Muhammed Lawal - Work Smarter

Full transcript: Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal on London Real

5:16 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Muhammed King Mo Lawal, the American mixed martial artist fighting for Bellator MMA and Ryzen FF in Japan. You are the former Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion and Ryzen Heavyweight Champion. And have also performed as a professional wrestler for total non-step action wrestling.

5:35 You have a rematch book with Quentin Rampage Jackson at Bellator coming up March 31st, which will air on Spike TV. King Mo, welcome to London Real. Hey, man. Thanks for having me, man. I appreciate it.

5:46 It’s awesome having you here. I want to know, how is London different from the dirty, dirty? And what am I talking about for people that don’t know? The dirty, dirty South or the dirty, dirty Dallas. But, you know, you’re looking at London as it’s cold, you know, the weather.

6:05 But when you look at the people, I feel like you see more diversity here. I like it. People are friendly just like the South people are friendly. But it’s just I feel like you see you feel more real in this here. I don’t know.

6:18 I’ve been here for a week, but it’s hard to explain. I just I see people around here. They’re targeting each other. People are respectful each other. You know, I like it. You know, I like it.

6:28 It’s just don’t like the cold weather. That’s all right. We’ll get that changed. I hope right away. But yeah, I know what you mean.

6:33 Like, I find that when I go to New York City, you know, I’ve been a cab driver and the guys from like Nigeria, but he wants to be American. Everybody wants to be American here. I can hear like 15 different languages. You walk down the street. People are from these kind of things.

6:45 So I guess you’re feeling that. Yes, because, you know, here you can you can assimilate somewhat, but you can keep your culture. But sometimes in America, people don’t like the fact that you don’t assimilate. So that’s why you see people say to like, you know, South Florida, where I stay, people get mad that people speak in Spanish, speak English, speak English, but they’re from a different country. But if they want to speak Spanish, well, sometimes, you know, you have to adapt yourself.

7:10 So you see more and more people in America learning Spanish. I think that, you know, it’s good for people to keep their culture, you know, because that’s what makes, you know, the more the more culture you have, the more ideas you see. And I like the variety as well. Nice. We got to get you back here for a fight.

7:28 Yeah, man. Definitely. And you were training with Chisora, boxing this week, or what were you doing? I got a chance to work out with Chisora and MVP. Oh, you came with MVP as well?

7:37 Yeah, I was moving around, doing some wrestling stuff, some grappling. I actually submitted them. Oh, yeah. You wanted to grapple with me, and we hand-fought and then we did some boxing drills and just some light sparring. Just like light touch sparring.

7:48 Okay. But, man, he’s a, Chisora Delboy is a competitor. Yeah. A hard nose. I like watching him fight.

7:57 He’s what you call a true throwback fighter. I could place him in any era of boxing, and I feel like he’d be successful. Okay, what do you mean by throwback? Throwback are those guys that are hard-nosed. Okay.

8:09 Like, hoist Grace is a throwback fighter. He fought back when there’s no, you know, the rules are different, and there was no weight class. You know, I’m somewhat a throwback fighter, except I’ll fight anybody anywhere, any weight class, but the rules, because I’m used to them. You guys are like Ali. Ali is a throwback fighter.

8:29 Just guys that have the old-school mentality of being tough and just taking care of business. Those are throwback fighters. Okay. And you just said you would fight right here if they got the check. Yeah, you have my check rate.

8:40 I’ll fight somebody. Anybody right here. I’m taking on anybody. And you’re fighting it. You’re fighting it in heavyweight.

8:47 You’re fighting it light heavyweight. You might, who knows? You might fight Fedor. You’re fighting Rampage in heavyweight. And before you fought him at light heavyweight, you don’t mind.

8:55 I don’t care because, to me, size makes a difference, but skills overcome size. And game-playing and tactics, technique, it overcomes size as well. That’s one thing my old wrestling coach, Kevin Jackson, told me. Kevin Jackson, he was a two-time world champion and Olympic champion. Anything he tells me, I believe in.

9:17 Yeah. And you grew up with that wrestling background. And I want to get to that. And I want to get to Rampage Jackson as well at some point. But it’s funny because you’re a guy that’s always training.

9:27 That’s what I heard about you. You don’t have a fight. You’re always training. You’re over here on vacation in London and you’re boxing. Yeah.

9:34 And you’re training with MVP. Was that always something that was just… Is that just Mo? You know what? It’s me, but at the same time, I got that for my mama because my mama, she moved to Nigeria to Kentucky, actually Tennessee, Kentucky, and a single parent.

9:50 She came as a Muslim woman there. And she was like, look, I’m not going to fail my kids. Then I can be stupid. I’m going to instill the values of hard work and enter into them. And she worked hard.

10:02 She put herself through school, all that, by herself, no help. So I saw my mama do it. And I was like, I can’t slack because America’s all about hard work. Hard work is smart work. So I work hard, but at the same time, I work smart.

10:18 And that’s what my mama instilled in me when I was young. What’s that like growing up? Kentucky, Tennessee. This is 30 years ago, right? You got a name like Muhammed, right?

10:28 And you’re Muslim. I mean, that’s crazy. What was it like? Well, the thing is, I was born to Muslim family, but I’m not really practicing. But the thing is, I still respected and I was born as a Muslim.

10:43 Growing up, people looked at me and my mama and they’re like looking at us like we’re crazy. And people would never call me Muhammed. They’d call me Mo. That’s why I went by Mo for so long. Only my close friends called me Muhammed, which is weird.

10:57 But everybody else, the teachers, would call me Mo. I had very few that call me Muhammed, but a lot of them, I’m going to call you Mo. And there’s no O in my name. My name’s spelled M-U-H-A-M-M-E-D, not M-O-H-A. So I just stuck with Mo here and there.

11:16 If you became real cool with me, call me Muhammed. So it was just different, but we had to adapt. Okay, but it was all right. You go through it. Yeah, go through it.

11:27 People, of course, in the South, would try to convert you. They’d be like, why are you in Islam? Why are you a Muslim? You should join Christianity. Come to our church, this and that.

11:41 I just talk to them, be nice to them, but just keep it moving. Okay, because religion’s big down there. Religion’s big. It’s big at the point where it’s sometimes a turnoff to me. Okay.

11:54 All right, people are talking about it, going to church. It’s a big social thing as well in the South, right? It’s a social thing, but it’s the point where I’m never in college. I went to Central Oklahoma State, UCO, and I remember when I sat down at the cafeteria, this dude sat down beside me, and he was talking to me. He’s like, what’s your name?

12:12 My name’s Muhammed. He’s like, oh yeah, you say you’re Muslim? Let me pray for you. And I was like, hold on, hold on. Why are you going to pray for me?

12:20 Because you’re not Christian, and if you want to make it to heaven, you got to keep your life over to the Lord and let Jesus Christ in your heart. And I was like, so just because my name’s Muhammed, you assume that I’m going to hell. And he’s like, well, you’re Muslim. And I was like, all right, well, thank you. And I just kind of just left him in there.

12:40 I didn’t even talk too much. All right, so it’s heavy down there. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it’s heavy. Second to football when it comes to what people do.

12:49 It just goes back and forth, you know what I’m saying, yeah. And for people that don’t understand the dirty dirty, what is the South like, you know? Well, you know, the South is hard to explain, but now the South is kind of tends to be slower, but now it’s growing. Like Dallas is a fast-growing city. Austin, Frisco, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee.

13:12 Then you got South Florida, which I don’t really consider the dirty South, but then you have Mississippi, Alabama, Atlanta’s growing. But it’s weird because you’ll see places that are very progressive, but then you’ll see a majority of, like, places that are just, like, stuck in the 70s, early 80s, if you’re lucky, mid-90s. But time moves real slow down there. Okay, because it’s backwoods, rural, it just moves slow. There’s a lot of backwoods, rural areas, and there’s also some city areas, and I feel like you’ll see some towns all of a sudden turn into a city, and you’ll see some towns just stay small and just be empty pretty much.

13:55 Okay, all right. But the music’s good. The music’s real good, especially the rap down there. You have the thing about the South, the South is strong with culture. Like, if you think of the West Coast, and I say, name you have food from California, you really can’t name nothing.

14:10 Sushi. But that’s really familiar, Japan, you know what I’m saying? Same thing with the East Coast, but you can say Philly cheesesteak. But down south, you got chicken fried steak, cheese grits, you know, you have barbecue. It’s more culture in the South, you know what I’m saying?

14:28 There are things you’ll see in the South and only in the South, and they’ll be duplicated elsewhere, but not nearly as good. Okay, you’ve seen that movie Hustle and Flow. Yeah, Hustle and Flow. Is that a good representation of, say, hip-hop in the South or even living in the South? That’s Memphis, Tennessee.

14:44 I’ve been to Memphis plenty of times. I was just there recently with some of my people out there. Shout out to the Memphis BJJ and the Memphis Power boxing gym, Coach Hall. They got jujitsu out there. Yeah, yeah.

14:56 It’s coming up. But, you know, Hustle and Flow is the story of a guy that can try and make it. And you see this in the industry from a lot of people, you know, they’re trying to hustle and make it, and some people get their breaks, some people don’t. But Hustle and Flow somewhat might have been somewhat accurate because in the rap scene, especially in the South, you have a lot of people that don’t want to see others make it. So they’ll do whatever it takes to pull them down.

15:21 That’s what you saw in Hustle and Flow, you know. It’s somewhat true. Right. And the music is high hats, big bass, nasty rhymes. You know, you got some real rappers, guys like Zero from Houston.

15:37 He’s one of the rappers I listen to and he raps about real stuff. You got Ant Banks from Shreveport, Louisiana, he raps about real stuff. You have rappers that rap about real-life situations. Then you have your trap rap, and they’re the ones that talk about selling drugs and trap houses and that. Then you got your balling rap, the other guys will talk about how rich they are.

16:00 So you have different genres, you know what I’m saying, within the system. What’s your favorite? I like them all, you know, because it depends on how I’m feeling. If I’m just chilling, I’ll listen to Zero or Ant Banks or something like that. If I’m in the mood to get my energy up, I’ll listen to like Delwin the Crazy Man, Max Minnelli or B King, you know what I’m saying, Gator Mane, just different people.

16:23 What’s your walkout song? Walkout song is Don’t Be Scared by Max Minnelli. He’s a rapper from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Baton Rouge has that sound right now. That’s one of the upcoming cities as far as rap music.

16:35 Okay, that’s pretty dirty down there, right? Baton Rouge has great sounds. That’s where guys like Lil Boosie and Webby and Fox and Million and Mouse on the Track. I know you probably haven’t heard of these guys, but Webby and Boosie are big time rappers now. People are writing these down right now.

16:52 I’m gonna watch them later. So wrestling was always big for you as a kid, whether it was professional wrestling at first caught your eye and then that was your thing, right? Yeah. Can you walk me through why? I don’t know why I like pro wrestling so much.

17:09 I remember it was just like a fantasy. I like the combat because I like the Kung Fu Flux I was young. I loved Heathcliff. He’s always fighting. I love pro wrestling because there’s always action involved.

17:20 And the storylines, I didn’t really care much the storylines. I just like the action. I remember Nikita Kowal. I remember Ric Flair. You know, I loved Barry Wyndham.

17:30 Masahiro Charno. I just loved the action. You know, the Midnight Express and Jim Cornett. Sting, I can go on and on, but it’s just the action. I got caught in the storyline.

17:45 Not the storylines, but got caught in the action and believe in the characters. I believe they’re their lifestyle to an extent. And when did you actually start wrestling or wrestling as Rampage calls it? I started wrestling at 16. I started late.

18:00 So late. Yeah, because I was a pro wrestling fan, but I started wrestling late. Because they’re quite different, right? You’re going to high school and you’re thinking, I’m going to break some guy’s head with some chairs and have some fun. And then you go to a wrestling practice.

18:13 Can you remember your first hardcore wrestling practice at 16? You remember what that was like? Yeah, it was it was rough because I didn’t have wrestling shoes. So I had socks. And we had to warm up, do the four rows, back rows, cartwheels, do shots.

18:27 We learned how to learn from the rules. Then we just rested like the coaches like, all right, partner up with groups of four. We’re going to do in and outs. So one guy stays in, three goes, and the fourth person wrestles him, then stays in, and they rotate through. And I was dying.

18:46 My shirt was all ripped up, bloody. Socks were all brown, actually black, because we’re just out there scrapping. We didn’t know what we were doing. But eventually the coach was like, all right, keep on coming. You’ll get better and you’ll get better.

18:59 I kept on coming, qualified for state. And I went to state and I made the placing rounds. But I got eliminated right before the placing rounds. Okay, your first year, which is crazy. Yeah.

19:12 Which is crazy. So I started when I was 17. I went to Torrey Pines High School in San Diego. Before that I was going to like this school down in Southeast San Diego, where I was one of the few white boys. Yeah, yeah.

19:22 Then I went to move my dad, and it was like Beverly Hills 90210. I kid you not, guys were rolling up in like Benzes at like 16 or 17, and I was like, what? So I had no friends, right? And there was this dorky kid in the back of class, and he’s like, yo, Brian, let’s go wrestling. And I had nothing to do.

19:37 And I was a skinny science geek, and I went into wrestling. And man, I still remember those workouts, like two hours on the mats, the hill sprints. And it was like, man, they weren’t asking you if you wanted to do it. It was like, this is what we do. And I went from like a twig to my shoulder.

19:53 I mean, I must have put on 10, 15 pounds of something within a few months, you know? But I remember it as being just, it’s a mentally different sport, isn’t it? Yeah, wrestling is all mental. Actually, competition in a sense is all mental. Because if you have an in you, you have that dog mentality in you, you’ll push through everything and get right.

20:14 If you have any weakness, then most likely you won’t be successful in your wrestling career, or you’ll quit. That’s how it is in competition sports, period. If you’re weak mentally and you doubt yourself, you’ll be losing, or you’ll quit. That’s what happens. You were comparing wrestling and jiu-jitsu earlier, and I thought it was a pretty interesting comparison, because you’ve trained with both kinds of guys.

20:38 How would you explain the two differences when it comes to mentality to other people? Wrestling is more aggressive, more offensive. It’s about breaking your opponent and posing your will on your opponent, making him kind of like mold. You’re going to mold him. You’re like, all right, you’re strong now?

20:55 I’m going to make you weak. You kind of change them. Your thing is you want to break them down, like somebody joined the military. You’re not going to try to build them up, you’re going to try to break them down. Jiu-jitsu is about patience, set-ups, small movements, and giving your opponent a false sense of security.

21:14 You want to build them up to tear them down. You see that all the time? I remember the first time I grappled. I was like, man, I’m muscling them, slamming them, arm bar. I was like, what?

21:25 Fighting it, fighting it. Pop, pop, pop, pop. The guy’s like, hey, I’m going to go. I was like, why? He’s like, don’t worry about it.

21:32 Grappling with my arms kind of sore, slamming them, slamming them. He puts in a heel hook. I didn’t know what it was, so I’m fighting it. I get out of it, but he let me out of it. So then I go back with him a few days later and he’s like, let me show you what I was doing to you.

21:48 And he put me in my other arm, put me in an arm bar. And I was like, he did it slow. And I felt it. And I was like, whoa, tap. I was like, that’s what you’re doing.

21:57 I was like, what about the leg thing? He put me in the heel hook. He did it real slow. I was like, okay. I was like, it makes sense.

22:04 Now I see my knee and my arms sore. I had no idea. Your adrenaline was up. Your adrenaline was up. And when you do it slow, when the person’s calm, they can feel what’s going on.

22:15 Okay, all right. And now you train jiu-jitsu. You know what, I roll around hearing that, but it’s still hard for me to do it because this is so, I’m more aggressive. Yeah, you grew up on the wrestling. Yeah, I grew up on the wrestling too.

22:30 Like the jiu-jitsu, it’s great. I know stuff about it, but it’s just, I don’t really have the patience to go out there and be on my back. I have more of an offensive version of jiu-jitsu, but I use, the ground-up kind of helps me more than anything, you know. I’m not out there to try to submit you. I’m out there to try to get positioned and throw good punches.

22:49 Right, yeah, what you’ve done. Talk to me about wrestling room. I mean, you got all those guys trying to break each other. I mean, some of those must be like pits of hell, right? Yeah.

22:59 How do they teach you to be dominant? How do they teach you not to break? Well, they teach you not to break by making you drill the situation over and over again. They’ll put you, they’ll have you run sprints. And the coach, here’s the thing about the wrestling coaches.

23:12 They’re coaches, but they’re also, they get your mind strong. So they’ll be like, all right, we’re going to do, we’re going to do, just say do 10 sprints. But when you go on your break, we’re going to do unlimited push-ups until, until, for 30 seconds, until, you know, when I say stop, after 30 seconds, you’re going to run back down, run, go back, run down, come back and do more push-ups until I say stop. So pretty much everything they do, they’re doing it to get your mind right.

23:39 You might break, but the coach is like, get up, keep going, keep going, and it motivates you. So eventually, come to time for a match, you felt what it’s like to be tired. You felt what it’s like to be sore and aching and, you know, mouth watering, bleeding. You’ve already experienced that in practice. So you’ve already seen it every day in practice twice a day.

23:58 But when it comes time for competition, you have to composure. So, you know, the coaches prepare you for that. They prepare you for battle. Have you seen guys cry in the wrestling room? Seen guys cry, seen guys throw up, seen guys get in fights, seen guys quit.

24:14 I seen guys do everything. You know, the wrestling room’s like, you know, it’s like the real world, except it’s like Sparta. You know, everybody’s in there. We’re all warriors. And, you know, some guys get emotional.

24:27 Some guys just try to, you know, try to hold, you know, try to stay emotionless. I remember one time when I wrestled Byron Tucker, who’s a national champion from Oklahoma. He beat me so bad. I was crying, but I was sweating so bad, you couldn’t tell I was crying. And that was the worst feeling.

24:49 I’ve never been beat so bad in my life. It was embarrassing because, you know, I was fresh out of high school, went to Norman, Oklahoma, and I ran into him, and I went to the wrestling room early, and I sat there. I was there seven in the morning, sat there for hours, and he shows up. And he’s like… You went looking for him.

25:07 Well, I didn’t know who he was. I heard about him, but, you know, I sat there, and I was like, are you going to work out? And he’s like, yeah, I’m waiting for my partner. He’s not here. I can drill with you.

25:16 So we’re drilling. I’m tired. I’m hot, and we’re drilling. And I’m like, you want to wrestle live? And he’s like, nah, you’re kind of green, but when I feel like you’re ready, you’re going to wrestle live.

25:26 So we went, we drilled and wrestled, and we drilled pretty much for about a month. And finally, one day, he’s like, Mo, I feel like you’re ready to wrestle live. And I was like, it’s my shot. It’s my chance to show the world that I’m somebody. And Byron, mind you, I weighed 190-something pounds.

25:44 He was 170 pounds. Byron beat me so bad. Never been, I was embarrassed. I was afraid to come back the next day, because I was like, he might think less of me. But come to find out, they’re like, Mo, you did a great job at Byron.

25:57 I was like, what do you mean? He’s like, well, you touched his legs. I was like, what you mean I touched his legs? He’s like, Mo, he isn’t going to be a takedown in the wrestling room for two years. And I was like, okay, now I know.

26:08 And he beat me up like that for maybe three years. And him helping me made me the wrestler I was. I was lucky to be helped by a lot of people through my wrestling career. They say steel, sharpened steel, right? Yeah.

26:24 Can you explain what fighters mean by that? Well, you know, what they mean by steel, sharpened steel is when you get hard, it’s like diamonds. You get two diamonds together, then you bash them together. They’re not going to break, but they end up getting tougher in a sense. Not really, but things like you get them tougher by just the impact.

26:47 You hit them, they heal. Hit them and heal. It’s like shins. Like when you’re training, when you’re doing more time and you condition your shins, you kick things that are hard to strengthen them. And in the wrestling room, everybody’s hard.

27:00 So all we’re doing is trying to get each other tougher. And more than anything, not physically, but it’s more mental. You know, physically, you can only do so much, but your body can be pushed mentally. And that’s what it’s all about? It’s all about mental toughness.

27:15 You look at Iowa, the Iowa Wrestling Program, they historically have a great program, but they recruit hard workers. They all recruit the best athletes. They recruit guys that they can know that will be competent and be reliable mentally. So they get those guys that are mentally tough and make them even more mentally tough. So you’ll see guys from Iowa will be down like nine points and come back with will and sheer conditioning and mental toughness and come back and win the match.

27:44 Wow. And that’s what they’re known for because they teach these guys that mental toughness. They try to bring you in to break you down and build you back up. And you went to Oklahoma specifically because they’re one of the best wrestling schools. Well, I went to Central Oklahoma because out of high school, I was really known.

27:59 You know, I had no credentials. I was a state champion, but I went to high school nationals and went two and two, or three and two, no one really knew who I was. And the coach at Central Oklahoma was like, I heard about you. I want to give you a visitation and see if you like the school and then we’ll talk from there. So I went up there with my mama and I was like, okay, I think they might offer me a scholarship.

28:20 I’ll sign right now. But I didn’t know you have to wait. You know what I’m saying? So I went up there and I met everybody. I was like, okay, this is all I want to come to.

28:28 I went home, signed the paper later in the tent, went to Central Oklahoma, and then right after my last day of high school, I paid and got $20 to take me to Oklahoma to my cousin’s house, and I was going to start training with the University of Oklahoma, which is a D1 school because Central Oklahoma is D2. But I trained at the University of Oklahoma for the whole summer. That’s how I ran the Byron Tucker. And then from there, I went to college at the D2 school.

28:55 That’s like three minutes away. And you kept training with Byron anyways. Kept training with Byron. And there are times I’d wake up with weights, do the workouts for the team, go train with Byron, pay somebody to take me to Norman, Oklahoma, train with Byron. Then I’d drive back for our practice.

29:14 I was doing three days, four days, and it all paid off because as a true freshman, I was a starting lineup. I made a starting lineup, qualified for nationals, almost placed, but I didn’t. The next year I came back, I was wrecking the shop. I was one of the top wrestlers in the nation. I took second.

29:37 In the third year, I was still training with Byron at this time. The third year, I was the number one wrestler in the nation, one of the top out of all the visions. You know, I was like, had one of the nation takedowns. I was like, I found who I was. But I owe that to Byron and a lot of other coaches, Edward Lorne, Jodie Marple, Coach David James, Sean Bateman.

29:58 There’s a lot of people that help me out. I can’t take credit for what I’ve done. Because you were considered the best in the country at 84 kgs, whatever that is in pounds. Yeah, I went to freestyle. So after Oklahoma State, I’m an all-American there.

30:11 Then I went to freestyle, and Russell Kale Sanderson, who was the Olympic champion, but I gave him a good match. He beat me. He went on the rivers in the United States and the Olympics, and I came back the next year on fire. I beat a guy who I could never beat named Lee Fullheart, and I made the team. I beat a lot of guys in the United States.

30:31 Went to world championships, and I was facing a guy named Sajid Sajidov from Dagestan. He wrestled from Russia. And I was beating him, and they gave him one point controversially. It was a weird call. They gave him a passivity point with like two seconds left in the match, and I was eliminated from the tournament.

30:52 And then I let that fuel me, and from then on, I was on fire. I was winning all these tournaments, defeating all these people, and that was it pretty much right there. You mentioned that when Byron beat you that day, you didn’t want to go back the next day, but you ended up going back for three years. How did you make yourself go back? I just thought I couldn’t quit, and I didn’t want to break.

31:14 So I just went back and took my butt whooping like a man. Sometimes losses can be good for you. Getting beat can be good for you. As an athlete, when I win, I don’t celebrate. When I win fights, it’s supposed to be one-five celebrated then.

31:32 After I fought Gary Wissase, and that’s because they paid me to make an appearance at the club, and I was there for 30 minutes and I left. When I win, I just sit in the room, order room service, and watch TV because I’m used to winning. When I lose, I stay active. I go out and get something to eat, mingle with my friends because I’m learning. A loss, you lose because you made a mistake, or you were making a mistake that you didn’t know you were making, and someone capitalized on it.

32:00 I looked at Byron like, okay, he’s beating me because I’m not good enough and I’m making mistakes, so if I can correct these mistakes, I can beat him. I just kept on trying to improve and kept on trying to evolve over and over again. And so on losses, you get social and walk around. Is that hard? No, because the thing is, when I lose, I’m like, okay, and a lot of times I know what mistake I made.

32:23 I’m like, uh, but then when you know what mistake you made, you see other mistakes you made, so you go back and correct it all. Even when I fight Crow Cop, I saw the highlight on the screen. I saw what happened and I knew. I haven’t watched that fight. I just knew.

32:38 I made a mistake right there. And then I started thinking about the fight, and I’m like, okay, and I watched clips of the fight, and I was like, mm-hmm, I should do more jabs, do more right hands to the body, left hook up in there. With the body kick, I should have followed it up, you know, and I know my mistakes, so I’m always trying to pick up on things. Okay, and it doesn’t bother you because it’s not an ego thing for you. It’s a learning thing.

33:00 It’s a learning thing. Like I said earlier, the moment you stop learning is the moment you start losing. And you see that in fighters all the time that don’t evolve? Seen fighters all the time in all sports. And not just fighters all sports.

33:13 If you don’t make any changes, like, you know, unless you’re like Usain Bolt, who’s like just a phenom, you know, like, you’re gonna lose. But I’m pretty sure he’s made some changes because he’s lost to guys like Johan Blake and I think he lost to Justin Gatlin. He’s lost a few times, you know, but not many. But I’m pretty sure when he lost, he’s like, okay, let me make these adjustments. You have to make adjustments when you lose.

33:38 If you don’t, you’re gonna keep on losing in the same way, you know what I’m saying, in the same fashion. You’re at the top of your game, one of the best wrestlers in the country. You’re getting better, you’re getting better. But for wrestlers, there’s like one end game, which is the Olympics, right? Yeah.

33:52 That’s pretty much the only end game. So 0-8, you try out and that’s your shot, right? Yeah. Man, it was tough. 0-8, I was the man.

34:01 You know, I’m the number one guy probably in the world. I win nationals, come to the trials. A guy named Andy Rovak, who’s beaten before, we’re wrestling. You know, I thought I beat him. You know, the first match, I beat him.

34:18 It’s the best 2 out of 3. Second match, he gets me even though it’s kind of controversial. The third match, I think he beat me in the third match, but he should never win since the third. But, you know, he went on to represent the United States and I was in the alternate. And then I watched the Olympics.

34:34 The guy that I beat, Reavis Mendersvili from the Republic of Georgia, I beat him handily, you know, in Azerbaijan earlier. And I see him, what I’m happy for, he’s a great guy. I’m happy for him. And then I see the guy from Ukraine, Taras Danko, and I beat him before. And then I see, even a weight class above, because you know, I’m a money away, I jump around.

34:57 I beat a guy at 96 kilos, I think from Turkey. He met a little, at 96 kilos took bronze. And I might lick myself like, if I wanted to just, if I wanted to handle business the right way, that could be me winning gold or possibly a medal. But it fueled me and helped me carry over my ambition and my drive to MMA. Did it hurt, watching all that?

35:23 It hurt, but at the same time, I was like, you know what, it is what it is, you know, I can’t dwell in the past, it hurt, but could have, would have, should have, I didn’t. So now it’s time to move on to anybody. Daniel Cormier had, you know, an experience with the Olympics. He had a hard time cutting weight and, you know, blah, blah, blah. But he always says, maybe that’s a good thing.

35:46 He didn’t get that qualification. I think Randy Kutcher said the same thing. There’s guys that built careers out of not winning on the Olympics. What do you make of that? Well, it’s true because sometimes, like, some people get complacent and like, you know, I went through, after winning the Olympics, like, you know what, I’m going to go coach or I’m going to sit back, I’m not going to do it, but then there are guys that don’t accomplish their goals.

36:08 Like, you know what, I got to find another way to accomplish, to get back on top. And they’ll look at MMA and be like, you know what, MMA is it. I’m going to go out there and fight. I’m going to show that I’m still a true champion. Right.

36:21 And they go to MMA and they go out there, MMA with a chip in their shoulder and they go out there, they wreck shop. Like, Daniel Cormier’s doing, like, your well-run mural, Ben Askren, Henry Sujuto. There are a lot of people out there that are successful wrestlers that crossed over to MMA and they’re doing their thing right now. Yeah, and you could argue with Ronda Rousey, her getting that bronze, put that big chip on her shoulder. Ronda Rousey too, you know, I forgot to mention Ronda.

36:46 Ronda crossed over and when she crossed over, she crossed over in a big way. Yeah. You know, she created, she helped create a move, actually not create a movement, but she helped spur and like, you know, create a snowball with the women’s empowerment movement. Now, Ronda Rousey. You were in strike force with her, right?

37:06 Yeah. Did you know she was going to be big? I heard about her and I saw what she was doing. I was like, I was like, you know what, she has star quality, she’s well spoken, she has skills, and I was like, she could be big. Okay.

37:19 Now, did you go into MMA with that vengeance after missing the Olympics? Oh, definitely. I went to MMA thinking like, okay, it’s time for me to take care of business. I’m not holding back, let’s do it. Because I was broke too, so I need the money.

37:33 So I was like, let’s do it. I started training for about six weeks. My manager gets a call from Japan and he’s like, hey, Roger Gracie, Roger Gracie was hurt. He’s supposed to fight Travis View in Japan and for Sengoku. Do you have anybody that can take his place?

37:50 And he’s like, yeah, I have a guy named Mahama Lawal. It’s Ryan Parsley, he’s my old manager. He’s like, Mahama Lawal can take his spot, he goes by King Mo. And they’re like, okay, what’s his background? He’s like, he’s a wrestler.

38:02 I’m like, fine, cool. We’ll send you paperwork, go to Japan, you know, get your visa, not Japan, go to LA, you can get your visa and went in there, you know what I’m saying? So I went there early in the morning, got my visa, got everything taken care of, and then literally about a week later, we couldn’t afford it, we flew to Japan in a fight, co-main event. I had no idea. It was a heavy weight.

38:26 I thought, because I heard Travis View is a heavy weight, and that would be fight 205 as well. So I get there, and I’m like, no, I’m fighting Travis. Where’s he at? I was like, oh, he’s big. A heavy weight, right?

38:39 Like, yeah. I was like, so what about order am I? Am I the first fight? Because I’m like, I’m nobody. They’re like, no, you’re the co-main event.

38:47 And I’m like, the co-main event? I’m like, oh, okay. Well, cool. What’s the game plan? Here’s the game plan, blah, blah, blah.

38:54 All right. Can you talk to somebody about getting me some girls to walk out with me a crown and, you know, a robe and some other stuff for an umbrella and they’re like, all right, we’ll do it for you. We did it. Well, I have to ask now, you’re known for your walkouts. Yeah, yeah.

39:09 You got the girls. They’re holding the umbrella. You got the crown. You got the gold. Where did all this come from?

39:15 Well, all this came from like, you know, Rick Flair is a big influence because he had the robe and he had the girls. And then I saw this mafia documentary with this guy, the FBI is trying to watch him and they’re like, they’re trying to watch him and trying to like, you know, catch up on him and tap the phone and everything. And he knows what’s going on. So what he did was he’d go outside in a row and he had the guy with the umbrella walking over him so they couldn’t really get a clear picture of him.

39:43 Okay. So I was like, you know, I like that. I like that. I was like, okay, I’m going to add that to it too. And it was, you know, it was a good experience.

39:53 Matt Little was there, cornering me. That was the first time that Josh Barnett wrapped my hands. Okay. You know, the first, the first punch I landed did this to my knuckles. Did that’s your knuckles?

40:04 Yeah. So that’s that middle knuckle that’s all big? Yeah, it’s all big. And I remember I was like, hey. Is that tattooed on your fingers?

40:11 F y’all. F y’all? Yeah. Okay, that’s all good. But I remember I was talking to them and I’m like, look, actually, you know, when I was getting the ring I gave them all hugs.

40:21 I was like, hey man, forget the game plan. I’m going to just go out there and be like, Mo. I was like, no, I’m just going to go out there and fight. Forget I’m here. I’m out there.

40:32 I didn’t, I wasn’t, I wasn’t really trying to take the guy down. I was trying to scare him because I was going to try to knock him out. I was like, look, this guy’s big. I’m going to try to get him out of there. And, you know, luckily I just landed a Superman punch, took him down, pounded him out, TKO, first round stoppage.

40:48 And then from there on, you just had to keep on going strong. Man, did you box before that? Uh, a little bit like years ago, like just for cross training. But then I really box seriously for six weeks leading up to that fight. And my boxing was terrible, you know, but the thing is I landed a few good shots.

41:05 But, I was just kind of, you know, when I took the fight, my boxing coach was kind of nervous. He’s like, hey man, why are you, you know, you’re kind of feeding, you know, sending modes to wolves. Because you’re fighting a guy, Travis View at the time was 54 wins, 10 losses, I was riding a 10th fight win streak. And I’m making my debut versus someone like that. So, like then, you know, my boxing coach was like, hey, just a fortune.

41:31 He was like, hey, it’s kind of crazy if you take this fight, but, you know, do what you got to do. And I did it. And it’s in Japan and probably in front of a lot of fans as well, right? It was big, because, you know, I didn’t think that it was going to be that big. But when I get there, there’s a lot of people there.

41:48 We’re in the Saitama Arena. And it was big. It was over 10,000 people there. Probably about 14,000 people there. It was big.

41:57 And that was your kickoff with MMA? My kickoff with MMA. You know, it was fun. But at the same time, I look back, maybe I should have took like a softer touch. Because once you get moved that fast, ain’t no going back.

42:15 You have to keep moving. So, I fought Travis Yu, who was 54 and 10. And I was making my poor debut. And my next fight was against, I think, Fabio Silva, who was like 13 and 5, who was like experienced. And then I was fighting another guy, Yukia Naito, and then Karl Moore.

42:32 And all these guys had so much more experience than me. Like, you know, once you fight, once you have success as a guy that is more experienced, you can’t go back and be like, you know what? Now, since I beat this guy, I’m going to fight guys who want to know. It doesn’t work like that. So you kind of wish maybe you could have had a year or two to get your base.

42:49 You know, you know, you get a year or two, but, you know, you see guys like Tyron Woodley, like he did it the right way. He fights an amateur. People don’t know this. You know, he fights an amateur for a while. Because he was fighting as an amateur in 2005 while I was still wrestling.

43:04 They made his pro debut, I think, with Strike Force, eventually like two or three years later. So, he was already seasoned. Me and Dan Cormier didn’t do that. We kind of just jumped in there and just was like, all right, we’re fighting. And that was a completely different MMA landscape than today.

43:20 Way, way different. Can you even recognize today’s MMA landscape? We’re there. There’s an event. I mean, I remember back in 2002, UFC came to England, and I would wait every three months for like a pride bout.

43:31 And then I couldn’t watch it live. You’d have to read about it on SureDog or something. And I was literally like, Jonesing for something. I’d watch all the old tapes and stuff like that. I mean, these days there’s basically a fight every weekend, pretty much, right?

43:44 Yeah. You got, you know, superstars with crazy things happening, whether it’s McGregor or Ronda and that kind of thing. What do you make of all that? I think that it’s good and bad. It’s good because, you know, there’s more money to make, but it’s bad because it’s oversaturated.

44:02 And the product to me, in some ways, has gone down. It went strike force. Strike force is to have a show a month. And those shows were good shows. And the UFC used to have a show a month or a show every three months back in the day.

44:19 And they’re great shows. Now it’s like, UFC won 5,022. You know, even Bellator has a lot of shows, you know. But Bellator, you know, I feel like they try to stack the cards and the smaller, you could tell when the smaller cards are because they’ll be like in at Thackerville, Oklahoma or another place, but they still try to build them. That’s why we look at what Bellator is doing.

44:42 We have a 10-pole event, which is like, we have the big screen. We have this, we have that, and the bigger venues. And then we have just the normal military events where they’re stacked cards, good cards, but a lot of people on the cards are up and comers. And they’re trying to build these guys to make it to 10-pole events. Okay.

45:00 If you could turn the clock back six, seven years, what would you do different? Probably nothing. Because, you know, it is where it is, you know. I’ve been in this game for eight years. Now, actually, one thing I would have done different is I would have, my injuries, so I had a lot of injuries, had five ACL procedures.

45:20 After the first ACL surgery, I went back and took, you know, been more, I’ve been more diligent with my rehab and been more on top of it because after my first ACL surgery, came back and fought literally about three or four months later. Okay, and that’s in nine months you got to give yourself. Yeah, nine to 10 months, maybe a year. Okay. Yeah.

45:42 And that’s typical of wrestlers, ACL problems, right? Yeah, typical. Yeah, it’s just knee and knee problems, back problems, neck problems, but I would stick with the wrestler knee. Okay, all right. Donald Cerrone, Catboy Cerrone once said that every time he’s walking out to the ring, he says to himself, what the fuck am I doing?

46:00 As in, I can’t believe I’m doing this again, but he still does it. How do you feel when you’re walking out to the ring? When I’m walking out to the ring, I’m like, you know what? Showtime. Showtime.

46:12 It’s time to have fun. Because I don’t feel like MMA is that stressful. The only stressful part about it is like when you’re waiting in the locker room, you’re like, come on, I’m going to fight, man. I’m going to fight them. Do I got to get warmed up again?

46:24 But other than that, like when it’s time to go to the cage, time to go to the cage. What’s stressful is when you go into a different country and you have to win to get paid. And then, you know, he had judges, referees that are from that country and you’re a wrestling, a facing guy from that country, and you never even get cheated. That’s stressful, you know. You’re talking about the wrestling days.

46:48 Wrestling was far more stressful. Like winning nationals, you can get to wrestle four to five matches to win nationals and to make $1,500. Where now, I’m going to the cage, and I already, I know I’m making money. I got sponsors. I know I’m going to get checked for this sponsor, this sponsor, that sponsor, or one sponsor to send me product.

47:06 I know I’m going to get paid, you know, because I signed the battle agreement. You know, it’s different, man. Like, you know, the money is night and day difference from the money in wrestling and in MMA. Okay. And since you put all of those hard sessions in in Oklahoma and all that stuff, this is not stressful.

47:23 No, it’s just, it’s time to go. It’s playtime. Joe Rogan said wrestling is by far the best practice for any MMA athlete because of the relentless grind. And it just teaches you more than anything else. You agree with that?

47:39 I feel like wrestling is probably the best thing. Combat sports is probably the best thing, not just wrestling. Combat sports is probably the best thing for anybody because it teaches the grind. It teaches you how to be dedicated, repetition, be consistent. You know, it teaches you a lot of different things because these things that you learn from the combat sports, wrestling, boxing, you can carry it over to real life and help you become successful as a person.

48:07 You train at Mayweather’s gym in Vegas. Yeah. Have you seen them preparing for Conor McGregor? Uh, man. What’d you read on this?

48:16 I’m going to take it serious because I’ve sparred with some of the best boxers in the world and I’ve been played with, I’ve been embarrassed, Alan Green, who’s smaller than me, Louis Ortiz from Cuba, the heavyweight champion, Brian Jennings, Trevor Bryan, Eddie Chambers, you know, Brian Vera, I’ve sparred with a guy like Tabiti, Michael Hunter. These guys are phenomenal boxers and they play with me. They’re embarrassed. You can watch it on YouTube. It’s a joke.

48:45 But Conor, he’s a competitor, but he’s in a different world, boxing is a different world. Just like if Floyd, if I was to say Floyd, go do MMA and he went to MMA, Conor would look like Royce Gracie or, you know, Hoyle Gracie or, you know, Hixon Gracie. He’d go out there, take him down, submit them, or he’d look like a phenomenal kickboxer because he’d kick him in the head. It’s different worlds. You can’t take, you can try for entertainment, but do you take a boxer and put him in the MMA world?

49:14 For the most part, he’s going to fail. If he just does, comes with one discipline. If you take a MMA fighter that’s been in the boxing, he’s probably going to fail because he’s not specialized in that one discipline. So it’s night and day. It’s a great crossover event because people will pay to watch it, but as far as like it being competitive, it ain’t going to be competitive at all.

49:35 Either way, you put Floyd and MMA versus Conor, destruction. You bring Conor to boxing versus Floyd, destruction. Is it fight going to happen? I don’t know who knows, you know. I watch it on Facebook live, you know.

49:52 I ain’t watching things that are competitive and I wouldn’t watch Floyd fight anybody at MMA and I wouldn’t watch Conor boxing anybody unless they’re on the same level. Okay. I heard they might want to use like MMA gloves and boxing rules. Does that make any sense? How would you equalize that fight?

50:09 In boxing, you can’t. Because even if they use MMA gloves, Floyd’s defense is so sharp and he’s four steps ahead of Conor, you know. I don’t see what he can do to win unless he threw a head kick and got disqualified. One from that, but there’s no way. Some of the best boxers in the world can even test Floyd more than eight times around.

50:37 You look at Canelo, you look at Grumpa Grille, the late Janara Hernandez, Sugar Shamp Mosley, Delahoya. They couldn’t do nothing. Pacquiao couldn’t do nothing, you know. What could Conor do? They say there’s so much money on the line for this fight that might get three million pay-per-views that it has to happen.

50:55 I don’t know if that’s actually true, but they keep saying. Well, I think three million pay-per-views, I don’t know. Who knows? It could possibly do well, but one thing I do know is the pay-per-view model is dying. You know, people aren’t really willing to buy pay-per-views no more.

51:12 You know, I don’t know what they could do to hype the fighter because if they show Conor boxing, then people that follow boxing will be like, hey, this fight’s a joke, look what he’s doing. That’d be kind of similar if you put Floyd in MMA trainer and we watch him train and we’re like, I’m an MMA guy and you’re an MMA guy, and we’re like, whoa, look at that kick. Look at that takedown. Oh, man, whoever Floyd’s fighting is going to kill him in MMA. You know, that’s how it’s going to be.

51:43 It’s going to be hard for anybody in the media, especially in the boxing media, to build that fight up. Like, it’s a joke in a sense. Like, I want them both to make money, so it happens, great for them, but in the boxing circles, the fight’s a joke. Right. What about Conor McGregor?

51:59 As a phenomenon, you’ve seen him come up. You know, we’ve seen him just come from the fight organizations here, Cage Warriors, I think it was, and then come up. Did you see this coming? You know, you mentioned personality goes a long way, but of course you have to back it up. What’s your take on it?

52:14 It always happens, you know. If you think about it, he ain’t the first one to be like that. It’s happened many a time. We can go back, if you want to go back. The thing with his horse, Gracie, came through.

52:26 No one knew who he was. Then he had Vitor Belfort. Remember when he came? I don’t know. B.J. Penn.

52:32 Yeah. The prodigy. Then you got Igor Vachachin. Yeah, pride fight. Then he had Noguera.

52:39 He had Fedor and Anson Silva. Things like this happen. You know, then Ronda Rousey, things like this happen, but it always comes to an end eventually because someone else bigger in battle will come in and stop that. It’s just, you know, I think what he’s doing is great. He has a whole crunch behind him that backs him, that’s even bigger than what he’s doing.

52:59 And, you know, now I don’t know if he’s going to fight Habib because Habib is a problem. Tony Ferguson is a problem. But now he’s trying to fight Floyd. So, you know, who knows what’s going to happen, you know. I think what he does, you know, it’s great, remarkable.

53:15 But, you know, you see it happen a lot. But we just kind of forget about it. Because Jose Aldo, remember when he came? Oh, man, Jose Aldo. And he’s a great fighter.

53:26 But we kind of take everything for granted because for some reason MMA looking for the next big thing. You know, we’re always looking to crown somebody the greatest of all time when it’s going to take time to do that. You know, MMA’s still growing. Let the people in the future predict who the greatest of all time is. He’s kind of bigger than the UFC.

53:48 I don’t think any man’s bigger than any organization. You know, because it’s like this. If they wanted to crush him, an organization can crush a fighter by putting him, by matching him up with the wrong styles. Like, I’m going to be real with you. Habib, people don’t know, Habib is a beast.

54:06 He’s a monster. How do you train with him? I haven’t trained with him, but I saw him fight the Iranian. I forgot his name. It was I think it was Fight Night.

54:16 One of the Fight Nights. And he took him, you know, this guy Kamal shawroos. Kamal shawroos was supposed to be the wrestler. But when I saw Habib’s name, Nermegan Medav, I was like, okay, he’s from Dagestan, Mahashkala probably. I was like, y’all watch this Habib.

54:32 Nermegan Medav is going to beat Kamal. He went out there, handled him, beat him up, took him down, rear neck and choke. So I knew his coach Marat. And I was like, Marat, you know, tell Habib to come to AKA. We’ll take care of him.

54:47 And eventually he had a big fight coming up. He came to AKA. And when he went there, people were like, dude, this guy is a beast. And look at him now. He’s a monster.

54:58 He’s a problem. He can wrestle. If he locks his hand, you’re going down. If you’re in your back, you’re not getting up to your feet. He has a great gas tank, big and strong.

55:09 You know, he’s undefeated, man. 25 and 0, I believe. He’s a problem. And, you know, Connor, I honestly feel like Connor, you know, he can fight. He’s a sharpshooter.

55:20 But Habib is, I feel like, a bad matchup for him stylistically. Okay. And you think UFC kept him away. Well, it’s like this. It’s going to sound bad, but it’s about marketing.

55:33 Habib has a big fall in Russia. But look at his name. You know, Habib never met a man. It’s going to be hard to push that. So people, they can’t relate to it.

55:42 It’s easier for people to relate to Connor because, you know, or people, you know, the Irish, the fighting, you know, the fighting Irish, Mickey Ward, they look at him like, oh, you realize people in America are like, oh, I’m part Irish. Oh, yeah. On St. Patrick’s Day, everybody’s part Irish. Maybe you’re part Irish.

56:03 Mick Lawal. But the only thing bigger than, they’d be bigger than Connor would be an Italian. Think about this. And I say this all the time. Who’s the most popular, one of the most popular athletes of all time?

56:16 Is it Rocky? Yep. Rocky Balboa. They can make Rocky Balboa by a Swedish guy, Rocky Gustafsson and something like that. But they chose Balboa because, you know, the Italians and the Irish have fighting, they have a strong fighting culture, you know.

56:33 An immigrant culture. Yeah, and it came to America from boxing. Boxing helped build this phenom. You know what I’m saying? You look at Jerry Cooney.

56:43 You look at Jack Dempsey was Irish, part Irish. You see a lot of guys, they’re Irish. Then you look at Italians like, you know, Turo Gotti, Marciano, Graciano. Guys like, you know, they helped build the Irish following through boxing. And it carried over to MMA as well.

56:59 Okay. So it’s marketing. UFC’s betting on someone they know that can sell a ton of tickets. And that name doesn’t end in off. Or it might get about off or something like that.

57:09 But I think now they’re trying to see that, okay, we can do this guy because he has a strong following in Russia. And I think that, like, you can’t, the guy’s been like, what, I think it’s 8 or 9-0 in the UFC. Yeah. And none of this fight’s been close. So I’m like, he should have had a tower shot years ago.

57:26 He ran the injuries, messed it up, but literally he should have been fighting a while ago. You trained in Dagestan. Why are they so tough over there? Man, it’s like Sparta. All you see is wrestling gyms, boxing gyms, kickboxing gyms.

57:42 And mosques. Sambo gyms, and mosques. Yeah, and everyone there is just there to, it’s, you know, he lived a rough life there. And the people that make it out there are the toughest, you know. And it’s just, I don’t know.

57:55 I just saw it in wrestling. Like, they’re explosive, they’re strong. It’s just a mindset. And they’re hard-nosed. They don’t care.

58:02 Whatever it takes to make it, they’ll do. And you look at Habib, you look how he fights. He’s not giving you nothing. Yeah. It sounds like Iowa.

58:10 It’s like a mindset over there. Exactly. It’s a mindset. Right. It’s like, and they’re replicating people with that mindset.

58:15 So when you get in with that culture, they crank out people just like you. And the thing is, we have guys from Ossetia and Dagestan and even Chechnya. And just that region right there, those guys are natural-born fighters. And they come, like, they’re like, okay, I’m in America. It’s my time to shine.

58:34 I’m not taking those shortcuts. I’m here to work. I’m here to show that I have skills. And, boy, when you see somebody with the, you know, with the Russian name from that region, you’re like, you’re watching them to see what they got. Right.

58:49 You mentioned content before. UFC. It was sold three, six months ago. What’s going to change by that organization? You never fought in that organization.

58:58 Did you ever want to? Well, my whole goal, I never said I want to be a UFC champion. I said I want to be a champion and get paid. And that’s what I’m doing, you know. With the UFC, what you’re seeing with them is like, you know, I’ve seen that they’ve disbanded a few, like a few, the Brazilian office is gone, and the Asian office is gone.

59:20 So I don’t know what they’re doing, but I think maybe they’re going to try to focus on America, what’s going on in America, and then branch out to, you know, do stuff that shows in like locally, more local shows like in America, maybe a few here in Europe, and they’re going to try to rebrand themselves, I think. Okay. What’s the difference between Scott Coker and Dana White? I had Scott in here about three months ago. Yeah, I honestly had a really deep conversation, man, talking about his martial arts backgrounds and everything he did for Strike Force, but what’s the difference between those two?

59:49 Okay, I’m going to ask you a quick question before I answer that question. Yeah. If you want, who do you think has more interviews? Coker or Dana? Probably Dana.

59:57 Okay. Who do you think is more recognized? Dana. Okay. Now, I like, I compare those two, like, you know, you look at, you had the West Coast, Suge Knight.

1:00:10 You had the East Coast. Didi. He didi. Puffy Combs. Back in the 90s.

1:00:16 Right, back in the 90s. In the East Coast versus West Coast battle. Yeah. I remember the Source Awards. I think Tupac won the award and was like, you know, we did a speech at Suge Knight.

1:00:27 It was like, if you want to come, if you’re a rapper and you’re from New York and you want to come and be successful, you know, come to Death Row. You know, I’ll let you shine. I won’t be all in the videos dancing beside you, taking your girls, you know, I won’t be doing this. If you look at the difference between Koker and Dana White, Scott Koker is more like behind the scenes. He doesn’t have to, he won’t do things unless he has to, like, as far as media.

1:00:54 He pushes the fighters out there. Now, Dana White takes things like, you know, he’s like, all right, he’s the point where he’s a star, just off of what he’s done. And I think he kind of likes the limelight. He speaks on things like Koker will, but Koker is kind of like nonchalant about it, like kind of quiet about it, but Dana White will jump into things, speak on things, just make sure he’s seen. Like, you’ll see some fights, you’ll see some Bellator fights, and you’ll always see Koker.

1:01:22 He’ll see him briefly, but with Dana, you’ll see him like with the microphone and he makes himself seen, you know what I’m saying, and that’s helped him a lot and helped build the brand in the UFC, because for a while, the face of the UFC was Dana, so I think that like, you know, he has to be out there for now, until things get changed, but you look at the difference. Koker’s fight is first, and you know, push the fires to be the face, where Dana White, he was the face by default, and now he’s trying to push fires out there, but he’s pretty much still the face, in a sense. Right.

1:01:58 Of course, Suge Knight got convicted of murder. I used to watch this movie called The Smashing Machine, back in the day, all about Mark Kerr and Pride and all that stuff. I’m sure you watched that movie. I haven’t watched it, but I heard about it. That and Choke were like the old school ones with Hicks and Gracie.

1:02:14 You fought Mark Kerr. Was that strange, fighting the guy coming near the end of his career? It wasn’t strange, because it’s what you signed up for. If you’re a fighter, you know, hey, it’s a chance of you getting the ass booked, you know what I’m saying, so I felt bad, because I met him, he’s a nice guy, and it was weird, because a lot of my coaches from wrestling used to wrestle with him, and they knew him. And I heard about his stuff in The Smashing Machine, how he was addicted to opiates and stuff like that, and, you know, it was part of the game, man.

1:02:48 You know, I can’t feel sorry for him, because, you know, there are a lot more people out there in this situation, if not worse. Yeah. I had Jaco Willink sitting in that chair about nine months ago. I’m still recovering from it, but actually, it’s really funny. We had a good time, but he mentioned he rolls with you, and he gave you a shout-out on his podcast recently, and he was like, yeah, it was pretty tough, and he was talking about your takedown.

1:03:12 He was talking about a takedown that you did on him, where he blinked and he didn’t know what happened, and you took him down, and his chest was hit really quick. What’s it like to roll with Jaco? What’s Jaco like? Man, Jaco, boy, is strong. He’s strong, he’s intense, he don’t stop, he won’t give up.

1:03:31 Like, oh man, I remember one time, he had me in the Kamora, but I was in the top position, and my arm was cranking. I was like, I’m not giving up. I was like, how much time was left? There was like 20 seconds. He was like, forget the time, and I was like, oh, and luckily, my coach at the time was like, all right, break, break, we’re going to do something else.

1:03:53 But he’s a carer, he’s the type of guy, he’ll go. Like, I guarantee, if we were here in the room, and I was like, hey, you want to roll? No clock. No clock. He’s intense, he’s all about, he has that wrestler’s mentality.

1:04:08 Like, hey, I’m not going to break you. You’re not going to break me, I’m going to break you. I’m going to keep on going until you quit. I’m going to impose my will on you until you quit. This ain’t going to be easy.

1:04:20 Now, if you want to give it up, the easy way you can, but I’m going to make you pay for it. And that’s how he is. And Jaco, I learned a lot from him, just mentality-wise. He’s 10 years older than you. Yeah, but he don’t act like you.

1:04:35 And he trains with Dean Lister down in San Diego at my hometown. You know Dean for a long time, right? Yeah, yeah, that’s my boy, Dean. He’s a good guy, man. He taught me a lot.

1:04:44 There are times if I need help with anything, I’ll text him, and he’ll just, we’ll go back and forth, they’ll show me, talk me through some techniques. Wow. That’s wild. Talk to me about Michael Venom Page. You spent some time with him here.

1:04:56 I’ve interviewed him. Were you over at Shoot Fight, Jim? Here? Were you training where he trains? Nah, I went there to see him, and we went to Sisora’s boxing gym.

1:05:05 Okay, gotcha. So he’s been on the show, and then I saw him fight Cyborg when he cracked his skull. And we were talking right when we walked in here, you were like, what’d that sound like? And man, I’ve been to a lot of fights. I’ve never heard that.

1:05:17 It was like this really high-pitched pop. I’ve never heard anything like it, you know? And it made sense afterwards to see what happened. What do you think of MPP? Wait, so high-pitched pop, so it’s not like a light bulb crack.

1:05:29 Yeah, I guess that’s it, right? Because it was some kind of a spherical structure, maybe. Oh, wow, that’s painful. Right? Yeah, sounds nasty, man.

1:05:38 Never saw anything like that. What’d you think of that fight and MPP? Okay, that fight, MPP, he’s phenomenal because I didn’t know he was going for that move the whole time, but I saw him go for it a few times, and I was like, uh, obviously he sees something, but when he landed, I was like, okay. I went backwards to the fight. I was like, okay, he went for that move, like, went for the fight, and he got beat two or three times prior to that.

1:06:05 So I was like, okay, smart, smart. Michael Van and Paige is a great fighter. I feel like he’s very underrated. I remember talking to people, because I didn’t have a lot of backgrounds. You know, with me, I meet somebody, and I’m a student somewhat, and I was looking him up.

1:06:24 I ripped out and stuff, and I was like, okay, he’s a true world-class competitor. So I went to YouTube, Googled his name, and YouTube his name up, and I saw him in the finals with all these tournaments versus Raymond Daniels, and I know how good Raymond Daniels is, because I used to watch him at WCL, and I’m like, oh, I was like, so they’re in the finals a lot, and Raymond Daniels is a lot older than him, and I’m like, okay. So this guy is international. I was like, if he, people were asking me who’d win between him and Wonderboy, and I’m like, I think here’s what’s going to happen.

1:06:56 If they thought Wonderboy would become a wrestler, because there’s no way he could stand with Michael Van and Paige. Michael Van and Paige is tall, long, lanky, athletic, very unorthodox, has great rhythm, has great timing, and has a broken rhythm where he could throw you off. He has a style and a frame you really can’t train for. You can try to prepare for it, but you can’t, because it’s hard to find someone that is tall, yet athletic like him, and is quick and explosive like him, and has an orthodontic style like him.

1:07:29 So pretty much, you have to find a basketball player, short basketball player, that’s long and lanky, they can box and kick box and grapple a little bit, and it moves like dances that he’s moving. Like, you can’t find it. So he’s going to be a problem for a lot of people. He is the mindset of a winner. He’s not going to break.

1:07:49 I watched him. He might have to make a few adjustments, because now people have seen him, and they’re going to fight him a lot differently. So he might, instead of being a counter puncher, he’s going to have to be the aggressive wrestling style person. Not just saying he gets to go out there and wrestle a person, but he has to be more aggressive and go out there and take the lead. He was showing me all sorts of techniques with all that strange kind of point fighting background and things I’d never seen before, and we were taping it at shoot fight, and then later his coach came over and he was like, you know, he’s like, don’t publish that video.

1:08:26 He’s like, that’s our intellectual property here. I don’t want anybody seeing all that stuff. And it’s like, I could see why he wanted to keep that stuff quiet. At the same time with me, like, you can do all that, but even if you put it out there, there’s no one can do it. Coach Jackson told me, Mo, there ain’t no secrets in wrestling.

1:08:43 And in fighting, there ain’t no secrets in fighting, because if what he was doing like this, if what he, you know, when you go out there and fight, you do what you got to do to get the person out of there. There’s no such thing as secret moves, because say I had a good front headlock and it choked people up, I’d be going for that every time I fight. If you ain’t done it by now, seven or eight fights your career, you’re probably not going to do it unless you find the person, the right of your opponent, or the right opportunity to execute that technique.

1:09:12 Because he has a certain style. He moves, he’s a kind of puncher, good straight right hand, good straight left, switches, dances, good spinning kicks. You know, there’s a lot of stuff, but if he hasn’t done the stuff he’s showed you by now, he probably wouldn’t do it until he finds the right opponent. Okay, so there’s no secret moves. No secret moves in this. A jab is a jab.

1:09:34 Yeah. You’re fighting Quinton in 60 days. You’ve been on a tear in Bellator, but a few years ago you were alone in a hospital room looking down at your hip bone from the inside out, well from the knee, I mean you thought you were going to die, right? I remember seeing those reports and I was like, how the hell can he be fighting one moment and almost be dying the other moment? Can you talk to me about what happened and did it change you?

1:10:03 Yes, death infection in my knee from surgery, ACL surgery. I’ve had death infection previous to that, prior to that I had it in my face, had it in my elbow, had it in my leg. People that don’t know, it’s somewhat common, less common than it should be. You pick it up off mats and things like that. It’s naturally occurring on your skin.

1:10:25 Right, staphylococcus. Staphylococcus, epidermidis, staphylococcus, like methyline resistant, staphyl, it’s like different types of staph. Even strep turns to staph. So I had that surgery and I’m like, I get out, go home, chilling, watching TV, watching Key and Peele, go to bed, wake up, chilling. The next day I go to sleep, I might toss and turn and sweat me.

1:10:56 I’m like, man, what’s going on? Man, it’s weird. I go to the rehab, go to rehab. My doctor looks at my knees like, oh, I had three golf ball-sized lumps in my knee. He’s like, Mo, this ain’t normal.

1:11:10 He feels like, man, your knee is hot. He’s like, I got this thermometer, it’s like a sticker you put it on my knee, like 105 degrees. He’s like, Mo, I’m going to call your doctor, you’re going to get your knee checked out, go get it drained or something, because this ain’t normal. So go to my doctor and it’s on Saturday, the day of the Chael Sonnabris, Rashad Evans fight, because I’m cool with both of them. So I go get my knee drained and he’s like, all right, Mo, I’m going to get this rushed and I’m going to call you to see what’s going on.

1:11:38 So I go home and it’s like the first fight on the card. I’m sitting there because I don’t watch Rashad and Chael because they’re both my friends. I get a call from my doctor, he’s like, Mo, come here now, come to the emergency room, we’re going to do emergency surgery. We found staff, your knee is highly infected. We don’t want you to become septic.

1:11:59 Come right now. We’re going to drain your knee out, whatever. So I get there, go into surgery, wake up, look to my left, have a pick line in my arm. So it’s like tubes. And it’s like, Mo, we’re keeping here a little longer.

1:12:14 It’s worse than I thought. We’re going to put you, we’re going to, we’re going to have surgery, perform a, you know, a debridement and drain your knee every 48 hours to fight the infection. I was in the hospital for about a week and a half, every two weeks. Every 48 hours I was going under, under the knife to, for them to drain my knee. Finally, the last time, when I woke up, I had the wound back, I had these tubes in my knee and the fanny pack and I had a, I had a, I had a, some more tubes, I had a, a jar and it was battery powered.

1:12:47 And they said, hey, this is to suck out the infection. When it gets full, you have to drain it. And my knee was just like, you know, it was just destroyed pretty much. I had all these scars in my knee and I had tubes in it to suck out the infection. Come to find out, the reason the infection happened is because my ACL cadaver they put in my knee was hearing the staph infection.

1:13:09 No. So they took that tendon from the cadaver and had staph on it. And so you had it internally, so that way it was just going to town. I went through five different antibiotics. Banco mice was the last one.

1:13:21 Banco mice was strong. I had to take it every 12 hours through an IV. And, you know. So what are you thinking to yourself when you’re in the hospital? I hate hospitals anyways, but you’re sitting there going under.

1:13:33 I’m like, what am I going to do? I’m like, what am I going to do? I’m like, you know, can I be able to fight again? And I remember just, I’ll never forget this. My heart rate, you know, started like, started going up and I was in pain.

1:13:51 I was sweating. And I was like, hey, call a doctor because something’s wrong because something didn’t feel right. They took my blood pressure. It was high. I had to take blood pressure medicine for a while.

1:14:00 And they’re like, hey, man, you’re right. And I was in pain. I was like, give me some morphine. Give me something. And I thought I was going to die then.

1:14:06 And I was like, look, man. I called my mom. I was like, is something, you know, something’s wrong. You know, something’s wrong here. If I die, you know, I love you.

1:14:14 I just know that. I called all my loved ones. I let them know that. Text them. And I thought that I was going to die that night.

1:14:22 You know, I didn’t sleep. I was just sweating. I never felt like that before in my life. And I’m glad I don’t have to relive that no more. I try to think about it, but sometimes it’ll pop up.

1:14:33 But that was a rough period. Three solid months, I had to go see an infectious disease doctor every two weeks to see blood work on me and see where my levels are at. My CRP C-reactive protein levels are at. And it was rough, man. Like, I’m glad it’s over with.

1:14:51 And Chell reached out to you during that, right? Yeah. Chell’s son, and people would say all they want about Chell. They can bash him. They can say this.

1:14:59 They can say that. That’s one person I won’t fight just because he’s a real man. He hit me up. I was like, Mo, I heard about the staph infection. Stay strong.

1:15:09 You’ll beat this. You know, don’t worry about nothing. If you need any help financially, I got you. I was like, what you mean? He’s like, Mo, I may get money.

1:15:20 You know, a lot of the checks I had, the positive, I didn’t even touch it because I made money on sponsors. So if you need any money, let me know. I can put it in your account and wire it to you or whatever and just so you’ll be OK because I want to see you out there struggling. And I was like, thanks, man. I appreciate it.

1:15:41 You know, I’ll be all right though, man. But for you to call me and reach out to me like that means a lot. So I’ve never seen anything bad about Cheo. Even though he’s a Donald Trump supporter, I’m never going to bash him. But I just know I look at him as a real man.

1:15:59 When he bossed in T.O., it hurt me because I wanted to beat T.O. so bad. Probably because I can’t stand T.O. I think he’s fake. And other parts, because I know Cheo’s a competitor and he’ll go out there and do his thing to win.

1:16:13 The layoff kind of got to him, but I think they’ll be back strong as long as he keeps on competing and staying active. Yeah, I hope so too. He always says he doesn’t want anyone to outwork him in the wrestling room. He always used to say, nobody works harder than me. That same kind of mentality, right?

1:16:30 Yeah, wrestling. Yeah, wrestling, right? Yeah. And you’ve got good friends in the community, right? Rashad?

1:16:35 Well, Rashad, was it ATT? Still is? No, he was a black zillions, but Rashad’s to my boy. OK. Dan Cormier, Tyrone Spong.

1:16:43 I’m pretty much, I’m cool. I’m out there with everybody. Like, you know, I’m not hard to get a hold of. A lot of people in the MMA community, they respect me. Some hate me, some don’t, but I’m pretty much respected.

1:16:53 I get people calling me and they hit me up for advice. You know, my boy Sensei Roy Nelson is my dog right there. So what is it? You’re taking Roy down out there on YouTube. Yeah, Roy is tough, man.

1:17:05 Me and Roy used to bang in battle, you know? He’s a crazy tough dude. What a crazy thing, man. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt turns into a KO striker, you know? Yeah.

1:17:16 You know, people don’t notice me. Originally, he was a kung fu. He did kung fu. That’s his background. He used to tell me, he’s like, Mo, I can do splits.

1:17:24 He’s like, Mo, I used to get five pound plates and attach them to his nuts and them hang. He’s like, I got to a 25 pound weight. And I was like, why’d you do that? He’s like, just because I saw, I heard people doing it and it’s like a way to get mentally strong. And I was like, that’s crazy.

1:17:41 Roy’s crazy, but he’s out there. He’s a genuine. Roy’s as real as he gets. Genuine, strong dude will do anything for anybody as long as you’re real to him, loyal to him. I respect Roy.

1:17:55 He doesn’t mind calling the UFC out, does he? No, because he’s real, you know? I have a few sensei’s, him and Alan Green, you know? I respect them because they’re real people. Who do you like and note like out there in MMA world?

1:18:10 Tito, not a fan. Not a fan. I feel he’s fake. You know, when he first signed the Bellator, when he signed, when he was supposed to fight Quinn, and I was like, you know what? It’s a great fight.

1:18:20 Two guys that are well known, it’s going to help Bellator, it’s going to help the brand, blah, blah, blah. Never said one bad word about him. After the Quinn fight, he was doing interviews saying, oh, I wouldn’t fight Moe because he lost the Quinn and it does nothing for my career. Then he said, I won’t fight Moe because he’s ghetto. Then he’s like, I won’t fight Moe because he’s not a name.

1:18:42 I’m like, why is he mentioning my name? Then I confronted him and he was trying to be all apologetic, but I guess there are cameras on there. When he saw the cameras, he tried to get loud and be like, I won’t fight you because you’re not a name. No one knows who you are. I’m like, I don’t care to be a name.

1:18:58 I just want to get paid and just challenge myself. I find him fake. As a person that came from a wrestling background, I find him fake. Other than that, there’s no one else I really dislike in MMA. Me and Quentin have our beat, but I really don’t hate him.

1:19:15 I don’t need to slack him. I’m not cool with him, but Tito, I just don’t like. I could care less for him. He could come out of retirement or not. If he does, he’s going to fight someone he knows he can beat.

1:19:27 He’ll fight someone who’s come off a long layoff or someone smaller than him. What about Rampage? I respect him as a competitor. He’s been around for a long time. I respect his accomplishments, but just personally, we’re a lot different.

1:19:49 I don’t like who he is as a person. He can be cool here and there, but just my experience with him, I just find he’s not my type of person that I might be around. I see you guys facing off and he’s talking to you. Is he trying to get under your skin? I ain’t getting under my skin because I’m just laughing.

1:20:07 He doesn’t look like anyone’s getting under your skin. He looks kind of fat. I was like, man, you look kind of fat. Touch your stomach. I was like, man, you look kind of fat.

1:20:13 He’s like, I am, but I’m going to get in shape for you. I was like, well, you need to get in shape. This is terrible, but it is what it is, man. At the weigh-ins before your last fight, he gave you a nice shove. Is that him just playing up for the camera or was that real or what?

1:20:30 No, he’s trying to intimidate me. I think he realized that I wasn’t scared of him. I think he tried to give me a shove to let me know that he’s for real, but I knew he was for real because he signed the contract and he made weight. So I think he tried to shove me to try to intimidate me, but it didn’t work. You didn’t seem too bothered by it.

1:20:46 I didn’t care. I was like, look, just try to hold me back. I’m like, nah, man, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it. I’m not worried about it.

1:20:52 You know, we’ll fight tomorrow. And what’s going to happen in the second fight? What was the first fight like in your opinion? It was sloppy to me because, you know, I wasn’t healthy. I switched camps.

1:21:03 I was just an American top team. It was my second fight there. And I wasn’t used to the system just yet. And the canvas, like, because I wear size 15 shoes. I don’t have big feet.

1:21:13 And the canvas in Bellator was like a velvet type. So when I was trying to move and throw punches or shoot on them, I’d just slip or I’d be stuck in place. And it just wasn’t, it wasn’t good. But then when Coker came, he changed the canvas actually a few times because it’s still slippery. He changed it to the old Strike Force canvas.

1:21:33 And things have been good since. And, you know, I’m healthy now. I’ve been with the American top team for a while. And I’m going to go out there and handle business. K.O.?

1:21:45 If I can, you know, I would do predictions because, you know, I remember my first time at K.O., I was like, okay, I’m going to go for K.O. the second time. And I noticed it took longer than expected. And I kind of got tired. And I was like, why won’t this guy go away?

1:21:59 I’m hitting with everything I’ve got. But just, when you look for something, you try to force it, it’s when you get K.O., dude. You get beat. So I’m going to let it just come. I’m just going to punish him.

1:22:11 And if I can get the K.O., I’m going to get it. I’m not going to force anything at all. Chocoladell used to say, I’m not trying for the K.O. I’m not trying to knock you out, but I knew I will. That’s what he used to say.

1:22:24 You could see Chucky was just flowing, flowing, flowing. Hooks, hooks, hooks, hooks. And then it would just kind of happen. He was never looking for it. And he was a counter puncher.

1:22:34 So you see him as way he fought, hands down a little bit, try to invite you in, bing, bing, bing, hook, overhand, right? I felt like he fought better on his back foot than when he came forward. Because when he came forward, he left himself open and seemed like when he kind of stayed in place or backed up a little bit, he just hit you with awkward shots from different angles. You have some massive power. You’re a scholar.

1:22:59 I mean, we were talking about Hodger Gracie, and you were talking about, like, down to the detail, everything you thought coming in, what he was going to do, what you were going to do, how you clocked him behind the ear. I mean, where’s all that stuff come from? That’s a good question. I know a lot of useless information, but a lot of it becomes, like, you know, where I need it. Or, I don’t know.

1:23:19 I know a lot of useless information, but some of it’s, you know, useful, you know? And I love the fight game, you know? And I just keep on learning and keep on just trying to figure things out. And you train for fighters. You train for styles.

1:23:34 You train different things in your game plan for different people. Yeah, I train that. And sometimes I’ll just watch a video of some sort, and I’ll be like, oh, I like that. I’m going to work on that. I’ll work on jazz or body shots, so I’ll try to figure out a way to perfect something from different angles.

1:23:49 Because it’s not just the physical aspect, it’s the angles as well and the setups. Because that’s what helps you. You have good setups and good angles, you’ll never get hit, and your text will always land. Okay. And do you think most fighters are like that?

1:24:02 No, I don’t think so. No, I don’t know. Okay. Maybe. Is it true you called the Nevada State Athletic Commissioner a bitch?

1:24:10 Yeah, yeah, I did. What was that all about? Because I felt like she was trying to demean me because, you know, before I tested a positive drug test, I bought a supplement from Max Mussel and I tested positive. And before the hearing, I sit in my biography. I let them know, hey, my name is Moawal.

1:24:33 I’ve faced you, so I’ve drug testing before. I’ve done this. I’m a college graduate. You know, I train here. I get to send them everything.

1:24:40 So when I’m there, they ask me questions. I’m answering. And mind you, this one had a stab infection. I had the pick line in my arm and taking the medicine. Oh, really?

1:24:48 Yeah, so I was wearing a sweatsuit because none of my clothes would fit. So I was like, you know, wearing a sweat. I was like 180-something pounds. So I was wearing a sweatsuit because none of my clothes would fit. I’m sitting there asking questions.

1:25:01 And, you know, she comes up. She’s like, so, can you speak English? And I’m like, what? Can you read or write? Can you read or write?

1:25:10 And she’s asking me these questions. I’m being insulted. And I’m like, I kind of shut down. I’m like, yeah, okay, yeah. And then she’s like, all right, well, do you research your workouts?

1:25:20 And I’m like, no, I don’t because I have coaches. You know, my coach is telling me what to do because it makes no sense. If you have coaches, like, you shouldn’t be researching your workouts. It’s just a plan for you. You can look into it, but if you believe in your coaches, then you won’t do that.

1:25:34 So she asked me these questions, and I just felt suspected. They gave me a fine, gave me suspension. I was like, okay, cool. But now I’m sitting there thinking. I’m talking to my boy, and he’s like, I can’t wait to ask if you can read or write.

1:25:47 If you can speak English. I’m like, man, what a bitch. And I tweeted something about it, and then at that time when Strikeforce was purchased by USC, they’re like, take it down? I’m like, for what? And I was like, I’m going to take it down, then take it down.

1:26:04 So I was like, for what? Dana White talks about people like that, so I’m just being real. I felt suspected. Get a phone call. It got released by Strikeforce right before they’re doing the merger.

1:26:17 And I was like, all right. I took it down after that, because I was like, okay, maybe I can use some damage control. By then it was too late. Okay. Yeah, those commissioners, they get a little funny, don’t they?

1:26:28 Yeah, a little bit, yeah. Yeah. You were over here training with Gisora. What’s happening on Anthony Joshua, a fight coming up with Clitch Go? And what do you think of David Hay and some of the other Brits over here?

1:26:38 Man, with Gisora, I like Gisora. Like his mentality, he’s a true fighter. Now, with Clitch Go versus Joshua, it’s a tough one, because if Clitch Go is healthy and confident, it can be a tough fight for Joshua. Now, if he has any doubts coming off that loss of types of fury, I feel like Joshua could possibly stop him. Joshua, he does basic things real well.

1:27:06 He has good size, good hand speed, good power, athletic. I don’t know, he’s young, fresher. I don’t know, that’s the toss-up right there, but I think maybe the edge might be that Joshua off of youth and his wave, his wave, he has a streak going. Clitch Go, we’ll see if he’s healthy and if he can get past the loss of fights of fury, he can make it competitive. Okay.

1:27:35 What about David Hay? David Hay is a good fighter. It’s just that coming off the layoff, he’s not been active enough, and I don’t know if he really wants to fight. I like watching him fight, though, because he’ll fight you. He’s good speed, very slick, very technical, but he has to be more active, and I don’t think that he really wants to fight.

1:27:59 I know he’s fighting Tony Belliou, but after that, I don’t know what’s next. Maybe Shannon Briggs? Yeah. Who knows? And what do you make of Shannon?

1:28:06 He’s your boy down there in South Florida, right? Let’s go, champ. What is with him, man? I love him. We’re going to get him in here, I think, in a few months, but the whole let’s go champ thing, man, it’s fun to watch.

1:28:16 Fun to watch character, outgoing, outspoken. Everybody you see is a shirt off. Let’s go, champ. It’s just boxing needs characters, and he’s one of the characters that has skills. He has skills as well, so hopefully him versus Hay can be made, because I think that would do good here in London or do good in America.

1:28:39 How much older is Ethan Hay? Which champion? 40s? I think he has like 44, I believe. Right, but for boxers, they can hold it a little longer, right?

1:28:49 They can. They can somewhat, but eventually, if I have the time, I can zit to them all. Okay, okay. Say you beat Rampage. How do you want the next few years to play out?

1:29:02 What’s the legacy of King Mo? Once I beat Rampage, I wouldn’t mind fighting Matt Mitchell on the fade or maybe Phil Davis again, because I feel like I beat him when we fought last time. Legacy, I don’t worry about legacy, though. I just let people deal with that, because every fighter wants to have a strong legacy, and they talk about it, but you can’t, personally, you can’t define your own legacy. People, others do that, your fans do that, so with me, I’m just like, hey, I’m going to go out there, fight, have a good time, get paid.

1:29:35 Legacy, not worried about it. I worry about that when I’m in my 70s or 80s, if I ever worry about it. Okay, and after fighting, are we going to see you in movies and stuff, or what are you going to be doing? It’s a great question. I’m going to figure something out.

1:29:49 When I’m done fighting, I don’t know. I have ideas, but I don’t really know what I’m going to run with right now. Okay, you ever train people? Yeah, but I don’t know. Not your thing?

1:30:00 I like to, but the thing is, I just feel, personally, if I’m going to train somebody, I would want to do it for money like that. I’d do it for the love, because, like I said, it was when people helped me free, and out of love, I would never make it to where I was at. Give something back. You have to give back, and I’d do that as much as I can. Yeah.

1:30:21 A lot of people watch this show because they want to learn from people to come on here, and I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about your success secrets, things that made King Mowhooie is today, and is there something you changed up in your game, say 10 years ago, or even when you were wrestling in Oklahoma, that just changed it, like a certain way that you thought, behaved, morning routine, anything, where you were like, you know what, now I feel it makes me more successful. These success secrets are only available on the London Real Academy. Become a member and get access to live shows, exclusive courses, my webinars, bonus content, meet-ups, live events, an amazing community, and much, much more.

1:31:05 Now, back to the rest of the show. When you think of the word success, who comes to mind, like right away? I think of success, I think of like my mom, I feel like she did a great job raising me, my brother, my two brothers, and my sister. What does she think of your career, and what does she think of your fights, does she come? She don’t come, but she’s a boxing fan and a pro wrestler fan, too, so she’s like, go out there and whoop his butt.

1:31:42 She’s like, just be smart, and it’s the main thing. Every parent would tell you, be smart. That’s smart work, be smart with your body. Being smart is the best thing you could possibly be. She respects what I do.

1:31:58 She knows that you have to work hard, but you have to work smart as well. Do you get to walk outs now in Bellator with the umbrellas, or no? I do occasionally, but now it’s time for business. I might do something a little different, but it’s time for war now, because I’ve already established a kingdom, but now it’s time to go over there and take over the kingdoms. When you come to the end of the year, what’s your metric for success?

1:32:24 When will you know and say, man, we had a good year this year. What are the things you look at? I really don’t. I just look at how many fights I get. If I can get four fights, I know I had a good year, because if you get four fights, that means you won the majority of them.

1:32:39 If you lost too many times, I can get many fights. I see it like, hey, let me get four or five fights this year. Great year. Get that quantity up. Get that quantity to have fun.

1:32:47 This competition, it’s fun to compete. The more you’re having fun, the more successful I feel like you’ll be. I had a guest on here that said, you’re only as old as the last time you changed your mind. I was wondering what you changed your mind about in the last six months. There’s a lot that I changed my mind about, because if you continue to learn, eventually there’ll be something that’ll pop up, and you’ll be like, okay, okay, I see something that I’m used to seeing.

1:33:20 I’m going to make some adjustments. I don’t necessarily know what you changed my mind about. I’ll make some adjustments to my thought. Okay, okay. Trump just got elected, and now he’s banned Muslims and all sorts of other craziness.

1:33:33 What’s it like being in America? I’m not there. You’re there. What’s it feel like? I mean, you also told me that you were getting flagged on airlines and stuff after September 11, because someone else was named Muhammed Lawal.

1:33:43 So you kind of felt that before. What’s it like? I think right now, really, for some social media, it’s divided. But the thing is, people want to blame Barack Obama for the division, but let’s be real. America’s always been divided.

1:33:59 Let’s be real. The only time you see togetherness or unity in America is after tragedy or during the Olympics. What can Barack Obama do that the other presidents couldn’t get done before? You know what I’m saying? They couldn’t get done before.

1:34:15 He’s the 44th president, I believe. Yeah, 44th. Yeah, and the other presidents prior to him couldn’t get the country unified. What can he do in eight years? It’s not going to change.

1:34:26 It’s going to change just through the younger generation, the more earning and being exposed to other things. But with Trump, some of the ideas he has, I think, terrible. The Muslim ban, he says it’s not Muslim ban, but he’s called the Muslim ban, as well as Sean Spicer, he’s called the Muslim ban. But they try to say it’s not a Muslim ban. But then they ban these random countries, seven countries, but since 75, there hasn’t been one national from that country to kill anybody in America’s soil.

1:35:00 Yeah, I read that. So they picked the wrong countries. Exactly, but I just feel like what he’s doing is he’s creating a smokescreen. So he’s like, all right, the reason why you’re doing bad, it really reports the message came to the job, which is bogus. And we’re not safe because the ISIS and Islam, Islam hates this, blah, blah, blah.

1:35:23 Another smokescreen. So people worry about all that other junk instead of worrying about what’s really going on. Look at yourself. If you’re not rich by now, if you’re not successful, look at your decisions you made. You know what I’m saying?

1:35:36 That’s what it comes down to. Yeah, sounds like Germany in the 30s, but I won’t go there. What keeps you awake at night? I don’t sleep period, really. I might sleep four hours at night.

1:35:49 I think I have anxiety because I’m always thinking about random things like the workout tomorrow or I’m going to do this or I’m going to eat this tomorrow. So I’m always up to about two, and I wake up around 6.30. I don’t really sleep much. I never have. You’re always thinking about what’s next.

1:36:08 What do I got to do? Anxiety. They call it anxiety. So I’m always like, I’m not nervous or anything, but I’m thinking brainstorming. Just ideas or I got to do this.

1:36:19 I got to train. I got to get a meal. I got to get this. Both. Ideas.

1:36:24 I’m like, man, maybe I should try a water workout. I wonder how this would work. I wonder if I should do a thing called the frog. It’s like a core workout thing. Maybe I should combine the frog with my oxygen altitude mask and combine them.

1:36:38 I’ll come up with ideas at nighttime, you know? Just random things. Frog, is that like some animal movements and stuff? Yeah, you can do it. You get to check it out on Instagram.

1:36:49 It’s tough. It’s like a pure core movement and it’s tough. I’ve been using that thing for my past few fights and it’s got me right. Okay. Do you know Edo Portal?

1:37:01 He’s the movement guy that ended up training Connor and doing like lizard walk stuff with Connor on the stage. But he’s been a guest here a few times. He’s big into animal movements and just trying all sorts of new movements all the time. That’s actually pretty smart because it creates an type of awareness and increasing your balance and flexibility. I really know him, but I heard about some of the stuff he does, but that’s pretty smart.

1:37:27 What’s something we would be very surprised to hear that King Mo does or likes? Surprise, let me see. One of my favorite movies is Troop Beverly Hills. Do you remember that? Troop Beverly Hills?

1:37:43 Yeah. That’s what I was going to tell you. How old is that? It’s old, but it has like, I think, who’s that girl? Shelly Long, I think?

1:37:51 Yeah, that sounds familiar. That’s old. Yeah, it’s old, but it’s about some Girl Scouts from Beverly Hills. And they’re trying to be accepted in the Girl Scout community, but they do things the wrong way. Instead of living out in the woods, they stay at the hotels and they camp out at the hotels and stuff like that.

1:38:10 And there’s the rival group, the Red Feathers, who are like hard-nosed, like in the wilderness, killing animals, you know, it’s just, I don’t know, but eventually the girls from Beverly Hills ended up winning a contest and beating the Red Feathers. That’s your favorite movie? One of them, yeah. Yeah, it’s pretty damn good. Check that out.

1:38:31 What else? You watch a lot of TV out here. Yeah, yeah, a lot of TV. Yeah? What do you watch?

1:38:36 Like, Love and Hip Hop, of course. Love Jeopardy. Love Jeopardy. Really? You’re probably really good at Jeopardy.

1:38:43 I’m pretty good. Like, yeah, I’m a child of my brother beating him. Do you smoke the whole room usually? Yeah, I do pretty good there. Do you always phrase it as a question?

1:38:51 No, never. Really? No. You just say the answer. Yep.

1:38:56 Okay. I used to have the guys from my fraternity house when I was in college, and they would always smoke me, especially in the bonus rounds. Like, how the hell do you know this stuff? You made me feel so stupid, you know? Nick in the phrase, the show I love to watch, Cutthroat Kitchen, the show called Alone, Check It Out, where they get 10 people.

1:39:11 Okay. I think they have like 10 different types of supplies, and they put them out in the wilderness, and they have to survive, right? And whoever lasts the longest will get half a million dollars. Wow. It’s pretty intense.

1:39:24 So that’s all about grit. Yeah, yeah, it’s about grit. And some people, you’ll see some people, they’ll quit because they’re like, all right, I’m losing it mentally. I can’t talk to myself. So they’ll build like instruments, and they’ll be like, I miss my family, I’ve had enough, I tap out.

1:39:41 And that’s it? Yeah, and then the boat comes and gets them, they make a phone call because they have a satellite phone, make a phone call, but come get me. And people come on the boat or airplane, come pick them up, take them home. Okay, but you would probably win that, right? No.

1:39:56 You gonna do something like that, maybe? Never, because I can’t deal with the wilderness. Oh, really? I can watch it, but I just can’t participate in it because it’s too hard. Okay.

1:40:05 Too gruesome. They got that celebrity big brother over here where they watch you 24 hours a day. I love that show, Big Brother. Big Brother. I’m a huge Big Brother fan.

1:40:12 Okay, you would be good at that show, right? It’d be hard because my boy, I have a boy named Jesse Goddard, who’s the bodybuilder in the American version, and he was like, Mo, you go crazy in that because you feel like, okay, you’re talking to somebody about somebody else, and he sees that person talking to somebody else, so you’re like, okay, they’re talking about me. And you start, your mind starts playing tricks on you, so he’s like, Mo, what I used to do is I used to stay up late and I’d make sure I’m the last to go to bed and the first to wake up, because if you go to bed too early, then they might talk game and plot against you.

1:40:43 If you wake up too late, they might talk game and plot against you, so you have to always be around and see what’s going on, so you have to be awake. And he’s like, Mo, I was going crazy. But you don’t sleep, so that’d be perfect for you. Yeah, you don’t, but at the same time, just like the eating the slap and then just being stuck in the house and you can’t watch TV, you can’t really read nothing. Because they want you to start and be with each other.

1:41:05 I go crazy, because especially, I love TV. Okay. But you can handle all the drama, because you’re used to that. Yeah, I can handle the drama, because I just ignore it, you know, and I’ll instigate when I have to to get somebody eliminated, but just the lack of TV, no for me. That’d kill you, huh?

1:41:22 Yeah, it’d kill me. They’d need to put you on a media diet, maybe. And finally, where do I get a set of those grills that you got there? And can you explain to our English audience what grills are? I don’t know.

1:41:34 Oh, man, those are nice. Mine says king on it, you know what I’m saying? It’s rose gold. But with a grill, it’s like… Rose gold, I’m working some rose gold there, too.

1:41:42 That’s what I’m doing. Because what they do is a grill… You can get slugs, the slugs are permanent. Okay. Wouldn’t do that, because they fire your teeth down.

1:41:51 But a grill is when they get an impression of your teeth and then they make like a, almost like a mouthpiece. Okay. We could put it in. How long you had that? I’ve had this one.

1:42:02 I got made by Grill Man Bobby out there at Glass House Grills in Fort Lauderdale. He hooked me up. But I’ve had a few of them. I used to have one with diamonds, white gold with diamonds. Someone stole it because I put it to clean up in the training center and it came up missing.

1:42:17 But, you know, grills are a little fashion statement. You know, it’s the southern thing. You see it here… It’s the southern thing. Southern thing, yeah.

1:42:24 Southern thing, big time, yeah. The 3.6 Mafia have a good video that was on a long time ago. And I remember the guys were putting the… He was putting the grills there in the morning. And I was like, there you go.

1:42:34 That’s nice. I think they’re my first guest to support the grills. But I think I could get some over here in England. I got to go down to Fort Lauderdale. I’m pretty sure you can get one here, because you can get one here in Illinois.

1:42:44 Or I can have my boy ship you a… On molds? Where you take your own mold, you ship it back to him and he’ll make them for you. Okay. I’ll talk to him.

1:42:54 I’ll hook you up. Okay, hook me up. I think that would be cool. I can buy them because the top one’s cool, but I can buy them because like, you know… It’s more subtle, right?

1:43:00 It’s subtle, yeah. It’s got too much in your face. Right, okay. That’s very nice. King Mo, I always ask everybody a couple of questions at the end.

1:43:08 I’m going to hit you with them. If you could pick up the phone and call the 20-year-olds, Muhammed Lawal. Give that young man a bit of advice. I guess you’re at Central Oklahoma right now, but probably doing four workouts a day. You’re up and coming, almost probably number one in the nation.

1:43:23 What would you tell him? I’d tell him, smarter, not harder. Because back then, I was going a little too hard. I’d be over-trained. There’d be times I’d feel weak.

1:43:34 I’d skip class because I just felt too tired. Smarter, not harder. Okay. That’s very good. All right.

1:43:42 On that same note, best advice you’ve ever received over the years might have come from one of those wrestling coaches in the Midwest. Or maybe it came from your mom or your mama or someone else. Best advice you’ve ever received. The best advice I’ve ever received, I forgot who told me this, but they’re like, I used this earlier, they’re like, Mo, the moment you stop learning is the moment you start losing. He’s like, he also told me, if you get to the point where you don’t want to train no more or you lack motivation, stop what you’re doing and get out the game.

1:44:16 Because that’s when you start getting hurt. Hmm. And we say it all the time, right? Yeah, yeah. Does that happen to Quentin?

1:44:25 No, it might happen to Quentin. Maybe he might be in the patch for competitive eating because you see how big he is right now. He is big. He’s trained with Kobayashi, them hot dogs. Final part of that question, to that 20-year-old that’s out there watching us right now, listening to us somewhere, could be from anywhere in the world.

1:44:42 South America, China, Nigeria, whoever. And they want to grow up one day and be like King Mo. They want to be an MMA fighter, right? Which is a whole different game than when you started, you know, eight years ago, nine years ago. What advice do you give to them?

1:44:56 My advice to them is think big, get with a good team, get with a good coach. Because if you’re not with a good team or a good coach, you will not make it anywhere. That’s the biggest thing. Having the right team around you is what can help you achieve success. You look at all the top fighters in the world, they have a great team around them.

1:45:16 Or former champions, they have great teams. That’s how you see some of those supercamps get made, like Greg Jackson. You know, he has some champions. People are like, okay, I’m going to go train with the champions. And they’ve run the Greg Jackson, American top team as well, AKA, TriStar, you know, great teams.

1:45:36 And you did that same thing, didn’t you? Yep. Yeah, you trained AKA for a while? Trained AKA for a while, yeah. Trained Jackson’s ever?

1:45:42 No, no. Okay. Maybe someday, maybe not. Nah, nah, I don’t like Albuquerque, New Mexico. Okay, too many lizards and stuff.

1:45:49 Scorpions. So get the training, basically. Get the mentors. Get the team that’s going to make you good. Get the steel.

1:45:55 Yeah. And you were always about that with the rest. That’s your base right there. If you have a good team around you and good coaches, that’s your base. Because if you don’t have good coaches or good training, like, for instance, a guy named Kevin Farmer, he’s an up-and-coming boxer.

1:46:09 One of the top guys at 130, Slickster. He had four losses earlier in his career because he had a terrible coach. He actually posted, he’s like, man, now I see why I lost. He posted a video of him hitting mitts, and his training was terrible. I felt bad for him, but then at the same time, the fact that he knew what his weakness was and he corrected that, shows, you know what I’m saying?

1:46:31 He’s learning, evolving, he’s winning now. You know, he’s on top of the world. Okay. The biggest thing I learned from you today was when you win, you don’t celebrate, and it’s not actually that exciting for you. But when you lose, you’re kind of excited because you’re like, I can fill a hole in my game.

1:46:49 Yeah. And that’s interesting. And some of the best people I’ve talked to here, they’re in competition with themselves. That’s who they’re in competition with. Yeah.

1:46:57 That’s how they get better. And they’re not trying to beat someone else. They’re trying to be the best of them. Yeah, best of them, yeah. You know, I think that gets people a long way.

1:47:03 And when Bellator called us up a few weeks ago, and they’re like, would you like to have King Mo on? I was like, hell yeah. And, you know, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I really wanted to have you here. And I still remember the first interview I ever saw you. It must have been like five years ago, or maybe six.

1:47:17 And you had a towel on your head, like a white towel. I don’t know if it was Ariel or Halwani was interviewing or something. And they talked to you, and you had the headphones on, and I didn’t know who you were. And you asked a question, and you said something like, I’m really enjoying this white towel on my head right now. I don’t know.

1:47:31 You said something like that, you know? Yeah, I used to put a white towel with shades, or I’d put like, you know, I’d copy the, you know, the shake, the Arabic, you know, so I’d get like a white towel and get a black band and put it around my head and just chill, you know what I’m saying? Because I just, you know, just felt good, you know? I try to enjoy myself as much as I can. Yeah.

1:47:51 Well, you always seem to do that, and you seem to enjoy the moment and being you. And you got a style that’s all your own. I like the walkouts. I like the umbrella, even when you’re weighing in. Thank you, thank you.

1:48:01 I like the girl with the Daisy Dukes and the umbrella, you know? Yeah. Bringing the dirties out there. So, no, I just want to, you know, thank you and acknowledge you for all the great stuff you’ve done for MMA. Again, like you said, throwback fighters.

1:48:12 Fight any weight, any time, you know? And that’s like the Hoist Gracie thing, the early UFC thing. That’s been a Japanese thing for a long time. And they love fighters like that. And they reward them with, you know, their love.

1:48:24 Yeah. And I’m sure you feel that over there. And when I, and I know you’re not a big guy, because I’ve seen you before, and when I heard you’re fighting Quentin in heavyweight, I was like, what? And then when I see if I can croak up, I’m like, what? Yeah.

1:48:35 And, you know, he’s got 30 pounds on you, right? Yeah. And that’s crazy, but you’re just like, let’s do this. Whatever, man. Like, the truth, I coined it money weight.

1:48:44 But money weight became before me, you know? The guys, the early MMA, actually back then, was Valetito and NHB. That’s how far, when guys were fighting back then, they didn’t care about weight. They fought. Right.

1:48:59 Money weight. Just pay me. Yeah. And let’s do this. Yeah.

1:49:04 I love it. I’m a big fan of Quentin Jackson from the days, because I grew up on Pride. But I’m also a big fan of you. Thanks. I can’t wait to watch this on March 31st.

1:49:11 It’s going to be great. It’s on Spike TV. If you’re anywhere near the Chicago area, they should get out there and check it out. And, yeah, I’m looking for some exciting things. And come back to London, man.

1:49:20 It’s a great spot. You can get some awesome boxing training. Yeah, yeah. Hang up with the MVP. And there’s a bunch of other people we can hook you up with here.

1:49:26 And it’ll be warmer next time. I hope so. And there’s some good TV over here as well. All right. Check it out.

1:49:33 Check it out. All right. There you go. London Real, our tagline is It’s About the Journey. I wish you all and yours, King Mo.

1:49:38 Thanks so much, man. Thank you. All right, buddy. Appreciate it.