Michael Venom Page - Hands Down

Full transcript: Michael Venom Page on London Real

6:21 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Michael “Venom” Page, who is a British kickboxer and mixed martial artist known for his unorthodox hands down fighting style and stunning knockout showreel. You are explosive, flamboyant, acrobatic, accurate and very entertaining. You fight for Bellator organization in the US at welterweight division and have racked up an 8-0 record in MMA.

6:52 People have called you the Anderson Silva of the UK, and Anderson Silva has called you the real deal. Michael, welcome to London. Thank you very much, man. Thanks for having me on the show. It’s a pleasure to have you.

7:03 You know, I’ve got a soft spot for mixed martial arts, and you know, I trained many years in Jiu-Jitsu, and I was thinking about the different people I had over the years. We’ve had Dan Hardy here, Hodri Gracie, Colossus Thompson, you know, Rosie Ston was on Joe Rogan show. We had Jon Anik from the UFC here. You saw my picture of Stitch Pete Irving, which I think you had a schedule with him in the past, didn’t you? So he used a co-host with me.

7:30 You know, so much MMA because like I love it so much and I trained so long, you know, back in the day. So it’s really nice to have you here. Thank you, man. Thank you. I met you five days ago, right?

7:41 Yeah. I like to work fast here, and you know, my first impression of you when I met you was, this man is a martial artist first and he’s a fighter second. I don’t know if you’ve heard that before, but you know, from the way you walked in the room and we met at the EO Portal moving experience. We’ll talk about that later. But you know, the way you treated people like Ido, you know, you seem to be a martial artist first, and in the day of the guys on the corner wearing the tap out shirts, and you know, when MMA becomes popular, some people that train like to be fighters and thugs.

8:15 Yeah, I think people miss, you know, but like you say MMA has become so big, people forget, you know, where it all came from. Like the first UFC, even it was individual martial arts, and every single one of them, or the majority of them, were bowing first, and you know, showing respect before they go into, you know, have a battle. So it’s funny, but I come from Lau Gar Kung Fu, and seriously, you bow for absolutely everything. You know, you bow to enter the room, you bow to leave.

8:45 You’re about uring and I found myself in some of the weirdest places, just bowing, and it’s just something I can’t, I can’t even help. I remember, like, going to cross the road, and I got to the edge of the road. I went like this, and I was like, what am I doing? I just like to fake like I was doing my shoelaces get back up and then just cross the road, but it’s just instilled in me now, just to show that respect. And don’t try and like force, or, you know, yeah, force respect.

9:11 Just show, give your respect, and you should receive. And that comes because you started early on. Yeah, I started at the age of three. Three, yeah. My dad, to be fair, it’s my whole family, and my dad was my instructor.

9:26 My mom used to do it as well. My mom’s cousin, like older cousin, he’s like an uncle to me. Stan Brown was my dad’s instructor. My cousins on both sides, aunties and uncles on both sides, have either done it or been a part of it. So it’s just a family thing.

9:47 Literally the second I could walk, it’s like, okay, press ups now, let’s do this. Like, wait, and you were competing in, cuz it kickboxing? What was the, you know, your young career like the freestyle kickboxing? It’s been around for a long time. Like sports karate, it came more from the karate style.

10:09 Again, it’s the point scoring system. Point scoring as in, if you hit a certain part of the body, get a point. Yeah, yeah. The specific targets that they give you, which is the difference. Again, there’s no.

10:21 You can sweep and stuff, but there’s actually no low kicks. Okay, there’s no, like, knees or elbows. It’s basically punching and kicking. And again, we do it waste up by the sweeps, but the sweeps are foot to foot. So, okay, so there again, there’s a lot of rules to it, but once you actually understand the rules, it’s very explosive.

10:42 There’s a lot of calculating going on. You know, you’re constantly feeling each other out, distance. It’s not just about getting in close and trying to land heavier shots. You spend a lot of time just with movement in front of your opponent before you even interact. And this is what people may not understand: if you are new to the sport and you’re just watching it, people can, like, switch off quite quickly, cuz you could, you spend 30 seconds, 40 seconds watching and nothing’s actually happened, but a lot’s going on, right?

11:12 Because they’re sizing up, they’re sizing each other up, the space, kind of how Anderson Silva used to be in his first minute or two in a fight. Exactly. Teasing, faking, seeing what kind of responses that they’re waiting to go. You learn a lot from just small twitches, from foot positionings, from hand positioning that a lot of people kind of overlook, cuz they just want the action to happen. So, but this is our whole sport is based on focusing on those detailed points of your opponent.

11:38 Right, and this is an important distinction to make, cuz 10 years ago in MMA, people were like, oh, point fighting, that’s not fighting in MMA. We do love the fighting. We punch and we kick, and when I learned MMA training, it was like, literally, Thai boxing plus wrestling plus Jiu-Jitsu. Exactly, that’s it. And the transitions, well, good luck.

11:59 But like, all the kicks I learned, how were these big Thai people always downplayed the value of point fighting. Right? 100%. And I’ve seen it in the comments before, like, that’s not fighting, that’s, you know, that’s some tippy tappy rubbish. That’s this, that’s that.

12:16 I have to you, I accept it for what People’s views from the outside, because initially the same with Jiu-Jitsu, when Jiu-Jitsu first came in, everyone’s like, they don’t know I don’t understand what’s happening. So it’s to just write it off and say that that’s rubbish, than actually to try and figure out what’s going on. I think it’s just like the impatience of us as a generation. We don’t like to try and spend time actually looking into detail if it’s not blatant immediately, then I’m not interested.

12:47 And I think it’s that kind of view, and I think what I’ve done is just open people’s eyes a bit more, and I’m continuing to do that. It’s still not, I think it’s not there yet, but I’m opening more and more people’s eyes to, okay, let me actually figure out what’s this point scoring thing about, because it seems to be working so and that’s my goal. I really want to blow up the hands down style, and it is, and it’s, people think it’s just me. I’m like, no, you see, just me, because no one in MMA does it, and I’m the first to come over.

13:18 If I was to bring you in my arena now, I’m talking kids like this, or bouncing around with their hands down. And it is a very stylish sport. Like you, you try to impress as well as win fights. Okay, okay. Now, how many years did you do point fighting?

13:35 I’ve been doing point fighting, well first competition, again, probably 5 years old, and right the way up until probably 20, 23. Okay. So, didn’t… it’s a lot and we literally had competitions every weekend. There’s always somewhere to go. We drove to Manchester, we was up in Birmingham, we flew to Scotland.

13:58 We was every weekend, there was something going on. Seriously, so we sounds obsessive. Yeah, we, every, it just something that I’d always do. Every weekend we get together. My dad would pick everybody up.

14:12 He got his minivan, pick all the fighters up from over their houses where we had like a little meeting point, usually in Bridge Park, like in hen Stonebridge Way, and then pick everyone up and then drive down to wherever we need to drive down to, and it was just something we did every week, weekend. Wow. Bridge Park, Stonebridge way. Where is that? Yeah, it’s in, it’s in Hen in West London.

14:35 Okay, W10 postcode, actually, right around where HRA Gracie’s Jiu-Jitsu, Kensal Rise, and it’s weird, cuz I’ve been around it, as in with the Jiu-Jitsu side all my life but I just never noticed it, cuz I was so indulged in what I was doing. Yeah, so it probably just looked like another martial arts gym. It’s weirdly, some, I think, when it’s not registered in, and it’s like anything you know, if you’re looking at a new car, all of a sudden you’re really fascinated by it, and then you see it everywhere on the road that you didn’t notice it before.

15:04 It’s the same kind of thing. Like, I just didn’t really notice Jiu-Jitsu, full stop. I was just so focused, and when you’re young as well, it’s whatever you’re being kind of told to do, and you kind of, that’s what you pay attention to, right? Kind of the same way that Jiu-Jitsu guys would never think about point fighting. You, as a point fighter, didn’t really register what those guys were doing in pajamas rolling around on the floor.

15:23 I don’t, weirdly enough, I never, I’ve never really seen it. I think I’m like border of the era of, like, where internet blew up. So it wasn’t something that we go online to watch. We didn’t really go online, so it just wasn’t registered at all. It wasn’t something I even saw, to even cuz the only type people that we saw in Gees were karate guys, so anybody that was in a gear to me, even if I saw a child, they would, they were Mar, they were like, they were on their feet.

15:50 It wasn’t something that I would think, oh, they might grapple. It just never something I’d seen at the time. Okay, you know this is London Real, and we like Londoners, and you grew up in London, W10, but it’s not Westminster ABY, is it? It even was known as Little Mexico at one point. Yeah, yeah.

16:09 What does that mean, and what was it like growing up? Well, it’s weird, cuz the area I’m in now was, probably is, probably a lot worse back in the day. Actually, first was in NW8, which is not far. It’s down the road. More, Edgware Road.

16:26 Listen, green area, and then, it’s probably I’ve been in here in West London probably about 12 years now, and again, the time I came, it was just being cleared up, but we used to come around there anyway so I knew the area, knew the people around there, and yeah, it wasn’t, it’s not the nicest of areas at, back then at all. Okay, like years and years ago, it was actually a police dead zone. Like police wouldn’t even go into that area. There’s a lot of bridges and stuff, so you can literally disappear.

17:00 Like once you got in there, you can get from one end of the, you know, one street clean over to the other side and not be found in between. So yeah, please would just kind of avoid it until they did a massive drug raid, cleared it all up. They knocked down all the bridges to prevent people from crossing over, so comfortably, so it’s all the streets now. And yeah, it’s completely different now. You’re still going to have the normal, you got kids that still want to try and continue that kind of thing, because it’s their older brothers or their dads that was involved in this and that, and they still want to continue that kind of behavior, but it’s nowhere near that kind of level anymore.

17:38 Did that lifestyle ever attract you? I mean, as a young man, you know, watching guys with money, guys running their own business, which is kind of what that is. That ever attract you? Weirdly enough, no. I was, I was more fearful of, it’s almost like a second family that I created, or that was created within the martial arts.

17:58 I was more fearful of what they would think of me. So it’s almost like having another peer group, but their opinion outweighs your peer group. You know, I was, I used to run around all the same guys that would go and do this and go and do that, but every time they went to go and do it, I was like, see you later, man, I’m going. I just got, I make up, and the thing is, it was an easy excuse to make up, cuz everyone, like my close friends at the time, would know that I did kickboxing, so I’m like, ah, you know, I got to go and train, or my dad’s calling me.

18:26 I need to go do this it was an easy, I had an easy out, and, kickboxing, them, is fascinating, so it’s like, yeah, now cool, go yeah, thing, they respected me enough to be like, not trying to drag me in. Right? Do you think part of them subconsciously knew that if you got involved with that, that you, you know, you wouldn’t? I, to be fair, I couldn’t even, don’t understand what the mindset was. They just always been.

18:52 I think it’s just fascinating for them. It’s combat. It’s something that they can respect as well in their head at the time. You know, if I was to say I’m I got to go and do ballet or something, or this and that, and if they didn’t respect it, they’d be like No, I think they put, try to put more pressure on me to continue with what they’re doing, but I think when they respect something as well, it’s like, oh yeah, no, fine, go and do that. That makes sense.

19:14 Strange how we do that as men. You know, Peter Irving, a good friend of mine, used to co-host with me, and he’d be like, Brian, I go, I go to parties and all the guys want to talk to me, and you know, think I’m a big deal. He’s like, I’m just a fighter, this is what I do. But, I guess you get that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s the same thing.

19:31 Like, people, I understand if you, again, if you’re into something and someone’s doing well at it and you know you’re a supporter of that person. It’s exciting to see them, or be around it. You know what I mean? So I do understand. I understand it.

19:44 Okay, and the friends you had when you were kid, kids, are you still friends with them now? I speak to a lot of them. I, a lot of them still, and again, I think it’s easier now with all the social media. Not, I’m not as in touch with them as I was when I was younger. We don’t, like, spend a lot of time together at all, but in communication, wise, every now and again you’re like, oh, how’s this going, how’s that going?

20:04 I do a lot of barbecues at my house. My mom’s a very sociable person as well. I’ve always been, I’m so used to being around, like, a load of people, right? I’m, I’m just comfortable with a lot of people, so I have, like, big barbecues at my house. Everyone comes down, and that keeps people in touch as well.

20:23 A lot of my old school friends, they were like oh, you having, yeah, cool, and it’s like, the, now if, say, I’m having a barbecue, everyone’s like, yep, cancel whatever plans, we’re doing, we’re going to go down, go down, and check Michael and see everybody else as well. Okay. serious community there, and the martial arts side was a big part of that as well. Massive part. Yeah, talk to me about your style.

20:42 I mean, you’re going around doing, you know, the point fighting, you know, like you said, it’s already kind of has a flamboyance to it, right? And it’s all about, I mean, you said one time I feel extremely comfortable with movement and space. I mean, it really is about knowing where you are and being really aware and making very quick decisions and also being patient as well. Okay, because again we, I’m so used to spending 30 seconds or you know, for 30, 40 seconds, and there is no interaction, right?

21:12 And we see that in your MMA fight sometimes where you’ll be doing things and you’re slowing the pace around it, it might look like an antic, but you’re actually, exactly, exactly. Probably frustrating the other guy, because in MMA there is no pauses, right? Exactly. That’s what I mean. People want to, that it’s this, B they’re ready to go.

21:29 Yeah. And again, you can, same as, as a bull. I’m just doing this. I’m a matador, just like moving it around, moving it around until the bull’s like, you know what, I’m getting a bit restless of this, then I’m finding the right time to strike. How much do you think MMA fighters bring to the cage because of all the things they watched in the past, and like subconsciously they’re like, oh, this is the way an MMA fight goes, which means I have to constantly, you know, be facing the opponent.

21:53 I have to constantly engage. I don’t think it’s just them, and it’s just them. It’s going, going to be, it’s going to come from your coaches, your gym, and this is one thing I was actually afraid of when I came over into MMA. I was like, I, if I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it my way. So if I came over and it didn’t work, then I tried it.

22:11 I would try something, I then go on and try something else, but I had to do it with my style, and I know boxing gyms that I’ve been to before, if they see you doing, they’re like, they’re really old school, man. They love their way. Yeah. Really old school, and if you start doing any kind of any kind of antic at all, you’re out. Yeah, forget that, get out.

22:33 Yeah, they’re not, they’re not interested at all, and that was one of my worries coming into MMA and joining, it’s getting the right gym. And to be fair, I feel like I found the right person, cuz my coach is constantly learning, loves to adapt, loves to find new things to add to people’s games. Right. And I want, I want to get into where you’re trained now. Let me just finish up with the point fighting.

22:55 Were you the best, then? Did you get to be the best to what you did? Yeah. You know what, I think my only real challenge, to be fair, later in the career, I didn’t take it as seriously. I was getting frustrated years before I actually pulled out.

23:09 Well, I mean, frustrated, I was getting frustrated with the lack of publicity you get for it, the lack of, I can’t even say lack of fans, you pay to do it. Okay, yeah. I mean, if I, I qualified for the world championships, and I paid to go and represent my country, and it was, there’s, there’s a lot of frustrating features to that sport, and, a lot of people a lot of promoters that promise stuff, and in that, you never, you never deliver. So my training went down, and everything.

23:39 So a lot of, I win fights, but sometimes I was struggling to win fights later on, just because I hadn’t been training that way, just pure experience and knowledge that was carrying me through fights, but I think my main opponent, who’s doing really well in Glory at the moment, is Raymond Daniels. Okay. He was like the American version of me, so anytime we got in the same arena, everyone’s like, oh no, look, look, Raymond’s here, and they be going to him, be like, oh, Michael’s here, Michael’s here.

24:08 Okay, so he was your nemesis? It was weird because like for the first couple of events we didn’t really talk to each other, so we had, there was a, because of people talking, we had a bit of like a bit off with each other, like, you know, yeah, you say hello and then you’re gone, which is weird, because our sport, you spend so much time traveling around with these people, even from different countries, you just, everyone’s socializing and blah blah, then go and fight. But for me and him it was a bit off for for a while.

24:33 Then, what happened when you fought? Yeah, no, the fight is explosive. It was an amazing amazing fight. A lot of, like, passion that went into the fights. Who won?

24:43 He won the majority of the fights. Okay. And, but I used to love fighting because, again, with a lot of people, they have a style, and once they get to a certain level, they stick to that style, they try and refine that style. He has a style, yes, but he would doctor, and I remember having a fight with him, and I was catching him out with certain moves. I’m like, yeah, cool, so the next time I went to fight him, I went to go back to that, and he changed it straight away.

25:06 And there’s people that, if I figure out that move, this is where I got complacent and lazy. Sometimes I’ll go back to that person, and because I get away with you in a sec, cuz I’ I register things, and because I fought you before, I’m like, okay, it’s logged, and I get a bit more relaxed when I’m fighting you the second time, but I’ll catch you out with exactly the same thing, and you don’t adapt to it. But with him, it’s a constant chess game. Constant chess game, constant chess game, which was, I, which I used to enjoy and respected as well.

25:36 And it’s just the one, I think, the one time after one of our fights I’d like, literally, injured both my wrists, both my ankles. I was in the airport trying, like, struggling, and he was like, do you need help with that? I was like, oh yes please, and we sat down and spoke for about an hour before we flew, and we just connected. It was weird how similar we was in different things, and, again, it’s how much tension other people brought to it, and I was talking to him about the same thing.

26:02 He’s like, every time I got there, people was like, oh, Michael’s here, and it just kind of got annoying, and you know what I mean? You didn’t express it to that person. It had nothing to do with that person. But yeah, no, really good friend. So, okay, so part of you inside was probably wondering, what is this?

26:14 Not a means to an end. This is not a career. What am I doing in my life? I’m not getting paid. I’m getting less than paid.

26:19 Exactly. Is part of you seeing Mayweather and seeing MMA and saying, these guys are getting paid to fight, or was it not that? No, it wasn’t, it wasn’t that, cuz again, I never, I couldn’t even see our sport as that far, so I couldn’t even relate it to any of those other sports. So 100%, Mayweather gets paid in comparison to, I think now that I’m in MMA, I feel the difference with boxing versus MMA, but when I was in our sport, because I was paying for everything, every time you gave me a pound in MMA, I was happy, because I wasn’t getting, I, I had to pay for everything, you know, and to do something that I enjoyed so much and was doing so well at, again, representing your country, going around the world, I had to pay to do, which again, to after years, years of doing it, you just become accustomed to doing it, but then again, you don’t take it as serious.

27:13 Okay, you know what I mean? 2011, you decided, I’m going to go try MMA. I’m sure the point fighting community was like, what the heck are you doing? The MMA community probably was like, you’re not a real fighter. Boxing guys are like, what, the, definitely stay out of my gym.

27:27 What was that transition like? Was it a hard decision to make? Yeah, it wasn’t a hard decision to make. I was actually contemplating not just MMA. I was contemplating boxing.

27:38 I was contemplating, uh, you know, like the going the Glory route as well, like the Thai, more the Thai boxing. With the Thai boxing I said to myself, you know what? I don’t believe it’s going to take me too much, uh, to learn this, and I want, I, I want to, you know, learn something like new, completely new. I think boxing, I, I got a really good friend, again, he’s like one of the guys that kept me away from. He’s, he’s like an older brother, Simon Lewis.

28:04 He was amazing in kickboxing and went into boxing, done really well, but said to me there’s a ridiculous amount of politics within boxing, and he’s had to go through a lot of, like, drama, and I was like, again, I don’t want to go from one, like, political arena to another one. So that’s what kind of pushed me away from boxing. Okay, so I thought MMA is growing, it’s new, and I’d have to learn, like, to really become good, I’d have to learn a lot of new arts, which I’m actually happy to do.

28:29 So that’s what made me say, okay, MMA, and in my head I had no expectation of myself, so there was no pressure. If you know what I mean, I didn’t expect to do good. Okay, I just wanted to see how I would do. The points guys, I’m sure there’s going to be, would probably wouldn’t say it, but I know those guys, that’d be like, he’s not going to, he probably come back, like, MMA is a bit too we all thought that way as well, including myself. I was like, that’s, again, couldn’t see us doing that the same way they would look down at us with regards to, like, you got, you’re not tough enough.

29:00 We’d almost believe that, and be like, yeah, that’s a bit too tough. And I’ve, I had guys say to me, you’d be good, like, try and do some MMA stuff. Like we had a couple of guys cross over and do Jiu-Jitsu, and this and that. Yeah, so you should try it. You should try it, and I was like, I couldn’t do all of that stuff.

29:14 I got to say I watched some of your point fighting pieces on Facebook. I mean, like, you guys hit each other pretty hard. Yeah, you’re taking shots to the face. I mean, like, it didn’t, I, I was expecting something different, and because it’s you’re, you’re diving into each other, you’re like, boom, there’s big impact. So this is why it’s only until I felt like getting hit in MMA when I was like, I’ve been hit as hard, if not harder, in some of in some of my fights, in, in, in, in points, so like seriously, what was I worrying about?

29:44 Right? You know what I mean? That’s the thing that surprised me most when I watched those fights with you, is that there were hard hits. There were kicks to the face. You’re wearing headgear, but headgear doesn’t protect a face.

29:54 Exactly, cuts and stuff. I was surprised I mean, you know, some of the guys you fought were near knockout at some point, and all that was making me wince, and in a weird way, the volume of strikes is higher than an MMA, so I was like, all right you, these guys are tough. I think the volume, accurate strikes, because again you can sometimes throw a lot in MMA but miss, and then, or, or be, spend a lot of time clinching and just have like small shots here, and they, they’re heavy, but they’re not the kind of big shot you can get standing.

30:20 So yeah, there’s a big difference. Okay, let’s talk about flamboyance, and then I want to get into MMA, London Shootfighters. Were you the, were you the flamboyant guy in the point fighting? Like you said, it’s already a style where you’re moving around. 100%.

30:33 100%. It is a style where people are creative and they are flamboyant, but I would always take it to, like, another level. I enjoy people watching me with regards to when I’m performing. I like having eyes, and when you’re in a competition and there’s, like, 12 mats and thousands, thousands of people, what’s going to draw anybody to your mat? The only people come to your mat is people that know you or from your team.

30:57 So you know, everyone has their own little crowds, until eventually every time I stepped on the mat, everyone was like, let me go and see him, and you know, it clears out half of the half of the competition, and it’s because I’m creative. When I’m in creative, I’ll see something that Jackie Chan did in a movie and be like, hm, can I do that? And be like, I’m sure I can make that work. He’ll do like a CW, he do this, he’ll do like that, and I can make that work, like, and I’ll try it, and I’ll go back to the gym and I’ll try and move and be like, ah, so close, and then some my guys would be like, no, I think if you put that leg there first, and then do it, you might be able to get away with it.

31:33 They would never try it, but they’re like, you’d probably be a to, and again I’d literally watch something, try it, and I’ve hit people jumping over, like, bicycle kicks. I saw that in Three Ninja Kids, seriously. I’ll just watch something, be inspired, and then try and translate that into my fighting. Okay, you do it, so you’re curious about the move, but you recognize the fact that ultimately fighting is entertainment, really, and so you’re, that’s good, that you realize that you’re open about that.

32:02 And I’m guessing it also puts you in a whole different mental space, and you’re probably logging extra information when you’re doing that crazy stuff. Probably a mental game to be flamboyant too. you know. For me, it relaxes me so much, that you have time. It puts me in a different… it feels like I’m in a different time zone sometimes, with regards to someone point throw a punch, you’re just so relaxed.

32:24 You’re just like, okay, it’s not a… everything’s not a panic, and I’m not doing this. And again, one of the first things I drew, if I’m teaching, is how to be relaxed with people throwing punches at you. You stand still, I throw punches at you, and what you straight away, you see people, like, yeah, and that’s, even though you can get more senior, that’s still involved in you, that’s still there, it’s just not as obvious as it would a junior, and that’s what I completely get rid of.

32:52 The punches are coming towards me and I’m still completely relaxed. I’m still watching everything that’s coming at me and staying in that relaxed state, and the entertainment side keeps me in that relaxed state. So if I feel tense at any moment, if I’m, you know, someone’s on top of me, I can stay relaxed, because I’m still in this, like, showmanship-type attitude, where it just keeps you like, okay, no, just stay relaxed. It keeps you here instead of being like, oh no, something’s going wrong, something’s going wrong.

33:20 And again, this happens and you start, your energy starts going down quicker, and you make more mistakes. You know what I mean? And I just keep myself in that relaxed state all the time. Makes total sense. When you first went in the cage, did part of you doubt yourself and thinking, I got to tone it down a little bit, I got to do this, I got to do that?

33:38 I, you know what, when I first, my first fight, and I always tell people to watch back at my walking. Yeah, this is the first time, I’d say, probably one of the first times I actually felt that kind of pressure, because now it’s like, okay, I’ve done the training and I know a load of people curious to see what’s going to happen, a load of my, like, point fighting friends, and everyone, load of people came, so at that point I was like, damn, I need, I actually need to do well. People are expecting me to do well.

34:08 My walk out, I literally walked the kids like this. I was dying inside. Opposite. It was the opposite of like, being me. But weirdly enough, when I got in there, the second the bell rang, I was like, I was like, I’ve been here before.

34:23 It just felt, felt like home. It felt normal immediately, and then I just start getting into my groove. He’s throwing punches, I’m slipping, and I slowly and slowly I’m getting more relaxed, slow getting more flamboyant, and getting more show, the crowd’s going, it’s lifting me even more, and that was it. And then, you, I say, watched from my first fight to my second fight, watch me walk in. As I’m walking in my second fight, I’m dancing, because I’m already I’ve already put myself in that state before I walked out, but that first fight I was putting a lot of pressure on myself, and I literally, like, dead straight, no smiling, on, I was just like, walking straight to the cage.

34:58 I just want it to be over with, but the second I got in there I was just like, and that’s what made me, that fight, that kick at the end, that’s what made people like, wait, who’s this guy? You know what I mean? So, and here now, do you register the audience when you’re in there? I mean, I saw, I don’t know if it was that kick, or another fight where you maybe, it was that kick where you stopped dead in your tracks and you were looking into the audience. It’s the camera guys that were there, the camera guys, you stop there, the guy was still stumbling back and before he fell, and you’re just stopping there like this, and you’re looking.

35:32 So are you constantly aware of the audience, the people watching? Is that a third person in the ring? In a way, again, I think a lot. You learn a lot from the type of sport that I was in before, because it’s quite a manic sport. You have to be able to filter out a lot and then zone into different things all the time.

35:50 What I mean is, loads of people are shouting. You got the crowd shouting, and again, it’s big competition, loads of noise. I have to listen to the person behind me, and I have to zone into that person. I also zone into the person on the other side, because when his coach is telling him something, if he’s a good student and he responds to it, I need to know what you’re looking to do as well. But a lot of people, they’re solely focused on this person behind them and they’re not listening, so being able to use this person, use that person.

36:21 And again, cuz I use the crowd. I zone into people on the crowd, you, I zone into people on the crowd. Give them a smile, they’re like, yeah, they’re getting excited, and it puts it back onto me. I like throw energy, they throw it back like tenfold. It’s like they, they shake something and throw it straight back at me, and I’m like, yeah, I get powered up even more.

36:37 Okay, and then I’m, I’m there, and then again, even at last point, I threw the kick, hit the kick. I knew it connected very well. I knew it connected. I was expecting him to possibly come back, but this thing I… I think I’ve told a few people, but as all of zoning onto the camera, I can see him in the corner of my eye, and in my head I was like, if he comes back at me, I’m going to spin again the other way and kick again, and I was standing there.

37:03 I was zoning on the camera man. I could see him at the corner of my eye. I saw the referee coming and wave, and I was like, okay, just stay here now. I was like, that’s perfect, that’s perfect, but again, it’s being able to, because I’m so relaxed, you’re able to almost jump out and be like, what’s going on here? What, focus on what’s actually happening.

37:22 I fought against Ricky Rainey and looked at his corner, looked at right in his face, and he’s just like, he’s get, I can see how annoyed he’s getting, and again, I, if I can get to you and I’m fighting your guy, you’re going to be telling your guy complete rubbish, right? Don’t go again, run, run forward. Yeah, perfect. Put him onto, put him like, put him heavier onto my shot that’s about to come. You know what I mean?

37:43 It’s zoning to this, seeing someone in the crowd again, even in MMA fight, giving them a smile, and again they’re like, they throw it back. I’m like, yeah, it just helps. Okay, something I really live off. I don’t think I’ve seen another MMA fighter at a top level do that. Every now and then you’ll see someone that’ll, you know, in the middle of a camur, will give a little wink or nod, but you don’t see someone that really draws that kind of power from the audience, and I think it’s because of the state that I’m in while I’m fighting.

38:11 Okay, it allows me to just be a bit more observant about what’s going on, and then soak it up. I’m not just here. I’m here. Okay, you know what I mean? And you’re concentrating on the guy’s corner, and in that instance you’re saying you were looking at the corner while you were fighting.

38:27 Yeah, I looked at the corner. Before I looked at him, sorry. I was looking at the ref, and then I just again, he’s, he kind of like, what’s going on? He’s throwing shots, throwing stuff, and I can still see him, cuz again I’m in that relaxed state. I’m looking at the ref, I’m seeing what’s happening.

38:41 He threw a kick, I blocked, here, and then I moved around, then I looked at his corner. I smiled at his corner, and it’s just frustrating, he just saw what happened. He’s like, what’s going on? I look at him, he’s like, why are you looking at me? And then again, you’re going to, again, in my head, you know, whatever information you’re going to give him is, is rubbish.

38:57 I did it. I’ve done it at my, in the gym when I first got there, and again it’s just about listening. My coach is standing on the side, and obviously, got two of his fights, so he’s giving both people the information, and I’ve put pressure on my, the guy I was working with. My coach is like, circle, yeah, create some space, like circle around, circle around, so I stood there and I waited for him to circle, cuz I know if you’re being a good student, you’re going to do it.

39:18 He was a good student, and there was a spin kick waiting for him, and I caught him clean, and it’s funny, cuz my coach laughed immediately and was like, you were listening. I was like, it should be, but, and a lot of people only listen to listen to the information that’s been given to them, not the information that’s been given to the other side. Right? And that comes from your point. I think that comes more from the point side, because you’re in that, like, chess match.

39:38 Someone’s about to give you his potential next move. So it’s, it’s something good to soak in, and I’ve seen other fighters do exactly the same, not just me. I’ve seen other fighters, like, listening on what’s happening on the other side to give them a bit more information, and sometimes they either force it or just back off, so they don’t have that there for them. You have another signature move before the fight, when they bring you out, you raise your hands.

40:00 Um, is that something you used to do in point fighting, or did you bring that into MMA? I actually brought it into MMA. I’ve never seen anyone else do that, ever in the MMA world. I don’t believe so. Boxing maybe in the past, or no.

40:13 I don’t, I’m, I don’t believe so. I was getting in my head, like, on fight night, after all the training you did, you’re obviously matched in Bellator with very capable opponents, to actually still be in that mindset. Is it, it’s a nice place to be? Get exactly exactly. It throws people off.

40:29 It’s a statement of confidence before anything’s even happened. We’re about to enter something where any result can happen, and I’m telling you I’m confident enough to go for it, and the things that I thought about before, it’s also a signature that I want people to remember. Uh, things that I say I want people to remember, because I think those are the kind of things that last. And one person I watch, cuz I’ve never really been into the, you know, the like too much talk and trash beforehand.

40:58 I’ve just never been into it, but again, one, a good friend of mine, Marvin, was always like, you’re going to have to use this kind of stuff some way. So I like, yeah, you’re right. And one person I watch, talk, I probably sat there for about an hour plus on YouTube, and I used to watch him when I was younger anyway, is The Rock, and his relationship with his crowd, I don’t, I’ve seen nobody else do that. Yeah. Um, I mean, wrestling, you’re talking about the ENT wrest I’ve seen, I’ve seen no one else do that, and obviously it’s part of that culture, but I feel he was the best one, so I watched him, and you know, he’d say he’s got these one-liners, he’s got this, he’s got things that he would do, drop up on a rope, put his arm up, things that he would do, so I’m like, okay, that’s the kind of stuff I want to be associated with, if I’m going to do stuff beforehand, it’s going to be stuff that people are going to remember.

41:50 I’ve literally walked, uh, we went out, I was with my friend, the security guy knew who I was. He’s like, oh, MVP straight away. He did exactly what I do in my fights, and that is something that helped him remember me, and those are the things that I want to do. I’m not interested in, like, shouting and screaming at my opponent. Okay, I want the crowd to respond to me better.

42:09 Okay, so no trash talking coming from you? Anytime you’re encouraged, you’re encouraged to do it, and you are these days, right? Cuz we see the way it sells fights, especially the last couple years. Ex… exactly. You’re encouraged to do it, and again, up until a certain point I’ll do, um, what’s, and I’m, I’m an employee, so I’m going to, I’m going to do what my business is asking.

42:31 You’re an employee, and you also own your own business. Exactly, but I’m going to do what’s good for business, for both, for my employers and for myself, so I understand, you know, the little bit, but I just feel some people try to go too far, you know what I mean? Um, and this is where, no, it’s just, this is where for me my martial arts prevents me, and I say, I think it’s good if you’re, if you believe it, then do it, cuz if I do it, it’s not going to come across believable, which is, I don’t believe it will sell well anyway, cuz I’ll be cringing inside while I’m saying it, cuz I, I don’t, I would, I don’t like doing that to, to, or disrespecting someone in that way.

43:08 I can be cheeky and things like that, you know, make a couple funny comments, which is fine, but then past that, I’m not interested. I’m not that interested in doing so. For other people it works, and I, I have nothing against it. Conor McGregor is right now the one that’s killing it, with regards to that. Yeah.

43:28 He’s the best, and even myself, I love watching him, because, because it’s congruent. That’s the thing, and what you do is congruent. You’re saying, you put that hand up, you believe it, yes, it’s your signature move, and talking trash to a certain extent wouldn’t be congruent with you. Exactly, and the public can see, they can see through that in a second, right? That’s what I mean.

43:46 If you don’t truly believe it, then it will eventually show, and then again people will switch off. So I think I had to do what’s comfortable for me, and I think those one-liners, here, signature move here, is way better than for me than all the trash talk beforehand. Do you have a mental process you go through the night of the fight, or back in the room? Do you have anything that you kind of self-talk, or anything that maybe you picked up over the years?

44:15 I can’t sleep properly at all, so things like slow music just helps me just stay relaxed. I can’t sleep at all in general, or before, it mainly coming up to the fight. I, I kick and punch, wake. I just wake myself up, because I’m, I’m so ready to go in your sleep, in my sleep, I’m like, I’m just waking myself up. I’m very twitchy at night, because I’m just constantly, it’s just in my head.

44:39 It doesn’t bother me at all, but I just like to listen to anything that can kind of just relax for a second. Okay, I’ll relax, but at the same time I come from a hectic sport, so it’s actually weird, because I’m used to being in an event and going, coaching somebody, and then someone calling my name, can you coach me as well? And I run over to the other side of the mat, then, some, the tannoy comes on, I hear my section, I’m, I got to be prepared for that.

45:06 Then someone’s, oh, Mike, can you referee this fight? Okay, run on the mat, referee. Oh, Michael, you’re fighting. Oh gosh, run, get changed, get changed, get warm quickly. Michael, jump, you’re on now, you’re on now.

45:15 Run off, and then I have to switch on there, so I’m used to doing it. I don’t mind things being hectic. Some people need their own time, so I don’t mind things being hectic, because I switch on when I need to go out, because of just years of having to, being forced to do it, because again the sport that I’m in is just so much going on, so if you’ve done a Jiu-Jitsu competition, it’s the same kind of thing. There’s a lot going on, lot going on, lot going on, lot going on, and you, because you spend so much time with these people, referees become to know you.

45:43 They know your ability, so they ask you to help out, and things like that, and there’s just so much happening, and that’s before you pick out your phone, if anything else is going on outside of that arena. So I’m just used to the hecticness, and I don’t mind being a busy body before I fight, because this is what I’m used to. Okay, but underneath in your body there’s a lot kind of going on, and going through your head, your subconscious is probably going through scenarios.

46:07 It’s not like you’re sitting there obsessed and worried about it, but you notice your nervous system stuff going on. Yeah, yeah, I think it’s just like saying, it’s just nerves before the event, and no mental self-talk routine, like, this is what I’m going to do, or, literally, when I’m in the back, back room, music, and that’s it. I don’t, I don’t try, um, talk to myself in any way. Again, you have to find a pattern that will work for you, cuz I haven’t been used to doing it that way.

46:36 I don’t want to force it. So for me, listening to music just gets me pumped. Music, I think, music for me does just, it can do, it can relax you, it can, you know, get, like, scare you, it can, like, pump you up. This, so, so what I do is just listen, put that fast-paced music on, rock, rap. I’m seriously, I’m changing tracks like a mad man.

46:54 Okay, just, it’d be like clips of, like, different tracks. I’m just like, going, going nuts, and I change a track again, and I’m going nuts again, and I’m like, building myself up just before I might play a little bit of, like, really dancy. I start dancing around in the back. I’m dancing, I’m relaxing, and then I’ll go out, cuz I’m again, I put myself in that that. Okay, let’s, I’m about to have fun, let’s go and have fun.

47:14 Okay, you know what I mean? And you managed to keep that let’s-have-fun mentality through all your fights in MMA, every single one of them. Okay, every single one of them, I’m always, I’m always enjoying myself. Okay, always enjoying myself. So you got the signature arm move, you got the knockout without the look.

47:27 You’ve done a few of those now. Yeah, yeah. I’ve done the, I think my third fight I landed a punching and like ignored him. Like I, I knew it hit, it was one of those punches that I’ve been trying to the whole way throughout the whole fight. I’ve been trying, I’ve been landing, and just wasn’t right there, and I just caught him clean, and I was like, yeah, he’s gone.

47:47 I could feel it, feel it straight away, and I just walked off. So, yeah, I think again it’s an entertainment side of things, right? Your name MVP, were you inspired by GSP to a certain extent? Cuz it’s a great acronym, and again it’s part of your brand. People are like, MVP, you know?

48:02 Uh, Ido and I were talking, he’s like, MVP, and what is that? Something you planned, it came so randomly. Because, again, the guy I was talking about before, he’s like my brother, Marvin, always with this guy. And, when I was younger, we’re training together, he’d be like, he called me Venom, and the reason he called me Ven is because I was skinny, gangly, but I hit people, and then the reaction that I’d get from the hit, he’s like, it shouldn’t happen. You, that looked like someone big just hit somebody, cuz I’d catch them accurate and you see them falling backwards.

48:35 So he called me Venom, and, um, then I, on my forms, he’s like, just put it down. I used to start putting Michael Venom Page, and this is way back when I was young, on my sheets, and then later on, I can’t, it wasn’t even him. I think somebody else just was like, oh, MVP, and I was like, I like that, I like the MVP. Makes sense, and then we just ran with that. Okay, GSP, and then do Santos, does he have an acronym as well?

48:59 There’s a few others, but it suits. I mean, like a name is so much. You think about Mirko, Mirko Cro Cop, Mirko is like Filipovic or something, you know, but Cro Cop just, they think the Japanese thought it up in Pride. Now he’s Cro Cop, and like, it’s a big part of who you are. I think it is that name.

49:19 I always say to my guys, whatever name it comes up, that’s going to stick, so just be careful what what you have stick. It’s funny, I was thinking about someone like Matt Hughes, you know, old school UFC guy. He was, you know, he’s an old country boy from Iowa, and he was like, I don’t have a nickname, I’m Matt Hughes, you know, and so like he doesn’t have, and some nicknames don’t make any sense, they’re silly on a fighter, but yours works, and you got the acronym there, and the acronym also means Most Valuable Player.

49:45 Exactly, so it’s all right, so that’s your brand. You’ve got kind of all these signature pieces that are yours. You put the sunglasses on for the interview sometimes afterwards, and these are all things you, that are you, you’ve thought about some of these things. And the sunglass is a funny one, actually, because I wasn’t, it’s when we was in Memphis, and again we went to Elvis Boulevard, and they, obviously big fan of Elvis, and they went all down to the shops and stuff.

50:14 Cuz again we like to do things before, so we’re not just thinking about the fight. We like to go around. We go to the shooting range. We go here. We got, just do things that just take your mind away from things, so you just, again like I said, you just being normal.

50:25 We went down there. We just, I got a few key rings for family and friends, and I saw the sunglass, I like, oh, it’d be good to, like, you know, as a gesture to the crowd that I’m in right, wear sunglasses. You know, I had these Elvis sunglasses on, and it’s funny because after the fight we had a promo for Bellator, for the new Bellator, when, when, when, Scott Coker came and took over, and they were like, do you have them glasses? So I was like, no, I gave them away.

50:55 He’s like, no, you, you need to bring those glasses. I was like, I don’t have them anymore. He’s okay, okay, no, no problems, cuz I gave it to his, a good friend of mine, her dad is a massive Elvis fan. So I gave him, gave him the glasses, and when I got to the, um, thing, it was in New York, they had glasses waiting for me there. They’re like, yeah, you know, we told you, you need them.

51:17 I was like, wow, I only did it as for that city, where they, they, Bor was like, no, we like it, and then I saw the promo that they did, and everyone’s there, standing like this, I’m standing there with my glasses like this, and I’m like, okay, I like it. So right now I’m just, every time I go somewhere, I’m thinking of a different, different set of glasses to come in with. I like it. I like it a lot. Where, um, where are you right now in like headspace?

51:39 I know when you won your first few fights, people are like, okay, GSP’s next. And like, you know, I guess we do that as the public, right? See something amazing, we want to put you against the best. Yeah, the best. But like, as, I mean, I think of you like Johnny Cash, you’re like walking the line right now, because you got all this talent and potential, but then you got to go back and do the work, you know, and you got all these people telling you how great you are, and this is going to happen, but you’re okay, and plus, you know, probably cuz your days in point fighting, that it takes time to build this knowledge up, you know, maybe you’re thinking, I want to know that.

52:12 Yeah, maybe that happens in a couple years, and I, every fight must be like notching, putting a notch in the belt, like getting that 100%. And it’s training can be, can be frustrating as well, cuz sometimes you’re going over drills and you, it’s like, you know what, you’re doing wrong, and you just it’s, it’s just you’re not, that you’re just not responsive yet, and then you get a day where everything clicks and it’s like, oh wow, you respond to it, and you’re like, ah, this comes. And that was happening with me a lot with my wrestling.

52:37 You know, I was doing wrestling, and we’re going over moves, and I’m always just a step behind because you have to be very, you have to be quick, you’re constantly moving, there’s always an opportunity there, and again it’s we drill these things over and over again, so now I feel like I know it, but again, the responsive side, you’re still, while I’m still, still consciously trying to think up what the next move is, they’re moving, right? You know what I mean? Don’t have any wrestling background.

53:01 No wrestling background at all. And this is probably where we should talk about London Shootfighters. So I want to talk about London Shootfighters first of all. Anyone who’s been in London and known in the MMA community, these guys are the original gangsters of MMA in London. I, funnily enough, used to train with Paul Ivans, rest back in the day.

53:18 Paul, Paul is an incredible guy. He’s forgot more wrestling than most people know in their entire lives. You know, old, like he used to tour on the English, like, wrestling team back in the day. You talk about going to a place where there’s no money, and these guys used to wrestle for the love of it, and I used to go and he used to teach me wrestling, and I wrestled for a year in high school in America, and the stuff he would show me, I was just, and he was so fluid, and, you know, but like, people don’t understand with London Shoot fight.

53:43 I mean, 97 they started. Back then, like, nobody knew about MMA, no one was doing it, and these guys you know him and Alexis just set this up, and it grew, and all of the first British guys in the UFC all came through there, right? I mean, just so many names, and, you know, they built this organization up with a serious reputation. Yeah, yeah. And so how did you go in there?

54:06 Um, I went in. Well, one other thing happened to me at London, which I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody. So my arm’s broken, right here, right, and there’s a scar going there, and I don’t even think Paul knows this, but I was training with him, and we were doing some boxing work, and he was like, okay, it’s time to spar now, and London Shoot Fight, like, they always have a reputation of, they don’t play around there, right? Like, and I remember one person, one asked me like, I’m going to go to London Shootfighters, and I was like, bring your mouthpiece, because they were known as a full-contact gym all the time.

54:35 But like, in fairness, Paul was like, look, Ryan, I’m going to put you with a guy, he’s not crazy, he’s not a killer, he’s right on your level, we’re going to do it, and I was like, okay, cool, and somehow I went to throw a punch, and I don’t even know how you can break the, you know, the, the the bone, this, on the bone here, but I broke it during the fight, and I didn’t know it was broken, and so my arm was broken for about six weeks, and I was trying to do stuff, so they actually cut and stuff a plate in there. So that happened to me at London, but, uh, so I don’t know if that prefaces, but how tell me about L, you play. Yeah, it’s, um, the where they were before.

55:07 It’s weird, as I was saying, about, I’ve always been around it. Um, where I used to live, their gym was AC, C enough, across the road from my house. Literally, three minutes down the road, right? Cuz they used to be under the Arches, right? Yeah, okay, and I remember one of my friends used to go there and train.

55:26 He’s like, you should go, you should go there. And again, this is when I was in that mindset of, I could never do that. I was like, no, I’d make excuses and be like, no. And then they actually ended up moving further away from me, into, part Roy, and then I ended up going, however many years later, got into the gym, found the gym, and for some reason within the martial arts you get a lot of people that can just talk a lot, and they just give you, again, they talk a lot of crap.

55:55 People’s egos can get big very quick. You know, you can win a small competition here and all of a sudden you’re the best person in that whole area, and this and that, and it happens a lot. So I wanted to be careful of what gym I went to. For some reason, when I got there, I could just hear sense, and it wasn’t from Paul and Alexis, it was from their instructors. You know what I mean?

56:15 And and for me, if that’s what you’re passing down, you guys must be, you know, speaking sense. So I said sense of being grounded. Yeah, it was just they were just very upfront. They’re very, very real. They’re very detailed with their training.

56:31 I actually, the first MMA gym I walked into was in America, an American top team, okay. Yeah, and I went there first, you know, family in Florida. So I got family in Florida over there. My brother was like, yeah, they are, they are, and my brother was like, oh, you guys are his friend? Does, I think he was managing one of the fighters.

56:51 He’s, I’ll bring you down and introduce you. I was like, yeah, cool, cool, cool. This is before the Blackzilians formed there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’ve gone over there.

56:58 I’ve seen the gym facilities are absolutely amazing over there. In my head I was set to move to America and train with those guys. Okay, and Marvin was like, just before you make a decision, just look around your hometown. You don’t know what’s here. I was like, yeah, true.

57:13 Went to a couple of gyms. I went to one of the Gracie gyms. I went to actually walked, went down to Teen Titans, and, uh, they didn’t actually know, um, I’ve been down there before. I walked in, just kind of looked around, and then left. Okay.

57:26 Went to a couple of places. Went to London Shootfighters and again, for some reason, I could hear sense, so I was like, cool, I’m staying here. I didn’t tell anybody anything. I wasn’t like, I want to fight. I just went and did classes.

57:39 I just want, I, I need to learn from the beginning, so I’m not interested in telling people about my background. Need to learn from the beginning. The humble martial artist. Yeah, yeah. You have to go in there, and again, I, because I think, because I teach, and I’ve taught, you know, I’ve had people come in and they’re just like, yeah, I’m this and I’m that and I’m this, and it’s just kind of like, but, and then, try, they are some of the hardest students, cuz they, you have to unlearn and then relearn, and they’re some of the hardest people to work with, and they sometimes they have massive potential, and I’m not saying what you did before is wrong.

58:10 I’m just saying, it, certain things that we do here are going to be more beneficial for this particular art, so you’re going to have to, again, keep that, cuz you might, there’s going to be stuff you’re going to be able to use from that before, but you’re going to need to put that to one side for now. Truly understand what route you’re on here, and then you know what you can use and what you can’t use. And for me, that’s why I went in there and did, I was like, I’m not interested in what I’ve done before.

58:35 Let me just learn, I need to learn the Jiu-Jitsu, I need to learn the, I was doing the Thai boxing, I was doing the wrestling, I was doing the boxing, all the, I did every class. I would spend the whole day there, just like training. Weirdly enough, Alexis spotted me, cuz I didn’t do any work with those guys they were focused with the pro guys, and we had the classes going on, and Alexis spotted me doing Jiu-Jitsu, which I found weird, cuz he’d be walking past, and he just looked over and stopped, and you know, you could feel, I could he’s a character, man.

59:04 You could feel his eyes like piercing in the back of your head, so I was like, oh gosh. And, um, he called me over afterwards, and he’s like, how much, how much Jiu-Jitsu do you like, how much how long have you been doing it? I was like, oh, only about two weeks since I’ve been here, and he’s like, yeah, I can tell, cuz you’re s*** and I was like, did you just call me over to call me crap. Like, I, I don’t understand. And then he’s like, but for some reason you got good instincts.

59:31 I was like, cool. He’s like, um, have you done something before? I was like, yeah, I’ve done the kickboxing and stuff. He’s like, are you telling me your kickboxing is better than your Jiu-Jitsu? I was like, it needs to be.

59:44 Cool, pad up, and I was just like, straight away I just felt instant pressure, and I even, to this day, I feel like that’s probably one of my worst spars ever, cuz I wasn’t being FL boy, and I, again, he was staring at me and I’m just like, I was trying to be the perfect kickboxer now, which I shouldn’t have been, just should have done what I did. But yeah, straight after the spar he was like, cool, go and join the class again. I was like, I just messed up my chance of, like, you know, trying to step up and join with the pro guys and stuff.

1:00:12 The next day he came over to me again. Do you want to spar again today? I was like, yeah, yeah, no, spared again. He put me with John, he’s putting me with Carlos, all these, the UFC guys, he’s putting me with these all these top, like, level fighters every day and day out, and I was like, but he just wouldn’t give away if he actually liked me or not, you know what I mean? That’s how he was.

1:00:30 He was very like standoffish, let me see how I’m testing you right now. And, um, the one time I, he, I, I felt like he must have been researching me. I came, and this guy came to the gym, he’s like 21 and one at the time, kickboxer. He’s like, okay, I want you to kickbox this guy. Be careful, he’s got, he’s a good Thai boxer, he’s got this, this is his record, and I destroyed him, and then right at the end of the round, he, Alexis was like, 720 and I kind of paused for a second.

1:00:59 I was like, the only reason you’d even say that is it means you’ve actually watched me now. And I haven’t told him anything, so I was like, I’m not messing this up. I switched, I was like, bang, hit the guy clean with the 720. He’s like falling, Alexis, like, time, time, time, time. And again it’s funny, because he was like, cool, take your stuff off, go and join the class again.

1:01:17 Doesn’t show anything. I got pulled with a big smile behind him, and then Alexis, one of his brothers, Marus, is, again, he doesn’t hide anything. He’s that, jumping around in the background. Um, but again, he used to say to me, how how long do you want to wait before you fight? And I was like, whatever you say, cuz I don’t understand this industry.

1:01:33 So he’s like, I might make you wait two years. I was like, if I have to wait two years, then that’s how long I have to wait. And, uh, it ended up being six months, like a couple of months later he was like, oh yeah, I got booked to fight. For you. I was like, what?

1:01:46 Okay. But yeah, you put all your trust into those guys, like I said, because I have no, I, I can see the knowledge that they have, and I said I have no, I did not really follow MMA at all beforehand. I think, lit, the only person I used to like is Chuck Liddell, because he was just the knockout guy. And again, when I was one of the ignorant guys, I didn’t like the ground stuff. I used to just watch people that just want to do that as well.

1:02:09 He was the only person I really watched. Didn’t watch anybody else, and, I was just like, whatever you say, like I couldn’t care less, to the point where he used to come up to me and be like, oh, we’ve got this opponent, I was like, if you think I can fight him, then I don’t even, I don’t need to know a name, but I, I have no interest. You can just tell me what style it is. Um, that and we work, and we just get to work. Wow, and that’s strong.

1:02:32 You guys are super strong and tight. I, I, I do not question these guys, that’s so important. You know, it’s so important that you trust in them, and like those guys, like I said, I’ll say it again, they’ve been around the block. I still remember when the Murray fight in the UFC, I’m almost sure I saw Paul and Alexis in there walking behind. I was like, I know those guys, and so like, to be around guys that have had fighters in the UFC, what was that, 12 years ago?

1:02:54 Or, I mean, these aren’t the fly-by-night, these aren’t the eye open the M up three years ago kind of guys. They’ve had Jan Sil in Pride final, like, cting for belts and stuff. Like they’ve, they’ve done it all, you know what I mean? They’ve been in every single, every single of the biggest organizations that that’s been out, they’ve been there with somebody. Do you ever think about going to the states and training for a few months here, a few months there?

1:03:18 No, 100%. Like, um, if, uh, I, I think it’s good to just kind of change up, see what else is out there as well, with regards to what you what else you can learn, cuz everyone’s got, like, a trick or a couple of tricks in their books that they might, that you might not find elsewhere, but at the moment I keep telling people that I’m still a baby, so I’m actually still going through my white belt, white and blue belt, before I can even start jumping around, trying to find, like, search for other techniques and stuff, so I, I still feel that I’ve got a lot to learn where I am, so there’s no point me jumping the gun. Like, just let me just learn as much as possible here, to the point where I feel comfortable in every single area.

1:03:57 You always got, you always got more to learn, but comfortable in every single area of the same kind of level, and, um, then yeah, let me go and find and see what else I can figure out, and then that’s when I, again, cuz I get inspiration from everything, that’s when I’ll start being like, I can try this move, and I can try that, try this, and incorporate that, and, but I just want to learn as much as possible first. Okay, so how many more years do I have to wait until I can watch you fight for the world championship in bat. I’d say next year.

1:04:26 Okay, I’d say next year. I would like to get two more fights out this year. I’ve got one more fight coming soon, Cristiano Souza, coming up, year, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Yeah. Okay, and they are talking about our show in December as well, and I’d love to get on that show. Straight afters as well.

1:04:48 So your fight this year, when is it? It’s coming up in November, or it’s in October, so next month. Yeah. So you want to fight again two months later? I want to fight again straight after that.

1:04:57 Are you a guy that likes to stay busy? Yeah, if I could, again, I’m, I’ve gone from comp competing every single weekend to months before I actually have a fight. So, and obviously, due to the injury I had earlier on, I was expecting to get a certain amount of fights out anyway, but because I didn’t, right now, if I’m fresh, I’d love to go again. Okay, is this the cut? Yeah, so you were ready for a fight, all set.

1:05:20 It was like five days before or three days before. Five days before. Uh, it was Jiu-Jitsu accent. You got this nice, nasty cut right around your eye. What’s it like as a fighter when you’re about to fly to America, you got all this hype.

1:05:32 It’s your life, it’s your career. You’ve been training hard, you’ve been getting ready to cut the weight and all of a sudden you get a cut, and you, you, you’re told by someone you can’t fight. What’s that feel like? Is it, it was extremely frustrating. Extremely frustrating.

1:05:44 I still, I think, just the natural fighter, and you just want to fight, being a bit careless, and I still wanted to fight, and Alexis is like, nope, it’s not worth it, cuz you’ll be more frustrated if that opens up halfway for your fight, a fight that you’re winning, and then they end up giving it to the other guy due to that. And I, 100%, it makes sense. And it’s hard to swallow it’s just hard to swallow at the time. You just, like, and especially with this one as well, we did a lot of promotion for it with the British Invasion, and I was up late watching these guys, like, kind of.

1:06:20 I built a great relationship with all the other guys, and up screaming at my laptop, like, go, go. They all did well, every single one of them won, and, like, I was just like, ah, I should be there. I wish I was there, and it was, uh, it wasn’t to be, but it is what it is. Like, I was frustrated at the time. I agree with the decision now, and again, if I was a coach, I would have done the same thing, and I just get on with what I need to get on with.

1:06:46 Now, you have to think like a champion and so it’s, in the short run, a fool would have said, oh, let’s do it, let’s do it, let’s roll, let’s put it all in red, roll the dice. But, like, in a long career, that’s the last thing you need, and like, you know what fighters are like? One crazy, weird decision, loss to this, and pretty soon it’s this, and you’re like, what happened? And it’s so funny, I got a guy messaged me on Facebook or something, and he’s like, oh, how can you, why, why would you pull out?

1:07:12 Look, check this guy out. He, um, he, he got a cut over his eye, and he took the fight, and for some reason I was, sometimes, I zone into random comments, so I just had to look at the guy, guy, and the guy he showed me that cut open up during the fight. He lost that fight. So I was like, what are you showing me? You know what I mean?

1:07:35 I, I was sometimes I’m like, where are some of these guys’ heads at? So you wanted me to take the fight just for the sake of taking the fight, to then for that to happen, which is, I was, things like that I just find so funny. Right? Do you, uh, watch online comments? You, I did more right at the beginning, and that was probably the worst time to do anyway, way.

1:07:55 Um, because again, like I said, nobody understands what the hell I am, uh, where I come from, they don’t know what the art is. Um, so I probably had, I’d say, 95% of the comments were just killing me, like, ripping the hell out of me. What’s the typical comment at that time? That was King, you, it, it’s, uh, the typical is just more like, if you fight here, you’re not going to last, you’re going to get knocked out with your hands here. Um, they’re, they’re putting you against, uh, this, this rubbish guy, that rubbish guy, this rubbish guy, and again, I for me, again, I don’t, that’s one of the things I, I, I, I don’t like, and even when other fighters say it, like, you know, they put you against, uh, that guy was crappy, they put you against this guy, and I’m like, but you’re disrespecting somebody else.

1:08:36 Like, you don’t, I respect anybody that, like, trains hard to come and step in the cage. I have to, I respect you for it. I, I don’t, I don’t know your character. I respect you for the fact that you’ve done the work to come here today and fight. Um, and people were saying, now, yeah, but he was rubbish, and this, and I’m like, just, you can’t, you, you can’t go around saying that about people.

1:08:57 Like, I feel offended for the person that they’re talking about, not even, not even me. Um, but yeah, it’s just, that’s just a normal comment, so again, like you said before, they instantly want you to fight this person, as, like, you know, been doing it for 10 years, and it’s dominated for eight of those years, or, you know what I mean? So it’s, and the way you win are these, like, flash knockouts no one sees coming. They have to replay them in slow motion.

1:09:20 They’re like, oh, it doesn’t even look like a punch, and a lot of times you’re actually just clipping him on the edge of the chin, which is probably the best place to hit, about that in a second. And then they have the attitude of, oh, that was easy. I’ve heard someone actually, um, I bumped into them on the road. He was like, oh yeah, you’re, you’re that Michael Page guy. Yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah.

1:09:39 He’s like, oh, um, oh, that first fight that you had, that was like a fix, wasn’t it? Like, it was, I was like, what? He’s like, like, like, he was like a like a wrestling match, kind of. I was like, no. He’s like, that was serious, that was real.

1:09:52 Yes, and again, because they don’t, it’s people don’t normally do it that way. It can’t be real, that can’t, it can’t be, it has to be fake, and it’s just, it’s just funny, cuz he was still like, yeah, I want a picture and stuff, but what you doing was fake. And is this going to happen for your next five fights? Do you think, is it constantly going to be like, oh, that was easy, but this guy is going to be the one that tests you, and then this guy. Yeah, it, it, it will.

1:10:14 People, I think every, every time I have a fight, it gets less and less, and people start to kind of, okay, he, okay, he’s decent. And I think you can be the best fighter in the world and dominate for as many years as possible, but people will always have another name that you need to beat to prove yourself, and Mayweather, for me, is one of the prime examples. The guy has 49 now, 49 and 0 beating everybody there is to beat, and people are like, oh, but you should fight this person now, otherwise that, otherwise you can’t class yourself as the best.

1:10:51 And I’m like, what are you talking about? He’s destroyed everybody, and you, everyone still throw and I’m like, if he’s getting it, I have no chance. I’m not, I’m not even trying to prove, uh, anymore, you know what I mean? I’m just fighting. I’m just going to enjoy it, cuz there’s always going to be someone that’s going to say exactly that.

1:11:07 Yeah, but if he fights this person, then he will lose, right? And it’s, you go and fight that person. Oh yeah, you know what? But if he fights this person, then he’ll lose, and they always, they just want to see you fa, so it’s, it doesn’t really matter what you do. You’re not going to change their mind.

1:11:21 They already got it in their head that they want to see you lose, just so they can be like, see, I told you, like I was, I was right at the beginning to say not to follow this guy or not to be a… you know, be a fan of this person, right? Yeah. And, but, you know, it’s, it’s good to see other people care, and that can generate interest, right? Your haters. I mean, look at McGregor.

1:11:39 You know, the people that hate him seem to fuel it, fuel it just as much. 100%. And I want to talk about McGregor, but first, I want to ask you a question that’s no one’s ever asked you, and that is, when are you going to fight in the UFC? What for me is, I think everything’s about timing. I think what people don’t understand is, it’s, uh, although everyone focuses on, the, you know, the fighting, it’s a career, and when, if you go into UFC too early, you don’t get paid well, and I think the best thing for me to do is to build myself up as a brand.

1:12:11 But at the same time, by the time I build myself up to have the option to go over, I think Bellator is going to be just as big. You know what I mean? So I feel like I’m in a good place right now. Bellator look after me like amazing. Well, I think one of the things that worries me a little bit is, if you know, if you do the wrong thing in UFC, you might, you might not last in UFC, and it might not, not have anything to do with your fighting.

1:12:34 And again, like I say, it’s a career, so be, you know, going from, you know, taking this amount of money to it being cut for any, any kind of reason is worrying. So I want to make sure that when I get there I can really solidify myself, if I go over to that organization, and being able to solidify stuff means you do need a massive fan base. You do need you need, you need massive supporters, so when you get to a place like that, you can’t just be cut because you know, you’re, you’re going to, that person’s going to lose a lot, or that organization is going to lose a lot of, of eyes, of viewers.

1:13:09 But like I say, at the moment, right now, the way Bellator is going on even every show that they keep putting out, I get excited as well, kind of, even the way they walk out. I think it just reminds me of when I was watching the WWE back in the day. Their walkouts, I think, are amazing, so right now I’m content. I’m not even looking anywhere else. Okay, and having Scott Coker back, do you feel the difference in the organization you there before and afterward?

1:13:30 Yeah, yeah. And like I said the same thing with Bellator. I think he’s the person who found me, with regards to, he let me on the show. So I have massive respect for him. Uh, helping me, and I think for me, as a fighter, the difference is more the people that I’m working with.

1:13:49 They seem happier. So, they had problems with him, back office wise, and I think that obviously plays a part in how you get treated when you go over there as well. Everyone’s a bit more frustrated and agitated and stuff, but now Scott Coker is a lot more organized, a lot more chilled, and they are like, they’re buzzing. So your energy, that you, you kind of feed off that kind of energy when you get over there, you feel the excitement from the back staff, let alone anybody else, and they, they’re all excited about what’s to come, what’s to come, what’s to come.

1:14:17 It gets me excited about what’s to come. Then I see a show like Dynamite, show these four, like four, for like four guys, two fights in one night, to fight the, and I’m just like, I love it. I love it all, like mixed with Glory next to it, and I’m just like, I think what you are doing is amazing, like, and you need, you’re trying to build characters. You’re trying to build, again, build an audience where they can really get excited about just the show before you even, not just the fight, not just about the individual names.

1:14:43 It’s the show, because what for me, that if I’m, you know, an average, uh, like a casual MMA viewer, when I, if, if a show gets me excited, that’s how I then find out about fighters, cuz the show, it’s, oh, this show sounds exciting, so I’m going to watch the show. I watched the show, and then, oh, this guy was really good, who is this guy? Oh, now I follow him. Now I’m, now, now I’ve zoned in on him. But if it’s just about the names, again, half the people, W, even watch the Y car, they only watched the, you know, the name that he wanted to watch in the first place.

1:15:15 And I think, uh, what he’s doing is a, is a, a better way of, uh, organizing the show. I think it’s, it makes the whole thing exciting, not just individuals. Yeah, it’s nice to see kind of those old Pride days. You’re obviously a fan of the wrestling and the excitement. You know, I still remember, I went to UFC 37 here at Ro Hall in 2002, and it had the walk down ramp and all that stuff.

1:15:35 It makes a difference, man. I think it does make a difference to the, the, the environment and stuff. Yeah, it does. Let’s talk about the name Conor McGregor. Conor has been talking about movement, you know, ever since he’s really been around, and funny enough Ido Portal, who’s the movement teacher, who we, you know, we all met together, was here a week ago.

1:15:55 You’re here and you know, Ido is a movement teacher. He’s dedicated his whole, his whole life to human movement, really, and funny enough. My interview with Ido a year ago, we actually talked about Conor, because Conor was talking about movement, and you see the way that Conor moves now is very different from the traditional style I was talking about, which is kind of boxing plus Thai plus wrestling, and, you know, you see this kind of a new way of looking at things, and then we see you, and there’s comparisons you kind of draw, because you both have kind of a different style you bring to the whole equation.

1:16:27 What do you hear when you’re compared with him, or do you see things that he does and things that you do? I think it’s still a slightly different style. But his bounce, again, his spatial awareness, I’m talking about the space, understanding the space between you and your opponent, not just understanding it once you and your opponent are engaged. Is what I can see from him. And again, a lot of people, especially with the wrestlers, because you’re with the wrestlers as well, they used to physically feel movement come towards them, and then adjusting and moving and manipulating, but when there’s no space between you, it’s harder to do, and this is why they try to just close you down as as quickly as possible.

1:17:14 But I can see McGregor really understands both. It’s the distance between, and then when you’re together as well, obviously, learning through the MMA, but for me the stars are still different, but his understanding of it is the same. Right? You have that hands down point fighting, completely different style as far as when it comes to striking. You walk away, you walk back.

1:17:37 I was watching some of your highlight reels. I was almost like, put naming names to it. You all, you kind of have like, the sometimes you do like the zombie style where you kind of go in and then you’re like the look-away style. I’m guessing you, all those things are in order to get a reaction out of your opponent. Yeah, part of me was thinking, like, sometimes do you get, like, an amyd, a reaction out of people like, when they see someone coming like that, just part of them, just short circuit, of yes, you get, you get many different responses.

1:18:00 The main two for me is the stand still, cuz I don’t want to get hit by anything that’s about to happen right now, or, or, or I back up because what you’re doing is weird, so just in case, let me just stand further back over here, which allows me more space. Okay, and then you got the other one, is like, I need to get as close to him as possible, um, before he does anything crazy, which means you’re running into something, so even if I don’t punch you that hard, you’ve now doubled the impact, by you, you know, your energy rushing forward, and it is rushing you. You might not want to attack at that particular moment.

1:18:37 You’re attacking because you feel pressure, or you feel something’s about to happen, and this is where my patience kicks in. I’m patiently waiting for you to feel that pressure, for you to then continue or charge at me, or make a decision one way or the other, and, and just from the response, responses that I, I then pick up on you. I can see what, which one it’s going to be. Okay, and you decide those in the moment, or have you practiced those things over the years?

1:19:01 Yeah, you have to. you obviously over the years, you’ve practiced it as a response, but I’m now, get with the London Shootfighters, I’ve actually weirdly enough, I’m actually getting more and more conscious about how I’m pushing and pulling people, cuz before it’s just kind of like a snap reaction. I’ve drew that reaction, that response, so many times, that but now it’s all about what I’m doing beforehand to get the reaction, okay, which has helped me helped my stand up massively, which people always say is it like, do you really learn anything when you stand up?

1:19:31 I’m like, I probably learned more in my standup. Obviously you, I had to learn Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling but it’s from point blank, so obviously I’m going to learn it but with the standup side he’s taught me so much more as well and even an even better understanding. What’s a good example of that? That’s something you’ve learned with the standup that you didn’t know from point fighting, for just my general foot position, like again. If I put my, if my foot is on the wrong side of your foot, I’m out of danger or in danger before I’ll just do it, and then regardless, even if I was in danger, I just felt I was comfortable to respond quick enough to see it coming and catch people out with a counter, but why did I need to put myself there if I’m now conscious of where my foot is?

1:20:16 I just don’t put myself in that danger cuz sometimes you get caught. It only takes one shot, especially in the small gloves. It only takes one glancing shot that can, you know, put you on and change the whole dynamics of it. So things like that, like my coach is like, you don’t just look, adjust, put your foot here, don’t put it here. Okay, so now you know the science behind.

1:20:34 I know the science. Yes, exactly, and that’s what’s helping me even more so and now having 10 times more fun cuz I can, I’m actually really pushing and pulling people even more than before. Okay, Ronda Rousey, she’s just told someone recently that she’s the highest paid MMA fighter in the world. Pretty incredible. Forbes just listed her as the 40 under 40 list, and I think that means power, influence, money, everything.

1:21:00 Pretty extraordinary for a woman that was dead broke after doing Olympic Judo for her whole life. Similar situation to you. I was going to say involved in a sport with no paycheck, probably no public support or respect, wondering what the hell she was doing. Meanwhile she was building up a heavy skill set that now she’s using to dominate. I haven’t thought about this before, but there is a huge par, right Ronda, two things.

1:21:22 Super well she plays the media game amazingly. Her and Conor put the time in, and I know that’s hard work. You’re preparing for a, what, fight? You’re cutting weight, you’re traveling time zones, and now you’re asking every interviewer 10 times a day the same question, but she does it. She puts the makeup on, she gets her hair done.

1:21:42 She’s do, does the movies. What do you see in Ronda that you like that you want to do things about it or what have you learned watching her? Like you say, the way she mocks herself, again, having the sex a PO massively helps. And I think that’s going to be the difference between a guy and a girl. It’s a lot easier to push that across.

1:22:03 But saying that she is, again, I everywhere I look, I’ve just been seeing her recently, you know what I mean? I go to cinemas, I’m like, go, it’s her again, like I go here, she’s another film, she and I love that kind of work rate. I really do respect that kind of work rate. Like as you say, you in between all of that, you still have to train and win and win. Yeah, and win, and win, and again it’s, it’s cuz again some people can neglect because they’re getting doing so much over here, you start to neglect your training, which again affects your your results.

1:22:37 And what she’s doing right now is being able to manage all of it correctly, as well as set herself up for potentially just going and doing movies and stuff later on or just modeling or whatever. She, I think, she’s what she’s done as a career package is what I look at from her. 100%. I can look at just, I can zone into just different things and look at her, just her martial arts. Her throws are amazing.

1:23:04 Her arm bars, like, ridiculous. I’d want to roll with her, just for the sake of, like, experiencing how good she is at that one particular thing. And everyone’s some people say to me, you know, when you’re good at one thing, if you’re even if you’re not amazed at anything else, when you’re that good at one thing, you always seem to find your way back to it. If you know what I mean? So she could be rolling and someone’s going, she always finds her way back to the arm bar she always finds her way back to the arm bar, and that’s, that’s when you are that good at that particular move.

1:23:32 Yeah, that Cat Zingano fight. She found this strange, weird arm bar. I think she even said she had never pulled off before, and that’s this inherent subconscious knowledge of the human body, understanding that particular, that again she understands where she wants that particular arm. Yeah, so no matter where she falls in, she’s like, I want your arm in this kind of position, so this is where I need to be, and she finds it, you know what I mean? Cuz, like you say, she’s that good at it, and it’s just subconscious.

1:23:58 Like I just, no matter where I am I going to get to the arm where I am I’m going to get to the arm again. Things when I zone into different individual things, I think it’s amazing, but her as a package. And when you get a woman so influential in MMA, it brands it out to more people, which for me is good. So again, for me, it, this means there’s more people looking at MMA after they finish watching, just run the Rousey they want, find out who else is good, then they might see my my flash kick and they’re like, oh wow, who’s this guy?

1:24:27 And again, it all became because Ronda Rousey brought in another 100,000 people to the sport, which helps me. So again, massively appreciate what she’s doing, you put, I asked you a couple questions before this, and you wrote me back a couple answers, and you said it’s not like you want to take you to the next level. You want to take MMA to another, 100%, 100%. Explain that to me. For me, I’m so, I’ve believe in my style so much that I see what the Gracies did.

1:24:59 I can see myself doing the same thing for the standup side. So to you’re going to be watching MMA in the next few years, and the stuff that you’re going to see people doing is almost like watching a movie. You might as well bring popcorn to an MMA event, because it’s going to be that exciting. It’s already now, crazy on the floor, but people are starting to, like, nullify each other because everyone’s understanding the same thing, so they just, they know.

1:25:22 Even people that they’re not good at Jiu-Jitsu, they’re just good at Jiu-Jitsu blocking. They just know where to position their hands, where not to position their head, so on and so to stand back up or to just land their strikes. But I’m going to revolutionize the striking and the precision striking, that the enjoyment factor, and I think if you as a fighter can enjoy yourself more in the cage, it’s going to be way more enjoyable for the fans watching from the viewers watching on the outside.

1:25:47 Yeah, that’s the biggest thing I learned from you today, because when you’re being flamboyant, you’re getting the vibe from the people, which gives you more energy, and then if you’re loving what you’re doing, you’re flowing. I mean, that’s the essence of being human, right? Exactly, exactly. That and energy, and again, you seriously, it just every single. This is why I say, when people asked me before, like, when you come over here and people are booing you, does it bother you?

1:26:09 I, no, cuz it’s still an energy. You’re that, like, there’s something in you that’s still throwing something back out, like, bro, you’re that annoyed by whatever you’re seeing that you’re throwing energy at me, and that’s all I’m feeling. Boo or cheering, it’s exactly the same. It’s the same kind of noise and it’s the same kind of energy. It’s an exciting energy, right?

1:26:28 You get food? Yeah, I get food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The first fight, cuz you’re fighting Americans. The first fight was because I was fighting a local.

1:26:35 Okay. Other fights, when I started dancing, people were like oh no, what are you doing? Like, it’s fight normal, and like it doesn’t bother me, and I’ve, I’ve had it before in MMA. I had it in. I remember, as in Manchester, this probably the worst one I had.

1:26:51 I, it was like an elimination thing, so competition through the day. I had fought one of the local Manchester guys, destroyed him and again I was being my flamboy itself. After that the whole crowd was just every, I could couldn’t do anything right no matter what I did, I got booed. Yeah, I second, I still said on the out, I got booed, and then I was fighting there. He’s from Czech Republic, I think, and he threw a kick and I ducked under his kick and he was running towards me, and I then I just done a back flip, kicked him, both feet in the head.

1:27:22 The thing is, this competition, most of the points competitions, if you don’t land back on your feet you don’t get any points. But this one allowed you to land back anywhere as long as you landed the shot, and I’d done a back flip, kicked him, both feet hit him straight in the head, and that actually wanted me to fight the whole crowd just went, it just complete, from booing to just complete cheers. And again, it didn’t bother me. I just I just loved it.

1:27:45 You just want the energy. I just want the energy. Are they still booing you these days, or are you getting cheers now? Oh no, I get a lot more, lot more support. Like I said, every time I go over there, I feel, I feel that people understand me more and more, and there’s a bit more of a story, and you know, there’s a bit, there’s a, there’s 10 new interviews that you get to, you get to see, and you get a bit more of an understanding about me, and then an understanding about my sport, which helps them with watching me so when they watch me now they’re like, you know, fair, like fair play, I understand it a bit more, like you can cheer him on.

1:28:14 And yeah, I get a lot more of a, a better reception. What do you think of the Americans? I, for me, for what they’ve done, it’s the Americans and Brazilians that are dominating the sport. It’s the wrestling, it’s the Jiu-Jitsu, and they are very good at it. So I, I like, I’ve got family in America.

1:28:35 I love going over to America. I love being in America. This is why I was going to make a decision to go over there before as well, so it was a hard one to come back to. It was a hard one to come back to. You know, wet old England, but I don’t regret the decision at all, cuz the people that have like Paul and Alexis.

1:28:49 For me they’re my family. They’re my uncle. Like I said, this is why I have so much trust in what they do. I do not believe they’re going to steer me wrong in anything, and every step of the way they’ve just proved that every single time without even trying. They’ve just proved it every step of the way.

1:29:05 So they really do have my back, wholeheartedly. Okay, are you getting big in America? Do people know who MVP is, is it? Yeah, it’s getting, it’s getting a lot bigger. And again, after my last fight we went out to celebrate.

1:29:17 We went to like a local club in BO, I think, and a guy there, the guy at the door, he actually took my ID and he’s like, oh, you, he said you’re this dude, you’re this dude. I was like, yeah, I was like, yeah, yeah, he’s, oh man, this guy’s crazy. I was talking to him, took some pictures of him and stuff. So yeah, it’s, it’s getting, it’s big over there. Anyway, it’s getting bigger, I think, I actually feel I’m bigger in Brazil, and it’s ever since that first fight.

1:29:49 Even when that blew up, I had a about 50,000 views on the UK one that was posted, and I had a million and something posted on the Brazilian one, some that one of the Brazilian guys had posted, and it literally said the new Anderson Silva, and because of that relation, and because of how big their sport is, the second to their football, I think, over there, because how big it is over there. I, I get so many Brazilians and like contacting and doing this, and they, they love it over there. Why do they love you?

1:30:19 Do you think because you’re being yourself and you’re being Brazilian? I, I think it’s, again, they’re very, in every single sport that they do, they’re good at creating new movements and stuff with their football, with their jiujitsu, everything that they got over there. They’re that kind of culture where they’re happy, they dancing and love to move their feet and stuff, so I think they appreciate that side. But again, I really do believe because one of their main guys and main figureheads of MMA is Anderson Silva, and I’m being related to him.

1:30:49 It just makes it easier for you to watch, and for more people to then go, yeah, right, let me see this guy, and then they see the kick and they’re like, I actually like that, they see the movement. Okay, I like this guy. So I think that makes it easier to, you know, kind of watch me. Have you met Anderson? I haven’t actually.

1:31:05 How do you feel about the Anderson comparison? He said some good things about you. Yeah yeah. And again, the Anderson Silva comparison, I 100% understand why people will go there straight away, and it’s a compliment. You cannot take, you couldn’t take, I couldn’t take it any other way.

1:31:22 It is a massive compliment to be a I’ve just started, and to be compared to someone that has dominated the sport for years and is an amazing athlete, is it’s, it’s a compliment. And then at the same time I’m like, I’m not, but for me I’m like, I’m not interested in trying to do what he does. I’m trying to be me. I’m trying to create. I want people to go to someone else and be like, oh, you’re like, you’re like the next MVP, or like, you know what I mean?

1:31:49 I want to, I want to be standing next to, not underneath somebody. I’m not trying to mimic. But then when I saw him when he, you know, actually acknowledged me, it again is a massive respect because he didn’t need to do that. I’m not part of his team, I’m not part of his organization. I’m not anything.

1:32:06 He could have just said, no, I’ve never heard of Michael and just left at that, but he was humble and respectful enough to go yeah, I’ve seen him and man, he’s good. Like it’s good for me, the just hearing those kind of things, it, it’s just as I’m trying to, you know, work hard to get to that place, hearing things like that from someone as dominant as him in his game. Again it just keeps, keeps like reassuring me that I’m doing the right things. keep going, keep going, keep pushing.

1:32:35 How do you keep your ego in check? I think it was really enough, I’ve learn, I think I’ve learned so much from the point scoring because I did so well in it, and I used to get this kind of reception when I went to points. I, it feel like I used to live like two different lives, you know what I mean? I come home and I’m just a normal Michael Page, and I go there and I’m like, you know, Michael Page, like everyone’s like, oh yeah, you did this mie last time and blah blah blah.

1:33:00 But the only thing that’s changed now is there’s now people seeing me in my normal day-to-day, still doing the same thing, still being as excited, and I think for years and years of going through it in a smaller scale has trained me up, but just being a, like I said, martial art is first. I don’t, I’m not trying to. I think all that, I’m a mission so all of what you’re saying, I, it’s for me, it’s just, it’s good, a boost to keep going on my mission, but I’m not going to, I’m not going to take any extra steps.

1:33:30 I don’t need to take the people that are around me. I’ve got a secure, like team around me, friends and family, and my coaches and my teammates, that has just, it’s just no matter what comes in, negative or positive, it’s just going to bounce off, because I’ve got too many of the right people that will say that, like they, they get to me a lot quicker. If my coach said anything negative about me, I mean, that’s going to mean 20 million times more than what a million people could say to me.

1:33:57 Yeah. Dana White calls them the Klingons, from the Star Trek, I guess, but like he says he sees it with UFC fighters. You know, they get close to a title, all of a sudden all these people come out of the woodwork. You know, their bud wants to be the agent, the new girl that tells them this, and it can really change something. That inner circle is, is big.

1:34:14 It’s important. It’s massively important. I think it keeps you not on track, but you’ve got a team of people on the same path as you, so, and no one else can break into that as long as you understand your team and you know you’ve worked with them before, people can’t break into that. You’re always going to have people coming in. Okay, before you get to me, what do you think?

1:34:34 What do you think, what do you think? You know, I mean, these guys are like, no, stay away. Even if it was a bad decision, I’m going to go with what you guys say, cuz you’ve been with me from the beginning, so I’m going to trust it. A lot of people watch this that are entrepreneurs that have their own businesses. I was wonder if you could tell me about you as a brand.

1:34:53 MVP Hands Down management. I know you’re, you have, you’re playing with music, know, Kingsman: The Secret Service did a piece with you as far as acting. Like, what do you see in the future, you know, besides the fighting, for you? For me, I’m building a brand with my family, like mainly my brothers and my sister, and we’ve got a debt repair company in America, doing like student desk called a Le, that’s been going on for about a year and a bit now, or maybe a bit longer.

1:35:27 Then we’re doing a Hands Down management. I want to get into all sports. The Hands Down just for me represents me, my style, the fact that we fight with our hands, and it’s, it’s always the main topic of conversation when people talk to me, even friends, they’re like, man, I love what you’re doing, amazing, but come on, keep your hands up, please man, give me heart. Keep your hands up, keep your hands up, and I’m just like, this is my style, hands down. So we’re doing management.

1:35:55 I’m working with, well, was trying to get into the breaking the in the football world. So we’re going to be working with some, some football, some football players as well, some basketball players, but we’re focusing on the MMA at the moment, because again that’s what I’m in there at the moment. I got a lot more network in that, but in the next couple of years I want to have network in multiple sports and then a couple of athletes as well. The M, like you say, we’re doing the music and stuff, again same thing.

1:36:26 It’s just managing talent. It’s just a talent talent talent management thing. My brother’s also into music. He produced my track. He wrapped on it.

1:36:35 My other brother, brother-in-law, he’s a drum player. He’s into music. He’s got his own music company, so he can produce and release tracks through that company. We’re just all working as a unit and just slowly expanding into absolutely everything. I run my own kickboxing academies, right?

1:36:52 We have three academies in Epsom, Cobham in Leatherhead. We’re potentially going to be opening one in America as well, in West Palm. And again, all under Hands Down. We got a martial gymnastics team. They do all the acrobatic guys.

1:37:12 You have to look at these guys. They’re absolutely amazing, and from like, I’m talking from like age five six, right? The way up to the ad s got doing like weapons, nunchucks, back flips, this that. It’s amazing They’re unbelievable, and we’re just, I’m just building out for absolutely everything, and this is the kind of thing that I’m going to, like I said, for me, you can fight for as many years as you want. Age, time’s going to tell you, or force you out one way or another, so you have to make sure you’re doing things in between that is timeless.

1:37:48 It will keep going, you know what I mean? I’m spreading my knowledge through clubs, companies and people right the way through, and it’s Hands Down brand that I’m going to be building. I’m also going to be working close with, I’m sponsored by Bad Boy at the moment, right? And I said to them one thing that’s stopping me from actually making this deal is my own brand, which is Hands Down. He said we’ll help you with that.

1:38:13 We’ll work. We co-brand some of your stuff as well, and we’re, help you with that. And I was like, you couldn’t have said anything better to me. It doesn’t matter whatever money you put down. Did really didn’t matter to me.

1:38:22 I’d prefer to be have a lot less money and work on my own stuff and just take my time to get to the top, and that’s what I’m doing. Yeah, the Hands Down brand is, is definitely going to be big. We’re doing so much, so much stuff. So many fighters, they just don’t invest in themselves. Exactly.

1:38:37 So many companies don’t, and to be honest, Michael, we didn’t either at London Real. You know, we were just putting out great content over the years, there only last six months where, you know, we created our Academy. Now we’re building our own brand. Exact. When you do that like, no one can take that away from EX.

1:38:51 Exactly. I just think people forget. Fighters included forget that it is, that’s your career, cuz it’s not, your walking into an office and sitting down, or what, you know what I mean? It doesn’t feel like a career, right? But it is.

1:39:04 So this is why I’m saying everything I do is, is thought out or sat down and discussed, with regards to, again, all these different movements, I’s, I’ve been sitting on writing stuff. What’s the best thing, what’s the best reaction, what’s, what can I say? The one and only MVP that’s come out and people are like, oh, you’re the one, and again, it’s just, I, we sit down and go through, and it’s not just myself. It’s my brothers. We all go, going through stuff.

1:39:26 We’re doing like a Hands Down athletic network. It’s going to be absolutely massive. It’s going to like a, for all martial arts events to post their events online. It’s like a Ticketmaster kind type thing. Okay.

1:39:37 And we, we’re launching that very soon as well, that we’re just I just want to be involved in everything, you know what I mean? And be the best Hands Down, and why do you fight with your hands down? When are you going to put them up? I’ll put, I’ll probably put them up if somebody tags me. No, to be fair, it’s again, it’s just, it’s a, it’s a relaxed style.

1:40:01 I feel this builds a lot of tension. 100%. When I teach my guys, it’s funny, because I always was like, but you don’t do it. I’m like, but the fact is I know how to do it. If I need to go back to basics, you will see me with my guard up.

1:40:14 If some, if I get into a sticky situation where, you know, what I need my basics need to kick in. You will see me here landing shots properly with my hands in the right position until I get to a point where I’m comfortable enough to go and relax again, but I always say to people as well, what you need to understand is I’ve spent years doing this, so without it I still see that okay, regardless of, like, it being there or not, I still see it, and I always ask when they say you should put your hands up, I said, have guys that you know fight with their guard up, do they get knocked out? They’re like, yeah, some, some guys.

1:40:49 I said, well, then it doesn’t change anything. It’s not going to change the yards, then if I have my hands down or if I have my hands up, because both people get knocked out or have the are able to get knocked out, cuz you have to be still be able to be responsive and block stuff that’s coming It’s small gloves. This doesn’t cover all the holes, so we still get knocked out. So again, I have my hands here training for years, and then I put it down, and when you get too close and I’m a bit uncomfortable, I move my feet.

1:41:16 My movement kicks in. I’m like, okay, you know, I don’t want you comfortable enough to even start throwing shots. I want you questioning what’s about to happen to you, so you don’t even throw. So before I even worried about the defense, I’m already, I’ve already got your brain engaged. I’m like, I a snake charmer.

1:41:31 I’m just non-stop doing this, and you’re like, you get stuck in the motion until I find my shot. That’s it. Have you been in a sticky situation yet in MMA? I’ve been in a frustrating situation, which was of Nashan, where he was like staying quite close to me, but it was my fault. Okay, this was the decision.

1:41:53 Yeah, this was the one. It went to decision. It was my fault. Basically, I allowed him to be too comfortable, chest to chest. And I’ve wor we’ve worked in it before, and I spoke to my coaches straight afterwards.

1:42:06 He’s like, if you did a bit more, if you were hitting him, landing even when he’s stuck to you, you’re just landing a lot more, making a bit more uncomfortable to want to stay there. He now separates and puts him back, put him back in the position you want him to be in. I don’t feel, I didn’t feel in danger in any way, and I even got taken down for a bit. I didn’t feel in danger, because, literally, my coach was like, from day one, he said you’re going to spend a lot of time on your back, a lot of time, because nobody’s going to want to stand with you, so the first thing they’re going to look to do is take you down.

1:42:39 Yeah, right. Now I might, there’s no point in me trying to work on just your takedown defense, cuz eventually somebody’s got, they’ve been doing the amount of years you’ve been doing kickboxing. These guys have been doing years of taking people down. You’re going to end up on your back. You just need to be good at working from there and safe, and then learn how to stand up.

1:42:55 I’ve stood up on some big guys already. I’ve had guys in the gym that massive, they’ve taken me down, and I’m just like, get my shot. I’ve drilled it so many times. I get back to my feet, and each time I stand up they get more and more tired, and then my defense kicks in, cuz then they can’t take me down again, cuz they’re too tired to do it. You know, as strong or penetrate as hard as they did at the beginning and all of a sudden they have to stand with me, which brings me straight back to like I said, what we’re under RI does always circle back to what you want.

1:43:23 Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, decide where the fight happens and you see it in MMA. Fights, guys will get one takedown, two, three, and then they just don’t have the pop anymore, and if you keep standing up, it’s very frustrating. It’s tiring. Exactly, and a lot of times you’ve already figured out their tells at this point.

1:43:40 Exactly, and then you start running into shots, and yeah, it makes it. Are you looking for that, physical test, you know, in an MMA, about coming up where you get clipped, and you’re like, okay, it’s weird, cuz I get a lot of people, I’ve had people say that to me before, and I’m like, no, if I can win every single one of my fights for my whole career within 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 seconds, then I would do that time and time again. I’m not, I get bullied and beaten up in the gym, so it doesn’t happen out there.

1:44:07 Just cuz you guys don’t see it, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening, you know what I mean? I like I said you, I’m, I’m in a gym where there worry is there, and we go, we go harder, we go home all the time, so I have to go through it. I have to go through it before I came here today. I was, I was in War. I mean, I was in London Street.

1:44:26 We had sparring today. Jimmy Warheads down, like Powerhouse Mic, everyone just like going nuts, and I’m like, get chain scrub up, come down here, and that’s what we do. But I do that so I don’t need to. If it happens, it’s a familiar place, so I don’t panic. I am able to get back to a comfortable position, get regain control, and you know, then put my game on, but I’d prefer if I had the choice, it not happened at all.

1:44:56 I don’t, I don’t want to be clipped. I don’t want to be knocked down. I would even knocked out at all. Right? And you guys spar with some of the best.

1:45:02 You told me today, Monday, you’re, you’re sparring with Chris Eubank’s son. Yes, that’s crazy. He’s a professional boxer. The guy’s amazing, the guy’s amazing speed, power. But we do it all the time, and my Alexis, he, he says you know, if we’re going to be true mixed martial art martial artists, we should be able to break down each individual art and you should be able to do it with the best.

1:45:25 So he has top wrestlers come in, and I have to wrestle with them. They, again, they’re wrestlers, though. I’m, I’m a mixed martial arts. There certain things that could change, could help sway the decision to me, like if I was landing strikes and stuff as well, but when I’m just wrestling, it becomes 10 times harder. But no, you should be able to wrestle with somebody, right, and at top level, and it works the same with boxing.

1:45:49 We punch, we throw punches. You should be able to box with the best, so I’m going to bring the best here, and then you have to make sure you can do that. You should be able to box. You should be able to kickbox with the best. He’s going to bring the best kickboxers here, and you should be able to do that.

1:46:02 I had a black belt Jiu-Jitsu guy come in about three or four weeks ago, and he came down. Michael, you’re rolling with him. I tapped him out three, three or four times, caught him different, different submission. Even the guy who was like, whoa, shocked. He’s like, whoever I bring down, you, every single one of you should be able to at least handle yourself.

1:46:23 Even if you didn’t catch a submission, you shouldn’t get submitted. You should be able to just be, be, be on that level where you can handle yourself, and this is why I love this, why I love being in London. Shoot, fighters, they don’t show. We don’t shy away from any, but we’ll travel down to you, to your own backyard, and spar, or if you’re happy to come to us, or spar, and that’s what we’re doing. Yeah, I got Chris Eubank Jr. to spar.

1:46:46 I sparred with James, the girl, before. Come down, we were trying to organize with grows, we just missed, missed the timing on that one, but that should happen again as well. Loads of people. I enjoy boxing as well. Okay, I really do enjoy the boxing.

1:47:00 I, I feel like I could be a bit more free, because I only have to worry about two things, where, where I can’t do my low dip in because I got knees to worry about, I got kicks to worry about. Right? So, but I can be a bit even more creative in my boxing when I’m doing boxing and stuff. So yeah, I, I just love it. It’s funny, cuz you look like you could have come from the city.

1:47:21 You know, like put a jacket on, you’re like you know, investment banker. And it’s hard to believe, but I mean, I know how those guys train, and it’s, I mean, I was always shocked by like how hard they would go, long sessions, brutal sessions, really finding out what you’re made of. Yeah, yeah. And so you, I don’t think people understand that you put all that work in, so when you’re in the cage, you don’t, or you make that get up look easy. Exactly.

1:47:43 You’ve done it like literally probably a thousand times. Yeah, yeah, and then you will, I, I, I understand that every time I get a new opponent and it gets harder and harder and harder. I’m going to get tested each time, but I should, I should be miles ahead already because of, it happened. It happened, that same thing happened. He’s like, if you can’t get up close, your guard just don’t let him pass.

1:48:07 Spend a round on your, on your back, why? Because at the end of the round you start back on your feet. So why are you worrying? For, you know what I mean? Take your time, land, land as much as you can.

1:48:17 Let him waste his energy on top of you, you know what I mean? Do what you can from from, from, from your back. Bell rings, you stand up, you come back out, you put your game on. He’s now more tired. Yeah, and again, this is why I like about his, his thought process, and it’s always tailored to different people.

1:48:31 We’ll do the same drill, but Michael, no, you end like this, and you, you end like this, cuz you’re, you’re more of a jiujitsu guy. You want to be on your back there. You’re happy to be there, cuz you got this submission and that submission that you’re amazing at. Michael, you don’t want to be on your back. So when you, if you escape this, put your hand on his head, stand up, get back to your feet, get back to the.

1:48:50 So we’re all drilling the same things. We got different endings, or maybe have a slightly different beginning to set things up, and this is why I like, he would watch different people’s shapes, body types and styles, and it all is, it helps him customize what he wants you specifically to do versus what you do. So we’re all in the same gym doing the same thing, but we’re not, you know what I mean? Which is why I find in a lot of places everyone’s doing exactly the same thing, you know what I mean?

1:49:14 You got told everyone is doing this, this, this, this, this, but it’s, that doesn’t work so well for you, and doesn’t work so well for you, but I’m not tailoring, I’m not adjusting for you, and you, I’m just saying this works for everybody. This is what I kind of don’t like, and what I do like about Alexis and poor on what they, and how they think. Right? Patience seems to be one of your greatest weapons. 100%.

1:49:33 Patience in the fight. Patience in your career, and a lot of these businesses, I mean, it sounds like you are okay to wait for the right time. Yeah, 100%, which is the opposite of most young men coming up in this career. Right? You want it now.

1:49:45 I want the big money in the UFC. I want to go to Vegas. I want to do this. I think again, through the point scoring, I, from like age 8 to like age 12, four years of going to competitions and watching my brothers and sister come back with medals, and me sitting back in the same van coming back like this, with no medals, cuz you lost a lot of fights. You, I, I lost so many.

1:50:06 Be surprised to hear that. Yeah, I lost so, so, so many fights, and again, you’re traveling hours down the motorway to go and lose a fight, that come hours back, and again, but you, every time I learn, I learn loads. And I was patient enough to continue and persistent enough to continue, cuz especially for children as well, especially nowadays, their kids are impatient. They, they get something wrong once and they don’t, they want to change and you know, do something different, and what I feel doesn’t help is parents are like, fine, we’ll change, cuz it’s too much of a, a, a hassle to deal with, your, like, you know, your complaining, but I feel you should do it even when I didn’t want to do it.

1:50:44 My dad’s like, you’re going, you’re going, and you were like, I don’t want to go this weekend. He’s like, you’re going, yeah, you got, you’re going to go with we’re, we’re all going down anyway, so you might as well fight, you know I mean? He never really forced us to fight. I always enjoyed. He never forced us to fight, but we had to train.

1:50:59 Training was like school, you know what I mean? There’s no choice, you know I mean? You have to train. You have to, I think this, he just understands the stuff that you learn from training is important, you know what I mean? And one time I, I couldn’t even tell you why my mom was annoyed.

1:51:13 She was annoyed. She’s like, I’m going to stop him from training. She’s like, that’s not the thing you punish him with, though, cuz he’s going to learn lot from the training. We, we can find we can find different, take this away from him and do that, take that, but you don’t punish him with something that’s going to help him. It’s like saying you’re not going to school today because you are, you know, you’re naughty here, you’re naughty there, and yeah, he was correct in saying that there’s a lot of stuff you learn from even the social aspect, learning how to speak to different people.

1:51:40 You’re always around people all the time, so the martial L, it really does help. Right? Does it ever bother you that you know you make your living on hurting people? I did say like I thought I should ask that question, cuz like I’m so familiar with MMA, it’s just normal to me. Yeah, I think it’s only now you’ve said it like that for me.

1:52:01 I didn’t, I don’t even see it like that. But it’s the way it’s put in. I think it’s, it is funny to say that, but both sides are willing to hurt or be hurt, so it’s all on an even platform, and what I like about it is where it’s like a warriors, like unwritten, kind of thing, where you, I can come up and just shake your hand and be like, like, we just, that was an amazing fight, and we can talk about the result, whether I lost or won, you know what I mean, and be comfortable enough to be like, oh man, that was good, I should done this, man, I that, and be chilled about it, where a lot of people can kind of hold it to heart, and you know, don’t want to talk to that guy.

1:52:46 I don’t like that guy, and it has nothing to do with their person ality, just the, you know, the fact that you were fighting, but majority people I’ve come across after the fight is done so cool, right? Do you ever feel bad for a guy that you’ve just ended his consciousness and probably his career by that knockout? Weird, weird enough, again, cuz I haven’t thought, I have never thought about it in that way. So no, okay. No, I’m just more, I’m zoning on me.

1:53:14 It’s, I think after every single fight after the knockdown I’m like, if there’s a relief, even though I’m still relaxed and stuff, it’s still, you’re still in competition, it’s a relief, it’s over. So I’m more focused on like, it’s over, I’m happy I can celebrate, my family’s here. So you forget, you know what I mean? and that’s what I’m saying. You kind of catch up with their masters.

1:53:33 You’re talking, a lot of times people don’t realize what you don’t see in there. We end up going back to the same medical room and going back to all going in the same direction. We disappear from your guys’ eyes, but we’re still together after that result. So you have to, you have to be humble enough to, you know, not be like bragging in someone’s face and stuff afterwards, and but just go up to them and be like, yeah, are you all right? Cool, yes, and they’re happy to just to do that and have that conversation.

1:53:59 Yeah, people use the word violence, but to me violence is when physical contact is given to who doesn’t comply, but if you are both complying, not violent. Exactly. And so, like, if you see some good beat up in the streets, cuz maybe they didn’t want to be there, but you w’t be there. The other thing you made me think of is something Pete Irving said to me one time in Pete Irving’s old school MMA. Back in the day used to SP Withers.

1:54:26 Actually, really was really looking forward to that, to that. bout. He in injured his neck, yeah, just before, but I was, I was looking forward to that one, man he and he fought one of AR our guys as well, and he was just really, he just tough man. He’s old school, like stand foot foot down and just keep power pling forward. It’s amazing.

1:54:43 Yeah, super old school, super smart. He we would have guests on here. He co-hosted. We had like a Harvard professor. We had John, the author who wrote the Men Who Stare at Goats, and Pete would like pull out the books.

1:54:53 He, like, can you sign my three books? And he would ask him questions about books. They read, Peter’s, like he’s like a, you know, anarchist stuff, but one time he said he said, Brian, you know, I go in and I fight these guys, and he said, you know, after the fight you talk about, people see kind of the commoner in that ring, and then you guys go away and we go back to our lives, but he said, he said the one person who understands me the most is the guy across the ring, cuz like he knows what sacrifice, he knows the diet, he knows the hard work, the pain.

1:55:23 Not even my girlfriend understands that. Mom, my best friend, that guy is the one that knows me the best, and yet I’m fighting him. Exactly. but when it’s done, you almost feel closest to him than anyone else in the whole stadium. Right, and that’s, and that’s what I mean by why I almost feel defensive over people making comments that are supposed to insult me, but you’re insulting the other person that did just go through all of that to get there.

1:55:47 Right, and you’re like, oh, he wasn’t good enough. I’m like, do you have, do you know this guy’s story? You’re saying he’s not a good enough fighter. It’s, I understand there’s different levels of like people experience, and in loads of different things, but the fact is we both gone in there to do, to attempt to do the same thing, you know what I mean? It’s just individual characters and experience, and you know, your training drills, what you’ve gone over, that helps you, but like you say, he’s gone through the same thing.

1:56:14 He’s done all of his work, like training hard on every single machine. Trying injes the injuries, and the thing is, it’s weird, these injuries are nonstop, cuz your body is always going. Sometimes it’s you just tweak this, and you just tweak that, you just tweak this, and tweak that, and it’s not massive injuries, you know what I mean? It’s not something that puts you out, but they’re all there, and even now, sitting in the chair, I’m like, this hurts, and this, this hurts, and this hurts.

1:56:38 But again, stuff you have to go through, like every, I say I have to respect every person that steps into the cage. That’s what it is. Yeah, there was that old UFC advert where Michael Beast being like, looks the camera and he says, so you want to be a fighter, you know, and I, I like that says it all, you know? Like, cuz everybody wants the glory, the highlight reel. You know, Joe Rogan says everybody wants to be a fighter to beat people up, but most fighters take punishment, that’s actually job, right?

1:57:04 Exact, in training or in the ring. And so, if they knew everything you knew, they wouldn’t want to be a fighter. They would do they wouldn’t want anything to do with it. The stuff that we have, just the exercising side of things, the stuff that if I was to give you some of the fitness, put some of the guys on the same fitness schedule that we had to do, you’d probably want be that, I’m done now, and you haven’t thrown a punch or a kick but yet beforehand, you was ready to go to war.

1:57:29 But like I said, if you do all that kind of stuff and realize that this is, this is every week, yeah, you know what I mean? This is every single week on top of having to learn, on top of having to, you know what I mean, beat people at different aspects of the sport, and then go, and then go. Yeah, there’s so much, so much to it. Yeah, I know that. Paul Daley you think you guys will ever meet?

1:57:50 Paul’s done amazing job of really building his name, being one of the top British guys to be recognized. You guys know each other a little bit? I guess, you know, completely different organizations, but you know, no, he’s, cuz he’s Bellator now. Yeah, he’s Bellator now. That’s, I mean, when we did the British Invasion, oh yeah, okay, of course he was all a part of that, and like, this is where this, the, I never, I knew him obviously.

1:58:13 He was a big name anyway, but I’d never met him before, and in fact those guys James Thompson guy is absolutely hilarious, and he used to train in our gym as well. He’s great, man. Yeah, I love great vlog. He’s funny as hell. He is so, seriously, every time, every time we’re in the same place, I would just sit there like this and just listen, because the guy is so funny.

1:58:34 He’s got like a persona, and you can’t figure out if that’s him or if he’s playing a joke on you. He’s this guy. You know, he interviewed Howard Marks, is me in here, my co-host. Oh man, and he’s got stories for days as well. I just, I just, yeah, I love I love him, man, but again, weirdly enough, never came across him before, and even though he was in my gym before, just just missed each other.

1:58:55 Linton and Vel get home with him, so well. Again, same thing. Liam Mcir. We just didn’t know any of the guys that we all from the same place, and never had actually crossed, but then we spent time together and just clicked. Like we were just cracking jokes everywhere.

1:59:07 Was everywhere, and it was, it was, had a really good time with them. This why I really was even more so frustrated about missing out on that, being I think I, I kind of created a little team bond, and then wasn’t able. I felt like I let them down, even though I’m fighting for myself. Wasn’t, wasn’t able to go out there and, you know, join in as a part of that show, but we all spoke about it, cuz Liam Mcir and Linton are all in the same, they’re in the same weight.

1:59:30 Me and Paul are in the same weight, and we’re like, if we had to come across each other, that’s what it is. Like, that’s the game we’re in, and it’s the same thing as we’re saying before. We can be like you know, respectful and power, power, and stuff, and then we know how to turn it on. We need to go to war and then when we finish, when that bell rings, that last bell rings or someone’s down, you come back, and I always tell people this, when I was young, my, all my brothers and my sister used to do it.

1:59:58 I had to spar them, and my dad is exactly the same. He’s like, on the mat, this is not your sibling, this is the person you have to beat. So you fight now. When you finish, you make sure you go over there. You help them up, you know what I mean?

2:00:12 You help them up if they need help, if they need to go to the amp, you’re there with them. You hug, you kiss, everything. You make sure you do that afterwards, but you see when you step on the M, you’re not, you’re not siblings. You go there to go, and I’m like, if I can fight my brother then I can fight absolutely anybody. Okay, so we might see a fight with Paul Daley in the future.

2:00:30 Yeah, okay. I’m sure it, I’m sure it’s going to come. It’s going to come across. I don’t, I don’t see how it wouldn’t, unless he left or, you know, I don’t see how it wouldn’t, cuz we’re both building that name. He’s already got that name.

2:00:41 I’m trying to build my name, you know, people I know, people want that kind of stuff. Anyway, but it’s down to the, to the show, right? It’s not something I’m chasing. I’m not, I, I don’t, I’m not chasing anybody in particular. I’m on my own journey, so whoever I come across in that journey, that’s what I need to do.

2:00:58 Good one. Thing we’re learning about Ronda and Conor is that the opponent is almost just as important, you know, because it’s like, you need that nemesis, you need that foil to sell the fight and get it all excited. without it, it’s not a one-man show. We’re seeing so it, it, that’s why it works. Like with May, I think he probably the smartest ones at doing that kind of stuff, cuz to be fair, you can probably put anybody in front of him and May will sell it, oversell it, to make it seem like that guy’s actually has a chance of winning.

2:01:26 Sometimes I see guys in there and I’m like, I’m looking at the start, I’m like, I just don’t see him beating that person, but May was like, yeah, no, he’s really good, and he’s B, and obviously he’s building that guy’s story for him, and it helps. He’s smart, he’s smart, and then people start jumping on that side as well, and like, yeah, he’s going to beat May, whatever, and all of a sudden you want to watch that fight, and it’s Conor McGregor does the same thing, man. Yeah, they do it amazingly.

2:01:50 When you see guys like Robbie Lawler, Johny Hendricks at 170 in the UFC, do you ever think in your mind, do you watch those fights and think about how it would play out, and you know, do you see things in them where you’re like, okay, that’s interesting, or that wouldn’t be a problem, or I again, I’m, I’ve always been a quite a weird person in the sense that I don’t watch that many people like that. I know all of their names because of the, the level that they’re fighting at, and you know, you watch some of their fights, but I don’t study people like prepping to see if I’d beat them or not. It’s usually when you’re in front of me, then I’m like, I’ll just start analyzing different things, but I watch everybody as a whole.

2:02:28 I take, and I’m talking from the high level, sometimes I watch something that on the show I might be watching a Bellator show, and you’re looking at some of the prelims, and you’re watching, and you’re like, oh, that, that was quite, that was quite good. Like, what was, like, what did he, how did he get there? What did he do, and then he watch it back, and I’m watching something, one I’ve never heard of before, equally as much as I’d watch any of those guys.

2:02:48 Yeah, you know what I mean? Cuz he done something I find fascinating. Like I said, I get inspiration from anything, so I don’t stress myself about any of that kind of stuff, cuz you could have that in your head, and by the time I get to that point, none of them are even in the industry anymore. Right? Okay.

2:03:08 You know what I mean? So unless it’s a potential opponent, like in a near future, I couldn’t care less. So you’re interested in movement? Yeah, just everything. We met at Portal’s movement experience, and you probably saw us.

2:03:21 I thought you saw us climbing across the floor as like animals. We did do, and I’m working on my lizard, which is crazy, cuz like I’m used to lifting weights and trying to do muscle ups or fighting, and you said you, you’re open-minded all sorts of different ways of moving, and, you know, Ido does fascinating body weight stuff, and just has you start thinking about the body in a different way, and like, like I said, things like walking like a lizard, like what can you learn from it? And I was just curious what you think you can learn from someone like that.

2:03:52 I, the kind of strength that he produces. I was talking to him afterwards, actually, or during the break, when I came. Powerful personality, doesn’t he? Yeah, yeah. And he stood there and he was like, obviously we’re all talking about movement and stuff as well, and he’s like, you know, when you generate energy, and he went and snapped his hands, and I stood there like, what the heck.

2:04:16 The snap of his hand was amazing, and I can see the way he was just building it up and then just snap. It was, it was whip. Like, like you hear the sound, like he broke the air, and I was like, wow. So, and just watching him before, and is literally a week before I had found out about him for a good friend, a good, good friend of mine, Ed Loss, and he was interested and already fascinated about him. He was already on the same course as yourself, and he told me about a week before, he like, I’m doing this course, he told me, sent me the link.

2:04:52 I ended up following him on Instagram. They do all these showing all the different moves that they, they do, and again, I’m a, I love body movement. For me, if you can generate that kind of power, grappling, and you know, it’s going to, it’s only going to help me, right? You know what I mean? Being able to, like, squeeze somebody is equally as important to snap and go, go the opposite direction, because I’m again, I’m learning not just the, the outside, I’m learning everything else, and I think for me what really took, I really took interest in is his body proofing, which is that all the joint, joints area that he does a lot of work on, which like I say to you, while I’m training, tweak this, tweak that, tweak this, tweak this, tweak this, and if I can help or help prevent those kind of things, for me that’s massive.

2:05:43 Right? Prehabilitation. Yeah, exactly, yeah. He’s all about that. He’s all about, kind of almost like micro stressing these joints and getting ready, which is funny.

2:05:52 I, it’s weird. I don’t understand why we always focus on the big weights and stuff because every time we injure ourself, we’re told to do this, the small weights, which I find funny, cuz and it, it’s like the, what, the boring side of things. You know, you want to, like, exploding and like looking at the, the big stuff. You want to be in the gym. Everyone’s musling, you’re just like holding the small weight, working on the, the smaller muscles around the joints, but it’s funny, cuz when we get injured, those are the ones that’s important, so if we’re constantly doing those kind of things, the amount of power you should be able to generate is, and I think he’s, he’s a product of exactly that, and I, I want to know as much as possible.

2:06:30 Yeah, he forces your body into these unstable and unfamiliar situations, and then you have to deal with it in a way you’re so not used to, and you might be able trigger so many different muscles doing that, so many, and you’re, might used to doing, you know, 40 dips, now try them on the rings with your hands split out a certain way, and you realize, and you watch some of the functional stuff he does, and you know, if you don’t train, then you look at him, and he’s like, oh, so he went from a, you know, this up into a handstand and down to a plan into a handstand, but if you train you realize that that’s not easy. That’s like, yeah, that would take me probably five years to figure. Yeah, yeah, and he’s just like on the rings, just like pulling himself up, and I’m like, you’re, you’re not supposed to be able to do that so comfortably as well, and again, you have to engage, you have to be in control of everything, as like as close to being in control of every single joint and muscle to be able to do that, so, so so relaxed and so comfortable.

2:07:22 He’ll do it in mid conversation, just be like, then do this, and, and you’re like, yeah, he was doing stuff while he was talking to us, and we just like do that or pop into one, one pistol squat and back up, and I was just like, did he just do that? But he once he said one thing in the seminar. He said, you know, when you get to the top of your game in your own sport, he said you can only learn by looking at other sports and other movement patterns. It’s a good point.

2:07:45 And to get a new idea or get a new strength piece, go somewhere else. One of my older wrestling coaches, Eric, used to said he go and play some basketball. Some of the jumps and stuff that they do is good for explosion. For cuz again he’s very acrobat, wrestlers in general, very, very acrobatic as well as explosive and strong, and so he, he took fascination from basketball movements where they change direction, for like when he’s doing wrestling, it’s exactly the same, like crossing over.

2:08:12 It’s weird and yeah, same thing, took it from another sport completely, not even a com sport, but can take different aspects of what they do and how they train. Yeah, exactly. Michael, I always ask people a few questions at the end about success and kind of some of their secrets for success, but before I ask you, I was wondering when you the rest of the show. I always ask everyone at the end a couple questions. I’m going to hit you with these if you could make a phone call to the 20-year-old Michael Page, give that young man a bit of advice.

2:09:11 What would you tell him? TR tell to join MMA. Go, go sooner, go soon. When you moved to MMA, about 23, I believe, 3 or 24? Yeah, yeah, just, yeah, 23 and a bit.

2:09:27 So, so go at 20. Yeah, go earlier, that have been better. Go, go, definitely, definitely, definitely. You tapering off in point anyways. Yeah, okay.

2:09:35 Yeah, I was, I was always, I was like I said, the, it was, it was getting tiresome anyway, but, and I’d learned the same kind of stuff, I don’t feel like I’ve learned too much more in that, in that time, and same thing with, was saying now, invest more in yourself, because again I just did things and I let other people control it. And shouldn’t have. I should have been more in control of everything I was doing, finance included. I should have been more in control of, but at the same time, looking back is weird, cuz it doesn’t help you, cuz I sometimes I get frustrated.

2:10:13 I’m like, I should have done this before. I should, and everyone could have done something sooner, but I think you, everything happens for a reason and I am at where I’m at now for a reason, so I got to think, now what would I, what I’m going to be telling myself in 20 years’ time and where I should be, you know I mean? My goal is looking forward. So yeah, maybe the 20-year-old would have rushed into that fight with the cut and not listen to, you know, Alex or something like that.

2:10:39 Best advice you’ve ever received, business, personal, fighting or not? I think yeah, it’d probably be Alexis. And with regards to, with regards to fighting, I’d say though, off straight after that kick he was like the 720 kick. Yeah, yeah. He basically, he was like, everybody’s is going to look at you at this level now, and your MMA fighting style is still here.

2:11:13 He said we need to get it up to, to, to match the, you know, perception of what people are saying, but do not let these people, same thing, rush you into what you don’t need to be rushed into. Okay. And I think I had that mentality anyway, but when you hear, again, hear some of you respect so much, it just, like, get, just like, okay, yeah, I’m, I’m right to feel that way, cuz sometimes, you, other people, everyone feels that everyone’s rushing you to do this now.

2:11:43 You should fight him, fight him, fight him, fight him, and you want to be patient, but it feel like everyone else is telling, telling you not to be, so you might be wrong, and then someone that, of, in his position, that understands what’s going on and tells you no, what you’re thinking is exactly correct, cuz this, what I’m telling you, I tell you to do as well. Helps with, when people are telling me, Oh, you, when you going to go here? When do you want to fight on this show?

2:12:10 When do you want to fight that person? When do you want to do this? No, no, no, I’m happy to, I’m happy for now, like to, to be patient, and I think for fighting, that’s been massive for my success as well in my career, doing everything at the right time, not the wrong times. To the 20-year-old that’s watching us out there, probably in Brazil, knowing your fan base or China or America, you know, who wants to kind of grow up and, you know, be like MVP, you know, to go out there and accomplish what you’ve accomplished.

2:12:39 What advice do you give to them? Well, if if, if it’s, you know, wanting to get into the MMA side. I think the obvious one for me is because London, shoot, live on that, is train hard, to win easy, like, do not, don’t skip your training sessions unnecessarily. Be F, like, like it’s like getting up and going, to, even when you was younger, getting up and going to school, getting up and going to work. It’s always the getting up and going that’s the hardest bit.

2:13:08 Once you’re there, you know, you deal with it. You enjoy, maybe, the social aspect or the teachers and what you learn, but getting up and going is that, oh, I don’t want to go out, you know, I’m, this hurts, that hurts, you know? Even if you go in there and spend 10 minutes, cuz that’s all you could do. And my coach, he seriously, Alexis doesn’t allow any kind of excuses, you know what I mean? If my foot’s hurting, he’ll sit you on a machine, like, yeah, you’re working your upper body, or’ll give you upper body work to do if your hands are hurt, and I’ve seen him tap one of our, one of our ABA boxing champs, one of the girls in there, tap her hand, and she was doing work on one hand, and she was working, and again most people would be like, I need two weeks off, and I need this, and I need that.

2:13:50 Just don’t give yourself those excuses, you know I mean? Always find something you can do not just listen to, what you, not just focus on what you can’t do, and you’re definitely going to achieve big things, right? That builds a mentality that you don’t quit. You don’t give yourself excuses. Exactly, right.

2:14:05 Guilty pleasure. You have something we’d be surprised to see you doing or eating? Food guilty pleasure for food, full stop. Yeah, full stop and the thing is, what do you weigh right now? I’m about 84 at the moment.

2:14:20 84. That’s not bad to be to be fair. I’m probably, I’m probably the smallest person height-wise. No, but with regards to weight, every person I fight start at like 90, 94, right, and then cut down to 77, and I’ve always sat at 84. Our last, my last couple of camps, I’ve actually sat heavier.

2:14:42 I was like 88 and stuff, and come down, but still I’m not not, I’m not, not as heavy as these, as these guys, and my coaches were contemplating us going down, but but No, no, 55. No, no, no, not at the moment, cuz he Alexis was just worried. He said everybody that you fought so far, have they felt overwhelmingly strong? And I was like, no, not really. I’ve got like weird, gangly strength, like I can, I’m able to controller than them.

2:15:09 I guess cuz you’re tall, right? Yeah, it’s more because of the height, but their St, their stature, for me I’ve just got wide shoulders. Okay, so again, sometimes when you look at me, it can feel like, oh, you’re actually quite a big guy, but I’ve, SK legs are like this, I got twigs for legs. But it helps me bounce around, right? Keeps you light.

2:15:29 But yeah, just very wide shoulders. But again, a lot of these guys are big everywhere, like they got big hips, big legs, you know I mean? Big arms, and it can play a role in that, but I’ve never felt overwhelmed in anything, cuz he said, if, if, if I did, he would ask me to go down, because I have it, and he said you’re fine to stay there for now, and if, if later on, again, it changes, let me know, and then we’ll, we’ll make a decision about going down.

2:15:56 But yeah, for me food H. What do you like to eat? You were telling me about a couple of dishes earlier, but like yeah, not again, I, I like going to different restaurants, full stop, like going to different places and finding like new, new things to eat. When I say new, I’ve eaten everything I’ve had. I’ve had like zebra, ostrich, rabbit.

2:16:17 I, I tried everything, crocodile. Had shark. I just, I like to try it. If I don’t like it, I don’t like it, that’s fine, but I just love trying new things, new meats, new, new, new dishes. So when I go around the world, I’m always like trying to find different restaurants, and go in there and try different things there.

2:16:39 But yeah, food in general, I like going out. I’d prefer to go out to a restaurant and go out to a club. I prefer to go to a restaurant, just sit down, eat socialize with the guys that I’m with, and just eat good food. Like, I really just, a food, like I love food. So, it’s the weight cutting is punishment sometimes, but at the same time, I’m working with a group just under our gym called Know Your Food, and she does healthy foods, and tastes amazing though, so I can’t complain at the moment.

2:17:15 Kind little, yeah, you have to get, have to diet is a massive part. Also it does change the way you feel as well, with, and the amount of energy that you have, so if you’re aware, everyone’s different. I know, the fitness industry is funny though, because everyone kind of jumps on different people’s bandwagons when, when someone’s big at the time. But it’s about knowing your body, you know what I mean? Don’t, don’t feel that because it works for this person that, it’s definitely going to work for you.

2:17:40 You know I mean? Don’t get me wrong, you can learn a lot from what people say, but again, be listen to your body. So if your body, if your body’s not responding the same way, then just change it. Doctor it, it might be the same thing but slightly doctored to and tailored for you And that’s what, that’s what I do. If I, if I can’t eat this, or I don’t like the taste of that she’ll ask her to change it, she’ll change it around.

2:18:04 But again I eat most things anyway, so I’m, I’m, I’m all right. I’m all right. So, but yeah, just doctor it towards you. Diet is so, so important, and then, I feel people stress themselves too much with the weight, weight cut. I don’t like to, to stress out.

2:18:18 I’ve, I’ve literally been at a fight, the night before had a meal, woke up on weight the next morning, and then watch my guy in the morning just before, like a couple hours before, waiting, jumping around, sweating, tired, and they just look terrible, think yeah, I just think, I think you bring it on yourself, because you’ve had equal amount of time to cut the weight regardless of whether you’re heavier than me or not, you’ve had equal amount of time to do it, so all you have to do is get your timing right, and even 6 weeks out, you just make sure you’re paying attention to what’s happening and I think the only time you kind of, you have to do that last minute stuff is when you haven’t been paying attention, so when you actually check your weight, you’re not as light as you thought you was going to be don’t guesstimate.

2:19:05 Step on the scales, look at, look at where you are, and then, okay, I know, you know exactly what work you have to do this week, and then exactly what you have to do following week, leading up to the fight and then it’s not going to be a problem for you, right? That’s like the old school boxing where you do like one pound a week. Exactly. Get, and for me I prefer to do it that way. It might feel like a longer process of torture, but like I say, the end result.

2:19:26 And even again, the biggest mistake people make is to stay way in, they, like, you know, flexing their muscles, cool, way in, and they go and eat a load of trash. You just poisoned your body. Like you’ve gone six, eight weeks without, with eating healthy, and then you’re going to shove like a load of crap into your body, and your body’s not used to it. At the moment you, you’re constantly adjusting, so until, for me, until I finish my fight, that’s the only time.

2:19:50 Saturday night, is, yeah, yeah. It’s the only time, but even then, like you don’t get that much time, but you go, I don’t have a meal, I might, I like steaks, so I go go out and have a steak. I can’t do that before it’s too heavy, you know what I mean? So I just think people, just, just do it the wrong way. It doesn’t bother me if you’re, if you’re my opponent, like eat what you go and eat what you want, but yeah, some people, just like they’re so, they’re craving like salts and stuff, so much that they end up just stuffing their face with all the wrong things, and then you, you see it in their fights the next day.

2:20:21 People are wilded by how, how big they look the following day, but how it can affect you negatively as well, right? Slow. Something’s not right. Not slow, you get tired a lot quicker. Yeah, just yeah, yeah.

2:20:33 That’s the classic school, school boy error. Is that big stupid pizza meal, or something, day? You’re just like, what happens. So my coaches, coach, are usually with me anyway. We go out, we go out to the, right?

2:20:44 Mills, and we’re we, we even speak to the, speak to the chef. They, they usually, sometimes they, most of the time they usually know what’s going on anyway, so we can speak to them and be like, yeah, he’s a fighter, can you take this out and just put it, and they’re like, they’re happy to do it, man. You just speak to them, and, and let them know, and we’ve never had any, like, anybody be like, we can’t do this, can’t do that. Yeah, they’re happy to do it.

2:21:03 Yeah, yeah. Michael, I think people are going to be shocked to listen to this interview with you, because a lot of people, let’s be honest, the first time they get to know you is they watch your highlight reel. They see the Elvis classes. They see the hand up, the flashy style press conference, where you’re like, okay, I’ve heard enough about me, meeting these guys easy, and they’re like, okay, I don’t realize this guy is really a proper martial artist, you know and I don’t use those that term loosely.

2:21:28 You know, we’ve all known the person that trained a class, but a martial art is a way of life. Exactly. I probably should have defined it earlier for people that haven’t trained, but you know who that person is. It’s a certain energy. It’s a certain way you treat the world, you treat yourself, you know, and so I don’t know.

2:21:43 I just feel super fortunate to be able to speak to you know, joh, like you kind of on the way up and wherever it is you go. It’s just nice to kind of touch base and hear what you’re thinking, so it’s nice to express, be able to express that side, like, because like you say, most people, they focus on the fight, and then, and then the next fight, and then the next fight. And I am a showman, and, which is a beautiful thing. Yeah, 100%. But that’s, that’s where you’re going to draw a perspective of my, of me.

2:22:15 And I say people, I don’t, I, I never watch the glitter. I always want to see what’s happening once you take off all the shiny stuff and see who that person is. So I don’t like to make judgment on people that, you know, where they’re just using their persona. Everyone’s got like a showman persona or fight persona, or this. You get, you see it all the time.

2:22:36 Reality TV shows, like there’s so many of those kind of shows, and everyone has to put on more than it might be, so I prefer not to look at that kind of glitter. And if, if I’ve never met you, you get an opinion, but I, it’s quite loose for me, and then when I meet that person, I see how they, how they interact with me and how they are when I actually sit down with them and talk to them, and then, and then, that’s my opinion from there. Right? It’s, it’s interesting.

2:23:02 You can kind of use that showy and that flash highlight reel to bring people in, and then they, they know about you more, your character, your methodology. I was saying the same thing to Ido I was joking with him in the first interview. I’m like, you know, the one-hand handstand, and he’s like, I hate that thing, you know, but I’m like, but you use that as a tool to get people into your methodology about their body and they’re like, whoa, something’s happening here.

2:23:25 So in a weird way, you know, that stuff you do bring people into kind of this whole mindset. Exactly, exactly. And, and I’m not, it’s good because I’m not trying to. So I’m not, I, I don’t put certain. Sometimes they’re like, do you practice doing this, like, certain things?

2:23:41 And yeah, I’m, I’m usually quite relaxed, and I move my body around. I’m, move my hands around when I’m, when I’m sparring, not, I’m more going over drills, so and, and it’s not a show, so I don’t need to, but something just comes out of me on that night, and So this, it’s stuff that I can’t, I couldn’t practice if I tried. Some, I do stuff sometimes, and some guys that you doing like this, this movement at the end of your last fight, and you started bowing and stuff.

2:24:05 He’s like did you, did you know you was going to do that? I was like, no, sometimes I look back and like, what an idiot, what am I doing? You know what I mean? It’s just in the moment. Sometimes there’s certain things that I I just express at that time, and then again when I come down, we’re just like so relaxed, like, and I, I prefer to just, be laughing and joking with my family.

2:24:26 That’s why I always go and see them afterwards, like just laughing, joking, cracking up in my family. You end up watching the fights back, okay, and I actually just, watching it as a show, versus, like, studying anything. Okay. And I just leave all the rest of that to, to my coaches to come back and be like, okay, you should have done this, should have done that. Usually check it again and be like, oh yeah, I see what they’re talking about there, and, and that’s it.

2:24:48 Beautiful. I love it. We say on London Real, it’s about the journey. It’s going to be fun watching yours of the next few years. But it sounds like you know you got things under control.

2:24:58 So yeah, no, I’m, I’m feeling like I said. I feel like this year I’ve been a, I’ve become a lot more organized, and growing as a character myself. You’re always growing, but I feel like I’ve had a bigger growth mentally as well, and that’s only going to help me in my, in my career. So yeah, definitely next year should be exciting. Would you show me a minute or two of Hands Down stuff?

2:25:19 Can you show me a few things that I should do hands down? So hands down. Yeah, all right. This is what I do in the, in my cage. Okay.

2:25:29 I’m the best hands down, and you see me doing every single one of my fights before I put my hand up in the air. Okay, so when you bring into the ring, yeah, you say I’m the best hands down, yeah, and then you put your hand in the air. I put my hand in the air, and I, you do it like this. Is that the Viper? Yeah, it’s a snake.

2:25:53 Okay. Yeah, yeah, snake. Okay I’m the best hands down. Yeah, so when people, it’s funny, cuz I, again, I came out with that, like, for my first fight, and my coaches were laughing at, he, like, they did, he did some weird stuff at the beginning of the fight, and I was like, yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s me, man, and he’s like, all right, I like it, I like it would you, was that in points fighting? Did you always do that?

2:26:13 Again, that came. Yeah, that was in points fighting that I think that came me and my brother came out of it. I was about 17 at the time, I believe We just made it up, made it up. So I love it. You stuck.

2:26:28 I’m going to watch you doing that your next fight tour. All the best. Can’t wait to watch your career. Really enjoyed this so much. So thank you for having me, and it’s really good to be on the express, like, just who I am