Unveiling the Strategic Art of MMA with Outside the Octagon

Step into the octagon with us, Charleston Payne and Jude Starns, as we launch a knock-out punch with our new podcast, Outside the Octagon. Tune in and uncover the tenacity and brains it takes to conquer the unforgiving world of MMA. With every anecdote and expert breakdown, we're peeling back the layers of this complex sport, promising both seasoned fans and rookies a fresh perspective that's as insightful as it is entertaining.

The chessboard of the MMA world is laid out before you, as we highlight the sport's strategic beauty. We're not just talking punches and kicks—prepare for a cerebral exploration where every move is a calculated risk and every fighter a grandmaster in their own right. From the electrifying upsets that leave us speechless to the local warriors who dream of setting the ring ablaze, we're bringing the full spectrum of fight analysis, candid interviews, and the laughter that only true aficionados can share.

Join us ringside for a heart-pounding discussion on the raw, magnetic pull of MMA. Whether it's dissecting the career-defining moments of legends or spotlighting the unsung heroes who embody the spirit of the sport, we're here to celebrate the courage and the unpredictability that makes MMA the ultimate human drama. So, grab your headphones and get ready for a front-row seat to the action with Outside the Octagon—where every episode is a main event.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

What's going on, everybody, and welcome to the trailer episode of the Outside the Octagon podcast. I'm your host, charles Dupain, and I'm very glad to be joined with the guy right across from me, mr Jude Starnes. Jude, I'm so glad to have you here, bro.

Speaker 2: 0:14

Excited to be here, man.

Speaker 1: 0:16

It's been a long time coming. Jude and I used to host the Bobby Turtle podcast together for a couple months until unfortunate, unforeseen circumstances such as Hurricane Ida came through and shut it down. I had to move out to Baton Rouge and stuff Hard for us to keep getting in touch and keep linking up. We finally got the time to do it and we're back with something we truly love. We both got a passion for MMA, the UFC, pfl. We've been watching this stuff for a really long time. We've always been keeping up with it. We're avid fans and some might not agree, but I like to say we're experts at what we do.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Yeah, if nothing else, we're here to learn and have a lot of fun with the MMA world.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Yeah, absolutely, and I mean hopefully. What we could do with this is bring people that are not super interested in MMA a little like comedic relief alongside learning about MMA, so that way maybe we could lead more people to the sport, because it's a very interesting sport, it's very fun to watch. I mean, there's killers out there in this thing, man. I mean, the people that are able to do this are absolute animals that are getting in the octagon and closing that door behind them.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Yeah, and that's definitely the goal is to grow the game, grow the MMA in the mma and the state of louisiana for our state and, uh, get more people interested that would have never watched it turn them on to mma, yeah, I mean it's an exciting sport, bro, like you never know what's gonna happen.

Speaker 1: 1:38

I mean, you see, like main events, like volkanovski, taporia, like where taporia upsets the world, shocks the world over Volk, a guy that's held the featherweight title for a very long time and had multiple I don't want to say the number and be wrong but, it was over 10 consecutive title defenses. I think it was 13 or something.

Speaker 2: 2:00

It was a lot. He held the belt for a long time.

Speaker 1: 2:02

He held the belt for a while and that's hard to do. It was a lot. He yelled the belt for a long time. He yelled the belt for a while and that's hard to do, man. I mean, there's some beast in this thing and it's something that you never know which way it's going to go. It's one of those sports where it's like you know, if you're watching college basketball or something and you've got a D2 Mississippi School of Women or something playing McNeese, you kind of know how that game is going to turn out, like how I win college basketball legitimately this year. That actually happened. But when it comes to MMA it's really a toss-up. Anything could happen in this sport and that's why I really enjoy watching it. I really enjoy being a part of it and I'm really glad that I have the opportunity to present this podcast to the world alongside Jude. We had a nice setup. We've got the setup.

Speaker 2: 2:49

It's been sitting around collecting dust for a while and it's about time to break it out again and do something with it, so hopefully we make a little run here. Yeah, get back in the saddle or get back in the cage.

Speaker 1: 2:53

So yeah, it should be fun no, I mean so like what's what's kind of your main goals with this jude?

Speaker 2: 2:59

yeah, my main goal is uh, just like khabib did for russia, he shined the light on Russia and now there's a lot of Russian fighters in the sport. I would like to see more Louisiana fighters make it big in the MMA and grow the game.

Speaker 1: 3:13

Right, yeah, I mean, louisiana has a handful of UFC fighters already on their UFC roster. I don't know about PFL roster and everywhere else, but they've been opening up the new things like the BFC, the Bayou Fighting Championship, which is pretty cool. I want to go catch one of those events really soon. They're supposed to have one, I think, towards the end of April in Denham Springs, so maybe, just maybe, we might make a little appearance at that, you know, and go see what's going on with it. But I'm excited to be able to grow the brand of MMA, the sport of MMA, and bring it down to Louisiana, some southern hospitality like we got down here. Hopefully we'll be able to see some main events come through at some point in the coming years for UFC, pfl, bellator, whomever it might be. I'd be really excited to be able to travel down to the Smoothie King Center or even the new PMAC they're supposed to build at LSU to go catch a main event, you know.

Speaker 2: 4:03

Yeah, and I think a big, a big thing in this podcast I think it's called outside the octagon for a reason, because it's not all about what's going to be happening inside the octagon of the MMA world we want to go into details on what's going to happen for these fighters and their training camp and their everyday life, some things that they're interested in, and let you get to know some of your favorite fighters better than you already do.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Absolutely, and I mean as far as it goes for right now, as of what we're working with at the moment. I think we got some pretty great guests lined up already to only be recording the trailer episode here today. The day before Easter is when we're recording this. We'll hopefully have it out to you guys by next Friday or so. So what would that be Like? April 6th, something like that, somewhere up in there?

Speaker 1: 4:52

It'll be coming to you guys, and I'm very excited to get this out to y'all and have some people come listen. As always, go follow us on Instagram at OutsideTheOctagonPod underscore. Gotta put the underscore in there because somebody else is using the Outside the Octagon Pod even though there's no podcast called this anywhere in the world. So whoever came up with that idea for the Instagram handle before us? More power to you, I guess, but no man. I mean, I'm super excited to be able to bring this thing around and be back behind the mics with you. Jude, I know you're probably equally as excited as me so excited.

Speaker 1: 5:26

And then it's a topic that, like I said before, you and I are both very into. We study this stuff, we look forward to it. There's a good fight coming up tonight and I'm not really going to preview that too much in the trailer episode, but I am going to let you know going forward. If you're listening to the podcast, some of the things you could expect for us is maybe like a uh, a preview of the upcoming fights, a review of the previous fights for that week as well. As what we're going to try to do here is we're going to try to have a guest for you guys every other episode. So you'll be hearing from just me and Jude twice a month and hopefully you'll be hearing from a guest twice a month as well.

Speaker 2: 6:07

And it'll be a different guest every time and maybe at a point, um, some twitch, uh live stream reactions to some fights? Uh, hopefully, but we'll see where it takes us absolutely.

Speaker 1: 6:11

I mean, jude and I were having the idea last night, having a conversation about it, before we got together and sat down to be able to record this and, uh, hopefully, over some time after we get to like maybe like what would you say? Like a thousand followers on instagram or something we'll be able to do, like whether it be twitch, live stream, ig live, something like that. We'll just, we'll live stream and go live while we're watching the fight so that way you guys could see our live reaction. Because one thing I could tell you guys I broke a decibel record with you like a couple weekends ago whenever poirier fought against benoit yes, sir, sir, we broke a decimal record at that apartment complex man.

Speaker 1: 6:47

We were shaking the pictures off the wall.

Speaker 2: 6:49

Yeah, because you know big Dustin Poirier fans, being from Louisiana representing the state, and you represent us well.

Speaker 1: 6:56

Oh yeah, he always does man.

Speaker 1: 6:58

Poirier always shines out for us. We're actually lucky enough to be from the same hometown as, uh, kurt holliball, so awesome enough and hopefully very soon we'll be able to have him as one of our guests. I didn't really want to name drop anybody this soon, but I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to get to that point very soon, so hopefully we'll be able to have kurt holliball come stop by, have him on, get a little inside the octagon input from him, although we are the outside the octagon podcast and one thing is no matter how we talk about any of these guys, at any point we respect every one of these guys.

Speaker 2: 7:31

I mean, they're warriors, like they're absolute warriors. I wouldn't want to run into any of these guys on the street no, exactly.

Speaker 1: 7:38

I mean, this is not going to be anything like what you see bradley martin out there do it whenever he hops on with O'Malley. You think I could beat you in a?

Speaker 2: 7:44

street fight. Yeah, I'm not 260.

Speaker 1: 7:46

I'm not asking any of these guys that we ever have on the podcast male, female, it doesn't matter what you are I know very confidently in my mind that if you're in this sport, you're in it for a reason and you could tap me out, knock me out, submit me, whatever the hell you got to do. You know, I mean, there's, there's some beast in this thing and it. You know some guys maybe they're not our favorite fighters, some ladies maybe they're not our favorite fighters. That does not mean that I don't still respect them on a very high pedestal, because I mean, like I just said, those guys are animals.

Speaker 2: 8:19

Yeah, these men and women fighting's different than every other sport, because you don't play fighting, I mean you fight. Yeah, so it's human chess in a way, but it's not a game.

Speaker 1: 8:31

Yeah, no, I mean it's crazy to watch some of these people go at it. I mean, one fight that Jude brought to my attention recently in the last few weeks was the Rory McDonald versus Robbie Lawler fight man. When, recently in the last few weeks, was the rory mcdonald versus robbie lawler fight man. When you get to that fourth round watching that fight and you see that cut that lawler gets I don't know if you guys have seen that fight or not before, but it's on. Uh, I found it on youtube. It's also on, like espn plus, if you're subscribed to that. But uh, I mean that was just crazy, dude, like a great fight to see somebody get beat down that bad. Both of them. I mean I mean they were both beat down. No, they put on a show that night. I mean it's just awesome man. And given there are some guys that have the reputation of being a quote boring fighter, like Colby Covington, for example, or guys like that, but I mean still, all in all, I don't think there's any such thing, truthfully, as a boring fight.

Speaker 2: 9:16

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:17

Even though, like as a fan, we're watching it like, oh, let me see some more action, let me get off the ground, do something while you're on the ground, or stand and bang a little more, something like that. Still, though, like I still got the utmost respect for these people. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:30

I mean. The truth is that you can die anytime you step in the octagon. You're getting cut up, you're going to bleed and you could die anytime you step in. So I respect these guys to the max and women to the max there's. They're insanely good at what they do and it is a profession, it's a job for them, it's not just for fun.

Speaker 1: 9:51

They put on shows. I'm excited to be able to sit down and interview some of these people that are in the UFC and the PFL in these, in these MMA situations, because I want to know what their mindset is whenever you step in that ring. I would have to assume, for me at least, if I were to be in that situation. I don't even know, man, what do you do? You just take a deep breath and realize, okay, eat or get ate. What is the mindset?

Speaker 2: 10:19

That's how I would assume that it would be. And that's the goal is because, even though we might be self-proclaimed experts on the game, I mean we've never been inside the octagon, so we're going to learn something every interview that we do, Every episode that we talk. We're going to learn more and more and you're going to see us grow and become more educated as this podcast grows. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:41

I mean, and I'm so excited to have jude alongside with me. Like I said already, it was a long time coming for he and I to hop back behind the microphones for you guys again, I do have a camera now, so hopefully for maybe we might not do the camera at first for just the episodes with jude and I, but we're at least going to try to work camera in for the guest episodes at first and then, as I get more time on my hands to be able to work around with video editing, we'll try to have videos and stuff in for every episode at some point. So hopefully you'll be seeing us on YouTube and everything else, but right now you'll be able to find us on Spotify, your Amazon Alexa that you more than likely have at your house while you're in the bathroom, whatever.

Speaker 2: 11:26

It doesn't matter where your Alexa set up at, just tell them to play an episode from outside the octagon and she will be on it. Yeah, and and even if you're not interested, like we said, we're gonna offer comedy on this. We're gonna offer so much more than just MMA. It's not everything inside the octagon, it's everything outside the octagon as well. So it'll be a really good podcast, not just for MMA fans, but for everyone, and that's the main goal here.

Speaker 1: 11:43

Yeah, I mean we want to. We want, like I said before and like Jude said, we want to grow the brand of MMA. And one thing to keep in mind man is like. It's not called MMA for any reason. It's a mixed martial art. This, this, this sport is an art Like. It is an art form Like everything that you see somebody do. They've practiced at that and they've it's. It's just like having a brush in your hand and being a legitimate artist. I mean these people legitimately go into the gym, they bang it out for hours on end and then they go get an octagon, whether it be a 15 minute fight or 25 minute fight or whatever, whether they're getting the championship rounds or not, I mean they do get out, man.

Speaker 2: 12:23

They go crazy. And and another thing to keep in mind is these fighters, they come from all walks of life. Uh, they had professions before they started training in mma and made it big. So you have everything. You'll hear from everything, from a plumber to somebody who grew up in a tough area or someone who grew up from the mean streets of westland oregon. You know, yeah, you just never know. I mean, there's all kinds of people from all kinds of different ways of life that you're going to hear from on here and it's going to be very interesting to see their upcoming and how that affected them and how what made them decide to get into mma that's why I get really excited about mma as well, because it's not.

Speaker 1: 13:06

You know, you win the belt. That's almost to me that's more pressure than winning a super bowl, because they label a super bowl champion, as a quote, world champion, but you're not playing a guy from africa or a guy from dagestan or a guy from russia or a guy from uk or a guy from UK or a guy from Mexico or Brazil, or Las Vegas even, or Westland Oregon, yeah, yeah, chael Sonnen. But I mean it's, it's like legit, like when you get that belt around you, you're the world champion, like you beat somebody from all walks of life at that point.

Speaker 2: 13:37

Yeah, that's a, that's a world sport, sport. And just to even get to the world level, you've got to compete at some form on the local level. Yeah, so you're beating everybody in your state, you're beating everybody in your region, then you're beating everybody in the world, and once you get there, they can never take that away from you yeah, I mean, it takes so much guts to be able to just step into that octagon.

Speaker 1: 13:58

I can only imagine, and that's why I'm super, super stoked to be able to just step into that octagon. I can only imagine, and that's why I'm super, super stoked, to be able to bring this back to you guys, bring a podcast back to you guys, which you'd not, to be able to just go into the world of a, of a sport that is not as dug up on as I would like to see it be, and that's why we're going to try to dig it up for you guys.

Speaker 2: 14:18

And and one thing that I'm gonna promise right now we're gonna be the most consistent mma podcast on the platform, once a week. We're not gonna miss.

Speaker 1: 14:28

We're not gonna miss. I mean, if it's a sick week, it doesn't matter. I mean I've got all the setup, I've got everything I would need to be able to. If I'm sick, I'll just call in. If jude's sick, he'll just call in. We'll, we got it. We got it situated to where we can't. We won't be missing weeks typically, unless there's a. I mean, jude and I are both college students, so if there's an exam coming up or something, there might be like something that pushes us back by maybe a day or two, but we will do our best to have an episode out to you guys every week. We will do our best to be the most consistent mma podcast that you're going to see, other than probably good guy, bad guy, for the simple reason as DC and shale and they actually get paid serious dollars to do this which ultimately will be there one day, hopefully, if all Lord willing in the Creek don't rise you know, but if nothing else, we're going to be doing this, we're going to be here.

Speaker 1: 15:13

So we're going to be around. I mean, you're going to expect to hear from us, like Jude said, once a week, like I said before, hopefully every other week we'll be having on that guest and bringing in an extra mind for you guys to hear from, from their walk of life, whatever got them to this point, how they fell in love with this sport, you know, and with that being said, I want to ask you, jude, like, what made you fall in love with, like, mma, like, and really just get an attachment to the sport?

Speaker 2: 15:43

Well, it's just growing up. I played all these different sports and I love basketball, baseball, football. Because of the strategy. This involves even chess. I want to win at everything and I like to learn the strategy and see how you win. So I always thought fighting that's just fighting, there's no strategy to it. But when you start watching MMA especially, or any fighting for that, you realize there is a lot of strategy. It is human chess. It is not just get in the ring and see who can punch harder and see who can take a punch the hardest. It's human chess. There's a lot of strategy that goes into every fight. There's a lot of work, and so I love the way that there's so much strategy that goes into such a competitive sport. I mean it's such a competitive sport and it's so fun to watch.

Speaker 1: 16:35

Yeah, and I mean it's such a competitive sport and it's so fun to watch. Yeah, and I mean I think the MMA is probably at one of its highest popularity points that we've seen probably ever, except maybe during the McGregor times. Like right now it's a very prominent sport, like it's right on the edge of breaking those numbers to be in there with, like the footballs, basketballs, baseballs, you know, like it's right there and that's our goal is to bring more people onto the sport. Like we've already repeated and stuff time and time again throughout this trailer. And I mean, for me, I guess what made me fall in love with the sport, I would say, is probably something very similar to Jude.

Speaker 1: 17:04

It's like watching it like as a young kid, you see, it's like okay, whoever hits the hardest is who's gonna win, and then you realize, like jude said, that there's so much more that just goes into this thing. Like they're, these guys are going in, they're training, they wake up early in the morning, they go run, they go grapple, then they go jujitsu, then they go from jujitsu to stand up, then you hit the heavy bag. I mean there's so much that just goes into this, even this one little 15 to 25 minutes of your life, whether you're getting, like I said, the championship rounds or you just got a regular fight. It's all this time that these people are putting into to just 15 to 25 minutes of their lives just for a shot at being a world champion and it's it just I don't know. It's amazing to watch, especially to watch somebody.

Speaker 1: 17:54

When you see somebody young, like, for example, right now, one of my favorite fighters that's going to be on the rise, that we're going to be talking about a lot, is going to be Robles de Spain, that Cuban guy, the heavyweight. Yes, that guy's insanely good Dude, that guy's ridiculous man. I mean, it's just so cool to watch somebody that you can. You can see like flashes of greatness in that guy already. Obviously, I mean what? His last five fights haven't lasted over a minute, if you've been behind the time. Yeah, and his ufc debut he went 18 seconds, I think 19 seconds, and got the finish. Yeah, and the the most. That was one of the most disgusting knockouts I've ever seen. I mean, dude, he goes up for the head, kick, slips and falls and stands back up and as soon as he stands up, just hits him with the left hook and drops him bro.

Speaker 2: 18:34

Insanely, insanely powerful.

Speaker 1: 18:36

Yeah, and I mean that's one of the moments where it's like, okay, who can punch the hardest may fall into play here, but I mean that's one of the we're talking about him whether he's not the EEC champion, he's going to be one of the contenders.

Speaker 2: 18:53

Yeah, he's going to be a top five guy.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Guaranteed. I mean, that's an absolute luck. I knew that from the moment I first watched that first fight with him.

Speaker 2: 19:01

And I'm just glad, though, to be able to shine the light on some local guys. I'm sure we'll have, on a point, some guys from the BFC and other fighting organizations from around Louisiana, the Louisiana area, try to shine the light on some of those guys and hope that they make it big, because it's not always about the big guys who's already made it, but sometimes it's special to see those guys doing this for a grand a fight. I mean, they're not making anything after training and all that, and we'll talk with those guys and see exactly what goes into it for them and what keeps them going, and I think that's one of the things I'm excited to see.

Speaker 1: 19:39

Yeah, absolutely. I mean because you got to think, the guys that aren't in the UFC right now making their big UFC appearances and stuff. There's multiple people that are trying to get to that level, that haven't quite reached that yet, and it's it's going to be interesting to be able to sit down with people like that and ask them, like hey, what's keeping you in this? Like what is your, what's your, why and where do you want this thing to go? And why did you fall in love with the sport? You know, because it is such an easy sport to fall in love with whenever you watch it.

Speaker 1: 20:16

I mean, when I really locked into it, I guess probably the main fight that really got me into the UFC and I'll ask you this question to see what yours was but the fight that got me into the UFC was Khabib McGregor, that fight card. I was watching that fight and I'll never forget and I promise you any UFC fan is going to know exactly what I'm talking about when I say this the Derek Lewis post-fight interview. My balls was hot when that happened. I was like, okay, these guys got personality, they got lives outside of this, they work hard for this and then they go into these post-fight interviews. And another thing man like Rogan bro, he's always on top of that, like the post-fight interviews.

Speaker 1: 20:47

It's all about it, man. If a guy's got his legs snapped and he's like crying on the floor, rogan's down there with a mic in his face like eating that shit up and I would say, like, what really got me into it?

Speaker 2: 21:00

the biggest. I've watched it here and there, but Poirier being from here got me really interested. And then so watching him versus McGregor during COVID, when everything was slow, and I think that's when you saw a big rise in the UFC because people just didn't have anything to do. So you start watching stuff like that and so I fell in love with it. Watching a guy from the hometown beating the notorious Conor McGregor so not that Poirier is a nobody. Obviously Poirier was big at the time, but it was just insane to think that somebody from Louisiana beat the notorious one.

Speaker 1: 21:33

Yeah, and I mean, dude, it's crazy because Derrick Lewis is also a Louisiana boy.

Speaker 2: 21:38

Yeah, derrick Lewis DC Daniel.

Speaker 1: 21:39

Cormier DC. Yeah, I mean they're. We got quite a few.

Speaker 2: 21:43

Kurt Hollibaugh Hollibaugh of course, the. Ultimate Fighter Champion. I mean that's a big accomplishment.

Speaker 1: 21:48

Yeah, I mean that's crazy. I'm super excited to be able to hopefully sit down with him one day and ask him what that process is like, like going through the TUF, the Ultimate Fighter and all that type of stuff, the Dana White Contender Series. How does that work? How do you get to that point? How do you get to that point and, ultimately, how do you get through that, Because that's not an easy thing to walk away winning, you know.

Speaker 2: 22:09

Yeah, because even Diaz Nate Diaz, I mean, you know, he's one of the toughest guys in the UFC ever and even he said that that was the worst thing he ever did and he does not suggest doing it at all. So if he's saying something like that, I can't even imagine how tough you have to be to make it through the ultimate fighter yeah.

Speaker 1: 22:27

and then I mean you got all these like the contender series, ultimate fighter, you got the team mcgregor, team chandler, whenever they were coaching and stuff like that. Like you got, I mean it's just, it's a never, it's a revolving door. I mean the sport's open man to anybody, like anybody can get into this thing. You know, you just, you just got to have talent, you got to have grit and you got to have grind, like it's. I don't know, it's a nasty sport, bro, it's fun to watch. And I don't know, I just love it.

Speaker 2: 22:55

You just got to be patient, willing to learn, and even if you're listening to this podcast right now, it doesn't matter what age you are. I mean, Yoel Romero is what? 47? He's still fighting, Dude, he's yoked bro. Yeah, he's insanely big. You just got to have that determination. You got to be willing to do it, which I'm not a fighter, so I couldn't really tell you, but anybody can do it, Right.

Speaker 1: 23:21

I mean, the door is open to anybody if you want to actually get out there and be a mixed martial artist. Unfortunately, I don't have the guts to pull it together and be able to step into an octagon with somebody knowing it's pretty much life or death, eat or get ate. Like I said earlier, I don't think I have that dog mentality in me quite yet. I don't think I ever will, to be able to just know that, okay, the world's watching.

Speaker 2: 23:42

right now I might get knocked out and then people are going to be talking about that online for a while. Yeah, the pressure on you, it's got to be insane. I mean it's not like basketball or anything else, where you're watching teams play and you are. I mean there's a corner that's on your team telling you what to do. But sure, it's, at the end of the day I guess it is a team sport, but at the end of the day you got to get it done.

Speaker 1: 24:04

Yeah, it's got to be you yeah, you're I mean leading up to the fight and when you're in the corner. It's a team sport, but whenever you when that, when that door closes, man, it's just you and your opponent in there. That you're a one-man army. At that point, like it, it's all up to you, your future, your, your, your record. A lot of things can go wrong in that octagon man, because I mean I mean it's got to feel bad to get tapped out or something like that, or get KO'd.

Speaker 2: 24:29

Yeah, and all it takes is one punch. You can be the best fighter ever. One punch lands to your chin in the right spot and you're done Right, I mean take.

Speaker 1: 24:36

Poirier-McGregor. For example, when McGregor broke his leg against Poirier your wife's in my DMs I mean it could be anything and you're just done for I mean you're defenseless.

Speaker 1: 24:47

No, I mean it doesn't take a lot, man. I mean, that's what's so cool about the sport, Like, no disrespect to boxing. To be a boxer like you have to have serious guts at that point as well, Because the only thing that can happen is you get punched in the mouth for 24 minutes. That's like your only option. You're going to get hit in the mouth for 24 minutes? That's like your only option. You're going to get hit in the mouth, guaranteed, and if not, then greatest of all time, I guess, because Floyd Mayweather is one of the only people I've seen that didn't get hit in the mouth very much in boxing.

Speaker 1: 25:16

But for MMA, I mean, like we said already, there's so much more that goes into it. Bro, you could be standing and banging with a guy throw a left hook. Next, you could be standing and banging with a guy throw a left hook. Next thing, you know, your legs are both out from underneath you and you're getting packed around the cage by Merab as a former champ, Henry Cejudo, while he's walking around talking to Mark Zuckerberg, even though right before that, you were in the middle of trying to throw a left.

Speaker 2: 25:40

And next thing, you know, you're getting packed around and laughed at. And that was an insane performance by Merab. I mean that dude is incredible. Performance by marab. I mean that dude is incredible. I mean henry cejudo, he's, he's a world champion. So that's like crazy. He picked him up, just carried him around the ring and had his way. Which props to henry cejudo, great guy, uh, two-time world champion legendary fighter, absolute legend, cejudo but that just speaks for how good marab is yeah, I mean dude marab's got unlimited cardio, bro I think marab could legitimately be the first ufc fighter to fight 15 rounds.

Speaker 1: 26:11

Yeah, I think marab like that dude you can't put him down.

Speaker 1: 26:14

I don't think like the dude can just carry his weight in the octagon and he's on a ridiculous win streak right now. I was watching tim welch last night, his podcast with uh sugar sean, and they were talking about marab and how big of an actual, like legit threat he is. Like those guys like Sugar realizes that, like Marab is a beast and Sanhagen's a beast and Ilya's a beast, you know like they want that Ilya fight for Mexican Independence Day at the Spear. For Sugar next is what they talk about. But it doesn't matter which route you go at that point. Like I'm not disrespecting sugar by any means. He's one of the greatest strikers and snipers that I've ever seen in the sport. But there's a lot of young guys, a lot of young contenders in this thing that are just scary bro. Like if sugar tries to move up and go take that belt from from elia. I don't know if he could get past elia. I also don't know if sugar could get past marab. But the thing is, could either one of those guys get past sugar either?

Speaker 2: 27:09

you know like yeah, and there's a lot of young hungry guys that are, that are ready to eat. But you can also say the same thing, uh, for the veterans in the game. There's a lot of veterans in the game, like poirier and other guys like that. Who's gonna protect? I mean, they're ready to eat. They're just as hungry Even though they've been in the game. They want to prove that they're one of their greatest. So they want to prove that these young guys, they can't do what they do. And I'm excited to hear from those guys that are at the top and the guys that are at the bottom, the guys that are hungry and the guys that are full. It's going gonna be amazing.

Speaker 1: 27:46

No I mean, dude, it's gonna be a great journey. And, jude, I'm very excited to be back behind the microphones with you again. Like I've already reiterated a thousand times to this point, I'm sure I mean it's just it's super exciting to be able to have this opportunity with you again. Bro, I hope you're half as excited as I am.

Speaker 2: 28:00

I'm all the way as excited.

Speaker 1: 28:02

Oh yeah, jinked up, yeah jank, that is a Merriam Webster dictionary. Go ahead and write that down. Jude, not created a word while we're playing PlayStation other night Jinked up, we're going to use that throughout this podcast and you'll know what it means at some point. You'll understand from context clues, but it pretty much is me. We were. We're hyped up, you know, but I think that's kind of a wrap, bro. I mean that's going to be the end of our trailer episode for Outside the Octagon. Jude, it was a pleasure to have you with me, like always, it was nice to be here man, Absolutely man, and go follow us on Instagram at Outside the Octagon pod underscore right.

Speaker 2: 28:38

Yeah, Outside the.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Octagon pod underscore is going to be the Instagram. Then also, you can check out our website. We just got a website up. It's going to be wwwoutsidetheoctagonbuzzsproutcom, so just go there and you can find our Instagram. Through that you can find all of our episodes there. You can get linked to our Spotify or Apple or Amazon music. Wherever you choose to listen to your podcast. You can find it directly through the website or you could give us a listen straight through the website. It's very simple easy to navigate. You can go read the bio that I have about myself. You can read the bio about Jude if you want to learn a little bit more about us. Also, you could email us if you have any questions outside the octagonpod at gmailcom. Thank you guys, so much for listening and, like Jude and I've