Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Michael Jai White (2026) - Martial Arts, Movies and Mentorship

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Michael Jai White (2026) - Martial Arts, Movies and Mentorship · The Joe Rogan Recap

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Welcome to the Joe Rogan Recap and before we get going, please
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follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
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our latest episodes in your feed.
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Today we are opening up a file that I have honestly been
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obsessing over for the last 48 hours.
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Yeah, it is a wild one. We are doing a deep dive into
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the conversation between Joe Rogan and the martial arts icon
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Michael J White. This is from episode #2456.
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And look, I know what some people might be thinking right
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now. Oh yeah, they hear the name and
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think of the movies. Exactly.
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They think, oh, it's the guy from Spawn.
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It's the guy from Black Dynamite.
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We're going to get, you know, two hours of Hollywood stories
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and bicep flexing and sure, the man is 58 and looks like he was
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carved out of granite. He looks better than I did at
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25. Oh, absolutely.
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It's ridiculous. But this wasn't really a
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conversation about movies. No, not at all.
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It was. It was honestly closer to a
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physics lecture mixed with like a therapy session for fighters.
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Yeah. Yeah, that's a great way to put
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it. The mission for a deep dive
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today is really to unpack the mindset of someone who has spent
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50 years just deconstructing violence.
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Because White isn't just good at fighting.
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He's a martial arts engineer. He looks at a punch or a kick
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and he sees the mechanics of the psychology and all these hidden
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cheat codes that most people just completely miss.
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Cheat codes. That is the perfect phrase for
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this because we are going to get into some really wild territory
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today. From how he seemingly predicted
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an earthquake before it happened, to why being talented
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is actually a trap that ruins athletes.
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That part is so fascinating. And the secret history of a
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fight between Joe Rogan and Wesley Snipes that almost
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happened. That Snipes story is a piece of
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pop culture history that just needs to be preserved.
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But I actually want to start where they started, which is
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instincts, or as Rogan called it, the Spidey sense.
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The earthquake story. This is one of those anecdotes
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where if it came from literally anyone else I would just say a
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cool story bro and move on. But White is so dead serious
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about it. So take us back to Los Angeles
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in 1994, the Northridge earthquake.
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Right, so it's 431 in the morning.
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Pitch black white is living in a second story apartment now.
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For those of you who weren't in LA then or don't remember, this
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was a massive quake. Highways collapsed, buildings
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came down. But the most terrifying thing
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about earthquakes is that they usually just hit you out of
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nowhere. You're asleep and then suddenly
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the world is ending. Exactly.
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But not for Michael J White. He describes waking up a few
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seconds before the shaking actually started.
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He didn't hear anything rumbling.
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He just felt this shift in the atmosphere, like a sudden,
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overwhelming sense of get out. And this is the part that just
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defies physics to me. He runs to the balcony.
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I remember he's on the 2nd floor and he doesn't climb down, he
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doesn't look for a ladder, he just vaults over the railing and
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drops to the pavement. Below, in the pitch dark, and he
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lands it. He's standing in the parking
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lot, looking up at his building. And then the earthquake hits.
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He watches the lights go out. He watches his building start to
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sway and buckle. Which is terrifying because his
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girlfriend was still inside. He said the door frame warped so
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badly she was actually trapped in the bedroom.
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But I have to ask you, I mean, how is this possible?
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Is he claiming to be psychic? No, he's not claiming it's
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mystical at all. He's claiming to be a product of
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his environment. This is really the core take
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away of that story. It's not magic, it is hyper
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vigilance. White grew up in Bridgeport, CT
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in the 70s. He describes it as an absolute
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war zone. He's living on his own by the
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time he was 14. And when you grow up in what he
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calls a high predator environment, your nervous system
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just tunes into frequencies that safe suburban people simply tune
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out. So it's like if you're a gazelle
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on the Serengeti, you hear the twig snap a mile away, but if
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you're a golden retriever in a backyard, you're happily chasing
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a butterfly while the house burns down.
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That is a perfect analogy. He believes he actually felt the
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subtle shift in air pressure, or maybe the low frequency
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vibration that comes right before the main shockwave.
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His conscious brain didn't know it was an earthquake, but his
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lizard brain, the survival part, just screened danger and took
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over his motor functions before he could even think.
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I should jump. That level of hyper awareness.
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It isn't just for natural disasters though.
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It really seems to be the entire foundation of his fighting
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style. He talks a lot about seeing
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things before they happen in a fight.
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And that leads us directly into the concept of telegraphing,
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which for me was the most technical and revealing part of
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the whole discussion. They told this incredible story
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about Kimbo Slice. Man, God rest his soul, Kimbo
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was an absolute legend, the ultimate backyard brawler.
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He was Internet famous before being Internet famous was even a
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thing. Exactly.
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Just huge, scary and incredibly powerful.
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So White and Kimbo were working together on the movie Blood and
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Bone, and White was trying to teach Kimbo about speed versus
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power. He gave Kimbo a rubber prop
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knife and said, stand right in front of me.
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Try to cut me. I won't move until you move.
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Which sounds like a terrible idea.
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Even with a rubber knife, Kimbo slice is fast.
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But Kimbo couldn't touch him, White would pop him in the face
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every single time before the knife even got close.
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Kimbo was getting super frustrated asking them are you a
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wizard? How are you moving so fast?
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And the secret wasn't that white is the flash.
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No, the secret was that Kimball was screaming his intentions
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before he moved. Not out loud, but with his body.
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Before he swung the knife, he would tense his shoulder, or he
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would flare his elbow just a fraction of an inch, or shift
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his weight to his front foot. That is telegraphing.
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It's the poker tell of fighting. It really is, and White's point
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is that almost everyone, even a lot of pro fighters, have these
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tells. White explains that if I can hit
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you without loading up, if I could throw a punch without
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tensing my shoulder first, my fist is halfway to your face
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before your brain even registers that I'm moving.
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Non Telegraph speed is a nightmare to deal with because
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human reaction time literally cannot keep up with it.
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He actually threw some serious shade at modern trainers
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regarding this, didn't he? He said.
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A lot of trainers are making their fighters worse by quote
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meeting the punch. Yes, I see this in gyms all the
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time actually. You hit the focus mitts and the
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trainer smacks the Mitt down to meet your glove.
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It makes this loud O you feel incredibly strong and fast.
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But White argues it is a total lie.
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Because the trainer is just compensating for your slow
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speed. Precisely.
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If you are telegraphing, a good trainer should see it and punish
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you for it, or at the very least they shouldn't catch the punch.
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But by meeting the punch, the trainer is masking all your bad
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habits. You think you have this
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lightning fast jab, but really you have a slow jab that your
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trainer is catching halfway. Man.
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Then you get into a real fight and you can't land a single
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thing because your opponent isn't doing you any favors.
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They aren't leaning into your punch.
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That is such a brutal reality check for anyone hitting pads
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right now. But Speaking of brutal
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efficiency, can we talk about the jam?
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Because the way he described this, it sounds like a dance
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move, but also incredibly annoying to fight against.
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The jam is basically the anti fight move.
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White explains that when an opponent is rushing, you think
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of someone super aggressive just coming forward throwing
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haymakers. You don't actually need to knock
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them out to stop them, you just need to ruin their structure.
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And he does this with his foot. Yes, he just lifts his LED leg
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and places his foot right on the opponent's hip.
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He calls it a jam. Think of it exactly like a
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doorstop. If you try to barge through a
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door and I wedge a doorstop underneath it, you can push all
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you want, but your momentum is totally dead.
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So he isn't kicking them away. No, and that is the key nuance.
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A push kick requires energy and muscle.
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A jam just requires structure. You lock your leg, place it on
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their hip and let them run into it.
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It disrupts their rhythm, it breaks their posture, and it
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just frustrates the hell out of them and requires almost 0
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energy from white. That kind of efficiency shows
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he's pulling from a lot of different disciplines, not just
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karate. And they actually got into a
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fascinating sidebar about soft arts like ballet and traditional
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dancing. This is a hill that Rogan and
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White will both gladly die on. If you want to be a deadly
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fighter, you need to learn how to dance.
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They brought up the Silomachenko, who is arguably
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one of the greatest boxers of the modern era.
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His father pulled him out of boxing for two full years when
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he was a kid just to do traditional Ukrainian hobach
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dancing. Which is such a funny image to
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picture a young boxer being forced to do folk dance, but the
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payoff was undeniable. Lomachenko's footwork is
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literally like being in the matrix.
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He moves in these angles that standard boxers just cannot
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compute. White argues that if a
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heavyweight champion took ballet, they would be
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unstoppable. Because it teaches you how to
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transfer weight seamlessly. You can control your center of
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gravity like a ballerina. You can generate knockout power
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from anywhere without ever losing your balance.
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So ballet for the win. Now I want to pivot to the
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Hollywood section of their chat because there were some massive
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what if moments here that honestly blew my mind.
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We all know Michael J White from the movies, but there is an
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alternate timeline where Joe Rogan was his Co *.
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This was a great reveal. White wrote the movie Blood and
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Bone, and he actually wrote a specific role with Joe Rogan in
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mind. Who's the character of the
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manager? The guy who talks the big game
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and organizes all the underground street fights?
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Basically the role of the mouthpiece.
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Which is perfect casting. Rogan is arguably the best hype
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man on the planet. But Rogan turned it down and I
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loved his reasoning for it, he told White.
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I can't deal with the waiting. He knew that movie sets are 90%
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sitting in a trailer and 10% working.
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At that time, Rogan was grinding at the Comedy Store every night
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and commentating for the UFC. He prioritized his stand up
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craft over the fame of being in a big action movie.
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That takes a very specific type of discipline.
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It's easy to say no to things you don't want to do.
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It is incredibly hard to say no to a cool movie role just
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because it interferes with your nightly stand up routine.
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But honestly, that pales in comparison to the other Rogan's
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story. They confirmed the Wesley Snipes
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fight. The urban legend is true.
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Back around 2005, Wesley Snipes was facing his tax evasion
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charges and he really needed a big payday.
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So someone floated the idea of a sanctioned fight.
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Wesley Snipes versus Joe Rogan. The fear factor, Host versus
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Blade and people forget back then the general public
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genuinely thought Snipes was a deadly weapon because of his
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movie roles. Well, Snipes is a legitimate
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martial artist. He's a fifth Dan in Shotokan
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karate. But Rogan was training like an
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absolute maniac. He told White he was doing
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kickboxing every single morning with Rob Kamen, who is a literal
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God of Dutch kickboxing, and then doing jiu jitsu every night
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for six solid months. Rogan sounded extremely
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confident when they talked about.
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It he was completely cold about it.
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He analyzed the matchup just like a commentator, he said.
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I knew he was fast and I knew he had good kicks, but I also knew
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he didn't know how to stop a double leg takedown.
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Rogan's plan was never to stand and box him.
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His plan was to duck under a punch, tackle him to the ground
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and strangle him on national television.
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It's probably very good for Wesley Snipes that the fight
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fell apart over the legal and money issues.
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That would have been a very rough night for Blade, but
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Speaking of movies, I really love the contrast they discussed
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between White's experience making Spawn versus Black
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Dynamite. Yes, Spawn is clearly a wound
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that hasn't fully healed for him.
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He shot a movie that he felt was gritty and dark and really
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character driven, but then the studio handed it over to a
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director whose background was entirely in special effects,
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White said. They added something like 71
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digital effect shots that were never even in the script.
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He felt they just buried his acting performance under all
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these CGI capes and demons. But Black Dynamite on the other
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hand, that is his baby, and the origin story is hilarious.
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He's riding in a car in Shanghai listening to James Brown Super
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Bad on his iPod. He's just vibing to the music,
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and he starts thinking about all those old 70s blaxploitation
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movies, the Mac Superfly, and he realizes the huge irony of them.
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The heroes in those movies were pimps.
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They were drug dealers and criminals, but the movies
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treated them like they were Captain America.
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He found that disconnect so funny that he basically wrote
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the entire script in his head right there in the car.
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It really is a masterpiece of satire.
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But OK, we have to get to the core of this deep dive.
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We've talked about instincts and fight mechanics in Hollywood,
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but the philosophy is struggle segment.
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This is where I stopped the audio and actually re listen
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three times. The Gifted trap This is the
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concept that is really going to stick with you if you're
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listening to this. Set the scene for us first.
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They're talking about Kyukushin Karate, specifically the 30 man
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kumite. Right, so for context, a kumite
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is a sparring test in Kyushin. You don't just spar one guy to
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get your belt, you spar a line of fresh opponents one after
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another. Full contact.
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A 30 mancumite means you fight 30 different people in a row.
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It is a brutal ordeal. It is specifically designed to
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break your spirit. And Michael J White did this,
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but he shared this detail about the lunch break that sounded
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like an absolute nightmare. It's almost tragicomic.
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Imagine you have just fought 15 rounds of full contact karate.
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You are battered, bruised and barely standing.
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The organizers call for a lunch break.
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You should be icing your legs and meditating in a quiet room.
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But because he's Michael J White, the famous Moody star,
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all the fans in the building just swarm him.
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So instead of resting and recovering, he's standing there
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smiling for photos. He spent the entire break
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signing autographs and taking pictures.
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He had to shovel food into his mouth in the last 10 minutes of
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the break and then stand right back up with a full stomach and
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0 actual rest to fight the next 15 guys.
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See, most people would be furious.
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They'd say, don't you know who I am?
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Give me some space, let me rest. But White's reaction was
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completely unexpected. He loved it.
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He loved is the wrong word, but he used it.
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He told himself good, This makes it even harder.
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Now I really have to see what I made of he.
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Views that kind of suffering as a necessary audit of his own
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spirit, he said. If he had arrested, it would
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have been too easy, and this connects perfectly to his theory
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about talent. He fundamentally believes that
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being gifted is dangerous. This is such a profound insight.
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White was a naturally gifted runner as a kid.
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He beat a local track star on a complete fluke just because he
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had natural fast twitch muscle fibers.
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But he argues that this physical gift actually made him a lazy
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martial artist in the beginning. Because things came too easily
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to him. How does being faster make you a
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worse fighter in the long run? Here is the exact math he uses
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to explain it. Let's say you have a gifted kid
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a grinder kit. It takes the gifted kid 100
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kicks on the heavy bag to get tired.
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It takes a grinder kit only 10 kicks to get tired.
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That means the grinder kit hits the bane wall almost
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immediately. They have to learn how to push
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through exhaustion. They have to learn how to manage
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their breath and how to keep fighting when every part of
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their body wants to quit. By the time they throw 1000
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kicks, they have practiced struggling hundreds of times.
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And the gifted kid is just coasting on their natural
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stamina. Exactly.
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The gifted kid never hits a wall in practice, so when they
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finally do meet someone in a real fight who can match their
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speed, or when they finally do get tired in deep waters, they
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completely panic. They have no relationship with
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adversity. They fold because they have
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never had to develop the mental callus that the grinder builds
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every single day. That is the gifted trap in a
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nutshell. If it comes easy, you never
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learn how to work when it gets hard.
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They even brought up a quote attributed to Habib
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Nurmagomedov. Discipline is doing it when you
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don't want to and. The naturally gifted person
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rarely reaches the point where they don't want to until it is
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way too late. It is a severe warning to anyone
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who finds things easy. If you're the smartest kid in
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your class, or the best sales manager company, or the fastest
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coder, you might be incredibly fragile and not even know it.
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That fragility is a perfect segue to Mike Tyson, because
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White had a really unique psychological take on Tyson.
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Well, White played Tyson in a movie, so he really studied his
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mannerisms and his deep psychology.
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He argues that Tyson was the ultimate bully, and I don't mean
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that as a generic insult, but as a clinical psychological
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profile. Tyson thrived entirely on
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intimidation. He beat most of those guys
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before they even stepped through the ropes.
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But then he met Evander Holyfield.
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Right, and we all remember the infamous ear bite, but White
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asks us to look at why it actually happened.
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Wasn't just blind rage, it was panic.
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Tyson hit Holyfield with his absolute best shots and
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Holyfield didn't move. Holyfield didn't look scared at
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all. And then the crowd actually
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started cheering for Holyfield. White said Tyson lost his heir.
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He deflated. His entire identity was being
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the baddest man on the planet. When that identity was
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challenged by a man who simply wasn't afraid of him, Tyson
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broke mentally. He bit the ear because he wanted
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a way out of the fight. He didn't have that grinder
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mentality to weather the storm when the sheer intimidation
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failed him. It is a really stark contrast to
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their discussion about Muhammad Ali.
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They spent some time talking about Ali's lost years.
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Three years he was banned from boxing for refusing the Vietnam
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draft from 1967 to 1970. People always say he missed his
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physical prime, but the deeper view they discuss is that he
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missed the natural evolution of his style.
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Exactly. The Ali before the draft ban was
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a completely different species of fighter.
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If you go watch the Cleveland Williams fight, he was literally
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unhittable. He moved backward faster than
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most guys could move forward. He just didn't take damage.
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And the Ali who came back after the three years?
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He was heavier, his legs were just a split second slower.
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He couldn't dance for 15 full rounds anymore, so he had to
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invent the rope, a dope strategy.
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He had to learn to take a punch in order to give a punch.
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The real tragedy is that because his ultimate gift is
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supernatural, speed was taken away by time and the band.
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He had to rely on his chin and his durability.
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And that durability, taking all those heavy shots, is what
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ultimately contributed to his Parkinson's and his health
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decline. You became a sponge for
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punishment because he could no longer be a ghost in the ring.
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Man, it's heavy to think about the physical toll, but let's
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zoom forward to the present day, because martial arts never stops
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evolving. Rogan introduced a new name that
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I had never heard of before this, but now I'm absolutely
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terrified of a Sidulah. A sidulah from Dagestan.
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We all know about the Dagestani wrestlers, right?
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Khabib and Islam Makatjev dominating MMA, but now they're
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entering the world of Muay Thai and they are completely breaking
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the game. How so?
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What are they doing that is so different?
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It's all about the rhythm. Traditional Muay Thai is very
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rhythmic. It's a TikTok, TikTok kind of
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cadence. You March forward, you exchange
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heavy kicks, has a tempo that you can read in time.
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And Asadullah doesn't fight on that tempo.
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He moves like a glitch in a video game.
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He uses what they call Russian boxing footwork.
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It's very bouncy in and out, erratic movement.
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He breaks the traditional rhythm entirely and while he is
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bouncing around at weird angles, he is chopping your legs down
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with calf kicks. The calf kick really seems to be
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the ultimate modern cheat code. It absolutely is because of the
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angle of impact. Traditional TIE fighters stand
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very tall to check or block body kicks, but the calf kick comes
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in extremely low and fast. If you combine that low attack
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with acidulus weird bouncy movement, the traditional
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fighter cannot figure out when to lift their leg to defend.
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By the time their brain reacts to the angle, their calf muscle
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is already dead. It is the perfect example of
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what White was talking about the whole time.
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Martial arts is an open source project.
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You take boxing footwork, you add kyo cushion low kicks, you
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mix it with a tie clinch and suddenly you have built a brand
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new monster. The evolution never ends.
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And Speaking of things never ending, let's bring it back to
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Michael J White. The man is 58 years old. 58
19:33
going on 35. Seriously, he is heavily
19:36
involved in anti aging medicine and the A4M group, but it was
19:40
his mindset on aging that I really wanted to close out with.
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He didn't sound like a guy desperately trying to cling to
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his youth. He sounded like a guy who just
19:46
has a job to do. He called it the service
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industry. That is the exact phrase he
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used. I loved that perspective so
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much. It is such a massive shift from
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the standard ego of a fighter. A young fighter asks how can I
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be the best or how can I win this trophy?
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An older master asks how can I be of use to others?
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White views his healthy body and his vast knowledge purely his
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tools to serve people now, whether he is making a movie to
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entertain you or teaching a self-defense seminar to protect
20:16
you. He sees himself entirely as a
20:19
servant to the art and the audience.
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It is a beautiful place to land, honestly.
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You start by fighting for sheer survival on the streets of
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Bridgeport. You fight for fame and money in
20:28
Hollywood and you end up fighting just to give all that
20:30
knowledge back. That is the complete arc of a
20:32
martial artist. So let's wrap this up.
20:35
We have covered a lot of ground today.
20:37
What is the one thing, the one final provocative thought you
20:40
want the listener to take into their?
20:42
Week, I think we have to go right back to the gifted trap.
20:44
I want you as the listener to really look in the mirror and
20:47
ask yourself, where am I coasting right now?
20:50
That's a tough question. Seriously though, in your job,
20:54
in your relationships, in your fitness, are you just relying on
20:58
your natural talent? Because if you haven't struggled
21:00
lately, if you haven't felt that genuine panic of I don't know if
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I can do this, then you don't actually know how good you are.
21:06
You are just operating on potential.
21:09
The struggle isn't a sign that you are failing.
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It is literally the only way to verify that you are actually
21:14
growing. So go find a wall and run into
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it. Metaphorically speaking, of
21:18
course. Or literally, if you happen to
21:20
be training for a 30 man kumite this weekend.
21:23
Fair enough. On that note, thanks for
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listening to the deep dive. We will catch you on the next
21:27
one. Stay sharp.