Javier Mendez - How I Trained Khabib Nurmagomedov To Become The Greatest Undefeated UFC Champion

Full transcript: Javier Mendez on London Real

3:06 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Javier Mendez, the world champion kickboxer, trainer, and coach.

3:24 You are the founder of AKA, the American Kickboxing Academy, one of the most respected and successful MMA training camps in the world. Before becoming a coach, you had a very successful fighting career of your own, twice being crowned the ISKA World Kickboxing Champion in 1992 and 1995. As a UFC trainer, you’ve overseen the careers of 11 world champions, including Frank Shamrock, BJ Penn, Khabib Nurmagomedov, and Islam Makhachev. In 2015 you became the only trainer to have three concurrent UFC title holders in Cain Velasquez, Daniel Cormier, and Luke Rockhold.

4:00 You believe AKA remains the number one gym in the world of MMA, and alongside Team Khabib will become more dominant than ever. Javier, welcome to London Real in Dubai. Thanks for having me in Dubai, not London, where it’s cold. I know. And I want to talk about why you’re here later, but I want to jump right into it, because I sent you a video over the weekend and asked for your three greatest moments as a coach, and you came back with an amazing three.

4:26 But I want to dive in to the one that probably all of us remember, and I want to know what it was like from your point of view, and that was the night of October 6, 2018. It was the Conor McGregor-Khabib fight in the ring, and then of course the big fight afterwards in the ring. Yeah. Tell me about that night, and why is that one of your biggest memories ever? Well, you know, that one was my biggest memory ever because one of them, one of the three, and it’s because of what led before that to led to the fight.

4:58 And as soon as the fight was signed, you know, I said to Khabib, “Okay, listen. He’s going to come after your family. He’s going to come after your religion. He’s going to come after your country, okay? He’s going to come after your manager.”

5:12 Probably he might even come after me. I’m not even sure about that, but he’s going to do that. You need to stay calm. You still need to stay relaxed. He’s using the art of war tactics.

5:21 They’re dirty, but he’s going to do them. He’s going to come after you. Stay relaxed. Beat him everywhere. Beat him everywhere.

5:27 You got to beat him everywhere. He did that. He beat him everywhere. Everywhere. If you look at all the interviews, Khabib checkmated him on every step of the way.

5:34 So, going into the fight, you know, the whole idea was what I call Father’s plan, you know, which is basically, you know, Khabib’s best at grappling. No one I’ve ever seen in that lightweight division is better than him at grappling. So I wanted him to use Father’s plan type mentality, and that was grapple. Father’s plan. His father’s plan.

5:52 His father, his father, his great, great father, the greatest traitor. His father. So I said hey, you know, stay on Father’s plan, please. You know, blah, blah, blah. So going into the fight, you know, of course you know, Khabib does that the first round, but then he feels comfortable because people don’t understand Khabib’s standup has only been trained by me, and on my gym.

6:13 He doesn’t train in Dagestan with stand-up with nobody. He never did the other guys, Islam, uh, Umar, all the other guys trained with other trainers at home. He wouldn’t train with nobody but me. So his improvement on standup was limited because it was only through me. So, you know, when I first met him, he’d come two months out of the year.

6:30 So his standup was limited. So a lot of people were thinking, “Oh, he can’t stand with Conor. He can’t stand.” But, you know, the fact of the matter is, I kept telling everybody, “You guys don’t understand. Don’t look at his last fight.

6:41 He’s getting better every single time because he’s still a rookie, and nobody really fully understood the concept of that. But I did because I knew what I had, and I watched him in the gym destroy everybody, like when the first time he came in. But he was destroying people in standup too, which he wasn’t at the beginning. At the end he was. So he was going into the fight, and the first round he does exactly what I wanted him to do.

7:03 And then, uh, then he hits with that overhand right that we were working on. That overhand right we were working on in the back room, and we were working on for the longest time, this called Pop Special overhand right. Pop Special. Pop Special. So that’s for my coach Walter Carvalho.

7:17 Used that’s his favorite punch. You set it up in a certain way. Yep, yep, you set it up. You fake, and you go over like going into the person overhand, boom, and Khabib hit a perfect overhand right. So after that, the, you know, the third round was like, I’m going to stand with this guy, and I was like pulling my hair out, like what are you doing, you know?

7:36 And if you watched the third round, it was very close. Arguably, yeah, they gave it to Conor, but arguably could have gone Khabib’s way. Right. Okay. So, fourth round come up, you know, and I said to him, I go, “Hey, you know, let’s please, let’s go back to Father’s plan, you know.”

7:50 So, long story short, he did everything right. The fight was over. I’m happy as hell. We did what we were supposed to do. We beat the bad guy that was talking bad about us all the way.

8:00 Religion, your family, your wife, everything. And called his wife a towhead, you know, just, he did all the dirtiest things in the book. You know? Gave him alcohol. Yeah.

8:08 Yeah. Give him alcohol, you know. Uh, showed up late for the press conference, and Khabib beat him there, too. Because Khabib said, “Coach, I’m going to do my 15 minutes that I’m supposed to do. If he’s not here, I’m gone.

8:20 I don’t care.” You know, I go, “What do you think?” I said, “That’s perfect,” because and then she shows up, on stalking late, you know, and I mean he’s not there. Like he had to be a professional himself and do his job. The crowd was pro 80%, uh, McGregor fans, I would say 100%.

8:36 It was in Vegas. It was in Vegas, but it was definitely pro-McGregor fans, because we got booed everywhere. Did any of the stuff Conor was doing get to Khabib? Uh, I didn’t think so. Okay.

8:48 I didn’t think so. I didn’t. Would you know if it did? I didn’t think it did until the end of the fight, right? Then I’m going, “Holy crap, what the hell?”

8:57 So, what happened is, after the fight was over, I’m like happy. I turned around, and I’m giving everybody high-five. You know, all my buddies, they were in the back, right in the front row. I’m like, “Yeah, you did it. I’m so happy.

9:08 I’m so excited.” And I hear this commotion. And I turn around and I’m, oh. And then I see somebody flying over the cage, and it was Khabib. And I’m like going, “Oh no.

9:20 Oh no. I’m like going, ‘Oh boy, we’re in trouble. We’re in trouble.'” I tried to run up there. The police stopped me from going in the cage, because out of anybody that could have probably stopped him right away would have been me. But they let Daniel Cormier and Luke Rockhold in there, and Daniel calmed them down.

9:35 Okay. You know, but, but I tried to get in. They wouldn’t call. They wouldn’t. So I’m like, “Ah, shoot.”

9:40 So I’m like going, “Oh boy. Oh boy. We’re in trouble. We’re in trouble.” So, you know, Dana wouldn’t put on the belt.

9:48 Would not put the belt on. He jumps over. He’s, he’s talking to Dillon Danis, right? He’s yelling at Dillon, because Dillon was also talking a bunch of smack. Yes.

9:57 And Dillon was talking smack from the beginning. But what people don’t know is, this is the thing, you know, he wanted to get all of them, but Dillon was the younger of the two. And he said his father would have killed him if he went after Kavanagh. He would have killed. Because it’s an elder.

10:14 He’s an elder. You can’t touch an elder. So he went after Dillon for that reason and that reason only. Okay. Had John been 20-some, he would have went after him.

10:24 No, was never talked to. He would never, never part of the crew. But he was part of the crew. So to him, he’s part of the, he was part of, of, of what they caused. So, I didn’t realize that he, you know, he was angry until after the fact, when he showed the anger he had for him.

10:39 So he had a lot, a lot of dislike for what was going on, going on. And so he chokes McGregor out. McGregor’s like, “It’s just business.” So he said something like at the end, and then Khabib was still mad, jumped over, and then everything kicked off. Everything kicked off.

10:53 It, he kind of, he went back in the cage, and then. He went back in the cage. Dana wouldn’t give him the belt, and, uh, we had to be escorted out. They were cussing us out, throwing beer at us, and everything was going crazy. Khabib goes, “Coach, I’m so sorry.

11:06 I’m so sorry.” And I said to him, I go, “Don’t worry. Something good’s going to happen out of this.” But I’m thinking, “What?” In my mind, what good’s going to happen out of this?

11:15 We’re done. We’re done. So, next thing you know, 10 minutes later, he’s never spoken to Putin. Putin’s never called him when he won the title. Even Conor was at a football game, and Conor was with Putin, but Khabib wasn’t.

11:26 It’s like, Khabib, were you with Conor at this? He goes, “No, coach. I didn’t see him.” I go, “But Conor was there, and he got to meet Putin. Why didn’t you get to meet Putin?

11:34 Well, after this, because of what he did defending his country, you know, Putin called him and he said, “Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you for defending your country. Tell your coaches they did a great job.” So things from that point got better.

11:48 Not what they say, athletic commission, because they find them in total a million dollars. Really? Yeah. He paid the whole million dollars for his partners, his teammates that did things. He paid the whole million dollars on the, because the teammates jumped in.

12:00 One of them clocked Conor in the head with the phone. With the phone. Oh, the phone. Okay. Right.

12:06 There was quite a few people throwing punches. Yeah. Yeah. And Conor got Abu Bakr, Khabib’s cousin. They both up on top of the cage, and Conor popped him in the eye and gave him a black eye.

12:18 Right. So he threw a punch at him, one side. Conor got one in the side. So Conor got two people. Conor got Abu Bakr, and he got Zubra.

12:27 Zubra was walking around looking around, and he ran to Conor. Boom. He got hit by Conor, too. So it was a fiasco. I was thinking, how are we going to get out of this?

12:37 We’re in trouble. We’re in trouble. But as it turned out, you know, it was a great thing for him, because of why he did it. He didn’t do it for any reason other than defending his religion, his country. I mean, as a fighter, you know, I wish fighters would stop, you know, like, hey, I have a fight with you.

12:56 You and I are going to fight. I’m going to talk crap about you. Let it be about me and you. Why are you including my wife? What does she have to do with it?

13:04 What does she have to do with any of this? What did my country have to do with this? You know, what does my religion have to do with this? But no, these guys have to attack those things, and those are the big, to me, those are big no-nos. If we’re going to be a professional, let’s me and you fight.

13:17 You want to talk crap about me. You want to talk about I can’t punch. You want to talk about I’m a cokehead. You want whatever. Who cares?

13:23 That’s fine. That’s legal, in my opinion, as a fighter. But when you’re talking about my wife, what does my wife got to do with it? You know? They’re looking for an advantage, right?

13:33 They’re looking for a psychological advantage, and it works so many times. Conor’s the king of it. He did it. I mean, José Aldo was the first. He really got inside that guy’s head, and he probably made a mistake, and it cost him the belt and cost him everything.

13:44 Well, he made the big mistake with Khabib on that one, because that, that, that was because Khabib was fueled every day. Every day I would tell Khabib, remember, he’s coming after your family. Remember, he’s coming after this. You got to beat him. I need you beating him every step of the way.

13:57 We beat him now. We beat him later. That we want to beat him now. Yes, coach. So, some fighters can use that and train harder and be better, and other fighters can use that and get defeated, and it makes them emotional in the cage.

14:11 And a lot of people that don’t train martial arts, that maybe just watch it, they don’t understand that you can’t be angry in the cage, right? Or can you? You can be angry, but there’s only a short period of time that you’re going to keep that anger in your cardio up. Now, think about what I’m just saying here. Okay?

14:28 You’re a NASCAR driver, right? Or Formula 1, right? And here you are, you’re going around the turns and you’re stepping on the pedal all the way through. At some point you’re going to run out of gas, while the other ones that coast, where they need to coast, are going to make that, and you’ll run out of gas. They’re going to coast, because they’re not going to step on the accelerator all the time.

14:50 So it’s the same thing, and on the fighting thing, and on top of the fact, when you get angry, you tighten up. And when you tighten up, you’re spending more energy. You hit not as hard as you think you were hitting. You hit less. So if you don’t learn to relax, You’re going to expend your energy.

15:07 So if you get angry, that’s going to expend more energy. That’s why, that’s why. One reason, the biggest reason, the second biggest reason is you’re going to make mistakes. Right? Bad decision.

15:17 You’re going to make mistakes, and that can cost you. But it has worked to people’s advantage. They have used anger to win fights. We’ve seen that. Get it done in the first round.

15:26 Yeah. They get it done. They get it done. Yeah. Okay.

15:28 Probably more early days. And that, just to wrap up the McGregor-Khabib thing, I mean, that had started even years before, because McGregor had taken the trolley and thrown it through the bus, and I mean this was years in the making. I mean, it was a lot of drama. Probably sold a lot of tickets. Yeah, that’s what sold the tickets, because the UFC is a marketing genius at what they do, and they hyped that up.

15:49 And what happened is, his training partner Lobov, he had said that he called Khabib a chicken, if he ever seen him, he’s going to slap him. So Khabib just happened to see him in the hotel when he fought, for the Tat hotel. So he went over there and he slapped him. And then you got to understand, Khabib’s got all his guys right behind him. They weren’t going to jump in, but it didn’t matter.

16:14 If you’re, you’re Martin, and you only got two guys with you, and this guy’s got an army behind him, you’re thinking, “Oh man, I do something, I’m in trouble.” He would have got smashed by Khabib anyways. But regardless, you know, you got to see that scenario, right? So he went and slapped him, and like, “Hey, you know, you got something to say to me. Let’s go.

16:32 Otherwise, shut your mouth. Don’t talk about me.” Right? Which is the right thing. You assault someone, on the thing where you can’t expect that guy to look at you and go, “Oh, it’s okay.”

16:41 No. You called me a chicken. You’re going to smack me when you see me. Here I am. Is that exactly the thing, a little bit?

16:47 It’s, I think it’s a man thing. Okay. I think it’s a man thing. Man of honor. Like, I may be amplified.

16:53 Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe because he’s Conor’s guy. But I think, I think it’s an honor thing. You know, you’re going to call me a chicken, and you’re going to call me names, and from the media.

17:03 Well, here I am, and I’ll do it. Send location. Yeah. Sending location, location if you want. So that’s what happened.

17:09 Collapse, autumn. Conor sees the video, jumps in a private jet with his boys and flies out to them. Yeah. He fights, uh, he tries to get all the guys recruiting to go over there, and a lot of them came, and, uh, you know, he went nuts, and he went to the, with the press conference or whatever he went to, and, uh, you know, I didn’t go, you know, so I wasn’t there. I never really go to those things.

17:29 So next thing you know, I look at Conor, he grabbed the dolly, and if you watch him, he’s thinking about throwing it before he threw it. So he was thinking, so he wasn’t completely out of it, but he threw it probably because of the rage he had going in there to try to defend his buddy you know. So, but you know, that led to a historic fight, and that led to history, you know, and that turned all these areas, the Arab countries of the Muslim world, onto MMA.

17:58 So it was a huge push for MMA, but it was also a huge push for Khabib, and for me also, because, you know, I didn’t realize that my name would have gotten so big because I was his coach. You know, there’s things that define you, and I’m not defined by all my other accomplishments, my other accomplishments. I’m defined more by being Khabib’s coach, you know, and probably because of what happened that night. That intensified it. That’s wild, that what happened after the fight that night.

18:25 Yeah. Isn’t that crazy how it works? That’s crazy how it works. Yeah. Wow.

18:28 And so then all of a sudden that kind of explodes. Was that the biggest pay-per-view of UFC history? Biggest pay-per-view in UFC history. One of, uh, I believe the third or fourth in all pay-per-view history. Uh, it, it, it was, uh, 2.3 million.

18:42 Yeah. Yeah. Including boxing. But Conor, Conor, Conor has the most pay-per-view views. The actual money was Pacquiao and Mayweather, but the views was Conor and Mayweather.

18:56 Okay. And then I think third one, I mean, might have been Holyfield and Tyson, I think. Okay. And then Khabib is either the third or the fourth most, uh, you know, paid. What do you make of McGregor when you look at him from a coach’s perspective?

19:10 You’ve been in the fight business for decades. What do you make of him and then him now? When I first saw him, I was so impressed with him. Uh, I was so impressed with him. I remember Luke Wackold was telling me that, you know, I’m so relaxed and fighting.

19:25 And I go, “No, you’re not.” I go, “You’re not relaxed.” And this was with Conor when he’s doing all his damage, when Eddie Alvarez and Chad Mendes and, and Jose Aldo, Those were those times, right? And I said, “You want to watch someone that’s really relaxed and knows what he’s doing? Go watch Conor.”

19:40 I go, “That guy’s super relaxed.” I go, then Luke goes, “Okay, I got you. He saw it.” He goes, he saw what I was talking about, that he was at one time an incredible, incredible fighter. After the Khabib fight, he was never the same.

19:53 And whether the money got to him, whether the defeat got to him, I don’t know. He was never the same. And he became just a person I don’t like. I don’t like him. I don’t like him.

20:03 And he’s never said nothing bad about me, other than to hypo he called me a fat orange kickboxer. It was a compliment. I was fat. I was fat. So he called me a fat orange kickboxer.

20:15 I can’t get mad at what he’s telling the truth. So I’m like, well, yeah, I am fat. You know, I’m a little less fat now, but back then I was fat, you know. So he just said I’m just a fat ass kickboxer. Okay.

20:27 Okay. And nowadays you don’t really like it. You don’t. I, you know, the reason, I’ll be honest with you, the reason why I don’t like him, this is the number one reason. He said, co good, father evil.

20:40 That’s when I drew the line. I said, “Okay, F you.” The whole world suffered because of COVID. And you think you’re such a star that you can say those words. I don’t care how you meant it.

20:52 You said it. He said what again? Co good, father evil. Father evil. Yeah.

20:57 Meaning Khabib’s father is evil. Co’s good. Really? You know. Yeah.

21:02 And, and it was in retaliation to a good versus evil type thing. Meaning he was evil, which he was. The things he does are evil there. Nobody can deny that. Who’s going to deny that?

21:12 I mean, what person in their right mind asks somebody for an autograph, the guy says no, throws a drink at him? What person in their right mind, sitting at a bar and ask a guy to take a drink, and the guy says no, and then you cold him on the side of the face? Is that a nice person? I don’t care what anybody says. That’s not a nice person.

21:31 You know, the man didn’t want your drink. You should have left him alone. No, you chose to punch him. No, I’m sorry. Not any good person is going to do that.

21:40 So I don’t think he’s a good person. You’ve trained a lot of champs, but do they all have a bit of a screw loose? Some of them. Do you have to have a screw loose? A little bit to be a champ.

21:49 No, you don’t have to have a screw loose. Khabib is not. doesn’t have a screw loose. Islam Makhachev has no screw loose. You know, Cain Velasquez didn’t have a screw loose.

21:56 Daniel Cormier, yes and no. I’ll give him a 50/50. I would say no. Luke Rockhold, Frank Shamrock, no. Frank Shamrock didn’t have a screw loose.

22:11 Frank Shamrock was driven. Okay. You know, so I don’t think so. I think the more of the champions that I’ve had, they had their act together. King Mo, I would use all my other guys.

22:22 Kung Lee, all my other guys, they had their act together. What about when you get magnified in the media so much, and it becomes such a big deal, and you saw all those pay-per-views. I mean, does that do something to someone’s head? Yes, it does do to some of their head. That does change them.

22:34 It does change them. And people ask me, they go, “What about Khabib? Did the fame in this guy change him? I go, ‘Absolutely.’ And I said, ‘Well, how?’

22:42 I said, ‘It made it more generous.’ They’re like, ‘What?’ I go, ‘Yeah, made more generous.’ Because now he had more to give. So now he’s helping a lot of family members.

22:49 He’s helping a lot of people. You know, people don’t even know how much this guy does for people. If you see the list of the people Khabib helps and what organizations he contributes to, you’ll be like blown away. He is such a humanitarian, like his father was before him, that people would love him even more than they love him now if they knew what he does. They knew how he cares.

23:12 They know everything and they know how loyal he is. People would go, “Wow, I couldn’t ask for a better son, or better father, or better husband than what he is, and devout to his religion. His religion is exactly who he is.” Okay. Okay.

23:29 His father passes away. He has one more fight, I think, with Gaethje at the time, and then he retires. Did that surprise you? Is that who he is? Did you ever think he might come back?

23:42 What were your thoughts about All that? Well, I wasn’t prepped for that, that I’m going to retire. He didn’t have that conversation with me. So I’m in the cage, and he’s, you know, he’s obviously emotional, you know, and the camp looked like it was hard for him. That camp was the worst camp in the history of Khabib camps.

24:02 Okay. That was the number one worst camp we’ve ever had. Everything that went wrong went wrong. He comes in, you know, wearing a mask, and I thought it was because of the COVID thing. And I said, “Oh, so and then” he goes, “No, no, coach.”

24:13 He takes it off. He had the mumps. He had the mumps. His chin was all like this. I’m like, “Oh crap.”

24:20 You know, now we’re going to go to fight. You got the mumps. I’m like, “No, man.” I go, “Oh, when can you train?” “I don’t know, coach.

24:26 Give me a couple days.” Is, I’ll be good to go as we train a couple of days, and he gets it again, and I’m like, then all the other people get it. The other fighters get the MS, because it’s very contagious, and for me, I’ll never get it. I’ve been vaccinated for it. Most people in Russia don’t vaccinate for the MS.

24:42 So everybody’s getting the MS, and I’m like going, this whole thing is horrible. So I’m trying to convince him to cancel the fight. Yeah. Move it forward. Move it forward.

24:55 They’ll do that for you. And my mind not really realizing that they really can’t do that. It would be a disaster, but I’m thinking of my fighter. I’m not thinking about promotion. So I’m saying, “Let’s cancel the fight.”

25:05 He goes, “No, no, coach, give me time. Give me time. If I don’t do this by this time,” then you can pull the plug.” I go, “Okay, fine.” But the time comes, he does fantastic.

25:15 I’m like, “Well, okay. We can fight. No problem.” Next thing you know, he breaks his toe. I’m like, “For sure, cancel the fight again.”

25:27 “No, no, please, coach. Let me go. Let me go. Please. If I don’t” show you improvement by this, I, I, I, I promise I will continue.”

25:37 I will, we’ll push the fight back. And I said, “Okay, he’s training with one shoe, you know.” So we’re training kickboxing the whole thing with one shoe, but he’s looking good. Looking good. And I’m still very skeptical because I’m the man, all these things.

25:50 One shot hit the white toe, and oh man, the pain, and you know, etc., etc. But he said magic words that I said to myself: impossible to lose this fight, and he said, “Coach, my toe may be broken, but my mental is not.” I said, I went into that fight so confident. I didn’t care about nothing. I would like you’re more confident than I’ve ever been in any fight.

26:18 Even though that was the only fight without his dad there. But no, that wasn’t the only fight without his dad. It was almost every fight that when the UFC was out without his dad. But not his dad in his life. Dad in his life.

26:28 Yeah. And he had died a few months earlier. Uh, I don’t remember exactly when, but he had died from COVID complications. Okay. And he goes in and he ragdolls Justin Gaethje.

26:39 I couldn’t believe it, because Justin Gaethje has a wrestling background, has a pedigree, he’s a nasty striker. And the talk was, okay, this is a guy who probably can wrestle with Khabib. And I couldn’t believe what I was watching. I thought he was fighting someone two weight divisions lighter. Yeah.

26:54 He had Jordan Burroughs come and wrestle with him. And people would ask me, “Well, what do I think?” I go, “Okay, are we wrestling? Are we doing MMA?” Because if we’re wrestling, having Jordan Burroughs is fantastic.

27:04 But if you do MMA, Khabib’s a master at taking you down in MMA. And I’m telling you right now, if Jordan Burroughs goes with Khabib, he’s going to get ragdolled in MMA, right? But if Khabib went wrestling with him, well, you already know the expectation. You’re talking about a six-time world champion, one of the greatest American grapplers, you know, of all time. So Jordan Burroughs is legit as a grappler, but as an MMA fighter, what is he?

27:29 Yeah. And there’s a difference. There’s a difference. There’s also a difference between wrestling and submission, and all the combinations that you want. He’ll set you up, he’ll take you down, and that’ll go right into the submission.

27:41 So you can train with wrestlers all you want. You train wrestlers all you want. Khabib and them train with wrestlers. I mean, they have Olympic gold medalists they train with now on a daily basis. So when you’re talking about oh, American style wrestling, I go, well, okay, well, what about Dagestani style wrestling?

27:56 If you look at all the gold medals that Dagestan has won in the Olympics, you’ll see that Dagestan has won more gold medals in wrestling than the probably the whole region in Russia. So there you go. So when you talk about wrestling, don’t talk to me about I got this wrestler, I got that wrestler. You’re talking Abdulmanap’s legacy that he left behind of these great wrestlers already, but there happen to be MMA fighters. Right?

28:22 And that comes down to mindset, I think. And I want to get into that with you. Um, he retires at the end of the fight. You didn’t see that coming. No.

28:28 How did it make you feel? I was shocked. I was like, “Okay, what’s next? Who do I got to work on next?” You know, uh, did I talk to him about retirement?

28:39 Why? No. That’s not my business. That was between him and his family. I never to this day I’ve never said why.

28:45 That was his decision. He made that decision with him and his mother. His mother didn’t want him to fight, and he didn’t want to fight without his father’s presence. That’s a family thing. I’m, I’m not family like that.

28:56 I’m a mentor, and I love him to death. He loves me and, and I, we’re, we’re more family now than ever, but that’s an immediate family. That’s not me. That, my decision doesn’t come into that, you know. So I chose never to speak to him about him.

29:09 I still to this day have not spoke to him about it, and I’m not going to. And at the same time too, you hear him talk all the time. When I’m 35, 35 that’s an age that you should probably give it up. Well, he’s 35. So people thinking that he’s going to come back.

29:24 You’re dreaming. You know, he isn’t coming back, because he’s not breaking his mother’s promise. Number one. Number two, he’s 35. Even if he wanted to, he won’t, because his mind will say no.

29:33 Because his father ingrained that in his head. At 35, you’d start decline. So since a child, he’s already learned that being at an age, you start declining. He doesn’t want to stay around to get the damage, right, that could happen to him. Now, that’s a logical decision.

29:47 We’ve seen 98% of all fighters, they can’t stay retired, right? Because it’s such a huge part of their identity that very few can literally stop. You know, Khabib’s one of them. Maybe GSP. I can’t think of many others, you know.

30:02 Yeah. They have good reasons for GSP. I just met him for the first time. What a beautiful guy. What a beautiful guy.

30:07 He has his legit reasons why he did what he did, but he came back one time to go after Michael Bisping. Then, uh, you know, Khabib, Khabib will never come back. He’s done. He’s done, in his mind. That closed the chapter.

30:18 The only thing that, at one point, would be great. At one point I told him, when he told me this one, he did tell me. He told me this last one, coach, I’m not going to, I’m not going to go and, um, basically work corners anymore. I, I’m not going to be there. I’ll train the guys, but, but my family, I have, I, my families are getting older, and, and, and every week I would be going to fights.

30:40 When is it going to stop? Was that a way that also keeps him from even thinking about coming back? Do you think? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think so.

30:47 I think he was set on the not coming back. Okay. Set on that. And the last time he had any idea coming back is when we were in Abu Dhabi and Dana still kept him in the testing pool, and Khabib says, “We’ll see, Dana. If someone shows me something, I’ll come back.”

31:00 And no one showed him anything impressive. So that was it. So then that, that was it. That was the end of the chapter there. But that was between him and Dana.

31:08 Had nothing to do with my conversation. I had no input whatsoever on that, because again that’s between the father and the mother and what he wanted. And now it’s the Islam era, and Islam was training when Khabib was still training in the gym. And you used to say he was the only guy of anyone that could occasionally take rounds from him. And when you saw that, that impressed you?

31:28 Well, I mean, who’s going to be the next heir? Islam. And who is better, who is better suited in all departments? Islam. Islam is so incredible that we were able to change directions on him.

31:41 He’s so well-rounded like on the fly. We were going into one of his fights in the UFC, the PI, right? Not the PI, the, the where they have the shows, the fight night. Yeah. So he’s going to fight, uh, one of the Brazilian guys.

31:55 I forgot Mona. No. Uh, it’s with the M. Um, but anyways, he’s going to go fight him. And with the whole plan, the plan was to stand with him.

32:06 Okay, we’re going to stand with him. Okay, so we’re walking out. I looked at him and I said, “He looks smaller.” And I said the whisper to Khabib, “Khabib, look at him. He’s not that big.

32:17 I think we changed the plan. We go to, we go Father’s plan. We go take him down.” And he goes, “Yes, I think you’re right, coach.” And we tell Islam while we’re walking out, Islam, change the plan.

32:27 Take him down. And you can change it on the Dynet. Not many fighters, off. Oh, no. Because they’re not good enough.

32:34 He is okay. He’s that well-rounded. That was early in his career. Uh, no. That was not early in his career.

32:40 That was right before, after he beat him. I think he might have fought for the title after that fight. Okay. You know, or maybe one more fight after that, man. I forget.

32:50 Is he better than Khabib? I say no one’s better than Khabib. He had more skills than Khabib for sure. He is a better striker than Khabib. He was well-rounded.

33:01 But, but, and to me it’s the mental part that I see nobody that, and to me, to me, to me, this is me, not the experts. You know, the experts are the expert. This is coach to him. To me he’s the best ever. Because of the mental aspect.

33:15 Talk to me about the mental aspect, because you said that’s the secret of success in all of your champions, AKA. You even said earlier, before we started, you said, ah, the physical, eh, I, I focus on the mental. Yeah. Talk about that, because most people don’t understand that. Well, the, the mental is um, you know, what I’ll use, I use an example that people would have never thought of.

33:37 John Fitch. John Fitch was one of my fighters. Never got the attention. Was a super talented, whatsoever. But nobody told him, nobody told him he couldn’t be a champion.

33:46 Nobody told him he couldn’t do this. Nobody told him he couldn’t do that. This guy was so determined, so dedicated that at one point his only sparring partner was a one-legged guy. John, a one-legged guy he was sparring with. That’s how motivated and how driven he was.

34:03 John Fitch was so driven that when The Ultimate Fighter came out, he was my fourth AKA guy that was supposed to go. When he was at the airport, his bags were already checked in to go. They called him and said, “Oh, we’re not going to use you.” You talk about a man that worked through everything and became a champion. He didn’t have my help at all, hardly at all.

34:25 He did it on his own. So I’m like thinking, if anybody’s going to be proud of John Fitch, look what he’s accomplished without the help, like all these other guys got. All these other guys they got became champions, were had me in them working with them. I didn’t work with John Fitch. Yes, I work with him, give him advice, tell him to do this or that, but I wasn’t one-on-one with him working his mental.

34:46 He had it. So, did I need to help John with his mental? No, because he already had it. So I already knew that. Uh, now I’ll use one person, uh, another person that I did that became a champion, because this Usman, Khabib’s cousin, Nurmagomedov.

35:02 Okay, I was training Usman. I see he’s the most talented guy I’ve ever trained. The most talented, most talented, you know, and I’m like telling Khabib, “Wow, this kid has got so much talent. It’s incredible, but we got one problem.” I said, “I don’t have him mentally.

35:19 I don’t have him mentally.” I go, “Khabib, I need you with me. You need to help me with it. We need to build his mental. We don’t have it.

35:26 I cannot make a champion out of him if I don’t have it mentally.” Right. What do you mean we don’t have it? How can you tell? Certain little things.

35:31 I was saying, “Let’s do this,” and he wouldn’t want to do it. He, he, he would be motivated to do it. And I said, “Okay, he doesn’t really want this.” They stay in their comfort zone. They don’t take advice.

35:40 They. They don’t take advice. They do their own thing. And, and, uh, you know, they can do their own thing, but it has to work. But he wasn’t highly motivated.

35:49 You know, he wasn’t highly motivated. When Khabib got on him, and we both got on him, then I started seeing the results, and I said, “Okay.” So I build on it. So he does something good. I said, “You see what you did right there?

36:01 This is what you need to do. This is what a champion does.” So I’m building now. I’m building his mind. Then I see something else that we’re working on.

36:07 I go, “See what you did on that round? You did this. That’s what we were working on.” You see how effective it is? Now I’m working the mental.

36:13 You see what I’m working the mental? So I’m getting him to, you know, or let’s say he gets tired. I go, “Well, you got tired there. Now why’d you Get tired?” “Well, I, I, you know, I didn’t, uh, I didn’t rest enough.”

36:24 I go, “There you go.” So had you rested like you’re supposed to, like a professional’s supposed to, what do you think would have happened? He goes, “I would have had more energy there, and you’re working the mental, right?” You know? So those are the type of things.

36:34 Another thing too, I would say things to guys. I say, “Look, guys, if you don’t want to spar, even if you’re fighting for a title fight, don’t spar. If you’re injured, if you got something wrong with you, tell me about it. Then we’ll stop. We won’t let you do it unless we think the injury that you have, we can work around it.”

36:54 So Usman would say to me, “Coach, um, I’m, I’m tired. I don’t feel like sparring today.” I say, “Okay, not sparring.” And he goes like this. He goes, “Can you tell Khabib, Coach, because he wants me to spar?”

37:06 So, I said, “Khabib, Usman’s not sparring. He’s too tired.” Okay, Coach. So Usman was using the mind. He was getting smart, because if he sparred when Khabib had sparred, he was tired, because he was telling me the truth, and I knew he was telling me the truth.

37:20 So I said, “No, I’m not sparring.” So he would do all those kind of things to me. So he became smarter and smarter. He would do things like, for instance, how people would tell him, “Go run this, go do that, go do that.” And he goes, “Coach, I’m tired.

37:32 I don’t think I want to. I, I think I should rest. What do you think?” And I said, “Yeah, yeah, rest. I think you’re right.

37:39 Yeah, go rest.” And he do it again. Could you please tell Khabib, because he tells me he wants me to rest. I said, “Okay.” Was just pushing him.

37:46 I was pushing him. So I tell Khabib, I believe, and he’s tired. And you know, and so we give him the rest. Right? That’s how I’m building his mental.

37:54 Okay. You see, so, and you said a fighter will listen to you if you tell them something and then they see that it works. And a fighter will listen to you if you tell them something and it’s not working, and then you quickly say, “Okay, we’re not going to do that anymore.” Right? But it’s hard to get a fighter’s confidence, right?

38:10 Very hard. And you can’t really be wrong many times. Who’s the confidence in you? No, you cannot. I’ll give you an example.

38:16 Uh, Luke Rockhold, who I love to death, you know, uh, he was, uh, difficult to show things. Like I told him one time, I go, “Luke,” I go, “You know, let’s, we need to learn how to fight on the inside. Inside fighting.” He says to me, “No, I don’t, I don’t need to fight on the inside. No one’s going to get me in this.”

38:31 I go, “Luke, there was a point where you need to learn how to fight in the inside.” He goes, “No, no, I don’t want to fight in the inside.” I said, “I tried. I could champ at this point, right, champ?” No.

38:42 No. He was UFC champ. Like, no. He said, “No, I don’t want to do it.” And he’s fighting Michael Bisping, and, uh, he couldn’t use his left leg, because shin was all jacked up.

38:51 Okay. He was badly shinned, and I said, “Hey, Luke, cancel the fight.” He goes, “No, no, Michael Bisping. I’m going to whoop his ass, because he beat him up the first time in Australia real easy, you know.” But he had all his legs working, and he had everything working.

39:06 I said, “Luke, then you had everything working. Now you don’t have your most powerful weapon, that kick, other than jiu-jitsu. You got a great left kick, a great left kick, super powerful, super effective.” He goes, “No, no. I’m just going to box him.

39:18 I’m going to go and, and box him.” I said, “Luke, you know, I don’t think it’s a good idea. I think we should cancel the fight.” No, no, you’ll see. You’ll see.

39:26 So we go into the fight. You watch the fight. Watch the fight. Luke overshoots. He never overshoots.

39:32 Luke keeps you at a distance. He overshot like this. And as he’s coming back, Bisping did the right thing. And as he’s coming here, he attacked him. Boom.

39:41 Landed. Beautiful shot. Right. All she wrote. So, overconfidence.

39:45 Overconfidence. Not wanting to learn to fight on the inside. Right. Okay. Had he wanted to learn to fight in the inside, I guarantee you that wouldn’t have happened, too.

39:52 But that’s what I’m talking about. Overconfidence, and where you don’t listen. And I don’t have to be right. You just have to be right. And when you’re wrong and you get checkmated, you shouldn’t listen to the person that was giving you advice.

40:05 If someone listens to me, and they do a good, fantastic. If someone doesn’t listen to me and they do good, fantastic. I don’t care. You don’t have to listen to me. You just have to win, right?

40:17 You know, so when you don’t win, and you didn’t listen to the instructions, and the instructions could have got you that victory, that’s when it’s bad. And who, who, who fails? I fail. I fail because I didn’t get to my fighter. So I didn’t look at them as their failure.

40:31 It’s my failure. And I learned this the hard way through one of my fighters, Josh Koscheck, because I used to be this Mr. Honest coach guy. And I would throw my fighters underneath the table. I would throw them on the bus. So not the table.

40:43 I’ll throw him on the bus, you know, because guys would ask me, “Well, blah, blah, blah, your fighter didn’t do this.” I go, “Well, he knows what he’s supposed to do. He didn’t do it.” You know, instead of, “Hey, I support my fighter. My fighter, we, we” But I would say they didn’t listen.

40:59 Okay. Okay. And then Josh Koscheck would get on me. He was so right. He was, would get so right.

41:04 He said, “Hey, you don’t protect us. What kind of coach are you? You know, a coach is supposed to protect his fighters.” And it resonated, and I went, damn, he was so right. So from that point on, it’s my fault.

41:16 You know, the Luke thing, that’s not Luke’s fault. That’s my fault, because I didn’t get to him. Right? You know, if you’re the father and your child does something wrong, is it the child’s fault? No, you got to take it upon yourself.

41:31 And he was so right about that. And it made me a better coach. Okay. Made me a better coach. That’s powerful.

41:36 I remember, Koscheck. I mean, with Luke, it’s tricky, because that ego probably got him so far, you know, but that also that same ego stops him from evolving. But, but listen to this, okay? This is me stopping as a coach, okay? This is my failure, okay?

41:49 Because I’ll give you another example with Josh Koscheck. We use Josh Koscheck again, because when I used to have him mentally, I say we got him. He won every single fight. I would talk to the manager. I got him.

42:01 We won every fight. I don’t have him. We lost every fight. Every fight. When I said we didn’t have him, we lost.

42:07 Yeah. Because I didn’t have him mentally. So, um, I’ll use this fight in particular. There’s a fight here that Josh Koscheck was gonna fight, Chris Lidle. Okay.

42:15 Okay. Josh was getting good with the stand-up, and he wanted to stand with Chris Lidle. I said, “No, Josh. No. I’m going to pick him apart.”

42:22 I go, “No, no, you can’t. The guy’s too dangerous. He’s a pro boxer. Look at his boxing record. He does really good.

42:29 No, don’t box with him. No, no, no. I’m going to box with him.” I’m like, “Oh, man. Okay.

42:34 What am I going to do?” I look at Chris Lidle’s BoxRec. Look at BoxRec. I grab these BoxRecs. I printed out the whole thing.

42:41 Koscheck is outside, you know, of the gym, sitting down, and I come in. I throw the papers at him, and I walk off. He looks at me, he goes, “Okay, I got it.” So he goes into the fight, and he decides to do what we wanted to do. Use his great wrestling to dominate Chris, because Chris couldn’t stop Koscheck from taking down for the life of him.

43:01 But the last round, Koscheck decided he was going to stand with him a little bit. He got nailed. He got nailed, and then he realized after that, he goes, “Yeah, he hit me with a good shot.” Man, it’s good thing I followed the plan, because that wouldn’t have been good, that wouldn’t have been too good for me, you know, and the result could have been his way, but it might have been bad, too, you know. So he fought perfectly.

43:21 So that’s what I’m talking about, the mental you work on. Yeah. I’ve had Jocko Willink on the show, and he has a concept called extreme ownership, and he just means that you know you need to take everything as being your fault, your ownership. So for you, if your fighter is not listening to you, the old Javier would say he didn’t listen, that’s why I lost. The new Javier said it’s my responsibility to get him to listen, and so you went out of your way to find a way.

43:44 In that case it was the boxing record, at the right time, to get him to listen to you, to get more when he wins. Yeah. Before that I was throwing him off the bus. I would say he knows how to leg check. We taught him, you know, Kung Lee, same thing.

43:56 Said the same thing about Kung. Oh, Kung, this. Um, no. It’s your fault, dummy. Yeah.

44:02 You know, if a coach really takes ownership into that, then he’ll become a better coach. If you don’t, then you think it’s, “Oh, I’m this. I’m that. If they listen to me, they’ll win.” No, dummy.

44:12 They don’t have to listen to you to win. They just have to be motivated and they have to want to win. And you have to be behind them, supporting their decision. And if they don’t listen to you, and they’re making a decision that if it’s working, you got to support it. If it’s not working, then you got to work whatever you can to try to get them to come back on course.

44:30 Like with Khabib, please go back to Father’s plan. Please, please, please. Because I didn’t want to take a chance. So that’s our job as a coach, right? So you have to cajole.

44:37 You have to flank them. You got to find all the ways to get, because you can’t get through the front of the head. So you got to sneak up from the back and try to get in there, ultimately, just for the win. You want the win for them. You know, for me, that’s why people always say, well, hey, you know, always for seminars, seminars.

44:52 I don’t want to do a seminar. I don’t want to teach a technique. I’m not a great technician here. If someone says, hey, can you teach us your mental strategies, your fight strategies? Okay, now you got something.

45:04 Now you got something that’s really interesting. Now you got something that you’re really going to learn. But if you want to learn technique from me, yeah, whatever. I’m okay. You know, maybe I’m good.

45:12 I don’t know. But one thing I am fantastic at is getting the mind sharp. Okay. Understanding what to do, and not just in fighting, in life. What do you do with this?

45:22 How do you make your life better? What steps do you need to take? What do you need to do? How do you need to think to become a more successful father, a more successful mother, a more successful student, a better son, a better daughter, you know, how to love somebody. Those are the things that are important in life.

45:40 That’s the lesson. How can fighting lessons translate into someone’s life? Fine lessons can translate in someone’s life, because the dedication it takes to become a good fighter, the effort it takes to be a good fighter. You use that translation, go, okay, why are you such a good fighter? You go to work every day, you do everything you’re supposed to do.

45:58 You don’t deviate. So if you do the same thing in your job, and you love doing it, guess what? You got success because you love doing it. So if you translate that into the real world, people can identify with that. Everybody can identify with love.

46:13 Like, if your child is in danger, how much of an effort are you going to make to save your child versus a man that you don’t know? Yeah. What’s going to get you to jump in front of that train, or, or, or in front of that tiger, or whatever kind of danger? What’s going to get you to go? That man you don’t know, or that person you hate, or that son of yours, that daughter of yours, that mother of yours?

46:41 What’s going to get you to go? The love for that person. Right? So make sure the love and the passion’s there. That’s important.

46:48 And you learn that. Yeah. You can do anything in life. If you don’t learn that, yeah, I hate my job. Yeah.

46:55 But you’re making 3, 4 million every other month. What do you mean you hate your job? I hate my workers. And you got this other guy like me. I used me when I was a real estate agent.

47:05 I was the poorest real estate guy out of everybody. But I was the happiest guy. And all the realtors are looking at me, go, “Look at you. Why are you so damn happy?” I go, “You don’t make any sales hardly at all.

47:15 We quadruple you like that, but yet you’re happier than all of us.” I didn’t think about it. But I’m going, “Why am I happy?” Well, I’m doing what I love. I was working out all the time, playing basketball.

47:26 They’re selling real estate. I’m playing basketball, having fun with my friends. So I’m like, “Wow, I’m having a great time. What the hell?” I learned, you know, money is not everything.

47:37 Happiness is love. Love what you do. Have you ever had a fighter that doesn’t love it? That they’re there for the wrong reasons. They’re there for the paycheck.

47:44 They’re there for the belt. And do they soon fall along the wayside? Or do you ever have a talk with them and say, “Hey, I, I’ve never, honestly speaking, the ones that they are there for the fame, this and that. I haven’t been successful with one of them yet.” You haven’t been?

48:00 And you can tell by their behavior in the gym and what they prioritize, that their, what they prioritize, their work ethic. Especially after the UFC became famous, because in the early days you had to really want to do it. But then when The Ultimate Fighter popped, people start thinking this is a career, and I’m guessing you started getting people coming in that maybe didn’t have the passion. They were thinking the fame. They were thinking this, and they didn’t have the passion, and they just didn’t have the go.

48:26 They weren’t goal-driven, you know. So you can see them. Okay, I see it. Talk to me about mindset and game plan for the second big moment of your career, which was Cain Velasquez, Brock Lesnar. That is huge.

48:38 It’s weird, because you forget about some of these moments. Talk to me about that, because that was huge. And tell me a little bit about Cain and set that up. Okay. Well, first time that I heard about Cain Velasquez, the manager says to me, he goes, “Hey, I got the greatest Uh, heavyweight coming to you.

48:56 He’s got the greatest cardio. He is an Arizona State, Division II, uh, uh, uh, not champion, but Division I, sorry, Division I, uh, all-American. I said, oh, great, cool. Okay, then he says he’s Mexican. Ah, I went from excited to like, Mexican.

49:18 Why? Cuz Mexican, what Mexican you see is really athletic and big. You know, if they’re big, they’re not athletic, you know. And so I’m like thinking, oh, and then, kind of big and athletic. Not like that.

49:30 I fought, remember, I fought at 179. That was my weight. I’m not 200 and something pounds. So, so, immediately your brain turned off. My brain turned off.

49:39 Never seen a Mexican. I was not interested anymore. So I’m, I’m up, uh, we had an elevated ring, and that’s how we used to do our training. So, uh, Cassandra Clark, uh, is bringing Cain Velasquez in, and she, she comes to the door. Hey, I brought your fighter.

49:55 And I’m up in the ring like this, and I look, and I double look, and I go, “Holy, this guy looks athletic.” I go, “Wow.” I said, “Uh, I look, hey, nice to meet you.” He goes, “Yeah.” And I said to him, and I’m, I’m a sarcastic guy.

50:09 And I go, “Oh, I thought you’d be a little heavier, right?” And he goes, “Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, I, I put on weight for, for, for wrestling, cuz I guess the, the division is like 265.” And he came in about 250,240-something when he walked through the door. But I was laughing because he didn’t know what I meant.

50:26 I was thinking he’s gonna be one of those guys like Rulon Gardner type, you know, the American wrestler that, that beat the great one, uh, you know, Rulon Gardner. He, like a big fat guy. Yeah. I thought he was going to be like that. When I saw him, I went, “Holy crap, this guy looks in shape.”

50:40 And then when I knew he was going to be great is the, the mental. Again, this is where talking about the mental. Okay. Uh, he came in, and we had a thing where we let him spar right away. So he was doing some sparring with one of my world champion kickboxers, and, um, what happened is the kickboxer kicked him in the head.

51:00 Soon as he got kicked in the head, he swooped in real quick, gently put him down. Okay, so I’m going, “Wow, he got hit with a good shot.” He had the discipline to just pick him up right away. Gently put him down, not slam him. Gently put him down.

51:14 So that’s like telling your child, “Don’t be near the fire, like this, right?” And he got kicked again. This time he picked up. Boom. He slammed him on the ground.

51:25 I was like, “Oh boy.” I’m like going, “Oh my god, this guy is something, something special.” He showed you. You’re going to kick me because I don’t know how to kickbox. I’m going to do this to you, and now you kick me again.

51:37 Um, okay. Now he got the message, and then he sparred with another one, another heavyweight. This was an amateur guy, and he kicked him in the face. Well, he was already, I got kicked three times in the face. Screw this.

51:49 He just slammed him on the ground. So the other coach was telling me, “Hey, let’s put him to spar.” I said, “No, I seen what I need to see.” I said, “I don’t need to see no more. I don’t need, I, he’s in.”

52:00 And they go, “No, we need to see him spar.” I go, “No, I’ve seen what I need to see. He’s fine.” So, then I started touting him as the next champion. Wow.

52:09 Just right there. Just from that control. Just from that control, that emotional control, and the athletic ability that I saw in him. Okay. So he had the mind, he had the athletic control, and he was coachable.

52:21 Okay. And I said, “Damn, that’s so now we got this guy going into the fight.” So our goal was to get 10 fights, then we’re going to put him in the UFC. Man, it was going to be something spectacular. We couldn’t get no one to fight him.

52:35 No one wanted to fight him. It’s like nobody wanted to fight him. So we had two fights. Managed to get two fights. I’m like, “Damn it.”

52:44 And I said, “Hm, call Dana, and, and, and tell him we got a heavyweight. We want him to look at it.” Go, “No, no, I’ll just get him in the UFC. They’ll take him.” I go, “No, no, no.

52:53 Call Dana, set up a thing so Dana could see him. You know, I want Dana to see him.” So they called Dana. They set up a sparring. We brought like two of our guys, like Mike Kyle, maybe Paul Buentello.

53:04 I’m not sure about Paul, but Mike Kyle was one of them. They put him in there, and I wasn’t there, and, uh, Dana and I said, “Cuz why the hell isn’t this guy in the UFC?” Right, so from there they put him in the UFC, and from there he started destroying everybody, because they called him cardio Cain, cardio Cain, and then they were calling him pillow hands, because he’d hit people but he wasn’t hitting hard. He was remember, he’s still learning. Cain wasn’t a powerful puncher when he came in.

53:27 He was just a cardio machine, right? So he basically wouldn’t hit hard, but all of a sudden, you know, with technique, technique, because I spent so much time on him. I spent more time on him than anybody ever. So Cain Velasquez has more of my style than any of my guys, by far. If you look at Cain Velasquez, you look at everything he says, everything he does, it’s almost like you’re looking at Javier Mendez.

53:48 Huh? He is so unbelievable. And now Javier Mendez 2.0, because he can do jiu-jitsu. He can wrestle. I can’t do jiu-jitsu.

53:56 I can’t wrestle. I know what I’m looking at, but I couldn’t explain to you how to get out of anything in jiu-jitsu or wrestling. I couldn’t. That’s not me. I’m a mental guy.

54:04 I’m not a technique. Cain’s everything guy. So get that going into the fights. Now we’re going into the fight. We’re fighting Brock Lesnar for the title.

54:12 I’m sitting at places, and I’m in Vegas, Las Vegas, and I’m gambling. And this guy who’s been in prison is right next to me. He goes, “Hey, how are you doing?” I go, “Good.” He goes, “What are you here for?”

54:22 I said, “Oh, hey, you know what? Do you know I coached back then?” He goes, “Oh, man, I’m down with Larasa, homie.” He says, “But man, I’ve been in prison, bro, and those big dudes, and that’s a big white boy. He goes, he goes, he’s going to kill your boys.

54:37 No disrespect.” He’s going to kill your boy. And I’m like, I said, “No disrespect, but no, he’s going to lose.” He goes, “Well, why do you say that?” I go, “Because my guy’s better.”

54:46 And I, and he goes, “Nah, bro. I’m sorry. No, I disagree with you.” So it was a nice conversation, but he was like, you know, he’s like, “I disagree with you.” And I go, “Well, I disagree with you.”

54:57 So okay, good. So we went on, and I hear it again, and news guys would go, “Hey, what’s going to happen when, when, when Cain gets taken down by Brock?” I go, “He’s going to get right back up.” Well, how do you say that? I go, “Okay, when was Brock Lesnar a Division I champion?”

55:12 X amount of years, right? Okay. Cain Velasquez is a new breed, better wrestler at the present time than he was back then. Okay? And he’s continuously practicing.

55:23 Brock has done the WWE thing. He’s not active like Cain is active. Okay. So that’s why, and they said, “Yeah, there, no one believed me.” Like, “Oh, yeah, right.”

55:33 So, fast forward to the fight. And Brock’s massive. He cut, he cuts probably to make 265. Oh, yeah. And Cain walks in at 240.

55:41 Yeah. Something like that. So, yeah. So what happened on that one there is the first time ever Cain became a star, and we literally, it was in LA. We literally had to run from people.

55:52 Literally, they were running at us, and we’re like, “Oh, shit.” Running to our cars. There’s like a swarm of thousands of people coming after him, before the fight. Uh, before the before the fight, you know, forget about what happened after the fight, before the fight, for the press conference and all that. We’re like going, “Wow, what the hell’s going on here?”

56:09 Cuz it’s such a big fight, fight. Such a big fight. Yeah. Brock comes out. I seen Brock in the press conference, and I, and I looked at him.

56:17 He’s pretty big guy. He’s pretty big guy. I looked. He’s pretty big guy. He looks bigger than his weight, doesn’t he?

56:21 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So now let’s fast forward to the fight. So confident.

56:27 I’m confident. I’m confident. We’re confident. We’re going to go. All of a sudden, I looked at Brock and I seen this monster of a guy.

56:36 I went, “How are we going to beat this guy?” And I, I woke up like, “Wait a minute, you stupid. We’re better wrestlers. Of course you’re going to beat this guy. You can’t take it down.

56:46 You get back up.” You know, but at one moment, for a split second, I looked at Brock. He was like you said, just this gargantuan guy that was unreal. He looked like one of those, damn, you know, those dummies. Not dummies, those toys that you go, unbelievable toy.

57:06 What the hell? That’s what he looked like. Just, he looked bigger than, than life, you know, and he looked so damn athletic. So I’m like, but then I went, nah, I blacked out real quick. No, no.

57:19 So when he took him down, he got up, and then what’s Cain’s mindset going in? He always looked so calm and cool. His mindset was, he takes me down, I’m getting back up, and I’ll take his ass down, and I’m out-striking him. He’s confident. Oh, yeah.

57:32 He’s confident. He was very confident. He’s used to dealing with big guys, because in the, in the, in the national titles, his two losses was Cole Konrad, uh, which he fought for the, for the, you know, the NCAA title, right? And Cole Konrad only played defense, and he won on defense. He didn’t try to attack Cain.

57:52 Cain was attacking him the whole time, and Cole was just defending, defending. So he won on that type. He didn’t score any points, per se, but an advantage, they call it. I don’t know, it was weird. I go, “How the hell can that guy win?”

58:04 He didn’t do anything. Cain, all he’s doing is attacking, attacking, attacking. But the other national champion was the other guy. Okay. So he hadn’t really lost much before.

58:12 So really, fight comes, what happens? Well, the fight comes. I mean, he’s ready. I mean, Brock at first, Cain said good. First Cain goes when he rushed at him, Cain was like, Cain said he was even taken back by this guy.

58:24 But then he got into it, and when it’s a fight, it’s a fight. Right? You know. Once you make contact, then it’s back. It’s say you can’t back off.

58:30 If you’re a fighter, you’re a fighter. But he said that he didn’t expect him to rush so quick, like Brock did. Brock came at him like a bat out of hell. It was like whoa, you know, just big, like elephant charger or whatever you want to call him. There’s a big, big dude coming after a guy not so big.

58:47 Right? And how’d that fight play out? That fight played out better than I expected. I thought maybe we’d wear him out a little bit, but the damage Cain did to him. He split his, he gave him a nice scar in it on his cheek.

59:01 Once Cain got up real easily, I think Brock lost it. He lost the mental. I think that was it. I think that was it. I think because he couldn’t strike.

59:10 Brock couldn’t strike, and he didn’t go the distance, right? No. No. Right away. Right away.

59:15 First round. Yeah, I believe so. was the first round. So cut him, and then Brock stayed down on one knee and didn’t want, yeah, didn’t want no more, because Cain’s hands were heavy. He was heavy.

59:22 Cain, Cain, Cain learned how to punch, and he was a superior striker to me. To me, to me, Cain Velasquez was the greatest heavyweight that never got to prove he was the greatest heavyweight of all time. He’s one of the greats for sure, but due to circumstances, due to many things that happened in his life, prevented him from becoming the greatest of all time. He had a lot of injuries. A lot of injuries, a lot of stuff outside.

59:45 There’s a lot of things that happened to him that shouldn’t have happened that did happen that prevented him from achieving greatness. He achieved great, but not greatness. Right? He got the title, but he could have defended it many, many more times. He could have defended many of times.

59:59 He could have, he could have gone undefeated had everything worked out the way they should have worked out, but it just didn’t pan out that way. Okay. So now he’ll just be known as a great, you know, two-time UFC champion, but one of the greats. He’s definitely one of the greats. You cannot deny that.

1:00:12 Everybody knows, still to this day, in my opinion, this, my opinion, he’s still the most well-rounded heavyweight I’ve ever seen. Wow, that’s powerful, and blew everyone’s mind that a guy 20 or 25 pounds lighter could win the heavyweight division. Had a lot of conversations going on, but maybe bigger isn’t better. And, and again, styles make fights. Yeah.

1:00:31 Um, I want to talk about Cormier, because I guess Cormier moved into that position. They always said they didn’t want to be in the same weight class, I think, cuz they were both from AKA. But Cain now, how’s he doing? He’s on bail. Is he training a little bit?

1:00:44 Uh, well, Daniel, we’ll go with Daniel. Daniel came in as, when he came in, Cain Velasquez opened the doors for him. Showed him everything. Showed, they, the brotherhood formed right away. So, do you ever have that very often, where there’s two guys in the same weight division that know one day they’ll be going for the same title, that help each other that much?

1:01:05 Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:01:07 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. John Fitch, John Fitch, Josh Koscheck, we’re like that. But AKA fighters don’t fight each other.

1:01:13 No, unless, unless it’s for a title, okay, that we, I won’t allow it. But a title, would you? Of course. That’s what the pinnacle is all about. They go for the title.

1:01:21 If you, it’s stupid to sell somebody you can’t support your family and you got to let him support his family. No. If one is champion and the other one gets offered the title shot, you should take it. We’re just figuring out what we need to do. But if you two are striving to go for the title, and they want you two to fight each other when you’re not, one’s the champion, why you going to destroy the team?

1:01:45 Okay. You know, so I, I wouldn’t allow that. No way. But if one’s the champion, absolutely. It’s a good policy.

1:01:51 Yeah. No, we won’t break that. Never. Okay. So Cormier comes in and he’s learning all his stuff from Cain, and Cormier has that wrestling background as well, and that AKA mentality.

1:02:01 I remember Cormier. A lot of those guys, they’re trying to mentally break each other in that AKA gym. I’ve even seen Khabib training in there. It seems like everyone’s trying to mentally break each other in there. That’s probably thanks to you.

1:02:12 Uh, no, it’s just the iron sharpens iron. It has nothing to do with me. That’s just their competitiveness, and, well, maybe has something to do with me, that I allowed it, maybe, you know, in that regard. But it’s if they, if you’re not, if you’re not a warrior, you’re not a warrior, right? And these guys were warriors, and it is a mental game.

1:02:29 Oh, big time. So you, that, so you allow it because you know that’s what makes those champions. Of course you, you got to let them be champions. You got to let him be a warrior. If a warrior is a warrior, you got to stop him and go do your studies.

1:02:42 Yeah, he’s a warrior. Let him do what a warrior does. You know, you have to, you know, and you got to turn the blind eye. I turned the blind eye quite a few times. Trust me, I’m thinking.

1:02:51 But you know, what are you going to do? I’ve heard Cormier talk about the wrestling room, you know, at college, and just how it was, just the mental trying to break each other, trying to get a guy to where they could just make him cry, you know, break, break. I mean, that’s the mentality of a wrestler like that, isn’t it? And that’s what you need. Cormier, Cormier brings that.

1:03:11 Daniel brings that. He brought that to AKA. He completed us. He, when he first came to the gym, I looked at him and I said to the manager, I said, “Hey, uh, I don’t know about this guy as a fighter, but I don’t care. He’s a great coach.

1:03:28 I want him here. I’m all for him.” And it wasn’t until I trained him for the first time that I watched what he did in sparring, like he’s been doing it his whole life. That’s when I knew he was going to be a champion. But not, not, I didn’t know when I first saw him.

1:03:44 I knew he was a great coach. And I wanted him there because we had no wrestling. Okay. Yeah. We didn’t have any wrestling.

1:03:50 And what did you see in his mind? What did you see in his character? Right away when he came to train with us, he started helping wrestling right away. Right away, he started telling guys what to do, what to do. I said, “Oh, he’s a natural leader.

1:04:03 He, we need that.” See, Cain Velasquez didn’t do that. He did mind his own thing and did listen to this. Josh Koscheck didn’t do that. John Fitch didn’t do that.

1:04:11 Nobody did that. Nobody did that. Daniel Cormier, right away, started teaching. I go, this a natural wrestling you know, and he’s a leader. Okay.

1:04:22 So that’s what, uh, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to become a champion. No, it didn’t mean he was going to be a champion. But then when I, when I worked with him, and, uh, and he went out and did what he did, I said, “Holy shit.” I’ll give you a funny story about, about, about Daniel. You’re going to laugh.

1:04:35 Daniel remembers this obviously really well. So I used to tell Cain every time he sparred with D, go easy on him. Don’t, don’t go too hard. Daniel’s a competitor. Daniel is a competitor.

1:04:49 Daniel overheard me. He goes, “Hob, what’d you say?” I said, “Nothing.” I said, “No, no, no. What’d you say?”

1:04:56 I said, “I didn’t say nothing, Daniel.” He goes, “No, Hob, you told him, you told him to go easy on me.” I said, “Yeah, no, no, you better. He’s got to go hard.” I said, “No, Daniel, you can’t handle his level right now.”

1:05:12 Nah, let him go hard. I don’t want him, I don’t want him to go easy on me. No, tell him to go hard. Cain’s like a Terminator-type guy. So I looked at Cain.

1:05:20 I said, “All right, Cain. Go for it.” Terminator. How? When you turn him on full, he’ll go for it.

1:05:25 Yes. He’ll just kill. Yeah. You tell him kill, he’ll kill. Okay.

1:05:28 I looked at Cain. I said, “All right, Cain, go.” Blood everywhere. Broke Cormier’s nose. Yes.

1:05:38 Blood everywhere, like this. And Daniel’s like this. I go, “Daniel, you’re okay.” Daniel’s going, “Yeah, I’m okay.” I’m going, “Oh my god, bad coach.”

1:05:53 Well, yes and no. Yes and no. Okay. But Daniel got. Yes, because I didn’t expect it to happen that quick.

1:06:02 Something bad. I was gonna stop it after Daniel got a taste of what it was like to go with the all-out Cain. It wasn’t until later that he was able to go with all-out Cain, but this is early. You got to remember, Daniel, he was a wrestler. He didn’t know how to strike that well.

1:06:15 So, you’re talking about a polished guy like Cain, who was really skilled and can hit pretty hard now against a guy that was just a great wrestler. I mean, Daniel was one of the greatest wrestlers in the US, six-time US American champion, and this national champion. And you know, I mean, he lost to Cael Sanderson, and he lost to the great ones. You know, Daniel didn’t lose to no chumps. He lost to the great ones, you know.

1:06:38 So Daniel was a great wrestler, but he wasn’t a striker yet, and he wasn’t an MMA fighter like Cain was. So when he said that, oh my god, like that takes him out of sparring for a little while. Uh, but he’s such a warrior. He’ll come back. He’ll do things like, Daniel is a special breed, man, when he fought for the title with Josh Barnett, and it was the Strikeforce, and he was an alternate.

1:07:03 We put him as an alternate because that’s the way we can get him in. He won the whole damn thing. And then, um, if you watch the fight, you see how he raged on Josh, right, because of the wrestling, and he became a good striker. And then Josh Barnett broke his hand. He broke his hand, and they were focusing on his hand, and after the fight, I’m going, I’m saying, “Man, that’s Josh Barnett.

1:07:22 He’s something special, man. He’s, he’s broken hand.” And Dio goes, “Yeah, but I broke my hand, too.” I go, “What? You broke your hand?

1:07:28 When didn’t you break your hand?” It goes early in the round. And he looked at, went, “Shit, his hand was broken.” I go, “Daniel, why didn’t you tell us?” He goes, “Because you guys were going to stop the fight, and you weren’t going to stop this fight.

1:07:39 You are not going to stop this fight.” And I said, “What is Daniel Cormier? That’s a warrior, right? You, you, you, you’re going to have to kill this guy to stop him, because he ain’t stopping for nothing.” Uh, the last fight he had was Stipe.

1:07:53 Stipe, ironically, right, the first, the first two fights, it was Daniel that poked Stipe in the eye accidentally, right? Ironically, at the last fight, it was Stipe that poked Daniel in the eye. He got his finger almost all the way halfway in his eye, right? Daniel couldn’t see from that eye. We didn’t know that.

1:08:15 He didn’t say nothing. The doctor came in looking. He said, “Yeah, yeah, you can see.” He couldn’t see. He went to the doctor.

1:08:21 His eyesight didn’t come back till a day or so later. Could not see. It was one eye, you know, but you couldn’t tell because he wouldn’t let you. And you think he was going to let the doctor stop him? Hell no.

1:08:33 No. Not this guy. No. I was so impressed with him. I was like, “Wow, this guy’s amazing.”

1:08:38 What’d you make of the rivalry with him and Jon Jones? Also, that’s a Jackson Wink rivalry between AKA and Jackson Wink. And is, and which, which, which is the greatest camp ever, you or Jackson Wink? Well, I don’t know about that greatest camp ever. We’ll let the history decide on that.

1:08:55 But there was one of the two of you guys, right? There was no rivalry between Jackson Wink and us that still to this day. We’re great with each other. Cuz you guys are cool. The rivalry was John Jones and Daniel Cormier.

1:09:07 Zero to do with me. Maybe some of my coaches too, because they got into a scuffle with him, but not me. No. Greg Jackson. No way.

1:09:15 No. He’s my buddy, man. My Winkeljohn. No. Uh-uh.

1:09:19 No. We’re buddies. No. No. No.

1:09:21 Zero. Your two gyms have the most UFC champions ever between the two of your gyms, right? I mean, there’s not any other team that really. I, I don’t really know. It’s got to be.

1:09:30 I, I, I don’t know how many champions they’ve had. I mean, Holly Holm, uh, John Jones, uh, um, Junz. No, Nama Junes was with the title. She was. No.

1:09:41 No. No. Um, um, the uh, Rashad, Rashad Evans. Yeah. Okay.

1:09:46 Uh, so then, uh, Carlos Condit, he won the, the Intercontinental. So really that’s, that’s really three. Okay. You know, I’m at, uh, six, and if you talk, you know, different weight divisions, I’m more like eight. Right?

1:10:02 You know, and, and re winning the title. So I’m, I don’t, if you’re talking about UFC uh credentials, um, AKA is way ahead. I don’t think anybody’s got my resume, to be honest with you. Now I don’t like saying that, but I mean, no, let’s forget about that. Just.

1:10:18 Okay, you know. Tell me about Jon Jones, Cormier. I mean, and Daniel Cormier, because those were crazy rivalries. Crazy rivalries. Jon Jones is a guy that, if you don’t respect, you should respect, because he’s all about winning.

1:10:32 He’s got the mindset of a winner. He’s so freaking athletic. It’s crazy how athletic he is. Um, the rivalry between them, you know, started off because Jon Jones, you know, um, told DC that he could take him down like on a wrestling thing. It was a goofing around type thing, but it wasn’t cuz alpha male versus alpha male.

1:10:52 I got to take you down, you know, that type of thing. So that’s how it all started, from that little, I can take you down. So it escalated from that to this, to this, and this, and that. Then from the, what the press conference with Daniel, took off his shoe and he threw his shoe at Jon Jones. So, so those kind of things were crazy, and uh, yeah, we had to definitely separate the camp, but not the coaches.

1:11:15 Some of my coaches, like Rosindo, my little guy, he’s like a little, like a little pitbull. Yeah, he’s, he. But but Bob Cook and all that. No, Vier. No, we just Rosindo.

1:11:27 Rosindo Sanchez would be the only one that would be like, you know, I’m DC’s guy. Just a little guy. But uh, John and DC, 100%, uh, were not in the, I like you department. They were throwing at each other. Every chance they got, they would, they would do things, and yeah, if, if they would have met there, it was going to be on.

1:11:47 Okay. At that time, now I, I seriously doubt it. Now I think these two guys will be friendly off, friendly, friendly off, friendly compliment, not compliment, from what I see, uh, on the interaction, on, and the social media. They’re both, they, they’ll compliment each other, but then they’ll throw a little jab at each other. They both do it.

1:12:05 They both do it. So, how do you prepare for a Jon Jones? And what do you make ultimately? He fought him twice, right? Well, for Jon Jones, the first fight, I, I tried to get Daniel to dirty box with him, because I didn’t think we can beat him on the long range, and then we were going to try to wrestle with him.

1:12:21 And, um, you obviously saw that the wrestling wasn’t working, cuz John was just, he was too good at everything, striking, defending, the whole bit. Uh, it wasn’t until like the second round that Daniel dirty-boxed with him, that Daniel won that round. And, uh, I told Daniel, I said, “That’s what you need to do. You got to go back to do that.” And, uh, he didn’t.

1:12:42 He, he showboated the next round. He, he lost the first round. It was a close round, but he lost. He won the second round. That was his best round.

1:12:51 He showboated the third round thinking he was winning the fight, and he wasn’t. And then after, like, the fourth round, he goes, “Who’s winning?” I go, “Well, he is.” And he, Daniel’s like, “What? No, I am.”

1:13:02 I go, “No, you, you need to win. You need to stop him.” Cuz we only had Daniel winning one round. We said, “You need to stop him.” So the difference was, I said, “You need to go back to brawling, cuz that’s the best way.”

1:13:13 The other coach said, “No, you need to take him down.” And I’m like, “Well, that wasn’t working before. How are we going to take him down?” It wasn’t working. We needed a brawl with him.

1:13:22 That was working. That’s our best chance. Not this taking him down, because Jones is very good, you know, and on the ground he’s good, you know. So Daniel picked him up, and if you watched the video, the, the fight, I’m sorry, Jones grabbed the fence so you wouldn’t be thrown down. That’s a guy that doesn’t want to lose no matter what.

1:13:41 I just want to give you an edge. That’s what impresses me about him. Okay, it was, what he did was illegal, but what impressed me is you ain’t taking me down. And that’s the thing about him, that, uh, he does things that, to, to make sure the odds are in his favor. For instance, remember when, uh, he was supposed to fight Vitor Belfort, if it was Belfort, if I’m not mistaken, and then, uh, Chael Sonnen wanted to come in as a replacement, and John said, “Nope.”

1:14:06 “He wouldn’t fight him, right?” Because he wasn’t prepared for that. Though it was an easier fight, he wouldn’t do it. He needed to prepare specifically for Jail. Yeah.

1:14:14 He didn’t want to fight, because he didn’t want to chance it. They canceled that whole. They cancelled the whole event. And then they took it to, to Los Angeles, right? You know, because he didn’t want to fight, because he wasn’t, he was not going to do it.

1:14:25 That’s John. He’s the kind of guy that was going to do whatever it takes to win. The second fight between him and DC, DC was doing great. He was like, finally doing what I wanted him to do. And I’m like, God, DC got cocky.

1:14:40 He started getting cocky, like, and I’m like yelling at him, “No, no.” And all of a sudden, boom, quick kick. Oh my god, that head kick came so quick. Boom. D, you know, over and over.

1:14:53 I mean, Bob and I should have stopped that fight. That was the, that we should have stopped it. We didn’t. I think we were just shocked, what the hell happened. And uh, John McCarthy should have stopped that fight.

1:15:04 That was a boo-boo on his part, cuz Daniel took too much punishment on that fight. Even at the end, remember, he was crying, and this and that. And it was just too traumatic. Cain Velasquez got so upset, so upset at John, that he had a confrontation with John outside, saying, “Why did you stop that fight?” I, not came to, like, I don’t know the words that were said, that Cain told me, cuz I was pissed at him.

1:15:26 Told him off. I’m like, Cain, to be pissed off, that’s pretty. Yeah, cuz that’s his, that’s his brother. Yeah. You know, so that’s kind of what happened there.

1:15:35 And John, now he’s gone to heavyweight, you know, you expect a few more fights out of him, and do you think, do you think he’s the greatest fighter ever in the UFC? I’m biased. So I say Khabib’s the greatest, you know, because my reasoning is, he’s never lost. never, never, never, never even been remotely challenged, never been cut. You know, he’s dominated everybody. You know, who in the UFC history of champions has had that resume and he retired early and he’s getting better.

1:16:11 For me, he’s the greatest. But by records, you know, Jon Jones is definitely someone to speak about, because look what he did as a heavyweight, and look how well he did. How long did it take him to go up to heavyweight and do what he did? Three years. Yeah.

1:16:25 How much respect do you have for a guy like that? What am I talking about, him as a winner? How mentally strong is that guy? Okay. He’s the kind of guy that I probably would have just wound him up and let him go.

1:16:37 I didn’t have to work his mental. No, not that guy. Yeah. I don’t think so. I think, I don’t think they had to work his mental.

1:16:44 I think maybe they have to work certain things about him, but not the mental for fighting, not his desire to win. No, not his game planning. No, I don’t think so. I think that guy had it, had it all. I think he’s above everybody in that regard, as far as needing coach’s advice on how to motivate himself to win.

1:17:00 I think he had it in, and extremely confident, but also, uh, admitted to not necessarily training hard for fights, and then also all the madness happening outside the ring. It’s crazy. And he still wins. Yeah, the madness outside the ring. That’s only something he can answer to, you know.

1:17:15 I, I can’t, and I don’t know him personally. Um, I bet, but if I probably met him, I probably love the guy, to be honest with you. I probably would. Do I respect some of the things outside he did? No, absolutely not.

1:17:27 But you know, we all have history. We all have our stories. I don’t know his story. I know his story as a fighter. You know, I know what he would do to win.

1:17:35 And uh, I respect him immensely as a fighter. Uh, I think, I, I definitely, if someone says he’s the greatest, I mean, I’m going to say no, but that doesn’t mean I’m right. That means I’m probably biased, or maybe I’m not biased. Who knows? Bottom line is, he is the names to be spoken.

1:17:53 GSP’s names to be spoken. Anderson Silva’s names to be spoken. Demetrius is names to be spoken. To me, those are the guys. Yeah.

1:18:02 I want to talk about the future, but before we do that, you mentioned Shamrock-Ortiz as that third moment. That was a big one for you. These are early days, and a lot of the UFC fans now don’t remember those early days. Um, talk to me about when you coached Shamrock to go up against Ortiz. What year was that?

1:18:18 Well, I believe it was 98 or 99. I don’t quite remember. Say 98, or, I’ve been around a long time. My first UFC was 1995 with Paul “Polar Bear” Varelans. He wasn’t my fighter, but Brian Johnson was my first UFC fighter, who I got in in 1996.

1:18:36 What number was that? Uh, that, that was the Ultimate, Ultimate in Denver, Colorado. That was when Dan Severn won it. So number four or five? Uh, no, no, that was a little higher.

1:18:46 A little higher. Not too much higher. Okay. Not too much higher. It was right early, earlier in UFC’s.

1:18:52 And, um, anyways, I met Frank Shamrock through Brian Johnson. Brian Johnson introduced me to Frank Shamrock, and as a result of Brian Johnson, Frank Shamrock came over to train with me. Frank didn’t come over to train with me because he didn’t seek me out as, “Oh, that’s the coach I want to go to.” No, no, no, no. His girlfriend, Angelina Brown, who was his fiancée at that time, they moved to Sunnyvale.

1:19:15 So he needed a gym to train. So he just came to my gym because he wanted a gym to train, not because he wanted to train with me. No, no, he just wanted a gym to train. So I, I looked at him. I said, “Hey.”

1:19:26 I go, “Um, if you want any help, I can help you.” He goes, “Oh.” He goes, “Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, sure.”

1:19:34 So, first day we do, uh, he, he get put on the gloves. Go, Frank. I go, “You going to wrap?” He goes, “Wrap?” No, I don’t, never wrap.

1:19:42 Maurice never tells me to wrap. I go, “Frank, you got to wrap your hands, bro.” He goes, “No, no, it’s like, uh, this cool.” And I go, “No, no, no. We wrap hands.”

1:19:52 So I wrapped his hands. And, um, I was an individual that I didn’t know this, and this would cause elbow uh, problems with me. I was what you call a hard pad holder, meaning I go into the punch like hard, and I’m strong. So bum, bum. So when you’re punching, man, your hands are like, god dang, I’m hitting a wall, because I’m going into the, instead of just doing this, I’m going into it.

1:20:15 So I go into it, and then Frank at the end goes, oh my, I’m so glad I’m like, you know, wrapped, you know. So now we’re going into me training him. So I became his coach. I started working his, his mentor. He showed me a lot, too.

1:20:29 I learned a lot from Frank Shamrock. I learned that as a kickboxer, if you can kickbox, these MMA guys are nothing. If you don’t fear the takedown, they’re nothing. I put on the gloves with Frank, and I kickbox. So it’s like playing with a baby.

1:20:46 He couldn’t do. He was like confused, you know. And he goes, “Hob, let’s do, let’s do, uh, let’s do MMA-type kickboxing. MMA training.” I said, “Okay, I don’t know nothing about MMA.”

1:20:57 He comes in, he shoots it on me right away. I don’t know how. I sprawl on him, and I don’t know how to sprawl. I sprawl on him. He shoots it on me again.

1:21:06 I sprawl again. And I’m going, “What the hell?” But guess what I was doing now? From that comfortable guy that was doing what I wanted, kickboxing, and could do whatever I want with him, I went from that guy’s comfort to no comfort. He wouldn’t let me settle.

1:21:20 I had no chance to strike. Zero chance. He took me down with that ankle pick. You know the one that Randy Couture got to, uh, um, the boxer. Yeah.

1:21:28 Yeah. That low single leg. Low, same ankle pick. Yeah. Frank got me with that.

1:21:33 I went down. End of story. I’m like, I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t punch him. I couldn’t kick him, cuz he was taking me down.

1:21:42 His mindset was taking me down. That’s a lesson learned for me, that if you want to be a wrestler, and you got a kickboxer, and you try to kickbox that kickboxer, and you’re the wrestler, you’re stupid. If it’s MMA and you’re the wrestler, he’s a kickboxer. Just look, take him down. He is not going to be able to do what he wants unless he could defend the takedown.

1:22:03 And usually if you focus on the wrestling, back then they couldn’t defend it for nothing. Right? So I learned that from Frank Shamrock. And he was the first guy, jiu-jitsu guy, AKA. He was, uh, the first not jiu-jitsu guy.

1:22:17 He had a Shamrock’s, uh, submission fighting, by grappler. So it was a grappler. So he was more a shoot fighter than anything. So he wasn’t jiu-jitsu, but he had some jiu-jitsu in him. He had been fighting in Pancrase.

1:22:27 Pancrase champion, and with Bas Rutten and stuff, which, uh, Pancrase was a situation where many of those guys knew the outcome, but Bas Rutten was one of those individuals that, uh, with him you’re getting, you’re getting the real deal. Yeah. You’re not getting this, uh, this and that. You’re getting the real deal. You get Bas, you got Bas.

1:22:50 Yeah. You didn’t get someone that, okay, maybe you win. No, no, no, no. You beat Bas. You beat Bas, because you’re going to knock the hell out of you.

1:22:57 Bas is bigger than Frank, too, isn’t he? Yeah, he’s bigger than, than Frank. Beat him once, and they traded. I mean, there’s good fights between the two. Yeah.

1:23:04 They looked, I mean, they were hitting hard. Yeah. Bas doesn’t play around. Yeah. Bas don’t play.

1:23:09 Don’t play. He don’t play. He don’t play. He, he’s a serious dude. Still to this day, that guy, he’s a great guy.

1:23:14 What a great guy. I train with him once in LA. What a great guy. He is a great guy. Amazing teacher.

1:23:18 Amazing individual. Amazing, amazing fighter. He, he, he’s, I have nothing but high, high respect for Bas Rutten. You know what he’s done, you know, how he is as a person, how he is as a man. If you don’t respect him, then you’re not a man.

1:23:32 Yeah. I do a shadow-boxing routine from Bas sometimes, daily, here, and it’s seven rounds, and he calls out combinations, uh, including sprawls, and I, I always do it religiously, because it’s like I always think Bas is behind me telling me what to do, and I’m always flashbacks to all his Pancrase fights, and all of his stuff in the UFC. He’s the, he’s the man. He’s the man. So you have Shamrock, and now you’re coaching him as he gets up to come to Tito.

1:23:54 Tito was the big star in the UFC. Shamrock was talking trash about Tito. How did that all play out? Well, this how it played out. Frank was at the stage where the UFC was really declining.

1:24:08 Bob Meyrowitz was doing a horrible job of regulating, getting uh, getting state commissions to even want you to do it. So they didn’t want him involved at all. They, they actually, they shunned him, because he was, like, more or less, you know, not doing the right protocol to get these deals organized right. Uh, they, foras, when they took over the UFC, the first thing they did is, Lorenzo, I believe, was, he was in the commission. He was a commissioner, so he got out of the commission so he can, you know, do his thing, and they hired Mark Ratner, which was the genius move, what they needed to do to open up all these states.

1:24:41 Mark Ratner is the, is the, is the golden, golden child for them on, on getting this thing legalized in the whole US of AA. Mark Ratner and, uh, Lorenzo Fertitta knew that, and therefore he’s a genius for knowing what kind of power Mark Ratner had, what kind of respect he had, so he brought that in. So let’s fast forward. We’re going into the Frank thing. Sorry, I, I talked too much.

1:25:03 But so what happened with Frank is, uh, he was always teaching me things. I was always teaching him things. So, uh, I’ll give you an example. Frank Shamrock going to fight Kevin Jackson, the Olympic gold medalist. And, and, uh, Frank goes, “Hey, I’m fighting Kevin Jackson.”

1:25:18 I go, “Kevin Jackson?” I go, “Oh crap.” He goes, “What? Huh? He’s just a wrestler.”

1:25:23 I go, “Yeah, yeah, but that’s Kevin Jackson.” Go, “No, no, I’m going to let him take me down. He’s going to shoot in all fours, and I’m armbar him.” I’m like, “Yeah, okay.” I’m feeling, I’m telling myself, “Yeah, I’m sure you’re going to armbar him, but okay.

1:25:36 What happens?” Well, look at the fight. He shoots, armbars him. I’m like, “Holy crap, he called it.” You know, called it.

1:25:43 Frank Shamrock’s one of the only guys that was able to finish people with strikes, submissions, you know, takedowns, everything. Look at the history of earlier, back in the days. He was the first complete MMA fighter. Well said. And, and, relative, he got complete, because why?

1:26:01 He got with me. I put his mind together. He helped me. I helped him. I showed him how to do things.

1:26:07 When he won the title, I said to him, I go, “Now the real work’s coming.” And he’s like, “What? I just won the UFC title. Now you’re telling me the real work’s coming? What are you talking about?”

1:26:15 I go, “Well, Frank, they know what you’re all about now. They know what to chase. So if you don’t improve, they’re going to catch you.” So we started learning. You know, uh, Frank was the only fighter I’ve had that always had major, major problems with his back.

1:26:33 So half of the time the poor guy was injured. He’d be walking like this, you know, in the chiropractor’s office, and he couldn’t train a lot of the times because he was so messed up, you know, uh, but he’s such a warrior. So, okay, the deal with Tito Ortiz. Uh, I never got credit for, Sham, Frank Shamrock, but I was his mentor. He always used to say, “Oh, he’s my boxing coach.”

1:26:52 And I used to say, “Man, I go, Frank, he introduced you to Bob Meyrowitz as his boxing coach.” And I said, “Frank,” I go, “You know, that’s the second time you introduced me to Meyrowitz as your boxing coach.” I go, “You need to do me a favor.” He goes, “What? Hob?”

1:27:04 I go, “If you’re not going to introduce me as your coach, please don’t introduce me at all.” I go, “Cuz I’m not your boxing coach.” He goes, “Yeah, I know.” I go, “But don’t introduce me as your boxing coach. That’s not who I am.”

1:27:14 He goes, “Yeah, but I think it’s cool.” I go, “It’s not cool to me. That guy keeps talking to me about his boxing career. I don’t care about his boxing career. You know, I’m not your boxing coach.”

1:27:22 I go, “So please don’t introduce me at all if you’re going to introduce me as your boxing.” He goes, “Okay.” Uh, so we go into the fight. So the plan with this, for Tito Ortiz, cuz he’s bigger. Okay.

1:27:32 But he’s bigger. And Frank said, “Job, he’s going to have to struggle to make weight. What I’m going to do is, I’m going to make him work. I’m going to try to submit him early. If I can’t submit him early, I’m going to make him work.

1:27:45 I’m from the bottom, because obviously I’m not going to be on top of him. I’m going to make him work. I’m going to get him tired. So I’m going to slap him, this and that, this and that.” I said, “Great plan.

1:27:53 That was the plan. We stuck to the plan.” So I learned a lot from Frank. I’m not going to say he learned from me. Only, no, bull.

1:27:59 I learned a lot from him. A lot from him. So we learned from each other. So now we’re going into the fight, and that was the game plan. And I see Tito the night before with the weigh-ins, right?

1:28:10 He’s on the bike, and I, and I call Frank. I go, “Hey, I seen Tito. He’s struggling to make the weight.” Yeah. Yeah.

1:28:17 The day before, Frank, we’re at, uh, uh, let’s, uh, let’s call it Burger King, but it’s something like that. We’re at Burger King, and he was just golfing it up, because he has to, he doesn’t care about the weight. He’s, he’s way below weight. Yeah. So it didn’t matter.

1:28:30 So he’s eating junk food, you know, to get ready for this fight. It’s kind of like laughing about it, right? He’s like, “Ah, I’m just eating this and that.” And he knows Tito’s suffering, right? So, I tell him that, and then so we go into the fight.

1:28:43 Maurice Smith uh gets all the credit. He’s always gotten all the credit for, for, for uh Shamrock, and it’s called Shamrock and the Alliance. But when Frank was started and came to me, Frank never trained with Maurice one day, and maybe one day here and there, maybe, but he was with me all this whole time, but it was always the Alliance, Maurice Smith and the Alliance. And, and, uh, Maurice said to me, “Dog,” he goes, “I’m getting all the credit for what you’re doing.”

1:29:09 He goes, “Why don’t you get the credit?” I go, “I don’t care. He’s winning. All I care about is him winning. I don’t care about the credit.

1:29:15 Who cares? He’s winning. That’s all that matters to me. We’re winning.” He goes, “Okay, but I’m getting the credit, and I’m not even here.”

1:29:22 I said, “That’s okay. I’m cool with that.” So this is the part that gets great. So now we’re going into the fight. Tito takes him down right away.

1:29:31 Frank tries to submit him. No, too strong. Too strong. Too strong. Tito opens up because he’s great with elbows.

1:29:37 We knew he was great with elbows. He opens up Frank here. Tito’s trying to do it. He’s trying to get the cut open on Frank, and this and that. And Maurice Smith is going crazy.

1:29:48 He’s going crazy. He goes, “Uh, Javier, tell him.” I go, “No, Mo, it’s in the plan. It’s in the plan.” He goes, “Plan?

1:29:56 What plan?” I go, “Didn’t Frank tell you?” He goes, “No, he didn’t tell me the plan.” I go, “We’re going to try to submit him early. If we couldn’t do it, we’re going to get him tired, and we’re going to get him in the later rounds.”

1:30:07 Oh, he didn’t tell me that. I go, “Okay, so that’s what we’re doing.” So then you watched the fight. Tito got tired. Frank submitted, turned him over, and took him.

1:30:16 That’s why that fight was so great. The game plan only Frank and I knew. Maurice didn’t know the game plan, freaking out, like, why is Frank doing what he’s doing? You know, I said, it’s in the plan. It’s in the plan.

1:30:26 Game plan perfection. So I started learning how to adjust a game plan, how to figure out game plans, from Frank Shamrock. He doesn’t know it, but if he ever sees this interview, he’ll know that he’s the one that taught me how to do great game plans, along with my own thoughts. But I used a lot of his, his, his, his way of thinking when you saw him fight Nick Diaz later in Strike Force. I’m sure you were watching that fight and the trash talking beforehand, and obviously Shamrock was coming to the end of his career.

1:30:55 Nick was kind of in the beginning of his career. What did you make of all that? Nick’s North Cow, like you guys. Yeah, I wasn’t with Frank anymore. We had a falling out.

1:31:02 Uh, so I had, I had a falling out with him, um, way before that. And then so I’m the guy that, actually, I got Frank beat by Kung Lee. Okay. Kung Lee was my guy. And then we fought Frank, my guy.

1:31:16 Okay. You know, and then we broke his arm. Okay. With, you know, Kung broke his arm with the kick, because Frank wasn’t checking. Kung goes, “He’s not checking.”

1:31:23 I go, “I know. Keep kicking.” Broke the arm. But, uh, the whole idea was to build Kung to beat Frank, cuz he wasn’t my guy anymore, and it wasn’t personal for me. I’m my fighter’s Kung Lee.

1:31:36 You’re Frank Shamrock. That’s fine. But we had a separation. Now we’re back. But we did, at that point, we had a disagreement, and, uh, long story short, so things like that worked out, and, um, Frank basically is fighting Nick Diaz, and, uh, we’re cordial, and he’s saying a lot of messed to Nick Diaz, and, uh, Frank had a rib injury.

1:31:59 He had a bad rib injury. I didn’t know this. I had, because I wasn’t in his camp. I wasn’t training him, but he had bad, in, rib injury. And Nick was pissed at all the stuff.

1:32:09 He was safe. He was pissed. And, Shamrock was saying, “Yeah, cuz Shamrock was talking about, you know, when you should wear a suit. I got the parking space in the front. I watched that fight recently.”

1:32:18 So he pissed off Nick. And I went to Frank. I go, “Frank,” I go, “Bro,” I go, “I know you’re playing it up, this and that, but this guy’s taking you serious, man.” He goes, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s cool. It’s cool.

1:32:29 I’ll bring with you.” So I knew Nick was coming in with a serious intent. He, I mean, Nick was man. He sold fights, and Frank knew how to sell fights. So it was a good fight, but except when he got hit, there was, it was over.

1:32:43 It was over. And what do you make of Nick Diaz? The Diaz brothers. They’re in Stockton, obviously, not far away from you, but still NorCal. I mean, you got, you watched them grow up.

1:32:53 You watched them both make their name. You watched Nate continue. What do you make of the Diaz brothers? I’m a huge fan of the Diaz brothers, and what they do, and what they, what they stand for. They defend themselves.

1:33:05 They defend their students. They defend their training partners. I used to have Jake Shields and Gilbert Melendez, uh, who was the, the Scrap Pack with them, but they train with me. Okay. They represent the Scrap Pack, but Gilbert and Jake Shields were training with me for many, many years.

1:33:22 And it was kind of like, man, what are you doing? You’re the enemy, you know? But Gilbert and Jake were my buddies. We, they respect, huge respect. Uh, Gilbert and Melendez and Jake Shields had the biggest respect for my gym and me, and I have the biggest respect for them, that when Gilbert Melendez got involved with Strike Force, and he was going to potentially be in a fight to fight Josh Thompson, Gilbert Melendez left the gym, you know, he left my gym because he knew, respectfully, and he did.

1:33:51 So him and Josh Thompson had a great trilogy of fights there. There were some great fights. Those guys had some great fights, some of the best in Strike Force history. Um, but that’s how Gilbert Melendez is. And that’s what I’m getting at regarding the Diaz brothers.

1:34:05 They were against these guys training with us. They weren’t with that at all. And they were against us, period, because we were the enemy, you know? And, uh, anytime anything would come around me, it’s like they’d look at me and they’d ignore me, you know. You could tell they liked you, but they didn’t like you, because you’re the enemy, right?

1:34:23 So they were cool to me, but they weren’t cool to me. But when Nick Diaz retired, hey, hey, Hob, what’s going on? I’m like, I was expecting that cold shoulder. No, he was cool as hell. And I had, you know, he was a, he was a great fighter.

1:34:38 He was a great fighter. Uh, Nate was the one at that time who was running around doing the things, for everything for Nick and this and that. And you know, I would, uh, try to talk to Nate about, hey, I can’t get Nick here. He goes, “I know, bro. I can’t get him here either.”

1:34:51 He doesn’t want to be in front of people. He doesn’t like traveling. He done this. So he had phobias about a lot of things. Not, I want to say phobias, but he says there’s certain things that he didn’t want to do.

1:35:01 And you weren’t going to get him to do it. He didn’t like media. So you try to get him to media interview, forget about it, man. Um, where’s, where’s Nick? Where’s Nick?

1:35:09 I don’t know. That day he was fighting Frank. I couldn’t get him for nothing. Nate couldn’t get him. Nate was like, “Bro, I, I couldn’t do nothing.”

1:35:16 So at that time, Nate and I were super, super cool, but then Nate got involved in the fighting with Khabib and their crew. So then Nate wasn’t so cool with me, because, you know, it’s, Team Khabib. Yeah. So he was cool, but he wasn’t cool. It wasn’t until he’s more or less out of the UFC that now Nate’s super cool.

1:35:33 You know. So how can I not have respect for those guys? My guys are that way. My Dagestanis are that way. They’re they’re loyal like that.

1:35:41 So how can I not respect someone else that has the same kind of loyalty to their guys and they’re needle movers? Yeah. You watch Nate Diaz fight, win or lose, he wins. Yeah. Because people win.

1:35:54 He gives people what they want. You. So whenever Nate Diaz has a fight, do I want to watch? Absolutely. Absolutely.

1:36:01 I want to watch. I mean, I want to watch because he’s a needle mover. When he fought Jake Paul, that was, to me, a good fight. Jake Paul proved he was the real deal. But Nate Diaz, again, he still won people over by what he did.

1:36:15 Yeah. You mentioned Jake Paul. What do you make of his career? What do you make of boxing making a resurgence? Ngannou fighting out of Saudi, and all these crazy things.

1:36:22 What do you make of that side? Uh, well, when Jake, uh, when Jake Paul first came on the scene, um, Jacob Chavez, Jacob Chavez is a very good friend of mine. He was an AKA coach also, and BJ Flores, which was, uh, uh, Jake Paul’s coach, they called me, and they asked me, “What do I think about this?” And I said, “I don’t know about Jake. I don’t know anything about him, but I said, I go, I go, you the guy you want to fight.”

1:36:50 I go, “Go after, um, uh, Ben Askren.” Why Ben Askren? I go, cuz Ben Askren has credentials. He knows how to talk, but he’s not. He can’t box.

1:37:03 He doesn’t know how to box. He’s an MMA fighter, okay? He’ll box you. He’ll fight you, but his technique is not there. He’s a perfect guy to build on.

1:37:14 Fight him. And I go, and after that, then Tyrone Woodley got released. I go, “Go after Tyrone Woodley, you know.” So, you’re a promoter. I basically tell these guys who to go after.

1:37:23 Go after Tyrone Woodley. And, uh, so they did that. So they would talk to me, and I would give them, I got text messages to show, “Haha, what do you think? I go after this guy. Go after.”

1:37:32 So I helped BJ, and then when Jake Paul at earlier on, uh, not the later ones, I had nothing to do with any of those, but early, earlier on, when Jake was moving up, and you know, at the beginning everybody was down on Jake Paul, and etc., etc., and me, in a way I had to kind of turn my back a little bit on him, because he went after DC, you know, and so I had to kind of like, hey, I, DC is my boy, but I didn’t, wasn’t against Jake, but, but it was like, you know, DC is my guy, you know, you, you’re, DC doesn’t want to fight you, but you’re going after him. But Jake’s just trying to promote. He’s just, and he’s kind of attacking people.

1:38:09 I like it cuz it’s against the fighter. It’s not against the country. It’s not against his mother. It’s not against his father. Not against his wife.

1:38:16 Jake Paul’s way of creating attention, I love that. That’s what fighters should do. If you’re going to do trash talking, Jake Paul has the right idea on how to trash talk. Going to the fights. Haha.

1:38:26 Taking Mayweather’s hat. Haha. I got your hat. Got your hat. That’s fantastic.

1:38:30 And, and, uh, you know, uh, you have to respect Jake Paul. He’s a true professional. He’s a true boxer. He’s a true, true, true boxer. And I think now everybody looks at him, and they go, “No, this guy’s a real deal.”

1:38:42 Before, everybody, a, he’s just a YouTuber. No, this guy spends hours and hours and hours and years and years boxing, science. How can you not respect him? And he goes and fights top guys, too. Yeah, you got to respect them.

1:38:54 So now, nobody’s on the Jake Paul, not a boxer. Everybody knows he’s a legit boxer. Yeah. That’s a matter of the matchups. Who’s he fighting?

1:39:02 Do we want to see that? Now, Ngannou, uh, Ngannou, I thought when he was going to fight Fury, I go, man, I go, Fury is such a great boxer, one of the greatest of our last decades. I think that he’s going to get him tired, and then take him out in the later rounds. I didn’t even watch the fight, cuz I was, I was, uh, you know, over here, and I said, man, I’m gonna stay up to four in the morning, or six, or seven in the morning and watch this fight. I ain’t gonna watch this fight.

1:39:28 No way. Ain’t worth it, because, you know, I thought Ngannou was gonna have a chance. I thought he had a punch chance, because he’s fast and he hits hard. But I just, no way, in hell, thought that was going to do anything other than, you know, have a puncher’s chance. But then when I heard the decision, and when I heard how great he did, I went, “Holy crap, he did this against Tyson Fury.

1:39:51 Are you kidding me?” I was like, I didn’t see the fight. I still haven’t seen the fight. But just the fact that what everybody’s saying, that a lot of people go, no, one. Some people go, no, Fury won.

1:40:03 Yeah. Even if I had 10 people say Ngannou won and I had 50 people say Fury won, that’s impressive. That’s impressive. Really, stances as well. It was crazy.

1:40:16 So for me, for me, for me, Ngannou’s performance is the most, most impressive, impressive out of any MMA fighter in the history of MMA versus boxing. And if anybody says different, give me an example. Give me an example that’s better. Okay. He fought the current pound-for-pound number one.

1:40:35 Who’s done that? Yeah. So you can’t tell me Ngannou Has no chance anymore. Now I know he’s fighting Anthony Joshua next. Anthony Joshua.

1:40:44 The thing about Anthony Joshua, great athlete, but I think that there’s some things in his game, mental game, that make him hot and cold. So if Ngannou gets a cold Anthony Joshua, it could be a great Ngannou night. Yeah, it all depends. It all depends on how his mental comes in. This is where the mental strength comes in.

1:41:04 Anthony Joshua is a great fighter, and he’s one of those individuals that I see they can use that, that mental training, not the technique, cuz he’s phenomenal. Phenomenal athlete, but the mental part I see in him that that could improve on him. I think, I think, and I’m not saying I’m right. I’m just saying I see. And Javier, they’re fighting in Saudi Arabia, which is, you know, not far from where we are now.

1:41:26 This region is, it’s just becoming one of the most desirable places to be. They’re putting on fights. You’ve been here for four months. Yeah. I spent the entire month here.

1:41:36 I’m doing episodes of London Real. Here we go. Got British flags. But I’m in the middle of the desert in Dubai. Why are you here?

1:41:44 Why is this region doing so well? And why is it getting so much attention? Well, for me, for me, when I come here, the hospitality, the humbleness of all these high, high-level individuals is overwhelming. Number one, over, over the top, the safety-ness of this. I can have literally, I kid you not, I can have thousands of dollars in my hand presently walking down the streets.

1:42:10 No one’s gonna touch me. No one’s gonna touch me. Okay? I can leave my doors open in my apartment, or wherever I’m at. No one’s gonna take anything.

1:42:19 Okay? I see this with my own eyes. I’ve seen this already. So I’m not just talking. I’ve seen it.

1:42:24 I’ve seen things where I left something somewhere, and I’m thinking, “Ah, damn it. I left my iPhone. It’s gone.” No, coach. It’ll be there.

1:42:32 Come on, dude. An iPhone, you’re crazy. It’s gone. No, I guarantee you, come two days from now, we’ll go. That restaurant you would have left it at, or that place you left is closed over the weekend.

1:42:43 They’re going to have it. You’ll have it there, right? I come in. Oh, yeah. Here’s your phone.

1:42:51 What? Are you kidding me? No way. Yeah. Wait.

1:42:58 And so if you have a beautiful daughter, you have a wife, you have anybody that you, you, you, you feel that they’re not safe, bologna, anywhere here, they’re safe. I feel safe. I don’t care what type of the night or day you’re here. That’s what’s beautiful about this country. You want an opportunity, you want to make something of yourself, you’re strong-willed, you’re strong-minded, you’re driven, this is a place, a land of opportunity, where you can make something of yourself.

1:43:24 If you’re not, if you just want to be a worker and you want to do your job and come in and out, then you’re never going to make it here or anywhere. But if you’re driven, you’re motivated, and you think outside the box, you can be very successful here. But Javier, America used to be the land of opportunity. You moved to America when you were six years old from Mexico. It used to be the place where people could go with a dream and make anything they want.

1:43:48 How is it now, Dubai? How is it now, the Emirates? Okay. America was that way, and they helped you, and they still are that way. But let me tell you this.

1:43:56 What about our homeless? What about our homeless? What about this thing that our governor did, where he moved the petty theft thing to 950? It’s just, it’s just, it’s just uh, uh, it’s just a misdemeanor. What about all those people ransacking your store, ruining your stores, because they weren’t going to be stopped?

1:44:16 So people running into your store, grabbing your stuff, and taking and leaving. What’s the safety in that? What about all our homeless that are, uh, parking? Oh, in my gym. In my gym.

1:44:26 In my gym. We had homeless in our back. We couldn’t do nothing about them. We called the police. The police said they can’t touch them.

1:44:32 We can’t touch their stuff. We touch their stuff, we get in trouble, because that’s their private property. So we had our neighbors call the city, tell the city that we better, blah, blah, blah. The city calls my wife and says, “Hey, you need to get rid of these people.” And my wife says, “Well, we called the police for this.

1:44:49 What can we do? It’s not our problem. It’s not our problem. If the police won’t do nothing about it, you’re telling us you’re going to fine us for something that’s not our fault. Yes.

1:45:01 Sorry. That’s help. My wife had to do something, where we’re cleaning trees. For your safety, you had to evacuate. So, that’s how she got it out.

1:45:12 So it cost us over $5,000 to, to, to get rid of them. And now they’re back. And then she did another genius thing, where she built a fence, where, there, they’re trespassing, so if there’s a fence around there they can’t go. So why can’t America take care of our homeless, as rich as this country is? Why?

1:45:30 Why? And why did they allow individuals to not get penalized, because they go into a store? What happened to that poor, uh, store owner, who’s living day to day, and that’s his living, and someone comes in, take what I want. Take what I want. There’s a video out there, too, where there’s guys come with a trash can, and he’s emptying out all these cigar boxes in his thing, and the store owner goes, whack, whacked them on the head.

1:45:56 Good for him. But I don’t know what happened to him, but what probably happened to him? Is it a good possibility that he’s in, it, went to jail for protecting his property? Probably. Yeah, probably.

1:46:07 Now the Americans will say, “But Javier, we have a democracy here, and we have freedoms, and over here in the Middle East is not a democracy, and then there’s no freedoms.” What would you say to that? I would say the freedoms really, we got freedoms, really, like the vote between Trump, and it was fair. All of a sudden it went lopsided with all the things going on. What are they doing to Trump, trying to get him, trying to get him on some kind of penalty or something so he doesn’t run?

1:46:33 That’s freedom, making up stuff on him. You know, if it was legit, wouldn’t it have stuck already? You know, that’s the freedoms. They do have a lot of freedoms. I love America, don’t get me wrong.

1:46:42 But when you compare the two, the land of opportunity over there is still there, but not like here. Not like here. Cuz people like me, people like you, you’re coming here. Why do you love it here? Everything you just said, tons of opportunity.

1:46:54 If you hustle, you can make things happen. It’s safe. You’re connected with people in hyperspeed here. Everybody who’s here wants to be here. Yeah, whether you’re a taxi driver, or you work in the mall, or you’re a business person, they all want to be here, and they all have the same mindset, you know, and they want to be better, and they got big plans and big dreams.

1:47:13 And you hear a lot of success stories here about people doing that, you know, every other day. I kid you not, every other day I’m meeting a billionaire. I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding. And they’re so freaking nice.

1:47:24 They’re serving you. They’re doing this for you. I mean, I become brothers with Abdul Manam, who’s the president’s top security guy. I become brothers with many Sheikhs here. We’re like brothers, where it’s like, it’s not like, oh, this.

1:47:38 No, you go to the US or anywhere I’ve been, where they’re that rich. No, it’s all about not here, right? Not here. They’re humble as can be. Their thing is about hospitality, about, you know, your guest.

1:47:52 They make sure you know that they’re treating you as a guest. If you had a millionaire serve you coffee, serve you tea, and love doing it, tell me. And if you’re telling me it’s America, then I say, “Okay, I didn’t see it, because I don’t know one billionaire in America. So there you go. I don’t know one billionaire.

1:48:09 Also, if it’s so safe over there, how come it is it if you go in the wrong territory, you’re going to get killed? Okay, I’m wearing blue. He’s red. I go into your territory, I get shot. Oh, I was wearing blue by accident.

1:48:21 I’m not a gang member, but I got killed. How safe is that? Opportunity. Where’s, where’s that guy’s opportunity? He got killed for wearing the wrong color, and he’s not even a gang member.

1:48:32 You know, what about so many things? What about people now, because of the way our governor in California, he’s allowed things? What about these people in broad daylight looking at your car, they see what’s in there, break the window, grab it, and just walk off. Not run off, walk off. How’s that?

1:48:51 Do you want that? No. What about people now? They case you, they see what you have, they go to your home, they come into your home, all of a sudden they, they, they rob you, you know, and you do nothing about it. Or they’ll pretend to be delivery guys, and they knock on your door, they have a, we have delivery package.

1:49:10 Soon as you open the door, they break in on you. None of that happens here. None of that. You know, I’m sure there is a little something that happens here, but I still say this is the safest country in the world. I love UAE, and I love America, too.

1:49:24 Don’t get me wrong, but I cannot tell you we’re perfect. We’re not. We’re much more perfect here in this country. This is the country of standards. This is a president that I call my president.

1:49:34 Why do I call him my president? Cuz I love the guy, and I see what he does for the people. I see what a humanitarian he is. He’s stuck in a tough position at times, but all the decisions he makes are great for the people here, for the UAE. He’s a great, great president.

1:49:49 And you know how he learned it? From his father. Yeah. From his father, because his father was a great man. You know, I got the privilege.

1:49:56 I was privileged, because of, because of Abdul Banam, to be able to meet the president two times. Okay. The last time I got to talk to him and I got to listen to him, I go, “Wow, this guy is just another level of humanitarian. That’s how he cares.” I know some people may go, “Oh, you’re lovely.”

1:50:13 Well, if you know what this man’s all about, you wouldn’t say. Political is political. And if you don’t know political, which I don’t, it’s kind of hard to judge people on that. But I’m judging on heart. And when I was speaking to him and he told me the stories about his father and what his father did, I was like blown away.

1:50:29 As a kid, he told me his father, when he was like 21, 22 years of age, his father sent him a humanitarian, uh, things to do for people. So his father asked him, “What did you do?” He said, “Well, I did this. I helped this person there. I gave this person this money, and I helped this person do this, but I didn’t do nothing for this person, cuz he’s not Muslim.”

1:50:49 As soon as he said the word, not Muslim, his father grabbed him. He said, “Stop.” He goes, “You are not God. You help all humanity.” Okay?

1:51:02 God decides. You do not decide.” Right then my heart melted. I says, “Wow. Wow.

1:51:11 That’s real.” And most Americans don’t, don’t really understand that that’s what this place is all about, do they? They got weird misconceived notions. People talk. They make up stuff.

1:51:21 Oh, they’re terrorists. You come here. You live here. You see what it’s about. Then you tell me.

1:51:27 Then you make that assessment. You make an assessment about the heat. These people love people. You know, I’m not talking about Saudi Arabia. I’m not talking about Bahrain.

1:51:36 I’m not talking about any place because I haven’t been there. I’m talking about UAE. I’m talking about how beautiful they are here. And if I go to Saudi, I’ll make my assessment then. But I haven’t been there.

1:51:46 So I can’t say bad. I can’t say good. I don’t know. I know here. And you’ve been here for four months, and you were going to stay till April.

1:51:53 You might have to go back to train someone. I might have to. You have to. Okay. But otherwise, you’d be here.

1:51:58 I would be here. I was going to be here. My plan was to be here till the end of Ramadan. And I was looking forward to it every day, enjoying great people and great company and meeting new people all the time, new business opportunities all the time. Then all of a sudden, Khabib called.

1:52:11 Coach. No, Umar called me, coach. I have a fight, March, uh, potentially. Potentially. He said potentially.

1:52:17 He went, “Ah, okay. We got to go. We got to go.” So now I’m going, cuz he has. We have a potential fight.

1:52:25 Okay. If we have a potential fight, it’s not official. Nothing’s ever official till the UFC announces it. If the UFC doesn’t announce a fight, it’s not official. Okay.

1:52:32 So me saying I’m going back, because, no, it’s not official. But, but I am going back because I do have to train them. All right. So you still take time out to train the most important, top, top people at AKA, and that means Islam and Omar and a few other people, and then you got to fly back and do that, and that is that kind of where you’re at right now? I’m, I’m, I, I made the decision after COVID, because COVID almost destroyed us, and my, my gym at home with Ron Kesler, Cain Velasquez, my son Jeremy Mendez, and Tomas Diagn Bunch.

1:53:06 No, Sean’s no longer with us, but, uh, we have a lot of great coaching there. And I figured that Cain Velasquez knows the whole system. Ron Kesler, he’s the head guy. He’s done fantastic. I’m not needed there.

1:53:17 I want to do some business. So I wanted to come over here, because I have so many brothers here that I met, and I say brothers, because here we don’t say friends, we say brothers. It took me a while to say brothers, because I’m saying my friend, my best friend, but no, here it’s brothers, and, and after a while you you start saying that. Next thing you know, you see me in a Condor. I haven’t been in one yet, five years, but I haven’t been in one of the.

1:53:40 I mean, easier. I mean, you don’t have to get dressed up, really, just this and that. I mean, when I met the president, he normal kurta both times, wearing Skechers, no fancy watch, wearing Skechers. Says a lot. You tell me about that man, how he is as a man.

1:53:57 Why, why do I love him? Cuz I was privileged to see his heart, to feel his heart, and to see the people around him. How much the people love him. I love him. Why?

1:54:08 Good reason. Look where I’m at. I don’t lock my door anymore. I don’t even care. And I have thousands of dollars in there at times.

1:54:17 Valuable stuff. I go back. I know it’s going to be there. Can you tell me that in the UK? Can you tell me that in the US?

1:54:25 Hell no. We lock our car doors. Why? Because we’re afraid it actually does happen. You know, in my gym, you know what happens?

1:54:33 People leave stuff in their, in their, in, in their car. Oh, someone broke into my car, took my bag. What? Where’s your bag? Did you put it in your trunk?

1:54:42 No, I left it. I go, “Oh, in my gym that happens.” Okay, we have quite a few of that happen. Can I say that here? I haven’t heard one.

1:54:52 You know, I’ve been here five years. You know, the biggest thing I’ve seen, the biggest thing I’ve seen was an argument with one guy, a taxi guy. And the taxi guy wanted his money. The guy didn’t want to pay the taxi guy. And one of the people I was walking with, from Australia, he goes, “What’s going on?”

1:55:06 He goes, “Ah, he owes me money. He can’t go away and pay me money.” But I goes, “How much he owe you?” This is a guy, my friend grabbed my brother, grabbed the money, he paid him, and off they went. That’s the worst thing I’ve seen in five years.

1:55:19 Come on. How bad is that? What’s the future, Javier? What’s the future? Fast forward 10 years from now.

1:55:26 Where’s America going? Where’s this place going? Is this going to be, is this this, this area? Is this country going to dominate? Is, you know, what’s going to happen?

1:55:34 I think this country is going to continue to flourish. I think this country is going to continue to do what it’s doing. Um, I believe this country is becoming, uh, a little bit Americanized, a little bit, because there’s so many international people coming. So they’re changing some of their values, too. But they’re keeping their core.

1:55:51 They’re keeping their core. Their core is going to be their core, but they’re going to allow people like me to come in that’s not Muslim, to enjoy the freedom and the luxuries of what they have to offer, without subjecting their people to anything that they don’t want. You know, it’s like, uh, some restaurants, you know, like in Char… alcohol. Okay, here they allow it. Some restaurants allow alcohol.

1:56:14 Some restaurants don’t allow, uh, shisha or smoking. Some restaurants here do. So they’re they’re, you know, they’re allowing certain things, and certain things they’re not allowing. So they are changing, but they’re changing for the growth of what’s coming. It entices more people to come here.

1:56:32 They’re building casinos here. Why? Because the casinos are going to attract people, of tourists that people like, especially, you know, Asians, they love to gamble. Mexicans, we love to gamble. I’m a degenerate gambler, you know.

1:56:45 So I’m going to, you know, I’m go to the casino. I’m, oh, yeah. I could go, I get to go gamble and lose all my money, you know. I’m excited about that, right? So it’s a good thing, you know, what they’re doing.

1:56:56 But they’re doing it to the point where if you’re local, not allowed. Not allowed. And, and, and, and trust me, with the AI, how they have it. Try sneaking in. Oh, you being a local, try sneaking in.

1:57:08 See if you’re not going to get caught. You’re going to get caught. You’re not going to be allowed to gamble. Not going to happen. You’re going to.

1:57:12 There’s some, they’re going to try, but they’re not going to. No. Yeah. No. And what about America?

1:57:16 What happens? I hope America, it gets better, because I love America. My whole life’s in America. I, I want nothing but the best for us, you know, because I mean, look, listen, if America’s in war, I’m in war. That’s, I’m a US citizen.

1:57:29 I’m America. My whole, my whole life was there. My family’s there. I’m there. I just want things to change.

1:57:35 I want us to, you know, it’s like that. Why can’t we all get along? You know, it’s like, geez, you know, why, why Democratic? Why Republican? Why don’t we be human beings?

1:57:45 You know, why am I on your side? Because you’re Republican, knowing full well that you’re wrong. You’re evil. Why? Oh, no.

1:57:53 He’s evil. He’s Republican. Oh, he’s evil. He’s Democrat. Well, what happened to good and bad?

1:57:58 Real. He’s a good person. He’s a bad person. What happened to that? You know, what happened to God’s will, that that helps those that need help?

1:58:07 What happened? No, I’m not helping him. He’s a Democrat. No, I’m not helping him. He’s this.

1:58:12 Oh, he’s from there. Why? I, I wear blue. Oh, he’s red. Oh, screw him.

1:58:16 Shoot him. Oh, he’s in our neighborhood. He shouldn’t be in what that, you know. Oh, what about our homeless? All the, all the money we have.

1:58:23 I’m really, I have a big thing about our homeless. A country as rich as America should never have any homeless by non-choice. I don’t choose to be homeless. America made me homeless. You know, that’s what I don’t like.

1:58:39 That’s what I wish we would change, because the people deserve that. The taxpayers deserve that. We deserve a safe country. We deserve where we can go into a neighborhood and not have to worry that I’m in the wrong neighborhood, I’m going to get killed. You know, we deserve that as a human being, as humanity.

1:58:57 We deserve that. But we don’t have that. So when you come here and you have all those beautiful things that we don’t have over there, how can you not compare? Yeah. How can you say, “Oh, no.

1:59:10 America is better, because, because why? Why is America better? They have some better things, yes, but why is it overall better? Is it safer? Absolutely not.

1:59:22 Do you have many opportunities? Yeah, some. But it’s very hard to get, you know. So there’s a lot of comparisons. You start comparing apples to oranges and stuff, you’re going to start going, America’s great.

1:59:33 It is. But when you compare what’s here and you’re here, I’m talking about the people that are actually here, okay? That that live the thing, that are involved in the mind, where they explore other options. They’ll see. Not the person that comes here, and he’s working at a restaurant, but he doesn’t see himself being out of that restaurant.

1:59:52 He’s never going to like it here. Never. How can you like it here? You won’t like it in the US either. You’re not going to like it anywhere.

1:59:58 If you don’t see, I have ambition to get out of your situation, this country would suck, too. So, for everybody, does this country, is great? Absolutely not. But then again, the people that come here, there’s like a million something uh, uh, locals here, and there’s like almost 10 million, or something like that, uh, tourists and not tourists, uh, people that come here, but they come here from a, a, a situation where it’s worse for them at home. So.

2:00:22 Yeah, including you. Yeah. And me. So, so when you’re at home and you come here, at home in India, you know, a lot of these people don’t have jobs. They come here, they have jobs, you know, and then they send money home to support their family.

2:00:35 Pakistan, the same thing. Philippines, same thing. So these people, yeah, they’re working, and maybe they don’t see anything past the work, but it’s still better than they have at home. Yeah. Yeah.

2:00:47 Yeah. Look, I’m born in America. I’ll always be an American, but when I see a place like this, you know, it’s, it’s good that this is happening, cuz people see that there’s another way of living, you know, and I’m hoping a place like this will get America to, to, to change, you know. Well, I think America is going to get to change, because America wants to change. I don’t think another country, because not many people will come here to experience what you and I experience.

2:01:13 So what comes in America is going to come from our leaders, you know. So the people that vote, just, you know, just pay attention to who is running, you know, and vote for the right person, cuz the right person is the person that can change the, the country, cuz there was a point there where America was so great in so many things, you know. I was 40 something years, and they go to a US of A. Trust me, I love America, and I want nothing but the best, and I’m always going to be in America, too.

2:01:40 Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I’m packing up and leaving here. No, no, no, no. But I’m saying I love it here, and I’ll always be here, too. You know, for sure.

2:01:49 Final thoughts from you. You’ve learned a lot about the human psyche. You learned a lot about people by training fighters and going through everything you went through. What can you tell people about their own mindset, about if they want to become champions in their own life, that could be like the champion parents, you know, the champion of their company, or the champion entrepreneur. Like, what are some of the things that you’ve learned by coaching some of the best that people can use in their lives?

2:02:14 Well, what I learned is, like, this, um, don’t let anybody tell you you can’t. If you desire it and you will it, and you look, you game plan it, to how to get to those decisions, go for it. Don’t let anybody put you in the corner and say, “You belong in that corner. You don’t belong out here.” You know, and no, I’ll give you an example.

2:02:36 Um, when I, uh, first went to Mexico, and people were talking about the, you know, Cain Velasquez were building up in Mexico. I sent for a lot of interviews, this and that. The interview guy says to me, he goes, “How does it feel to be one of the top Mexican trainers in the world?” I was like, “I don’t know what to feel about being the top Mexican trainer of the world. I’m not striving to be the best Mexican trainer in the world.

2:03:02 I’m striving to compete with all the trainers in the world. I don’t, I’m not care about Mexican. I care about trainer. I’m not looking at, oh, you’re Mexican, so you. No, you’re a human being.

2:03:14 You know, if you’re a coach, you’re a coach. I want to compete with this coach. I don’t want to compete with Mexican coaches only, or white coaches only, or black coaches only, or Asian coaches only. I want to compete with all of them, because I belong with all of them. And that’s my mentality: we belong all together.

2:03:29 Let’s work to achieve. Don’t let somebody tell you because you’re this, you got to go this. Oh, I’m, I’m Mexican, so therefore I should go to Mexican restaurants. So I can’t choose to go to an Asian restaurant because I like their food, or I can’t choose, you know what I mean? Don’t let anybody tell you you can’t go here or there because of this.

2:03:50 Find your way. And I’m not saying break the door down, because sometimes that door is iron, and it’s going to break you. Look at the door. If it can’t be broken, don’t break it. Go around it.

2:04:02 Find your avenue. Find your avenue. You know, if that boss isn’t going to want to give you that raise no matter what, you know for A FACT. Why are you pushing your energy on that boss to give you a raise? Why are you showing that boss that you’re such a great worker when you know he ain’t going to give you a raise?

2:04:16 Go around it. Find something else. Find another job. Set yourself up for success, not failure. Trying to break that door down.

2:04:23 That mentality, you know, no pain, no gain. Wait a minute. That mentality, to me, no pain, no gain. So you’re saying if my knee hurts like crazy, that I got to push through it, all of a sudden that slight meniscus tear became a full tear. Now I’m out for months, because you said no pain, no gain.

2:04:42 If there’s pain, examine it. Why? Look at what you need to do to fix it. Don’t go that mentality, hardcore. You know, I have a friend of mine that was training one of my guys.

2:04:53 He was so upset because my guy wasn’t doing that. He goes, “Man, get out of here. Get out of here. He goes, ‘When I was your age, I’d punch my fist through a brick wall.'” That’s a good message to tell the fighter. Punch through a brick wall.

2:05:07 How’s that realistic? Okay, I’m going to punch a brick wall cuz my coach said so. Uh-oh, broken hand. How, what message is that sending? Right.

2:05:18 Learn, you know. Train smart. Have a game plan. Train, have a game plan. If you don’t have that, have desire, have love.

2:05:26 Okay? If you don’t love to train, why you training? If you don’t love to go to work, you better figure it out or adjust to what you need to do, because you’re going to be miserable. I love what I’m doing. I love coaching.

2:05:38 You know, I love what I’m doing here now, too. But I still love coaching. So I’ll still coach. Because why? Cuz I love it.

2:05:44 Is it because it’s going to make me a lot of money? No. Every MMA coach will tell you out there, we make no money. But we do it for love. And the ones that aren’t doing it for love, you’re not going to find success.

2:05:54 You’re not going to find success. You got to love what you’re doing. And you have to learn how to relax while you’re doing it. Don’t get all amped up. You know, all that kind of energy, am I wasting?

2:06:05 Too much energy. Stay relaxed. Relax, calm, control. Have a clear mind. Have a game plan on what you’re going to do, what you’re not going to accept.

2:06:15 Don’t let somebody put you in the corner. If Obama would have thought, you’ll never be president, well, guess what? You’re wrong. I’m going to be president. He became president two times.

2:06:27 Why? Because he didn’t let somebody put him in the corner. He didn’t let somebody tell him you can’t be. He did it because he knew he could. And he had the support.

2:06:36 He had the game plan. He, he knew how to present himself. He had presentation. Therefore, he did. How else can you explain it?

2:06:43 Yeah. Luck. Obama didn’t become president because of luck. He, he had game plan. He had desire.

2:06:50 He had love. And he pursued it, and he accomplished it. I can’t wait for this book on mindset from Javier Mendez. I hope that’s coming soon. I.

2:07:01 Well, we have to sign the deal, but, uh, I’m excited about it, because I have a passion for helping people, and, uh, my idea of helping people is not through technique. It’s through life, you know, and I hope they pick a good ghostwriter, because he’s going to follow me for three to six months, and then when examining, and I’m going to make mistakes, going to make mistakes, but if I understand their mistakes, I better learn how to correct them, too. Yeah, you might have to write this one on your own when it comes to mindset.

2:07:32 We’ll see. Um, Javier, I really appreciate the time, and I appreciate your thoughts on this region. You know, I’ve been here now four weeks, and my date to fly back to London’s coming up, and I’m trying to think of every excuse in the book, Tristan. You know, so many things I love about this place. And I love, the food.

2:07:50 The food and I just love the vision, you know. I mean, the tallest building in the world is here. The most man-made beachfront property ever created is there. You know, these are people that dream big with these long-term horizons, and they have these old-school conservative values that are kind of right. And with that structure, they give you the opportunity to do whatever you want.

2:08:12 You know, when I first got here, I picked up my phone, and I did this video on my phone as I walked through the mall, and I said, I said, Dubai is what America used to be. And I said it in a way that, like, my grandpa was a potato farmer in Colorado. And back in the day, America was the place where you could go, and if you had a dream, you could make it happen. And it still is, to a certain extent. Yes, it is.

2:08:31 But in this place, it’s almost like that early version, man, where everything was possible. There was a lot of capital. There was a lot of this. And it’s inspiring to know that place exists. But it’s safe.

2:08:41 Yeah. It’s safe. Your children are safe. Your wife is safe. How can you not say those things and not appreciate that?

2:08:50 Where? How else can you say that? Yeah. You know, you can’t. I can’t.

2:08:55 I, but I haven’t been to everywhere. So when I go to other places that are, that are, that are known to be safe, I can make an assessment. I’ve been to Japan, and Japan is definitely safe, but it’s better here. Yeah. When I’ve been to Japan, and you’re in the middle of Northern California, so you really have a contrast to look at.

2:09:11 Yeah. Yeah. And that’s a great thing. And I hope Americans hear this, and I hope they come take a take a visit and give it a try as well. So it would be nice.

2:09:19 So there you go. I know you don’t do many of these. You should probably do more, because I really enjoy this conversation. So thank you. No problem.

2:09:25 No problem. Thanks for having me on, man. Appreciate it. All right. All right.

2:09:27 Back. I just want to thank Web3 TV for having us. We’ll see you next time on London Real.