Latest / Caught on the Mike... / MMA Welterweight- Ben Bennett "Mr. Alaska” Forge Fight Club Denver

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MMA Welterweight- Ben Bennett "Mr. Alaska” Forge Fight Club Denver · Caught on the Mike...

• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, this is caught on the mic.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, sitting with me today, you might have seen my next guest on a recent episode of Dana White's contender series.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, he's rocking the hat right now.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's from, well, he's not originally from Colorado, but he lives in Colorado.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's Mr.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Alaska, Benjamin Bennett.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: How the heck are you, man?
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Doing great.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Got back to training this week.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that's when I'm happiest.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm happy I'm feeling good.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: How did that moment feel whenever you got the call to be on the contender series?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Just coming off of a 12-week fight camp and then a two-week fight camp for and both guys fell out, and then I got 11-day notice and um just fought, and they called me the next morning after I fought.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, man, I I was moving into my new place, so I was just like, man, alright, here we go again.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: But sideline of that, I was so excited.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um it wasn't unexpected.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: I guess maybe just the timing was unexpected.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: I thought maybe I'd need one more fight.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um but my manager texted me and he said, you know, I just had lunch with Sean Shelby and I showed him some of your fights, and he says, He loves you.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You're in, let's go.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um he just said he said, I rarely see people, uh Sean Shelby get excited about someone, but he was very excited about you.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And um he also texted me that, so I I didn't know for sure if um he was just blowing me up, but it became a theme throughout the camp.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: He kept telling me that.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So um I was very excited, and um I the only thing I said, I said, well, if he um if they love me so much, um, because he was asking me if maybe I wanted to come out in like two weeks to fight.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I said, hey, if they love me so much, I said, um let me get moved into my new apartment.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I had been stalling moving, like every everything I owned was in boxes.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um I was just getting through the last few days of fight camp.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, let me move into my new place.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I said, give me a good, give me a good, give me a good date if you can leverage for anything.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'll take it either way, but if you can leverage for one thing, it would be um just a little time so I can get it get after it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And um he called me back like uh or text me like uh the next morning and said September Um 17th, and I was like beautiful, got everything I wanted.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's amazing.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we kind of jumped into the middle of the story, but let's take a step back to the beginning of the story.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you take this opportunity and take a few moments, introduce yourself, and let's talk your origin story a little bit about how you got into MMA and what landed you in Denver, Colorado.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was uh maybe 17 or 18, and I was just trying to find my way in life.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was a homeschooler, and I transitioned to public school, and that was a hard transition for me just because I wasn't super quick-witted and I wasn't used to high school fast-paced, and I was just a lot of pent-up frustration.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: But my plan was to go to college swimming.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I had put like six, seven years in, I was gearing everything toward that, and um I started to get into a bunch of little incidences, but I didn't know how to fight, and I wasn't getting beat up or bullied, I just was frustrated.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And one day my brother hit me up and said, Um, hey, um, stop being a little punk and come over to my house and I'm gonna teach you how to fight.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the the nonsense that I was getting into involved some gun issues, and it's not as crazy in Alaska because everyone carries guns everywhere.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't it wasn't like Compton or something, it wasn't like street gang stuff.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just was getting into situations and I was just resorting to guns every time.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And um there was like four or five incidences back to back, and my brother just caught he's like, hey man, you are gonna get thrown in jail if you if one of these situations escalates out of control.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I drove like 40 minutes out to his place, and he had a bunch of his buddies there, and they just started boxing me up, and I loved it.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I had high school going on, I was captain of the swim team, I was doing a lot, I had a lot going on, I had a job, but I still kept driving out like 40 minutes out to his place, and um after a couple weeks, he says, uh, hey, I signed you up for a cage fight.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Are you kidding me?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, alright, let's go.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, he was just so confident, it was so good for me, and I was like, Alright, let's do this.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I the weird thing was is I was in insanely good shape, and I had one or two wrestling buddies that I were practicing shooting on me.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: But long story short, I went out there and won my first fight on like maybe like a month of training.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then um after that first fight, I was hooked.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, I knocked the guy out, and like I said, I was just just ah, it was crazy.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um I'll never forget that moment.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was a huge breakthrough in my life because I just I felt like I was I had a lot of a lot of pent up um stuff, and I and I just had no outlet because everything was just uh high s like public school was just so frustrating for me and it was an amazing outlet, and then I ended up I did two more MMA fights and a boxing match before I graduated, so I I got I got right after it.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So oh, that's amazing.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing, and right now, just for people that are unfamiliar with you, you have a professional record of seven wins and one loss.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like you've got a great-looking resume right now, and it seems like it's just growing, especially with this experience on the Dana White's contender series.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, what was it, what was the specific catalyst that made you make that move to Colorado?
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: I did probably I think I did around 30 amateur fights while I was in Alaska.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: I just was flying out of state, kept saving up money, flying out, saving up money, flying out, and um competing in like any kind of kickboxing, boxing, anything I could anything I'd get my hands on.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and probably the biggest thing was there was uh it's a organization called UMMAF.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a national organization, it's a team USA thing, and if you win all these fights, you get on you get to go to nationals, and uh if you then it's a three or four fight tournament there, and then you get to go to Worlds, and Worlds is held at different locations around the world every year, and 280 countries ago, it's a whole thing.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I got hooked on that about seven or eight amateur fights in, and so I lost it like I lost at Nationals three times in a row, and the last time the team USA coaches were like, dude, like you're super talented, like Alaska's just not it, you need to get out of there.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um the last time I went down for a training camp, because I started going and staying with one of the coaches down in Missouri, um, he said, I think you shouldn't go back to Alaska.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, damn.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, if you really want to do this, like you need to stop.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because I had a couple businesses back in Alaska.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: I had like a little iPhone repair shop, I had a truck washing business, I was just a really busy guy, and he's like, You need to just do this.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I called my family up and I said, Hey, um I'm not coming back.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Can you move all my stuff out of my apartment?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And they were like, sure.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: And to this day, everything is in some family property storage unit, or I don't even know where all my stuff is, but um, that was way back in like 2016, though.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I just uh coach gave me a blanket in a pillow, and I just lived at the gym um for about three years.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: I trained out of there, and I honestly became a beast during that time.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I went 21-0 in 2017 uh as far as sanctioned and unsanctioned fights, which means like so a lot of them aren't on my record, but I won box uh ringside boxing worlds, uh UMMAF Nationals, and IMMAF World Tournament.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went out and went, yeah, so stayed really busy in Missouri, and then eventually um when I went pro, I kind of ran into the same problem that I had when I was in Alaska, where I realized that you know, in the middle of nowhere, Missouri might not be the best place to go where I need to go in life.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I I was dating this girl, and she was absolutely awesome.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: We dated for like nearly 10 years, and she was like, hey man, like you're really serious about this, let's pack up and move to Denver.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: So one night we just packed everything in our two cars, like just everything, and we just had kind of a general idea what we were getting into, but not really much information.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And one night we just took off and drove all the way out to Denver, and we ended up finding a place and getting all set up, and within three or four days I was uh walking on the mats on team elevation.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of how I ended up out in Denver, and uh it's been a journey since I got there because I felt like I was pretty good as an amateur, but and I kind of figured I was gonna run through a lot of pros, but the kind of thought in my head that maybe I didn't have everything under like wasn't getting everything I needed pretty much was validated when I got on team elevation.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of my first sparring rounds was against Neil Magney, and I mean I did good for about 30 seconds, and then I was like, oh god.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So uh after yeah, after that first day um on the team, I was like, this is it, this is what I'm doing.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um so we just got settled in, and I've been out here for three and a half, four years.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So fantastic, fantastic.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a preference as far as your fighting style goes?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I ask is um one of the publications described you as a strong wrestler with excellent ground control when they are analyzing your performance on uh the contender series.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you prefer more ground game or do you prefer to like stand up and slug it out?
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: If if I have to pick what the fight is gonna be, I'd rather be slugging it out.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that's why I got so emotional after my last win, is because for the last few years I've been really um I mean uh I kind of had this really awesome lucky situation where one of my teammates, which is like one of the best wrestler wrestling wrestlers I have ever trained with, ended up be taking over the team and took me on as one of his personal students, and he's been a wrestling partner for Kamaro Usman, Michael Chandler, Eddie Alvarez, like so many guys, and he's now Corey Sandhagen's wrestling coach, and then you know, he took over the whole team at team elevation, and it's really wrestling heavy focus, so it's very easy for me to kind of drift that direction, but um that's not how I started.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: I started out boxing, you know, and um just kind of was just whatever gym I'm at and whatever coach kind of took over, I just kind of got good in that area.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I suppose now that's kind of the the direction a lot of my fights have been going, but right now I'm kind of going the other direction.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: I just spent ever since I got back from my fight, I just pretty much drove around and tried to figure out what boxing gyms I want to join out here, just in pretty much interviewing all the coaches, like so because in that fight I was doing just fine on the ground, grappling him, but once we stood up and started punching each other, like I knew my timing wasn't I know it wasn't as sharp as he was there, but man, that's what I love to do.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I love like punching somebody and inflicting damage.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't mind being on the ground, but I need to be inflicting damage.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to fight um to win anymore after that contender series.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that came out that I realized about myself, is I don't want to fight to win anymore.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: I want to fight to put people away.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I just you know, and that that was something I was missing going into that contender's fight, is that was my I think 79th or 80th time going into the ringer cage, and I only lost maybe like six or seven times total between kickboxing and MMA and I I just got so good at like outpointing people and just figuring out how to win, and I think that that's really important.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if you want to be on the top level, that's important to know how to do, but I definitely got away from a younger, more angrier version of myself that just wants to hurt people, and I just want to get back to that, and I feel like that fight was a catalyst I needed to go that direction again.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I love hearing that, and I do want to kind of tap into the emotional side of things a little bit, um, because you know you did kind of fall into your emotions at the end of that fight and your post-fight interview.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: How do you disseminate or differentiate between things that you deserve versus like having a sense of imposter syndrome with as good of a record as you have, with as many victories as you have, and with like the way you want to move your career forward?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um Because I I know that's a common thing for a lot of fighters is to kind of like man you know, to overanalyze and to overthink after everything's been said and done, where you'll have a different set of fighters that are just like, okay, that one's in the rear view mirror, let's let's move forward.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you overanalyze your performances at all?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put it, I'll put it this way.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um my last fight, I overcame like some really big obstacles.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Early in my career, I got knocked out with a um a knee up the center against an opponent that was almost identical to this guy I was fighting.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And since that fight, I have been a little bit apprehensive about getting into the firestorm and being a little bit like fuck it, let's go.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of hate myself a little bit because I miss that version of myself.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: And just a lot of like um I wouldn't say fear, but like apprehension about like, oh, I can't do that because he's gonna do this, I can't do that because he's gonna do that.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I could probably go pretty far just fighting like that and just racking off wins, but that's not why I got into the sport, you know.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think the when I was out there and and he wasn't landing, he wasn't able to knock me out.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: I just like I just it was like a demon shed.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was like Right.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I'm okay.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like he hitting me and I'm okay.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because it it does do something to you when you get not when you get flatlined, you know, it it it messes with your confidence.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And just to remember like I'm a beast, you know, and it didn't it didn't come out until the last round, and then I didn't have my I didn't really get to show what I was capable of just because it was like a burden on me, and um kind of shed that, and then a lot of emotions came with that, um, just realizing like man I love fighting because I love that.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man, because I I kind of got so technically into the sport and like just figuring out how to win.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was I'm always trying to win rounds in the gym and just trying to win at everything all the time that I kind of forgot that it's also fun to just beat the shit out of somebody, you know?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to worry so much about I mean I I am always like gonna be able to tally up in the round if I'm ahead or not, but it's also like why wasn't I visualizing like stopping this guy?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because other than it being a little bit boring, the fight was almost exactly how I envisioned it.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I got the takedowns, I sat on them.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing I didn't anticipate in the fight that I'm a little frustrated about is he didn't do anything when I got him on the ground because a lot of the training partners I train with, I can't just hold them down like that.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like I'll pull them down to the ground and they pop right back up.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so it makes for kind of exciting sparring because it's up and down, up and down, and I'm cracking and I'm shooting and I'm driving them and I'm dumping them.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I feel I was like, hey, that this is gonna be a great fight.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna love it.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna it's gonna be like wrestler versus striker, and he's gonna get so tired of getting up and getting redumped down that I'm gonna I'm gonna look for a finish in like the end of the second or third round.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: But he kind of just conserved his energy and sat there, so I didn't really get to push him into deep waters, and I didn't really I don't know, I probably did myself a disservice by assuming he was gonna be better than he was because I didn't do anything because he just didn't respond how I would typically like a typical fighter would, just you know, like okay, you took me down, pop right back up.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's like alright, Ben, boom, boom, shoot again.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that was that was frustrating.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you know if I'm looking to kill somebody when I'm out there, I'm not gonna have those problems.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the mentality switch I spent probably like a week just being pissed off.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't watch the fight.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Just mad.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Just so mad at myself for just not getting after a little more, and um But I kind of think that's a lesson that I needed to learn.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, if I would have caught him somehow and gotten a knockout and gotten signed, like I'm not sure the lesson would have been learned, you know?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, life can be kind of frustrating like that.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I'm talking with fighters, and I've said this over a million times on past episodes of this cop podcast, um, you don't learn anything by being successful a hundred percent of the time.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Your biggest lessons are by kind of tallying those shortfalls or what you perceive as your shortfalls.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then kind of reapplying what you learned the next go-around.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do you feel your presence in the fighting world as Ben the Fighter has influenced Ben the man outside of the octagon or the boxing ring or what have you?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not very insecure about as many things as I probably would be before I could do something about it, you know.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um I definitely I mean it's frustrating because I one of the things I would struggle with and that I'll look back on my career and say that I struggled with is I feel like I'm really good and smart and I can do so many things.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: In my mind, anytime I get free time where I'm not training, I don't go to drinking or drugs or bad food.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: I go straight to like I could start this business, like I have this business idea.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's and it's like I know what I'm capable of.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: I do four practices a day around the clock.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like I like this would be nothing.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: I could and I'm constantly thinking like that, and it's gotten me in trouble, you know.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like I started a marketing agency that took me out for like six months.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I made a ton of money, like an ungodly amount of money for a guy that just started doing some stuff online.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think I did like 240,000 in gross sales just out the, you know, out the gate in like a year and a half.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just like that stuff can consume your mind.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, dude, I have a finite amount of time to become the to be a fighter.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: And fighting has given me so much confidence to be able to, I feel like I can do anything.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of a problem, you know.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's like I can work three, four nights at the nightclub as a security guard, and I can run a full-time business and train, and I can be a good boyfriend, and just you know, I want I want to buy houses, it's just it's like too much.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's like um sometimes I would say that like my confidence definitely gets me in trouble, and one thing I've tried to be really careful at now that I'm in the position I'm in right now, because it's just be super patient and just stay training, stay fighting, keep looking for fights, stay in shape.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because like I said, I don't have any like horrible vices.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: I just I get um I just get excited about things.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: I like conquering things, so I'll look at you know, like a funnel system for sales or something, and I'll be like, oh my gosh, I would crush it at this, and then it's like okay, that would take up like a lot of your time though, and um it's frustrating, but I just have to be patient because those things will be there after fighting, which I'm excited about.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I have a lot of things that I could do after fighting.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think about podcasts, I mean, I just constantly am like thinking of things I could do more of, and if I'm real with myself, it's like being a pro a full-time pro fighter is a full-time job.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: There there isn't like all these things that you can do.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know that once you're in the UFC and you kind of have everything in the schedule, and you can start to do things.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I know Neil Magney owns like a bunch of houses that he rents out, and a lot of guys have projects and things that they do, but when you're a young fighter coming up, you kind of just have to hone your feet.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of just have to yeah, rattle it, rattle fights off, stay focused, stay learning.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all I mean, there's so much to improve on diet, sleep, your mental focus, breath work, conditioning, jujitsu, kickboxing, boxing, footwork.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it just goes on and on and on.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, dude, so what you describe is like having hustle ADD, because I've kind of got the same thing, you know.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: When things are going well, you think you can do like a million fucking things, but but when things are a slump, it's like, dude, uh everything I do sucks.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just need to focus on one thing at a time.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, I totally get all of that 100%, bro.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times for practice, I will listen to like sales guys like talking about like how to become a good salesman.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yes, yeah, make that money, and then I'm like, dude.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like it's just one of my demons, you know.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just I I just love nerdy stuff like that, you know.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that that's gonna be a huge deal for me when I'm older, though.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, you're gonna be the the the fight version of the wolf on Wall Street.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I definitely and there's definitely a lot I'm capable of.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've owned so many little businesses in my life.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: I own like an iPhone repair shop.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: I actually own my own cage fighting promotion for like I think nine, yeah, like nine shows I did or something like that.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I was only like twenty.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: And somebody was selling their promotion, and I just got a huge payout from this other little business I was doing, and I was like, I'll I'll buy it.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because I couldn't get fights in Alaska anymore.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'll buy it.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then I my whole plan was is I'm just gonna host fights and and use my my cut of the money to fly fighters up to fight me.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I got quite a few fights like that, but again, it was just so split, you know.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you can't run a promotion and and become a good fighter.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I just turned 21 and during in the middle of all that, and I remember that specifically because I couldn't go into the bars to promote my fight.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I I read it on this humongous stadium, too.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it was uh it was a whole thing, so definitely that's one of my biggest weaknesses is just getting caught up in just stuff because I'm really ambitious, you know.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Super ambitious.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely love that.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: So as you had said earlier, you've been in Denver for we'll we'll just call it three and a half, four years now.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: You being a part of a team like Team Elevation, uh kind of read the the new version, the Forge Fight Club Denver, um, and uh high altitude martial arts, that gave you a lot of opportunities to work with people that are already in the game, uh, high level.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: What has that experience lent to you personally getting to work with such high-level talent on a daily, weekly basis?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the biggest thing, and I remember uh when I came out and tried out for Factory X, well, because I originally came out here to check out Factory X, I and I just briefly checked them out and decided it was not for me.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um but one thing that Mark said is he said being around high-level competition will normalize it for you, you know?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: And um that's probably the biggest thing is you're training along all these guys that are really good, and like you'll even see someone get really good over like a year or two, and all you have to do is just like dissect what they're doing.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't really have to do much guessing.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, one thing about smaller gyms is like if the coaches are wrong about something, they're wrong about something, and it's like you have to move, like you have to do all these things to to be successful, and being on a team like this, like you can kind of watch like Justin Gagey what he does, and you can see like the weaknesses and the strengths of that, and you can see someone like Neil Magney, everything he does for training, and it's like interesting, okay, and like okay, that there's a weakness there, but there's like all these strengths, okay.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Mostly strengths, if I'm being honest, just right, you know, you can find small, and then they'll tell you things like man, I wish I would have worked more of this or more of that.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say that's probably the biggest thing, is just um, and also the team being as big as it is, it's really cool to be able to just watch and learn from watching.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: You just watch what somebody does, and you're like, interesting, okay, cool, right?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, like I'm in a four-man training group right now.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Chris Kazakh, uh Ryan, Lininger, and Jarrell Askew, and thanks is coaching us, and it's like we all have had like these ups and downs, and I feel like all four of us have like, I don't want that to happen to me.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we all kind of like avoid those situations, and um we'll come back from a fight, whether we won or lost, and we'll be like, man, this is what was happening, and I kind of knew this and this, and we're and then I think that's so valuable because it's like if you watch someone make a mistake, it's like I don't wanna I don't want that to be a mistake, so you know Yeah, yeah, that makes that makes perfect sense.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Even even my fight, like I feel like all the guys learn the lesson I'm learning.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: They watch, you know, myself have some frustration about not getting after it more and going for the finish earlier, and they're just like, hmm, note taken.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell they're all like, alright, note taken, because you look mad.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I am mad.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been, I've been, I've been um I've been mad, but it you know, it's because I'm so analytical about life, and I think that's why I like business stuff, because it's very like X's and O's, is um it helps me and it also does me a disservice.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think it helps me because I was able to go back, I tracked the whole camp.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to go back and just glance at everything and like see exactly what went wrong, and it was like okay, we didn't do much work for if he's just laying on the bottom.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like we didn't cover that at all.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Everything was like he he's gonna be popping up over and over.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was um not a ton of kickboxing, you know, it's just when they start to get after me, I shoot.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, those things were just like easy to see, it was like so evident, it was it wasn't anywhere in my notes, and and that and that's on me because I I I mainly plan my camps out.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: The coaches are just kind of there and they're like, Alright, let's just get after it.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like that one's on me.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: I uh everyone was so helpful and put so much time into me.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's just um I was convinced I was gonna win, and I just uh wasn't thinking about getting signed or having a crazy performance.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like, oh, I'm gonna beat this guy.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I I even said it a lot before the fight.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was just I was like, it's probably gonna be a little boring, but you know, they know me.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: They, you know, a tall guy like this, it's not gonna be the funnest fight, but it's okay, you know, and it was uh it was not it was like exactly what I thought.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: God damn it, so yeah, so you know, kind of going back to that just a little bit.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: So this fight didn't generate a contract for you.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: But do you see that contract happening within the imminent future, say six months to a year?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_01: Part of myself feels like that is 100%.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go out there, I'm gonna knock out one or two guys, but also before I do that, I have to fix that thing, you know.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: I have to fix a few things in training.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I'm in talks right now with several promotions about fighting in the next eight weeks, so it's not like some future thing, but I just have I cannot go out there and do what I just did and expect to like they're just magically gonna sign me because that that is not what they're looking for, you know.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Me winning three more fights sitting on top of guys and just getting a decision and cracking them a few times, and that is not gonna get me get me signed.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have to switch my mentality.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: I have to all the time when I'm training and visualizing and and manifesting, as you said, is I'm killing people, you know, just knocking them out, um, choking them out, finishing them, or dominating in such a fashion that it's just like, geez, dude, bad guy, man, you know, right?
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so it's a combination of things.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I want I want to go out there and absolutely dominate my next opponent, and then just do a mic drop speech and just say, Hey, I heard what you said, I know what you're looking for, I'm capable of it, and this is how I'm gonna continue to fight until you sign me.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: And then if they don't pick me up on that one, I will do another fight and do the same thing, do another fight and do the same thing until they pick me up.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I do think that I'm I think that I would like to get signed before May of next year.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: Ideally, like I kept envisioning that I was going to be in the UFC in 2024, so I could get called to the UFC, but I also want to prove to myself and prove to the matchmakers.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure that they give a shit, you know, just because they got so much going on.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: But if they were to creep me creep on me a bit to see if I'm done anything about the the weaknesses I showed, I'm like, yeah, I'm out here, you know, and I don't know.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to fight anymore if I can't figure out a way to be to fight the way I know I can.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Knocking guys out, standing in the pocket, banging.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't want to fight anymore if I can't go out there with the intentions of finish guys.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't want to do it anymore.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like this sport is I can make a ton of money doing other things.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've already proven that to myself, and it's just not worth it for me to just go out there and win anymore because I feel like I can win at so many things in life.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: The part that is fun and the part that's addicting is fighting and feeling like you're breaking someone, yeah, and you're like, this is a guy that's just as good as me, but I worked harder and I'm better at fighting, and I'm gonna walk out of here, and you're not gonna be able to.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: That that's that's the exciting part.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, I love that because I hate when people give into that feeling of just letting staleness take over, you know.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had something similar happen just a few months back.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: True story, personal anecdote being interjected in here.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like over the summer, the podcasting world got kind of slow.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like everybody was doing it, like I I have fighters on, musicians on, comedians, actors, actresses, I have everybody on my show.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it got a little stale there for a bit, and I was having private conversations with my friends, and I'm like, okay, this is my drop date.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: If I don't have something exciting booked by this date, I'm gonna start to wrap shit up.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I can't do it at a high level, I don't want to do it at all.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's the expectations I have for myself.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like you have very similar expectations for yourself through your own self-analy analysis, you know, where you're just like, man, if if I can't go out and do this in a way that's fulfilling to me, I I'm gonna go pursue other interests.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's basically what I'm getting from what you're saying, right?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's exactly what I'm saying.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh, I feel like I need my back up against the wall like that, you know?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't think anything good is gonna come from me being easy on myself and saying, you know, well, I went out there, I got the win.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, every time somebody's like tries to pump me up about getting the win, I'm just like, I get it, because that's what I do.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: I win at things.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, if I look at my life and I win at a lot of things, but it's like I didn't get into fighting because I was a good wrestler or anything.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: I knocked the first guy out, and I was like, this is it, you know, and I only got away from that style of and it with an intention in fighting because I felt like on the higher level that was gonna get me in trouble.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I just was like, I'm gonna spend the next five or six years, and I have like Facebook posts where I talk about this where I'm like, I'm gonna work on my wrestling, I want to become like a smarter fighter.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that I'm gonna go to the UFC and be able to hang with the top-level guys if I'm not like a top-level striker and grappler and smart, really good cage work.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I like went down that journey, and that was exciting for me at the time.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um but now I think it's time for it to come full circle and um get back to doing what I love, you know.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you go out to fight, there should be no there should be no like um, well, all I gotta do is this, this, and this, and I and I'll and I'll get the win.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's like no, I what how do I finish this guy?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, even um my LFA fight right before I got signed was a similar situation, a little bit different different situation because I tore something in my back right before the fight, like four days out.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I wasn't able to do as much, but just my attitude about being like, well, I can figure out how to win.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it was and I just went out there and figured out how to win.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, all I gotta do is just not wrestle him too much, and my back will be fine, and you know, just keep ahead on the strikes, you know.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: He's not gonna be able to hang with me.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like crazy how I got low to sleep over time, and I just forgot about the what fighting is you're trying to demolish the other person, you know, and right this isn't this isn't, you know, wrestling where you're you know trying to outpoint someone.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is a sport where you know you're essentially testing yourself to see if you could kill another person or not, you know, and that is not something that's gonna be really hard for me to figure out, it's just something that I have to remember and get back to, and I'm excited about it.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't like some project where I'm like, I have to like find this in myself and build this up.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this is something that I need to let go, it's already there, it's already in me, you know?
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, um, and I've had like I have every single fight I've ever fought on tape, except for maybe like one, and I have fights like that, you know, where I've just in a we in a headspace where I was like, fuck this guy, I'm gonna get I'm gonna get after him.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: And those are the fights that people still message me about.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh man, I remember watching you fight, and I have 60, 70 other fights where people are like, Oh, I remember you were on that card, and I'm just like, nah.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is not a sport for just going out there and getting wins over and over.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is a sport where you make a statement every time you fight, and how statements are made is you stop another human from being able to continue the fight in the duration of 15 minutes or 25 minutes, depending on where you're at.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah, there's a there's a huge difference between positive affirmations to make somebody feel better about themselves.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: That can be saved for kindergarten teachers, and just being confident and leaning into optimism through your own confidence, and that requires a lot of self-analysis, which I think is fantastic.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Man, this has been a fantastic conversation.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: My wrap-up question is a lot of fun.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's just something I want you to ponder and kind of throw out there.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Given all of your experience, in particular what you've gone through recently in more recent years, what's your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today?
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just an individual thing.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like, um, and I'm not like a religious person, but there's a lot of awesome stuff in the Bible, you know.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um this is uh I have a lot of opinion on this, but let me make it short and sweet here.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that if you're focusing on being the best version of yourself, you're influencing the whole world, you know?
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like if you're always like just being the absolute unadulterated human that you know is part of everything.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean everyone, everything is everything, you know.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's if you are your best self and you're authentic and you're just you want love in the world, because love is the only thing that can like heal everything, you know?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are if you are like your best self and you're and you're exuding love into the world, I think that that's really the only thing that you can do as a as an individual, you know.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah um even trying to help sometimes you can just make things worse by being negative about negative situations.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can just go out in the world and be a shining example of you know love, then you can you can really like affect a lot of things and affect a lot of people.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love that, man.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: Tell my audience where they can find you online, my friend.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I don't really use a lot of my social media outlets, but I uh use Instagram a lot.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's ben.mr Alaska.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I have like four or five Facebooks, and they're all like Alaska, Ben Bennett, Ben Bennett, Alaska.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I move to a new city, I open a new Facebook for that city so that I don't have a ton of crossover and irrelevance in my posting.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like yeah, so I'll pop into my Missouri Facebook and check on all my friends, and then I'll go to my Alaska Facebook and check in on everyone and my Colorado Facebook, and I keep everyone separated.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: I try to.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm all over on Facebook and stuff, but the biggest one is just Instagram.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: Can reach out, and uh yeah.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, I am so excited for your future, and uh I'm glad we got to have this conversation.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Man, the world is a much better place with you and it, my friend.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to know.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, I'd like to thank my friend Ben Bennett, Mr.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Alaska, for joining me on the podcast today.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you search him out at high altitude martial arts and 45 of Denver out on all social media.