Straight Outta The Lair with Flex Lewis
7x Mr. Olympia 212 Champion Flex Lewis presents Straight Outta The Lair, the podcast that aims to bring you vital information for your life's ambitions, providing valuable insight from interviews of the many many different faces that walk through our doors at The Dragon's Lair Las Vegas and a few from the man himself.
Straight Outta The Lair with Flex Lewis
Beyond the Octagon | Cody "No Love" Garbrandt | Straight Outta The Lair Podcast Ep 88
When former UFC champion Cody "No Love" Garbrandt recounts the psychedelic voyages that reshaped his life and career, you can't help but lean in closer. His revelations go beyond the octagon, giving us a seat at the table of his consciousness as he describes the DMT experiences that influenced not just his approach to combat, but his entire worldview. As we peel back the layers of a fighter's armor, Cody gets real about the intertwining paths of personal evolution and athletic endeavor, offering a rare glimpse into the mentorship and community that have fortified his journey from a young Ohio wrestler to a battle-hardened MMA icon.
In the heart-to-heart moments shared, Cody doesn't shy away from the complexities of fame and the challenge of staying true to oneself amidst the spotlight's glare. Fatherhood emerges as a grounding force, a reminder of what truly matters when the gloves come off. It's in these introspective exchanges that we witness the human behind the champion—a man striving to inspire the next generation in his hometown, and a father basking in the pride of his child's milestones, both inside and outside the ring.
Uncover the heartfelt and gritty realities of a life spent grappling with opponents and inner demons alike. Whether you're a diehard fight fan or just a seeker of profound human stories, this conversation with Cody "No Love" Garbrandt delivers a powerful combination of emotional depth and raw insight, proving that sometimes, the most significant battles are the ones fought within.
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----- Content -----
00:00:00 - Intro
00:07:49 - Transition to Success
00:16:21 - From Humble Beginnings to MMA
00:24:48 - Staying Present in MMA Training
00:27:42 - Weight Cutting and Heat Acclimation Strategy
00:38:32 - Reflections on Fighting and Fulfillment
00:44:12 - First DMT Experience With Aubrey
00:49:31 - DMT and Ego Enlightenment Experience
00:59:22 - Dealing With Fame and Humility
01:06:27 - Fatherhood and Inspiration
01:15:53 -
I remember smoking DMT first time. I was scared to death to do it. Man, I was so scared I prayed oh my gosh, I went to this different dimension, Different dimension. I was scared man. I'm not gonna lie Like I was petrified of it If I never come back from this, my inner voice was like get ready for the ride of your life.
Speaker 2:This is exclusive for me. By the way, tell me something. I'm gonna talk about this. Tell it all they has done, to say this but I've done DMT, ended up doing the DMT on the first time I've done it. You woke up naked, straight up the left. We had so much fun, kory, no love my friend. Thank you so much. Let me have an intro.
Speaker 1:Straight out the lamp giant today by former UFC champion who is on the trajectory to getting up. Elbac Kory no love. Welcome into the show. My friend man. I'm glad to be here. You know how busy life is, and especially with children. Like you said, you had the daddy daycare today and we made it work. We're here a little later than, like you said, you usually film your podcast, but we're here making it happen and we've locked it in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I appreciate you chasing me, as much as I don't think we've really chased each other. It's been like, hey, we need to do the podcast. Next thing something else happens, then I'm out of town. Hey bro, I'm in town this week and it's two passing ships, but we're finding you on my mind. So thank you very much for jumping in. I know what what. A couple of weeks away from your next fight, frigaro X UFC champ, it's gonna be a big fight for you. Great fight for you, as my bloody phone is ringing. I'm too professional. Yeah, sorry, my man.
Speaker 1:Oh good, yeah, amazing opportunity from a world champion going head to head. Ufc 300, big card. We're open up at the card. We're the first fight of the night. Fans get there early and we'll start off with an entertaining fight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a big card, One that has been and sought out, been promoted to the highest again. So see you now back on the chase. That hunger that I know. You and I obviously have a personal relationship. But for me, to see the climb you've had, the story you've had and so many different chapters, and now on this title run again, what are some of the things that you've learned now in this last couple of years compared to the last chase? For the title?
Speaker 1:I think what's different from my first rise to being a world champion and this rise now that I'm back on just experience within life, but also the career. I was 25 years old 23 years old when I got in the UFC and then I won the world title under two years in the UFC. Five fights in I was in the UFC and then, by the, I became world champion. I had 11 professional fights. So the experience learning a lot about the business as well that's a huge different. I just wanted, at the end of the day, I'm a fighter, we just want to fight. That's what I was just so focused on. But being able to balance that, being able to balance things that come with the lifestyle, what comes with being a champion or a former champion, and, obviously, things along the way I became a father to my son, kai he's about to turn six in two weeks just fighting the balance of not looking so far ahead like what's next.
Speaker 1:I think when I lost the world championship that I was constantly like I gotta get it back, I gotta get it back and not overlooking any fight, but looking back like, oh, I win this fight, I'm gonna fight back for the title. I was overlooking it per se, because I was like, hey, one more fight. You have to say, hey, win this fight. You're fighting for the title. So trying to just live more in the present, be more grounded, be more just present with everything. I think that for us it's a lot of we're judged off of wins and losses and to either win in the fight or you're losing the fight. So we fixate on we gotta win or what comes with the loss. So, just being present with hey, the daily grind, being consistent with your work, whatever you need to help outside of the career, but also the mentality, having those values, finding those values too and then helps out with balancing.
Speaker 1:Can't be just a fighter all day. You have to go home, you're a father, you have so many different hats you have to wear, so just finding the balance with that has helped out where I'm at and I think it's a lot of experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah and pray to your son being born. It was just you and your team, right, it was just, it was a self-purpose to win the belt.
Speaker 1:Wild boys, that's what I'm gonna say 23, 24, 25 years 23 to 25, living in Sacramento with the team Alpha Male and just chasing the dream that you're one of the baddest dudes in the planet. It's fun. Every day was just wake up, go train, enjoy life. Uriah was such a good mentor with that. He said everyone has the same hours in a day, so what do you do with that? Hey, if you wanna go, he'd always would say this he says don't miss practice, schedule things around practice, make sure you show up on time, be here, don't miss practice. Because if you wanna go in the end of the day and you already did your training sessions and just hang out, drink a beer and beat off, then you do that outside of training. But he always would tell us at the end of the group training and stuff, and we're just all looking. I'm like man.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've ever just sat down, cracked a cold one over and just beat off. But he would always say that I'm like man, but maybe smoke a joint, I'm not gonna crack a cold one. But he was always talking and preaching to us something that I always listened to after training sessions Just little things about being a martial artist. I didn't grow up in a dojo. I didn't grow up in Jiu-Jitsu, I grew up wrestling. I grew up boxing. Those are disciplinaries of martial arts but they're not. You don't have a belt rank, you don't bow to your sensei, any of that stuff. It's not a dojo. Like I said, nothing wrong with those. I think they all have great values and add so much to people's life and what they can gain with the belt ranking and having that. But for us we just grew up different. It's a different sport.
Speaker 1:A lot of those guys came from that kind of background. So he would preach to us and teach us like hey, be a martial artist, live the martial arts lifestyle. That's sleeping, eating, training, right. So when I was out there, I really took me under his wing. He was one of the greatest band of weights and feather weights for so long, and the team that he built and everyone that just went together and became amazing fighters we had. When I went out there, we had so many top guys Chad Mendes, tj Dilosha, danny Castillo, joe Benavidez, the list goes on on Andre Feely, chris Holdsworth, lance Palmer all these guys it was just the room was Danny Castillo. All these guys were like the guys that I grew up watching the WC, the UFC, strike Force, king of the Cage, so it was great to go out there and just chase that dream. It's 22 years old when I went out there.
Speaker 2:Wow, 22. And you're surrounded with again all them salvages, feather, weight, bunt and weight the best, truly shopping your sword.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was a big fish in a small pond At the before going to the alpha male. So I was like, how great can you be? How great are you when you're going with guys that might not be at that level Not that they weren't that. I had a lot of good training partners when I was at Pittsburgh and Cleveland and in Ohio, as a cream of the crop, I was out of team alpha male for the lighter weight guys, so I had to go out there and test myself. That was like my ultimate goal. Like I remember Twittany Raya about one day I'm going to make out to the gym and they like tweeted me back and I was like, oh, that's cool, I'm going to check out some of your fights. And it was until four or five years later that I made it out there. So, yeah, he remembers that. Remember that tweet. Yeah, I remember watching. I had three amateur fights posted up on YouTube off a shitty ass cell phone from your friend, drunk, yelling stupid shit all over the place, elbow Stand up.
Speaker 1:Use the other hand. It's like, yeah, you can't use elbows and amateur.
Speaker 2:And he was like elbow.
Speaker 1:I want to do it, come on, I know.
Speaker 2:Take us back to that time. I want to. Obviously we've got so many different things and so many different topics I want to talk about. But since we're on the topic of going to alpha male 22 years old because when I came to the United States I was first 19 and I came back at 21 and big fish, small pond, I'd won everything as an amateur. I came over here and nobody gave a shit, but walking into the gym I had to earn my stripes and I trained with the best to get that respect. So take us back to a 22 year old Cody moving from Ohio, pittsburgh, to then come into Sacramento and obviously all the changes that comes with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was an excitement and I was always growing up I hated change and I thought change in a negative way. I would come over from school, my mom would have the whole house reorganized, the couch flipped around and I would literally physically couldn't be in that room. I would get sick because of change. I didn't like, I liked the things the way they were. If anything changed like that, I was physically made me sick. I ever since I can remember.
Speaker 1:But this was different, like when I moved out there it was the uncertainty of what was going to happen. But I went out there for a reason, went out there for a reason, first to test the show, test myself against the best. And I remember when I first went out to that room and just opened up the gym doors and just the energy you felt from that, I was like, wow, these dudes are getting after it. This is what I need to do. And I came from a gym that was in a horse barn, kerosene and heaters, in the cold and like we just hit pads. I luckily had my uncle who had taught me boxing. I was had a good wrestling background growing up, wrestling in Ohio in a very tough state. Wrestling was life for us. We travel around every weekend. Luckily, our mother let us go and wrestle and do that.
Speaker 1:And my brother both excelled at that. But going there and learning how to train properly, trying to train as a martial arts, it's like, okay, we're doing punches, the fit-ins, the takedowns, the work back up like drilling, I'm like, oh, I would just use to hit pads, bag work and sparring. And a lot of times we do, and a lot of the guys I sparred with boxers so they didn't really want to kick. So we're like, all right, let's do boxing with takedowns. So we just dumped the boxer on the head to sit in the back up and then we'd box around. So going out there and really learning how to put your full tool sets, your tools together and train the off of mail was great at that.
Speaker 1:I've been around so many different gyms. They're the structure that they have out there in the system. Just every day was nine o'clock pro practice. I like that cause I'm up early, ready to go Like by nine to 10, 30, 11, you're done with your practice. You have lunch train again at 12, 30. You're ready to have two workouts in by one, two o'clock. So he ran it like a division one wrestling program. A lot of our core group of his fighters were all division one, x, division one wrestlers and CAO Americans that came there to fight and he just had a good system that just it is exiled on. When did you?
Speaker 2:feel like you yeah, this is what I want to do. And did you feel like during that point in time Cause you are obviously coming in with an incredible set of tools right, obviously your armature background but again go to off of mail, having all these guys who, chasing titles, have titles, had one titles to be around that. Did you feel instantaneous, like, okay, I know I'm at this level, I just need to improve in this certain thing.
Speaker 1:I've always felt like I've always trained at the level of my competition or training partners. I'm going with a good guy, I rise to the occasion and like I'm going with the, even when I reached the rest of I was a younger kid, it wasn't such a good kid I'd wrestle down to his level. But if it was a good kid that I'd wrestle, I'd wrestle above. So like being there and just meshing our skills together, just sparring with these guys and training with them, I felt good, like I felt amazing. That's what I needed. That was a huge confidence booster for me to be like all right, here we are, we're doing this and I know it's just practice, we're talking about practice, but it's nice to be able to do it. It's nice to know when you consistently will be able to show up and put yourself through those tests. Those are some hard rounds, hard sparring rounds. You got Chad Mendes, you got TJ Dillashaw, you got Chris Holdsworth. That was he was the baddest dude out there. That dude was just amazing, amazing, one of the best all around martial arts I've ever trained with and ever did something. He was a good wrestler, amazing striker Jiu-Jitsu out of this world, but he was so smart with his fight IQ and how he dissected, even just sparring, he was like, all right, he would come ready to spar. He filmed sparring and studied it. And I remember he had this little laptop that he had clips of like GSP's jab to a single leg and he had 15 breakdowns or GSP's outside double leg. He'd have all these legs. He'd watch them, watch them over and then drill them and put them into live action and, like I said, going out there doing that, I felt good with everybody.
Speaker 1:But I remember, chris man, he fucked me up. He legit fucked me up. He hit me with a one, two step back uppercut and then he did like a flying knee. Everything hit me. I was like, damn, I was gonna take this dude down. So I took him down. Next thing, you know, I'm fighting out of a triangle, so I get out of the triangle. Next, you know, this dude's on my fucking back. I'm like who is this guy? I didn't know who he was at the time, right before he won the ultimate fighter, he was getting ready to go for the finale and I knew of basically everyone there, but he was just real quiet. He stuck to himself and I was like, damn, I gotta get with this dude. I'm like this guy was an animal everywhere. So I was like, let me follow you around, let me train like you, let me just take a minute of your way and let's go. And that dude worked so hard, his worked ethic and just his consistency and his mental fortitude to push through injuries and the attacks and where he came from.
Speaker 1:The story that he has was amazing. He was a big band way too, and I was dropping back down the band way, so I helped me out with nutrition and just training. I've never seen anyone train like that. So he was a dual mentor and his career was cut short. Ufc ended up going undefeated in amateur pro ultimate fighter champion the most dominant ultimate fighter champion to date and then became my coach. He was there since my second professional fight so I won a world championship, so we've had some just great times there. I grew family like crazy. Chris was there. That's one of the guys that I can always say I'll do, I always will tell that story about.
Speaker 2:Chris was the baddest dude out there. I was going to bring him up to it because what a true story of seeing you from like this young guy who came in with so much talent and molding you into the champion that you became.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know he's had a lot of life experience too, with his upbringing and things to happen in his life, and really martial arts saved his life. He gave everything to him. He runs an amazing Chris Holesworth Academy and Citrus Heights.
Speaker 2:Shut up, Chris. Yeah, shot killing it Just amazing.
Speaker 1:you know what he's able to do and he's still just giving back to the sport. You know the martial arts that you know helped him out. But just amazing, guy all around, always there for his shows up. You know, at every camp you know, busted up, beat up, it's ready to go. So we've had such good times with him and he's getting ready to corner a lot of guys in the Miami car next weekend I think Macy Barber is working with. So he's going down there he's to work with Darren Elkins and Josh Emmett and some of the alpha male guys. But he's doing his own thing now at his own academy, which I'm happy for him.
Speaker 2:I didn't know yet he's on the coming. Congrats to Chris. When do you open that up?
Speaker 1:I think right during COVID. Okay, like COVID, I think during COVID. So he built in during COVID. I mean, he had a businessman and he was always grinding and hustling and doing his thing. We told him like, hey, man, like you should do your own thing. Do your own thing. You're at this age and you're not going to fight again. Build your own business. People are here and they're a great instructor, a great martial artist. You've done it your whole life. Like, what else are you going to do? So finally, he took that dive of faith and did it and he has over a hundred students. He has a few black belts that he's had ranked up, since he's had a few belt ranks. It's given out, I think, two or three black belts now I want to say. But his black belts are tough too. They move exactly like him. I mean, he has that style, he's just, he's phenomenal. Yeah, shout out to him.
Speaker 2:Obviously, there's so many things that you mentioned right there, but since we're talking about the coaching element, I'm not putting the cap before the horse, but is that something of an interest for you later on, after you finish your trade?
Speaker 1:I didn't think that I'd ever want to be a coach, but I think moving out here and having to do my own camps and like prioritizing myself and what I need to do and then helping out, like some guys that come into, I might have to say I have a striking class tomorrow. I have a kickboxing class that I'm doing with my coach and they come in and I'm just and then.
Speaker 1:I like I get it passionate about like show them. Hey, maybe I look around the room sometimes and I'm like, oh, they're not doing the correct technique, like I show them and it's and I get excited to show them and just so, yeah, it's like, what am I gonna do after I'm done fighting? I have a few things, but I've trained and been in combat sports my whole entire life. So years ago, if you asked me that question, I would say, oh, no, there's no way, because I can't stand people that are weak minded. I don't, my gosh, I can't do it. I can't do it.
Speaker 1:I want to take the glove off every 20 seconds. No, you got a three minute round, a five minute round. You get a break. You get a minute break. Get your water. I just can't. I just couldn't do it. But I think that sometimes I might want to get into that, now that I'm more doing my own training and helping out a lot with some of the fighters that are in that come in town and I brought my own classes hey, guys, join in. And I like showing stuff that works for me or seeing a different, different type of attacks, from strikes to fit in to the whole martial arts. Yeah, I think I would like to maybe do something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think for myself. Just as you mentioned, I love helping people out. I got a lot of young guys that I've helped out, but I'd never be a coach like a claimed coach.
Speaker 1:Right, this is my.
Speaker 1:I'm clocking in yeah yeah, exactly, I come in, show some things and help out, and if they wanted me to be in their camps or watch sparring or get advice from I would love to. How many kids are coming from the same background that we did that? Just want a shot, just wanted to just need to be just seen, and that's felt like that's what I was. I just needed to be seen. I just need to be seen, just like you come from where you came from, came to the States and made it happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, talking to which nice segue, by the way. We both have come from very humble upbringings and both of us are truly you and everything that we've got today. It's nothing given, it's been earned. We put ourselves in them situations moving around, moving from our family, all about creature comforts and, as you mentioned earlier, you don't like change. So for you to start off, or start off with where you are now, I want to talk about that though your early beginnings and your upbringing, because that truly is such a big part of the Kodi Gara brand that I know and I've got to learn to love, because you truly have had, yeah, just no silver spoon. Right, you've been scrapping since the beginning. But talk, tell us about your upbringing, and I'd love to use some of these stories to come from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so our mother was a single mother and she raised us at a young age. My brother's 10 and a half months older than me, zach. So my uncle was in wrestling so he grew up in high school. She would take us to the wrestling matches, both on our hips, and we go watch an uncle wrestle. We're always in the gym. We always like that and we were in bunch of kids on me and Zach always used to. I just I always remember fighting Zach and wrestling Zach and usually Zach just kicking the shit out of me because he's always like a hundred pounds bigger than me, you know, always like from there's baby pictures and like he looks he's only 10 months older me. He looks like he's a three year old to a newborn, like I don't know if he just stole my bottles or what, like I'm the smallest one in my family. So I think I blame it on Zach.
Speaker 1:But yeah, growing up and doing that, our father was in and out of prison. You know was never in our life but my uncle, robert Meese, is my real father's brother. He was our father figure. Basically he would come in and he had a life sentence at 15 years old, got acquitted chargers 23 months later, gave himself to the lord found boxing. When he would take us around, he would take us to the gym and we were in a huge fight and always going to the gym watching them train and went to a lot of his fights. Growing up, I know, when we were five, six years old and so we always always just into the gyms in the wrestling, like something like we looked up to our uncles like that's, our father wasn't there so we looked up to our uncles with tickets to the gym. We'd never go see them in wrestling, just osmosis, like seeing that. So I think that's what really sparked my interest in and wanting to do something like that.
Speaker 1:But also the mother that I had, you know, she got us in the wrestling at a young age and we were really good at it. You know, we didn't know it. We had a claymont novice, a training thing. It was one week you trained, the high schoolers trained you and you were categorizing weight and on saturday you would wrestle everybody in your weight class. To me my brother would always win it.
Speaker 1:We young, we're five, what? Five? Six years old, so we thought that was wrestling, until we got more and more involved in wrestling and there's like, oh, there's open tournaments, all there's national tournaments, all there's tournaments all over the country, like the wrestling was huge and where I remember we're going to our first open wrestling tournament, just falling in love with it like a competition and just doing it, and then what? No, I want to be on team Ohio. I want to be on this to wrestle off and earn your spot. Like you said earlier, we've always earned what we have and that's what I loved about wrestling. It's like no, it's not sorry, you play pb football. Johnny's mom comes in and crying to the coach because johnny's not the quarterback, but johnny sucks you know, but hey, his mom the coach is I'm not getting paid for this.
Speaker 1:All right, johnny, you're the quarterback and we go get our ass kicked every game. But that's another thing too. Our mom never let us quit any sport that we ever went out. Just listen, you're gonna finish the season. I don't care if you don't like the coach, I don't care if you don't start. You got to work hard to start. You know all this stuff. You know not quit in season, you don't have to go out next year, but you have to finish the season.
Speaker 1:So I think that when she instilled in us that the never quit, never give up, no matter what, um super thankful and grateful for her that she never let us quit, even when it was man we, I remember one season we went, didn't win a game football. Our coach sucked his son was a quarterback, of course, like here we are, but like, and he played this, say, ran 52 counter every play, everybody. And it's pb football. It's not like we're playing in the f? L, but every coach has, you know, can know what we're running, but just, it was horrible and just wait, just yeah. So but we didn't have to go out the next year, but we did. You know, we've suck it out because we love it. Next year we end up going to feed him when the super bowl, yeah. So I mean, it was just like little things like that.
Speaker 1:So, um, her instilling has to never give up, never quit, no matter what earn your spot. That's what I loved about wrestling, loved about fighting too, but she never really let us fight, like she didn't want us to box, she wanted to be punchy. I mean, mom, we were going. You know me, concussions I had in pop Warner. I was 45 pounds in kindergarten maybe even the littler dude.
Speaker 1:I couldn't remember. I was getting so pissed off because the pants were too big that the pads in the head. I remember we always have to run down these big ass trees and back and I hated it because I'm a speed guy. I'm not an endurance like it's all I like to learn along.
Speaker 1:Start with those pants in the head. She goes, she, I, and she brings it up all the time she goes. You were just so little. He's living a little bobble head, your head was like, and he used to go down and I'd always fall because the pants would, and I'd be pulling the pants up, trying to hold the helmet on like the whole entire time and then there's zack. He's a brute like. Just it was great. So it was an awesome to having a brother that was so competitive and just a couple of screws loose in his head that he was very mental about.
Speaker 1:We don't remember we were third grade, maybe fourth grade, and this coach made us do push-ups. And all these kids are crying, dropping to the knees and zack looks over at me knees, you don't fucking drop down so I'm we're shitting their shaking. I mean we had to do 200 push-ups. This is doing practice, I'm. I think the coach was just at it one time and I just remember zack saying we don't drop.
Speaker 1:You know we don't give up. But he was always that reasoning voice like when, if you wanted to break or give up, I always had him growing up like playing football and in the wrestling room. So have that never quit attitude still in from our mom. But also having a brother, that's okay. And sometimes we'd go grow up street fighting and he'd be like dude he's, we never jumped or anything like that. He'd be at my fights, I'd be his fights, but hey dude street fights he's like you ain't letting this dude beat your ass.
Speaker 1:We're like four, three, eight, fifth grade. He's like you're beating this dude's ass, you're gonna fight. You're gonna fight me. I'm like I don't want to fight zack, because I already know what I'll get my ass kicked by zack. So I got a better chance of this guy and things like that.
Speaker 1:So, having him as a brother and just just always there, even today, like he, I'm so super proud of him, the father that he is and the man that he is, and everything that he's overcame as well, from similar backgrounds and growing up how we did. Just. He's an amazing father. So he'll message me all the time and he's not very emotional or anything like that, but he'll just say how proud he is of me and things like that means the world to me, hearing that from someone that's had the same upbringing as you and the same struggles and and you can see how hard it is that we work to get to where we're at and and also the opportunities that we still have lay in front of us yeah, it's all the unseen things that you guys have gone through that people will see.
Speaker 2:As you mentioned earlier, they'll judge you on your last fight yeah right, but the struggle you've had to come from ohio to to where you are now is by one hell of a story, and you've been scrapping, as you said, since a kid yeah, sometimes a recital, sometimes just food on the table, since the kids still, it's still still putting food on the table.
Speaker 1:That's, that's it. And, like you said, just you're scrapping every day to get to where you want, but having opportunities and you're judged off of your last fight. When, when are lost. That's man. I'm a kid from Ohio that had a dream I'm getting talk to flex, I'm here, you know. I mean, like it's little things like that, like I don't take for granted I never would have, never will, because I'm there's. I look at it like what if I didn't do this? Or what if I didn't do that? Like where I'd be at where would you be?
Speaker 1:at. I don't have no idea. I was a scary thought. To be honest, I seem to think about that pretty often, especially when I'm in camp in the grind, and I chose do this. You know, I mean no one's putting a gun to my head and saying, hey, get up and go do x, y and z today, it's just you get up and do it.
Speaker 1:Some people it's the same with you. Like, how can you do that every day in and out? In and out. For me, like I said, I don't like change. So my schedule is.
Speaker 1:My schedule might change because martial arts is one day when we have to wrestle and lift, the next day we have to do sparring and lift, or so it's a little bit different each day, but my schedule is the same, one day through Friday, monday through Saturday, but the same. It's the same training schedule, same time, same kind of things that I'm working on, especially in camp, and you have, you know, a point that you're working for now outside of camp. You can do different things, but I like that. I like to have that set goal. But six weeks out, I have six weeks.
Speaker 1:I'm not focused about fight day right now, I'm focused on being present here. I'm speaking to you. What do I have after this awesome dinner that my girlfriend's gonna cook? Then I get ready for tomorrow. I have three training sessions tomorrow and I take one day at a time because, like I said in the early on the podcast, I've tried to jump forward too much in life like man. Life's so beautiful. You've got to be present and I've constantly been reminded, and reminded by a lot of friends and people that care about me and working with a sports therapist for the last two years that I've been here and DFC has provided that.
Speaker 1:Micah, he's a great XMLB player, just phenomenal guy.
Speaker 2:What kind of things you're working on man, honestly it varies.
Speaker 1:It varies on what we're working on, but for me, like I was having a thing, I'm not being present, like walking to the octagon I'm like, oh man, I better win this fight. What about two? Oh, we're gonna go do that. No, it's man, this guy, another guy that's gonna try to kill you in there. You're like be present and then just really trying to do that in sensory. It's like when you get knocked a gun or you feel the canvas or you feel like me, if you ever see my fire, rub my finger up against the cage and feel like a little bit of vibration, to feel that's something that kind of gets me grounded like right, right here, sensory, sensory, little things like that.
Speaker 1:Your coaches, your voices, yeah, like last time I was fighting and I was like, oh man, I'm getting ready to fight. And look at the crowd I see I was like, oh shit, that's the over. Fuck yeah, dude. I was like oh yeah and he's like saying some of the steel shit. He's oh hell, yeah, man, I was like I'm like snap back into it, but I was like fuck yeah, I was still fine. Oh yeah, little things like that we just get.
Speaker 1:I'm taking away by, you know, just to be grounded, just to be present. You know, like, like, thinking about the winds, I'll who you got 15 minutes, cares about this winter loss right now. You've got to be right now because this guy's gonna try to do that to you. So that's why we work on a lot. Today, like I said, I did a heat acclimation help get my weight down To get ready for the stress of the heat. So a lot of people we cut that weight and it's so stressed. That's why a lot of people fall out the next day from their fight because they're sick and they can't regain that Because everybody's not used to that stress and the sauna. And then he tell us what you just done today. So today I did a 30 minute bike ride inside of a sauna and it was about 115 degrees and it had to keep the RPMs about 120 average burns. And my nutritionist, charles Shout, the Charles at the UFC PI phenomenal, amazing. This is actually the first fight that we're working together with and it's just been phenomenal. He gives all the diet plan, nutrition plans to my girl. She cooks and does it. So today was the heat acclimation the first heat acclimation, because I've had.
Speaker 1:The last two fights were pretty bad Weight cuts for me, I lost my voice, my vision, my vitals were real bad, suffered. So it takes the guessing game out of it. So you go in there, you start. He's writing down All right, you started beating up sweat on your hands and seven minutes in and we're at this. So you're not just going in the sauna, 180 degrees, sitting there and just frying yourself. So it takes a lot of the guessing out of it.
Speaker 1:Then you check my temperature every five minutes. I just want us to get over 103 and 102, 102, 101. 102 is where you want to stand. Because when you go over 103, it's more stress to your body and it's like alright, like you get in that fight-or-flight restart, getting real dizzy. And that's how I was the last three hours, my last week. I just, it was brutal, just, and next day I had no legs underneath me. My legs are gone, so he's just your body out so much. It takes so long to recover. So doing it now but also getting the reads like alright, cody started sweating at seven minutes in. He was at this RPM on the bike, he was this temperature. So you do that for 30 minutes and the whole time he's checking your temperature and making sure that it doesn't go over 103, so box breathing. If it's starting to get higher, just breathing. And then my therapist was outside the sonics. It's a portable one and he's talking to me like we're going because I actually double booked. I usually have therapy every Thursday at 10 kill too much.
Speaker 1:Hey, I'm like cool, yeah, I'm just gonna just sweat here and we were talking and just going through our therapy sessions and just like keeping our mind off of being Hot, being tired, being fatigued inside there and it went by fast and then you get it right out of there and you go down to the hot tub and hot tub I'm not too sure how hot it was probably 104, 105 the words right, there is fucking hot, right yeah.
Speaker 1:I after you, actually just got done in there. So I'm like in the hot tub. I just I'm good, I wanted the house. I'm 10 minutes, I'm good, I want to be in there till he's the skin sprung. I got scum done getting hot, so it's like 30 minutes. I'm like, thanks, I'm sitting there talking and just doing a check in temperature.
Speaker 1:And that's when you start feeling like, oh, head, it's more mental at the last couple pounds are all mental. So it's just getting that guessing game out, like how long do I have to stay in the sauna? So I was able to lose three point five percent of my body weight in that hour. So I lost almost six pounds in an hour. I'm doing that for, yeah, from doing that, yeah, but it was good. But now it takes the guessing and now we have the reads where he stressed the body. We might have to only go 15 minutes in there, take five minutes off 15. So it's not stress your body, it's where you're only down on weight. You make 136 for you might be. Hold that for 45 minutes or 30 minutes, wherever, till you go to the official scale Way in and you start hydrate. So that gives you more ample time to Rehydrate refuel and be better for the next day this new version of the cut compared to the old.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you must be in. There's just an extra added element to the whole fight when you have such a crazy cut too right.
Speaker 1:It does. It's a war nutrition no matter what. Like you're fighting a guy like Say, if he has a bad weight cut, you know it might not show in the first round. With the second, third round, you see a lot of fighters start a fatigue and trail out. Could be a bad weight cut, be something that they ate everyone's the way I made weight and they want to go eat all the shit that haven't had in their body for eight weeks. I see people doing it all the time. I cannot believe that. They do this, destroy your stomach, destroy your stomach, your energy and for all that. Yeah, and in Charles and the nutrition team at the UFC they do thousands of weight cuts a year. So they just keep getting data and better. That's. It's amazing. It's here, right here. I literally Go to the UFC PI and have everything there. Just takes all the guessing camera. All the guessing came out Because, yeah, I mean it, we've all done old-school weight cuts, you know what would be an old-school weight cut for the audience listening For almost I'm one.
Speaker 1:What is one of the hellish most hellish was just lock it like, lock yourself into a sauna and just Sweat it out. Stay there until you like I was doing that last fight, bryce Mitchell was in that damn sauna For two hours straight and you come out, jump in the jump in the cold punch butt-ass naked. The security kept looking how to come. But hey right, you can't be jumping in this Cold punch naked, this guy in the sauna and he had eight pounds.
Speaker 1:You come out and you think he did 30 minutes. I lost three pounds. I was like hell, yeah, I'm like after 30 minutes in the sauna I'm afraid you're fried. He was in there for two hours just cooking, cooking, made weight, but that's like old-school shit. Well, you don't have to do that. I think there's a lot of, but a lot of us don't know unless you come in here. And I think a lot of athletes that are in the UFC should utilize the performance institutes. That's the best of the best. They're not. They want their fighters make weight, they want them to be healthy and you want to go out there and perform performances. So they're not gonna just have any Joe Schmoe in here saying, hey, here's gonna, you're gonna do the X, y and Z and it's gonna work. No, they is trout and tested. Like said, thousands of athletes use these kind of same protocols. I was over in the PI Senior, of course.
Speaker 2:Come on, yeah and I was blown away Because it was the first time that I gone there. Obviously, I've been to pretty much every fucking room in the, in the UFC, hg, but then the PI. I left back for somebody to bring me in and introduce me to the PI, right, but then I done the celebrity sweat thing and I walked in and I was blown away just by how deep they're driven there. Everything in there, from I done neck strength to I eat the hand, coordination, everything that. Obviously, when you think back and you think of course this all makes sense, but all under one roof and free for all the UFC fighters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's incredible. It's amazing had that coming up in the UFC when I was coming up.
Speaker 2:I was.
Speaker 1:Man fighting, check the fight and fight the fight just to survive until I was the first main event. You know a lot of these kids that are coming up get free food, free PT, free, strength in the dressing and not always free is good, right, we know that, and our industries.
Speaker 2:But this is top level.
Speaker 1:This is this top level I tell a lot of. I brought up my buddy Brazilian kid that's came into alpha male and his girlfriend's actually in the UFC. I'm like, bro, this is where you guys need to be, like it's.
Speaker 2:Do you sell Vegas like I do? I fucking recruit us.
Speaker 1:I hated Vegas, my first moves here. I took me almost two years. This is finally like a now, because I left up my off male guys, my teammates, my coaches that changed to our. I was like, hey, you know what, I know what I need. I know what I need to get back to that mountain. I know I need. I just need to put a plan, action, have people that believe in me as well Showing up and it says I found a great team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got my taste knockouts. My striking coach is from Nova New York now Ali runs the grappling practices. I got sparring partners strength edition Gavin Pratt at the head. He's the head instructor at the PI. Just the load that we do. It's amazing. I'm lifting three days a week hard and doing 10 to 12 mixed martial arts sessions a week too. So that's about teen training sessions a week. With the injuries I've had To still be able to push it like that. I haven't been able to do that since I was 23, 24 years old, 25, didn't know any better Then. No, that was sore and hurt and things were about to fall off.
Speaker 1:Because you're young, you don't care but now you're a little older and had some injuries and learn experience.
Speaker 2:It's great there's you can't always be redlining, and that was your mentality for long years, long time.
Speaker 1:I think that's everybody's mentality. We're fighters. Let's, of course, gonna train harder. We're gonna lose all my train harder. It wasn't that I was skilled, I had this side. That okay. Hey, maybe it's the mental side. Oh, it's our work with the middle coach. Oh wow, was present in the fight, was calm and relaxed in the fight and continue to work, not just, oh, one fight off. That's good Work on it outside, just my fight and career. We talked about life and my son, my girl, like it's everything life because we're still at the end of the day. People seem to forget we're still humans. We have a, we're blessed to have the skill set that we have and be able to accomplish things that we worked for, but still, at the end of the day, were humans. We still have things that happen to us, just like regular people do, just so that we have a Platform. That's it shared on. People seem to forget that we're human at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:That's tough, and I've obviously been on the brunt end of social media, as of you too. Yeah and having them to add that Into the spokes of everything else is going on. Be focused, get everything else done. You'll go make sure that you turn in a present for every fight, making sure that you do and all these extra things, and then dealing with all the bullshit on social media. How it was up for you to Navigate.
Speaker 1:Good on bud I've always been like that Been in that kind of like. I wasn't supposed to make it. My mom was a single mother with two kids that as a teenager father, incarcerated, like Uncle's, all incarcerated almost their whole entire life, acts on both side of my family. I wasn't supposed to make it this far. So for me it's just Living on spare time, I feel like. But I've worked for when it came through a lot. But so for me I've always had that all you can't do this, you can't do that.
Speaker 1:I even had my peers, my teachers, saying like when I thought, tom, I want to be a fighter, I was boxing, wrestling, or I was, I want to be a state champion as a freshman, like no one's ever done that. Or I was from I did it because I believed in it, I manifested it and I worked for it and I wasn't gonna have my teacher say that I can't do it or hey, you're gonna make a living. It was never for making a living, it's cuz I loved it. I think a lot of people turn down their passions because it's all does. Is it gonna make me richer? I'm gonna be able to live a good life? I didn't know. I just know that I love to fight. I know what the feeling it made me do, even when I fought in the basement of a Mexican restaurant. It was my first fight.
Speaker 1:I loved it. I thought it was the most primal shit ever.
Speaker 2:It was awesome restaurant it was awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Don Pablo's. My first boxing match. It was awesome. I was like, wow, this shit, and that's what I great thing. When I was able to finally fight yeah, this is it, that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:I know we didn't mention the social media side of things, but I just want to touch on that because the social media side of things is so fucking rumpant.
Speaker 1:It's anyone. Get on and talk shit to you, but hey, are they gonna say that shit to your face? Of course not. And if they had the balls to say that and do that power to them, I'm still gonna smack them in the shit.
Speaker 2:Have you ever got caught up in a Low in social media to get into your head at all?
Speaker 1:No, not at all. You know, I mean I don't. I honestly Wish I didn't have to have social media or anything like that. It'd be great and, honestly, would even to like my last two fights. I really haven't done a lot of media.
Speaker 1:So by my cast, but yay, we've been trying to knock this podcast out two years for me. Yeah, I got to the point where you don't have to talk about doing things. You know. I mean this is great because we're having a conversation. We're like, hey, in this media, mma Say in a junkie says this, and then they screw your words around and like I'm, it's not that one. That's not something I want to do.
Speaker 1:I don't need to like I'm a former world champion, I'm a way back, I know what I've. Having this forward, I don't need to go out and do interviews to hype myself up or try to Probably tie on my life where I was needed. That I needed to talk and feel it struck the ego. But give a fuck about they need that different chapter different chapter. Yeah, for sure. Never. I say I was losing. I had to talk myself into that because I was trying to figure out what the fuck was wrong.
Speaker 1:You know, I didn't know, it's a middle, it's a middle thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's tough, though, when you're especially as fighters, if you're how to also to and then I got knocked out three times in a row from being a world champion. Yeah, I was living a nightmare, you know. I mean I was going going insane, a little bit like what am I doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? I had a train harder, the body was breaking out. Train harder, it wasn't that Minstly. I was like going to these fights like already defeated, really, yeah, just yeah, fuck it, let's, let's go on a barn burner, I'd see who ends. I Got 50, 50 shot, 50, 50 shots. Pretty good going the dice gambling. But I know my skill that I just don't want to be there. So a lot of time I got to the fight walking out, wasn't there. And still, some of the fights his last two fights, same thing man, I just Started drifting away and choose the thoughts in the fight in the fight, walking down the octagon until I was like In the mix of it, were fainting in front of me.
Speaker 1:We're trying to land the first punch, first strike, until it the actual fights happen, and I'm like, all right, it's right, man, what do you catch yourself doing that, though Catch myself being drifting off? I didn't know I was doing that, I knew that I was doing that. Oh fuck, I'm having these same feelings and maybe this isn't what I want to do anymore. You know, that's what went to my mind, always in my mind. Maybe this isn't for me. It's had no emotion. I wasn't excited. I want to be scared going into a fight? I do. I want to be scared because you have. When you're scared, you have. You fear things. You fear what this adversary can do to you or was prepared to do to you.
Speaker 1:But I was just numb and I didn't care, not caring, like when I won the world championship. It just wasn't what I thought it was gonna be like. I fixated on being a world champion for the longest time. It brought me through so many dark times and it was great to say that I won that and see everyone happy for me and the people that were in my life, from Amateur all the way up to being a world champion, and the people that came with me and infiltrated and filtered, felted themselves in with the good notions and reasonings. Being there was awesome, but it just wasn't fulfilling for me. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think, because I focus on that, being a world champion for so long that I didn't have what's next. I didn't have was my next school, was my next thing? Oh, I did that. I did it with pretty much ease to be a world champion, gotten the UFC at 5 and 0. Obviously, when you're looking at a lot of setbacks adversely that I overcome personally, but if you're looking at just my career 5 and 0 in the UFC 11-0 world champion and the way that I was destroying everybody, I did it with ease.
Speaker 1:I didn't allow me to Really focus on what was next and I got into the ultimate fighter and I up, tear my back a whole year out and I was rushing back to get into the fight because I'm the champion. I got to defend my crown. This is my shit. And I didn't allow myself to manifest and visualize myself, even in the octagon with TJ, let alone in training camp, because I was so banged up. But the UFC was trying to make this fight happen for so long I had to pull out and then it was post-mown. I'll go to Germany and all these injections. I've did so many injections in that one year just to get there. Even 10 days before the fight they flew me out. I was in Sacramento. They flew me out here and gave me eight epidural shots just so I could walk. I was eight day, eight, eight or ten days before I flew to New York to fight TJ, I just. But then again here I am. I need money. I have a kid on the way, life-saving say I'm gonna say not no.
Speaker 1:And I was had that fight. It was a horrible training camp and I am the horrible training camp. I'm always way more skilled than these guys. 100% was the middle, honestly the middle thing.
Speaker 2:It's crazy. Coming off that fight, that one, you the belt I felt like that was probably in my eyes and I say this to many people it's probably one of the best fights I've ever seen. It's one of my favorite. It's my favorite fight. Do you fought in you just the flow and it was there. Great to hear that. It's wild. It just it seemed like everything, all the stars aligned that day. But then now to hear this is amazing, just watch. And then what's really happening behind the scenes? Yeah, it is right.
Speaker 1:I mean get taken back by it, sometimes revisiting those fights or that up that rise. It's such a day it looks like I'm just feel like it's a different person. It really was. I'm 32 now. I truly do. It feels like a lifetime ago. I've experienced and done so much in my life. I'm very grateful for, thankful for, but yeah, that's not. That fight was awesome. That's something that Dominic Cruze is amazing. Honestly, he was so far advanced with his Lucidity and his footwork and the way that he moved and no one was doing that and no one had the puzzle. Does you can solve that puzzle? He was doing it to everybody and I was like no, he's not doing that shit to me, he's not doing that shit to me.
Speaker 2:Many say that's the best bantamite fight in history and many say also, that's probably one of the best title fights in history, because it just seemed like you had the cheat card. Oh yeah it was great. It was great.
Speaker 1:I remember smoking DMT first time I've never done any mushrooms, nothing I did about a month before with my buddy, aubrey. I was sponsored on it. I was scared to death to do it. I was so scared I prayed, we did the. I was saging down and all this. And we did the almost show them and thing I've never done. Everyone else is in the room did it prior, so I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1:And take that first. He's like hit it till something feels funny, it's like a pin in. I'm like, I'm like dude, I'm feeling anything. And I finally on like that 60s. Oh my gosh, I went to this different dimension, different dimension, as you remember, seeing me fighting crews and just his movement and the way he moved and everything else is crazy. And I was. I was in my, that was in my. You call it a trip. That's the only time I've ever done it. So just like, out there, just blasts it off, and so then we come back to the next thing. We tell about our experiences and what we saw, we did. We do another round, another round. I went back and I was more calm, relax. I had that feeling before.
Speaker 1:All right, this is what it is like. And I was always telling us hey, just know, if something goes on in there, just know, in 45 minutes we'll be in the kitchen Laugh and eat snacks. I went there so many times.
Speaker 2:I was so scared. I was so scared that trip.
Speaker 1:Yeah it was. I've never done anything like that, I don't know, never. Mushrooms, nothing smoked weed Edible. That was probably the closest experience to having out of body was edible.
Speaker 2:Oh, of course no, you fucking liar talking about DMT. You know what? Yeah, I haven't smoked yet.
Speaker 1:I've been. I've been off the ganja for a few weeks now. You don't want to get yeah, you don't want to get a fight camp. I stop it, just like a little. What are you gonna sacrifice, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:I thought it would have increased because, yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 1:I like it because it helps me, like for me like eating all the food to keep the weight up. That's the toughest part. I helped me too.
Speaker 2:I love it. Break this on exclusives on you, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the best, but yeah, so yeah, doing that, having that and then members seeing the whole lead-up to the fight. When having that dnt trip, I remember I hit. When I hit the cruise with that right hand that dropped them like it knocked them out. That was the same punch that I saw in my trip. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah unreal.
Speaker 1:But I remember I pointed at him. I was like, oh, like I was here before, I was like just pointing at him, like that's the one. I've seen this before that was that, huh yeah that was that. Yeah, you know, I switched Southpaw and I caught his hook. He threw a hook. I caught his hook with my left hand and hit him with my right and then I just went down. I was like, oh, I was because I was like, holy shit, this is a punch and knocked up this motherfucker's not knocked out.
Speaker 1:So we're living it. Hey, this is it, this is the. This is what we gotta do. We're gonna fight him for five rounds and have fun and enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but do you think that the MT experience helped you?
Speaker 1:No, because I visualized that so many times being a world champion wasn't even against Dom, but really what made me sleep really well at night was, um, the night before or night night before the fight, the Wayans we had the ceremony of Wayans.
Speaker 1:And we're getting that little scuffle because we didn't me and Dom didn't do any sit down. Usually it's always sit down, he did not. We didn't have that. Kept you away from each other. Yeah, wait for each other. Yeah for sure. Sometimes knock it's fine enough, though. Yeah, exactly. Yes, I get that.
Speaker 1:I was 25 years old. He thought I was some young punk coming or talking shit and like he was the champion. You know, I would too. I'd be the same way Dom was, but I was. Who I am too is we see each other a lot at the PI. We talk and things like that leading out after the fight, obviously, but that night before the fight, we got into the, the square and they stare down and I saw him move and we got that little thing and I saw the way he moved and the way his muscles twitched and I was like, oh, he's too slow. You can see it in the thing. There's like a ufc countdown. Oh, you're too slow, you're too slow. I just saw his mother's written. That was like I know I I'm no faster than him. It's got to stay defensively sound and just have fun.
Speaker 2:Um, they has done to say this, but I say fuck it. Since Cody mentioned it, I've done tmp, I'm tnt. Did you cry? No?
Speaker 1:I was. No, I was just so scared. I remember a couple my friends wrote with me. Oh, lance was with me and what a danik is deal. And his little brother came in as well and they've all done this. I have never done it. And I just, and I was hitting, he's a hit. I was says, hey, hit this until you feel funny. All right, I'm telling, I hit that thing like six times. The next thing I look back and I had this we're Summing anaconda, the south, all these animals, spirit animals, right, it's going to the To it. I'm like all right, he's beating on the jump, I'll be boom. What was home like? Oh shit, this is real. I think I have a rain stick that I'm just like Everyone has, like a little instrument we're doing, oh, this is great. Like one of the room, like this I was scared.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna lie like I was Petrified of it.
Speaker 2:If I never come back from this.
Speaker 1:I was rough on just my brains. I don't know. I didn't know anything about it. I just say let's do it. And so, yeah, it was fun, I was with them. But I remember I go back and I was like whoa, it sounded like Whoa, I'll be turning this silver back gorilla like swear, and he has a predominant smile like Aubrey. I was like whoa, it's still him. What are you? He's open. Yeah, I saw open. Oh yeah, oh fucking yeah. I was like oh my gosh. And he turned into that and I laid back on this massage bed but I had a heating pad on. I don't know why the heating pad was on, but I hear like Lance and dandy's void, like they're like laughing, like they're laughing. They went to like school kid laugh and I was like oh my gosh. I was like this is gonna like. I was like and then my inner voice was like get ready for the ride of your life, you know it was like Like one of those, the slightest scope.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was like riding on the piece of the grain, like I was like whoa going down this. Like I was on a weird crazy, most vibrant Shit ever that I've ever experienced in my entire life. And then we come back to you know, after the trip and we're all telling it and I'm like everyone's listening to my shit. I'm a storyteller dude. I'm like I just went through, I might have saw God, like I believe. I literally saw God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he sent me back down and they're like, whatever, while I was at, I was on the right path because whatever he sent me through, I was going through a sandstorm like crawling. You know, I was crawling. Next thing, you know, I see a tiger paw, oh shit. And I see a black tiger jaguar paw, and it's like we summoned all these animals, turned into these animals, going through these storms. Yeah, it was unbelievable and I'm telling this story. And she said there, then we go to Danny, he's tells his stories. I mean, oh, I see black and gray.
Speaker 2:I'm like.
Speaker 1:I was dying. He was so pissed.
Speaker 2:He must have got the end of. He must have got the end of the.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just the shake of it is our best.
Speaker 2:Mine was, and I actually. The reason why I done mine was this is exclusive for me, by the way Tell me.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna talk about this. Tell it all.
Speaker 2:I went to Mexico and it was right before the olympia, not last year, the year before last. And that ego, that fucking guy, the one that we talked about, never give up, would have been still on that stage had I not gone, gone and did the trip. I had to kill my ego and I shout out to to Sean Ryan vigilance elite, oh I enough. Sean Ryan, great podcast, massive podcast, gets amazing guests. He was talking about it and him and I had a friendship when we lived in Florida and I hit him up about it and he said, bro, I'm not gonna tell you it's gonna change your life, but it'll change your life and it's what it's gonna do is You'll come back and if you look at a clock to have a clock being, you're at five past, but over a compounded period of time you'll see the difference. So I I'd be honest with you.
Speaker 2:I went with a kind of a disgruntled attitude what the fuck is it's gonna do? Outside of me seeing clay discops. I probably, and I done the whole experience. It was a couple of day thing I played for like private house Who'll fucking shaman and everything, and I went through the experience. I won't go into the details because it's your podcast, but ended up doing the DMT on the last day and this thing fucking the first time I done it you woke up naked Fuck what did you go to you?
Speaker 2:your stories no the first time I done it like you, nothing happened, I felt. But I also had this out-of-body experience where I was Talking in my present but then it was a Myself because hovering above and he was telling me like fuck you doing pussy, stupid shit all the way. You're in Mexico doing this stupid shit Like. And I was like what do you think what your boys were thinking we else doing this kind of?
Speaker 2:not the drug, but like, yeah you, what you then doing, yeah and I had a fucking blindfold, a blindfold and I mask on, and the guy was like, hey, listen, this is the last of it, because it was pure DMT, yeah. And he just, and he talked me through a great charm and talked me through it Okay, take it in. And because DMT is smokeless, it's just vape, yep, yeah, I thought if I took it in it was gonna make me cough, but he was just holding in and then they laid me back and I just went the only way I can explain it is.
Speaker 2:I felt everything and nothing. I felt God. I felt I went somewhere and I can't you remember, you're like you had fucking visions. I, I didn't have it. I had them but I couldn't remember. When I came back To like, and I was only gone for maybe, they told me a few minutes. I wasn't like how long you Like 15 minutes. Oh yeah, I was the both Eight. My body's fucking weird, it just Processed. Gotta go through all that. But when I I came out I felt so Elated. This is energy, this is for the other comes from it and obviously my goal was certain things. And Now I can look back and you people could say, oh, flex is placebo. You, because you went out there with the law of attraction, mentality. Things are going to change this now because I know what I was waking up to and the demons I had and the trauma of what I would get out of training for A bodybuilding show. I would fucking get it out to the gym.
Speaker 1:I was done with it.
Speaker 2:I was just done with waking up like having that fucking monkey in my back and what pushed me to win I wanted to get rid of, because it was holding me back from other aspects of my life. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:Even being a better dad kind of percent. Focus on that. Yeah, I think that for me I didn't go in looking at anything. But I didn't know anything about DMT just from what my friends had told me about, and but I was at that point, man, I'm getting ready to fight for world title. Let's see. Let's see what's the demon. Yeah, we all have demons, man, I Constantly. But when I was in that in the second trip I went the second time going through, I was more calm and relaxed and it was like everything was still paced and harbors great shot. He talked us through it all. Hey, if someone comes in here your trip, you try to speak to him, try to talk to him.
Speaker 1:It was a I was shared Lance experience, but he had a very, very good one too and it was great. I feel if people are listening this, I'd say go out and do DMT. It's gonna be life changing, but it was something. This is my experience of it. I'm not saying I was gonna have the same experience of it, but I felt In lightened that I was on the right path. Not that I needed that DMT trip to tell me that, but it was nice to be like Wow, like I was going through some things, like I bound my ego and we're very Ego driven.
Speaker 2:Ah man, we are we.
Speaker 1:We have to admit it when you have to To defeat the ego, and I think that's what I did. I'm just calm, relaxed, but in lightened, and things that happened to me in that trip, some of it that I experienced, happened four or five years later. Shit, crazy, crazy, what there was this crazy flower, this Vibrant flower. It was like how much like shooting off sparks. I was like, what is this thing? I was like going up to it and then opened up and my wife at the time wasn't I'm sorry, x-y for them like to be like you know the thing. That didn't happen.
Speaker 1:I just spoke to my wife and she, she, she, she was another six years old and so If you watch the video at the house winning the world championship said to fight that pre-avail with Dominic. That was in the trip. Like I said, I didn't know anything about drugs, like I'm just gonna drug DMT, that experience I thought I was enlightened. I would love to do it again. You know what I mean Just knowing more about it, knowing about more about my body, not wanting anything out of it, just to go and do it. But I feel like I haven't been at the right mine, or even stage in my life to go there and do that again. I think that's something that you have to be like, hey, I think it can go either way. I was, yeah, I was, you was at that. I was At that. You needed turning for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was at a real fucking like a rough part crossroad. Put a good fucking act on.
Speaker 1:But every day.
Speaker 2:I was just like man, I know there's more. I know there's more and I just God puts people in your way at the right time. Sean just dropped the podcast. I hit him up Now. I didn't instantaneously, this took a long time.
Speaker 1:In fact he chased me up hey, have you gone yet?
Speaker 2:And then I came back with pretty much everything I asked for, that's great, I was able to sit at the Olympic weekend and enjoy it Genuinely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Be present.
Speaker 2:Be present. Yeah, Because there's so many similar characteristics just listening to you. And I'm no-ordered because even you were talking about not being present. I wasn't present for any one of my wins, but the last. Yeah, Because I called myself and I said to myself I have to be here for this is the last one I'm doing in the 212, ended up being the last one I ever fucking done and I can remember the heat on the stage and I talked about this in the podcast, but all these different things that I would just part of it.
Speaker 1:That's it. Yeah, that's it. You were present, so you felt the light, you felt the sweat and all that stuff. That's how to be engaged in the present and that's what I've learned. I've had that stuff, I've had that, but I didn't really know that I needed that until I started losing. So I started losing.
Speaker 1:I'm like I don't have these feelings. Like man, I was scared to death. Going to every fight, dfc walkout oh my gosh, my heart was racing. I was nervous, scared, anxious, excited, fucking ready to go, couldn't wait to get into the fight. And then it was flying to where I was, like man, I had no feeling, no emotions, no, nothing, no, I'm just walking down. I'm like, all right, I just hope for the best. And there's a lot of things that happen outside of life too. That at that time where I was pulling me back or I was just blinded by a lot of it, but distractions, distractions, yeah, distractions of. And it wasn't that I all became the world champion, that I forgot who I was or what I needed to do. It just man, it just was a lot, 25 years old.
Speaker 2:Being the champion.
Speaker 1:I went from unranked the world champion in the same calendar year. What was the fucking world about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker 1:I remember going and like man, I can't wait to get a fight, fighting at eight and eight, 10 and 10. I was like, oh, here's some new content. And I kept getting different contracts and Dana calling you in the office and meeting with Lorenzo, petita and Shelby. I'm like Sean Shelby. I'm like, wow, this is awesome.
Speaker 2:This is cool, I'm fucking right.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's great. I just I want to stay busy and they kept me busy. That year I fought four times and became world champion.
Speaker 2:I said hell of a lot. I did one year.
Speaker 1:It is. It came at a cost. It really did. Body broke down because I was constantly in fight and camps and I think for the ticket and music, hockey, fight man, that was probably my worst camp. But I knew like fighting him, like I'm knocking him out, I'm fighting for the world title, and you did and I did, yeah, and it was honestly the worst camp that I had, body wise, just everything was just you got to go in there and just did the job and get it done and then it was back and forth to getting the contract for the UFC or for the title shot against Dominic. But that was a good year.
Speaker 2:How did you stay humble and driven during that period of time? Because, obviously, being so young, getting this fortune sponsors lots of attention, media coverage, if people recognize you everywhere you go, cause you can't really hide what you look like with their necktacks.
Speaker 1:and yeah, yeah, I know right what was that like, honestly, that still to this day like I get it makes me feel uncomfortable. You get those genuine fans of comfort. Okay, I mean, I really love how you fight and you go out there and just put it all on. I truly like that. But some of the people that get all crazy. Oh my gosh, what are you? You got Whole Foods or whatever? What are you doing here? That makes me feel like I never pictured about being like that kind of figure to someone, or they would to act like that. I just want to be the best in the world.
Speaker 2:It's cool though, right.
Speaker 1:It is, but sometimes it makes me just feel so like it gives me anxiety about it. Like I'm, like I'm just the same man, I'm sure getting groceries, you know. Like I don't know it, just I never pictured that, you know. So it's for me like I love meeting my fans and people that truly support me for who I am and what I'm able to do inside. If they're true fans, it's great. But as always, it took a while, like I'd always go home and to Ohio and that's where I was like like quiet space.
Speaker 1:I remember going down one time, going home one time and this really was set in out at the gas station, ran into one of my teachers and she's oh, my gosh, I gotta get the picture. She goes my son's not gonna believe that you're here. I was like oh, I'm like I grew up on Dacin Street, right down the three houses down from you guys, the whole time crashing my bikes and getting all kinds of trouble. You know what I mean. My mind like, oh, this is that's what I am Like. Oh, okay, what I'm doing is what I was able to do and where I was able to come from is elegant, motivated people and things like that, but I just never, I don't.
Speaker 1:I never liked that, Even walking into the arena. Oh, I hate that. I really hate that. Yeah, I just black out.
Speaker 2:Some people love that.
Speaker 1:I'm in the cage. You know what I mean. I know some people love that shit. There's clapping hands. Well, last time I hit a couple fans' hands. Oh okay, let me try this out.
Speaker 2:That's history pop. Yeah, yeah, that's history pop. Let me just try this. And then I was like whoop.
Speaker 1:I was in the rafters. I was like nope, come back to it, go back to blacking out. And just in the cage I just it's uncomfortable. I've always been like that, like we even walking into a gymnasium full of gymnasium or wrestling. I don't know it's crazy, but when I'm in the actual action. I don't see anybody. I mean I'll hear coaching and stuff like that, maybe glimpse of Theo, little things like that, but I just like to be in. I just like to be in there. I could fight in front of nobody.
Speaker 1:I just like to be in my mind. I like to be in my mind.
Speaker 2:Did you like the Apex?
Speaker 1:I loved the Apex Cause. I loved the Apex when there was no one there. That was awesome. That was like man, I'm grabbing three of my friends I was school grabbing three of. He's got his three friends and we're fighting and that's it. I mean that's felt like old school, just primal. I mean I felt like I was in back in the Mexican perfect restaurant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, honestly, it was like this is some primal shit, this is cool, this is. It was awesome. And the next time I fought there at the Apex it was packed and you could not hear anything. It was packed like sardines in there, like it was so loud. I think it was louder than a lot of the team mobile fights because it's a smaller space acoustically.
Speaker 1:I just remember the Rob Font fight. I was not my best performance at all and I could not get my body for the life of me to get going and I kept hearing my coaches do this and this. I'm like this dude's hitting me and I'm like, dude, just hit me. Enough hard, enough Knock, I'm okay, my legs are dead. And it was my first fight back from COVID and I was just dude. I felt like I was breathing through a straw and after the first round I could not believe how I've never been physically fatigued like that in my entire life of doing anything, training, nothing. I couldn't believe it. I gotta fight this guy for fucking four more rounds. It's the first. Yeah, it was my first fight.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's the first round I walked back to him like I thought I was just like lack the gases. But man, but it was pretty sick going into the fight. Is that COVID? It was my first fight back from COVID but I wore that damn loopstrap, the whoop, and I was like how am I gonna check it? I felt like shit. I'm like how am I gonna check it? And then the curiosity killed the cat. I Check it right before I'm getting ready to go to the arena. It was like 14% or cover. Hrv was low. I'm like, oh hell. I'm like what a mind. Yeah, I want a mind, fuck yeah.
Speaker 2:so I quit whoop, I'll fuck whoop, I'm never doing it, I would if you whoop on the sponsor me's open for entertainment. They got it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they got it. I threw on me these six figures, something crazy. I have PST, I have shit, nightmares. No, but so then I was like I fuck it's all right Good, but no, it felt good after that first round. I cannot believe how and rock on.
Speaker 2:He's a great fighter.
Speaker 1:He's a great comes a great camp.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I was just Crazy fight you were talking about your friends and stuff and bring your, your friends, that to that particular fight or apex fight, right. I have a lot of friends that Back home They've known me. I want to say I've never changed, obviously that there's a spotlight on me and you change for the spotlight, right, but the core of me I've not changed. But I've all saw and I'm sure you'll attest this because we come from small towns a lot of my friends Unfortunately, the ones actually were in school that were meant to succeed ended up. Not, they got caught up. Some in jail, passed away. I'm sure that's the same thing, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like I've not changed that. Same friends that I go back in. My grogis went back for Christmas for two weeks and I never go out. But I was how my brother was was in town, so we went out to this little bar and everybody and their brother was out. I stuck to the wall. I don't drink, so we stuck to the wall.
Speaker 1:Everyone coming up talking, everyone was like she's worse, and everyone that came up had a story, a fight story. Yeah, it was the same as different fight stories. I'm like that's what we did, like we have nothing else to do. Yeah, we fought and fought. That was it. And so it's my best friends I've grown up with since I was in grade school. I still I always see them, I always go and see them grab lunch, grab coffee, and they're doing well, they're doing amazing. A lot of money. A jay he fought with me growing up, my uncle, so he's done that. Now he's. He's a shop teacher at a vocational school and he's a junior high Coach, wrestling coach. So yeah, he's doing good and always go back and see those guys. But yeah, I said it's a lot of more. I Grilled with her dying, incarcerated, hooked on Pills, man meth and heroin is really bad and it's sad to see, like, damn, I've got Facebook.
Speaker 1:So like a lot of my Facebook, my, my just Facebook, that my athlete page, it's all like my just people that I went to school with and I go through this sometimes and I'll tell my girl I just can't believe how some people Live and what they say on here and just like it's like a it just crazy to me, you know. I mean whoa, it's like. That's why I feel so blessed every day and so thankful For, first, that God put a dream inside me and let me dream that and envision and then have the courage to chase it, obviously with itself, because there's some time, man, I was down to my knees crying God, please help me out of this, show me the way, trust me, to show me like I'm on the right path. So, yeah, I'm just thankful for this to have that dream and then having the courage to chase it, because some people don't even have dreams.
Speaker 2:I'm not crazy, crazy.
Speaker 1:They just don't. We just go through every day. There's some me content. Yeah, I was content. I was wanting to be. I didn't know what I was gonna be, but you knew that you're gonna there's just something yeah something. I wanted something. I thought I was gonna be a wrestler, obviously was gonna be a football player, so yeah, that kind of I love sports, I love it, I loved it something, but and fighting was alright.
Speaker 1:And then I weight classes and it was like I want to be in the UFC. I was like I want 55 guys cut from 200 pounds. I don't know, like I'm 150, 155, so can wet. And then that's what I was like WC, that's why you know you ride was the ice to watch his YouTube channel. Did he his YouTube channel back in the day? Oh yeah, and like the Tam radio, they had the podcast and this look like they had trust me, I didn't know Sacramento was Sacramento.
Speaker 1:I thought California was California. Dude, I'm gonna move out the California. Ohio Can't move out the California. I'm not gonna learn surf. I'm going to the beach every day. I want the Sacramento. It's the armpit of California, you know. I mean it was like no beaches. No, I love Sacramento's awesome. I would live, I would move back there in a heartbeat if I had the chance to, for sure. But he definitely. He Catfish me, catfish man, california, sacramento, for sure. He don't know how to surf but he body surfed. He took us to point arena one time and and this was going to fight Frank Yeager he had a body suit that he normally is, but he was gaining weight to go back at the Featherweight. Oh my gosh, it took him literally an hour getting this wet. So fuck it, it was freezing cold. I'm like dude, I'm like just give up.
Speaker 1:You. Yeah, we wanted to go like we were sitting on the beach and we throw the football for so long. And then we had our coach. Fabio was playing soccer, was kicking soccer ball. I'm after hour this, I'm ready to go. This dude went out there and, looking like a fat seal, dude, I'm telling you, like a fat, just if I was a shark eating his ass, boss. He's body surfing on the waves and the suit all he's going up like Just body. I'm like, oh, you're like you serve me. Like, no, I'm body surfing. Oh my god, why don't you up out there by himself for two hours and literally freezing cold water? Looking like a seal, did you go in?
Speaker 2:hell, no, no, no way it was freezing.
Speaker 1:It was freezing cold. He had a wet suit on to keep him warm. Yeah, they took an hour to get on. But yeah, he and booze with me and thinking that's so I was out there, like I'm going to California, hey, where's I'm going to get out there, like where's ocean? Like, oh, do you're in Sacramento? We got the river. I'm like I got the river back home. Yeah, I could stay back.
Speaker 2:The only reason I mentioned about back home, and obviously I know the podcast. While we are tires the podcast, oh damn, there we go, we'll land the plane. So I killed it because obviously, when I go back home, there's a lot of guys that will say you are one of the beacons of hope for us and I'm sure you and I know this for a fact. Go back home. You've got all these kids that are wrestling obviously your uncles in high school teaching these kids as well, but all these young kids are looking up to you being like, wow, he made it. From this town. I know, I knew where he used to live on this street and you're, he is top of the tree. It's a massive inspiration and you really, whether you Think about it, I'm planting that seed in your head because that is honestly only because I have a very similar upbringing.
Speaker 2:Teachers told me I was going to Make it. It was only one life for me and that was military. Well, jail or professional rugby didn't do all three, as you can tell, but it was also again, the fact that I Didn't have anybody that kind of made it out of my town. They play professional rugby to a high standard, but there was nobody that came over to the United States and became something. So I didn't know, like you, I was on a mission, on a plan, but I knew that I was bigger than what I was being told right. So you going back home and seeing all these young, these guys, friends that you say they're not, they can play sent, but again your the stories, and I'm sure there's these Mythological stories that have grown tremendously from the original fight. You had it like 12 years old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's amazing and In ending the podcast we'd not talk about the good got good dad gang. As I fucking text you, there's a message you probably more than anything about stuff on Instagram. When I see you with your boy, you guys like link to the hip. He goes everywhere with you and you're such such a good dad met. I love it. I love watching from afar when you're at different places where I've seen you the same time project Well-being and your boys there and you're off being a savage and then you come back and then, if you put your dad heart on it, it's amazing, it. I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, guys at the project well-being Marking up the way couch. But man, I gotta take his shoes off. He's got the black marks everywhere. Why are you getting a white couch? He was so pissed. It's Italian leather man.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm on, I put some. Bring the chopper, yeah, but yeah, how are we having Kai Change your life?
Speaker 1:man. It was so much as a father you can tell, you can have the same feelings, but for me I didn't have a father in my life, so it's like man, I didn't want to miss anything. Remember we're in the, the hospital, and the nurses were trying to change his diaper. I'm like I got, and they're like look at me all like sideways, that's my son. I got. I didn't want to. I gave him his first bath and his little. They gave us a little plastic bin Like the like the house stuff. I'd be in this bath. Yeah, like I didn't want to be hands-on. Wow, I remember I just go in there. Sometimes you'd be sleeping as bass and then I go and check to see if you still breathing.
Speaker 2:I do okay, I can go back. Yeah, oh yeah man.
Speaker 1:I, yeah it just it changed a lot. You know what I mean. Especially I was a world champion at the time. So I was like Trying to balance that, really trying to balance the being a father, being this world champion, trying to defend the title, trying to win the title back and being present. It was tough, man, I was one to go. I went through that period of being numb, going to the fights, because I Just a man, that guy, was working on to win this fight.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna what's gonna happen, like I have a son now, like I, you know, after you know, and it was tough and I, I I feel a lot, add a lot of things, but one thing I always, the first time that I held him in the hospital, I said to him I said, kai, you know I'm always gonna be here for you made that promise to him and I'm always well. I cried a little bit. I was like man. I was awesome and exciting. I remember the first time holding them skin the skin. I was like man. I just had a little conversation with them. I just I couldn't hold it back. I just freaking, started crying. I was like man Kai, you will never have to worry about when your dad is gonna be at. If he loves you, he's gonna always gonna be proud of you. He's gonna teach you the way. That's something I always wanted.
Speaker 1:Luckily I had a great mother that you know Went above and beyond for us but like to be able to have that connection with my son. That's why I felt like it put in a lot of perspective to like man, like how can I have anger or resentment or any negative Feeling for a guy that was never in my life? I just felt Sorry for him, I mean.
Speaker 1:I thought, and I was like man. Why do I feel like? I feel sorry for him? But he doesn't get experience what I'm experiencing right now? You know just that, skin to skin, holding your son, watching your son, all the stages of crawling, little things like that like I was a man like, and I still, to this day he's about to be six and less than two weeks I still think that, like man, you miss out so much. If you don't want, you're not there for your children like I. I feel sorry for the parents that have kids that don't Aren't involved or want to be around them. I just I could never imagine Not being there for my son was that because your dad was not there for you?
Speaker 1:Who hardly had to be, you know, I mean who hardly. I just like how could you? This is half you and this person is a person that needs you to Teach him life. It's like how can you not want to be in this child's life and see this beautiful human Grow and learn and first step, everything? Man, I love you. Obviously it's. It's boring the first few months. It's boring. You just eat sleep. I was shit. Yeah, shit's blowout shit diapers.
Speaker 2:Going through it.
Speaker 1:No man, oh man. So the travel on the airplane the first time he's you four diapers and it was like going and changing that little Bathroom. Oh, just little things like that. You know his. You know first tooth pull out, just man, just awesome. I wrestled love. I can't get enough of.
Speaker 1:Hopefully the Lord blesses me with many days on this planet for him and us to Just experience so many memories together. That's what I pray for. Everything else is just a plus. I want that, everything else that God gives me and lets me see and do. Just let me be in my son's life so I can have a positive impact on him, to where he can go through our life Knowing his dad loved him and he's proud of him, and taught him things.
Speaker 2:What kind of things do you install in him at this young age?
Speaker 1:Same thing that my mother did never quit, never given up. I remember at wrestling practice a few months ago they were doing like this wrestling stance, staying wrestling stands. It's time for me even to hold it for three minutes of stuff. And I see in our guy the kids were coming on their stance. So it's like all right coaches says you guys stay in your residence for three minutes starts o'clock. At five, six year olds they're like oh, I'm either under stands and I see Kai's little legs and arms just shaking, like shaking, and it's only a minute and he's shaking like wow. I see some of their kids dropping or Laying up against the wall or crying and I just see kind of like, kind of looking at me.
Speaker 1:I was like, yeah, I just let him do his own thing. And so then he got done, did it all? Didn't stop since dance after practice it. Dad he's oh my gosh goes. That was our. My legs were shaking. I was like, yeah, that's good kind of things that you're gonna have to do in life, that you like to do. I said do you like doing wrestling? Do you like coming in? He's like, oh, yeah, I love it, I like. Things that you like in this life are not gonna be easy. They're gonna be like that. They're gonna be hard not to push through those hard times. But hey, say what? You didn't quit, you didn't cry, you didn't get out of your stance, you did it, you pushed to it. You got better today. So there's little things like that and that's why I love I want to be a great wrestler, I want them to be a great athlete. It's something that I was and I can bond with him over that.
Speaker 1:But it means not, but I want him to go in there and have what it taught me Dedication, the consistency, the struggle when things are tough. That sport is a very tough sport. I had my brother the whole time. You're not touching your knees on the push-ups. We're doing 200 push-ups.
Speaker 2:That's tough. They say wrestling is top five. How does sports to do?
Speaker 1:Definitely. I would have to say there's a lot of tough sports in it, but wrestling is the worship of the young age, all those kids and just where you're at with your body, you're still trying to develop, is in your body. Well, yeah, just show it like that to me was was I was proud of him and then his first takedown to God because he was getting his ass kicked. He goes with a lot of the coaches, kids that go a couple times a week, kind just goes once a week and sometimes it's he takes some time off, like we took a couple months off from my fight and then went to Ohio. He got sick. I got sick, but he got his first takedown. I wasn't there. His mom filmed it, thank God, but he just. It wasn't that the he got to take down. It was just like he looked over as mom and just a smile on his face.
Speaker 1:I was like man yeah oh awesome, because he's getting pushed around a little bit and he saw a little bit of aggression out of him. He like wrestled hard, gotten slings, and then he was like telling me how he slammed the kid down and I just kept going down, he goes. I didn't think I was gonna take down but I got the takedown, he goes. I got the takedown and he was a super. But, like seeing the video, I just kept going, like you know, with the little video, just to where he got the takedown and he looked over as mom and smile and I was like man that honestly, that got you up a little bit.
Speaker 1:I was like that was awesome. I remember when I would get my first takedowns or I would. He's a fearful. He's fearful of losing and even if they super competitive, so am I like? I hate, I ruined family game night. No attack, yes, no attack. Dude, I fucking wanted to burn the whole house down. I was I had the last no card in the no attack, just shuffled like 20 on me. I fuck, I Flew. Oh man, mom, with my ass. I don't know how old I was. It was bad. So we didn't, couldn't pay a family game because I was too competitive. I hate to lose.
Speaker 1:So, cook, I hide the same way and like, I raised my stairs like first one upstairs, last one upstairs, rotten egg. And then we all start a race. Dad, I'll like be pissed that. I'm nice, I'm like or he'll change that. Well, last one upstairs, win.
Speaker 1:So he's so competitive, so he's it has these little conversations. He's hey, dad goes, what if I don't get the takedown? We're like hi, it's fine, as long as you wrestle hard, try your best. You're gonna have those days where you're not gonna get the takedown. You're gonna get taken down. You're not gonna win. You don't win every day in life, but if you stay consistent and keep going, you're gonna get better than you're always gonna be when. So it's good to have those thoughts like I don't want to lose, but don't let it cripple you. Not going and just having fun enjoying. That's why I was one of the river. Just enjoy it. If it's a myself to like, why do I do this? Cuz I enjoy it. At the end of the day, I enjoy no matter how hard it sucks, and our campus I'm in the grind of it right now.
Speaker 1:It sucks, but I love it, you learn, you still love it, I still love it. Gets me up every day and just I get a chase, a dream. I got six weeks to go out and have an opportunity to change my life Even more because my super rules in six weeks. So I work for it, put everything into it and it's the highs of highs and lows, lows. You know that you win, it's awesome when you load, it's like. When you lose, it's man, it's tough. Gotta do some soul searching. You have definitely doing. You have to have good people around you. I think that's what I really experienced. So I was like having People that truly care about you. Win, lose a lot, draw and just be Making sure you're okay after it and hey, get the next one.
Speaker 2:I should have asked this early. I don't know prolonged this any longer, but this is very interesting to me. After a loss, you go back to the changing room. What is that mentality?
Speaker 1:like back there. Then, man, it's losing sucks. I hate to lose them. I'll take it. I'll take my last bite. If you like losing man, You're gonna make it on a winner. That's tough, man. You get back there and for me it's like I'm bummed out about it. But then I look around, I'm like man. I see Not only me but all my coaches, my teammates. They put in a lot of work, they put a lot of dedication. They wanted this more. My uncle, my mom always is. She's a Stone-cold killer man.
Speaker 2:She's always just win-lose.
Speaker 1:So too much emotion. Never did she always give us tough love. Growing up she had to be our mother and our father, but still, I know pills. I'd say, man, I feel like let them down by times and I let myself down. And then always, hindsight is 2020, we're actually this or did that? It just so much emotions off of a loss. But I learned to to Never be too high off a win. There'd be too low off a lot, trying to get balanced.
Speaker 1:I'll win, all right, we're going. Those guys that win their fights and they have six after parties and they're you don't see them in the gym Until three months later and they're still throwing parties. And I went dude, you want to fight. That's the extreme. And the guys that are so embarrassed have a loss that they don't come back to the gym either. They're just like no, the confidence is down. Just, it's tough. I mean you have to find that balance like how bad do you really want it? I look at it like this If the worst thing that happens to me in my life is I lose a UFC fight, then I live a damn good life. There's so many people in the world Hundreds of thousands, of millions probably that want to be in the UFC just to say they fought in the UFC. You know, I mean that's the worst thing that happens to me.
Speaker 1:Remember when the world title or my loss of world title had to go do all the media and just got knocked out a TGM asses for a garden. It was like crazy fight when they're doing media. I was still. I was not in my right mind still, but I was like this is what I have to do, this is what I do. I don't. I can't remember any interview a question asked me Because I was like I'm getting this back, I don't know when, still chasing it years and years later.
Speaker 1:But it's one of those things that is just. It's tough. Just find the balance. I can't hide forever I've lost, you know. So just find the balance with everything in life too. But definitely wins and losses do it so high as the highs and lows of lows. I mean you can never feel so high off a win and there's honestly never we could feel too low awful loss. But a lot of those things like I find who you're around, who's in your circle with my son, like little things I look to my hair. This window closes the ones, this chapter in my life. So where it's gonna be, so do the best I can enjoy it. Just be present, like we talked about earlier being present because it's gonna be gone, I can't fight forever I'd love to, but father time gets us all.
Speaker 1:This was a chapter.
Speaker 2:And, as you're still In it, I'm gonna win it again. You're doing it with a completely different mindset now. You've experienced loss. You know the hardship of that. You've probably sharpened your team around you because you know who's really there and who isn't, and also You've got this incredible foundation that really wasn't there when you won the first title, yep. So you said who? A different animal on this chase, now more calm, collected and Probably somebody that just wants it more than ever, you would assume, right tasted it.
Speaker 1:When you taste bloody, want more. Let's bend that top that mountain. And I know what it takes to get there now. I gotta know what it takes to stay there. That's the difference of this path. I know what it takes to get there now. I got the ingredients to keep it there, as we're one fight at a time, not looking over anything, but this fight, april 13, with David's and figure 8. I am ready for War. They call him. He calls himself the god of war, but I'm no love. So it's that's gonna be a clash, and I'm so excited to open up this garden certainly no love will be shown.
Speaker 2:That's right. That fight, fuck yeah, my man. I really appreciate this podcast. I know it's been a minute in the making, but thank you for just being so honest and open and Obviously you mentioned something, since you broke one story on that thought you know what fucking.
Speaker 1:Really my friends and stuff like yeah, I'm never smoked the empty, but hey, like it's 2024 man, I know it's going on a trip together.
Speaker 2:Let's go, cody and all of my friend. Thank you so much. Straight out the layer Subscribe make sure that you're supporting this guy, cody. What's your Instagram? And Cody?
Speaker 1:underscore no love, follow me at that. You too will be coming soon. Hopefully you get that going.
Speaker 2:I just a podcast to. I know, I know you.
Speaker 2:Reflecting, do it huh, I don't know, bro, I just do what I do. Man, I'm excited for you, I'm excited for the next chapter and with somebody who has Been falling you for a very long time, believe it or not, as I thought I knew of you should have said this big right at the Beginner the podcast, you're sponsored by a supplement company years ago, right? Yes, so that was a black stone, yeah. And these guys came to me and asked me what you think of this fight.
Speaker 2:I was like oh, I know where this is and you only had the neck tat at the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you didn't have all the other tats. I think I was either one, one or two and all. I had just got that from now. Yeah, except me used to send me all the stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I had my Cody. No la fucking t-shirt. Yeah, and I remember actually another side story not fucking prolong this podcast. Sorry, I'm prolonged in this podcast every in the room, but I was messaging you from a but in Germany you were really the one to plant the seed of against themselves.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I also I've Been great with themselves. My body receives them will and they help me pretty good.
Speaker 2:So yeah, me too. And again, I know I'm not prolonging this anymore.
Speaker 1:We can do another podcast or another time Part, two years, two years from now two years from now, when you set up your fucking YouTube again by the way, my podcast and yeah, but straight out the land.
Speaker 2:On the listen, guys. I truly appreciate this incredible champion. Champion Not only with a belt, but also in life and more so on anything else. One of the best odds that I'm privileged to To see as a high caliber athlete from EDO. My man, I truly appreciate it and we're gonna see you win that belt back. First, we got to go through April 13th and it's gonna be a whole new person. It'll be my man. Sorry, take care straight away. We are out.
