Latest / The Joe Rogan Recap / Brendan Allen (2025) - UFC at the White House?

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Brendan Allen (2025) - UFC at the White House? · 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 strapping in for a deep dive that takes us way
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  beyond the Octagon fence. Our source material is a raw
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  conversation from the MNA world, and our mission is to peel back
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  the layers on three things you almost never see the genuinely
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  absurd logistical nightmares of big events, the ethical tight
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  ropes like weight cutting, and you know, the extreme physical
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  and mental toll it takes just to compete.
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  Right, because the fight itself is just the tip of the iceberg.
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  It's maybe 5% of the whole battle.
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  OK, so let's jump right in with something that sounds completely
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  wild this speculation that Donald Trump was predicting a
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  massive UFC event at the White House.
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  Yeah, with what, 8 or 9 title fights on or around June 14th?
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  Which is immediately a red flag, right?
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  The number of fights. A huge red flag.
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  I mean the USC only has 8 weight classes so to get 9 championship
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  fights you're talking every single champion defending on the
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  same night. Which never happens.
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  Never. And you'd have to throw in like
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  the BMF title or something. It just shows a total disconnect
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  from the reality of how this board actually works.
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  And that's before we even get to the crowd size.
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  They were talking about what, 5 or 6000 seats right at the front
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  door? Front door.
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  The White House. The security footprint for that
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  alone is staggering. But get this, the really crazy
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  number was the plan for 100,000 spectators watching on massive
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  screens on the back lawn. I mean just stop and think about
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  that 100,000 people. The security needed to manage a
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  crowd that size anywhere is monumental.
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  Right next to one of the most protected buildings on the
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  planet. It's an immediate non starter.
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  It goes from a kind of cool idea to a completely unmanageable
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  security nightmare in about two seconds.
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  So even if you could solve the security, fighting outside opens
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  up a whole other can of worms. Or, you know, the environment
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  itself. Oh.
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  Absolutely. A June event in DC?
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  You're looking at insane heat and humidity.
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  That just saps a fighter's energy, doesn't it?
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  It's dangerous. High humidity makes it almost
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  impossible for your body to cool down.
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  Your core temperature just skyrockets.
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  You'd have guys cramping, dehydrating, performing way
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  below their best. It's almost irresponsible.
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  It makes you wonder though, how did older promotions get away
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  with it, putting fighters in these genuinely unsafe
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  conditions? Because the fighters needed a
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  paycheck. Simple as that.
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  The source material brought up a perfect example.
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  The King of the Cage, Wet and Wild Event.
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  Wet and wild, I can guess what happened.
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  It poured rain but the show went on.
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  Guys were fighting on this slick, probably vinyl or jiu
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  jitsu mat surface just slipping and sliding everywhere.
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  Is bad enough, but vinyl is like an ice rink.
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  A total disaster. Can't even say it's a legitimate
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  contest at that point. It changes the entire physics of
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  the fight. And it's not just rain, is it?
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  I remember hearing about that UFC event in Abu Dhabi.
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  The BJ Penn versus Frankie Edgar card.
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  Yes, the problem there was bugs. Bugs.
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  Apparently these huge desert bugs fighters describe them as
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  being the size of small birds flying into the lights into the
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  cage. That's a whole new level of
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  distraction. And boxing had to deal with this
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  too, right? Those outdoor fights at Caesar's
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  Palace in Vegas? Totally.
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  You had fights like Roberto Duran versus Tommy Hearns in
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  1984 in Vegas. It wasn't humidity, it was that
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  brutal dry heat. And for the fans visibility, it
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  must have been terrible. Awful.
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  If you were in the back you're basically just watching ATV
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  screen anyway. It just shows.
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  Whether it's rain, heat or giant bugs, nature always wins when
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  you fight outside. Let's shift from those big
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  logistical problems to the the personal grind.
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  Brendan Allen's origin story is a perfect window into how brutal
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  it used to be. It really is.
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  He starts jiu jitsu at 13, striking around 15.
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  His dad, who'd won a Golden Gloves in the military, taught
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  him the basics. With those old horse hair
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  gloves, right? And for that generation,
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  starting in a gym wasn't about learning, it was about survival,
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  Allen said. He wasn't being sparred, he was
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  being beaten up. He was a kid, maybe 14 or 15,
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  going against grown men in their 20s.
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  Can you imagine? He told us one specific story
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  about Dustin Poirier. Oh, this is the one, Yeah.
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  He was doing groundwork and right at the start of the round
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  Poirier just pops him in the mouth hard.
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  The lesson wasn't he take it easy, it was deal with it and
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  keep going. That kind of environment has to
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  take a toll. Thankfully, things seem to be
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  changing. A lot of that is thanks to guys
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  like Sean Jordan, the heavyweight.
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  His philosophy was simple. Spar light, stay healthy.
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  That's how you make money for our family.
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  It's a professional mindset. The goal isn't to win the gym
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  war. It's to win the actual fight,
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  but the tricky part now is finding training partners who
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  get that, who aren't trying to make a name for themselves by
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  knocking you out in practice. That search for an edge brings
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  us to probably the biggest ethical mess in the sport,
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  weight cutting. Somebody in the source material
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  called it legalized cheating, and honestly that's not far off.
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  I mean when you hear about guys like Alex Pereira weighing 226
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  lbs but fighting AT1805A. 41 LB drop.
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  It's insane. The stress that puts on your
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  organs, especially your kidneys, is catastrophic long term.
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  And some organizations tried to fix this with hydration testing,
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  right, especially in Asia, but. They did, but fighters
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  immediately found a way to game the system.
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  They call it the hydration sheet.
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  OK, so break this down for me. How does that even work?
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  It's a pretty wild physiological trick, yeah.
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  So a fighter does their entire brutal weight cut.
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  They're severely dehydrated, but right before the hydration test.
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  Which measures their urine. Right.
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  They chug a ton of water and then this is key.
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  They hold their pee. They don't go to the bathroom.
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  So the water they just drank is what comes out for the sample.
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  Exactly. The sample is clear, it passes
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  test and it says they're hydrated, but their actual body
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  is still dangerously dehydrated. They've just tricked the
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  machine. And the sources said this is
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  actually even more unhealthy. Way more unhealthy.
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  That rapid fluid shift puts this immediate acute strain on your
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  kidneys and electrolytes. It's a dangerous game.
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  Shifting to what happens in the cage, the durability of these
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  athletes is just on another level.
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  I mean, Alan fought with fractures in his foot he didn't
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  even know about. That's almost a given, but the
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  story about his ACL is the one that's truly unbelievable.
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  From a cap slicer against Paul Craig, right?
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  Yep. The submission that's designed
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  to shred your knee? It tore his ACL in half.
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  And that's usually career ending surgery a year out at least.
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  Should have been, but in this one in a million medical fluke,
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  the torn ligament actually reattached itself further down
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  the bone and just fused, no surgery needed.
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  That's just luck. There's no other word for it.
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  Pure dumb luck, but it shows what the human body is capable
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  of. But then you get injuries that
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  aren't lucky at all, like what happened to Austin Hubbard.
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  Compartment syndrome. I've heard of this.
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  It's terrifying. It is one of the worst things
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  that can happen from leg kicks. The muscle swells up so much
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  inside its casing, the fascia. That it cuts off its own blood
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  supply. Exactly.
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  The pressure builds and builds until it strangles the tissue.
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  It's a true medical emergency. They have to perform a
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  fasciotomy. Which is where they slice the
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  leg open. Literally slice it open from
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  knee to ankle sometimes just to relieve that pressure and let
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  everything drain out. If you don't do it fast enough,
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  it can lead to amputation. Amputation.
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  When you hear that, it puts everything else in perspective.
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  It explains how a guy like Uriah Faber could fight with two
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  broken hands. Or why Conor McGregor kept
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  training on a shin that had a known stress issue before it
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  just snapped. The pain threshold is almost
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  inhuman. But the physical part is only
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  half of it. The mental battle is just as
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  brutal. For sure.
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  Alan talked about this before his fight with Malkoon.
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  He said he was literally shaking in bed, just shutting down from
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  anxiety. That I can't lose to this guy.
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  Feeling perfectionism? That's it.
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  It was crippling him. So he started working with a
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  sports psychiatrist, a former wrestler named Eric.
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  And he learned mindfulness. How does that apply to fighting?
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  It's about catching those negative thoughts, the demons as
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  he called them, early, before they spiral.
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  You recognize the feeling. You name it, you figure out
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  where it's coming from. Is it fear of losing?
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  Fear of embarrassment. And dissect it before it gets
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  too big to handle. Exactly.
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  And a big part of that was a simple language shift.
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  He stopped saying I have to do this and started saying I want
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  to do this. That's from Rob Gilbert's work,
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  right? It reframes the whole thing from
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  a burden to a choice. It's a complete reframe, yeah,
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  and it ties right into that Jocko Willing philosophy, the
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  good philosophy. Right, Something terrible
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  happens and the response is just good.
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  Got tapped in training. Good more to learn.
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  Fight got cancelled. Good, more time to prepare.
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  Got injured. Good, because you're still
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  alive. You're still breathing, and now
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  you have a clear weakness you can fix.
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  It turns every failure into an immediate opportunity.
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  And on the recovery side of things, we're seeing huge
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  advances. I mean for years everyone was
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  scared of creatine. Old myths about kidney damage.
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  Now we know it's fantastic for recovery and also for cognitive
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  support, which is huge. And you combine that with tech
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  like hyperbaric chambers. The study they mentioned was
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  wild. Out of Jerusalem, it found that
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  60 sessions in a hyperbaric chamber could lengthen your
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  telomeres. Telomeres.
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  Those are the little protective caps on our chromosomes.
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  Yeah, they shorten as we age. Like the plastic tips on a
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  shoelace. And this study suggested the
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  therapy could lengthen them to a point equivalent to a 20 year
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  age difference in those markers. So you could literally extend a
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  fighter's prime. Potentially, yeah.
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  And then there's the training itself.
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  Look at Hamza Chamayev working with Sam Calvita.
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  The conditioning coach with the background and endurance
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  cycling. Arguably the most endurance
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  heavy sport there is, and he brings that mindset to MMA.
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  He's known for pushing athletes way past normal limits, like
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  putting resistance bands on an echo bike.
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  It's just creating a bottomless gas tank.
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  But there's a dark side of that drive, isn't there?
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  Shamayev was training for hours while he had COVID.
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  And it put him in the hospital, nearly ended his career.
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  It's that razor's edge, the same drive that makes you great, can
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  also destroy you, and that obsessive level seems to be the
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  new normal for the next generation.
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  Alan talked about this, didn't he?
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  Watching these 18 year old kids like Ansar and Umran John.
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  Unbelievable training at 100% every single day and they're
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  working all night at these grueling moving jobs, then
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  coming straight back to the gym. They left home young just to
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  chase this dream. It's a self-imposed 365 day
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  hell. Camp and that's what you're
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  competing against now. The gap between the top and
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  everyone else is just getting wider and wider.
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  So when you put it all together, it's a crazy world.
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  We've talked about these absurd logistical dreams, like a White
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  House fight, the surgical precision needed to survive,
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  things like compartment syndrome, and just the sheer
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  grind of it all. The real fight happens way
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  before the cage door closes. It absolutely does, and the
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  source material really puts this conflict into focus.
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  On one hand you've got the guys who pushed 365 days a year that
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  Shamaya is these young kids who believe that non-stop work is
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  the only way. But then you hear about legends
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  like Ronnie Coleman who would take months completely off after
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  a big win to reset his body and mind.
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  So what's the right answer? That's the big question for
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  every fighter and for you watching at home.
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  In a sport where the physical toll is this high and the
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  competition is this fierce, what's the sustainable path?
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  Is 365 days of hell camp the new requirement for greatness, or is
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  it just the fastest possible way to burn out?
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  A really profound question to think about.
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  Thanks for diving deep with us today.