Michael Venom Page - The Evolution of An MMA Knockout Artist

Full transcript: Michael Venom Page on London Real

3:47 This is London Real, I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Michael Venom Page, the British professional MMA fighter, entrepreneur, and flagship star of Bellator. You are known for an array of highlight reel knockouts for your unorthodox, hands-down fighting style due to your background as a karate point fighter. Inside the cage, you’re a natural showman known for taunting opponents, walkaway knockouts, in-fight selfies and post-fight Pokemon ball rolls. I was there that night.

4:15 You recently defeated Richard Kiley by flying knee knockout and you’re scheduled to fight Derek Anderson at Wepley Arena here in London. Michael, welcome back to London Real. Thank you for having me. That’s, I love hearing those kind of stuff. I think sometimes I forget what I’ve done.

4:28 I’m gonna record that for you so you can play it. I love it, I love it. Before you go out. It’s been four years. We met at one of Edo Portal’s events and then he came in a few weeks later They kind of charted everything, but man, four years, I think you would just have a few fights in Bellator at that point.

4:45 Yeah, yeah. Maybe? Yeah, I think I only had a few fights in Bellator. Yeah. At the time, I was just kind of slowly climbing.

4:52 I think I had just left the Super Fight League and stuff. Yeah. And I was more just focusing on Bellator, on being at Bellator, and then growing there, so yeah. And so now, you know, you’re hanging out with 50 Cent. You’re doing these like highlight reel KOs.

5:07 I was there at the O2 for the cyborg, KO, and then all this stuff. I mean, what’s it been like the last four years? If you had to summarize or give us some, drop some knowledge on this. What’s been going on? It’s been a massive mix.

5:22 It’s been a lot of positives, a lot of growth, and then a lot of negatives as well that I’ve had to kind of deal with simultaneously, which has just been difficult to kind of deal with, they were to deal with at the moment, but in terms of what people can see on the outside, I think things have been going really well. Obviously, I had my first loss, but I felt good in that loss. It’s weird to say I felt good in the loss. Explain that. People ask me, you know, you lost to that fight, how you feeling, is it hard to come back?

5:59 And I’m like, no, not really, because if I got dominated from a completely trash, it’d make me question a lot of things, I was like, damn, I train, what am I doing wrong, this, that? But I didn’t. I feel like I was actually the more dominant one and I let myself get carried away in a moment and because I’m fighting someone that is that elite, those kind of mistakes can get capitalized in that way. Whereas if I was fighting, you know, I don’t know, someone that was not as high a level, I may have gotten away with those kind of mistakes and this is what I need to kind of make sure I’m just I stay sharp with those mistakes need to be few and far between When I’m fighting guys are the likes of like Douglas Lima and and all the others all the other guys above in that in that In that section Which you’re gonna be fighting from kind of now on right a hundred percent Yeah, you’re fighting Lima and you kind of you kind of went down after you you kind of overthrew a punch And then you went down and then he just it was like a split. So what it was though is is, when I say, I swear to you, everything was going according to plan, like everything.

7:07 Even on the floor, I was like, he hasn’t got anything for me, he couldn’t do anything, I grabbed his wrist, he literally couldn’t move, so nullified him on the ground and that gave me an added, like, confidence, I was like, yeah, it doesn’t matter where this goes, I’m good for now. So let’s, you know, let’s finish this fight and I swear that she said one of us is going to fall in the second round. I actually predicted, I said second round, someone was going down and I just knew that the pace that I was going at, I just felt, I was in my own element, having fun as I normally do. And I’m like, yeah, I landed a shot, his legs went, and I was like, oh, that’s the finish line. And I normally don’t do that. Normally I’m just like, I’ll just keep going because I’m enjoying this moment. But I was like, yeah, I’m about to finish this guy, I’m about to finish this fight and then there was a couple of, you know, in my head, one or two more punches and the fight would have happened the same but the opposite way round.

8:08 And there was a couple of things that me and my coach had been working on. So I went to do that in that moment because we kind of do it in a moment when somebody feel stressed or they feel panicked because I knew they were going to resort to their best thing, which is his low kick, so I had already anticipated that. But because of my overconfidence in that moment, I stood in the pocket where I’m supposed to be outside the pocket. And what that means is just I need to be far enough away for him to have to step first before throwing a kick, whereas I’m like, I’m about to finish him and I know what’s coming next he’s gonna throw a low kick so I stood right in front of him ready to throw a punch and as soon as he I just didn’t anticipate how quick it was it was gonna be still because it was quite fast when we were moving around the first round I thought man these low kicks are very quick like there’s no very little tell it just comes out and there’s still a lot of weight on it and this is why he’s caused so much problems with multiple opponents in his fight Rory included and so I stood in the pocket thinking he’s rocked now as well it’s gonna I’m gonna see this and as soon as I went the kick came out and swept me because I was in the process of trying to land my one of my last final punches right got swept to the floor and and it’s weird although it happens in a moment for me it’s a long time in terms of thought process I’ve landed the

9:35 Floor and I’m like no I can’t let this out because technically what I should and just fall into my back and then take my time, but it would have allowed him to recover. And I was just like, no, no, no, stay on him. Stay on him. And I went to go back up and just get up the complete… I teach classes every now and again for London shoot. And that’s the first thing I’ll tell you not to do. And it’s the first thing I did. In that moment of excitement, in that moment of trying to stay on top and finish the fight, whereas I should have just enjoyed… I had three more rounds to do this in. There was no real reason for me to rush.

10:09 But he was the top guy in the division, and you had him rocked. I didn’t rock. For a split second, you thought, let’s just finish this. In my head, I was just like, this is game over, like I already know. So when I look back on it, people are like, you know, you lost the fight, blah, blah, blah.

10:23 Yeah, but I feel I lost because of my stupidity. I lost not because of my lack of skill. I know I’m as skillful, if not more skillful, than these people. Like I’m sure of it now. Weirdly, if I’ve come back with even more confidence, like going into future fights and just even in the gym, just my training, everything has stepped up and I think it’s because I’m like, yeah, now I’m 100% sure.

10:48 Even though it was a loss, for me, I gained a lot in that. Yeah, and how did it feel, sometimes it’s good to get that loss out of the way, I would think, but how did it feel? Did it sting, you know, I saw you in the post-fight interview where you didn’t actually seem too bothered, but I mean, what is it like to have that on your record, and then people say, for the first time ever, oh, Michael, I’m sorry. Because you’re used to everyone saying, great job. You get the emails and grandma calls, right?

11:16 Again, it’s weird because people see the zero and the 15 fights, the 40 fights at the time that I’ve had, and they feel that zero is very important, forgetting that I’ve done many, many years of kick, and to get to being, in order for me to have become MVP now, I got my ass whooped regularly. In kitboxing, I was constantly getting beaten every weekend. Because you used to fight every weekend, right? Every weekend. And multiple fights, right?

11:52 Multiple fights, every weekend. And although I was younger, it does train you to take losses. Because imagine I was tall for my age, So I was always fighting people three and four years older than me, but just because I was just as tall as them. So sometimes, depending on the competition, sometimes it would go on age, but then sometimes it would go on height and your belt. So I was fighting people that were technically a bit more muscular than me and more developed than me as a child.

12:26 And yeah, just week in, week out, getting worked. Probably more so than any other fighter in Bellator. No, no, I just, I’ve had, if we could count the losses, it’s a lot of losses. Okay. And I mean, like, I went through four, five years of going to competitions every weekend and not coming back with a trophy.

12:48 So losing, like, most of the fights? Literally, I was going, sometimes you’re traveling down to Birmingham, to Manchester, to Liverpool. First fight, you’re out. That’s it. And I got to sit down and watch everybody else for the rest of this day.

12:59 And I’m there till the end of the day. We fight at the beginning because we’re the juniors. And then our adults from our team would fight. So we have to stay there for them. And then we all travel back together on the bus.

13:09 So you’re there all day. But at the same time, I forget for me, that was a lot of learning. Because my dad was always like, you need to sit down and watch. I wasn’t allowed to go around with all the other kids. He’s like, sit down, pay attention, support your team, and actually watch the fights.

13:23 So I’m just downloading, downloading, downloading. but I got used to losing until I started winning and then got very used to winning. And that’s all those losses and all that experience made me MVP. So this one loss for me, everyone was like, right, you took that really well. I was like, this is not the first time I’ve lost.

13:42 It’s the first time you guys have seen me lose. It’s not the first time I’ve lost. So five minutes to myself to just be annoyed. I just got angry at myself, I’m so stupid. And straight away I knew that it was my mistake.

13:55 When I watched it back, I’m like, why? We planned this, everything was going according to plan, and then I did that. Five minutes just to be annoyed, I was just like, ah. Then I was like, okay, I’m done. I’m back now, okay, cool.

14:09 I started the way, and I know what I need to do now. I was in the change room at the back, I’m like, yeah, trust me, I know, when I come back, it’s gonna be a problem. And normally, you’re not the guy that tries to finish fights. You usually let it happen, and then when it happens, it’s that last one. Then you usually look at his trainer, You look at his wife, you look at the whole crowd while he falls over.

14:27 It’s a show. It’s a show. You’re never the guy that’s like, oh, I’m gonna punch you out and knock you out, and that’s probably why you’ve been so successful. Yeah, exactly. So I don’t get, I’m not emotionally driven during a fight.

14:39 I’m genuinely just having fun. I’m doing what I know I’m good at, and I’m having fun with it, and it slows things down. It makes things, it allows you to be more relaxed. You don’t stress your body out as much. Sometimes you, there’s people I know I’ve trained for fights, let’s say like white collar boxing, since their first experience.

14:58 And they’re like, you know, I feel really fit in the gym. I said, it’s gonna change when you’re on show and you can be tired as soon as you get into that ring. Just because the atmosphere, the stress that you’re putting this off, it’s like, I’m about to do this. You don’t realize, but you’re tense already and that’s burning energy. And the second, before you even started, you’re like, where’s all this fitness that I’ve been doing?

15:20 Where’s that all gone? So, like I know, having that kind of tension can really mess you up. So for me, being as relaxed as possible, you’re never tense when you’re having fun, you’re laughing, you’re the most relaxed. So that’s one of the reasons you do it, it’s in your personality. Yeah, it’s in my personality, but it helps as well.

15:37 And I’ve heard a lot of fighters, even top-level UFC guys, that go in and they’re like, I don’t know what happened, they have an adrenaline dump, and then all of a sudden, they have no energy. A hundred percent. These guys, it’s top of their game sometimes. So, and if anyone’s never watched MVP, go watch, because you’re having fun, you’re sidestepping, you’re dancing, sometimes you’re messing with guys. It’s a fun thing, and you used to tell me, you told me last time, you can hear their trainers.

16:00 Everybody, everybody. You can see everybody in the thing, which just shows how aware you are. I think that’s also, again, the freestyle kickboxing has trained me for a lot of things. One, the losses that we just spoke about, but also, you kind of have to be, it’s quite tactical. It’s like an extremely fast, very fast chess game.

16:20 And so you kind of had to be aware of the person’s coach on the other side. So if they’re telling them to do something, you had to kind of keep that in mind as well as listen to your own coach. And it became, because you’re in a fight, but it’s stopped start. So you’re in a fight, but then you have to pay attention to the referees where they’re positioned as well. Because sometimes I land a shot, because it’s about scoring points.

16:41 I land a shot, but there’s two referees standing behind me, one in front. So they say no score, he scores. So I have to be like, ah, I need to either pull him round so these guys can see this shot that I’m landing, or I have to change stance, or I have to land a different shot, and you have to be constantly figuring things out while you’re still in a fight. And I think just doing that for years and years and years, without even realizing it, has kind of just made me aware of stuff like that.

17:08 And I’ve done it in the gym before, and I remember my coach Alexis was like, yeah, he heard that. Because sometimes we have two guys in the gym, we’re both from the gym, And he’s, you know, he’ll coach this person at one point and then, okay, now you guys, you know, you need to do this. And he’s, so he’s kind of back and forward. And he said to the guy, look, you need to be, you need to be, stop circling around to the right, circle around to the left. I need to move around to the left.

17:30 But he was talking to my opponent. And as soon as he did that, the spin kick, I kind of purposely kind of stepped off to the right, knowing that he just listened to that information and he’s listening very well. He’s being a good student. And he allowed him to do it. And he allowed him to do that, allowed him to spin around the other way.

17:46 Caught him with a kick. And he was like, yeah, he’s listening. But it is a skill, because some people, if you’re not talking to me, I’m not listening. I’m just, I’m in my fight, I’m here. Which is also another stress.

17:58 And you get information, you have to keep pulling yourself out and then coming back in. I’ve had conversations with Alexis during the fight. Michael, I need you to do it. All right, yes sir. Okay, no problem.

18:09 Yeah, I see it, yeah, I see it. And we’re having conversations back and forth. Is that different games to your opponent of it? Sometimes, and Alexis knows very well How to play, I guess. With the opponent as well.

18:19 Yeah, with the opponent. Sometimes he’s, you know, if we get a guy that we know wants to try and take me down, and he’s done it with other people before, it’s not just me. You’re like, Michael, he wants to take you down, there’s a big knee coming, yes, there’s a big knee. I’m like, yes sir, he’s like, big knee, yeah, big knee. I wasn’t gonna throw a knee.

18:34 I was, yeah, so now he’s like, uh, no. Okay, not gonna, I’m not gonna do this. And that little bit of a doubt can really mean it. A little bit of doubt either makes you hesitate on your way in, or just means you don’t do it, which allows me to continue being myself in front of you, it’s just, you know, to you, to you. Is anybody in the cage as relaxed as you are?

18:51 I’m sure, I’m sure there are, it’s obviously hard to measure, I’m sure there is, but there are guys that, you know, I’ve been related to, like the Anderson Silvers and stuff, you can see that, you can see they’re enjoying themselves. Yeah. And I think you can tell when it is, some people are motivated differently. I’m not motivated by that enjoyment factor and the benefits from that is, again, you’re relaxed and this and that. Some people are motivated by anger.

19:17 So even down to the pre-battle, stare out and the little press conferences, they need to be, I need to be angry at you to wanna do what I wanna do. And then it’s all love afterwards. Everyone’s like, yeah, hugging, and yeah, respect, but I need to put myself, I don’t necessarily dislike you, but in order for me to motivate myself, I have to say that to myself, right? So that’s why I wanna square up with you like this. I wanna create that intensity.

19:44 I want, but that’s just not my character. And I identified that before I even got into mixed martial arts. I was like, I’m probably not gonna do it like those guys. So what would I do with that space? What would I do with that time?

19:58 And that’s when I started to look into the rock and look into all the old school wrestlers that I used to watch and look into how to get a crowd going, what should I do for myself? What signature moves should I have? And I’m, I started to look into all that, cause I’m like, yeah, that’s more me anyway. because I’m having fun, so yeah. And what did you come up with for people that don’t know?

20:19 So yeah, so before every fight, you’ll see me, the snake sign, raising it above their head. And it’s so funny to see people’s responses when I do it. And when I first started doing it, it’s even, even down to when I first started doing it, the crowd laughing, like, what’s that? You know, like, it’s crazy.

20:41 I remember even the guys in the gym, when I got back, the first time I started doing it, Like, oh yeah, he was doing some weird, like, super hero thing. And talking in the gym, then a couple of fights in, you know, the opponent’s kind of like getting a bit nervous of it. Because you go slow and then you go raw. Looking right at them in their eye and I put it up. And then you go like all the way up.

21:00 A lot of opponents are always like, slightly shifted eyes and they want to see, they want to look and see, look at it. And I’ve taken you at the moment, I’ve broken this. And again, this for me is, there’s so many benefits. And sometimes it’s a coincidence. I didn’t plan to have those benefits, but there’s so many benefits to having fun and doing those things to people.

21:19 And it’s also quite almost an animal thing. I’m rising myself above you. I’m showing you, I’m puffing up my chest to bring you down. And it’s worked multiple times. Yeah, well you’re already tall.

21:35 And when you do that over someone, and I guess it raises your whole posture up, and it just looks like you’re dominating them. and that’s what it is, and I’ve seen people break in that moment, and that face-off is the first battle. And what is happening in a face-off? Tell people what’s going on, because you’re looking into that guy’s eyes. You’ve both been training for each other sometimes for months, sometimes longer.

21:58 Yeah. You guys are probably cut in weight sometimes at the time, and it’s a lot of tension. What’s happening there? What do you see in someone’s eyes? For me, I’m looking into their belief.

22:12 I’m looking into their spirit. I’m saying, are you honest about, do you believe, because everyone can say it, but do you believe you can beat me in this moment? And I’m facing you now, I’m in my position, I’m postured up, and I look in people’s eyes and sometimes I’m like, I can see, you don’t believe in yourself. I’ve already won. And then I start, then it comes the next day, you’ve got 24 hours to sit on what’s just that exchange.

22:40 And then I got 24 hours to, sorry, when I’m finally in the cage, I start doing anything crazy, and all your fears just kick in and straight away, and it’s like, before when you’re like, he’s not gonna be able to do that dancing stuff to me, he’s not gonna be able to do this, he’s not gonna be able to have fun, cause I’m gonna do this and I’m gonna do that, and then you’re throwing punches and you’re missing, and I’m dancing in front of you, and you’re just like, damn. And then that little lack of belief that I had in that moment just keeps growing and growing and growing during the fight. And I’ve seen it many a times.

23:08 And you’ve seen it happen. Many a times. see their get frustrated, their posture, their drop. I’ve seen it where it’s frustration to anger like, now I’m going to try even harder. And still no success.

23:19 And a lot of times you end up running into more because of it, because you’re not being yourself. Because again, it’s an emotionally driven response. And then sometimes it’s frustration into, I just want to get this over and done with. And I’ve seen that face on many people. Many people where it’s kind of like, seriously?

23:39 I can’t believe this is happening and obviously I say the most obvious one to watch is against myself and Dave Rickel’s caveman because he was known, he’s known to be this tough guy that he’s been in wars with people, they’re beating on him and he’s almost out and he’s recovered and he’s come back and won the fight and he’s known for being that guy and I was just chipping away, chipping away, chipping away to the point where he was just like I’m out. And he waved the flags. He’s just like, nope, don’t wanna fight anymore.

24:12 And he called himself out. And everyone was like, what the hell is going on? But for me, I could see it. I could see it. And I’m just like, yep, I’m just gonna keep doing this and I’m gonna get a response from you.

24:23 And it’s gonna be a negative one. Ha ha ha ha ha. So that’s surreal. The mind games are real. Yeah, a hundred percent.

24:29 Wow. You know, people said that it was that very famous fight between Michael Sonnen and Anderson Silva where Michael was beating on him for four rounds and then he gets triangle choked at the end. And people that trained with Michael said, watch that he’s just he just wanted to get out of there at the end he never really thought he could win and it’s hard for us to believe that at a professional level at that high-end level there still is a bit of doubt but I guess everyone’s human right everyone is human everyone is human and sometimes there are bigger sometimes a profile of a person can get to you it can really get it’s Anderson Silva right you know subconscious yeah and I’m gonna relate it to like relate to another sport where I don’t know you You know, the football, Man City’s doing, they’re one of the best teams in the world at the moment and they got that appeal now.

25:13 Oh, you know, damn, it’s Man City. And they say, they’re playing a team. You score the first goal. Damn it, we’re winning. It’s like, you celebrate it, but then it’s like, damn, we’re winning.

25:23 Can we actually keep this up? Right. And all of a sudden, they’re attacking, attacking. It’s like, uh, uh, uh. Then one goal goes and then you head drop.

25:30 Another goal goes and it’s like, yeah, well, I kind of knew this happened. No, your mentality was already there. You scored a goal without really believing that you could have even done that. And it made it worse. And it made it worse.

25:39 Right. Because you now have time to sit on that and still have, but still having to achieve a goal. And you came to that finishing line and then they score three goals possibly. You’re just like, geez. And it’s the same thing.

25:50 You know, Charles Sun is like, I’m at the finishing line, but can I, can I really? Yeah. And you go all the way back to that stuff. Maybe as a kid, being bullied and all those things creep in. Everything does.

26:03 This is why I don’t necessarily like to pay too much attention to people that I’m going to fight. People sometimes, I get asked all the time, do you watch your opponents? Not really. Not really watch them. I have a lot of faith in my coaches, a lot of faith in my coaches, and they’re very detailed in when they’re explaining about what my opponent can and can’t do.

26:23 They’re very, very detailed. I usually use that as a ground, even my coach is like, have you watched him? I’m like, no. He’s just like, just watch him though. So I usually just, just before the fight, I watch a video just to put a face to that profile.

26:41 Right. Because sometimes I haven’t seen them. This is slightly different because I was scheduled to fight Derek Anderson before. So I’ve seen a couple of clips and you know, I know his face, if you know what I mean. And then there’s obviously certain people that, like the Douglas Lemons that you would have seen as I was growing anyway, you know, and building myself up.

27:02 So certain people I already have a face to, but he just wants me to see it. You don’t want to see a highlight reel. You don’t want that stuff in the back of your head. You just want to know roughly what he’s, rough style, and then you do you. What do I need to do?

27:16 I like to put everything needs to be my fault. What do I need to do to beat that? You tell me. I work on that. I know we go out and we win.

27:25 That’s it. And is your face off always cool, or does someone ever rile you up, or you know? No, no. Did the Irish guy get in your head or vice versa? It’s funny because I genuinely never believed in this guy.

27:39 He talked more rubbish than in the other opponent. Oh yeah, 100%. He pulled an MVP on MVP. He was that kind of guy and it’s weird that I bit, in terms of online, socially, on him because he was talking about my teammates. He’s been speaking about me for ages.

27:58 There’s clips of him talking about wanting to fight me and he thinks I’m this and thinks I’m that and he’s got the gift of the gap, give it to him. He’s very good at talking. Do you think most of the guys in Ireland are very quick-witted and stuff? So yeah, so that’s his thing. It didn’t bother me, but I’ve had multiple people, when you’re rising, everybody’s trying to shoot you down.

28:19 So I’ve had multiple people attacking me. It doesn’t bother me. Then he just keeps talking about my teammate. He was supposed to fight one of my teammates and kept talking about my teammates and stuff, and I was just like,

28:33 I’m a bit, bit at it, little bit back and forward, and then yeah, Bellator was like, oh, do you wanna fight him? I didn’t think I was being serious at the time. I was like, you’re still gonna pay me, yeah? Well, I get paid, yeah, to fight him. And they’re like, yeah, everyone, people seem to be talking about it, so I’m like, if you’re gonna pay me, As long as I get to fight again at this time, because I actually said that to them before, I really do want to fight on the London show.

29:04 That’s definitely going to be more important. And they said, yeah, if you’re fit and well, then you can do it. I was like, cool. Two paydays, two fights knocked off the contract. Why wouldn’t I do it?

29:14 Okay, and I get to fight in Dublin. And to be fair, I have to say, and the cyborg and the last day of record fighting in London, The energy was crazy, but Dublin took it. Really? All my days. They are unbelievable.

29:29 As fans, you can see that they truly appreciate fighting full stop. But as fans, they lift, I’ve never been in front of a place that had lifted, that had that kind of noise. And you said that the Irish fans were MVP fans. Oh yeah, 100%. I had a lot of people that come up to me and they’re fans, because again, like I said, they appreciate fighting.

29:48 So, what I like about them is they’re passionate about their country, which is great. So the lightness is, and I even said that to people, I was like, lightness is, they’re gonna be brewing me, they’re gonna, and these are people that are fans of me, but I’m fighting somebody Irish. And that always tops it off. Over here, it’s different. I either like you or I don’t like you, regardless of where you’re from, which I think is silly.

30:10 Like I’ve seen- You don’t get London or British love all the time being here and it frustrates you. Yeah, it frustrates me so much, but we just, I just think we should and could be more, just unified, like it should be a thing where if people come to our country to fight, it’s one of those things that you start going to a specific ground, going to Celtic, and they’re just like, the fans there are just like going crazy. It should be like that. You know, you should be able to help Europe. I’ve actually seen fighters that are from the UK get booed over the fighters that are coming from elsewhere. For me, that’s ridiculous. I do like the the way the Irish do it, they’re like, and I had guys, you know, I’m a fan of you, but you know, Irish, and I was like, yeah, no, cool, man.

30:57 And as soon as they finish the fight, they just continue appreciating what they’ve just seen, so they can cheer me now, because the fight’s done now, there’s no sides anymore. I’m just gonna cheer you for what you just displayed in the cage, and I love that side of them. They appreciate fighting, but it’s nation first, then it’s fighting, you know what I mean? I love it. more of that in this country.

31:20 Oh, I’d love to see more of that over here. So last weekend in New York City, in your weight division, was the baddest motherfucker belts. All right, I made Diaz a big ass Jorge Masvidal. When you watch that, what do you see? You also see fighters that who knows one day you might fight.

31:35 What’d you see? It was, for me, I just wanted to look at, wanted to just watch the fight. The belt for me was just like, whatever. Like I don’t care, I just find, I already find the interim belts too much, like I feel it’s just not necessary, and the fact that it looks exactly the same as the belts, again, seems a bit weird to me, so them adding another belt and actually giving it credibility, if it was something amongst themselves that they can kind of promote and hype up, and yeah, cool, but then they made it a thing endorsed by The Rock as well, I’m just like, man, you’re actually putting a bit too much credibility on this, but is what it is.

32:12 You slam in the UFC a little bit, right? Yeah, it’s not is. They did it because it’s good business. No, of course. Of course.

32:18 But I see what you mean. It’s the hype. Again, I think everything is kind of melting into one now. This is why you got Tyson Fury is going to MMA to wrestling and you know, this person Tyson Fury really going into MMA. Regardless of really going into, everyone’s talking about it.

32:35 Right, talking about it. You got rugby players going into Belterre. You’re training James, right? Exactly. We’ve had him on the show.

32:40 But I mean like, it feels like it’s not necessarily taken that seriously. It is more a case of how much numbers can we generate. Now James is not gonna be allowed to fight unless he’s ready. You’ve seen my coaches. They don’t play this.

32:56 This is James Haskell, rugby player. We’ve had him on the show and he’s gonna have his first fight in Bellator and he’s training at London Shoot. He’s training at London Shoot but he’s taking it seriously. And Alexis and Paul, if you’ve met them and you know them, they do not care about publicity. They’re not interested.

33:11 So they’re not doing it because, oh yeah, we can get a lot of people to London Shoot. They knew James. They’ve known James since he was like 17 or something, so they’ve known him for a long time. And he used to train at our gym, off-season, so he would come to our gym anyway. He would always come to our gym, do private sessions, and he’s always been fascinated with fighting.

33:27 OK. So he’s actually taken it seriously, and they’re taking him seriously. But again, my coach is like, he’s not fighting. I don’t care how many cameras Toronto has told me, how much money they’re going to make for this and that. He ain’t fighting under my banner unless he’s actually capable of fighting.

33:45 Okay, let’s quickly talk about Alexis and Paul founders of London shoot fight Yeah, I actually met both of those guys back in I don’t know when it was oh five or oh six When there was there was no MMA game very little MMA game in the UK But those guys had been training people for since what the 90s. Yeah. Yeah, they’ve dedicated their whole life To martial arts. So when I when they tell me about their story, they literally used to They’ve done it all, but it’s a case of who’s good in martial arts, let’s go live there.

34:20 They live in Japan just to go and train under a specific person, and they’ve gone over here just to go and train under a specific person, Jiu-Jitsu, wrestling, pedigree, Olympic lifting, boxing. They’ve just gone through Aikido, they’re just fans of martial arts, and then they They finally started hearing about all this, the mixed martial arts, and I can’t remember who it was that they were doing work with, and they’re like, let’s just start our own thing. And one thing about them both is what I like, and it’s something that I try to keep myself is just remain a student.

34:57 They are amazing coaches, and I really wished that they actually like publicizing themselves to a degree, because I just feel like everybody should know them, because one, they’re just amazing characters, amazing people, but I just feel like more people should know about them. They’re just great at what they do. They’re scientists. But they’re very quiet guys. They literally don’t like it.

35:21 They hate even hearing about other coaches doing book tours and doing this and doing that. They hate it, they hate it, it’s like, like you said. Anytime I had cameras coming in the gym, they’re like, yeah, you’re not filming me. It’s about him, it’s fine, it’s about him. They don’t like it.

35:35 But they’re really good and super old school And one of the only gyms in London, like we were talking earlier, it was like London Shoe Fight was here and there was like nothing else. And not only were they the only one, but they were really good. And Paul has a sick wrestling background, which you don’t find in the UK. I think he was wrestling for the Olympic team. And then Alexey, and I used to kind of just stumble over there, it was really scary going over there.

35:57 I used to be kind of intimidated. And they trained Lee Murray, which is one of the first British guys to fight in the UFC, who actually went in and had a submission win, even though he was an amazing strike. And I trained with Paul a little bit, and then he threw me in for a sparring session one time, and I actually broke my arm, one of my sparring sessions, and it was nothing against him. And I didn’t know it was broke for like three months, so I got this cool plate here.

36:20 But look, it was always massive respect. But again, a lot of people haven’t heard about those guys who are learning to shoot because they weren’t into self-promotion. So knowing you’re over there, and I went and trained with you about three years ago, and we shot some footage. Alexei was making sure he wasn’t in front of the camera. And it’s just an old school place.

36:38 They don’t play around, they work, you guys work really hard. You were saying people come over from America and the UFC fighters and they’re like. Yeah, after a few days and we’ve had it multiple times, you see it on their face and like looking around like, I can’t believe you guys are still going. After the day that I had yesterday, I’d probably do like, he said like, the next day if I had a day like that in the gym, in the States, I’d probably do like a jogging and then maybe a little strength and conditioning.

37:07 Active breast, hot tub. Yeah. And we’re like, yeah, we don’t get that here, we just don’t get that here. And sometimes I’ve had some crazy days sparring, doing this, doing that. Next day it’s like, you’re ready to pad up again, and I’m just like, yeah, okay.

37:26 And we go again, and with Alexis it’s funny because I think he trains you mentally as well because I don’t know if he does this intentionally but sometimes he’s always okay so we’re just going to do this today and just do this and this and then you know we’ll call it a day cool once we’ve just done that and that he’s like yeah just one more one more we’ll do that again okay I just wanted to do this now okay fitness on the end of that and you’re just like yeah yeah so I always say your mental game he’s just yeah one of his favorite My favorite thing to say is, just one more time, just one more time, and we’ll be there for another couple of hours with him saying just one more time. I’ve got a little apprentice that I’ve brought over, he’s a young guy, Mike Kimball.

38:12 He’s coming over, he fights for Bellator, and I really like his personality, he’s a really lovely kid, and come over and train with us and see how you feel with that. He’s enjoying it, he’s loving it, doing really well. Again, he’s like, man, you guys, it’s just, it’s nonstop. And then sometimes he’s like, oh yeah, Alexis just told me that I’m just doing this today. And I’m like, you’re probably going to do more.

38:33 He’s like, no, no, no, but Alexis, you know, he said, and I said, okay, but just remember that I said, you’re probably going to be doing more. And he gets there and he’s no doubt doing a lot more. And he’s just like, man, I thought Alexis was going to go easy on me today. No, he just, that’s just, that’s just how Alexis is. Paul, them guys are just like, let’s get it.

38:53 It’s nonstop. And you guys are a family. You guys are really all, everyone’s tight over there, right? Like, it’s weird, in the last video I posted, I was like, if I bring that special girl to come home and visit my family, this is what she would see. And it was just all of us in the gym, fighting, sparring.

39:09 And that is, they are my family. This is why, like I said, people, I can take a lot of stuff for myself. People can say what they want. But when it’s them guys, I’m like, just get protective, and we’re all like that of each other. And they, obviously my success for me is to do with, a lot of it is them.

39:28 Obviously I came in with a certain standard of kickboxing, but that transition, if I went with the wrong person, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I’d be that guy that’s had that couple of good fires, couple of bad fires, couple of spectacular things, but no one really remember anything. They’ve coached and managed me very well, but they also just have my back. And it does mean a lot. They like, I love them to bits.

39:57 And I’ll do anything for them if they needed help for anything. They truly, well and truly have my back. And I like to say that I have theirs as well, but it’s just such a nice place to be. It is really, the guys in there. And it’s to do with, cause I’ve been to gyms where it can be a bit cliquey.

40:18 You know, there’s a couple of the top level guys and a couple of these up and comings and the newbies over here and then the coaches. And even if the coaches, sometimes you’ve got like coaches that don’t like this coach and this, I’ve been to gyms and I’m just like, this just seems messy. Too many head games. It’s just, yeah. But then these guys, there’s two egos in the gym.

40:38 Yeah, it’s the coaches. And they, for me, they’re like yin and yang. So I’d say there’s one ego in the gym and that’s both of those. Nobody else is allowed to even, you’ll be figured out very quickly if you even try to come in and puff out your chest for a second. So everybody else is like, cool, we’ll leave it to them.

40:57 You get a beat down somehow if that happens. Oh no, yeah, it’s happened a few times. But yeah, there’s people that’s coming with a bit of attitude and they learn very quickly. It’s just that type of gym. I once knew a kid like eight years ago, no 10 years ago, and he’s like, yeah, I’m We’re gonna try and let him shoot fight.

41:15 And without even thinking, the only thing that came to my mouth was, bring your mouthpiece. That’s all I said, bring your mouthpiece. But you get guys that kind of come in, like even when I, again, I’ve come from the kickboxing world, 10 times world champion in the kickboxing. I’ve gone into this gym, zoop. I’m not trying to promote myself.

41:37 Just let me just go and do classes. That’s it, I’m literally gonna go in there, do the classes, and see how I go on. I don’t know how well I’m actually going to do it in the mixed martial arts world. Once they kind of found me out, like, oh, you’ve obviously got a background, and okay, let’s start working. I just kind of went from there, but I’ve seen guys coming to the gym, like, yeah, you know, well, I’m this champion, and I’ve won this, and I’ve won that, you know, I want to fight.

42:01 It’s like, okay. And they usually be like, cool, right? You know, good on you, on what you’ve done, on what you’ve achieved. Start the classes first. We’ll have a look at you.

42:12 And you know, see, no, I want to fight somebody. And then it’s like, okay, you said it. Michael. Seriously, I get that call, Michael’s like, and this is why you have to just be ready to spar. I could have had a crazy sparring day before.

42:26 We’re not necessarily supposed to spar, you can spar any day in that gym. But we have set days that we would normally spar. So we’ve done it, have a sparring day. Next day, I mean, I’m doing technical work. Some guy walks in right in his mouth, Lex is like, deal with that.

42:41 And he said it to me at the beginning when I first came in. He said, if somebody comes in here and one of you guys don’t deal with him, I’ll kick off my shoes in the end. But I don’t expect anybody to get to me. And that’s how it’s been. There’s been one guy that came in, amazing wrestling pedigree.

43:01 So he had Alexis send a couple of the wrestlers at him and he was just awkward as hell, just giving people problems. And Alexis was like, shoes off slamming him just just wrestling just murdered him wrestling and now the guy works for us he’s now one of the coaches at the gym and he’s amazing so but that’s just how our gym is yeah it’s old-school too I mean I’ve been to the new one but it was old school yeah it’s still the same it’s just the same people yeah it’s rough I guess the gym tells you about the people it’s like it’s all about the work it’s all about attitude it’s not about the glamour and the glitz. Yeah, and it’s not.

43:42 It really isn’t. I can’t think of a gym in America that seems that tight-knit as you guys, you know? I haven’t been over it. I’ve only been to one and I think it’s a lot, so I’ll never judge on it based on the thing. I just know what I have.

43:55 And what I have for me just feels very unique. It does feel very unique. It’s a solid place. Well, I was there with you, I think, like three years ago when we did that training. And man, you taught me a lot of that hands-down stuff and it was eye-opening for me because I was taught real classic, you know, Thai boxing stance, and when you show me that hands-down side-to-side, I still play around with the gym with that.

44:14 You spend an hour with me, and that literally locked in my brain, and I’m trying that back and forth stuff, and now I understand why you do the hands-down stuff. There’s this guy on YouTube that’s been talking some shit about me, a YouTuber, and so next year I might have to go into the cage and sort them out. Let’s make it happen. All right, you got my back? Come on, I’ll definitely go back.

44:32 Oh, man. Definitely. All right, Tai Lopez. I’m coming for you, and I got MVP with me. So no, that’d be super cool, man.

44:41 I got to get one done before I’m 50. Yeah, man. I’ve always dreamed of it. That’ll be good. That’ll be great.

44:46 You’re doing more like an MMA thing? I think it’s got to be MMA, because I changed Ujitsu before, and I’ve always loved it. Ten years ago, I couldn’t get around the fear of it. I think I was just too scared, but now I’m not saying I won’t get hurt, but I think I can get my head around the fear. Because I know, whatever happens in that five to 15 minutes, I know that I’ll be okay.

45:10 So now I know I can mentally get in there. It’s funny. I say to someone, I can’t remember what it feels like, because the same kind of thing they’ve got their natural fears about the MMA, I’m like the worst thing is you wake up and don’t remember what happened anyway. Perfect, right? So it’s fine.

45:27 Perfect, right? You know, people ask me a lot of times about plant medicines and ayahuasca and our next movies about that. And I’m like, look, for three hours, it’s very difficult emotionally and physically. But after that, you’re alive and everything’s fine. So they’re like, oh, I could never do that. And I’m like, well, of course you could.

45:43 I think people would just build things up more in their head. So then when they actually experienced it, they’re like, oh, actually, it was nowhere near that, as bad as I thought it was. So yeah, a lot of times you are your own worst enemy. And I would have a tendency to go in and do what you described earlier, be like, okay, Okay Michael, it’s really serious, I’m going to go in and stick to the game plan and you’re going to be like, no Brian, I want you to have fun, dance and do the walk away knock out.

46:10 It’s like I’ll talk to you. But it’s more, it’s usually on the night, a lot of times you could be doing everything right in the gym, everything right in the gym. On the night you start to think, oh man, my family here, my family’s watching, my parents are down, my friends have all come out to this, I can’t let them down. And as you’re doing it, as you’re saying it to yourself, you’re getting more and more Tense and tense and tense and tense and tense. And for some people, and I always say to any of the fighters, I’m like, please, just, whatever you do, don’t fight for money.

46:39 Just don’t fight for money. Be good at what you do. The money will come. Do not fight for money because that’s another stress you’re going to put yourself on because a lot of the way people in the MMA get paid, especially at the earliest ages, is for you to get paid to show up and you get paid to win. Right.

46:56 You know what I mean? And that messes with people sometimes. because you’re already spending the money that you have to win. So you’re like, yeah, I’m gonna, let’s say you’re getting 5K to show up, you’re getting 5K to win the fight. You’re like, okay, so 10K, I’m gonna need to, I can get this done with 10K and I can do this, I pay off that, I pay off this and I can do that and then I can help and then we can go on the holiday.

47:17 They’re like, oh damn, I need to win. No, that’s, again, you’re already stressing yourself out and I’ve seen multiple fighters do that. It’s like, yeah, so I’m, you know, this next fight I’m gonna get, I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna earn this, and I can do it. I’m like, why are you talking to me about your pay? That’s weird.

47:33 We’re already about this. We’re already gonna lose. It’s already, it’s just already, and you might get past this hurdle, and you can do it again, and the money goes up a little bit, but it’s even more, it means a little bit more to you this next time. Right, it’s more money. It’s more money.

47:44 And now, you know, you’re spending on the next car you’ve got, and you shouldn’t do any of that. You know, that’s just separate. Once you have it, do what you want to do with it. But until then, it’s just focus on the experience and just be happy, enjoying that experience. My friend telling me, yeah, man, if I was to win the lottery, you don’t have to fight no more.

48:08 You don’t have to do it like this. We’re just all as our friends. I was like, I’d still fight. He’s like, why? Because I enjoy fighting.

48:14 I’m not fighting to get paid. I didn’t know I was going to get paid when I started. So why would I choose this? I was going to work somewhere else. It would have been a lot easier.

48:24 So he’s like, OK, well, you keep fighting them. But yeah, for me, it’s not a financial thing. I’m just happy that I’m able to live off it at the moment. Do you see what I mean? I’m able to what my work this provides for me, allow me to just focus on this.

48:43 Whereas in MMA, it’s difficult now. Well, it’s getting better, but it’s very difficult to start in MMA, especially if you’ve already got commitments and stuff, because a lot of people They’re still working one and two jobs, and then they have to run to the gym, then they go run back to another job, and it’s tiring to get off the ground. Very tiring, you don’t get that kind of support. There’s no scholarships, there’s no none of that, so it’s very difficult to start.

49:07 Very, very difficult. It’s such a mental game, man. Everything you talked about today, I never thought about the finance being a mental game. That, how you are on the night, being playful, being okay, I mean, that’s such a big component. I mean, you always hear fighters say it’s mostly mental, but to a non-fighter, we hear that, and we look at your training, and we look at your bodies, and we’re like, what are you talking about?

49:25 It’s obviously physical, but I guess if you can all get access to a lot of the good training on the night, it’s where your head’s at, right? It’s 100%, and this is why it was a weird one, because we’ve had debates about the drug use in MMA, and people are like, yeah, they’re like, oh, well, weed is not really an enhancement, so technically that should just be allowed for fighters to use. And my coach said something to me, he said, Well, let’s think about it like this.

49:52 Some people suffer from that kind of anxiety. So him having weed beforehand allows him to be in the correct state of mind that allows him to perform better. Because normally, like anybody else, the same way you have to, you have to get over yourself, your own demons. So if you don’t smoke weed, and he’s like, I’m gonna smoke weed just to calm myself down, he’s technically now a better fighter because all of those things, the money, the stress, it’s not there anymore.

50:16 You’re kind of just in that limbo. We have to train ourselves to get to. mentally, so it’s technically an enhancement. I was like, oh, I’ve never actually seen it that way. I was like, fair enough, that makes sense.

50:28 Totally makes sense. Yeah, I never thought of it that way. So I guess the Diaz brothers are onto something. Well, I’m not gonna get paid for my fight. I’m gonna donate all the money to charity for knocking out Tai Lopez, but he’s ducking me, so Tai, look out, we’re coming for you.

50:42 I’m coming to find him, don’t worry. Come find him, but I mean, who out there wouldn’t pay $20 to watch me punch him in the face? And then if you don’t want to pay for that, Pay for $20 to watch him punch me in the face. It’s a win-win for everybody. That’s my life all the time.

50:53 It’s just people are paid to see me get beat up or see me beat someone up. Right? That’s what it is a lot of times, right? And so tell me about you talking trash before a fight. Because four years ago, we were here having a conversation and you’re like, McGregor talks a lot of trash.

51:10 That’s probably not me. And then a couple years later, you’re on social. For the social side I like to play with, because again, it’s more my personality. Although I’m talking trash, it’s not me just shouting stuff. Right.

51:27 It’s you with the memes. It’s me playing around. So again, it’s very fun for me. Okay. And that’s your personality.

51:32 That’s my personality. And again, it’s just my brothers and sister. We’re all like that. Okay. We’re all like that.

51:39 We’re very like that. This is the part where we don’t see the side of you. Yeah, that’s all I mean. So explain it. We’re all very jokey.

51:44 After the cyborg fight is the next day because I didn’t know that that happened to his head, right? Can we just talk about what happened? Yeah, so so it was at o2. Yeah, I was there cyborgs there which is a he’s a Veteran fire. Yeah, definitely. No, I mean the game and early in the MMA game Brazil hardcore I don’t see black belt. I’m sure Thai boxing background probably all this stuff a shoot the box guys shoot the boy He was shoot box, right? Yeah. I mean there’s those guys they were or O.G. is the game, right?

52:12 I went with Van der Ley Silva and all that back in the day. So you go in there, and it was second round, or first round, second round. Second round. I was right in the front row, right behind Lennox Lewis. We’ll talk about that later.

52:24 And you went in for a flying knee, and Michael, I heard this unnatural cracking sound. It sounded something inhuman. It sounded something wrong. And people say, how can you hear that in a big arena? It was like a crack that sounded so crazy, Then I saw him on the ground, and then the fight was over.

52:43 What happened? So after the fight, he had basically I had fractured his skull. So his skull had kind of concaved. And even the doctors were saying that’s the kind of stuff you’d see in a car accident. You wouldn’t see it in a, that’s very rare to see in a fight.

53:01 We saw the x-ray, and it was like cracked skulls. Yeah, it was like 30-something plates or something put into it. 30 plates. Reconstruct everything. But I had at the time, because he fell over face down, and it’s weird, like same thing you’re saying about the sound, in the moment I didn’t hear any sound.

53:21 When I watched the video back then I’m like, oh snap, you can actually hear it kind of the same thing you’re saying. It’s almost like a baseball bat hitting a home run and just like smoking it out. A bone on bone and bone cracking. But in the moment, because he turned over, he’s kind of like kicking. I actually thought I must have caught his nose or something.

53:37 Like Broken Nozies is way more common than you would in any combat sport. Yeah. And so he’s turned over, I’ve done my celebration, I’ve rolled a Pokeball. So he pulls out the Pokemon Ball but you smuggled in, you rolled the Pokemon Ball, it gets millions of views. So again, this crazy showman, and that was really hot at the time.

53:58 Yeah, so that was literally just popping at the time, done that, it’s gone viral, it’s gone crazy. Probably the most viral post-fight celebration in history. I think so, yeah. That stuff doesn’t happen in any organization, only MVP, that’s nice. I don’t even know how you think about that.

54:13 You talk about the mental game, so I can’t think about the money before a fight, I can’t think about my opponent, but I’ve got to think about the Pokemon ball, I’m going to roll across the cage. This is all part of my family, it’s literally me and my family sit down like, what do you reckon, what’s popping now, what should we do, and we’re just brainstorming about just being ourselves, silly selves, we love to laugh, we love to joke. If we, it’s always just high energy when we’re all together.

54:40 Okay, barbecues. I love barbecues. How big’s your family? So like under my dad’s side, he had seven children and then my mom had adopted three later as well. Okay.

54:52 So but in just in general, loads of cousins and friends and that we just got a big family unit that we’ve got and we’re all very similar, we’re all very, like I said, we love to laugh, We love to joke, we love to play tricks and like crack on each other. We love that. So that’s where that all comes from. That’s where it all comes from. So as soon as he’s left, I didn’t get to see him.

55:18 So my sister the next day, and my coach said he didn’t wanna tell me what had happened. He wanted me to enjoy, celebrate. So he had seen him because he shook the coach’s hand and shook his hand as he was leaving and saw, and just didn’t say anything to me. He could see a dent in his head. He saw the dent in his head, leaving.

55:36 Cause no one told me anything. Like I was like, I didn’t hear anything from Bella to I, either. So again, the next day, my sixth hour. And by the way, that night was crazy. Like you were walking around, the whole arena was spanned.

55:47 I got this picture where I’m like looking at you and you’re like beaming. And then like who was in the front row? Like Lennox Lewis is there. Lennox Lewis, T.O.T. T.O.T.’s, Fedor, Melanie and Co.

55:58 Yeah, yeah, like just loads of people, man. It was David Hay was there. David Hay was there. There was some Hollywood people there too, right? Yeah.

56:05 I remember there was quite a few people there. Right. So a big night for you. Yeah. Gracie was there as well.

56:11 Yeah. Horse Gracie was there. Yeah. Bellator knows how to bring the stars. Yeah, definitely.

56:16 My man sucks. Got poker. It was just, for me, it was a memorable night. I think that’s going to be one that’s assigned to me for the rest of my life. Like people always remember, oh, you’re the Pokemon guy.

56:27 Oh, you’re the guy with the knee. There was something about that night that’s drawn when the more casual fans kind of hear about me. They’re like, oh, it’s the guy that did this, and it’s always drawn back to that fight, mainly. Yeah. How do you feel on a night like that?

56:42 Because you’re a measured guy, you’re a martial artist, what’s it like for you? It’s always a big relief, because again, you’ve trained so hard, and regardless of how confident you are, you don’t know what the result’s going to be. It is one of those things that anything can happen, you know, so you just don’t know. And that’s always, again, you have to be confident in yourself going in, otherwise, yeah, you’re already putting your, you know, you’re already starting on the back foot, but anything, that game is so unpredictable, you know, it’s just, yeah, it’s very difficult to kind of be a 100% sure. You can be 99.9% sure. There’s always that 0.1 where you’re like, something random can just happen.

57:33 So- And how do you celebrate on a night like that? Just people I love. You know what I mean? The people with that kind of energy. So again, my siblings, my close friends and family, the people that know me, I just like to be around those people afterwards because a lot of times your sacrifice to doing this is being away from them.

57:52 Your sacrifice is being in the gym hours and hours on end and when you get back home, going to sleep because you’re too tired. So just not being able to be with those kind of people. And that’s what I mean, it’s a relief. It’s like you just, you got the result you wanted and you just wanna just go and hug everybody and just like, just have a good time with them. So that night was amazing.

58:13 Yeah, it’s gonna be one of the most memorable nights for me anyway, for multiple reasons. But for me, just that night, in terms of how we enjoyed this, we went to, there was a, Joe Long had organised a little after event for me, just in the O2, in one of the bars there. And everyone was waiting there, cause I had already told them, like, you know, it took me about an hour and a half to get there, just because I couldn’t walk. So I just kept being stopped, pictures and doing this and that like, and literally Saba had to drag me like, Okay, look, guys, look, he needs to go over here.

58:50 You were taking selfies with everybody in the arena, too, man. I love it, I love it, I love it. You were getting so much love, it was awesome to see. Yeah, yeah, but I love that, because I genuinely do appreciate people that appreciate me. Yeah, and it showed, man.

59:02 Yeah, genuinely it showed. You kind of were like the people’s fighter. Yeah, this is why I always like I want more from you guys. Like, you give to me, I give straight back. You know, I give back in my fight, and then I give back when I’m finished, man.

59:16 I want to be with you guys, you know. I think a lot of people don’t know that, man. Maybe they don’t see you as that guy, maybe they see you as the cocky guy or the ham guy. Yeah, well, because they only get 15 minutes to evaluate. And they guy that tucks shit on social, which we’ll get back to that.

59:29 I saw you that night, and you were really spending time with everybody. You were getting energy from the crowd, and it was a different look. I love it. I love it. Because some people want to just kind of escape straight away, but we don’t, unlike say like a football team or NFL or baseball, it’s not a week in, week out thing.

59:46 This is months and months of just training, training, training, training, training. And you have this one moment to enjoy this. So soak it in, like soak it in, soak it in. I’m trying to get like eight months worth before I go again, like you know what I mean? And yeah, so I just try to soak it up as much as possible, as much as possible.

1:00:06 I really loved it. So the next day you were saying you’re a… Yeah, so my sister had sent me the picture. So Safina messages me. She didn’t even say anything, she said, no, she said, have you seen this?

1:00:17 And then send it to me. I looked at the picture and my first instinct was to laugh because I’m like, you’re so stupid. Like, why would you edit that of me, me and him in the face tonight? So in my head, this is what I think of my family here is she would have gone out of her way if she could have anyway to edit and play around and just like, oh, look what you did. And I was like, I laugh a lot.

1:00:43 She’s like, nah, I’m being dead serious. Go online, this has happened. And I was like, what? So I’ve checked online, I’m just seeing, because I literally, after going out, and I was crashed out in the morning. So everyone’s up, and I’m still sleeping, just high off life.

1:00:59 And then seeing that, and just being like, oh, snap. So I called Bellator, and they’re like, yeah, he’s in hospital. And now I was like, well, can I go and see him? They’re like, oh, we have to speak to the guys, and see, didn’t hear anything back. So I reached out and a couple other people tried to call.

1:01:16 I said, is there a number I can call? Tried to call. And then it kind of felt like he, I guess, from the other end, he didn’t want me to come over. I was like, fair enough. So I left it at that.

1:01:25 Then we tried to help with the raising of some funds because he was talking about, he may not be able to compete again and stuff. So we tried to help boost that. They did good numbers again. He’s a very prideful man. So he didn’t want to accept any of it.

1:01:41 I think he gave it to charity, which is nice. I’m a very tough man as well, because he checked himself out of hospital against doctor’s advice, flew home against doctor’s advice. So you’ve got like stuff, just fractures and pressure of the plane in the air. And then I think obviously got the surgery done back home. But yeah, very tough man.

1:02:04 Very tough man. It was quite scary in that moment. And then when I was speaking to Ben, No, he’s fine. He’s okay and stuff. It’s just yeah, just some across your mind like you know damaging someone permanently here And in someone’s career, or is that just the business you’re in no not again It’s just something I wouldn’t care to even think about just because one they would do it to me If I had to think about one they’ll do it to me we both understand that you know we sign off to be both understand what we’re going in there and the potential and And it very rarely happens, you know?

1:02:41 It very rarely, do you hear anybody passing away? Very rarely do you hear anybody having a fight-ending injury that people have broken their legs and still come back and continue fighting. So it’s just, yeah, it’s just something that I just wouldn’t even want to stress about. But when it happened, I was just like, he’s okay. Like, no, let me double check.

1:03:02 I don’t even know if I got back to my sister straight away. Second, I said that I was just like, trying to contact the Bellatore guys. So yeah, it’s a bit weird. I think I guess that’s why Alexis didn’t want me to focus on that at the time. Yeah, so you kind of just like, yeah, I mean, you just kind of like, yeah, I just kind of like, yeah, celebrated, kind of enjoyed it in the moment and then we spoke about it like the next day.

1:03:27 But yeah, it was a crazy one. Yeah, it was. So all right, let’s finish up on the social media stuff. So the whole Paul Tampax daily, went for it. I mean like I was surprised with some of that stuff so I was like damn maybe you went a little too far MVP.

1:03:42 So with that it’s weird because Paul for me has always had and I still believe it a little bit. There’s always been a slight sense of jealousy there. More to do with not necessarily me as a person but more to do with how quickly I have gained distraction and he’s been in a game a long time and I feel like he feels like I deserve that kind of attention and that kind of respect for this guy who just jumped on the scene, he does a couple of flashy things and people keep relating him to me.

1:04:20 I feel that was always there, but we got on. So it was very hard for him to, he liked me, so it was very hard for him to be that way because we got on. But then he has moments where I feel like he just gets impulsive and usually tends to be around fights. So he’s, because again, he’s a person that’s just very like, you know, I don’t know if he’s necessarily aggressive driven, but just in those moments, you know, through his history, it’s in and around those moments where you heard more negative things from him.

1:04:55 I think he just gets really hyped up in that moment. So after one of his fights, he’s being interviewed literally walking back, which is getting probably the worst time because he’s still here and he, that slight maybe jealousy side comes out in what he says.

1:05:16 And then for me, I was kind of like, I was kind of caught off guard by like, you’ve never even displayed remotely that to me anyway. I was like, that could have been a conversation you could have just had with me. And even when it first came out, I was like, actually, you know what? Because people were messaging me like, Oh, did you see what he said? I was just like, when I speak to him next, you know, we’ll speak and I’ll just, I’ll confront him and just be like, oh, what was that about, like, and then we could have just had a conversation and it would have been that.

1:05:48 Then another interview came out. This one, because the first one was a written one. The second one was a video interview. And I was like, okay, gloves are off. So if you want to fight less, I said, we’re in the best position in the world.

1:06:02 If you have negative feelings about me, then let’s fight.” It took ages for the fight to come. There was always something called, I don’t know if he was trying to be tactical about things or whatever, but I was like, let’s do it now, let’s just make it happen. It just took a while. Obviously, in that time, I’m now pushing him to try and take the fight. He kept, obviously, he had the opportunity to fight Rory, which, again, business-wise, I’m a person that thinks on both platforms.

1:06:29 If I was in that position, business-wise, which way would I have gone? I was like, okay, that makes a smart decision to go that way. But at the same time, I was still trying to persuade him to focus on me. And so you’re messing with him on social? I’m just messing with him on social.

1:06:44 The 10 pecs daily. Yeah, yeah, and I’m like, so. Did you ever go too far? No. No.

1:06:51 Does it ever make you look bad when you go too far on messing with guys on social? Just, uh, everyone’s gonna have their own opinion about it. Like I said, I’m just being me. Like I’m just, I’m never not gonna be me because I offend a couple of people. So like I said, that’s kind of, don’t watch me.

1:07:09 And I just, you have to just leave it at that. Like if you’re that offended with me, don’t watch me or tune in on a fight like most people do because you know, you’re hoping to hear me get, me get knocked out. So there’s a couple, there’s quite a few people that got happy when it happened. Is that like a third of your sales? People that want to see you get knocked out?

1:07:26 I’m sure that, to be fair, when it first came in, when I first landed that kick, I just find it weird, when I first landed that kick, went viral, I was just like, man, again, I was buzzing off that. It was my first MMA fight. I was so nervous walking into this fight. I’ve never really been nervous before like that. I was so nervous walking into this fight, then relaxed, I was like, oh man, because I didn’t know, that’s the one time I didn’t have any belief in myself, because I didn’t know if I could or couldn’t do this.

1:07:52 And then, not only did I do it, I started with a really big bang and I’m getting all these people like, and then I’m looking online and reading comments and I’m like, whose child did I kill? Because the comments were horrible and I’m just like, I don’t understand what’s going on here. I’m feeling good about myself in this moment like, oh yeah, you know, I just, I can do this and I’m actually now, I think after that fight I was like, I’ve definitely made this decision that I’m gonna pursue MMA.

1:08:23 Cause I still wasn’t sure. Still wasn’t sure. I was just still in the kind of early stages. I was getting my ass handed to me every day in training. So it’s still like, I don’t know if I can do this, but I’m gonna try.

1:08:33 Why were they hating on you? Cause of the flash? I don’t know. I guess it’s the flash. You’ve always had it.

1:08:38 Yeah, I don’t know if it’s the flashiness. I don’t know. Then they get people and it’s like, yeah, he should fight Anderson Silva. He should fight GSP. He can’t do that stuff.

1:08:47 I’m like, this is my first MMA fight. What the hell is going on here? But then speaking to family and friends, it’s like, just don’t read any of that. Our opinions are the ones that matter, don’t read any of that. And I was like, for real.

1:09:01 So to be fair, for ages, I didn’t even bother. But every now and again, you’d look at a couple, but it didn’t really bother, but it took ages, I think. I’d say at that time, 90% of people were negative. And that’s why it was such a like, whoa, what have I done? And over, after every fight, it’s just shifting more and more the other way, more and more people trying to believe a little bit more, more and more the other way.

1:09:28 But I just don’t care to change those kind of people, or make those people feel good about themselves. Because for me, why did you not see someone that’s from the UK that’s done something flashy and just be like, all right, let’s just support this guy? It doesn’t matter what happens. If he, you know, couple fights down the line, he falls off, who cares? Who cares?

1:09:48 Why don’t we just support him because, you know, he represents us, you know what I mean? And he’s fun to watch. Yeah. Why not just focus on the positive? But I find just people that are just negative nowadays, I think the biggest backlash I’ve got from being myself and being like comical online had nothing to do with poor daily people.

1:10:08 Actually, at that point, people loved it. I think people have negative opinions of him as well, so it’s kind of a balance. So it was the Ronda Rousey thing. What was that? I’m terrible sometimes.

1:10:25 So I did just playing a joke again but went on social because she did a clip of her in some boxing before a fight and then she lost her fight to Holly Holmes, I believe, and I made a joke saying the Ronda Razi, which is how she kind of was kind of fooling around trying to punch. I just did a dance. You did that as if you were her. Yeah, as if I was her. And then I was like, do the Ronda Razi.

1:10:53 And we made a song with it and everything as well. And again, sometimes we go far and we do the whole production. It’s not just like, quick story on my Instagram. Let’s just do this. Now we filmed and had a bit of fun with it.

1:11:08 And then, yeah, she has some cut-wrist fans, so they were just like, they were onto me. But again, it doesn’t bother me. And any press is good press, and you’re just being the only one. No, it’s weird, I swear to you. I didn’t even do it full press.

1:11:22 I was just being funny. And then when I was like, actually, that’s, yeah. Because then I had like, TMZ, oh, can we do an interview of you about that? I said, no. I was like, it’s not that deep.

1:11:31 I said, it really isn’t that, I don’t have an issue, it’s really not that deep. then her coach hits me up and starts saying, so I was like, I don’t rate him as a coach anyway, so I fired back at him. The boyfriend hit me up as well. I didn’t say anything back to him. I was just like, I get it.

1:11:48 He’s been defensive of his misses, fine. Left it at that. And, but yeah, I didn’t try to jump on the bandwagon. That’s your family, that’s you. That’s what you do for fun.

1:11:57 Yeah, and I feel like people, like after my last fight, I posted about myself. Like I cracked a joke. And I was like, it was a girl sprinting and she’s running like she’s miles ahead of anybody. She literally tripped and like falls on her face. And like, this feels like how I was in my last fight.

1:12:16 You know what I mean? And I made a joke, everyone’s laughing. You don’t have to take yourself so serious. Like I don’t for myself, and it’s because I’ve been around people that we don’t. Like we crack on each other and it’s just fun.

1:12:28 There’s no, there’s no heartfelt emotionally involved in it. We’re just having fun. We’re just cracking jokes. and it’s nice to just be able to laugh. So then sometimes I’ll do it and yeah, to get an ID card out.

1:12:41 Cool, man, that makes a lot of sense to me and I appreciate it, that’s good. All right, I started off asking you about the UFC, Nate and Jorge Masvidal. First of all, what do you think of those two guys? How would you rank up against both of those guys? Yeah, I’d love to fight someone like Nate because I know it’d be more of a stand-up fight, which just suits me, suits me, suits me a lot better.

1:13:05 A hundred percent, again, as I said, you have to be confident in what you’re saying. He’d be a tough person to fight because he’s just a person that you just can’t kill. But I just believe I’d be able to keep, stay, as long as I’m in the best shape of my life, I’d be able to be myself and beat him every single round because I feel like I’m a better kickboxer than him. but he’s just overwhelming, I can see he’s just non-stop, he’s just coming forward all the time, coming forward all the time, which means my footwork’s gonna have to be on way more than it’s ever been on.

1:13:40 Right, yeah. Because if I start letting him drown me, that’s when he starts landing these shots and he’s just kicking you with his coffin shots. Yeah, that takes you off of your game too, because you’re a good distance game, right? Yeah, yeah. You’re further away than most opponents are.

1:13:52 Exactly, he doesn’t throw many low kicks or many kicks full stop as well, he’s more of a boxer. So again, I feel like I had the advantage there. Masvidal is just doing, everyone’s jumping on the bandwagon now, but he’s been around for a long time. A long time? I’m talking when he was called Ponytail.

1:14:09 Okay, right. And then Street Jesus, I watched his Kimbo’s life play. Exactly. So he’s been fighting a long time. Right.

1:14:16 Which is in it. You can kind of tell it’s in his character. A hundred percent. He’s a background baller, because a lot of MMA fighters aren’t. Yeah, no, not at all.

1:14:23 Not at all. A lot of them, most MMA fighters, I’d say new school ones are athletes, non-fighters. Yeah, the athletes, and they’ve joined an MMA gym. Old school ones started in a martial art and then crossed over too, so like myself. Yeah, those are different people, aren’t they?

1:14:39 Yeah, it’s just different. Yeah, it’s different. Like everyone, everyone’s got their own background, everyone’s got their own backstory, and that is, their character comes through in their fighting. Yes. You know what I mean?

1:14:50 And that’s when I was at his character comes through in his fighting. How so? What do you see? He’s just, he’s raw man, he’s just, he’s a beast, he just, he loves fighting. You can see, he really does just love fighting.

1:15:00 He’s quite a poker face, quite calm, isn’t he, as well? I thought… Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s a cool, he’s a cool character. Is that Miami cool?

1:15:08 Yeah, he’s a cool character. Like, I’m a fan, I’m a fan of him, but again, I used to like his fights from before anyway. Okay. How would you match up against Mazzie? He’d be a lot harder because I think I find him technically just a better mixed martial artist and I think he saw that in that last fight, he was just technically just like and even him having fun cracking jokes as he you know during the fight and that says a lot.

1:15:35 It shows a lot of confidence in his audibility and then it’s also like and I’m getting away with doing it because I’m better than you you know I mean so technically he’s better but he’d be a he’d be the person I’d like to fight most because I had the two of them just because I’d like to see where I am against him. Like I said to certain people, I’m like, yeah, I reckon like he hasn’t come across something like myself. He struggled against the likes of Wonder Boy and stuff before, which says, again, my style.

1:16:07 Again, people don’t realize the style, how effective the style is. Wonder Boy’s doing his thing and look what he did with the last opponent. That guy, he’s the guy that he was fighting with, he’s a killer as well. Your style is similar to Wonder Boy, right? As far as the stance?

1:16:24 We literally have the same, or basically pretty much the same background. But then he just ended up going more into the full contact world and I basically… So Raymond Daniels, another person that come from the same background, he took the full contact route, and now he’s kind of fallen into MMA, and Wonder Boy did the same thing earlier. He left our industry, took the full contact route, and then went into MMA. you’re obviously doing what you know everyone’s seeing him doing, he’s an amazing fighter.

1:16:53 So we have the same balance, same background, just different personality attached to it. And that’s it. But yeah, we all come from the same, it’s the same field. And as Dana White always famously said, styles make fights. Styles definitely make fights.

1:17:06 So you’re saying you throw Jorge in with your type of kind of side stands, hands down, old school point fighting style. And it just makes it way more complicated for him. Right, because he can’t hit all those things he’s used to hitting. And with Nate, he’s hitting him with those kicks to the body. Exactly.

1:17:21 With you, you’re on a different angle. Yeah, I’m not going to be there. You’re not going to be there. I’ve got the reach advantage, and I’ve got that as well. The certain advantage I’m going to have, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it like it’s a sure thing.

1:17:30 Nothing’s a sure thing. I’m always going to be confident with myself going in. But technically, his experience is going to count for a lot. And I actually genuinely feel the reason why he’s doing so well now, I think there’s actually been a bit of a mental shift in him, based on what I see. I feel like he’s always believed in himself, but I don’t think he was, same thing we were talking about earlier, I don’t think he’s that, he was, there was 100% belief in himself because there’s certain fights that he’s had where, because he’s not, I don’t think he’s been finished before.

1:17:58 He’s only ever lost by decision. That says a lot. But I think after one and two big knockouts, he was like, I’m actually the boss of this game, right? Yeah. But I think that mental shift has changed and you see it now on every single fight now that he’s doing now, you actually see the difference and this is what’s making him more attractive.

1:18:16 He’s actually like owning his ability, whereas before he’s like, I guess, yeah, you know, I can fight, you know, I’m gonna fight, but I don’t, still a little unsure about myself and enough to not really be confident in what he did with that jumping knee, is the flying knee. Flying knee with an escrow, and yeah, I mean, that shows a lot of confidence. That shows a lot of confidence. Because that could have gone wrong. That’s a big, bold move.

1:18:37 Yeah, 100%. But it shows, I think, from a lot, few fights before, the build up, you can see the difference in his confidence, And now he’s just like, I’m the man. Like, this is where it’s gonna be the hardest to beat him, because he’s so sure about himself. And it comes out in his personality, and the pre-fight, post-fight, and guess what happens, the fans love the confidence. Everyone loves confidence.

1:19:00 This is why all these new people are jumping, oh man, have you seen this guy? This guy’s been around for ages, what are you talking about? But yeah, to be fair, this guy’s new. Yeah, this guy’s only been around for a year. This guy’s only been around for a year.

1:19:10 He has that kind of Conor McGregor 2016 confidence and the reason I say that is because it’s not Conor McGregor. It doesn’t have the confidence he used to have and he doesn’t have the perception and the public perception that he used to have because he’s not that kind of, maybe he’s not that guy or he’s not that rising star or he’s not that thing. It’s very difficult to make that kind of money and stick to your roots. Very hard. Explain the Conor McGregor phenomenon.

1:19:39 I mean we were talking about him four years ago a lot happened with him in four years I think if you look at if you just look at a lot of people bar Floyd Mayweather a lot of people The second they’ve made their biggest paycheck Have started to go down in their fight fighting career. There’s just more like I think of like all the different But I’m talking across the board boxing kid boxing MMA Okay, a lot of people don’t say even for a guy like Connor who I believe yeah He loves fighting but from everything I hear he obsesses over it movements constantly thinking about it So even for someone that didn’t do it for the paycheck. Yeah, the money still changes them, but it’s weird. I Though he nests in fact is different. I Actually think he did do it for the paycheck, but sometimes when that Sometimes it can be a motivator. It can be it’s yeah It can also because again he sees you spoke about the times, you know, where he’s really why he’s really poor The wife, you know, having to help him with money and he’s going to the gym and blah, blah, blah.

1:20:41 So the doll and all this stuff. So really poor. He was really poor. So sometimes that pain drives you. One of his first things where everyone was talking about, he’s like, 60 Gs baby, after the fight.

1:20:52 He’s always been money oriented. So nowadays actually achieved that big paycheck and doing so well with his whiskey bottles and all that, so he’s really doing well at the moment. Again, he keeps messing up. I think he’s just got a bit too much time on his hands and he just- Is that it? Or is it a sabotaging behavior?

1:21:13 What’s going on with that? Punching all guys and pubs and all the other stuff you hear about, getting outside nightclubs. There’s something more going on. It’s weird because the perception in Dublin is that a lot of people don’t like him now over there and it’s weird to see, again, fully, like I said, how passionate the Irish are about their own. They’re just kind of like, nah, I’m not interested in him anymore, but I just think, again, he’s been giving a lot of money.

1:21:34 He’s now got a lot of time in his hands. This is my opinion. I don’t speak to him like that, so I went, no, I just think he’s got a lot of time in his hands. He’s got the wrong people around him. If I make one step in the wrong direction, I’ve got about 20 people that would happily just slap me, cuss me, just say whatever.

1:21:57 Whereas some people, because they want to be associated with him the whole time, they’re worried about if I say this, he might just kick me out. And I’m the kind of person, I don’t care, if I was one of his friends, and even that time when, you know, Loboff got here and he’s like, yeah, let’s fly over, I’ll be like, no. I’m not following you into that battle, just so you know. If you got a problem with me, we’ll have a conversation about that afterwards, but I’m telling you, I don’t think you should go.

1:22:21 Right, you shouldn’t fly over to New York City and throw that thing in. Let’s do it properly. Don’t worry, we’ll get him back. Don’t worry. He’s so famous and there’s so much money involved that maybe- He keeps forgetting himself.

1:22:31 Yeah, and you tracked really the wrong people. You tracked the wrong people. Or people that he was always around. And again, I’ve seen this many, many times. There’s guys that, in my area, they’re now doing really well.

1:22:45 Famous rappers and stuff. But they still wanna have some association with the streets. Because that’s where they’re raising. They feel like, oh, I can’t turn my back on people. No, live your life, do well.

1:22:56 We’ll just keep applauding you from where we’re standing. If they’re truly your friends, they will keep supporting you. Oh man, he’s a snake, he doesn’t even come around. If those people you shouldn’t care about, go do your thing and then, because of that, you keep getting dragged back into old bullshit. Get dragged back into all the old stuff, you get caught up in the wrong thing.

1:23:16 I’ve seen it multiple times, it’s different people. Were you from a tough neighborhood? Yeah, but- How did you stay away or- The martial arts always kept me away. That’s always been my excuse. I’ve always been able to say, I’ve got to go train.

1:23:32 I’m lucky. I’m in a sport where those guys respected it. It’s fighting. I’m from the streets. We get fighting.

1:23:42 You’re good at fighting. Cool. Do your thing. If I was like, you know, it’s different, but if I was like, I’d go to a dance competition and, you know, it made me a bit harder, regardless of how successful, so I was lucky. I get even when they’re in a rap game, some of these guys, they’re doing really well and you keep getting dragged back to the streets and I’m like, well, they respect you anyway.

1:24:03 So you don’t need to see them face to face to get all that respect. There’s certain things I’ve learned as well over the last four years, I say, just having to cut certain people. And it’s like, I can’t have the energy around them. So you’ve done that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, left, right and center.

1:24:18 I’m just like, block, delete, get out, not interested. People are from the old neighborhood, old friends? Sometimes old friends, they don’t get that you’re, they don’t necessarily understand where you are. They just think it’s still, you know, the good old days and yeah, you know, you’re still accessible in the same way. Oh yeah, do me that favor.

1:24:40 It’s not as straightforward as that anymore. It just isn’t. If you don’t understand it and you feel offended, I have no time to baby you. So you’re gonna have to be offended by yourself because I’ve got stuff to do and I’ve got to focus on those things. I had a conversation with some of my friends before because one of my friends was like, because I don’t, I like, there’s still friends I always be in touch with in terms of just still speak to you.

1:25:08 And so one of my friends when we had a conversation he’s like, oh yeah, he’s having this, he was having this thing. Basically one of our mutual friends told me about it. And I was like, yeah, I’m around that day so I’ll go down and it’ll be nice to catch up. came down, he’s like, oh man, I didn’t message you because I just assumed you were just gonna be busy. So sometimes it works the other way around.

1:25:32 And then it’s like, why don’t you just message and find out? Just, if I’m busy, I’m busy, but it’s always a no until you actually ask. He’s like, yeah, fair enough, I’ve just got this thing in my head that you’re doing these things, because he’s now used to seeing me on TV versus seeing me in person. So he’s like, yeah, you know, you’re up there now, so I can’t speak to you anymore. No, it’s different.

1:25:57 We’ve got to set a relationship. If you believe in that relationship, message me. It’s not a problem. So yeah, we had a really good conversation about how things can change. Sometimes how people talk about, oh, he’s changed because he’s now doing well.

1:26:13 And the other side of, they don’t know how to get on board with where I’m at now. they don’t get it because they’re still living the same life, they’re in that same bubble. So it was just weird, it was a good conversation. Must be strange, man. Yeah.

1:26:28 And at the same time, you’re hanging out with people like 50 Cent. Yeah, and I think it’s things like that, so people will see that and they’re like, oh yeah, he’s over there now. I’m like, no, I have to come back to London, I don’t live with the guy. I’m not just in Hollywood, I’m a fighter. One thing you know about fighters is fighters are the entertainers of entertainers.

1:26:46 That’s why we get a lot of attention from entertainment industry, because we’re doing stuff that they would love to be able to do, or they can’t, so they kind of live through us in that moment. So we entertain them. Interesting. You know what I mean? That’s why the rock is there with the belt.

1:27:01 Yeah, they love that kind of stuff. Deep down inside, they would love to be a fighter, but they can’t. I always find this, I think Drake said it in one of his songs, but it’s more about athletes versus the music industry. They want to be, we want to be them, and they want to be us, and it is that. So then there’s a bit of a mutual respect, So you find any reason to try and connect, pictures, videos, blah, blah, blah.

1:27:22 And how many athletes have then become rappers after they’re at the end of their career, or try to DJ, or try to do, because they’ve seen it and they’re fascinated with it and wish they could have done that as well. Or being in some way, shape, or form, and the same with us. As fighters, we get it from everybody. Other sports stars are like, man, I’d love to be able to do what you do, and man, I really appreciate it. and they wanna be associated with you in some way, shape, or form.

1:27:50 And it’s, sometimes it can be, like anybody, it can be done in a nasty way, but most of the time it’s just like, man, I genuinely just appreciate what you’re doing. I just love to connect in some way, shape, or form. Yeah. You know what I mean? What did you learn from 50 Cent?

1:28:07 He’s a really inspiring person inspiring person in terms of what he’s doing. He does not give a crap about anyone in the sense that he lives in his own field and he’ll do whatever the hell he thinks is right. We had some good conversations and he’s just telling me about some stuff and then he’s like yeah you know he wants to helped me out with what I’m doing, as well. He said he likes my energy, he likes the way, you know, we met a couple of times, he likes how we get on.

1:28:49 One of his friends, as well, good friends, I speak to him a lot, and he’s like, yeah, he’s telling me, you know, he’s got good energy and this and that, and we get on really well, so. What kind of conversations, like, what’s he telling you? No, this last trip, he was more talking about, he wanted to get me doing some work with him and some of the stuff that he’s doing. Acting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:29:11 It’s something I want to get into later on anyway. You talked about that last time. Yeah, yeah. And I know for a fact I’ll be able to have, I’ll be given opportunities because of people like, like I said, the association saying, oh yeah, I’d love to have you, you know, you got a bit of a profile, I’d love to have you involved in this, but I want to be taken seriously as well. So weird enough, after this fight, I’m actually going to be doing acting sessions as well.

1:29:32 Okay. Acting lessons and trying to develop that side because it’s like throwing a punch, you have to keep doing it and to be better at it, so. So you can show up to acting lessons to everybody, you’re a champion fighter, you can zip it. That’s it, so I think we’re probably gonna have to do more private lessons. Initially, there’s a guy that I kind of met through a business meeting, and he was like, you know, if that’s what you want to get, he ended up talking about my side and what I wanted to do after the fighting.

1:30:03 So yeah, if you ever want to get involved in it, He does a thing at his house where a few other actors, they get together and they just literally just practicing, practicing, practicing, rehearsing, rehearsing, just random scripts, you can bring whatever scripts or you can read from a book or whatever and we’ll just keep that work going. So it’s just good to stay sharp. That’s good. So I’m saying, yeah, I’m definitely gonna go and do a little- I’m gonna take some acting classes, man.

1:30:26 It sounds fascinating. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I’m gonna learn a lot as well about myself doing it. You will, man. So yeah, I’m looking forward to that.

1:30:34 But yeah, so with 50, He’s like, you know, he wants to get me. So you’re gonna be on the next season of Power? No, I’d love to be, I’d love to be. You’ll be the new kingpin of Power, right? There’s no specific show just yet, but he’s just like, we’d like to get some work done together.

1:30:51 And being around him, you get to see kind of the way he carries himself, the way he thinks, the way he treats business and people, and you can kind of, that’s super valuable, right? 100%, and I think like, if nothing ever came of it, just to have an association being able to touch base with him and being around how he operates is, again, it’s inspiring enough for me to kind of go like, yeah, okay, cool. I needed that. I needed that. And I believe he doesn’t give a fuck.

1:31:20 No, he does not care. If he likes you, he likes you. And he said to me, he said, I don’t really get out with people, but if I like you, I like you. That’s it. So again, he doesn’t want to have loads of different people around him and all that He’s got his people.

1:31:35 Yeah, and his plan. He’s got his plan. His plan and he sticks to it. And he is non-stop, like, I mean, some of the stuff he’s talking about, he’s doing this and he’s doing that. And if he’s got this project and he’s got that project, he’s filming for like four different shows at the same time and he’s doing this and it’s like, yeah, okay, I’m being lazy right now.

1:31:56 I need to do way more. So again, having those kind of people around you helps to inspire, or keep re-inspiring you to keep pushing and working harder. Yeah. So yeah, it’s really nice to have someone like that have your back as well. And just say, you know, they’d want to help me anyway they can.

1:32:16 It’s just really nice to hear, because I do work hard. I work really hard at what I do, so it’s just nice to get those little golden nuggets every now and again just to say, oh man, it’s great to have these people kind of be drawn to me. Yeah. Anyone else you’d bet like that over the years? Well, it’s funny, you know, waiting after the other day, out of the blue, Shaquille O’Neal messaged me.

1:32:39 Okay. Just like, oh man, I’m a big fan of what you do, man, I say, you know. You got entertainers to the entertainers? There you go. So I just kind of like, again, and I think I said, I think we spoke about this the last time as well, because it was Anderson Silver that had mentioned me in one of his press conferences and I’m just like it just keeps reiterating that I’m headed in the right direction and it’s those kind of people have just grown it’s just grown Chris Pratt was at the last the last fight in London wasn’t supposed to be there I would say I gave him a hell of an experience because weirdly enough everything just aligned that way and I came out with the gauntlet glove so he was like because he wasn’t he never told anybody he was gonna come by his friend and it was a very last minute because he wasn’t sure if he could make it. So he was like, did they plan this for me? He said, this is crazy right now. And he had a hell of a time when I was on, he was talking about me on Saturday Night Live. So it was just like, yeah, yeah, Saturday Night Live. All these kind of things, it’s just like, wow, man. Okay, keep doing what you’re doing. You’re on track. When it comes to your journey in MMA, you’re on track. All these little things just keep saying, yeah. Because You get days where I’m less like, ugh, how long can I keep doing this?

1:33:55 How long can I keep doing this? So then, what is the answer to that question? You’re 32 years old, how long can you keep doing this? Do things hurt a little more than they did four years ago? Is it harder?

1:34:06 It is, it is, it’s definitely harder. After you made that Conor McGregor money, it’s harder. It’s definitely harder, but weirdly enough, this last couple of camps, has been back to back, my level has just gone like that. So whereas before, I was kind of like, I don’t know how long I’m going to question a lot, I’m like, if I continue to feel like this, like I said, I’ll keep going until I’m just not enjoying myself anymore. It’s based on my enjoyment.

1:34:42 So I don’t even want to put a time frame in it, and I was like, yeah, this time and that time. I know my exit strategy, but I don’t wanna put a timeframe on when that’s gonna be specifically. I’m putting things in place now for when I want to do it. But if I feel like this, then for the next three, four, five years, then I’m still gonna be fighting. Why do you think you’re feeling like this?

1:35:07 I’m having a clue. Mental change, diet change, spiritual change, older, wiser. Potentially, potentially mental change, like I said, the last four years have been quite difficult with family issues and my dad passing. He passed right when the daily fight was happening. Yeah, so that’s why again it’s weird, I’m not a person to like to make excuses, so I didn’t even want to tell anybody about it, but when I got in that fight, because I And I was like, in order for me to stay sane, I needed to be in the gym at that moment.

1:35:46 So I was still training like a beast. Like I was just like, man, I was just killing it in the gym and Alexis was like, just so you know, I’m trying to find any reason to pull you out of this fight. Because he said, I don’t care, we can be fighting for a billion pounds. I will never put you in a fight if you’re not mentally there. Because he knew your dad has just passed away.

1:36:05 Yeah, my dad just passed and he just, so he’s like, yeah, so I’ll find any, you give me one reason to pull you out of this fight and you’ll be getting pulled from this fight. And this is kind of like, okay, but I was like, even when I need to be in this gym, I can’t be anywhere else, can’t sit on it, can’t, I need to be in this gym. So it was just training, training, training, training. And I felt great, so I was, I kind of went in there feeling like, yeah, no, yeah, for him, I’m feeling good, I’m gonna go in there.

1:36:32 And then I got in there, And it wasn’t like there was any particular thing where I felt I was associated with my dad per se. I’ve just never been in a fight and felt that way where I could literally hear myself thinking. So everything felt slow. So, you know, he grabbed me, he’ll go for a take down. I’m like, okay, so I need to do this next.

1:36:57 And I’m like, this is not stuff. I don’t know. Normally it’s just response, we’ve done the training. We know exactly where we need to go. You know, it’s just automatic.

1:37:05 And I was just like, okay, he’s grabbed me, okay, so I need to, oh, he’s gonna try and say, oh, I’m on the floor, damn, okay. So whatever, I’m just, I could hear myself, and I’ve never felt that, I’ve just never been that way. The only thing I could say that it has to do with is, obviously, my father passed him, I don’t get the association, I don’t get why I was in that, I don’t get it at all. It wasn’t like doubt, it wasn’t, I don’t even know what it was. So again, the fight ended up being the fight it was, but I didn’t, I was just like, it is what it is.

1:37:40 I’m not gonna blame anything for it. And then just, yeah. And then it’s been difficult because the grieving process of that is being gradual because I’m like, just stay busy. Just stay busy, just stay busy. And the other day, my sister and brother were talking about that, because what we wanted to do, because he passed on Boxing Day, which was finally quite ironic, so we’re gonna call it Kitboxing Day from now on.

1:38:12 And so we’re gonna do a thing. So on that day, we have to try, he has to do some kind of form of kitboxing, you know. Nice. And attribute to him, so that’s gonna be my thing. So after Christmas, it’s Kitboxing Day.

1:38:22 Okay. And that’s for the man. What was your relationship like with you, Dad? because you talked about him, but it sounded like it was complicated. But he used to take you to, he got you involved in fighting, but he was also hard on you as well, I think.

1:38:39 Yeah, he was very, when I say hard on us, he was just very, he’s always been a family man though. He’s like, because my siblings, we have, not all of us, but we have different moms, but we still like this. Like a lot of people are like, so, asking me because they don’t see much, they don’t necessarily see my brother and sister. I’m like, oh, oh, I didn’t know you had a brother and sister. Oh, I was like, oh, they’re your half brother and sister.

1:39:02 I’m like, no, I used to find that offensive. I’m like, no, they’re my brother and sister. I was raised with them. And how close we are is like, there’s certain people that have brothers and sisters that they don’t even talk. I’m like, no, we are, we’re like this, like all of us.

1:39:22 You’d see it, the second one, if you were in a room with us together, you’re like, okay. And you can see our similarities, they’re very similar as people as well. And we get on, I was on the phone to my sister last night till like two in the morning. Obviously my oldest sister and my two other brothers live in Florida. And then the day before I was on my phone to my brother till like one in the morning, like we’re close.

1:39:52 So, and he is because of him. And it kinda, this is why I feel like I’m so attached to London shoot fires as well, because it feels like the same kind of thing. The yin and yang, Paul and Alexis is that father figure and everyone in there is the children. He was the same in the sense that, no, we can’t all have egos. So he’ll have the biggest one.

1:40:16 And then it eliminates us having an ego because he kind of takes that on board. And sometimes it’s almost a relief then you don’t end up bickering about unnecessary stuff because there’s no egos there and again this is why we’re allowed to crack jokes on each other a lot something happens and you’re like we can make fun of it and it’s still nice um so we yeah my my the relationship with my dad has just always been around the martial arts element of things i think he was so passionate about that, that’s how he knew how to love. So only later on when we started analysing things and we had to start to speak and stuff and then when he felt ill we started to speak a bit more and stuff, these kind of things kind of came out and I was saying because when I think about it, growing up we didn’t actually have any conversations about dating anybody, girls, that wasn’t even involved.

1:41:17 It was all martial arts. It was all martial arts. Okay. Only when we started having these conversations, I was like, for real, it didn’t feel like anything was wrong with it. I enjoyed it.

1:41:28 We used to crack jokes and it was the same kind of thing. He was that kind of person as well, it was very, lots to be funny and got on with everybody, really just got on with everybody. Very much about his business and really building, he really wanted to build his empire and his schools and everything, wanted all his family to be involved in it, but it’s all martial arts related and yeah so it’s I think one of his struggles was just relaxing sometimes and just how about we just have a conversation about just anything I think the only other time it would change is if we’re talking about football or something he was a Chelsea supporter I was Man United and we had a little like back and forth about about that but again it’s not really conversation it’s kind of just right you know I mean and what did he say about about the last few years of your career?

1:42:20 He’s always been worried about, I think, similar to my mom though, they’re both the same, they know I’m capable of doing it. They believe in me, they just hate me being in it because it’s, you know, it’s their fear is coming out. Dangerous. Yeah, it’s dangerous, dangerous shit. My mom’s like, just go to acting already, man.

1:42:37 Just leave, just go to acting, go do something else. Do you think it’s dangerous? No, I don’t believe so. It’s dangerous if you’re untrained, you know what I mean? And like I said, I bust my ass every day to make sure that it’s not dangerous for me.

1:42:51 But for people on the outside, they’re going by their own fears. So it’s dangerous. And again, you see and hear so much about the negatives or sometimes even just the appeal of it because in boxing, you know, you wipe blood up. So it doesn’t look as bad in MMA. As long as you’re not being into your eye, you can keep going.

1:43:11 So it looks a lot worse. And you’re on the floor, it just looks a lot worse. and you can relate it to a bar fight that you saw, and you can relate it to all the negative stuff. The cage, it’s like, oh, it’s like dog fighting or this and that, or negative stuff. You can always relate a lot of the stuff to when you educate yourself on it, you’re like, actually, okay, it’s actually, it’s not as dangerous.

1:43:34 And I remember speaking to someone, she’s like, yeah, but you know, the punches on the floor and all of that, I said, well, technically, if you think about it, your power and your punches come from your legs. So I can’t actually hit as hard on the floor. It might look bad, but I can’t generate the same amount of power as I can generate. This is why very rarely do you see people get knocked out from the floor, just from ground and pound, without having already been dropped just previously.

1:44:00 So they’re already kind of half dazed. Nobody just really just sat in guard and just going bam, bam, bam, and they’re just being out. It can happen, it very rarely happens because it’s very hard to generate power from the hips up, but the power comes from the ground up when they’re standing, so that’s why you see people getting knocked down and knocked out all the time when you’re on your feet, but it just looks worse. So again, when you’re educating, when you see it that way, you’re like, actually, yeah, okay, fair enough.

1:44:29 When you say it like that, it makes sense. So yeah. So your parents would worry about that. So have you been able to grieve your father or process it or not? Again, it’s just slow.

1:44:40 And you got fights on your mind Yeah, it’s uncomfortable, it’s very difficult to do, it’s just very, it’s a slow process. And with the help of my family and stuff and the loved ones around me, we kind of do it in our own time and if we need to talk to each other, we talk. One of my brothers has had a bit of a struggle in his personal life as well. So he’s been, there’s been a lot of stuff going on for him. So he’s like, again, he actually said the other day, it feels like this is the first time he’s actually been able to start that grieving process properly.

1:45:14 He’s obviously 100% being upset, but to actually really grieve is different. It’s just for me. That’s just been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do to bury … I’m not a person that shows that side of that emotion often. There’s probably a handful of people that can say they’ve seen me cry.

1:45:38 I don’t know if this is a protective thing or just, I think my mom was quite a hard woman and she was a strong woman. And my dad, through the martial arts, was always like, you know, come and suck it up. You know, it’ll be tough and you’ll be, so I’ve just kind of conditioned myself to be that way. Right. Which has had negative effects in terms of like, personal relationships, because it’s hard to kind of show that emotion.

1:45:58 Yeah, can I? So it’s always like, you don’t care. I just, it’s just difficult. But the first time I actually, literally I just, I just bored out crying was just after I put my dad down. At the funeral?

1:46:11 At the funeral. And to the point where I was paralyzed, like I’m paralyzed, I couldn’t walk people carrying me. I’ve never been in that state before, ever. And it was nice as a release. But then, yeah, that’s, I forget, I guess that’s just still only the beginning.

1:46:29 And then when I think about it, sometimes I’m just like, yeah, it feels like it’s been years. And like it hasn’t even been a year yet. I haven’t even made it back around to the first year of him passing. So I already know it’s gonna be a difficult process. And I guess another reason why I keep staying busy as well.

1:46:50 Not the sole reason, but just another reason why I just like trying to stay active. But yes, it’s been that side of things has been very difficult. And that’s just one aspect of it. But it’s been very, very difficult. What else has been rollercoaster, like, what’s…

1:47:03 Um, okay, like I said, with the personal relationships, it’s difficult, um, uh, and in fact, when Asaba, Asaba, she’s lovely, like, I think she’s, uh, one of the best things that happened to me in my life was kind of, I needed a strong woman by me, but, um, she’s a strong woman, we knock heads a lot, because I can be very stubborn, she can be very stubborn, um, and As soon as all negative stuff started happening with my family situation, that’s when I met her. So she’s only been in my life through where there’s always something going on. And then aside of the positive and the fighting is good, but there’s always something going on.

1:47:46 So it’s been about, our relationship has always been up and down. Unfortunately, we’re not together anymore. But again, she’s always gonna be a special person for me. And yeah, it’s just that side of things has always been quite difficult. I think that’s potentially why, the reason why I’m feeling so not good, but I just don’t have as many attachments that are a distraction at the moment.

1:48:11 So it’s allowing me to really just be in the gym like this. So I like, my fitness scores are like skyrocketing, my sparring, I don’t think I’ve hurt as many people as I’ve hurt, because I’m just like, I’m just on it, like nonstop and it’s what I feel great, I feel great on that side, I just need to slowly deal with everything else. It’s just a balancing act, and I’m sure everyone goes through their own struggles, it’s just a balancing act of when to do what and when’s the best time to do anything that hurts like that.

1:48:43 Yeah, because you’ll have to process it at some point. Like I said, at the funeral you were kind of forced to, crying can feel good actually too. done it, I mean it can be obviously embarrassing and sometimes out of your control, especially when everyone’s watching it, if you know. But also it feels good sometimes. It felt great.

1:49:06 And like I said, I’m just not used to doing that at all. So it’s just, like I said, it’s just been raised on the tough side. Everything is like, solution orientated, like, you know, let’s move on from here, let’s fix this, let’s just get going, that’s the sort of stuff, that doesn’t work in relationships. It doesn’t even work in life. You’re in a tough guy sport, you’re raised by a tough guy on the streets, but you know the most productive people are that and men are the ones that also are emotionally connected. A hundred percent and this is for me. The acting might help a lot. That’s why I was saying about the acting, that’s exactly what I was saying about the acting.

1:49:46 Well the MVP doesn’t actually always say what’s going on, but it’s going on in the background. That’ll help a lot. I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about that and he said I had to learn how to act because he was bodybuilding before that. He was the toughest guy in the poker face. But he said, you know, in order to be a good actor, you have to be in touch with your emotions. You’re going to be able to do that. And he said that was a real eye opener for him to know that I had to go there and feel that and be comfortable.

1:50:11 And I think that’s why I want to, like I said, even if I don’t end up in that field, I want to try and do all of that and just see where I can go with it. So yeah, it’s been a very emotional one, just for the family as well because before my dad passed away, there was the Florida shooting and Helena is our little cousin. So the young girl that got shot and killed is our little cousin. So, that’s the first thing where the family was getting hit and there’s a lot of stresses and stuff that, you know, dealing with that and obviously the media because it’s quite a big profile event.

1:50:56 So then, obviously flash forward, my father passed. Did he have legal problems too? Was that in the news? Yeah, so that was all to do with more family issues. A family issue is weird, he, so one of our siblings’ moms,

1:51:18 Who’s been, you know, obviously known my dad for years, just, I don’t know, a woman scorned, decided to just go, yeah, he did this to me and that to me when I was younger, I was like, where did that come from? That was literally like one of our best friends. Obviously, they went together, I worked together for about 10 years at the time, had my brother, and then about 20 years, I’d say about 20 years, yeah. Over 20 years, I was friends. She got remarried and you would call him if she needed help and da, da, da, da, da.

1:51:58 And, I don’t know, she’s had a bit of hard times in her life and then she was just a different person, even for me to talk to and she’s another person I’d look up to as another mother. When I was speaking to her, I was just like, That’s not the same person I was raised with, completely different person. And she started all that stuff, which, again, straight away, the family were just like, ugh, okay. And that stresses you out, too. Yeah, it was ridiculous.

1:52:19 All of us, though, all of us, all of us is. And when you being the big name, too, it all follows you. It all follows, it was always gonna follow me. And if he’s cousin, then he’s father, right? Yeah, yeah, it was always gonna follow me.

1:52:30 And so, yeah, it was just a lot of stuff we had to do business-wise, Because, yeah, just lots of it to do with the business because my dad’s no longer now doing the business. So we have to redo the business up and set it all up again. So kind of picking up that kind of stuff. Dealing with my dad’s issues, dealing with our own issues and all that kind of stuff. And one thing I have to say is I know who my dad was as a person.

1:53:03 So like I said, nothing in the news can ever hurt me in what’s being said, he wasn’t that person that they tried to portray. And you see it if, when it came out, it’s funny because the kickboxing world is very, very small world. And when it’s, but they’re very catty and they can be very bitchy as well. So when any form of news comes out, they just, they just, they’re seriously, they’re just backstabbing each other left, right, and center. And yet they have to go and see each other in the following weekend, which I just find weird.

1:53:37 So when the news came out about my dad, I was expecting all these guys to just jump at it, like, but complete opposite. They were like, don’t believe it. No, but, no, no, no. I was just like, wow. I was very impressed, but then they’re getting kind of this tribute to my dad and who he was, because nobody could, nobody could honestly read that and be like, there’s no way I can believe that.

1:53:59 You know what I mean? They had one or two people, I was just like, yeah, yeah, tried to jump in the bank, what else people like to do. And I was expecting him to really lift off. And seriously, everyone was just like, nope, don’t believe it. Nah, this is bullshit.

1:54:09 Nope, not interested. Don’t wanna hear that. Nope, not hearing it. And I was just like, it was just nice to hear. And even at the funeral, you had people come from all over the world to come see him.

1:54:19 And the stories that we heard, how your dad did this for me. And the reason why I’m with my wife now is because of your dad. The reason why I’m running this business now is because of your dad. The reason why I’m just like, wow. It was just nice, really, really nice to hear.

1:54:35 Like, he’s by no means the perfect man, he just wasn’t that man. Hi. And again, he had his own pride issues and this and that, he’s a very stubborn person, individual. And he had his flaws, but yeah, he was, when it comes to like family and uniting people and trying to build people up, he’s done a lot for a lot of people. And it was just nice to see the funeral afterwards, had a really, really good time.

1:55:03 It was nice to hear everyone’s voice. That’s the good part of funerals, right? That’s the positive part, if you know. You can see all the love. Everyone afterwards was just really, yeah, it was really nice.

1:55:12 All right, well, I wish you well with that grieving process on that, it’s a time thing. I was rattling off a bunch of UFC fighters earlier, and so you know what’s gonna come next. And you know what people used to ask you more of, but when you’re gonna go to the UFC, go on and take on Street Jesus. Street Jesus versus Venom Page. Come on.

1:55:30 Sounds good. You pointed there, man. Yeah, for me, like I said, I’m extremely happy at Bellator. They look after me very well. There’s a lot of things that I’d be like, I think they should do this, I think they should do that more.

1:55:46 They’ve obviously got their own plans. But I am a fan of the development and what they’re trying to do. They actually put on a show, like I really put on a show. I really enjoy that element of it. Everyone’s an individual.

1:56:03 In the UFC, there’s so many people in the UFC, and you’ve only got one or two people that really kind of shines. And I think it, for me, one thing that MMA in general struggles with is, and it’s not just the UFC, I think, multiple platforms, they struggle with seeing someone and building them up. What they usually do is they’ve got loads and loads of fights and fights happening. somebody’s personality just does something different or somebody’s fight does something different and then they’re like, oh, spotlight on him.

1:56:35 But you could really pick a couple of people and really try to develop these people. Better at all, they try to do that. I think they’re just not used to doing it or they’re not obviously something new for them to get used to building up. For me, even capitalizing on anything that exciting that’s happened, I feel like they weren’t great at doing it, getting a lot better. But even with the Pokemon thing that went ridiculous viral, yeah.

1:57:04 As you say, it’s probably one of the biggest videos that, and even now sometimes you see it circulating again on some kind of platform, but it was like number one trending on Facebook for a week straight, and for, that’s the world. So that’s everybody on Facebook, all the kind of viral videos that are going on, that stayed number one for a week. So hundreds of millions of people know who you are, maybe even more. 100 million people have seen the video. 100 million people don’t know who I am, and that’s where I feel like they’re struggling to, after I’ve done my job, put it out there, they struggle to grab those people and say, this is who it is.

1:57:37 And it’s difficult nowadays anyway, because I watch it on my phone, oh my God, did you see that? Oh man, that’s crazy. Scroll up, cat video, scroll up. A guy jumps off and falls over. So it’s easily forgotten.

1:57:52 And people don’t research people anymore. So it’s like, oh, that’s crazy right there. They’re not gonna be like, oh, who is that? Let me, let everyone does that. But this is why it’s these guys’ job to now try to keep all these people that have just seen this video to actually go, it was better to what I did it, and it was this guy that’s … You know what I mean?

1:58:13 And I find that they’re getting used to having to do those things. And even in London, any time I’m fighting in the UK, I’m like, walk around the streets and there’s not much here to say that I’m going to be fighting this. Oh, like on the street banners, it’s tough. Yeah, no, this time there’s been quite a few phone boxes. I’ve got a poster up and stuff, and I just feel like they don’t do enough over here.

1:58:39 I don’t know if it’s because they don’t know how or they don’t have a connection just yet. They just don’t do enough just yet, but I’m a fan of the fact that they are pushing to get it right. And yeah, I’m in a good place at the moment. Anything can change. I don’t close the door on anybody.

1:58:56 Anything can change. because the talent pool is still in the UFC. A hundred percent. So Bellator, you can fight Lee Mugyan rematch, which I’m sure we want to see and it’s going to be great. Maybe you fight Rory at some point.

1:59:08 I don’t know of any of the names that are. That’s what I mean. It’s just, it’s just, there’s loads of people there. It’s just, maybe I don’t know. I’m sure they’re talented.

1:59:17 Whereas I just rattle off a bunch. We talked about, you know, Diaz, Sweet Jesus. We didn’t talk about Robbie Lawler or Kobe Covington or Darren Till, you know, And that also could be great competitive fights for you. Well, Darren’s just gone up, hasn’t he? Yeah.

1:59:31 Just gone up the middle way. Oh, you went up the middle way. Yeah, yeah, he’s gone up the middle way. To be fair, he was cutting away too much. He was, OK.

1:59:38 In the middle way, he looked massive. He fought this weekend. He looked massive as a middle way. He actually looked like he could probably go up again. But yeah.

1:59:46 He just went up, you’re right. But the talent was there, and there’s some exciting fights there. Yeah, 100%. So who knows? But I know Bellator treats you well.

1:59:54 Yeah, no, they do. But I was in New York City over the weekend, and there were posters all over New York City. So then they come to, and that’s New York City. But at the same time, it’s slightly easier, I think, because they were there first, and people, even the average fan, they just know UFC to be, that’s MMA right now for a lot of casual fans. They don’t know anything else.

2:00:14 I’ve had people ask me like, oh, do you do UFC or do you do MMA? And I’m just like, oh my God. You’re one of those people. All right, cool. But that’s because they dominated the market a long time. So people do know more about them. They have way more connections and relationships in these areas that they’ve worked in for so many years. And people prefer to be, companies in business prefer to be associated with this big, the biggest brand. So I get how they’ve done it. But at the same time, having competition helps the fighter 100%.

2:00:50 You get better? It helps you get paid better because UFC and there was talks about this you know with the book Canelo the boxing how much he got paid versus you know how much the Diaz and the bad boy himself got paid so and they were just like yeah so our MMA fight is underpaid yes they are underpaid massively underpaid and it’s not going to change unless UFC have competition, because it means, in order for you guys to stay with us now, we actually have to put our hand in our pocket properly, because these fighters make a lot of money for the UFC. So the boxers were making like $10, $20 million?

2:01:33 Well, Canelo was on like $35 million. $35 million, Nate’s making $200,000. It was $500,000. Plus, we’re talking… Plus.

2:01:40 Obviously… Pay points and pay-per-views. Yeah, there’s pay-per-views, there’s this and there’s that. But that’s still… I remember pay-per-views don’t get paid for you straight away as well.

2:01:47 Right. It can get paid over years sometimes. but it’s 10% of that, maybe. Exactly, and that’s if you negotiate well. Remember in boxing, you kind of negotiate every fight, whereas I can do, I did that, you know, that cyborg knee, my stock should have just gone up, the next fight, it should have been like, okay, now we’re gonna need to pay him this, because he just done, oh no, he’s already contracted, so you get paid the same thing.

2:02:11 So Bellator is a competitor, is gonna help fighters get paid better. Yeah, but it’s not just Bellator. PFL’s doing well, they’re on ESPN now and stuff as well. 1FC, they’re paying their fighters really well. There’s a lot of other shows now that are starting to come up.

2:02:27 Like Dimitris Johnson left and I think he went to 1FC. And they’re paying him really well. So although it’s not as publicized as his fights or not as going out to the audience he wants to go out, they’re doing well and he gets paid really well. So again, there was a little bit of competition. And when these shows start to get lower, like I said, PFL on ESPN, They’re starting to get that kind of recognition and stuff.

2:02:50 UFC are going to have to, when it comes to renegotiating with fighters, they have to really be like, okay, we have to put our hands in our pocket now and really pay them what, to be fair, we should be getting paid anyway. Cause like I said, I don’t see, there’s very, there’s a couple of other sports where I’m like, I can’t believe you get paid the amount. You get paid for what you actually have to do. And some of these guys are training two hours a day. And people ask me, how long are you in the gym for?

2:03:11 I’m like, it’s a job. I can be there from nine till five, nine till six. And the longest I’ve been there sometimes from like 11 till 10 at night, and you’re just there all day, there’s obviously breaks but then you’re back to another session, and you have a break, and you’re back to another session, another session, and you’re there from dusk till dawn, and like I said my first fight went viral, did that, I got paid a hundred pounds, it’s ridiculous, like that should be what we have to put our bodies through, and on top of that as well, a lot of times you have to pay for medicals now anyway, because when I first came in it wasn’t as Big now the UFC started doing the USADA and all these different people started bringing in that following suit and bringing all these Medical things which is great because it keeps it keeps the fire safe But we have to pay for that, which means there’s guys, you know, you have to pay 700 and something pound for all your medicine to get done and they keep adding all these different MRI scans Every feel that every single time you do a medical there’s another new scan that you have to do and it’s crucial to do it and You’re paying like seven hundred something pounds. Some of these fighters are literally not even you’re in the minuses You’re not even going to get paid that and you have to fall back out first to go and fight and not get that back Anyway, so you’re hoping Sponsors and stuff gonna help you bump you up and you’re gonna do it cuz when you’re passionate and dust this is your goal

2:04:28 So it’s very difficult for fighters to get anywhere nowadays It’s just it’s just very it’s very hard and I always tell people just assume it when they see me They’re like, man, I’ve seen your fights. I’m like, yeah, you know, people think I’m a millionaire. I’m like, this doesn’t work like that. Just cause you’ve seen me on TV, just it’s really, our sport does not pay us what we deserve. And until we have a fighter’s union and a proper governing body to actually, to actually be on the fighter’s side and help us, or there’s competition, healthy competition, where people are like, oh, what show is actually better?

2:05:01 Cause now I’m actually, I might just watch this show and I might not watch your one. So now they have to pay to get the right people to keep people going back to them. And then, so that’s the only other way I can see it helping the fighters out. Yeah, you’re right. I mean, if you look at the UFC, it’s like percentage of revenues that fighter paid versus say NFL or basketball.

2:05:20 I mean, it’s ridiculous. And I mean, I love watching Belter cards and I’ll tune in for the right fights, for your fights, for Rory’s fights, for all of them, for Chale Son and Rampage, all that’s all good stuff. Benson Henderson. But it’s funny. Literally, what you just said is perfect because you have myself, you said, and then every other person you said was an ex-USC fighter.

2:05:46 True. You see what I mean? And this is what they’re, again, I get why they bring these people over, but sometimes I’m like, to be honest with you, you need to stop worrying about bringing ex-USC fighters over because you need to just focus on building up your own guys as well. But at the same time, having those guys come over allows that show that you’re going and watch because of them, it allows you to see some of the other up-and-coming guys. But like I said, I feel like I’m the only person that is really standing up against all these ex-UFC guys.

2:06:16 It’s true. And like, it’s true. I mean, even Douglas Lima, honestly, I don’t know anything about him. I don’t know his backstory. I don’t know where he’s from.

2:06:23 I don’t know anything. I don’t know anything about any… That’s the thing. I mean, I know daily because he’s from London, okay? Exactly.

2:06:28 Yeah. And then of course Rory, but I knew him from the UFC. But like, that’s the thing. I don’t know their story. And that’s…

2:06:34 I guess… Yeah, that is Belter’s fault. It is, yeah. So Scott Coker, get on this. Yeah.

2:06:39 100% on there. But I do believe in their journey. I do believe in where they’re going. They’re collaborating with other shows, which is great, and it’s getting people talking about, oh, potentially collaborating with a UFC show. I don’t believe they’ll ever want to do it because it gives too much recognition to the other show, which puts them in that position that they probably don’t want to be in.

2:06:55 They like to be their monopoly and monopolize the whole game of mixed martial arts. But yeah, that’s why I kind of have faith in what they’re trying to achieve and I’m happy to support that for me. My character, I feel like, I’m going to be big anywhere I go and I don’t need the UFC, but it’d be good to go and get some of these fights, 100%, and I don’t want to be or put myself in a position where I need the UFC. I know. But, fuck, just saying.

2:07:30 I know. I know. In terms of like dream fights, like, you know, yeah. Dream fights and the UFC with you and the personality and the high-rate, you know, and when they’re on ESPN now, which is doing a great job on social. Yeah, yeah.

2:07:42 I mean, they would build you up, I have to say. So I get it all the time, I get it all the time, I get it all the time. So, and I know, and the thing is, I think they’re looking for more of the UK talent as well, because they’re starting to run out, because, you know, Bismuth is now gone. Jimmy Manor was just retired as well. Okay, right.

2:07:58 And they need talent. They need something. This is a big market for them. Exactly, exactly. When they get back, when they come to the UK, I don’t know who the hell’s in the card.

2:08:05 I never heard of these people. That’s what everyone says. Every time they come to the UK, they always throw random people out. I don’t go to the UFC fights here. I don’t know anybody on the NFL.

2:08:13 So yeah, but if you were there, the card’s going to get mad at me. You mentioned USADA earlier. How much is drugs still a problem in the sport? Nate Diaz will come out and say everybody’s on drugs. Is this still a problem?

2:08:28 Is USADA making a difference? What’s your take on the whole thing? Well he’s sad he’s making a difference but technically for the fans they probably don’t like it because they keep ruining fights or potential fights or yeah technically human fights that just happen oh this guy was on drugs so it’s like he just makes you kind of be like okay well that was a waste of a fight to watch because now technically we in our heads we’re like we can’t even justify that as a fight but at the same time it’s Xavier, they just have to pick in terms of UFC what they want, either you say everyone can do what they want or no one can do what they want.

2:09:05 Have you fought guys on drugs before? Most likely. I don’t care to look into it. I believe too much in my own ability. I just don’t care to look into it.

2:09:14 So if you want to be on drugs, I’d gladly whoop your ass and then you’d be on drugs. I don’t care. Like for me, it doesn’t bother me. My coach said it basically allows people to train harder through their camp, which yeah, it’s an advantage. 100%.

2:09:35 I have to do that anyway. I have no choice. My drug is the Alexis behind me, or just shouting at me, telling me, go and do another session. They’ll do another this, they’ll do another that, so I have to train harder. Do you think it gives people a false sense of confidence, and then also they don’t know They got there on their own and you think you can also play head games with a fighter too if they do make that decision I think no, I you know, I think because the most people will go in and Be like now, you know, I don’t want to you know I won’t don’t don’t use it But then when your body is hurting and you know, you don’t want to get up for that session that is gonna be important for You people are gonna want to want to do that kind of stuff. So I Get it But right now it’s wrong was wrong to do so but again everyone’s each to their own I don’t like to criticize and ridicule people, I’m like, yes, you shouldn’t do it, but you made the decision to do it.

2:10:31 But that’s your program. For me, I can’t have a pre-workout without feeling like I’m scratching myself. I just couldn’t do it. I’ve never been into drugs full stop. Smoking, can’t do.

2:10:50 All that kind of stuff. It’s just never been, it’s just never been me, but that’s just me, you know what I mean? That’s just, again, it’s just one man’s opinion on the same thing, but for right now, it’s illegal, so if you’re using it as an advantage, then yeah, shame on you. Yeah, yeah. Tell me about you.

2:11:08 What’s something you do every single day, non-fighting related, non-training related, that’s just non-negotiable? Something you do, I don’t know, just to, it’s just a pattern every day, something to quiet your mind or something? Yeah, I need a bit of stillness just before what I call just attacking the day. My stillness would be, I get up, I just give myself a couple of seconds to just take a couple of deep breaths and just switch off. Although I’ve just woken up, just kind of switch off and I’ve been doing all these kind of things more recently.

2:11:42 It’s kind of been helping me a little bit. I need to get back into this side of things. I read an audiobook, it’s easier for me when I’m driving up and down, the 5am club and I’ve started doing that 5am, pull myself up and just get stuff done, get work done. One thing I find, because I’m in the gym all day, it’s very hard to get just general day day-to-day personal stuff done, and then come eight o’clock, and I’m like, oh yeah, okay, I’ve done everything, cleaned up, and there’s a, what else do I need to do, and I’m like, oh, I should finish printing out everything, and most of the stuff that I need to do, like go into the bank and stuff, I can, I’ve got an hour to wait before the banks open and blah, blah, blah, I can chill, I can switch off, I can actually watch a couple The show is fun when to watch it, but instead of me coming home and trying to watch shows and half falling asleep constantly to a show, I get to watch it in the morning and do it all, and then I start my day, and then when I get back, I can just come in and just switch off.

2:12:53 Nice. Because normally I feel like I need to come in and wind down. So my winding down is put Netflix on and I’m watching a couple of TV shows that just come out that people have been talking about, or I play a couple of games, but And then I’m just keeping my mind active, or I’m on my phone for a bit, I’m just keeping my mind active for a lot longer, for no reason. And then it just makes it even harder, it makes my day even longer because technically I don’t switch off.

2:13:18 So sometimes I might fall in and out of sleep, but then I’ll do that for like three or four hours and it’s now three in the morning and I’ve got to get up again early to the next day and it’s just like, I’m just killing myself, so having a bit more of a routine. Every time I’ve shifted and I had to travel away for the fight, when I come back it’s hard to get back into the routine. So again I’m just like, I’m going to clear, basically I’ve got a lot of stuff to get done so I’m trying to get back into my 5am, waking up, getting my run done, getting work done I need to do, then at certain times I’ve got a few more hours where at least you don’t have anything to do, so I’ll go back to sleep, just have another power nap, relax, and I feel good, I get back up, I’m like, alright, cool, feel good, you feel like the day, you’ve got so much more in the day, and when people tell me, oh, there’s not enough time in the day, I’m like, yeah, actually, probably create time if you wanted to.

2:14:19 Yeah, it also means you’ve got to be in bed pretty early, like, eight hours. Yeah, so the thing is the latest time in my head I’m just like five hours, I don’t need any more. Really? But I just have to tell myself that and then I told myself that like so much. I can go to bed at 12, five hours, that’s all I need and I’d wake up at like, so like without after a while, without an alarm clock, it’s like, I used to set my alarm at five and then it’d be like 4.50 and I’m just like, what time is it?

2:14:48 I’ve got ten more minutes but I’m up now, so let’s go, just come up. I keep telling myself 5am, I’m listening to this book, going over and over and over, and then my body’s just like, cool, okay, let’s get up. You can program yourself. There’s one thing I know for a fact, you can program yourself to do whatever, so you just gotta go for it. Nice.

2:15:06 If I were to ask a bunch of your friends, what is Michael’s superpower, besides the hands down movement, but just in general, what’s the superpower that allows you to do everything you do, and to be as successful as you’ve been, what would they say it is? I don’t know if I’d say just attracting the right people. You always need support. You always need help. You need people that can help assist you in what you’re doing.

2:15:35 And luckily I’ve had, because there’s so many people sometimes that I’ve met people and they’re like, man, you’re friends, man, it’s got some really good friends around you or family members are like, man, you’ve got some good people around you. And I’ve heard that a lot. I think, you know, you kind of attract similar energies. And for me, I’m massive into the right energy. Sounds like I feel someone’s energy, and I’m like, not interested in this person whatsoever.

2:16:01 I don’t know if you’re having an off day or not, but your energy is just, for me, is off. So, yeah, I attract a lot of people with similar energies and they’re all genuine, willing to help. And I’ve got a good, just people that are just drop whatever they’re doing to come and help. and that’s hard to find. Who’s that guy you’re doing the podcast with?

2:16:21 He has good energy, man. Ah, Marvin, that’s it. Well, to be fair, it’s funny, the reason I am Venom is because of him, really. Yeah, he came up with the name when I was like nine or 10 or something. Yeah, that’s crazy.

2:16:34 He’s like my older brother, Marvin Francis. That’s cool. And he’s, yeah, nonstop laughing, nonstop, like, smiling in his face, but serious, like, you can’t play games with him, up. So though he’s a joker, you can’t take him for a joke. He’s on it, but it’s always a good time around him. And again, having people like that around me, and he’s the person that will look out for me forever. You know what I mean? Like, something happened. He first there, first there. So it’s just, yeah, I’ve been able to attract those type of people and they’re all still around.

2:17:14 And like I said, this is why I say I got, if I took one step out in the wrong direction, like there’s 20 people that will be there. People like him would just say, what the hell you doing? 100%, we’ve had honest conversations about stuff and we’ve had disagreements. And our disagreements are never arguments. We have disagreements and we’ll just debate like, no, so, no, no, I don’t agree with that.

2:17:35 He said, no, no, no, I did, I would have, I would like, cool, all right, fair enough. And then we’re back to laughing again. And that was it, it was just for that particular subject that we had a disagreement on, they went back to laughing and joking. So, you know, he’s done certain things, and I’m like, Marv, like, I don’t think, and he’s like, oh, okay, fair enough, fair enough. We’ll just be honest with each other.

2:17:55 I feel like this can be very rare. Some people are so worried, they’re just worried about the response, or just worried about whatever. It’s hard to get that, so I’ve- Especially as you become richer and famous. Exactly, and this is why these people are all still around me, and even with Marv, like, I haven’t seen him for a few weeks. He’s been busy doing his thing.

2:18:16 He’s on his project, he’s doing a lot of photography stuff and he’s getting on with it. Just check back in on me. You good? You need me to do anything? Nah, cool.

2:18:25 Back in. We don’t need to be around each other all the time. And there’s certain people that, so he’s not chasing my line. He doesn’t need anything from me. That’s what I like.

2:18:33 But if he needed something from me, 100% I’ll give it to him and vice versa. So it’s nice to have those. Again, he just genuinely wants the best for me. Sometimes he’s met a couple people that I was talking to and I have a conversation after he’s like, I don’t like this guy. It’s obvious straight, I don’t like this guy.

2:18:54 Like, be careful, like, do you know about him? He started giving me like 21 questions, like, so where’s he from, duh duh duh duh, what’s he done, duh duh duh duh duh. Okay, okay, cool, cool, but just pay attention. And it’s not just him, there’s a couple other guys that have said the same thing to me. I’ve been around somebody they’ve met and introduce them and they come up to me and I’ll say, I don’t get the right feel for them, just be careful.

2:19:14 Yeah, you hear that enough times then you get rid of that. Yeah, exactly. That’s smart. What was the best day of your life and the worst day? Oh, worst day is easy.

2:19:23 I said it’s the funeral, but that was easy. That’s weird, because like I said, there’s those massive positives to that as well. It was just that first bit was difficult. Ah, best day of my life, it’s hard, I’ve got, I’m blessed enough to say that I’ve had so many great days, whether it be my brother’s wedding and all of us come together and it’s just, you can’t even say a specific day, it’s that whole week of just to prep just before his wedding. My sister’s 10 year wedding anniversary, we went to Jamaica, had a great time there, I’ve I’ve got memories in school, and like I said for me, I couldn’t even put one day that’s kind of outdone everything.

2:20:15 I got a days like the side book day where I had all my loved ones there, I had an amazing fight, what I’m passionate about, I won the fight in a spectacular fashion, I got to chill with the fans, I got to be with my family, I’ve had days like that where again this is like wow, what a day, it was great. then I still just had days, certain times, the simple days where it was just me and Sabah going somewhere, we just had a great night out and dah, dah, dah, dah. So it’s hard to put any one, you know, pinpoint any one day that kind of says, I’m just enjoying life.

2:20:53 Okay, all right. What scares you?

2:20:59 After what’s happened, you don’t feel as, you feel very, very vulnerable. One thing that scares me is any of my, you know, there’s these people around me passing away. It’s getting to those days where everyone’s getting a bit older and, you know, I hear about different, like people catching, getting cancer and this and that. That seems to be a regular thing right now and that’s one thing that scares, it’s just a fear of mine. I was like, everybody just passing simultaneously I’d have quite a few people in the last year and a bit.

2:21:38 And yeah, my mom, I don’t know what I’d do. Yeah, I just feel that my siblings, I don’t know what I’d do, I don’t know what I’d feel like. They’ve all got kids as well, I just couldn’t even imagine. So that’s, for me, that’s my number one fear. Okay. Yeah.

2:21:57 What would we be surprised to learn about Michael Page? something you do in your spare time. Maybe it’s Untough Guy Fighter related. Untough Guy Fighter related. I haven’t done it in a little while, but salsa.

2:22:11 Yeah? My salsa, that’s what I love. I love salsa. You got skills? I love salsa.

2:22:15 I got a little crossover. Is there a crossover between dancing and fighting? Yeah, it’s movement, it’s body movement, 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%.

2:22:22 For me, it’s just learning how to be as coordinated in multiple different scenarios and having to force your body to do typical old, you know what I mean, but in different ways. And then the more coordinated you are, especially when it comes to learning things in martial arts, it makes it easy to pick it up for one and then actually put it into practice. Makes it that much easier to put it into practice. And one thing I’ve always been good at is sports across the board.

2:22:48 And I blame martial arts because from a very young age, I was very coordinated. So I got to football, I didn’t really work. Basketball, didn’t really work. cricket, tennis, skiing, skateboarding, I’ve done just everything. Skateboarding.

2:23:01 Yeah, yeah. So they’re like, my brothers, when they first went over to the States, they got massive got into it. So then they kind of got me involved and started doing, they’ll be able to do more when I came back. The one thing I haven’t been able to, and I couldn’t get over that sensation, is on the half-pike, starting at the top and going straight down. Dropping in.

2:23:24 Dropping in. That and then I kind of just went off that sport I was kind of I went into something else But then so I could start skating and go up standing go up that way and go up and down But dropping it was just like I just like it just doesn’t feel with the I’m not dip is like down here It’s like it just feels like I’m gonna I’m just Going to fall. Yeah, I’ve seen some fail dropping. Yeah, I’m sure really I’d keep trying and as I’m going down I’ll just jump off the ball and then I just running running running down the thing or rolling and I’ll just like yeah Yeah, don’t need to learn it. I’m just gonna just skate and just do it then just went off it and end up going into something else It’s not because something else but martial arts the only constant that’s been in my life. So okay, this is where I am now What keeps you awake at night?

2:24:07 My phone or TV stuff I’ll say my phone sometimes I need to learn to just switch off But there’s sometimes so much happening and I’m I’m a very hands-on person. I like to leave it to anybody So I’m just like I want to I need to get it done and I don’t necessarily need sleep So I’ll just my phone. Yeah, definitely it keeps me it keeps me engaged and keeps you up. Yeah, and Anything you worry about or think about world worry not really I said I’m very Relaxed it in terms of As I said before something’s happened. I’m not thinking or what I need to do to fix it. I don’t spend too much time in Land this you know, why did this happen about and just being annoyed at myself and I don’t spend too long doing that So Yeah to worry about something it does seems seems pointless then So when it happens or something does happen, obviously try to predict try to predict things and preempt things so it doesn’t come, you know, you can divert away from it, but if something happens, it’s like, cool, what do we need to do?

2:25:23 That’s it, that’s what I’m thinking. Super practical. Yeah. That’s when not being emotional helps. Exactly, it’s weird.

2:25:30 In my relationship, we were yin and yang, exactly the same, so it worked when we were working together, cause certain attributes that she doesn’t have, I had, and vice versa. But when we were knocking heads, the communication was just like this, just because we just didn’t communicate the same way. Right, you put your snakes up there, I was like. Yeah, but that kind of practical thinking can be very annoying in a relationship because sometimes you just wanna moan, you just wanna kind of get things off your chest and I’m just like, okay, let’s get over it now.

2:26:09 Let’s keep going. No, she wants to spend a bit more time in this and I’m just like, I don’t care to. Then it makes me feel a bit more cold, or seem a bit more cold and a bit more uncaring and stuff, so. And it’s just, I’ve had to, even in this last relationship, I’ve had to learn to grow a lot. And it’s something I always keep with me, and it’s why she’s always gonna be someone special to me.

2:26:34 But yeah, it’s been difficult. Learning process. Learning process, definitely. Michael, I always ask a few questions at the end. I’m gonna hit you with them.

2:26:43 If you could pick up a phone and call the 20-year-old MVP and give that young man some advice based on everything you know now, 12 years later, what would you tell him? The following success secrets are only available inside the London Real Tribe, where you get exclusive access and insights from our high-performance guests on wealth creation, productivity, leadership, morning routines, health, and well-being. To join our tribe community, Go to londonreal.tv forward slash tribe.

2:27:12 Now, let’s continue with the show. All right, so Derek Anderson’s happening next at Wembley here in London. It’s gonna be a big night, right? Oh man, it’s gonna be a big night. You excited?

2:27:23 Oh man, I’m buzzing. All right, then acting lessons, and then what? Maybe a Lima rematch, maybe McDonald’s. That’s the aim, McDonald, it’s weird, because even before this fight, I said I reckon he’s gonna retire whether he wins or loses. He hasn’t really come out and said anything yet, but he wasn’t himself in that last fight.

2:27:46 Last few fights. Last few fights. Yeah, yeah, he’s been off. He’s come out. I’m sus.

2:27:51 He’s a little off. Yeah, he’s come out and said already. I had him in here a couple, two and a half years ago, and he was getting religious, which is cool. A lot of people do that, and it’s good spirituality, but yeah, I don’t know if he knows why he’s fighting anymore. Also, he started really young.

2:28:07 Yeah, MMA at like 17 or and so I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what you think Yeah, something something something’s happened there and he’s trying to maybe just find himself and he’s he’s kind of in that crossroad about about to head down a different path Which is fine, but I think he just needs to be honest with himself and just make that decision. Okay, so until he’s That decision is like actually I’m back in this I don’t even consider him a fight I’d love to have that fight.

2:28:38 Again, I’m always about to challenge myself. I’d love to see myself against this person and that person. Anybody that’s anybody, I want to see what I’d be like against them.

2:28:48 But I’m chasing the Lima fight. I want to rectify that. I’m so happy that he got the belt as well because it means two birds, one stone. So the likenesses, potentially next year, so after this fight. I don’t like to look past anybody, so Anderson is going to be that, you know, he’s a very tough guy, very hard person to beat, to put away, to finish, but yeah, he’s in my town so it’s always a good, I’ve had some good times in it, fighting in the UK so I’m just going to add that to the list.

2:29:28 Cool man. Good. Looking forward to the Derek fight, looking forward to that Lee Marie match for sure because Dan, again, you explained that perfect, as far as, you know, it’s funny because they asked John Dannerher, who’s one of Henzo Gracie’s best jiu-jitsu instructors, about Askren getting the knee in the head, Horace Jorge Masvidal, and they said, well, should he rethink everything he’s doing? And Dannerher said, he said, no. He said, there’s technique and there’s tactics.

2:29:56 He said, that was a tactical decision. He said, you can change tactics in 24 hours. They said technique takes years to change. So that’s why when you were explaining that with him, it’s like, that was just one tactic. You know you have the skills.

2:30:10 It’d be a different thing if you were asking, would dominate it for three rounds and you’d have to really go back to the drawing board and say, I need years. Yes, I need to change. I need to change a lot of what I’m doing. It was just one element. So that’s why.

2:30:23 It’s one element. And like I said, this is why I say you can be as confident as you want. this game it takes one, it’s one millimeter, one inch that can just change the whole fight. You know what I mean? I could’ve taken that punch, I could’ve adjusted my head and taken that punch in the head and just knocked me back onto my back, changed the fight.

2:30:43 And now I’m still in it. It just takes one, one thing. So you just gotta be aware of that, but you have to go in confident. You have to be like Mass Without is feeling now. You have to be in that element.

2:30:57 That’s where I’ve always been. I think the only time, like I said, the only time I hadn’t felt like that is the first fight, just because I had built up in my head what MMA is, MMA’s up here, and I’m just a points fighter, you know, can I really do this? And then I get in there and I’m like, oh my days, this is the same thing, it’s my world, still my world. So I’m just gonna run, I’m just gonna run with it now. So then every fight after that, I was in this element of confidence, and you know what I mean?

2:31:25 People saw that, people bought into that, and I’m still living through that now. Even after the loss, I’m still like, I’m still me. I’ll never change who I am. People are like, are you gonna rethink it? No way.

2:31:38 Why would I be successful all this time? And, you know, have a mishap here and then change everything. That means I’m forgetting about all the success I had as well. No, there’s nothing much I have to change. As you say, it’s the tactics I need to adjust and my mindset in those moments.

2:31:55 I need to adjust. Cool, we go back and do it again. Can you beat any 170-pound fighter in the world? Anybody in the world. Anybody, I think I’ve had guys even bigger come down.

2:32:07 UFC, everyone thinks because you’re in UFC, it means you’re of a different caliber. Everybody fights MMA. Now, being in UFC is just a platform that you fight on. We’ve had people cross-spot all the time. I’ve gone different places, people come to us, and people are like, even fighters, after sparring them, they’re like, yeah, I wasn’t sure, I always wanted to spar you just to see, you know, if the hype was, you know, if the hype was real, it’s like, oh really?

2:32:41 Yeah, but after that, after that spar, they’re like, yeah. And they do well themselves. So, but people don’t get to see that kind of stuff. Right, so the question for them, that’s why they want to see me there, because then it proves it to themselves, but I already know. I don’t need a clarification from them to know where I’m at.

2:33:06 And like I said, even at loss, after that fight I was like, I know where I’m at, I know where I’m at. All you’ve done is actually given me more confidence, not taking it away from me, so I’m just going to keep, Yeah, if you could see the work that I’m doing in the gym, oh yeah, it’s gonna be a very good next event. Nice, man. No, you seem really good, man. You seem really grounded, really connected.

2:33:31 And I know when you’re confident on any given day, I mean, I’ve met a lot of people in my life and a lot of fighters, but I believe you. I think you believe you can win and I think you could sell out. So look, I love Scott. He’s been in the chair as well. I love Bellator, I love what they’re doing and they got things to do there.

2:33:47 And then who knows, maybe you could see. Yeah, like I said, I never close the door on anybody, and Bennett will always be like a home for me as well, because I’ve been treated so well there, and I always have respect, even if I had to leave, I’d never leave on a negative, but always be with shaking hands and you know, leave the door open for me, because you know, anything can happen again, you know, I may come back, but I’ll never close the door on any opportunity, it just depends on what happens at the time. The right offer can be made and it’s like, or Bellator, look this is what’s been offered. If you want to do that, we can’t match this, then feel free, go do your thing. And you never know, it could be somewhere else, but for now, man, I’m excited. I’m focusing on one person, so he’s in Bellator, he’s the Bellator So Champ, I need to go for him.

2:34:43 I’m not focusing on any other show anywhere, and that’s it. But after this show, I’m going to be doing, you should come in as well. I’ll give you some of your details because I’m going to be running a little after party as well. Just a place, because Wembley’s a very dead area. There’s never much to do around there, and I love to spend time with the people that have come and shown support.

2:35:08 So we’re going to just down the road to Shepherd’s Bush, no, sorry, to White City, to a venue down there, which we’re gonna be sending out to people, and all the fighters are gonna come down there and stuff, and everyone can kind of just be with their families and stuff there, so it’s gonna be nice, but that’s, for me, one of the most enjoyable bits about it, is after your success, just enjoying that with everybody. So, yeah, you should come down. Sounds good, man, love to be there, man.

2:35:35 Cool, man, I’m looking forward to this fight, always great seeing you. and 2020 is gonna be an exciting year as well. I feel sorry for this guy that’s been ducking me out there, Tai Lopez. So Tai Lopez, I’m sorry, man, but I’m gonna be training with MVP next year. It’s a problem, it’s a problem.

2:35:50 It’s gonna be great, but man, I really appreciate you having me down at Shoot Fight and appreciate Alexis for having us there. Because I learned a lot that day, man, and anyways, I’ve known you for a long time. I’m a big fan. I love the way you carry yourself, the way you handle yourself, even when you go crazy on social media. But I get it now, now I get it.

2:36:05 Now I get it, that’s that playful side. It’s a playful side. Good and look the acting thing. I think is super powerful and you know, you know, you know You can use this platform to just catapult you know, yeah That’s great And if anyone hasn’t watched you watch this Derek Anderson fight go watch MVP’s highlight reel and look what’s coming because it’s it’s one of the You’re one of the funnest guys to watch Thank you And I mean look the truth is these days There’s a lot of vanilla fights and fighters out there and like you said UFC to a certain extent commoditizes it a little bit and it’s like they come in and it’s everyone knows your jiu-jitsu and everyone knows Thai boxing and sometimes the fights and the fighters look the same.

2:36:41 Yeah. Every MVP is different from the trash talking to the walk away knockouts to the Pokemon balls. So you got to pay attention. Definitely. So everybody be there.

2:36:51 Watch it. And yeah, I look forward to the after party. Come back and see us soon. Okay, man? A hundred percent.

2:36:56 All right. Thanks so much, man. Thank you very much.