
SPEAKER_00: But I was always a car guy.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:07:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, I had a Ford Falcon in high school, used to weld and work on that car all the time.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_00: Those guys came to me and said, hey, these guys are starting a new circuit for drag racing, and they're interested in you being a driver.
1:08:02
SPEAKER_00: Would you are you interested?
1:08:03
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, man, I'd like to try that.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_00: And so that ended up taking a right turn and turning into a reality show.
1:08:10
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't really want to be a part of a reality show.
1:08:13
SPEAKER_00: But in the process of starting training and going to again down to Pomona to look at the races again with different eyes.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm I'm there thinking, man, they want me to drive one of these things.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_00: This is a rocket.
1:08:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
1:08:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:08:27
SPEAKER_00: So looking at it with different eyes, and I ended up meeting a guy named Randy Glady, who runs a company called Skag.
1:08:34
SPEAKER_00: And they're one of the biggest power tool companies in the United States.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_00: But they won't go to Home Depot or Lowe's.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_00: They only cater to mom and pop shops across the country.
1:08:45
SPEAKER_00: They make great lawnmowers, all these kinds of implements in power tools, tractors, all kinds of different stuff.
1:08:53
SPEAKER_00: And this guy, his marketing is his race team.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_00: So there's gag drag racing.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_00: And he brings all of his vendors to the drag races and takes them down to the starting line and shows them.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_00: But this is how he markets his company.
1:09:09
SPEAKER_00: And for whatever reason, him and I hit it off at those races.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_00: He said, Man, I want you to race for my team.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_00: They want you to be in a ProMod car.
1:09:17
SPEAKER_00: We don't have anybody in that division in the ProMod division.
1:09:19
SPEAKER_00: If you can get certified in the ProMod division, we'd like you to race for Skag.
1:09:24
SPEAKER_00: So right out of the gate, before I'm even licensed as a driver, this is a story of your life.
1:09:31
SPEAKER_00: This is again walking into something.
1:09:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, man, this is gonna be crazy.
1:09:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm really looking forward to this.
1:09:36
SPEAKER_00: And so I get into Frank's drag racing school here.
1:09:41
SPEAKER_01: In Vegas.
1:09:42
SPEAKER_00: He's actually from Florida, Gainesville, Frank Hawley.
1:09:47
SPEAKER_00: And he was a NHRA champ in the 70s, and now he stays connected to racing by teaching other guys how to race these cars.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_00: So I go to his two-day school for drag racing.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't complete enough runs in the school to get certified just out of the school, and there's a lot more to it, and it's counterintuitive to everything you've ever been taught about driving.
1:10:10
SPEAKER_00: But I learned a ton, and Frank was an amazing guy, and he was really into the psychology of racing, which really intrigued me because what?
1:10:20
SPEAKER_00: I've been into the psychology of wrestling and fighting my whole life.
1:10:23
SPEAKER_00: And now he's saying a lot of terms and things that I completely related to getting into this driver's seat of this car and driving it down a quarter mile track at a couple hundred miles an hour.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_00: Definitely affected me and created like, man, I'm excited about this now.
1:10:40
SPEAKER_00: And now I know I have to do a few more runs before I get my certification completed in a gas car.
1:10:45
SPEAKER_00: And at the same time, they want me to move up to a ProMod car, which is an alcohol car.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_00: So I complete down in Tucson the other runs I need to do in the gas car to get certified by the NHRA in a gas car, you know, so I could go into bracket racing or regular nine, 10 seconds in a quarter mile.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_00: It's still close to 200 miles an hour.
1:11:09
SPEAKER_00: This ProMod car, I drove it once in Tucson down there, and it wasn't even, I didn't do a burnout or anything.
1:11:16
SPEAKER_00: I just opened the car up on the track that day in this ProMod car.
1:11:20
SPEAKER_00: That car's name was Al Capone.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_00: It was a 1934 Chevy.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_00: And he was, oh my God.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_00: I like, oh my God, this is a whole different thing.
1:11:30
SPEAKER_00: This car goes 280 miles an hour.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_00: It does a quarter mile in five seconds.
1:11:36
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, what am I in?
1:11:38
SPEAKER_00: And then I know I had my work cut out for me to start doing runs in this car because I've got to do so many complete proper runs in that car before they'll certify me in that class.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_00: So we rent a track up in can't outside of Kansas City in Odessa a couple months later.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_01: You were you had a partner or wife at the time?
1:11:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh no wife.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_01: Was there anybody saying, Randy, don't do this, you're crazy.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_00: I was still dating Mindy and we had been together for 11 years.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_00: Was she like all in on this?
1:12:08
SPEAKER_00: No, she actually was okay with it.
1:12:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:12:10
SPEAKER_00: The family was like, you're doing what?
1:12:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:12:12
SPEAKER_00: But again, my mom had looked at me that way a few times when I said I'm just gonna fight.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
1:12:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, um, you're gonna do what?
1:12:18
SPEAKER_00: So this was another one of those moments, you know.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_00: My kids bought me the shirt, safety third.
1:12:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I guess I have a reputation maybe a little bit.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_00: As a rift tape, I think a little bit, yeah.
1:12:29
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you're getting close.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_00: So now I've got my gas license, but I'm trying to move up in class in the ProMod alcohol car.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_00: And on my second training run in Kansas City, I bounced it off of two walls.
1:12:42
SPEAKER_00: Wasn't good enough just to hit one wall.
1:12:44
SPEAKER_00: I had to go all the way across the track and hit the other wall.
1:12:47
SPEAKER_00: And I hit that one at a pretty steep angle, and the fuel canisters in the front of that car.
1:12:52
SPEAKER_00: So when I hit that second wall, it burst that alcohol fuel canister and shot that alcohol fuel all over that 521cc motor that was hot, hot, hot.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm surrounded by an alcohol fire, which is flames you don't really even see.
1:13:09
SPEAKER_00: It's super hot.
1:13:10
SPEAKER_00: And even though I was wearing all the protective equipment, thank God, getting out of that car, I burnt my left hand especially and my left arm pretty significantly.
1:13:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh thankfully it didn't have to have grafts.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_00: They were worried about two spots that was gonna maybe require grafts, but through hyperbarics and meditation and good supplements, blue scorpion venom and a bunch of other stuff, I healed up very well and very quickly.
1:13:38
SPEAKER_00: That was a year ago, July.
1:13:40
SPEAKER_00: How are you feeling now?
1:13:42
SPEAKER_00: I got all my range of motion.
1:13:43
SPEAKER_00: That's the holdout.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_00: There's so much scar tissue on the inside of that pinky from being burned that it just won't straighten out anymore.
1:13:50
SPEAKER_00: So if that's the worst of it, you know, I guess I'm good drinking my tea now.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, my family pushed back.
1:13:56
SPEAKER_00: They're like, come on, dad, what are you doing?
1:13:58
SPEAKER_00: You got grandkids now.
1:14:00
SPEAKER_00: You don't need a new hobby.
1:14:01
SPEAKER_00: They were right.
1:14:02
SPEAKER_00: I and I guess if I had a regret, it was that time I spent away from them chasing my dreams in both wrestling and fighting.
1:14:08
SPEAKER_00: That's time you never get back with those people who you love most.
1:14:13
SPEAKER_00: And they sacrificed a lot of time with me because of that.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_00: So do I really need to be on a race circuit racing around the country or the continent?
1:14:21
SPEAKER_00: It would have been a lot.
1:14:22
SPEAKER_00: And I was excited about it, but the crash kind of literally figured to the stay in your lane, buddy.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's so funny.
1:14:30
SPEAKER_01: No, you're lucky, man.
1:14:31
SPEAKER_01: That was all things considered an inexpensive lesson, but it's yeah, you got the experience.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_01: That was fun.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_01: I mean, who was how many people get to even do what you did?
1:14:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was a blast, it really was, but it is so intense.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it affects your vision.
1:14:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you don't realize that for that split second you look from here to there, you're blind.
1:14:47
SPEAKER_00: You don't see.
1:14:48
SPEAKER_00: And when you're going at those speeds, your vision is it's not the same thing.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we live in a conscious creative reality.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_00: We live in a conscious created reality, what our eyes take take in and process with our brains and our consciousness, what our consciousness really is.
1:15:02
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
1:15:02
SPEAKER_00: And that is affected when you're traveling at those speeds.
1:15:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we haven't adapted to be able to interpret reality coming at us like that, for sure.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was very interesting.
1:15:11
SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned nutrition helped in your healing.
1:15:14
SPEAKER_01: What's your diet like these days where are you at?
1:15:17
SPEAKER_00: I do a lot of intermittent fasting, and fasting is an amazing thing that a lot of people need to dig into and recognize that this whole three meals a day and the food pyramid and all this stuff is a bunch of BS.
1:15:29
SPEAKER_00: Red meat's not bad for you, eggs aren't bad for you, cholesterol's not bad for you, your brain's actually made up of it and needs it severely.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting how they've lowered the blood pressure standards and the cholesterol standards over the past few decades for what?
1:15:45
SPEAKER_00: To sell more medicine, more pharmaceuticals to people.
1:15:48
SPEAKER_00: Certainly a lot of falsities in those areas.
1:15:52
SPEAKER_00: But I started, when I retired from fighting in 2011, I started doing the intermittent fasting.
1:15:57
SPEAKER_00: Because I could eat anything I wanted when I was training six days a week, twice a day most days.
1:16:02
SPEAKER_00: I could literally eat whatever I wanted.
1:16:04
SPEAKER_00: I was never going to put on weight.
1:16:05
SPEAKER_00: And I knew if I kept that up after I retired, especially as much as I was traveling and not getting to work out the way I was used to getting to work out, I would be a fat bastard in no time.
1:16:15
SPEAKER_00: So I learned a little bit about, I was doing it by accident, honestly.
1:16:19
SPEAKER_00: And then a friend of mine who had written a book about fasting, I read the book and all the studies on obesity and all the other stuff going on in a country and started doing the intermittent fasting with intention.
1:16:33
SPEAKER_00: And then now occasionally I'll do a 72-hour fast just uh for autophagy and all the other things that happen during the fasting process.
1:16:41
SPEAKER_00: But just that intermittent fasting.
1:16:43
SPEAKER_00: I eat in that six-hour window, usually two to eight is my window to eat.
1:16:47
SPEAKER_00: Real food, good whole food.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_00: I still try to eat good healthy food, not processed, not fried, not you know, no seed oils.
1:16:54
SPEAKER_00: Dairy's not bad, but the way they process and homogenized dairy, it's sludge.
1:16:58
SPEAKER_00: It's not good for you.
1:16:59
SPEAKER_00: Eat good whole raw milk is actually very good for you.
1:17:03
SPEAKER_00: Got to read labels now.
1:17:04
SPEAKER_00: And they just keep changing the names of all this crap they're putting in our food.
1:17:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh so the intermittent fasting thing has worked for me.
1:17:10
SPEAKER_00: It's kept me lean and in shape when I when I don't get to train the way I used to train.
1:17:16
SPEAKER_01: I agree with all that.
1:17:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh one thing I push back a little bit on is I eat totally plant-based.
1:17:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't push on anybody else.
1:17:23
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not consuming any meat, anything, and I feel very healthy.
1:17:26
SPEAKER_01: I think it's possible you don't have to have that.
1:17:28
SPEAKER_01: But you certainly can have meat and be healthy, obviously.
1:17:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:17:31
SPEAKER_00: So the whole carnivore diet thing that obviously when Rogan and he was a pretty healthy guy as it was, but he did the carnivore diet for a significant amount of time and leaned up and lost a lot of weight eating all red meat.
1:17:42
SPEAKER_00: And I think animal fats are good for us.
1:17:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:17:45
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, anything in moderation and everything prepared properly.
1:17:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:17:48
SPEAKER_00: I think you have to limit it.
1:17:50
SPEAKER_00: You can't eat it every single night and think it's not going to affect you because I think it does tend to be heavier and slow things down.
1:17:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people hear carnivore diet and they think that they should have bacon for breakfast and McDonald's for lunch.
1:18:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Adkins was the first one that started that, and then carnivore kind of grew out of that, and all these fads, and none of the fads work because they're not a lifestyle, and you have to make it a lifestyle.
1:18:11
SPEAKER_00: You have to make training a lifestyle, you have to eat properly and take care of yourself.
1:18:14
SPEAKER_00: Read the labels.
1:18:15
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:18:16
SPEAKER_00: There's so much BS in our food, and at least 30 things that aren't allowed in a bunch of other countries.
1:18:22
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's like, well, I can go to Europe and eat the pasta and the bread, and I don't have a problem.
1:18:26
SPEAKER_00: But I come here and you don't see the correlation between those two things?
1:18:30
SPEAKER_00: The glyphosate that they're also talking 1972 and that they spray on everything now and it's in all of our food stuff.
1:18:38
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you're talking even in the meats now.
1:18:40
SPEAKER_01: If you're not hunting your own meat, antibiotics, growth hormones, yeah, all that's the same.
1:18:46
SPEAKER_00: MNRA vaccines.
1:18:47
SPEAKER_00: MNRA vaccines, and they're gonna get that in you one way or the other.
1:18:50
SPEAKER_01: So what about like body treatments, I don't know, peptides, anything you swear by, anything that's worked well for you?
1:18:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm learning more about the peptides, and a lot of guys are having great success with the peptides right now.
1:19:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, I had the heart attack in 2019.
1:19:03
SPEAKER_00: I started at TRT at 55 and BPC 157.
1:19:08
SPEAKER_00: It was one of the newer peptides for recovery and joint recovery and all that.
1:19:13
SPEAKER_00: And what I wasn't doing, what I already knew from years of, you know, certainly starting fighting at 33, almost 34, and then at 35, most of the commissions make you get a lung X-ray and do some other hoops to get certified and licensed as a fighter.
1:19:31
SPEAKER_00: And through that process, I knew I had very thick blood.
1:19:34
SPEAKER_00: It was right at the top of normal for hematocritin hemoglobin.
1:19:37
SPEAKER_00: One of the side effects of the TRT, when I started that at 55 years old, was it pushes your hematocrit and hemoglobin even higher.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't dumping blood.
1:19:47
SPEAKER_00: I should have been dumping blood.
1:19:48
SPEAKER_00: So they think that may have been a contributing factor to the heart attack.
1:19:52
SPEAKER_00: I had a car wreck in 94, got hit by a drunk driver, and I fractured my ribs, punctured my lung, and they think there was some scar tissue in that diagonal artery on my heart.
1:20:04
SPEAKER_00: And so I was working out like I always did at Unbreakable in LA.
1:20:07
SPEAKER_00: I was in the middle of working on a Western film with Michael J.
1:20:10
SPEAKER_00: White in LA.
1:20:11
SPEAKER_00: I had a couple days off, so I went to the gym, did the circuit, I always do, and in the middle of the workout, I got this cramp in my ribs.
1:20:19
SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, how the hell did I pop a rib?
1:20:21
SPEAKER_00: I thought I popped a rib.
1:20:23
SPEAKER_00: And it wrapped around.
1:20:24
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I finished the workout.
1:20:27
SPEAKER_00: I drank my post-workout drink and immediately threw it back up.
1:20:30
SPEAKER_00: And that was a first red flag for me because I was never a puker, ever.
1:20:34
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, something's not right.
1:20:36
SPEAKER_00: But I showered and got dressed and drove down the hill to the condo I had in LA at the time.
1:20:42
SPEAKER_00: Literally drove right past Cedar Sinai Hospital to get to the condo, which was three blocks from Cedar Sinai.
1:20:48
SPEAKER_00: So I parked the car and went upstairs and laid down for a little while to see if this weird pain, this ache wouldn't go away.
1:20:57
SPEAKER_00: And I had tried to foam roll it at the gym and everything.
1:21:01
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, you know, this just isn't right.
1:21:03
SPEAKER_00: Something's not right here.
1:21:05
SPEAKER_00: So I walked back over to Cedar Sinai and said, hey, I'm having a weird chest pain.
1:21:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's going on.
1:21:12
SPEAKER_00: They said, okay, sit down, we'll get to you as soon as we can.
1:21:15
SPEAKER_00: And within about 10 minutes, they wheeled me in and hooked me up to the EKG and I like freaked out.
1:21:20
SPEAKER_00: They went nuts.
1:21:21
SPEAKER_00: Like you'd have thought it was NASCAR.
1:21:23
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they were throwing me on a gurney, cutting my clothes off, and they were rushing me up to the cath lab right then from the ER.
1:21:30
SPEAKER_00: They're like, dude, you're having a full-blown heart attack.
1:21:32
SPEAKER_00: And my thick blood, I'd had a plaque rupture in that artery, they think was scar tissue from that car wreck with that drunk driver.
1:21:41
SPEAKER_00: And my thick blood went to the plaque rupture and did what it's supposed to do.
1:21:45
SPEAKER_00: Clotted it, but it occluded the entire artery.
1:21:49
SPEAKER_00: So I was probably 30 minutes away from checking out.
1:21:52
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
1:21:53
SPEAKER_00: They put a stint in, sucked the clot out, put a stint in.
1:21:56
SPEAKER_00: And so now I had, you know, they want to put me on a statin and they want me on a thinner.
1:22:00
SPEAKER_00: And I took the statin for a little while, and I wasn't a cramper either.
1:22:03
SPEAKER_00: I'd never really gotten cramps.
1:22:05
SPEAKER_00: And I started getting these cramps in my feet and in my calves that, man.
1:22:09
SPEAKER_00: And I started digging into what was causing that.
1:22:12
SPEAKER_00: And then all this spad info on these statins started coming up.
1:22:16
SPEAKER_00: And I went straight to my doctor and I said, I don't want to be on this statin anymore.
1:22:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm not doing it.
1:22:22
SPEAKER_00: And I started doing more natural things, natokinase, Italian bergamot, red yeast rice.
1:22:28
SPEAKER_00: I went off the statin.
1:22:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm still using the thinner, it's a platelet thinner, and I'm still dumping blood.
1:22:34
SPEAKER_00: But I went off the TRT last September.
1:22:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm not using the TRT anymore.
1:22:38
SPEAKER_00: I went back to the old regime I was using when I was fighting.
1:22:41
SPEAKER_00: The toncatali, the tribulus, all these natural substances that force your body and your gonads to produce testosterone instead of sticking a needle in your butt and putting that testosterone in from an outside source, which is a vicious cycle.
1:22:55
SPEAKER_00: Once you start doing that, you can't stop doing that because you're it shuts down your body's production.
1:23:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:23:00
SPEAKER_00: So I'm back to back to the natural means of doing it, and my test is staying up between five and six hundred, which for 63-year-olds is not too bad.
1:23:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:23:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've never But it was down to 170.
1:23:12
SPEAKER_00: It was pretty low.
1:23:14
SPEAKER_00: It was bad.
1:23:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, that is the downside of taking it.
1:23:16
SPEAKER_01: I've I've never, I mean, I don't take anything.
1:23:19
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's fortunate.
1:23:20
SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm maybe it's good genetics too, and I think it, you know, I'm generally a healthy guy and I like that.
1:23:25
SPEAKER_01: And uh plus for me, I know that if I took some testosterone, I would feel better after training.
1:23:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm obviously because I've got plenty of friends who do it, but it's I'm not this is not my profession.
1:23:35
SPEAKER_01: Like I want to be healthy, I want to be you know, fighting into my 70s and 80s.
1:23:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I think BPC 157, and they're and now they're creating oral versions of a bunch of these peptides as well.
1:23:46
SPEAKER_00: The last couple months I've been trying the Sumorlin, and it's a tablet you put under your tongue at night.
1:23:51
SPEAKER_00: Five nights on, two nights off.
1:23:53
SPEAKER_00: And so far I like that one.
1:23:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel any side effects or anything like that.
1:23:57
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm staying.
1:23:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, you look good.
1:23:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm getting a reasonably.
1:24:00
SPEAKER_01: No, you have a good, healthy energy.
1:24:02
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned how you were having the heart attack thing, you thought it was a rib or whatever.
1:24:06
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever get the feeling that fighters that we're a little I'm calling myself a fighter, I'm a BJJ fighter.
1:24:12
SPEAKER_01: I've never stepped into catering other than to train somebody.
1:24:15
SPEAKER_01: But are sometimes a little too tough for our own good.
1:24:18
SPEAKER_01: Like we let things go further than we should have because we just can suck it up.
1:24:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think there's some truth to that.
1:24:24
SPEAKER_00: I think we probably put ourselves in situations or or do things to our, but that's a male thing too.
1:24:29
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's why men don't live as long as women.
1:24:32
SPEAKER_00: Some of the crazy stuff that we find ourselves doing for excitement, for fun.
1:24:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of things in this society.
1:24:39
SPEAKER_00: I think we're told we're not supposed to have feelings, we're not supposed to show emotions, and I think that's a lie too.
1:24:44
SPEAKER_00: That's BS.
1:24:45
SPEAKER_00: You just have to show up to the right people.
1:24:47
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta let that stuff out.
1:24:49
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why a lot of our bets find themselves in trouble.
1:24:54
SPEAKER_00: Our training is sometimes our worst enemy because you know you're not allowed to ask for help.
1:25:00
SPEAKER_00: That's a you can't show vulnerability, weakness.
1:25:04
SPEAKER_00: That's that's you know, that's bad.
1:25:06
SPEAKER_00: Stay laser focused and complete the mission.
1:25:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so now you want me to come back to civilian life and assimilate back to this lifestyle that you know I'm programmed differently.
1:25:16
SPEAKER_00: And then you wonder why our guys end up looking down the wrong end of their guns, because they have no one to vent and show those emotions to and let out all those demons of the things that they've seen and done, especially in a combat zone since the war started.
1:25:31
SPEAKER_01: So tell me, the last thing I wanted to talk to you about was the philanthropy, the nonprofits that you're working for with veterans.
1:25:38
SPEAKER_01: I know you just had a ride.
1:25:40
SPEAKER_01: Talk to me about what you're involved with to help veterans.
1:25:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, I started the Extreme Couture GI Foundation back in 07, and obviously served from 82 to 88.
1:25:51
SPEAKER_00: There wasn't anything going on back then.
1:25:53
SPEAKER_00: There were two small altercations.
1:25:56
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't a combat arms MOS, I was an air traffic controller, and I was wrestling for the Army team.
1:26:01
SPEAKER_00: So that's how I spent most of my six-year enlistment.
1:26:04
SPEAKER_00: But it was a very formative time in my life, and I think once you take that oath for up to your life, potentially, you look at the world in a different way.
1:26:14
SPEAKER_00: And now, since 9-11 and the war on terror, I'm in a different stage of my life.
1:26:18
SPEAKER_00: But that was, you know, I see that six years of my life as me getting my feet under me and figuring out the man I am and who I want to be and where I want to go.
1:26:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I had the competence to compete at a national or international level, walking out of high school before I walked on those mats with Floyd and my teammates in the Army and ultimately made the 88 Olympic team as an alternate.
1:26:43
SPEAKER_00: I think that gave me a lot of confidence that I could compete at that level.
1:26:46
SPEAKER_00: And then I took that one step further and signed up to wrestle at Oklahoma State, one of the best wrestling universities in the country.
1:26:53
SPEAKER_00: And then I learned there that I could not only compete at that level, I could win at that level.
1:26:58
SPEAKER_00: Now, in a different phase and stage of my life, I get a chance to give back to that community that's struggling.
1:27:04
SPEAKER_00: The BA can't take care of all these men and women.
1:27:07
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them are falling through the clack cracks.
1:27:09
SPEAKER_00: We know the stats, 22 a day are taking their own lives.
1:27:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's insane.
1:27:14
SPEAKER_00: It's really crazy.
1:27:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's infuriating for me as a former soldier that took that same oath and never had to put his butt on the line.
1:27:22
SPEAKER_00: That a lot of these men and women now aren't aren't getting taken care of the way they should be taken care of.
1:27:27
SPEAKER_00: Uncle Sam is not holding up their side of that agreement, in my opinion.
1:27:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I completely agree.
1:27:32
SPEAKER_01: My dad was in the military in World War II.
1:27:35
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't.
1:27:36
SPEAKER_01: I went to college.
1:27:37
SPEAKER_01: You know, I had a lot of friends in the military stuff, but I always like deeply respected anyone who would sign up to do that, even if they were doing it just as a career, whatever, but they're putting themselves out there.
1:27:47
SPEAKER_01: Same way I respect a police officer, someone like that who's trying to protect the society.
1:27:51
SPEAKER_01: And I remember, you know, we were the same age.
1:27:53
SPEAKER_01: And I remember, you know, being a kid when Vietnam vets were coming back, and then there was a lot of anger at them, and they got.
1:28:00
SPEAKER_01: Which is totally unfair to the soldiers, obviously.
1:28:02
SPEAKER_01: And and then, like after, you know, Iraq won or whatever, we went kind of wearing in the other direction, like yes, and yellow ribbons and and thank you for your service.
1:28:13
SPEAKER_01: Lots of thank you for your service.
1:28:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, those words, thank you for your service.
1:28:17
SPEAKER_01: But it has been my impression that it's just those words.
1:28:22
SPEAKER_00: It's empty.
1:28:22
SPEAKER_01: But long story short, I actually helped out in the post-Katrina in New Orleans.
1:28:27
SPEAKER_01: I was an I'm an animal person involved in animal stuff.
1:28:30
SPEAKER_01: They evacuated the whole city.
1:28:31
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people died in the city.
1:28:32
SPEAKER_01: Nobody took their pets.
1:28:33
SPEAKER_01: Very few people were able to because they just didn't know they had to.
1:28:36
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know the city.
1:28:37
SPEAKER_01: So there were like tens of thousands of dogs and cats and other animals stranded there, and I led the rescue efforts to get those animals.
1:28:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:28:43
SPEAKER_01: So no one was trying to kill me, nothing like that, but it was a crazy ass situation.
1:28:47
SPEAKER_01: Lots of dead bodies, lots of dead animals, some danger, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
1:28:51
SPEAKER_01: And I had some kind of PTSD stuff from that.
1:28:55
SPEAKER_01: Again, nobody pointing a gun at me, nobody trying to kill me.
1:28:58
SPEAKER_01: And then I talked to my friends who've been in Afghanistan or Iraq or something and who've been in constant danger and not knowing here's a person walking up to you.
1:29:08
SPEAKER_01: Is he a friendly person or is he about to try to blow himself up and take me with him?
1:29:12
SPEAKER_01: And to think that they're not going to come back with some issues that are going to need long-term help and long-term care and long-term support after you say thank you for your service.
1:29:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:29:21
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
1:29:22
SPEAKER_00: It was shell shock for your dad and we'll battle fatigue in the Vietnam era.
1:29:28
SPEAKER_00: And now we have a label for it, PTSD.
1:29:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:29:30
SPEAKER_00: But most people don't know what the definition is there's no real definition of it.
1:29:34
SPEAKER_00: Imagine walking out on your front porch in your in your bathrobe and your flip-flops to go get the newspaper and see the guy in the corner, and in your mind, is that the guy that's going to kill me today?
1:29:43
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:29:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that's a form of PTSD.
1:29:45
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:29:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're very adrenaline-seeking and they're self-medicating because they don't want to ask for help.
1:29:51
SPEAKER_00: They've been trained not to show vulnerability or weakness, to stay laser focused on what they train to do and accomplish the mission.
1:29:58
SPEAKER_00: And now you've thrown them back here with what, a two-week course and how to assimilate back into civilian life?
1:30:04
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
1:30:05
SPEAKER_00: It's ridiculous.
1:30:07
SPEAKER_00: And there's way too many of them.
1:30:09
SPEAKER_00: Guys are on three to six month waiting lists just to see a counselor.
1:30:12
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
1:30:14
SPEAKER_00: So I think we've done some things in recent years to alleviate some of that pressure, but it's going to take us vets, linking arms, and starting our own foundations and finding ways to help our men and women that are struggling.
1:30:25
SPEAKER_00: I think the psychedelic movement that's going on is hugely could be very helpful.
1:30:30
SPEAKER_00: Very helpful.
1:30:31
SPEAKER_00: And fast tracking that, you know, I've seen, you know, if you've seen Waves to War, the Ibigaine Clinic in Mexico that's helping a lot of our top-tier operators.
1:30:40
SPEAKER_00: I think the psilocybin and all the stuff that's coming out in psilocybin now, what they stopped studying in the 50s.
1:30:46
SPEAKER_00: Not only did they stop studying it, they destroyed all the stuff they knew about it back then.
1:30:50
SPEAKER_00: Why?
1:30:50
SPEAKER_00: Because Big Pharma couldn't figure out how to monetize it.
1:30:53
SPEAKER_00: It's that simple.
1:30:55
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lot of benefit to a lot of those things and rewiring your brain and helping you create new neural pathways and shed these anxiety loops and these trauma loops that so many of us are stuck in.
1:31:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful that I never struggled with anxiety or depression.
1:31:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, my sister has.
1:31:14
SPEAKER_00: I have friends that have.
1:31:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard for us that have never struggled with that to understand what that feels like and what and to relate to that.
1:31:21
SPEAKER_00: I just don't get it.
1:31:22
SPEAKER_00: My buddy Jay Glazier wrote a great book, you know, called Unbreakable, about his struggle with anxiety and depression.
1:31:29
SPEAKER_00: And I learned more from that book and able to relate to people, certainly in the veteran community now, because I, you know, with MVP and Extreme Couture, I've been operating for almost 20 years in that space.
1:31:42
SPEAKER_01: MVP is merging vets and players.
1:31:44
SPEAKER_00: Merging Vets and Players.
1:31:45
SPEAKER_00: VetsandPlayers.org is the actual webpage where you can find nine gyms now that open up their doors to any vet or any retired athlete in the community that wants to come work out.
1:31:58
SPEAKER_00: And what we do is spend about 30 to 45 minutes sweating and working out, which creates a connection and breaks down some walls.
1:32:05
SPEAKER_00: And then we sit on the mat after for about 30 to 45 minutes in what we call the huddle.
1:32:11
SPEAKER_00: And man, the stuff that comes out in that huddle.
1:32:14
SPEAKER_00: Now you just embrace the suck with that guy.
1:32:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:32:18
SPEAKER_00: And so you're a lot more likely to open up and share some of the things you're that are going good and some of the things that you're struggling with.
1:32:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's an amazingly powerful place for sure.
1:32:30
SPEAKER_00: And then GI Foundation, obviously, we just got back from Everett, my sixth annual ride up there in Everett where I grew up.
1:32:35
SPEAKER_00: That's a motorcycle ride?
1:32:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, motorcycle poker run.
1:32:38
SPEAKER_00: We had a great turnout.
1:32:39
SPEAKER_00: It was a beautiful day.
1:32:40
SPEAKER_00: It's so green and beautiful up there.
1:32:42
SPEAKER_00: It's how it tricks people to moving up there into the rain.
1:32:46
SPEAKER_00: But it was a great day and a great ride.
1:32:48
SPEAKER_00: We had a great turnout.
1:32:49
SPEAKER_00: I haven't got the final numbers yet, but we just had a record-setting ride up in Quad Cities in July.
1:32:56
SPEAKER_00: And we raised$103,000 that weekend for the foundation.
1:33:02
SPEAKER_00: And the foundation, the Extreme Couture GI Foundation, is creating some counseling services and creating some financial support for any of our veterans that need that assistance.
1:33:13
SPEAKER_01: I think it's fantastic that you're doing that.
1:33:15
SPEAKER_01: We'll for sure have links to it.
1:33:16
SPEAKER_01: And I should remind people that they can donate to these any day of the week.
1:33:20
SPEAKER_01: They don't have to wait for a ride or anything like that.
1:33:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a portal on there for donation.
1:33:24
SPEAKER_00: There's also a portal on there for assistance.
1:33:26
SPEAKER_00: If you're a vet and you need some help with your finances, you've got bills that are on your back.
1:33:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm not just going to hand you cash because I don't want to enable you for adrenaline seeking and self-medicating.
1:33:37
SPEAKER_00: But if you show me that bill, I will pay that bill and get that bill off your back so that you don't have that stress in your life anymore.
1:33:44
SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
1:33:46
SPEAKER_01: Last thing.
1:33:47
SPEAKER_01: Anything you'd say to the younger Randy Couture now, be having been through what you've been through?
1:33:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think just keep it simple.
1:33:59
SPEAKER_00: You know, life is complicated enough.
1:34:01
SPEAKER_00: Find a way to operate in that space of love, gratitude, and authenticity.
1:34:06
SPEAKER_00: And I wish I'd have figured that out a lot earlier.
1:34:09
SPEAKER_00: I could have cut a lot of stuff loose.
1:34:12
SPEAKER_00: Learning that I control that voice in my head, that voice in my head does not control me.
1:34:16
SPEAKER_00: That's not really me.
1:34:17
SPEAKER_00: The real me is the one that observes all that stuff.
1:34:21
SPEAKER_00: That's programming an ego that's chattering and saying all those things that nobody would say to your face and not get punched in the mouth.
1:34:28
SPEAKER_00: It's a very Buddhist perspective.
1:34:30
SPEAKER_00: And so figuring that out through the sport of wrestling and then transitioning to the sport of flighting, a lot of that stuff, it was highlighted, and I recognized it.
1:34:39
SPEAKER_00: And I and it would have been nice to have recognized that earlier.
1:34:42
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I could have saved myself a divorce or two, who knows?
1:34:46
SPEAKER_00: But I think all those things were part of the process.
1:34:49
SPEAKER_00: And I learned the things I needed to learn from those setbacks, from those failures.
1:34:55
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I'm the best human I could be right now.
1:34:58
SPEAKER_00: I know myself better than I've ever known myself.
1:35:01
SPEAKER_00: And the last two years have been very, very intense and at times overwhelming.
1:35:05
SPEAKER_00: I just started having all these emotions pour out of me.
1:35:08
SPEAKER_00: And I thought my first inclination was I had CTE.
1:35:11
SPEAKER_00: I thought, man, I got brain damage from getting punched in the head too much.
1:35:15
SPEAKER_00: And instead of going to the doctor and probably getting a prescription for something I shouldn't be on, I turned in and started using the meditation that I had learned in wrestling to prepare for walking out on that mat and putting myself in the best position to win, visualizing success and seeing myself doing these things.
1:35:36
SPEAKER_00: I started digging into what was going on in me and figured out that I was sending and receiving messages differently than I ever had.
1:35:45
SPEAKER_00: I started a new supplement and I think I opened my pineal gland.
1:35:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's where all this generational trauma and all this stuff was coming from out of me.
1:35:53
SPEAKER_00: My life was hard like anybody's, but it wasn't that traumatic that I would just start bawling at the drop of a hat, and I literally thought something was wrong with me.
1:36:01
SPEAKER_00: And then by again, by turning in and exploring where all that was coming from, I started to find answers.
1:36:09
SPEAKER_00: And it seemed right and it feels right.
1:36:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm feeling very, very good.
1:36:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm in this in the process of downsizing.
1:36:16
SPEAKER_00: This house that we're in right now is for sale.
1:36:18
SPEAKER_00: A bunch of this stuff is either going to be on display at the gym or be sold and go away.
1:36:24
SPEAKER_00: Trying to get back in touch with nature and the nature of things, have a smaller footprint in my existence here in this realm, and operate from a place of love, gratitude, and authenticity.
1:36:38
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's all about for me.
1:36:40
SPEAKER_01: Sounds great.
1:36:41
SPEAKER_01: And I have this thing I called alchemy of outcomes, meaning something bad can happen, but you kind of get to decide does it end up being really bad?
1:36:50
SPEAKER_01: Like can you turn it to something good?
1:36:52
SPEAKER_01: The example I give is you lose a leg.
1:36:55
SPEAKER_01: That's a terrible thing.
1:36:56
SPEAKER_01: But then you discover you like playing guitar and you become an amazingly great guitar player.
1:37:00
SPEAKER_01: You never would have picked up a guitar before.
1:37:02
SPEAKER_01: Or a good thing happens, you win the lottery, but then your friends start acting weird and you get a drug habit.
1:37:07
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
1:37:08
SPEAKER_01: Like you can have a objectively good or objectively bad thing happen, but what you do with it, how you respond, how you respond, you're always writing the next chapter, right?
1:37:16
SPEAKER_01: So when you talk about those things that you wish, because my question was to tell the young Randy and you'd get more in touch with yourself, it could have saved you some divorces, but then the truth is, but that is who made you who you are today.
1:37:27
SPEAKER_00: Exactly right.
1:37:28
SPEAKER_01: And all you can that's an interesting question to ask.
1:37:30
SPEAKER_01: The real thing you can do in this moment, which is of course what meditation teaches us, is what are you going to carry forward?
1:37:36
SPEAKER_01: And what I hear you saying is you've made it, you're carrying forward the best person that you are today.
1:37:42
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's kind of the best that any of us can do, right?
1:37:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:37:45
SPEAKER_01: Learn from our past.
1:37:46
SPEAKER_00: Joey Jones, veteran Marine EOD tech, lost his legs in Afghanistan, and he will tell you that was the best thing that ever happened to him.
1:37:54
SPEAKER_00: Because he made it the best thing.
1:37:56
SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
1:37:57
SPEAKER_00: How he responded to that adversity has made him a man that he would not have otherwise been.
1:38:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:38:02
SPEAKER_00: He says he's a better father, he's a better human, all these things because of that very, very negative experience.
1:38:08
SPEAKER_00: And that's all a function of how he responded to those things.
1:38:12
SPEAKER_00: He could have used those as excuses to make a lot of bad decisions.
1:38:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:38:16
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, grew up in a single parent household up in Seattle.
1:38:20
SPEAKER_00: I was the oldest and only male.
1:38:22
SPEAKER_00: No dad, no father figure.
1:38:24
SPEAKER_00: That's why those coaches were so important.
1:38:26
SPEAKER_00: Because they were going to kick me in the butt when I needed a kick in the butt and also threw an arm around my shoulder and said, hey, it's going to be all right when I needed that.
1:38:33
SPEAKER_00: And they kept me, you know, that passion in wrestling kept me out of trouble and kept me from making a lot of bad decisions and using that as an excuse to make those bad decisions.
1:38:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think what we do anytime something bad is happening to me, I specifically ask myself, what am I going to do to turn this into something good?
1:38:53
SPEAKER_00: Because that gives me the power back again.
1:38:54
SPEAKER_00: What am I going to learn from this experience?
1:38:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
1:38:56
SPEAKER_00: You're always going to learn something.
1:38:58
SPEAKER_00: That's why those losses were way more important than any of the wins.
1:39:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:39:02
SPEAKER_00: I never went back and watched those fights I won.
1:39:04
SPEAKER_00: Why?
1:39:05
SPEAKER_00: I probably should have, because there were still things to learn.
1:39:07
SPEAKER_00: You can still be better.
1:39:08
SPEAKER_00: I got the outcome I wanted.
1:39:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:39:10
SPEAKER_00: But you can bet your butt I watched those ones I lost because there was the one where I was going to figure out what I did wrong and what I can do better.
1:39:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, listen, stay healthy.
1:39:18
SPEAKER_01: Good luck with your move, and I'm so glad that John put us in touch and I look forward to staying in touch.
1:39:24
SPEAKER_01: Appreciate it.
1:39:26
SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Randy Couture.
1:39:29
SPEAKER_01: You will find links in the show notes to all the things that we discussed, including his charities, where you can make a donation to support his work to help veterans.
1:39:37
SPEAKER_01: Thanks to my team, Robbie, Phil, Kyle, Angela, David, and to Ryan Peach Turner, my producer and chief editor, for your help.
1:39:45
SPEAKER_01: And thanks also to the show sponsors and supporters.
1:39:48
SPEAKER_01: You can see them on our supporters page at AgelessWarrior Lab.com.
1:39:53
SPEAKER_01: Randy and I discussed the importance of how you respond to difficulties.
1:39:57
SPEAKER_01: And you can check out a whole show I did on that, which is episode three called Transforming Pain into Power Alchemy of Outcomes.
1:40:06
SPEAKER_01: I'll be back next week with more lessons from the lab.
1:40:09
SPEAKER_01: And until then, keep developing your strength, your wisdom, and go out and do good in the world.