JRE MMA Show #150 with Daniel Cormier

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We're up. I got a friend named Zach Esposito, and he used to do that. We would get done with practice, and every technique had to be perfect. Even getting undressed and then back dressed was... This dude would sometimes get undressed three times.

What?

He would get dressed, maybe he'd put something on in the wrong order, I don't know what he would do. But then he would take it off, he would do it again, he would take it off. And then if he was drilling, every move. It's like, I don't know what that disease is called.

Obsessive compulsive disorder. That, that.

It was with everything, though. And he became an NCAA champion.

Doesn't it make sense, though, that those kind of things, if you could channel them into something positive. Like if you're a maniac. Yeah. Say if you're a compulsive gambler, you can't stop gambling. Yeah.

Could you imagine, like, an athlete that's like that. Yeah. Michael Jordan.

I'm sure he's like that.

For as compulsive of a gambler as he is, that was his approach to basketball. Yeah. So nobody could be greater. Yeah. Same thing.

Same thing, exact same thing. It's just one of them is dangerous.

One of them is dangerous.

One of them will fuck up your life, and one of them will make you the GOAT.

Will make you the GOAT, but the other side of it is, it don't turn off. Right. And that's the fucked up part.

That's the fucked up part.

It doesn't turn off. Having that as a thing, and then the competitiveness, never turns off. Right. It drives you crazy.

Well, that's why Tyson didn't work out for years.

Yep.

You know, Mike did my podcast twice, and the first time he did it, Mike was, like, heavier. He was smoking weed all the time. He was so chill. It was like, wow. It's like, Mike Tyson's, like, such a sweet guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Forearms were jacked, and he was intense. Yeah. And I made a decision to make the table wider on my podcast due to, because I was so nervous, being that close to him.

Really?

Yeah. I was like, I gotta have a little, just to separate, like, from really intense people, so I can collect my thoughts.

Yeah. He tapped back into that thing. Yes. Right? He had suppressed it.

Bro, he was still friendly. He was still cool as fuck, but this was the real Mike Tyson.

But that was the guy, because he tapped back into that monster. He found it. Because, you know, you gotta have the monster. Have to. In order to be a world champion in any type of combat sport, you have to have that monster.

You're in trouble all the time.

You're in trouble all the time. Yeah. Yeah.

But that same monster, if you can control that motherfucker, then you're Mike Tyson.

You're Mike Tyson. But then that's why, like, you, would see him skirt the line, right? Yes. When he's talking to the reporter, that reporter, that is still one of the craziest things I've ever witnessed. When he was on the stage, and the reporter said something, and Mike started talking about, if we were in jail, I would do this.

Oh, that's right.

Oh, my God.

I'd fuck you till you love me.

I'd fuck you till you love me. Joe!

I mean, what?

What?

Oh, my God.

But imagine that guy. Yeah. In that state, trying to operate in the world with normal people like us.

Right. Doesn't work. It doesn't work.

He's in jail. Right. Crazy.

It's crazy, because the thing that made him great could also run away like a wildfire and burn everything around him.

And everybody.

Yeah. And when you're the man, and he was the man, then there's no restraints anymore, which is even crazier. Because now you crash a Rolls Royce, you just give it to the cops. Remember that?

No matter what he did.

Because he just took my car.

I don't even want it. No matter what he did. Take the car. I'm fine. They hide everything.

Let me hear this, Jamie. Give me some volume. Go from the beginning.

He's like breathing heavily. What's your mother to say? You punk ass, white boy. Come here and tell me that if I fuck you in your ass, you punk white boy. I mean.

You can't touch me. You're not man enough. I eat your ass all alive, you bitch. Fuck you, you hoe.

Come and say it in my face. I'll fuck you in your ass for everybody. Bitch. Come on, you, bitch. You're scared coward.

Look at you, scared, now, you hoe.

Scared like a little white pussy. Scared of the real man. I'll fuck you till you love me, faggot.

Jeez.

What do you say to someone?

Matt, who is that guy?

It's a man. Yeah.

Who's that guy? Who's the reporter?

That's what I'm saying. But what did that reporter have to say to get that?

Well, he said something that you should be in a straight jacket. Wasn't this the one where Mike bit Lennox?

He bit Evander. He bit Evander.

He bit Evander's ear. But didn't somebody get bit in this?

That was when he was about to fight Lennox Lewis, I believe. That press conference. Wasn't there like a brawl before this? There was a brawl.

Did someone get bit or am I imagining that?

I don't remember him getting bit. I remember him biting Evander's ear and they got into a bit of a fight.

That was crazy. That was crazy.

Were you there?

No. No, I watched it on TV.

Oh, I was about to say, that was crazy.

That was crazy. He bit a chunk of his ear off.

He couldn't beat him. He couldn't beat him. He was in a situation where he wasn't the man because he was so used to being the biggest, baddest mug in there. and in a situation where he wasn't, he goes, I have to go, primal. It's all you know.

Evander's amazing.

Dude, he's the, I love, Evander Holyfield.

How good was he?

He was the best bro.

How good was he? How? What a warrior. He was the man. What a warrior.

Yeah, he did.

You know what I mean? Tyson put it on him, and he endured. All of them. Remember those Riddick Bowe fights?

That's the ones. The Riddick Bowe fights.

Now we got to think like the Tyson fights after the Riddick Bowe fights, which is even kind of crazy.

Riddick Bowe was good. Riddick Bowe was good. Those guys were good. Riddick Bowe. Those guys were good.

Tyson was forced to pay Louis around $360,000 for biting his leg and the bra almost saw the mega fight canceled altogether. Yeah, he bit his leg.

But that's the thing, right? Like he had to, he had to do something. Anytime. he was threatened. You know, it's like, it's like when you're in the wild, right?

It's the craziest shit. It's the craziest. Nature is so metal.

It is, dude. Some of the shit you see on that page is nuts, but you'll see a bear and it'll just walk around and it just fucks everybody up. But then, when there's a bear that's as big as it, it starts to question and it might cower down. But in this situation, Mike Tyson's not going to cower down to Lennox Lewis. So he bites him, right?

Right?

I'm losing. I'm going to bite the son of a bitch. I ain't got no mouthpiece in my mouth. And if I would have bit him, that would have been like a reaction for a guy that usually will walk around in most places around this world as the alpha. And then, when he finds himself on the bottom as the alpha, he's got to find a way to survive.

those fuckers laying on their back in the restroom.

I said, I fell asleep on my back one day and woke up in a full panic attack. Jones had me on my back, man. That shit's unfamiliar. So if I would have did some crazy shit, that's just what would have happened. That's what would have happened, because you don't go to your back, right?

That's hilarious, that you can't sleep on your back.

You can sleep on your back?

Nah, I snore too loud when I sleep on my back.

I cannot sleep on my back. I, just like, I really have kind of trained myself to where I'm, like, I'm getting pinned. I don't let the kids in my restroom.

That's so wild.

I don't let my kids, like when I'm talking, and if they like, lay back, get off your back. If they're stretching, I'm like, don't stay on your back too long. I try to trick them in their mind that their back is literally the most, the worst place in the world. And so, and that's what my coach did to me. Everything I did, get off your back, get off your back.

It makes sense. Yeah. It totally makes sense if you make it the utmost priority. Because you've talked about this before that you see sometimes when guys get tired, they accept positions too easy. And when they go to the back, they don't immediately scramble.

Yeah, it's too late. When you're fighting or in those situations, you gotta address it now, or you're done. So when we're doing commentary, and we're talking about the fight, and somebody gets taken down, and a guy starts to get into the positions where I get quiet, because you're better there, and you start walking through the submissions, how it's getting set up, and I'm like, oh, this dude's done. The guy on top is waiting. He's taking too long to address what's happening, and the next thing you know, oh my God, triangle.

When you look at the guys that are really good at MMA submissions off their back, like Oliveira. Oliveira's real good. It's so crisp, though. When he gets those moments, those openings, just crisp.

Yep. Right away.

Yeah. He finds those arm bars and triangles, and he cinches submissions up. so quick. So quick. One of the quickest guys.

Yeah, he does. Like 20..

They're so quick, man. The technique is so smooth.

How do you have 20 submissions? How do you submit 20 of the most dangerous people in the world?

This dude's a beast. I remember his first submission win in the UFC with Efrain Escudero. Yeah. Remember, he hopped on his back?

You know that was here?

Was it here?

That was actually in Austin, I believe. There was a guy that came into a meeting today and said, my first pro fight was in Texas. He said, I watched Efrain Escudero fight against Charles Oliveira, excuse me. But he's a beast, man. These dudes are...

They keep getting better. It keeps its next level every time.

Every time.

Every time.

I bet when you go back, because you do a lot of re-watching fights, when you go back to the days before, whenever I was watching as a fan, thinking, unbelievable to watch Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz and these guys fight. The way that they fought today, it's like prehistoric. It's crazy. The skill level.

Chuck was just like a marauder.

He was crazy.

He was a marauder. I mean, the thing about Chuck was he had an iron chin. He did. And he was not scared to take shots. He would just wade into the fire.

He also knew that if you hit him, he could take it. But if he got to you, you were going down. Or it would-.

He had full confidence in his power.

Or it would affect you so much that you would start to kind of turn away and then you're fucked. Then he would get you.

You remember the Babalu fight?

Dude, I swear to God, Joe, when I was in Stillwater, Oklahoma, I was on my Olympic run. You guys were doing a few pay-per-views a year. It wasn't every month, like we do today. Was it four, five a year?

I don't remember how many we did.

But it wasn't many. And it became, who's Chuck Liddell beating this time? That really was the pay-per-view. Is he beating Babalu this time? Is he beating Randy this time?

He was going through his run as a champion. He was a motherfucker, dude. He was a scary guy.

Fucko was in shape, too.

Very good shape.

Dude, he was in shape.

Well, Hackleman. John Hackleman from the pit?

Yeah, he's a psychopath.

He's a psycho. He's a great psycho. I love that dude. But that guy was one of the first guys to implement really unusual training, wheelbarrows filled with rocks and shit, pushing them uphill. That pit, that training center that he had in San Luis Obispo.

It looked like it was outdoor.

Yeah, the cage was outdoor.

I always looked at it like, are these guys training outside?

Hackleman's funny, man. He's a fun dude. But he just was the first to realize that functional training, this kind of work, those really hard physical work along with technique.

And that's what it was.

Figured it out on their own. The Lion's Den did it their way.

And militants trained like a bunch of champions. Oh, yeah. For a while, they had the best.

Bro, the Tim Sylvia that knocked out Rico Rodriguez was a scary man.

A big dude, too.

He was jacked back then, too. Remember how jacked he got?

Yeah, he was big.

This was pre USADA. Remember those days?

Oh, my goodness. Everybody was saucing. And USADA's going again? Yeah. USADA's going again?

Yeah, but they're going to have a new program.

But they're going to have a testing program.

Yeah, they're going to have a testing program.

It's too big now to go back to those days.

Yeah, I don't think they're going to let them use peptides, which I think is a mistake.

I always told people, I said, I fought guys on steroids early in my career. You had to. I honestly don't ever recall taking a test when I was in Strikeforce. 10, 11, 12.. Nope.

No, no drug tests.

I never did. I never took anything, but I never got tested.

That's crazy.

So I was like, somebody was doing something.

Of course.

Of course. And then they suspend poor Nick Diaz for weed. For like five years. They gave him a five year suspension for weed.

Listen, the best example of all time, clearly, is Allister, when he was fighting Brock.

Bro, did you see that, dude?

What was that? He was a superhero. That was UFC.

No, yeah, he fought him before even in Strikeforce. When he was beating them dudes up in Strikeforce.

Oh, yeah, when he was beating dudes up in Strikeforce.

Oh, when he kicked Brock in the side, though.

Bro, he was so terrifying when he's saucing. Yeah, he was. He was like full Allister Reem 265.. He's tiny now. I know.

He's like not eating meat anymore.

No, no meat.

That's impossible.

And he weighs like 190, it looks like. Yeah, there he is.

This is Uber Reem, son.

Look at him in the dream. Look at him in the dream. Let me tell you something, dude.

Oh, my God.

Uber. Reem was a motherfucker.

He was very talented. He was really good.

He was very skillful. Also, just tough as shit and not afraid. I mean, that guy got KO'd a bunch of times and always fought. Just always fought like a warrior. He was a scary kickboxer.

You know what the problem with that was with Allister, though? You could see when he stopped because he wasn't as sure of himself. He had become so reliant on those abilities that not even the ability, because he never lost the ability. He had become reliable on the comfort of knowing the stuff that he had done prior would make sure he's not tired. He was more in shape.

He had more muscle.

He had more muscle, and it messed with him towards the end of his career.

It had to. It has to. He had to know what an advantage it was having it. Yeah. Look, if he had come along in an era of no testing, he goes down as one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.

Yeah, I still think he's one of the best of all time.

He's a great fighter, man.

Dude, he won everything. Yeah. When you win everywhere….

K-1 Grand Prix. Yes. I mean, that is wild.

When you win everywhere…. You got skill. You won in Elite XC. You won in Strikeforce. You won in the UFC.

He just made a couple of errors.

Made some… And Stipe…. You can't make no mistake against Milicic. He's a tough survivor. Yeah, he's tough.

He's so tough.

Yeah, he's very tough.

I was very upset when the Jones-Stipe fight got canceled.

I was like, no.

I know.

We were looking forward to it.

Have you ever had an injury like that where it's torn off the bone?

No. It was a very odd injury for me to watch too, because it didn't seem like it was like…. Like, you know, grappling, wrestling. We get extended a lot, right? Like, so when you're going and you're doing your jujitsu and you and I are going and you take… And you're in half guard, right?

Do you think that…. I know John has been doing a lot of heavy lifting to get up to heavy weight.

That and the extra weight, right? He's carrying all that extra weight. He's lifting all that weight and it's like you got to develop muscle, but it's got to be usable muscle. You can't just be big.

Well, the other thing is, if you're not doing anything, like if you're not taking anything, then your recovery from like really heavy power lifts is kind of significant.

Didn't he lift like 600 pounds or something?

Oh, my God, he's strong as fuck. He's strong as fuck. He looks very big now. Like he looks like a heavyweight. But I just wonder, how much weight lifting do you have to do to maintain that frame?

Well, he was strong.

He was always strong.

When we fought, he was strong. Like he was strong. Leverage. Great. with his leverage.

He also is the best at managing distance.

Oh, gosh. It hurts so bad. trying to get close to him. I tell you that. Hey, dude, it hurts so bad.

That dude has the weirdest leg kicks. They're so sneaky. He's so clever at it.

My cousin had the greatest analogy for Pereira. He goes, he is Thanos. Literally just collecting fucking stones, infinity stones. He's like, he goes, I love Marvel. He goes, it was like when Thanos showed up.

Isn't that crazy?

If Izzy just shut the fuck up, he would have stayed where he was. But it's like a delayed reaction on the kick. But if Izzy would have just shut up, this dude would have stayed in Brazil.

That dude is so sneaky with that kick.

And if you get too close, he's going to punch you.

Yeah. Well, he's so long, and he's also so odd in his striking movements.

He's like this tall. He's tall.

They're very odd.

And if you get close, there's a right hand. Even that thing he does when he's walking out, and he does this little thing, and he throws his combination. It doesn't look fluid. He's like, boom, boom, boom. But you know, if that dude hits you with that, you go to sleep.

You go to sleep. Everybody goes to sleep.

Yuri's in there dancing and shit. Yuri's doing all kind of weird stuff, right? And Alex is like.

Just stone face.

Stone face.

Like, I'm going to. It was one of the greatest stare downs ever.

I'm going to kill you. Is what he's thinking. He's like, dance your weird ass. I'm going to kill you.

Who's the guy that he scissor kicked? He scissor knee? Michaelitis?

Oh, my God.

Oh, my goodness.

I thought you were lying, bro.

I thought you were lying. The whole time, Joe.

I'm sitting to your right. I'm like, man, Joe Rogan, up in here, lying to me. He's telling me this dude, this good. He's this. See, I'm telling you.

Knocked him out once.

Or knocked him out once. Beat him by decision. And I'm like. And then he does that, and I look over and I go, oh, my God. You were telling the truth.

Dude, he's something fierce.

I mean, this is Sean Strickland.

Yeah. Right? Yeah.

With a left hook. With a left hook.

I mean, the guy who's now the middleweight champion.

Champion of the world.

Yeah. And he took him out easy.

A year.

Yeah.

He was the champ in a year.

Dude, he's got two world titles in 11 fights.

In two years.

It's insane.

He's been in the UFC. Dude, I don't know, Joe, if we had. And he's here in Austin. So, I'm going to go hang out with him later. Nice.

I love that dude. He smiles. Yeah.

He actually smiles. before he just didn't smile. Now he smiles.

I just don't think he wants to smile after fights or before fights.

He just wants to fight.

He stays cold.

He's there for a reason. Yeah. To just beat somebody's ass.

Well, he was so extraordinary in kickboxing. When I watched him in kickboxing. It, just. Some dudes just have some extra gear. Some extra power.

With 10-ounce gloves.

Fuck, man. He's doing it to everybody. Like literally everybody he's connecting on, is going night-night. And he does it in two different weight classes simultaneously. So, he's.

He was 3-1..

This is an extraordinary dude.

And he was 3-1 when he made his debut in Madison Square Garden.

Yeah.

And you knew that if he was able to win a couple, he would rush him to Izzy. And he got there, and he beat him. And I still now.

That leg was fucked up already.

It was done. Yeah.

It's crazy how good he is at that.

It takes like two or three.

He doesn't move his hips. The way he does. it is so beautiful because there's no telegraphing at all. He's just moving there. Slap.

Slap.

And you got one, two in there, three. And you start seeing the welts. You hear he had a big welt on his leg.

You know what's the worst? It's like you train a certain way. When I first started fighting, I would train southpaw some because it's your fast hand. And I wanted to. And then Kane kicked me in the face.

Right. How are you supposed to fight? And you have a compromised leg. So you're not going to be able to move as quickly.

Because you're not doing it on your terms. You're switching on his terms.

Yeah. It's crazy. And once those calves get chopped a few times, only, they know how compromised that leg is. Izzy's leg in the first fight he said was fucked up after the first round.

They're always on crutches and in wheelchairs. When they're done with him, people don't see this, right? When we're leaving the arena, these guys are either getting wheeled to the post-fight press conference or wheeled to the ambulance. Because their legs are so jacked up.

Yeah.

He tears their legs up. It's bad.

He tears their legs up.

It's bad.

And he's just so efficient with it. What a hard style to emulate as a sparring partner. Yeah.

Especially since he really still can't wrestle.

Right.

Think about all the success he's had and he still can't wrestle. Some of these takedowns he gets taken down with, he still hasn't developed to the point that a real good wrestler wouldn't try to take him down over and over again.

Right.

But you could never get there because he knocked you out.

You know what else is shocking? He never seemed drained at 85..

How was he making that weight, though?

How was he making that weight? And now, when he's fighting at 205, it's seemingly more durable.

He looks the same. Yeah.

He does. He really does look the same. That's how big he was when he was fighting.

This guy had to be getting up to 215 whenever he was making 85..

I think it was heavier. One of the fights. I said it was 226, I believe.

226 in the octagon at 185..

Find out whether it was after the fight or the day of the fight. Yeah. That was like what he was walking around at.

That's crazy.

That's so big. It's not fair, man. It's so crazy. You know, that power that he has. But I think also, I mean, you'd be the best person to ask about this.

Yeah. You know, I told that to Davidson Figueredo today. I said, remember, by the end of the Moreno trilogy, our fourth fight, every time Brandon hit him, it looked like it hurt him. And Davidson was never a guy that had chin problems. But he's going up to 135 now, this weekend.

Yeah, Rob Font.

Yes, I guess, Rob Font. So it's like, is he going to be more durable? Is he going to be better at taking shots now? Right. Because he was, I mean, T.J.

That was a terrifying weight cut, too. God, he looked like dead man walking. Yeah. He looked like someone who was dying.

Do you, did you, what do you think, as a fighter, I actually liked the afternoon weigh-in better. I liked the afternoon weigh-in opposed to the morning weigh-in. Why is that? More time and sleep. Sleep.

On fight day. Yeah, 219 on fight day. Come on, man.

It's 25 pounds, bro.

That's so big.

That's 25 pounds.

That's really nuts.

But again, that's because they have so much time now. Because if he weighs in at 11 a.m. on Friday morning, now he's got 24 hours. Now he's got, he's in the main event. So this dude is not fighting for probably 35 hours after he steps on the scale.

I think that's 35 pounds, right?

That's 35 pounds?

35 pounds.

Yeah. That's 35 pounds in a day.

Think about that. 35 pounds is insane. I can't. Think of 35 steaks.

I actually can't. I can't.

Just think of 35 steaks stacked up. And you're going to take that out of your body.

That's really, yeah. I mean, it would be up to here.

Yeah. 35 steaks.

Would be up to there.

That's insane.

That's 16-ounce steaks.

That's insane.

That's insane.

What do you think? Do you think it's possible to ever come to a point where there's no weight class? Or there's no weight cutting at all? There's more weight classes, more options, but people fight at their natural weight.

You see, one of the problems with that is if there are more belts, then it kind of becomes boxing a little bit. And it could be a little watered down, because now you've got a champion every 10 pounds. So you don't know if you've got the best guy as the champ. Right now, you're pretty sure that the UFC champion is the best fighter in the world. Anywhere between 135 to 155, 160..

To get to 155..

To get to 155.. So you know you're getting the best fighter of all men around those weights in that weight class. But if you get a 65, 55, 45, 35, 25, I don't know that it works. I really don't know that it works.

That's interesting. I can see your point, but there's some people that are definitely tweeners, right? Yes.

Aljamain Sterling.

Aljamain Sterling.

He is one of them.

Yeah, but is he though? Because he was the champion at 35..

But killed himself to get there.

I know, but he still had endurance. And I always felt like, if you're going to have an example of weight cutting, I always felt like Aljamain had the perfect frame for 35..

Yes, he does.

Because he's so big and strong and manages to get there, and then he puts it right back on. And then, when you see him on fight day, you're like, my God. Like when you see that dude's abs and all that, he looks like a 160-pound man.

You know why? Why? You know why, Joe? You know what they've started to do? I think it's the most dangerous thing in the world.

Why is it dangerous?

Because you have to cut 10 pounds in 4 hours. If you don't, you're screwed.

Oh, you think it's dangerous career-wise?

I think it's dangerous because you could not make the weight, because you're not giving yourself any room for if anything goes sideways. Right. Because the worst possible feeling is when you go through your entire routine, and you expect to lose 8, but you might lose 6 or 5 1⁄2, and then you're like, now I got to work out.

What's the cause of that? What's the variability?

I don't know. Cold room? Did you ever work with a doctor to like weight cutting? So what I would do is I wrestled, right, my whole life. So what I would do is I would do these test cuts because I was very afraid, because at the Olympics, my kidneys shut down.

Wow.

So the whole time I was like, yeah, it just kind of starts right here. And then, as you're working, it just keeps creeping up your body.

And then, once you made it, what was the rehydration process like?

Well, the best was before you started, when you could take IV. Right. That was the best.

Why was that better?

Joe, it beats your stomach. Like the problem with rehydrating is. it would mess with your stomach. Everything you drank would make your stomach hurt. Everything you ate would make your stomach hurt.

How many bags would you take?

Two. Wow. 16 pounds of IV. Wow. And then they took it away from me.

And the reason why is because you could use it to mask performance-enhancing drugs. Is that it?

That's what they say. That's what they say.

Why don't they allow it from places that have? –. maybe there's a way to do a test before you do an IV. Yeah. You know?

To stop the IV. The IV works.

Yeah. Why don't you? – what if they had, like, a thing where you had to say, Hey, I'm planning on taking an IV. Will you guys come and test me before I take the IV?

Yep. Yep.

They could do that. That should be easy.

That should be easy.

And then you could get your IV.

Well, they're getting tested anyways. Yeah. Exactly. They're getting tested constantly.

And this new organization – what is it? Drug Free Sport? Is that what it's called?

I don't know. I actually don't even know which one it is.

There's a new organization, but Dana White speaks very highly of them. Yeah. I just wish they would allow guys to use things like BPC-157..

The peptides like that? Yeah. One of my buddies is really big on peptides. He said it's helping him. He said it's helping him a lot.

It can help you heal. Yeah. And guys are constantly injured. They're constantly dealing with, pulled this and yanked that.

It could help my back. I need something to help my – my back is just messed up, man.

After the surgeries?

The life in wrestling. The surgery after the Derek Lewis fight. You told me – you said, dude, you got to do this. And I never got – I just – I went and got a regular back surgery. And I shouldn't have did it.

Yeah.

Back surgery screws you. You're done. if your back goes out. Yeah. And fighting.

Now, there's been a few guys that have had discs replaced.

Yeah. That's what I did. My back was – and now –.

Did you get it replaced? No, no. With a fake one? Or did they fuse it? No.

Just to fuse it. Yeah. My back is just jacked over. Like, it's so bad. Some days I wake up, I'm like, this is crazy.

You ever see Diamond Dallas Page? Yeah. You see his yoga program? I heard it's really good. It's really good.

Jake the Snake Roberts. Mm-hmm. I saw Jake the Snake Roberts right as he was starting. He looked bad. And now I see him, I'm like, this dude is rejuvenating.

Yeah. He's a new man. And, you know, when Dallas came up with it, he – you know, his back was fucked up. Yeah. His back is, like, pretty bone on bone.

Really?

He didn't even warm up. Dude's in his 60s.

Diamond Dallas Page. Yeah. DDP. I used to like him, too.

It was pretty amazing. Yeah. But maybe something like that. Have you ever thought about doing that? I need to do some yoga.

Yeah, look at him.

That's crazy.

Diamond Dallas Page. Yeah. Because of the diamond cutter. Look at that. Dude, that's got to suck, right?

Oh, my God. That's terrible.

Just dropping yourself backwards. Constantly. Everybody's doing it.

Yeah.

Flipping through the air.

He teaches classes. Look at this. He's teaching NFL players.

NFL players doing DDP yoga. He would have never thought that that would work out like that. No.

How could you? How could you ever imagine that?

You can't. No. Pure luck.

Aljamain's story about getting his disc replaced and come back and then defending the title against Piotr Jan is pretty wild. That's pretty wild.

That was a bad hit. That's a bad hit. Anytime you start doing stuff with the neck.

Oh, yeah.

Kevin Jackson was an Olympic gold medalist. And when his neck went, he couldn't beat the best young guys because it's too damaging, right? You're getting punched and you're getting your head pulled down. Everything you do, you've got to have strength in your neck. Yeah.

I think it's because of the way he won the title by disqualification. People hate that.

They said he fell down.

He got fouled.

It was a bad one, too.

It was a bad one. It was a knee to the face. on the ground. It's a foul.

It was a foul.

It was a clear foul.

But is he supposed to get up? That's the thing, right?

It depends if he's concussed. If he's concussed, he shouldn't get up.

Anthony Smith. Yeah. Anthony Smith.

Yeah, he could have been the champ.

Okay.

Yeah.

So do you get up or do you kind of go, man, this shit's going sideways right now because he was down four rounds to zero. Yeah. Anthony Smith was sitting there, and I don't know him. I know him, but I don't know what was in his mind. But there had to be a moment in there, right, where Anthony went.