Kind: captions
Language: en
the following is a conversation with ben
askren wrestler mma fighter and a
brilliant opinionated and fun
personality in the world of martial arts
and yes he occasionally likes to talk a
little trash
given his wild online antics and his
boxing match with jake paul
some people may forget just how dominant
he was in the sport of wrestling and in
mma for most of his career
in wrestling he is a two-time ncaa
division one national champion and
four-time finalist in mixed martial arts
he went undefeated for 10 years with a
record of 19-0 before losing to jorge
mas vidal with the flying knee that
caught everyone by surprise
he's also into cryptocurrency disc golf
and is the co-host of flow wrestling
radio live
this is a lex friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now
here's my conversation with ben askren
before we talk about
your incredible wrestling career your
mma career let me ask you i have to ask
you
what did you think about the jake paul
versus tyron woodley fight
uh well i thought i mean i'm obviously
unbiased i thought tyrone won
i had five rounds of three
again this maybe this is my bias in the
way i was seeing it i thought he was
more effective with the striking and he
was more aggressive no jake had more
volume
um but that was the only like thing i
would give him and i guess a lot of
people just didn't see it that way they
thought he landed more significant
punches i just didn't think anyone
really did any damage
it was a split decision split decision
yeah were you surprised
um
well there's a thing so the thing i said
when i went in to fight him and said we
don't really maybe he's good maybe he's
not we have no we really have no idea to
this point you know
and so
i knew tyrone was a lot better boxing
than i was and so i thought okay tyron's
i think it's a good likelihood that
tyron beats him up
um but there's a chance that jake's kind
of good at this and i think that's kind
of what played out is
he's kind of good at it even if you saw
the way i saw it he still was impressive
in his showing and he's obviously put a
lot of time into it so he's
he's not bad we'll say that much you
know but isn't it surprising to you that
like uh elite level
athlete
combat athlete
lost to somebody who just takes it
really seriously but is nevertheless not
elite level um
hmm but but i think boxing is a really
specific rule set uh so we'll speak
about tyra not myself tyra had good
striking but obviously it was his first
boxing match ever um and within mixed
martial arts you have the
the fear of the takedown and the fear of
the kick and fear of other things to go
along with the punching and so if you
look at tyron throughout his mma crew a
lot of times what set up his punches
were like level change fakes at a
takedown they dropped boom and then
something comes over the top right so
there's many more elements to worry
about mixed martial arts whereas boxing
there's only one it was his first fight
yes i thought everyone was gonna win i
thought this was gonna happen but like i
said i mean it's pretty evident that
jake's
he's not bad at boxing he's pretty solid
you know he gets in there and works hard
at it i guess
out of ten times how many times do you
think jake wins i guess turn he gets
tyron
they fight again and again and again
like iterative yeah so i mean i i part
of the thing is
okay so jake's corner said you need a
knockout going into the eighth round
right so i think they thought
maybe they're trying to motivate him but
i i don't see that way because if they
were actually thought that he was
winning why would they encourage him to
take a dumb risk when tyron has cleared
his knockout power right it's a really
stupid coaching philosophy if that's
what you're thinking so you obviously
are thinking hey this is actually in the
balance it's competitive
um and i feel like tyron thought maybe
he was winning and didn't have the
urgency necessary and so i think he
there's a chance he turns it up a lot
hmm
man i wouldn't want to watch him again
before i i so yeah i have this problem
with my personality here's my
personality lex um i have an issue with
not being able to give really exact
answers so i hate giving you an answer
that like
i don't feel like is 100 calculated yeah
so um i would like to see them go once
more because i would like to see hey can
tire if because if tyron can turn up the
pace and nj can't handle it then i think
it's an eight one or nine two right um
if it goes the exact same way and maybe
tyrone was a close split decision i'm
saying oh well it's probably close every
single time we're probably gonna get a
five to five type of thing you know so
it's like
i feel like out of one match it's not
totally indicative of what the future is
gonna look like i feel like tyrone would
get a knockout and then you would still
be in the same place
like not not knowing
not know what to predict okay
so your fight with jake paul
looking back you have had a little bit
of time now
uh how would you analyze that fight
uh
well i mean the fight specifically i got
cracked with an overhand right so i mean
it kind of sucks
um i would say
you know this is why everyone's like i i
don't i really don't care um and
everyone's like wow
it turns your reputation it's like well
i wanted to do it i had an enjoyable
time training and in the build up
obviously i wasn't skillful enough to to
get to win
but if i even even despite the fact that
i know it's going to have what happened
if someone asked me to do it again i
probably would have done it again you
know and so the way i was thinking about
when i was deciding whether to do it or
not because i got the offer it's like
okay is this money it can change my life
yeah it could right it's not gonna
double my net worth but it's gonna add
significantly make my life easier number
two is like when i was in high school we
used to do boxing matches for free just
because we thought it was fun when we
didn't have something going on friday
night me and my buddies would get
together and we had some boxing goals in
that basement and we'd punch each other
in the head so it's like for something i
think is enjoyable nothing to pay me a
whole bunch of money
yeah sure i'll do it
would you
do you think if you got the rematch if
you did the rematch would you
what are the odds you win okay well it's
not probably not very good i think he's
pretty good actually and i'm not very
good now
at a low point for me because uh so when
i started training for that i was like
215 pounds which is the heaviest ever
bed i came off my hip surgery i
literally
like when i said
yes like i'll do it like i had literally
started working out like the week before
for the first time in my you know since
the surgery because i wasn't able to do
anything
so could i could i perform better yeah
but now after watching him box tyler i'm
like if you ask me ben can you be tyron
prob probably not i don't think i can be
tyron so awesome
crack and boxing yeah so my chances of
beating him you know and
watching that card it's like damn like
kind of fun to box someone who i know
sucks so i know it can beat that that's
what would be fun you know because like
they're training their
preparation was fun but then obviously i
got my butt kicked that fuck that sucked
you know can i swear on this podcast
yeah of course okay well i was gonna
drop an fba but i wasn't quite sure
i think that sucked as i swear no you
could you could drop all all of the
f-bombs you want so
preparation was do you think you were
more prepared for that fight or the
the jordan barrels exhibition
i mean like how did you approach it
mentally you know um
well the burroughs thing i i obviously
it's okay so when i retired the first
time in 2017
burroughs was the only current like
we'll say really elite level wrestler
that i'd never trained with um i was
really good friends with nebraska's head
assistant coach still am and i said hey
i just want i'm going to pay my own way
i want to train with jordan's i want to
see what it feels like you know i want
to get in there and mix it up i mix it
up with david taylor and kyle dake i
mean there's just some adult wrestling
that i love
and so i flew myself down there in
january of 2018 and i spent four days
training with jordan it was a really
good time it gave me some great insight
into how he thinks and you know what a
great champion is
what was the like training with him like
what can you get some insights yeah of
course like what the
like how hard is the the live training
is it more drilling is it technical like
how does his
it seems like his style is very
different than yours so how does that
match up in the room in terms of like
what you learn from each other that kind
of thing we went full life for one i
think it was like 12 or 15 minutes ago
where we just go wrestle um we did a
bunch of simulated live but obviously he
he had so i was a senior in college when
he was a freshman in nebraska and so we
our teams had dueled each other he was
obviously a lot smaller at that point in
time um but he had followed my career
and so when i went in there it was like
hey
i know you're really good at this
position what about this position what
are you trying to do how exactly does it
work and then let's wrestle there you
know and then hey what about this
position and so you know we would spend
30 to 40 minutes talking about that
position on the ground or it was like uh
one was the chest strap it wasn't for
headlock one was uh i don't know it's
called what we call the lightning dump
but it's a
the lightning dome yeah
my buddy's name was lightning luke smith
in high school and he was the first
person i saw do it so usually when i see
someone do something then i name that
move after them got it um
i know right great name it's good so uh
yeah but so what i said with that is
like
okay he was still trying to be the best
in the world i was just trying to go
work out jordan bros because i enjoy
wrestling yeah um
is like someone who at that point what
he has five world titles at that four or
five at that point a lot and so usually
high school kids is like hey this is the
guy who's the best in the world who's
bringing someone in and saying how do i
do this how do i do that what about this
what about that and so the level of
inquisit inquisition that's a hard word
inquisitiveness he has
is really impressive and then it's
obvious why he got to the level he did
because he's figuring out all these
little situations and that's honestly
one of the biggest things i think
wrestlers
a lot of wrestlers fail to do as they
get older even when they get to early
college age they say this is my style
this is what i do i'm going to lift and
work out hard and i'm
and i'm not gonna anything in my game
you know whereas
you've seen many progressions in jordan
bros games he just made his 10th world
team
and you yeah and you know if you have a
really keen eye you've been able to
watch him change
you know i've been watching him since
2007 2007.
he's changed so much and obviously still
maintained a world-class level almost
the entire time
when you say change like what changed
because he's he's got that double leg
yeah but you're saying double anymore
was that he like hit his double leg for
the first time because alex dier he hit
him in years
yeah so that's like when people think
about jordan bros they think about the
double leg because in his early years
fire he had a great doubling right and
even so in those years i would say
the the biggest thing with jordan bros
double leg was it
his level of explosiveness it was his
level of persistence he would shoot and
shoot and shoot and shoot and it would a
lot of times would be from fun creative
angles and out of scrambles i'll say
he's on you you know and just he was
just super persistent with it and i
think that was probably the key
and then you saw
you know when he came out to won the
first world championship in 2011 it was
kind of that type of mentality and then
shortly after then obviously everyone
was starting to lower their stance
getting lower and he developed a really
good like mantis go behind series where
he would go one way the other way then
he started developing a really good like
low single ankle pick type thing you
know
and then his his hand fighting got
really tremendous like 15 16 17 his hand
fighting was really good and now i just
commented at the 21 trials like
a few of the defensive sequences he got
into was like holy shit like just not
from an athletic team but from a
technical standpoint the things he were
doing was just tremendous so i've seen
him as someone like who's continued to
reinvent themselves over the course of
the last 10 12 years
especially in the as a junior and senior
in college you're exceptionally dominant
yeah if you were to face him at the peak
both of your peaks of ncaa wrestling
could you uh could you beat them and if
you can beat them
well of course you can beat them yeah uh
how do you solve the jordan boroughs
well uh so for a folk style wrestling
stand folk style yeah so you know he he
had some competitive matches his junior
senior year he had a 2-1 win over uh or
maybe it's 3-2 over michael chandler who
is my teammate who's fighting uc now he
had a two-in win over tyler caldwell um
so i think you can glean some insight
into that you know he got written
he got so mad about this up on the
podcast so during chrono we had to make
up all kinds of bullshit to talk about
yeah and we were doing like the last 10
years best 165s and i said kyle dake
would ride him for over a minute oh wow
he got so mad you want to come on the
podcast the next day so hopefully he
doesn't listen to this he's like fuck
you man you know um but you know what
when was this this is during corona
corona last year he got mad we were
talking about we were before the trials
yeah correct yeah so um
you know michael channel wrote him for
two minutes plus and that was his junior
year not his senior year sure right but
it's close
um so i think there's some things there
i think the interesting thing would be
if i would have stuck around right so i
chose to go into mixed martial arts
after 2008 i would have been 74 and he
would have been 74 so we would have to
wrestle and then i think that the
freestyle jordan burroughs puzzle is a
lot more difficult to solve than the
folk style jordan burroughs puzzle and i
think i don't think he would i think he
would acknowledge that he's much better
freestyle than he was at folk style oh
you know although he was very good he's
better this is like raw speed
explosiveness um presents a problem to
you well so he was never i mean he
didn't ex really excel on the mat in
kind of either style in
freestyle he has got some good lace
transitions but in folks that like his
whole like in his entire college career
think he has like 10 pins which is
almost nothing you know so he was
gaining no value off the top position he
was good enough on most people to get
off bottom without it being an issue but
it wasn't like oh my gosh this is an
area where we have to be careful there's
a lot of things here
you know it's just he wasn't gaining
value there whereas in freestyle he i
don't say never but the amount of times
he gets turned is incredibly rare very
very rare um and he does have a lace
transition so he gets a lot of points
there so and obviously freestyle is
it can be geared way more in the neutral
position right we're only doing
takedowns so yeah were you surprised
that
he lost to dake in the trials to kyle
dick
oh kyle's so so he's so good right i
mean i think i think his performance in
the olympics was uh
was his last name which was shocking too
i mean we never seen it happen to kyle
dake you know he's been a guy who's
competed with jordan burroughs forever
and obviously he was on the losing side
for a while and now he's on the winning
side um but i think a lot of people
thought it was a coin flip and i think
actually kyle digg made it feel like
it's not a coin flip it feel it now to
me it feels like kyle digg is going to
win that match significantly more times
than he isn't is what it feels like yeah
i forgot which trials it was was it four
years ago
where
kyle dake threw him
like he
he no you saw inklings of like yeah oh
wow there might be a eventually a
changing of the guard yeah so 13 kyle
came out and he had the one throw
but then he lost one of the matches
decisively
um and then he was hurt in 14
and in 16 kyle dick actually went up 86
kilograms so in actually in 16
at the trials we had um so j kerber was
number one seed he was former as guy
russell i was a former world silver
medalist so you had uh david taylor who
had not made a team yet who is now world
champion olympic champion you had kyle
dake in the bracket who was a two-time
world champion now and you had jaden cox
in the bracket who had not made any
teams yet but is now what a four-time
world medals two-time world champion so
and then obviously jayden came out on
top of that won his first olympic medal
big bronze medal um so kyle didn't
wrestle jordan in 16 and jorda and
kyle's contention
the whole time
and they argued about this so i actually
did a little bit of backstabbing well it
was not it's not acceptable and both of
them were just one i didn't tell any of
them okay okay so jordan got mad so we
thought we talked about this fake
mastering chrono right we yeah we had to
make we had to make up something to talk
about yes there's obviously no matches
so we talked about this fake match and
do you stand behind that statement by
the way let's here's here's what i said
kyle kyle takes four times state
champion yes i said you got to pick a
you got to pick a winner i said kyle
dick wins 2-1 on a minute and six ride
time which i mean is literally we're
talking yeah as close as it gets as
close as it gets for kyle jake who's a
four-time ncaa champion i'm sorry
sorry we're talking over jordan
burroughs over jordan borrows inner
folks in a folk style match the
hypothetical college or not
hypothetically now or in college in
college both of them at their peaks at
165 pounds so completely hypothetical
and so jordan called in he was all
pissed
at me for picking kyle dick he wants to
come on the next day and argue his point
yeah so i said
f that that's that's dumb we need to
pick a winner way to do something
hypothetical so that i called caldegra i
said kyle jordan's gonna come on and
argue his case in the morning if he's
gonna do that why don't you come in and
argue your case
so no one else knew kyle was coming on
the block yeah so they both show up and
they went at it but one of the
contentions kyle had for years and
there's still this rule if you win a
world level medal
the following year
you sit out until the very end of the
american trials
and they do they do a best two or three
so every time previously that kyle had
wrestled jordan he had to come through a
tournament on saturday yeah okay
probably three matches and then on
sunday he would wrestle jordan invest
two out of three right so his contention
was i'm only wrestling jordan at a
disadvantage because i have to compete
on saturday and then competing on which
it's a fair argument it really is but
i also see usa wrestling's point is like
if someone wins a world medal we are
going to reward them because we want
that person on the team again so it's
crazy though that you're like kyle jake
had to wrestle because he's not
wrestling bums in that box yeah and and
then
yeah i don't know i don't know how
wrestlers do it because
yeah
you have to go to war like three matches
and then face jordan borrows yeah
especially a few of those years with you
know daycad uh
the name andrew howe but it was a really
competitive match as david taylor had
really competitive match with him isaiah
martinez even got in there dearinger so
he had some really competitive matches
before he ever got to uh jordan
burroughs so i never answered your
initial question was uh how did i feel
so
the jordan burroughs match i was not in
wrestling shape at all meaning
wrestling's heavily dependent especially
neutral positions heavily dependent on
timing and other things i was wrestling
very very minimally because i was i
started fighting again
so like my shit athletic shape was great
but it was mainly for fighting i wasn't
wrestling so um i think they were
actually trying to do
burroughs dig at the beat the streets
it's a big it's the biggest fundraiser
in wrestling every single year in new
york in new york city they usually raise
like a million dollars they started all
these programs in new york city to get
which that i really wonder what they're
doing the money now because they
probably can't have the kids wrestling
because new york is crazy
anyway i think new york figures out a
way what to do with the money hence
michael mouse complaining that they're
corrupt and all well go but it goes to
the beat the streets organization who
then starts the clubs in new york so i
don't know what to do
anyway so i was called like i don't know
two two weeks before the vet and said
hey you know someone saw us to wrestle
jordan burroughs it fell out
would you wrestle him
i said yeah sure why not you know and
it's like
well listen i i've i trained with them
for
four days the year before i had a pretty
good idea how the match was going to go
it wasn't going to go so well for me but
it's like okay you're missing a main
event i can bring because of where i'm
at right now in my life i can bring a
lot of attention to wrestling i can help
you guys raise a bunch of money for beat
the streets
my goal is i think i thought i could get
one takedown or turn on him was kind of
my goal for the match i didn't get there
uh it was kind of hard he went hard yeah
that asshole can give me a point yeah
that i said this is bullshit jordan i
told him through the match like this is
bullshit you're fucking going too hard
right now yeah i'm not a wrestler i'm
not a wrestler i'm a fighter i'm coming
in here so yeah so i i had a really good
idea i mean we wrestled together i think
in it he'll probably get mad because i
think in the live go we did like the 12
or 15 minutes i think i actually scored
a takedown in that i believe maybe or
maybe it was a turn he'll probably say
no i didn't but whatever um yeah so i i
knew what was gonna happen i i knew what
the outcome was going to be i knew i
could hope i could stay competitive and
maybe you know lose like 10-2 or
something like
yeah
well let's walk back because i think uh
i originally brought it up in terms of
how prepared were you against uh jake
paul versus uh jordan barros yeah so did
you prepare for jake cardio wise
yeah i worked hard yes yeah i did but it
was i told you i
started training for my i mean once once
i had my hip surgery yeah they said uh
you know for the first six weeks you
can't even walk
and it was hard for me to listen to him
because by week
four and a half five i was feeling
pretty good i want to give her my
crutches but i'm like you know what this
is for the rest of my life
and if you get the so if you get the
real hip replacement there's no
wrestling there's no nothing right so
that's the next step so okay i'm going
to take this here so i do my crutches in
six weeks the next six weeks it's still
like really low weight-bearing can't yes
do anything you know so then i get done
with the three months which is like
january and i'm like okay i should start
working out so i started riding a bike a
little bit and then
okay i'm now i'm fat i'm fucking fat i'm
gonna get in better shape because i
don't do anything so i'm actually start
working out and uh and then that
happened right so i'm like okay well now
i got three months and
it gives me a good reason to get back in
shape and
um
you know i knew i wasn't going to be a
full-time boxer so it's like how do i
put a boxing camp together so i found
you know i had my ultimate mike rhodes
he came up and kind of
lived with me ish kind of thing for
three months uh i found a couple of this
guy k9 out of michigan he came over for
three weeks he was great i went to
freddie roach for a week so i kind of
like you know trying to get as many good
as ideas as i could and my thought was
like okay well if this dude sucks
i can just be tough and you know block a
few punches get him tired and then beat
him up if he's good that's probably not
much of my do about in the next three
months because i'm i'm i was never good
at boxing in the first place all of my
stand up in mixed martial arts was
predicated on how do i get through the
two or three punches that are going to
come at me in the time i need to get a
hold of them you know it's all you only
have to make two or three of them miss
and then boom you're on top of them at
least for me
um that was all my striking was
predicated on it wasn't about hey i'm
gonna do damage on the feet in order to
make something else happen it was like
how do i clear this
barrier get a hold of you and if you i
actually did the math one time i think i
got a takedown
if you include the knockout round
against miles vidal i got to take down
every round except two so it was like it
was like 53 out of 55 rounds in mma i
gotta take down wow somewhere somewhere
in there okay so you're hunting the
takedown once you once right away once
you get get uh
your hands on them you get to take down
yeah
okay
but the incredible thing about you
i i just uh recently talked
spent a couple days with jimmy pedro
and
he talked about
his guys and just champions in general
hating to lose more than they love
winning
and the way you talked about losing you
lost very few times in your career like
later you you were dominating both
wrestling and
mma but the way you took these losses
against people that are
i don't know
below elite level
it's fair uh
i was gonna get pissy but enough but
it's completely fair
i thought he was a bum too no that's not
what i meant i'm in trouble it's okay no
it's good no no um no no but like what
can you explain the psychology behind
that like the what
is is there uh a system behind this is
there philosophy behind this well i i
wasn't very good
in the beginning and i think i think
that's where all starts from so i didn't
start getting good until the age of like
13. i started at five i probably started
competing more at age 10 11.
i didn't really get good until 13 it's
still at 13 i'm i'm i'm great i'm
getting better right i'm pretty good um
so actually i've actually i have writing
this book on sports psych but this it's
i got well i got someone right for me
kind of thing uh because i've had this
philosophy for years that there's there
has to be this balance between two
things right so on the one hand in this
category on the one hand you have hating
to lose a great champion has to hate to
lose like you said right but on this
other hand you have to have
someone who seeks out challenges right
because if you don't have that you're
never gonna reach your full potential
either and so you have to balance these
two balls
at the same time right and so like for
me i always and this is maybe because i
wasn't good but i was always like let me
go find the best people to wrestle all
the time let me go find i would like
literally uh like seven days great when
i was starting to get better it was like
end decision internet well there was no
one was using the internet it was like a
wrestling magazine like hey dad there's
a tournament here i think that other
kids can be there can you take me two
hours across the state today please
you would wrestle like in competition
against them in competition yeah yeah in
competition hey i heard there's this
tournament here's the magazine says this
tournament hey dad will you take me over
there tomorrow you you weren't trying to
win you were trying to get the
experience i was trying to wrestle the
best guys maybe i win maybe i lose
there's no when you used to do a
competition there's no guarantee of a
win or a loss you're just doing
competition right so i wanted to go i
wanted to challenge myself against the
best guys
of which i thought maybe i could come
out on top right so like eighth grade
year
i won way way you know i probably lost a
handful of times in the state of well
state wisconsin was probably really
really minimal the amount of times i
lost you know but it was just about
getting the challenge and it's like some
some kids
and not kids in my club because i'll
push them very hard on this are scared
of challenging themselves they like
being the big fish in this small pond
they're not willing to go say i want to
go get that guy and i want to get that
guy and i want to get that guy and so
that's like
so i think that's part of it for me is
like i always just love the challenge i
enjoyed competing thoroughly right and i
understood from a young age because it
wasn't very good losing's a part of it
you're not always going to win and that
was kind of it it's like hey sometimes
you know and for my mma career
i never planned it to go that way but
yeah i didn't lose for nine years and
like that's that's pretty rare i didn't
plan for that to happen that was just
what happened okay but you also
didn't lose like the second part of your
college career my 87 i lost i won my
last 87 matches yeah
so that didn't come along with the
hatred of losing you just i don't like
losing i still don't like it yeah
yeah
okay but you're you don't
uh you don't seem to you you seem to
kind of shrug it off a little bit okay
so like but specifically with these two
instances that you bring up with the
mosfet all
right it feels definitely so okay
all right let's go let's go deep let's
go all right so the mosfet one it feels
different because um
let's for people don't know okay uh moz
vidal loss was your first loss first
last city in mma yes yeah yeah i think
yeah and i mean it was a dramatic loss
and there was this kind of build up as
you or potentially one of the greats of
all time coming into this fight
and so
there's pressure all of that so the no i
mean i i was thoroughly enjoying it i
don't i didn't feel the pressure so the
mazda fight is
he got one fucking move on me it's not
he beat me and if we do that again i
think i win at that point in my life for
sure i think i win
way way way more times than i lose he he
knew that too that's why he didn't what
he didn't want something sounded about
agreement that's why i had to taunt him
and why he got so mad because i had to
continue to taunt him in order to get
him to sign right um so that one hurt
because uh and some people don't know my
materials go through it fast i did three
fights in like uh smaller leagues i got
signed by bellator i was undefeated for
three and a half years i was 9-0
when i got done with that in 2012
um
i at that point in my head i was just
gonna transition to the ufc because
that's where you go i was ranked like
six in the world i
hadn't really had a competitive match at
the end of the bellator thing and dana
white for a reason still unknown to me
we still haven't had this conversation i
wish i could ask i should ask him some
time
chose to refuse me any entry in dfc he
just said i went to his office
and he literally said we're not
interested we're not going to make you
an offer did you did you mention
something to about him about the ufc
that was a year before that that was the
year before that that that might play a
role in it i think so uh yes what
happened the year before that was
uh i called him a liar which but listen
i'm right on this one because he said
you can't test for drugs because i'm i'm
all natural which you can tell by my
physique um and i was always put off by
the fact that so many people cheated
and i i was very vocal about that and so
he had made some statement like oh
there's no way you could test i said
bullshit you you very specifically i
said usada does it for all other sports
worldwide
you can do it and then it's funny
because i hired you sat a couple years
later yeah so i think he took some
offense to that but that was like a year
and
almost a year and a half i think
somewhere later
um it's not like he holds a grudge or
anything
yeah
so i so i i literally go to vegas um
it's a long story you can read about it
other places i i so i got released from
about it's not like this is negotiation
i got released from my bellator contract
i said i'm out of here i'm going i'm
going to go to the uc i go to vegas and
then i was told hey there's no offer for
you
tough shit you know so then
i ended up signing with one championship
i spent what three and a half years
there i won the belt in my second fight
and retained the title the entire time
and then i just again dominating people
yeah i didn't have a competitive fight
and so um i retired 18-0 never never
again and for someone who loves a
challenge never getting to really
challenge myself was incredibly
frustrating and i left the door open but
i said if i ever get the chance to prove
them this world i'd love to come back so
somehow a year later i get traded trades
never happened and this is the one and
only trade ever
i i've been retired for a year i got
traded i get to come back i fight robbie
lawler the first fight
i win and then essentially they're
saying okay if you fight uh you know if
you beat george you're gonna get the
title shit against marty and
um it's like this this is what i've been
working for the entire i've been trying
to prove the best part of the world for
the last 10 years and i've not been
afforded this opportunity
um
so when i lost to george that was hard
because i it was is something that
i had waited for for a really really
long time it was something that i you
know i thought i could compete for and i
never got the opportunity to do that one
was hard um at the same time from like
just the competitive logistics like he
got me with one move it wasn't like he
beat my ass for 15 minutes and i got
beat a bunch of different ways
so that was like
fuck like if i get it again i could have
done it but i'm not i'm not they're not
gonna let me have it again it's not like
wrestling where you could go the next
year or the next week or whatever you
know you lose the big tens you go to
nationals two weeks later
does that loss change you
in any way your psychology i don't i
don't think so it's the first loss
i mean had i had i
had a longer mma career post that yeah
there definitely would have been a lot
of time spent
getting better at the end the entry
point to the takedown right which i
already spent time there um i don't i
and i hate making excuses but yeah the
the hip the hinging of my hip what i
couldn't do was preventing me from doing
some things and it's why if you look at
the fight i'm like bent over as they go
for the double leg
yeah so what happened for people who
don't know you went in for a double leg
and he went
he did a flying knee and then and and
the weight caught you well specifically
the way he did that knee was kind of
different than the way anyone had thrown
flying knees before most people go more
just from a stand straight vertical
whereas he took a few like running steps
and went more you know the trajectory of
the angle was different um so i think
that's kind of probably why it caught
you know
i think a lot of things in combat well
probably everything but i focus
specifically on compass happen
subconsciously like our brain is reading
what's coming at us and and a lot of
times it's stuff we've seen before so we
can judge how to move correctly misread
because it's something you haven't seen
head for had not seen him come at that
specific angle yeah so that also was
really hard with the burrows one
i told you i knew i was going to lose so
it was like
whatever you know i'm taking this
because i want to put the sport of
wrestling out there in a big way i want
to help them raise a lot of money we
sold at madison square garden hoo
theater and we raised a whole bunch of
money so my goals were accomplished jake
paul fight i took it because they paid
me a bunch of money and i thought it was
gonna be fun did i have any illusion i
was a great boxer no illusions
whatsoever would i have preferred to win
absolutely but you know like i told
everyone whether i win or lose on
saturday night i'm gonna be back
coaching wrestling on monday because
that's what i enjoy doing and i was back
coaching wrestling on monday and once a
month these middle school kids give me a
little bit shit about it and that's it
but
where were you
in terms of your shape and how you felt
in the mazda doll fight
would you say you're on the i mean it's
a difficult question to ask of
of a world-class athlete but like were
you
past peak
oh yeah yeah
that's i don't know i don't know why
guys like to lie about that i mean the
peak for me was really evidently in my
late 20s um
and maybe they are all fueled by
extra supplements i i don't know but for
me that was evident but you get this so
you get this crosshair where
um you're if you're smart like you know
like i mentioned john bros was you're
still gaining wisdom you're gaining
strategy gaining a lot of things right
and so while your physicality may go
down your overall skill level still may
be rising especially in mma because
people usually start later
because they're gaining wisdom strategy
all the maybe more tools in their
toolbox right they're getting all these
things so their actual competitive peak
despite their athletic peak going down
might still be
a few years past that right because
these things are crossing um no so i
thought i was i was great obviously the
hip was an issue
um
it's funny because so that
i knew i had a lot of pain here and i
knew it was because of this it was like
okay whenever i'm done i'll just get it
taken care of whatever
uh but i every time i train i have pain
kind of like all up my back
and the day after the surgery i woke up
and there was no pain on the right side
of my surgery on the left side there's
no pain in the right side of my back
that's fucking weird like every every
morning i wake up there's a lot of pain
there you know um i'm like okay i'm on
pain pills maybe it'll maybe it'll come
back tomorrow and this that's never
never been back since
so it's weird because it was like this
i thought this was affecting this but it
was affecting all the way across my
whole back so you know if i get to get a
new hip honestly if i if i
i don't know it's going to change the
competitive outcome whatsoever
if i had known how good the hip
replacement was going to be
i would have done it the second i
retired from one championship in
november of 2017 i would have my hip
surgery scheduled for december 1. just
from a lifestyle standpoint i could only
sleep in one position
there's a lot of things i couldn't do i
was in a lot of pain um so i would have
done that a lot earlier but no from my
athletic point i was ready just chit
goes wrong sometimes
i don't know how to ask this but you
know joe rogan me
had a had a sense about you similar to
like uh fedor
that you are potentially one of the
greatest ever yeah does it hurt that
you're not in the discussion now of
being in the top 10
yeah of all time i didn't prove it i
don't deserve it
i mean but i didn't i didn't prove it i
mean and so it's like uh
had i had i somehow gotten to convince
dana white we go and convince him in
2013 to
make me an offer and i didn't even need
a good offer i needed any offer had i
gotten the offer then
maybe the outcome's different right but
given i would never expect anyone to
think of me that way i didn't prove it i
know i know what i was
and i'm good with that and yeah other
people never got to see that do you
think well you don't know you can't know
fully right do you think if you uh went
to the ufc at that time instead of one
championship i think it would have a lot
of success
yeah i mean there's obviously certain
guys there's a lot of guys i've trained
with that
i had a lot of really good results
against and
um
walter wait at that time tyron was a
champion for a long time there
so i was around tyler was a champion
anthony was a champion at lightweight i
was you know the same gym as him and we
had a lot of people coming through
yeah did you face turn
would i have fought him i don't think so
i mean so he was still the champion when
i came into the dfc and we said no we're
not going to fight
all right
hey so he can't change history right so
once something happens you got to accept
for what it is and
move forward and and obviously hope you
can continue to keep accomplishing great
things which for me obviously my
athletic career is over
so now it's going to be through my
wrestling academies and you know who
knows what else i could get into oh you
might
do exhibition matches and all that kind
of stuff right statue wrestling and
stuff no uh i don't think so so here's
my thing with the wrestling matches is
like
just for fun if you said hey ben just
for fun yeah would you love to go
wrestle someone yeah i would i would
right i love wrestling i get in there i
lo you know i love like so one of my
guys has gotten to be pretty good he's
in college he got him keegan tool he
just won a junior world title this year
and so when when i'm doing private
lessons i have such thing about the
development of the athletes sometimes i
can wrestle hard but most of the time
it's like i'm just gonna help them with
whatever they need help with and it's
still wrestling and it's fun but it's
helping them you know for like for king
jose this summer and he's trained for
the general title so to be able to shake
hands sometimes and say like i'm gonna
try to kick your ass she try to kick my
ass you know like just to go like yeah
it's a good feeling it's so much fun and
i don't get to do that very much so if
you said ben would you love do some
matches and the answer is yeah
the problem unfortunately for me and
maybe you could talk me off a ledge here
is like because of where i've gotten to
my career if i choose to do wrestling
match it it's going to people are going
to be really excited about it's going to
blow up and it's like
i just want to wrestle just to wrestle
i'd rather just like go in a room where
no one can watch and just wrestle and
just enjoy it well you could also
wrestle so there's different kinds of
wrestling there's wrestling when there's
an event
and like you know there's a build up and
then announcement yeah and you can also
do like uh khabib style like in the room
there's cameras and you're kind of going
it's like the weeb does that
no in uh marcel did that he whipped my
ass a few times yeah exactly i mean i've
seen could be some videos okay it's not
like set up it's just people going hard
and then it's more fun yeah you know and
it's
it's also more like
presenting the beauty of the sport yeah
you know for sure and like and there's
no winning or losing really in that
context yeah like you're just you're
always joking around a little bit
even when you're going super hard so i
feel like especially in the modern day
with with the internet that's a
compelling way to do so i've thought
about it this is the one thing i've
thought about doing because i told you
about my buddy was the the content thing
it's called rockfin i thought about
doing you know the old really famous
gracie challenge yeah okay so i thought
about doing the aspiring challenge do i
hear my rule set yeah let's go i'm not
sure i'm gonna do this people are gonna
show up to you like in wisconsin i have
to select you i'll start with a thousand
bucks right right okay 30 minutes you
pin me or i pin you that's it no points
no nothing we just wrestle camera that's
it right it's camera in the room maybe
maybe maybe there's a referee because we
don't want to be contention over the pen
so one pin just one pin 30 minutes 30
minutes okay
if i pin you you don't get shit you go
home right every person i pin it goes up
by a thousand dollars two thousand three
thousand four thousand five thousand and
so on
if you make it the distance and i don't
pin you and you don't pin me i'll pay
for your travel and give you 500 bucks
right this the consolation prize for
showing up
if you pin me you get whatever the
jackpot is
wait who's adding to the jackpot i am
it's my it's my money
but then what's the incentive to keep
winning for you because it's jackpots
well because i'm so i would put the
content somewhere people would watch it
oh you're gonna make money yeah so you
would make money that way it's not
exponentially growing right it's just
going up by like yeah i really think
there's probably only a couple people
that could pin me so
i would just not choose those people or
wait till i get a really large audience
and people get really excited in that
case i'm making a lot of money so
what do you think how many matches would
go with you like call dick shows up i
don't think he could hit me yeah but
being like jordan jordan bros could beat
me but he can't pin me he was never a
pinner yeah he ain't gonna pin me
there's only a few people who have the
skill level to do so right it takes a
lot because so pinning was one of my
specialties i had the fourth most of all
time and i won the penny award the last
two years
um
so and then even
on points and just pin them this is
actually one of the issues i have with
jiu jitsu and the point system and the
eddie bravo thing i actually think eddie
bravo things kind of people get so mad
at me sorry too i think it's bullshit
and you want me to tell you why it's
bullshit yeah so like if jordan brewer's
whoops my ass and the score is 16 to two
but he can't pin me then i get to go to
overtime and get a cradle on him i'm
probably gonna pin him
so i'm better than jordan burroughs
nah they didn't right he just whipped my
ass you know what i'm saying like if we
can go the whole because they do
submission only
so if jordan bros beats me up
for was it eight minutes ten minutes i
don't know what's the length of an eddie
bravo match yeah i don't know that's
something like that yeah yeah so we go
tell me john browser today he's gonna
outscore me significantly he he will not
pin me i promise you that okay
so now we go we go to the overtime
strong wars but yeah he won't jordan
bros is not gonna he's gonna beat me i
will give you that call day won't pin
you either no okay okay they'll both
beat me on points very badly now david
taylor he might he might pin me because
he's a very good pinner also um they'll
beat me very badly they will not pin me
um but now we get to overtime and we get
to pick like uh right so in a bravo you
get a rear naked choke or an arm bar
okay give me a cradle i'll probably pin
them okay a good cradle you can say
cradle or maybe give them they're not
probably not going to pin me right maybe
maybe there's a chance but probably not
because this is not their special day so
for people who don't know the eddie uh
eddie bravo thing is uh
when it goes into overtime you get a
dominance position on a person and you
get to yeah basically put them in a
cradle this is the wrestling equivalent
yeah but you uh take their back maybe
yeah like a wrestling arm bar yeah and i
don't think that's very fair because if
someone whoops your ass they whip your
ass and then you know and so i think the
reason why jujitsu people accept that
rule set is that i don't think
i think they know this but would admit
it i don't think they're their point
scoring system ad include adding
adequately rewards what people value so
like in wrestling we value takedowns
because it gets closer to the pin and
the most valuable scoring is a near
fault near to the pin because that's the
ultimate goal to sport whereas in jiu
jitsu for example like if i were to get
a takedown uh so like if i went to
gordon ryan and he just didn't pull
guard i would probably get the takedown
now if somehow he didn't submit me which
he probably would right but say he got
got close to like 12 submissions but
somehow i slipped out of all of them
now i win 2-0 like that's ridiculous
like he should very clearly win because
he almost submitted you know what i'm
saying like
there and i and i realized the
difficulty i realized the difficulty in
rewarding near submissions but that is
the most valuable thing is getting close
to finishing the match and in most
competitions they don't actually reward
that
but okay so this isn't about the sport
this is about the ben askren challenge
that we're talking about
okay what why 30 minutes why not
unlimited time
hmm
why do i go until whenever well because
then it's just a cardio thing because at
some point um
then someone would just have to fall
over dead right there's no more skill
level involved it's just who can stand
up the longest you honestly don't think
30 minutes is a cardio thing too how do
you think that's actually going to look
kyle day going against you for 30
minutes so it's going to be kind of
boring um
for the most part
what position are you going to be
because you well you can but you can't
you just can't have a gigantic amount of
action for 30 minutes so i i relate to
because some of my kids when when
teaching them wrestling they're like
well
but
i can't do that for seven minutes and
i'm like well you know like say if i had
you do
uh
hang cleans at a relatively heavy weight
as hard as you could you're not gonna
last seven minutes you're gonna your
pace will slow down right so my thing is
like well your pace doesn't have to step
here because i'm wrestling you're
competing at someone so if you're here
at 100 and you go to 80 but they go to
70 that's great and then you go to 60
but they go to 40. this is even better
right because the gap is growing so we
don't necessarily if we get tired that's
fine if they get more tired that's
better so i think most people would know
that so they would
kind of slow it down
but yeah i think it's third a third i
mean i've wrestled 30 minute goes i've
wrestled six months i've wrestled hour
long goes um you're not gonna get so
tired you're gonna fall over in that
time period but at some point if it's
unlimited someone will get so tired that
or dehydrated that they're just gonna
freaking fall over yeah but you think
what about making it exciting and
dynamic
you think the other person is always
going to be going for the pin
and thereby make a dynamic well if
they're working that hard then they
might exhaust themselves right right and
and obviously then if you're if you're
being that dynamic then you're adding
risk to yourself too because you are you
know doing that well i love this this is
a great idea
well i figured i'd get i rack up like 20
pins against bums you know or not not as
great people in the beginning and then i
would start bringing in better people
because they would be enticed by you
know twenty thousand dollars the
possibility to win and not not much
fanfare just a camera and just chemical
that's it in my wrestling room yeah yeah
like the gracie challenge yes
yeah may and so then maybe you have like
um
you know for most people you have
someone edit like the 90 seconds of the
most fun things that happen and then you
can watch the entire 30 minutes if you
want to yeah i mean i think most people
if they're not really really elite um
i'm probably gonna pin them
if they're not really elite
so yeah but i don't know i i that's
something i've been thinking about this
just been like fun for me to think about
um and obviously it plays in my skill
sets because my cardio is good and my
opinion is good also
so yeah so
like you said you weren't very good in
your early days until 13 14. what was
the switch you became you started to
dominate people
in your college career you dominated
yeah
and uh obviously you stopped losing at
some point yeah so
uh well i would say so even when i
didn't lose in collegiate competition i
i would go in the summers and try to
make the world team so i would lose some
not a lot right minimally
um okay so when i'm five i start playing
all sports like
i i know you moved to america at what
age
13 okay so fi so
at least i don't know what it was for
you but in america and my age you
usually play like a sport every season
right so that's what i did in the
beginning um i had minimal success in
wrestling i was kind of chunky and then
i'm in fifth grade i don't i and i can't
i can't tell you i i want to be better
and i told my parents that it is funny
because now i look at other 11 year olds
and very few of them are this mature and
i actually think emotional maturity is
kind of one of the key indicators of how
long term successful someone's going to
be in age 11 i said i don't want to play
baseball and i like baseball but i don't
want to play this because i want to
wrestle more so i'll get better
wrestling
so age 11 i quit baseball so i could
wrestle in a club for march april and
may because that was that was all that
existed at that point in time you
couldn't wrestle in june july or any of
those other months um
what was that desire to get better what
is that so it's not about i don't know
where it came from okay i just
i want to get better i want to get back
i want to be good at this i want to be
really good at this so when you're
looking at kids now as a coach you're
looking for that somebody who says you
know what i kind of suck i want to get
better and and i want to try to also
inspire that i mean honestly i think
i think as a coach that's probably my my
biggest job is to get a kid and get them
to believe i can do this because if i
can do this what can i i can do that i
can do that too right and there's so
many kids who unfortunately have like
shitty parents or bad teachers that tell
them you suck you can't be anything
right so i think my biggest goal as a
coach is to get someone to believe they
can do it so actually some of the ones
that believe they can do it they're the
most fun but they're not the ones who
need it the most right the ones who
think they can are the ones that need me
the most yeah because they need someone
to let's go
um so i don't i don't know
what inspired me i'm not sure so age
at age 11 5th grade i quit i started so
then i started having
more success you know what i'm like say
placing at the state tournament um in
high school uh so you you write fifth so
sixth grade i placed it like the state
local usa tournament you know so i'm
like having more success
um seventh grade was the first year i
won the youth state tournament um so i'm
getting better eighth grade i actually
feel like i got pretty good but like
when i went to the national tournaments
i was still having really minimal
success
my freshman year i decided to quit
football same reason it's like well i
need to put more time into this my
parents we got my dad luckily got a mat
in my basement so you know there's no
you so we have a year-round club and our
impetus was that we didn't have this
opportunity to go to a club year-round
so we had a map in my basement had to go
find hey you want to
you want to come wrestle
yeah to find partners for myself what'd
you do did you drill did you uh live
wrestle what'd you do in the basement so
actually i think you'll enjoy this i
think the start of
my scrambling was was kind of based
around that so i got
kind of i think it's probably my
freshman sophomore i'm kind of the years
are a little fuzzy right now um but
probably my freshman sophomore junior
year
i found two kids who were really
consistent who would come out like you
would come out he would come out tuesday
and this dude come out on a wednesday
right and they would come every week and
they were really consistent partners for
me to have in the summer but they
weren't nearly as good as me they were
way worse so it's like
okay how do i
how do i make this kind of like fun and
compelling for them to come back if i
swipe their ass they're not gonna come
back right you know so it's like i would
let them get as close as they could this
as i thought they could do a takedown
before not getting it and then tried to
like escape or get out so obviously if i
let them get really close sometimes they
get it you know so they're they're
enjoying it i don't know if they ever
knew i was doing this right i have no
idea um and that was kind of like the
start because i had to figure my way out
of bad positions because i had to try to
make it
entertaining for them where they still
got something out of it and they want to
come back the next week and i also got
something out of it yeah i love this
yeah because that relationship is so
important with that like that
i've had a few drilling partners
training partners that were really
important to my life and i i always
wondered why it's difficult
why it's so difficult to find them yeah
like i
if anyone's listening to this i'm
looking for a judo person in the austin
area actually
getting the reps with people is hard
even in jiu jitsu
that
it's just like people want to do the fun
stuff they don't want to really put in
the work yeah and it takes a certain
kind of personality and then you also
have to make it fun for the other person
just like you said if there's a skill
mismatch but also
if you have an interest mismatch in
terms of the
the amount of drilling you want to do
all that kind of stuff you have to
figure out ways to make it fun yeah it's
tricky so you did so yeah i think i did
that and no one told me so i get some i
get frustrated because now we have you
know just in my academy we probably have
50 60 high school kids only that are
year round they're year round you know
maybe they're not consistent in the
summer or whatever but they're there so
when they don't have a great partner
they start whining it's like you little
bitches like you know i i some days i
get really mad about it because it's
like i had no partners i had to find
freaking two partners come twice a week
you guys there's still 22 people in the
room i'm sorry there's not the perfect
partner for you but like go work out
that dude yeah you know and get yeah so
what was the switch the change was or is
this gradual or
okay yeah so uh let's do so ninth grade
i quit football because i want to get
really serious
um what position football i was actually
a nose tackle and i was but at that
point so okay so i was also the other
thing i kind of left over here i was
really fat growing up yeah uh in a sixth
grade i also decided okay i'm really fat
and if i want to be competitive
wrestling i shouldn't be fat because
weight matters i went from 130 pounds to
100 pounds in sixth grade um
so by the time i was a freshman i was
119. so i still wasn't as heavy that was
one in sixth grade so i was pretty small
too but i was also slow unfortunately so
uh they put me a nose tackle i you know
i like the competitiveness so i was
decent at it
um so that's what you wrestled 119 my
freshman year yeah mm-hmm
so yeah so then i still i started having
a lot of success state wise but not
nationally it's my national success
didn't come to like my junior year in
high school um but yeah i was like
grinding and getting better the whole
time and then senior year i started
having a lot of success nationally and i
got recruited and then but then even my
freshman year of college i uh this is
where i love competing i would go every
weekend because i knew if you if you
take the emotions out of competition
all it is is seeing your failures
acknowledging them and then figuring out
what you need to work on right if we
take all the emotion out of it that's
what it is so i wrestled 50 matches as a
redshirt freshman which is incredibly
rare i had 10 losses so it's not like
and like to not not so great guys you
know so like my my skill level still at
that point was not that great and then
the next year i came out and made the
ncaa finals so my my i made a gigantic
jump in that redshirt year to the to to
the real freshman year so it's a few
questions yeah where did the funk style
wrestling the the creative stuff get
developed or which stage
so i so i think like looking
retroactively there's no there's no
intention to start when i was in high
school with those kids but i think
that's kind of like
what was happening right
so what i would really say is i i had
one influential coach my rhetoric of
college named mike iron man um great guy
but then the second thing was it was
just out of necessity i had this burning
desire to be the best and when i was
getting my ass kicked every day in the
room because you know retirement was
there we had all-american 157 we had
all-american 150 184 so i wasn't having
a ton of success
and very quickly i realized from like a
more traditional athletic perspective
strength and speed i couldn't keep up
with anyone i was way worse so it's like
okay fuck how do i how do i do this you
know i want to do this how do i do this
there's got to be a way you know so mike
ironman showed me a couple things but
then it was just like this
creative expansion for the next you know
through say three to five years um and
then even now it's like i don't know
there's something and maybe you feel
this way about judo or
there's something that's like
fun about the way the body moves and
works and and and exploring something
new and thinking about hey wrestling's
been happening at a relatively high
level for we'll say 80 to 90 years in
america
um
and there's still new things being
developed and so when you see something
you're like oh damn like that's great or
like jason knoll if i have to win dicks
i'm like how did i not think of that
shit like why did i think that's so easy
i should i should have thought of that
you know so there's this like obsession
with
the sport of wrestling and you know
positions where
um
i actually think sometimes think i
wouldn't have smartphones because i may
have been distracted by my smartphone
maybe i wouldn't have been selling so
obsessed but maybe but you know some
days i had couldn't finish the single
leg on this specific person or or they
maybe they were finishing on me you know
they go home and i just fucking obsessed
about that one position like okay how do
what what am i missing here and and not
just accepting like that whatever the
coach says is the answer but like what
am i missing what ways can my body move
that no one's told me it can move yet
where can my arms go right where can i
do all these things and so i would just
obsess about these things and then you
know sometimes you come in the next day
you say oh well maybe this you know and
maybe it works maybe it doesn't maybe it
works twice and it doesn't work the next
time and so you kind of like have this
creative process and it's like
there's a lot of things that are on the
cutting room floor that never made it to
the the light because you thought they'd
be good and they failed and they sucked
and then you know to the point where
like my senior year um
i got to this point where the the people
then they were just figures figures
would wrestle in my head about positions
i was thinking about i wouldn't tell
them what to do they would just
they would go in my head and then like
something oh fuck wait that's it that
that's it that just happened that's the
move and then i go try to practice and
sure enough boom that's the move that's
exactly what you have alpha zero playing
learning chess you have uh
oh no it's called self plays uh you have
uh what did the figures have um
like no faces they were just like did
they have a human form or is it just
like stick figures essentially oh there
was not like yeah it was not like humans
it was more like stick fig it wouldn't
stick figures exactly like they were uh
so they had some volume yeah it was like
it was like a gray person and they had
you know three dimensions essentially
because i had to see how the things
moved and
yeah
uh i mean this is exactly what uh open
ai and uh demand at google or uh
i don't know if you've seen
but there's something called
reinforcement learning in artificial
intelligence where
you have like they've done it for like
sumo wrestling you have you have like
you have these two stick figures that
don't even know how to get up at first
and they figure out how to stand on
their two feet
and then they figure out how to push the
other person off of the the
pedestal wait so
but what about like uh when you look at
the the boston dynamics sometimes they
have trouble with like jumping and
balancing and other stuff so are they
are they doing that same program or no
no no no this different the the
everything boston dynamics is doing
is hard-coded so it's not
it's not learning the
all the sophisticated movements and
strategies like high-level strategies
and movement that's all
something that boston dynamics does not
do and if it does it like the parkour
stuff that's all hard-coded in oh
the people like project and think like
these
robots have like discovered
like how to move in sophisticated ways
they haven't well that's what when you
and john were talking about the the
grappling robot yeah i mean the one
thing i was i was obsessing about in my
head is that
with the chest right if a chess piece
moves right uh the horse can move like
an l right
it can only move like an l it doesn't
matter if it moves at two meters per
second or seven meters per second it can
only it can only move there right
whereas like a single leg i can shoot a
single leg with many different
velocities
i can shoot at different angles i can
shoot with different amounts of force
right i can shoot with my my head up
versus my head i mean right all these
things are going to matter if we're
talking about a human being defending
the single leg all of those things are
going to matter and and that's where
human beings are
who wrestle are calculating those things
subconsciously they're obviously not
consciously calculating in their head oh
the the forces coming at me at this so i
need to do that right they're just doing
it
but see the the thing is so you would
absolutely if you're doing a robot that
you're wrestling you're going to have to
constrain the speed at which it moves
and the power that it's able to deliver
so that presumably that'll be the
limitations so then it'll be just the
same exact way as a human but then but
it's good to even so if we go human max
force right jordan bros double max force
right that's the highest as highest we
get then we go down from there um
even even with even within that it's
like sometimes i can choose single leg
with a maximum force of i don't know
we'll just say we'll say 20. this is a
number right
i don't know shoot at 20 because i feel
sometimes i shoot at 15. sometimes you
shoot at 12 right because you you feel
something in your opponent that makes
you do it differently so they would have
to learn how and then you know all these
different things and sometimes maybe i
clamp a little harder so the the robot
would have to learn all these different
incoming inputs to the system and then
create this reaction oh no no 100 so
this would be all continuous like yeah
so unlike chess it would not it's just
chess is discreet there's it's uh one
then
you move it's it's a very specific set
of moves now here you would those are
all variables you control and they're
continuous variables so the speed the
force there's actuators so there's all
these joints right yeah you can move i
mean it's just an optimization problem
it's kind of fast it's fascinating so
i've been fascinated thinking about it
since you guys talked about it with i it
was a long time ago i listened to it
probably three three to four weeks going
up and kind of been like obsessing about
it ever since but yeah it just changes
when um
so unlike boxing for example or striking
it you know once you grab a hold of
somebody
it change you're now one body right so
yeah it's very complicated it's not just
shooting a a double leg without like
maybe doing like
like faking a double leg and then
shooting the double leg that's very
doable with robotics but then like
doing a clinch and from there
doing like a russian tie like that
that's uh i think that's way harder than
people realize in terms of how many
things are involved like the force of
the grip the leverage you're providing
with all the different parts of the
shoulder and the arm and the torso the
twist how much of your weight are you
allocating like leaning on the other
person yeah like taking weight off of
one of your legs and the other leg all
of that i think
that's the really interesting thing
about humans is we're able to do all of
this calculation subconsciously yeah
subconsciously yeah and that's what i've
been thinking about since we it's like
how many things even these high school
athletes who are like getting medium
good are subconsciously thinking about
all the time or not even not even
thinking about sorry reacting to
um but then even like for me i'm you
know i'm a few orders of meg do better
than somebody's kid that player and so
when i when i go like super hard it's
like
i can feel their weight moving the wrong
direction and so for me to off balance
them or trip them or whatever it's kind
of easy sometimes you know because
they're not feeling it
the right way right or their timing's
just a little bit off or the way they're
grabbing the hip maybe they should be up
a little higher right these really small
things
um
yeah i think that's all easy to take
advantage of for a robot it's just
there's so many things
the the big problem
is ethically
i don't know how many people are willing
to train with a robot because
you're gonna get hurt well couldn't you
make a robot change the robot or no
yes but then it's expensive
so because they're gonna put the padding
on that thing i know but but then it's
not
you know
it it's
then uh you're not capturing the full
why can't you put like some rubber
coating on them right you know something
for that effect you could i mean that
you could yeah you could i mean you're
talking about robots that are
these are humanoid robots so
we're talking about 500 000 million
robots
so
you would have to be motivated
spend a lot of money to spend a lot of
money because you have to have them
wrestle
for
like
a lot
to get better you have to get better
yeah and then
the the open question is
how long does it take to get good enough
to beat a human
uh
i don't i don't think i don't think we
understand i don't know i don't think
you understand
how hard wrestling is yeah like is it a
really hard problem like what's harder
chest or wrestling
by far not even close that's yeah that's
the sense
so because there's an infinite amount of
moves right uh and possibilities so once
i shoot the single leg now you have
x amount of choices once you make your
choice now i have a choice x amount of
choices no i now you have x amount
choice on the defense and we can just
keep going back and forth right and this
number becomes
yeah but the same happens with chess
correct but then in wrestling you have
to make these
movements in very instantaneously right
because i should sing like i'm not going
to wait and say what's your defense yeah
right you mean instantaneously and then
also again based on the force and the
vectors and and the angles
you have to calculate that and adjust so
really you know if you're saying well i
can shoot a single like it's not like
moving it's not one move right it's if
you want to talk about different forces
and stuff it could be hundreds or
thousands of different moves based on
how hard i shoot it the angle the
direction all of those things yeah but
wait a minute so robots can do this kind
of stuff really fast you would i
people probably know the physiology of
this but it's the the reaction speed for
a human is maybe 100 milliseconds
something like that i don't know from
sensation to to
like from
the the signal traveling up your two
brain and down i don't know what that
number is but uh robots certainly could
do it way faster it you would actually
have to like constrain the speed
well so the robot's already killing the
chess people
right so yeah theoretically they could
eventually beat wrestlers but you asked
what was hard wrestling or chess
yeah and i think wrestling is because of
the time component in it and then the
and and the physicality of
you know is it this force or that force
you know because if if i'm gonna say say
we're in a seat belt side by side right
a wrestling seatbelt nothing too
based on the pressure you're giving me i
might do a bunch of different things
right and so like to an untrained eye
they might both look like the same thing
from you to a trained feel it's like
well in one case it's really evident i
should go this way in other cases
evident i should go that way so the
other thing to consider just like with
chess
the ai systems
so human versus human play a certain way
together they actually haven't
considered a really large number of
strategies
that ai systems discover so one
possibility with a robot they'll
discover certain ties and certain
takedowns what i'm saying that like will
dominate no matter what the human does
you think that so you think there's that
so this i mean this was somewhat the
wrestling's so fun is there's even after
80 to 90 years there's this continuous
evolution yeah so you can do some like
low single type thing like john smith
type of situation well like a downbot go
behind is something that has really i
would say really in the last five-ish
years has really been evolved what's the
goal behind downbot go behind so when
you're sh well they just head inside or
head outside matters but there's one for
both you shoot at me essentially i take
my leg boom and then so that was kind of
in existence when i was in college right
you down block them and you stop but
usually you hit on this side of their
head right and now immediately as you
shoot i attack that shoulder and then i
start hitting a go behind on you
right and so like that in its current
incarnation
it absolutely wasn't when i was in
college i would say it probably became
popular
five to seven years ago so yeah there's
these big things that are happening
and now now i really want a robot
because i want to be ahead of the game i
want to know exactly what i'm missing i
mean one interesting thing you have with
alpha zero that plays chess
is um
it sacrifices pieces much more than
humans do so give you a piece and not
only does it give you a piece it will
wait a bunch of moves before it makes
you pay
so because it knows that that's better
for the long term long term so like
humans rarely sacrifice without
getting the piece back like two or three
moves after uh alpha zero can wait like
five moves
so
so basically
you'll have you potentially with
wrestling you might have a a robot that
like puts itself in bad positions but in
a certain kind of way then that will
actually lure the opponent in to trap
exactly what my style's based on
you basically narrow one one thing to do
is you narrow the set of choices you put
yourself in a bad position but and
there's a set of choices for them
because they're not used to it yeah
they're not used to it and and then you
you drag them into uh into your
yeah so but there's also
the problem is there's mechanical issues
like it's actually just difficult to
build robots that uh are able to sense
because we have sensation throughout our
body yeah it's just difficult to build
that kind of robot it's expensive you
start talking about multi multi-million
dollars and then people start asking you
questions why did you invest all this
money
duh
hello
it could be a better investment okay uh
so i mentioned john smith yeah
he is if people don't know one of the
great wrestlers wrestling coaches ever
he's also creative like you he spoke
really highly of you what do you think
about that guy did you guys ever work
together not really uh so i so you know
what when i was a senior and i had the
people wrestling in my head uh i was
lucky enough to be doing um
i was pretty much graduated so i did an
independent study with the sports i call
i was potentially going to uh grad
school for sports psych well i actually
did nine credits and then
i decided i didn't want to do any more i
continued learning on my own um but i
had an independent study with uh the guy
who's head of usa track and field
support psych so i guess so the other
here was the class was i got to go sit
down and talk with him for an hour and
he was like fascinated by me so he
didn't really make me do homework it was
like the greatest three credits ever
we just talked it was i learned so much
it was so awesome um but so i started so
one time it came up that i had these
robot or people wrestling in my head you
know and he said well who else do you
think i said but john smith happened so
i went and got john smith's number and
called him and say you've ever had these
people wrestling in your head and he
said yeah but shouldn't stop coaching
they went away
same thing happened to me they started
coaching they went away so if i really
force myself now and i'm like
you know i see something in practice and
it's really high level because high
school wrestling i don't want to make
you guys feel bad but it's like it's a
little bit lower level right so if like
keegan for example who won the journey
if he's struggling with the problem or
ask me a question
and
i can force myself to like see the
bodies moving and think about it again
you know kind of like i was in the early
age but it won't just it won't just flow
there anymore so he said it went away
and for me it went away also
by the way if you can
pause on on the on
on the bodies in your head yeah uh what
like how are they generating new ideas
are they just kind of i don't know
you tell me
so it's just
they're just like scrambling in your
head it would be specifically based on a
problem i was struggling with or a
specific position you know kind of it
goes in for a single and then and then
go from there yeah so like i'm sitting
in geography class and you know i don't
have to work that hard because it's easy
right and
yeah i'm just sitting there like kind of
acting like i'm looking at the board and
these guys are wrestling and i'm
watching them wrestle and yeah sometimes
they come up with a really good solution
is there somebody you uh looked up to
style wise
matt gable john smith yeah all these
like like legends status people try
gable or cable um john smith after the
fact so the problem with wrestling in my
era was you couldn't watch it there was
no there's no access right it wasn't it
wasn't really available even if you want
to say
go find a bunch of john smith they're
kind of hard to find right there's a
couple of them on youtube but i've
obviously seen all of those but in in my
era there was there really wasn't any of
it so it was hard to be a fan of
something and that's what wrestling
wrestling has
his the fans are going like this because
now you know you flip on the flow app
and you can watch uh you know something
that's happening in europe right we can
do this easily so we can be a fan of
people um so now i'm more a fan of
wrestling than i was then because there
just was no access so now i can watch
someone i like and say oh shit like that
guy's wrestling oh boom i put my phone
on i watched them wrestle you know that
type of thing you know
on a quick rant it's really frustrating
that you can't watch the olympics
oh my god it's so frustrating i i've
been
i i'm i'm i think i'm going to go to war
go to nbc's headquarters i'll go with
you you got you got a soldier here i was
talking to jimmy
uh jimmy pedro he was surprised by this
too most matches you can't see even you
talk about like uh
uh comeback uh gable steals and
yeah you can't see the full match you
get like a crappy highlight so the two
the two biggest things in rightlook and
really the three the ncaa championships
on espn yeah the olympic trials are on
nbc and the olympics are nbc and these
things these these companies are so big
they don't have a department dedicated
to selling their rights to that footage
right so the
the rights to wrestling footage which no
one really cares all that much about
except a niche
are the exact same as track and field or
and or basketball number x so yes all of
this stuff is completely inaccessible to
us the the nca's the olympic trials in
the olympics you can't go watch old film
on it it sucks yeah older current film
yeah uh
so you can't even watch the game match
the gable students no they did a you
know they do something that annoys the
fuck out of me what okay they they they
they do like a three or two minute
highlight
so it's like they capture the most
important thing
but
like it's all about the build up yeah
yeah it's like that very beginning when
you step on the mat and the nerves and
you walk out and like that
i mean
i don't know uh
you miss then then when the the triumph
happens or the heartbreak happens
it has that much more power yeah if you
want to go to war with nbc or espn i'm
i'm happy to join i think this is
bullshit
well i mean uh does the ioc or the ioc
is selling the for the olympics is the
one that's making well so nbc broadcast
so they obviously have the live rights
you would think they would have recorded
if the i mean they're the ones recording
it you'd think they keep the rights when
you think no no i they're like getting a
license of it they're getting exclusive
like license but like the you know for
example
uh i've had this i talked to travis
stevens the g dog player and
there's a
really sort of famous match it's a
heartbreak
in his career from uh 2012 olympics
where he goes against the german ole
bischoff whatever it's a 20-minute match
to go to war
and that's not available anywhere but
it's uploaded on youtube
and set to private the reason i know
this is because on the ioc channel so
they've uploaded all of these matches
they haven't been put up so actually so
my olympic match the the one i won
got put public and so i don't know if it
was private it got put up on youtube
uh i was ordered to it the week of my
jake paul fight it was so dumb i'm like
why this is every 13 years later this is
bullshit like this should have been up
so i mean okay so what about olympic
trials footage that has to be the usoc
then or nbc
uh so i know like okay so i don't flow
right cause i work for them i know if
flow
buys your event or whatever right they
buy the rights
generally in the contract they'll have
rights to both live stream it and then
use that footage at any point moving
forward so those matches live on flow's
website that's why i would be surprised
that if nbc didn't have something
similar
flow does a pretty good job of providing
like uh
a place where you can watch all these
matches nbc does not that's not it yeah
and and
and also there's an argument with flo as
well but certainly with olympics there's
a difference between what flow does and
what the olympics represent what do you
mean by that like it feels like the
olympics
which is what the charter says
should be
as accessible as possible yes like true
like you should really lower the barrier
for entry for the olympics you know
that's what the charter says but those
people in the ioc those these are the
worst people ever yeah they're very bad
well they're not they're not bad they
just lost
touch of the dream they once had when
they joined the ioc well i would argue i
would argue all the way back that these
are rich fat cats who like i get so mad
about the ncaa which finally now got rid
of this term bullshit term amateurism
it's like well there's some holy grail
where you can't make money to be an
amateur athlete but the people who own
the ioc are the people who own the
institutions college institutions are
making loads of money off of you that's
crap
so you competed like you said at the
2008 olympics
did you believe you can win gold yeah
absolutely
so the your mental game was on point
yeah i was ready so what what went wrong
that wasn't good enough that was what i
said yeah yeah i mean so at that point
in time um
i it was my first year of international
competition so when i came out in 2007
it was my first time making 74 kilograms
which is pretty small for me
um i had some failures but then quickly
i turned that around and i was having
success
uh in america i was beating everyone i
don't see easy but
yeah just you know i've i was doing
really well um i went international one
time
and i i there was one match i got
cheated on the russians they're cheaters
she was ukraine not russia
i lost one real match where i actually
lost
um and it was to dennis sargus who would
go on to win three world titles he was
behind the t of that year and it was
competitive you know so i knew okay i'm
like i'm going with the best guys in the
world
uh i beat a bunch of other guys who you
know were
were good and had past decent results so
like i knew i was like right there
unfortunately i ran this guy ivan
fundora and
in i had someone do scouting reports for
him actually my high school coach you're
know coaches for our academy john messen
rank and founder was the worst stylistic
matchup i got him
um and i lost him second round so i just
i wasn't good enough i you know i had i
decided to keep wrestling i probably
would have gotten better but at that
point diamonds wasn't in the cards so in
your division was like you said city of
vice has the tf
um
that guest special
he's very special so that would be my
other guy that you asked earlier who i
enjoyed watching and that was a guy
again it was kind of after the fact
because
it was hard to access footage but he was
a lot of fun to watch what do you think
made him great
uh a lot of people talk to about him as
potentially one of the great
greatest ever absolutely i mean six and
so he won six and three six worlds nine
uh six worlds three olympics nine total
which there's only one or two people
above that um
so again it was it was hard to watch any
live footage of him but from what i've
seen his his feel is different he was
just ahead of his time and the feel and
the touch he had for certain moves and
different things because obviously
physically he's kind of unimposing he's
um
you know taller and skinnier which is
you know it it can work wrestling but it
is by
less represented
um yeah he was special so good
do you uh take any inspiration from
let's talk about dagestan in general
what do you what do you think makes
those wrestlers great yeah it's
fascinating um have you read the book
the talent code
yeah it's great and that kind of talks
about these talent hot spots all around
the world so now obviously with our
wrestling academies we try to take some
lessons from that and apply it i got to
assume they didn't cover dagestan in
that book specifically but i gotta
assume a lot of the same principles
uh that are in that book apply to
dagestan and wrestling right they did
south korea and um
women's golf did curacao and baseball
right they picked a lot of these other
places that were really elite
i think maybe moscow and women's tennis
also
um
so
i think all these things that make any
group great organization is probably the
same thing that's happening there well
the hardship i mean what for is there
something specific about wrestling that
can
create so many great champions is it
from that area so obviously they're all
they all
love it like it's a big deal that
wrestling is specifically is a big deal
there you know they do sambo also
obviously um so that's part of his a lot
of the kids are doing it the obviously a
rough tumble tough tough life a lot of
fights and then i think that also that a
lot of them it is a way out right there
the the
elite level athletes in that part of the
world from my understanding are really
well compensated compared to
what the average person makes and
they're treated really well so people
see it as a way out whereas like and
then honestly if
america is getting better but in 2008
the reason i went to mma was because
i didn't want to be poor that my whole
life yeah you know what i'm saying it
sucks it's like well i don't want to
make 20 000 for the next
48 years so i'm going to go do something
else if i could have made even and i
need to be rich right if i could have a
hundred thousand dollars or seventy
thousand dollars wrestling i probably
probably kept wrestling um so i think i
think it's those factors i and obviously
now they have a really like
uh a bunch of really good people in one
area so it's probably and it's been
going on for a long time so there's
probably been a bunch of like adults and
coaches that are coming back and helping
that progress so yeah a lot of those
things that happen so i'm definitely
going to travel there as i talk to him
because i can speak russian it makes it
makes it very um
makes me uniquely qualified
to uh
my brother can speak a little bit
russian your brother can yeah
okay like a little bit like uh squares
and no no no like he would
oh man don't don't make me oversell i
think he would be able to have a
conversation with you i think okay
okay probably not like you what's the uh
what's the reason he knows right he i
don't know why he got obsessed with
languages and so his college degree is
actually
um
what do they call inner discs where you
have three minors who had a minor in
russian a minor in
a spanish and maybe japanese
i'm messing up it's definitely russian
and spanish are for sure i don't know
what the third one is no but yeah
it's it's really fascinating but the the
uh the emphasis on technique the lighter
drilling like they don't really go super
hard yeah and i only spent a couple so i
was there i was in vladikov cause in
2008 that was where the world cup was we
had to train there for like two days
afterwards so
um
i didn't get to dig deep did
dig deep into what was going on or
anything but yeah i mean
i think sparring has a sparring is very
beneficial for wrestling um
not like sparring mma is we fight right
sparring in wrestling is so i always
just describe it to be really simple
uh if we're drilling it's relatively
zero percent resistance if we're going
as hard as we can that's 100 percent
there's all this gray area in the middle
that's sparring right and so
you know if you have a good relationship
like you know especially college me and
my brother we could just go and we we
know where each other's at we don't have
to talk about it right but like in my
wrestling club i'll say okay hey i want
you guys to go 50 in this position or i
want the high crotch guy i want him to
shoot and this is for him so i want him
to go 70 and defensive guy wants you to
go 40. so you're not you're not supposed
to be trying to win here you're going to
go later i want you give it give them
some looks you know um so i think i
think it has really taken hold in
america i think it's really beneficial
for success and i think that's
i mean america is doing better than
we've ever done historically well that's
70 and 40 that's like an art form to
find that right place because uh like
what the the really good people i've
trained with they go
much closer to 100
speed wise
or like but without
like forcing things yeah you would when
you're going it's some weird
combination of things that like if you
truly earn a technique
then you're given that technique yeah
yeah but like if you don't you don't
yeah
and then it becomes a much less injury
prone it becomes somehow more fun more
dynamic you don't get stuck in positions
it's just a lot of movement
yeah the one thing so you you and john
talked about the uh you know like
different ways to learn and get better
and so i think john obviously innovated
within the sport of jiu jitsu um
and so for us one and maybe there's just
a differentiator for us
i think about it so excited to interrupt
you have this academy you sent me this
plan that you have like a really well
thought through
plan for how to develop a good wrestler
so but so i think it's um
so for me there's four categories right
there's the teaching which is like you
don't know shit i'm you're coming in and
i'm showing you the move and you're
literally going out there and you're
trying to me that's not even drilling
that's like teaching like you're trying
to learn something
so obviously in someone's earlier
periods they're spending a lot of time
in that phase because they literally
don't even know how to move their bodies
the right way
once you learn the skill then there's
the drilling because you need to you
absolutely have to get those reps to
become really proficient in that
movement and then the sparring and then
the live right and so like i think
obviously by the time you get to the
kind of
end point right but further on
the time you spent teaching is so i
don't wanna say in i'm sorry in the
learn learning teaching phase is not
insignificant but so much smaller
because to someone who's really good who
have coached for 10 years i don't have
to give this big long drawn-out
explanation i just have to say hey move
move your hand a little differently
right or just do this yeah right we
don't spend any time there so i think
that's like something that consumes for
the younger kids say five through 12 or
13 we're consuming a massive amount of
time there on that teaching learning
phase
and then as we get older that time wanes
a lot but that makes total sense right
yeah
it's funny because when you look at like
jiu jitsu schools
they spend a lot of time in the teaching
learning and then the live
it feels like there's not enough
drilling i like how you draw a
distinction there because it feels
it feels like you're always starting
from scratch like people have like very
crappy short-term memory like they
they're not uh
like the way teaching is done is you
show a technique from scratch
and i just it seems disjoint it is for
sure especially if you have a class
that's been with you for a while yeah
you don't have to start from scratch you
can say hey let's focus on this one
little thing here yeah or let's after we
do this let's do that you know you kind
of put start putting it all together and
then with jiu jitsu the thing that i i
really
struggled with was was a couple things
it was um and this is not speaking for
all the gyms my personal experience
through the sport and i actually found
my so when i unretired i found someone
really great that i loved and i really
wish it was mark layman i don't know if
you know him at all i wish i would have
found him earlier because he was just
tremendous um
but number one there's no drilling so
it's like in wrestling i can boil down
to
i can probably name you the best six
moves right so we need as younger people
single leg right same leg's gonna be the
most proficient takedown it always has
been i don't know probably always will
be unless there figures out something
different um
the robot the robot figures i'm
different we're going to shoot the last
single legs why because we're getting
because everyone's going to do that
right we're going to shoot a lot of
single eggs so
just like say an armbar or some type of
sweep right why can't we go get 50 reps
there hey we i mean by the time i've
been in your jiu jitsu school for two
years i better know a fucking arm bar i
better know what so don't don't spend 10
minutes teaching me just tell me to go
hit 50 reps and then if when i'm hitting
my reps if there's something i'm doing
wrong then just say hey ben
move your leg a little bit that way or
raise your hips up a little more right
like correct as you're drilling so
you're getting all these reps at it so
you're becoming more proficient and then
the other thing i really struggled with
was to your point during
live so many times it's just this five
minute go go
go and that's not the most efficient way
to learn because when you have two
people especially when they're focused
on winning and you say go they're gonna
go to whatever they do best well if i'm
trying to make you good at something i
don't want you doing what you do best
all the time i need you doing some other
things right if you have a great single
leg but you can't shoot to the other
side of the body
we need to work on that right right you
need to start shooting the other side
there's some sense that you it's not
like you should be told what to work on
but you should be told to work on the
thing that you want to work on meaning
because i i don't know but maybe you can
comment on this but you know everybody
develops a different game as you get
better and better there's a set of
things you need to be working on so i
actually have uh like when i especially
when i'm like training very seriously
i'll have
a specific technique to have in mind and
i have a
sheet of paper on the side
where i literally my head keep count off
how many times i put myself in that
position and pulled off the technique
and that's all i care about yeah in like
training so i'll just
uh uh whatever it is if it's a
guillotine cigarette arm drag arm drag
but i want to make sure i don't
i love numbers so
i'll say like uh i'll make sure i get 50
arm drags yeah and i'm not getting off
the mat until i do and that you know if
it takes thrilling our live contest uh
so in this in the thing i'm describing
right now is the live contest
but drilling obviously drilling
so i feel like i can't find a drilling
part like it's so hard to find drilling
partners even so boring it's it's
annoying to me that this is boring and
there's nothing more annoying to me than
the look of boredom on another person's
face when we're drawing yeah it's like
do you really think drilling is that
beneficial to you because you said it to
josh yes yes he thinks i'm an idiot but
yes why
why am i am i an idiot or why not really
beneficial
uh let's go with suture explicit
why is it so beneficial
um
i think
for me it's there's a meditative aspect
to it where the more you drill
the more you start noticing
the
the details okay let me let me pull my
new details a little bit here
i'm not gonna push back all the way
because um so every time if i was
wrestling i won't
crash something like whatever right but
even so say like at a high level when
i'm really wrestling 10 years ago um
even during that drill portion if we
talk about the resistance of our
opponent from zero to 100 um
it's very likely that my partner at that
point because people i'm really
comfortable with they're probably at
least going 20 or 30 right they're
probably giving me a certain look with
the sprawl or you know i got to get
through their hands if i if i don't set
it up right they might put their arm
down right so it's like we are drilling
because we're wrestling at a really low
resistance level but there's a little
bit of sparring oh yeah
between yeah yeah yeah so that's not
really drilling because i think a
drilling i think literally you're
shooting and i'm just going to boom your
dummy
it's very hard to be a dummy that
doesn't do twenty percent so you're
gonna do twenty percent yeah that's so
so yes that's twenty percent but that's
like sparring a little bit then
no but they're not really resisting
they're just giving you the right frame
they're they're giving you the right
like movement and they're being they're
being an intelligent dummy essentially i
mean
but also like the really important
component of this is you pick the
techniques for which it's beneficial if
the technique is has dynamic elements to
it you don't want to be doing that with
i'm saying like there's certain moves
and i like those moves and i select the
game based on those moves
are you drilling to get better are you
drawing just to work out no to get
better that's what i'm trying to tell
you i i believe you can become like
exceptionally good very fast by drilling
but how
but
first of all let me let me ask you an
empirical question let me
have you actually drilled
ten thousand times that's gonna move
millions
you haven't drilled millions hundreds of
thousands hundreds of thousands likely i
think you're just saying numbers
i don't think you know what a hundred
thousand it's way more ten thousand i
don't think it's over a hundred thousand
there was a ten year period where i
wrestled every single day that's yeah
that's uh three thousand days so you're
telling me ten thousand that's only
three of them a day i did way more than
that
three of them probably had 30 of them a
day that's that's a hundred thousand
yeah yeah hundreds of thousands i'm i
doubt you get 30 a day for i did four i
am for sure 100
there's no doubt all right because some
days i might do a hundred
right so 30 30 is not very many
especially if we count all reps if we're
counting drilling and live so like our
coach college choices make us just drill
a lot and i always hated it so i would i
would rebel and just kind of give a
little spar you know you shoot a high
crotch we'll start you know coach wants
to draw high grounds okay we'll start
you shoot the high crotch that's great
then i'm gonna sit the corner i'm gonna
give you my hip or i'm gonna you know
i'm gonna try something so then you have
to react and i would argue that
um
all skill level
past like the beginner stuff is is some
necessity of that right i'm gonna do
this then what are you gonna do it's
it's back and forth i should just sing
like what are you gonna do i should
highlight 20 you and you have to start
unconsciously programming these things
in your head because if you consciously
think about it it's going to be too slow
to actually hit in a matter but the
drilling is the unconscious programming
but but the simple movement the
the first simple movement the first
simple movement that single leg or the
high crotch or arm j whatever
like
i feel like the amount you're going to
get better at it is so miniscule
compared to the amount you're going to
gain at doing other things around it
no but that's the key word you feel
okay that's your opinion if we did if we
did a study on it that i would be proven
correct no
perhaps so first of all your brain as an
exceptionally creative
combat athlete it's clear that you don't
like the boredom of drilling like it's
obvious that you that you have like
you're such a creative energy that
you're just not going to be somebody
who's going to enjoy that so enjoyment
is probably
having an active mind is really
important so the the the question is do
you have the kind of makeup that has an
active mind
during a drilling on a dummy and i have
that mind
like yeah you really think okay so if
you're uh let's pick a technique what
technique do you want to draw a lot
i was doing jiu jitsu or wrestling
whatever you want um
it's hard to describe with words but
certain guard passes uh let me let me
think just guar pass okay so you have a
card pass and you get it to be as a 9.5
out of 10 right just from a from a
technical standpoint
don't you think you need some resistance
to feel because essentially all all
benefit after that is going to be what
are they going to try to do to me if
they shift that way do i need to i need
a single year or move there so it's like
i so i i actually think we're agreeing
but maybe terminology wise well the
split is the important thing like how
much of each
so i think it is spar i i think it's a
very light touch bar is what you're
talking about which is in my opinion
really isn't drilling and it's because
drilling past the basic proficiency i
don't think brings much value but that's
what i'm trying to tell you is i think
it does
i think i think um
if you're doing that same movement i
think you begin to learn more over time
like you're saying like once you get the
basic proficiency
then there's uh diminishing returns i
don't yeah so that's what i think i
don't think so i think everything has
diminishing returns when you're learning
a technique but with something as
complex as wrestling or grappling um if
if you can have way more gains over here
why focus on going from a 9.7 to a 9.8
if you if this other area if you're
spending so much time here that there's
other areas left unexplored you can make
gigantic gains over there no but you're
going to lose
i i think a lot depends on your style i
think a lot is determined by
how good you are at one thing
and so if you want to become a master of
a particular thing and then make your
whole game where it's all pulled into
that system then i don't know if one is
too small of a number not yeah it's
small i i feel like you can't be easily
this like
yeah you want you want a funnel you want
to create funnels funnels funnels right
where everything goes into a few
positions and then it's all fields
yeah yeah but i feel
that you can get like
drilling
on a dummy
80 of the time and 20 of the time live
rolling with people worse than you
like a little bit worse than you or a
lot worse yeah so i think so i think i
definitely think so my my build up would
be
um
teach so we're talking complex technique
right so by the time we're talking about
we'll say a late high school kid who's
pretty proficient um he's probably done
the drilling part so then now it's like
okay if i want to get something new to
you i'll probably tell you you'll
probably do the basic premise within
five to ten minutes if they're good
right do this okay they do it then it's
like okay so now here from here what
we're going to do we're going to go
light sparring so i know you have
success because i need you to complete
the task in order to get better at
that's something a lot of people in
wrestling mess up is they just want to
go the toughest person but if you're the
toughest person
you're not going to actually execute on
any skills you're getting your workout
being and i need you to execute because
i need to get good at this in order to
get good you have to get all the way
through the tech why do you need them to
complete just so they gain confidence in
the technique or they go they have to
feel all the way through like if i said
learn a high crotch
when you're drilling with stop halfway
every time but you're not actually gonna
be able to do it because you're gonna
stop you're gonna feel
so you know try it on someone spar
lightly get it do it on someone who's
not as good you get it then kind of work
your way up the ladder until you can get
it on someone your own skill level or
maybe better than you right in in a live
competition so it's like i don't know i
feel like that that basic drilling like
um so a kid like keegan who i brought a
few times like i feel like if there's
something new i could literally tell him
like this is what i want you to do and
he's such a great feel like he could go
drill it proficiently within probably a
minute or two
but then to hit it on someone high level
that's going to take
quite a while longer and that's a mix of
drilling and
sparring on people a little bit worse
than you yeah and then better yeah then
equal and then better yeah okay yeah
because there's there's there's this
with with grappling right there's such
like a feel component to the the
pressure the movement and all these
things and there's still like there's so
many things you can throw at someone out
of one position
not just moves but moves a different
level of force or or whatever
are you and these kids developing like a
big picture strategy of like
what are the
main
setups and takedowns and just like a
whole system
um so we you know i kind of sent you our
technique book right and how we kind of
go and approach it so i think in
wrestling you're going to need
you're going to need a handful of things
just off the off the word go right
you're going to
so i think on our feet i need to build
take this out of the body i need to
build attack that side of the body i
need to be able to bring you underneath
me i need to be able to go around you
right now we can accomplish those
different ways but we should have all
those weapons if we want to be really
good some way right
um so if i neglect one of those so if i
neglect the abilities they pull you down
right from headlock you um now if i have
a good shot and you're smart you're just
going to lower your stance so my shot is
not going to be as successful and i have
the inability to pull you down right so
i kind of need all of those so i can as
they get better i can point those things
out
um on bottom my folks out bottom there's
certain things like you have to be good
at leg ride defense
right you have to i mean
at a high level or you're just go you're
gonna get when you get it in you're just
getting stuck there not gonna be able to
escape um but besides that yeah there's
a there's a multitude of things you can
choose from and i'm gonna depending on
your body style uh and what you're good
and bad at i'm gonna probably develop
something a little different i might
give you hey you do the quad pod you'd
be better with a knee slide whatever
um
yeah and top kind of same thing
i have to ask you about khabib so i
remember a while ago rogan said that uh
that's the perfect fight uh
yeah it could be you are so let me ask
two questions the first
do you think you can beat him in an mma
match when you're at your peak yeah i i
don't like uh yeah i mean this is one of
those people where people like will get
really mad at me if i say yes but yeah i
mean how would you do it how would you
solve that puzzle yeah uh
i mean we would grapple and i think i
would be better than him but you know i
i feel weird saying because people like
yeah i write your bullshit you know and
but that's no no one out grappled them
right i mean nobody did and maybe i'm
wrong on this but i if we will get the
best possible candidates i'm definitely
one of them and obviously i have a small
size advantage too
so in a wrestling match so we can just
reduce that mma match to a wrestling
match what do you think is the right
strategy on him like do you understand
his style that
the
the the his wrestling style the pressure
he applies do you understand yeah how
the hell he makes it happen
yeah i mean
he never unfortunately fought any real
who i would say really really high level
wrestlers i was actually really
disappointed how bad justin gaich's
wrestling was because just engage he had
some solid success
but justin was really bad in that fight
um gaetje has success at uh
yeah i think he was seventh place
maybe or so somewhere he was definitely
all american uh it was lower though
um
so yeah i would i would like to see how
he dealt with someone who was like who i
think oh man this guy's a really high
level wrestler because you know we saw
and this is early in his career but you
know grayson tebow did give him some
issues earlier in his career um
so i would like to see him in that
situation and see how he does i would
love to like you know i i just love
wrestling and grappling like yeah i'd
love this someone said hey ben
you know khabib wants to roll with you
okay i'm there tomorrow it sounds like a
blast let's go
it's probably competitive as hell
yeah
you're still competitive i know when to
be and when not to be like you know say
if i'm going to high school kids they're
not going to be competitive because
then i'm just being a dick how would you
take him down
what what i'm a real wrestler like
wrestling wrestling wrestling wrestling
i would probably try to text single eggs
and stuff sing legs yeah
i haven't okay
no no i mean i have no i've honestly i
don't have the slightest clue i'd have
to feel i'd feel them out um but single
leg's my best takeaway people talk about
his wrestling being really good the
people that train with him so okay so i
i grilled someone i will not say who on
the ed ruth think ed ruth is very elite
at folk style wrestling he never became
that great at fighting unfortunately
wait ed ruth wrestled khabib they were
on the same team for a while yeah okay
and there was rumors that could be beat
him up and i said i
sure can't believe that and i've heard
that that was
if they were just straight wrestling ed
would get slightly the better of it well
edwards is like one of the greats he's
great he's really good
yeah so that was what i heard
but in an mma setting because of all the
tools that khabib would get them
i don't know
but it what but i agree i agree with
rogan on this one that would have been
good to see yeah i'm fine so yeah if
kaby wants to work out i'd love it i
love i love wrestling and grappling i
don't do much juju because i don't have
time for it anymore i'm at the wrestling
academy like every single day
uh but yeah i i love jiu jitsu while i
did it and you know if i didn't have
wrestling cameras i probably would still
be doing jiu jitsu yeah you did well and
you just as well but
let me ask you a ridiculous question
who's the greatest of all time freestyle
or folk style oh wrestling wrestling hmm
well i i will say my knowledge past like
the year 2000 is
really
not that great because you can which
direction sorry after 2000 no before
because you can't find any film or
anything you know and so you hear
involvement so you need evidence you
need direct evidence i want to be able
to watch them and see them and feel the
times and feel their opponents and you
know all those things to really like i i
hate giving bad answers you know so um i
would
i there's just not enough footage of any
of those people you know we go back to
someone like alexander medved
like you can't find footage you can't
find anything on him you know it's like
who is he wrestling you know i'm not
sure so
um
post 2000 i think and also just
freestyle so
um americans right it's just the tf has
the probably the best argument posted i
think said july of um if you guys have
the russian tank that guys yeah yeah so
who's who's better snyder or such alive
so sigil i just wanted the olympics i
understand this i understand how that
works but there's pretty close right
not really not not that much but in
general the match up so well so kyle won
the first one in 17 said july i have
pinned him the following year but then
kyle lost and took bronze in 19 um and
then just lost i don't want i don't want
to say fairly decisively but it was it
was six to three and that there was a
late takedown he kind of gave it up and
maybe
feels really competitive maybe he
wouldn't have um
they're gonna wrestle again in like two
weeks here so that you know yeah i mean
you have to say said july at this point
there's nothing else to say unless kyle
proves us otherwise
yeah not enough people talk about said
you're live okay why
you think that guy should go to mma i
think kyle should go to mma some of
these guys yeah they're making enough
money in wrestling where they don't
really feel the need to it's just
terrifying though it's a heavy weight
such a life would probably it's like
it's like could be but heavy weight well
i don't know if you remember do you
remember bill mahoff sabilal makhov
actually was the russian representative
in both styles in 2016 gregoire and
freestyle um
and he was to my knowledge the only
person the ufc's ever signed that was
zero and z in modern era signed that was
zero and zero and then he actually never
ended up fighting
but weird right
so yeah my motivation i i don't know i
don't know what the story is because
sometimes out of russia i mean maybe
better sources than i do sometimes it
feels like dudes just disappear like
they're a world champ or a little big
champion i'll say you're like wait i
didn't
where'd he go you talked shit about
russia earlier in the conversation so
what'd i say i i forgot but i think
steroids i think somebody's gonna show
up to your door i'm worried i honestly
i've said enough bad things where i
would be you know kind of looking over
my shoulder if i went to the science or
something
uh i for one love the russians what
about icarus
how does that make you feel what about
it it's fake news oh really i'm just
kidding it's
yeah
you know it's troublesome man i hate
cheating in all of its forms
uh any other like recaps from the
olympics of uh 2020 tokyo that stood out
to you gable stevenson like anything
like that yeah um no i think america is
coming to the point where we're going to
compete with russia every single year in
wrestling which obviously you know
i a long long time ago many many we did
we were great and then kind of after
that soviet union period i think there
was a lot of poverty in that area and
that kind of led the wrestling team
going down a little bit and then
obviously a lot of those regions
where they found
oil and gas in the caspian sea i believe
and they've been
um really kind of on the upswing for the
last 20 years and now uh america really
since 2012 has been on the upswing in
wrestling and we're kind of really
competing with them and they're not
sending a couple of their best guys at
top so so for those who don't know the
olympics i put back in the year so they
are hosting the 2021 world championships
despite the fact that we just had the
olympics two months ago so it's
happening next week in oslo norway so
like russia is not sending their number
one at 57 and number 165 so it's like
america's probably gonna win i think i
don't want to guarantee anything but
there's there's a really good chance
jake taylor also competing america gave
any of the olympians that meddled the
opportunity to not even have to wrestle
off they just got to keep the spot since
it was two months later if they meddled
so the only one who's not as gable
gable's moving on we have a pretty good
guy behind him named nick was dallas he
was a world medalist uh but then he said
burroughs filled in the 79 spot
jayden cox filled in the 92 spot who's a
world champion also so we have uh uh
it's a hell of a team pretty good squad
yeah
pretty good squad
okay
so given your run in bellator in one
championship that was like one of the
most dominant runs in mma
what would you say was like key to your
dominance and that long undefeated
streak
huh
i i'd probably con consistency would be
one the fact that
i just i lived and trained the same way
no matter where my life was whereas a
lot of fighters once they start making
money for the first time they have all
these obligations and they travel and
they they really enjoy making money and
that's kind of why some of them
fall off she had like the same process
like the same yeah
my house i didn't vacation ever yeah
everything just no you know i
and so that was a big part of it um
obviously the the style thing is like no
one could there's only a few people who
could stop my style
um
and i think i continued to get better as
a mixed martial artist and
um
i wasn't as innovative in mixed martial
arts but there was a handful of things
that i innovated you know specifically
in the top position where i spent a lot
of time where just like there was just
once that got on top of you it was like
in a spider web and there was just kind
of no way out you know you never felt
the certain things i was doing and so
people just think hey they gave up
eventually how's the level of wrestling
in mma would you say
so
uh i i saw somewhere like champions the
the most popular martial art for current
ufc champions they're all wrestling so
we just lost a bunch of the bells
wrestling wrestling as a sport right but
yeah one point we had i think it was
eight of nine maybe or something to that
effect uh and i think i think it's not
just wrestling not just the actual
martial art of wrestling that
contributes to
our success in mixed martial arts but
other things like this the way we're
systemized so
most kids who each have assists have
went through the high school program and
the college program and they know how to
show up on time and they know how to
work hard so when they go to att or aka
or wherever they know how to show up on
time and they know how to work hard and
that's going to get you a really long
way just those two things right not even
the techniques it's just the disciplines
those things then i think you throw on
top of the fact that most of us have
competed
1500 to 2000 times probably by the time
we get to 20 something like that's a
huge advantage too most of these other
people from other disciplines maybe have
completed 100 if if that right so we
have this competitive process down
really really really really well
um plus the weight cut the weight cut
there's all these things right that
factor into it um i think the fact that
we're really open-minded like i think if
you would
i don't pick on jiu-jitsu again but like
how many jiu jitsu guys have become
highly proficient in wrestling versus
how many wrestling guys have become
highly proficient in jiu jitsu i think
that number swings one way and not that
much the other way you know
so
we're open to adapting and learning and
and for some reason like jiu jitsu
people how many of them have got high
level wrestling or even mediocre
wrestling and the number's really small
like they refuse to it's really
frustrating
like why won't they do this is obviously
a part of it you know if like i don't
pick on specific guys but there's
certain guys in the history of mma where
you're like
listen man i mean damien maya who uh
who's my last fight is a great example
somebody actually did get proficient
wrestling right
but there's something that's jude you
guys was like if you just got on top you
would submit him why can't you learn a
freaking takedown like holy moly like
just just learn how to take someone down
once you get them down they will not get
up
and you win the fight like it's so easy
you know but they refuse how complicated
is that journey so like uh donahue that
you mentioned yeah craig jones they're
big on
wrestling as part of justin now yeah
like wrestling not just on the feet but
wrestling from the bottom coming up and
all that kind of
stuff so how difficult is that whole
skill set would you say for jiu-jitsu
person to learn um not that hard if they
really put their mind to because they
already like when you grapple and this
is any grappling art like there's a
certain part of it that you kind of get
and it can it might not be the exact
same thing but you understand how your
body moves and how to feel certain
pressures and you can adapt yourself
pretty quickly you know so i don't think
that i think there's a certain level of
stubbornness where they didn't want to
certain people didn't want to do it for
whatever reason
i think a lot of times
in mma it's the i'm so macho i can stand
and bang thing you know where they want
to you know show how macho they are um
but yeah that was a frustrating one that
they it there's a lot of wrestlers who
became highly proficient in jiu jitsu
and really adapted and it doesn't go the
other way and then i guess the other
thing there too is um
they can both steal from each other
right as
any martial art can steal from another
and like i feel like jujitsu didn't do
enough stealing from wrestling like they
should have looked at all the wrestling
possible and said
well why why don't we steal that and
that and that you know and like hey
let's take that over and maybe we'd make
a little tweak because it's different
but there's something we can definitely
use there so like in wrestling
for example you know there's a one-armed
guillotine in jujitsu right
okay so there's a move called well it's
got a hurricane it's like the oldest
move in wrestling because it's what they
did the cows where they go around the
chin and they throw them on their back i
don't really call that one i don't know
okay
sorry did you just ask me what i call
that one yeah would you take a cow and
grab it by the no no
no but in wrestling in wrestling i don't
know
okay are you putting it under yeah so
you grab their chin and then you go
under their arm and then throw them
underneath okay gotcha yeah yeah so we
call that the honey badger but it's got
honey badger different names wherever
you go it's got different names um
so i would always i would say like
pre-jiu-jitsu i was i was average at it
like i could do it i but against good
people you'd never get it first because
i'll tell you what exactly because they
would get the back of their head up and
they're too strong where you couldn't
collapse them by going over their neck
right because the forces weren't right
so then in jiu jitsu you learn the one
arm guillotine where you grab their chin
and this is more of running along the
side of their head and then and then you
go here and you choke them right
much more efficient way to move their
head because the fulcrum is way down
here and their head can move into that
right so once i learned that in jiu
jitsu i'm like wait
i can do this in wrestling
so now once i learn how to grab their
chin the right way and i do the honey
badger no one ever gets out i just had
to steal that jiu jitsu put in wrestling
and boom there we go but very few people
steal any direction that takes
creativity really and open minds so easy
because it's already done you just got
to steal it i mean saying with judo if
you're a geek you're just a person
there's so much stuff in judo that um
that's ripe for the stealing because uh
judo is much more emphasizes uh
explosive
uh moves on the transition which is
something gestured does not do because
you have seen from the takedown to from
the takedown but also just in general
just in the transition the concept of
transition the um
like it just is very much about like
we're in this position then we're in
this position then we're in this
position yeah the the the judo is much
more
in when it when there's chaos of any
kind yeah that's when you need to strike
them and to learn that i mean that's why
people like travestines and judoka when
they go to jiu-jitsu they can dominate
but
just the people should
steal that too stubborn
yeah but so is every wrestlers are
stubborn too
no way
there would never be any stubborn
wrestlers well i mean i was surprised
you know all these coaches john smith
dan gable
they don't really have interest in mma
or jiu jitsu and so on
like but you would think somebody like a
john smith would like
put on a white belt and roll around yeah
i think he's just too focused on you
know well he's a coach he's a coach and
what he's doing yeah i mean yeah i think
if you if you take him when he's younger
he would have a lot of fun we actually
have a really good wrestler making his
mma debut tomorrow and if you bow nickel
i'm sure you've heard of him very high
level i think he's going to have a lot
of success
i mean some people might say that like
jiu jitsu makes you a little comfortable
being in your back and for a wrestler
that could be like really bad i hate
that take yeah but that that's the dan
gable take it's so stupid it's so stupid
for god's sakes we know the fucking
rules
russell you don't go to your back and
jiu-jitsu you can it's like whatever
yeah nobody likes to jujutsu for example
um so i coached when i was at rufus i
coached the wrestling for a long three
four five years um so i've been taking a
jiu jitsu guy
and teaching them a wrestling technique
where
you needed to use your feet
to teach youtube guys so easy so simple
because they're they don't understand
the concept butterfly guard etcetera
etcetera etcetera right to take a
wrestler
who's never done any of it and teach him
how to use his feet oh my god it's such
a beast it's so hard you know because
they just that's not a weapon they're
thinking about using so it's like
we understand the rules it's like
freestyle folks are wrestling freestyle
form on the map i can lock my hands you
don't see people lock on their hands all
the time in folk style just because they
did freestyle it's like they they get it
there's a rule they understand it so the
notion that
somebody comes from on your back but
pinning that's like a
it has a special meaning yeah
but i actually think so jiu jitsu you uh
you don't actually want to be
right flat flat very often right you
want to be i always wondered this
because i did a couple of catch
wrestling tournaments and i did i would
put myself in butterfly
guard
and
i wasn't going against good people so
which is why i was doing all these
things but i wondered if you could
create a system of wrestling where your
butterfly card so i think that there's
there's a few places where i use it but
so specifically the elevator series
which my main suits off bottom it is
it's not a butterfly guard it's a
butterfly guard like grip with your foot
so i boom i go here i catch with my your
leg with my foot boom and it elevates
you over right um and then also
sometimes like uh
i think keegan does it too from watching
me but if i get double leg sometimes uh
if i'm accepting uh so freestyle
obviously you're gonna give a point
focus on accepting that you've already
got me and as i go down i'm just gonna
butterfly guard you off you know and
then i'm gonna try to flip my hip back
to the mat and end up in a wizard
position
like i've used that quite a few times
where it's kind of like a bailout
mechanism that gets me back to
maybe not a great position but obviously
much better than being taken down
beautiful yeah let me ask you quickly
about crypto because you're also you
have a you have a show you uh you have a
lot of interest in cryptocurrency
why are you interested in cryptocurrency
is it just a financial investment or is
there a philosophy that attracts you to
it philosophy so i
my friend told me about in 2017 i was
actually i went to i was i was uh my
friend met me in shanghai i fought in
one championship um and he told me and
the second he told me i'm like
i'm so in because i had read ron paul
and the fed
i read i you know kind of had
understanding how the fed is
unfair
um and so we told him about crypto this
decentralized system that no one has
control over
it just made sense and so like we've had
you have the podcast we would say
michael sailor on and i love the wasted
it's like who do you trust more with
your money you trust the politicians or
do you trust engineers
i think that's an easy choice i don't
even think i don't even think i have to
think about that i don't trust
politicians no matter what country they
come from china america wherever i don't
trust them so what about uh into in uh
2017 what was bitcoin
are you um
what do you what do you find which ones
do you find interesting
yeah there's all kinds of ideas so
there's the the the more
sort of
primal mechanism of proof-of-work and
bitcoin and then there's smart contracts
ideas and
uh there's all kinds of innovations
across the different uh
so i can't say i'm yeah i'm in super
deep where i understand the technical
components of a lot of them i understand
what bitcoin can do for people and so
that's probably the one i've i focused
the most on
um and i actually
i think i was talking about i was trying
to convince michael to talk about
bitcoin because he hates it also wait
dinner last night and i think most of
the main problems bitcoin solves
people in america are so
american-centric they don't understand
it so like high levels of inflation that
hasn't happened what's starting to
happen it hasn't happened in america in
a long time right but someone in
venezuela is like oh i get that
you know or remittance payments right
remittance payments to
you see it so i saw this in um when i
was spending time in singapore singapore
is obviously a really wealthy country
and so you'd have indonesian workers or
philippines and they would all go on
sundays they would go to these places to
ship stuff back to their families and
through western union western union
couches the shit out of these people i
mean they're taking 8 10 12 of whatever
they're sending then it takes five days
and the person's gonna pick it up
whereas bitcoin i could send you bitcoin
person to person right so like american
people don't understand that american
people don't really understand the
unbanked right a decent portion of the
world is unbanked they don't have access
to it and a much much much smaller
portion of the world doesn't have access
to internet so if i can put a mobile
wallet on your phone and we can send
money person to person so there's a
whole bunch of those problems where
americans don't really think about that
are really obvious that this solves
um so i think that's the key one
obviously the fact that i'm
the value goes up is really outstanding
also but i but if you look at it
yeah i got in in 2017 so i got to watch
it go up i didn't sell shit at the top
really stupid and then the majority of
my time was spent through the bear
market and so i had to love it for the
principles that it provided not the fact
that actually i actually lost money in
the beginning and not now i'm way up but
um yeah so you're just holding just
holding i think at the top of this bull
market i'll probably sell a very small
portion
um just so you mean like right now
there's a bull market
yeah most most people think say in the
next three to six months will be at the
top of the market and so probably when
that happens uh i'll probably sell a
little bit
you gotta huddle it ben you got a hot
well yeah so i well i don't here's why i
am so my pot one of my podcast co-hosts
he's he's like super rich like uber rich
so he has lost touch with the every man
yeah so here's my argument to him it's
really simple um and listen i'm doing
well for myself in life but
if say someone buys a bitcoin right one
bitcoin five thousand dollars which it
was last year and this bitcoin goes from
five thousand dollars to two hundred
thousand dollars which is you know right
around what a lot of people think the
peak is going to be they bought one
bitcoin and they're living in a 200 000
house so
to take
half of that right you started with five
thousand dollars of bitcoin to sell half
a bitcoin
for a hundred thousand dollars and pay
off your house your remaining house
payment that's life-changing to someone
it really is and so you still have a
bitcoin so if bitcoin goes to a million
you're still gonna have half a million
and you're gonna feel really really rich
with it half a million dollars because
you bought it for for f and twenty five
hundred dollars you know yeah so yeah so
i would encourage anyone who's not uber
rich to if you have huge profits take a
little bit of them because it could
change your life
and if you hold it and it goes down
you're going to feel the pain of that
like
sometimes if you're more constrained
financially
it's much more psychologically difficult
to ride the wood the ups and downs yeah
it is for sure they have this really
fascinating things in bitcoin actually i
said the guy on uh one of the main guys
on our podcast is it's called on chain
metrics so all all wallet transactions
are visible you know and so they have
these all these fun categories i love so
i actually i think you said you don't
like numbers but i like numbers
i love numbers also so they have all
these different categories like um you
can see how long a wallet has held a
bitcoin right or how many bitcoins are
in a certain wallet and so what they've
seen during this the downturn right so
april it kind of peaked and went down is
that the the whales are still boston
whales people have a thousand or more
are still buying
they've said the main group of sellers
is the ones who held it from zero to
three months so like they don't have
money they bought it because they
thought it was going up and i was like
oh shit i gotta sell it right whereas
anyone's head out for a long time is
generally still holding on that's
interesting that's a good indicator
right for the whole space yeah well let
me ask you for some advice you've been
through one heck of a career one heck of
a life what advice would you give to a
young person today
well in wrestling i
i think wrestling is really a microcosm
of what your life's going to be and
that's why one of the things that i
stress to kids is like
if we can go through this now and figure
i i've couple kids you're struggling
certain things around if you can figure
out this now in wrestling
to be a lot better figure out now and
get over this mental hump then when
you're 32 and you have two kids and
right and your job's not going well it's
gonna be a lot worse it's gonna be a lot
more painful then let's let's fucking
figure it out now so a lot of these
things a lot of these lessons we can
learn from wrestling whether it's
persistence or perseverance or work
ethic or you know i said wrestles show
up on time and they work hard right
these things if we can learn these
things at an early age those are general
those characteristics characteristics
will generally carry on
throughout our life and those are the
things that are going to make us really
successful so um
you know i would say find a great coach
someone who's gonna spend a lot of time
and put a lot of time into you and make
sure they have a lot of wisdom and
steal all the wisdom that you can from
them and then though if you can be
successful at one thing generally
whatever that recipe was that took you
to be successful with that apply to
everything else
right apply to the rest of your life
apply it to uh getting a wife that you
enjoy uh apply it to
living in a place you want to live doing
a job you want to do right there's so
many possibilities
and you just have to be bold enough to
take those chances it's interesting
because like early on in life is when
you have much more time like people
don't realize this time to learn the
lessons
like somehow later in life
you get busier responsibilities and all
that kind of stuff like high school is a
magical time in college college yeah
yeah there's so much time
right learn well you don't even have
kids yet yeah i don't have kids
still fills up well no i on purpose and
i did something that many people don't
seem to be able to do i walked away from
a lot of responsibilities just
by saying goodbye oh okay but like but
you know meetings like everybody around
me at mit was like
meetings fill the day and then you have
more projects and you do a great job and
you become successful and then the more
meetings fill the day and more
responsibilities as opposed to like wait
a minute do i want to be involved in all
these things
uh and
instead do i want to
find one or two things to really focus
on and
that's what i choose but like yeah that
becomes harder and harder and harder to
get older you know what i mean i'm sure
and and also the more success you have
you become sought after other places
yeah too i'm sure that's happening with
you and it's hard to say keep saying no
no no
it's hard yeah yeah
you're known for roasting people
with a single boom roasted line so uh
any ideas maybe you want to mention
malice but any ideas come to uh mine
when you look at me
man i do you know what uh if i was gonna
boom roast someone i would want to kind
of like research their career and
dissect them and figure out their
biggest get to the core and i did i
didn't have that notion with you i
figured i
got a general sense of okay he's really
successful he's super sharp uh he's
really interested in some really
interesting things i bet we'll have a
great conversation but i had no
intention to roast you yeah there you go
what about mouse you had dinner with him
last night hmm for him
oh man
um how'd you get to know him by the way
just twitter where's the most magical
place in the world right i always tell
you it's a great source of information
if you know how to use it um
hmm
he's insane on twitter actually he saw i
had to unfollow him on twitter because
he it was too intense too much just too
much too much it fills up like i want to
be able to consume the content so if i
want to see something he says i can go
to his page right
but it's just too much for my timeline i
want to be able to consume who i follow
so i try to not follow a lot of people
because i want to be able to consume
them um and he was he was too much he he
fights the trolls which uh
i don't know why we would ever fight the
trolls there's just too many of them
well he's the troll himself he's like
the big troll fighting the little trolls
he's the king troll there's a million of
them so even if you kill if you kill a
hundred thousand they're still not a
hundred thousand left did you just keep
calling he's gonna ignore him it's the
like the night walker or whatever yeah
well i'll take it because you had
nothing um you could you couldn't roast
gsp out of respect too yeah so i'm just
gonna take that as a sign what do you
say bad about gsp
now i try to roast his hair like why are
you trying to grow grow hair now after
all these years he looked good bald
everyone loved him with his head shaved
yeah now it looks kind of strange like
why you got hair now well it was uh one
of the more surreal moments of my life
is so he was here and he wore a black
suit and tie
oh really yeah we did the podcast with
him just mirror image of me
and then we also did uh i haven't
released it yet but just a video
together and i was doing a martial arts
stuff in a suit and tie
that was quite sick that was quite uh
that that's like
like certain moments in your life are
just like
i can't believe i was part of that yeah
from uh with gsp uh so yeah i don't
think i have anything to roast him about
um i mean maybe the matt sarah thing
would be the one that you could get him
with you know but uh yeah i would be i
would be really fascinated like really
dig deep uh from a sports psychology
standpoint because he always talks about
how much fear he had when he was
competing and i and i find that to be
interesting because obviously so it's
almost like to me it's almost like
was he successful
despite that not because of that right
and because anxiety usually leads it
really negative performance for the
majority of people and what was it about
him that the anxiety wasn't super
negative you know what i'm saying like
it's it's very interesting i wonder that
too so i have
i wanted that about him but i have a
huge amount of anxiety interacting
especially with people just about
everything yeah i wonder if that's
helpful or or not it feels like it's
very helpful well i think so it's okay i
think in two different so i think uh
probably your everyday life okay is
different than like in a performance or
a competition it's you have to be like
super in the moment of what you're doing
so anything that's pulling you away like
oh my gosh
high school kids right that coach oh my
gosh my that girl's in the stands and if
i get beat then and they're actually
they're actively thinking about this
other thing when this is going on and i
need a hundred percent of your focus
well here he's never i don't think he
has anxiety in the ring that's the point
i think like
i have the same thing like if i have a
really high performance thing
that i have to do uh i don't know let
you in front of a lot of people yeah
that would be a great example
that there's huge amount of anxiety
weeks ahead days ahead hours ahead so
you have a system to get rid of it then
maybe but it's just the body gets rid of
it somehow yeah there's not a system
subconscious system yeah it's so you
don't you don't actually have anxiety
while you're performing so that's like
so then that problem somehow that
problem has solved itself right the
problem is when the anxiety is actually
happening while the wrestling match is
happening that's the real issue yeah but
it's it like sneaks in there too is
that's the difference between mma in
wrestling is there's no breaks in
wrestling right yeah i guess there is
you can look at the crowd a little bit
like you can look so maybe maybe but
like the there's other things we have to
perform
well there's more breaks like a lecture
you can catch yourself thinking like in
this conversation you know yeah like
i'll i've said a bunch of stuff where i
think
why the hell would you say that that's
dumb right that that's the anxiety
because there's a pause
and that that that could be um i don't
know i i think it just pushes me to be
better but maybe i could be way better
if i'll go that yeah it's scary to think
that jsp if you let go that way
because he didn't even better yeah or
did he ever did did he have like you're
saying like
you don't necessarily feel those so i
think certain people that i've coached
like they would describe how they would
feel literally during the wrestling
match right and you're saying like
during the
speech performance it's mostly gone yep
and that's that's it'll be interesting
to see if like
you know he talked a lot about that but
if it was all if it was all the way
somehow gone and he it means he would
have a mechanism for it so i had a
really bad performance my freshman year
of high school at nationals
because i had i had the ability to be
anxious and what my coaches talked about
like and a lot of a type personalities
are kind of that way you know because
they're trying to consider all
possibilities at the same time and
and while we're actually performing or
competing it's negative to performance
right um so he said
he would always leading up to the match
within say an hour he would his name was
talking about fishing he would get
someone to talk about fishing with him
because they would stop him thinking
about the match and and being uber
anxious so i i kind of really took that
hard and it really helped me as i would
always like have someone to talk to and
just just goof around about whatever so
i'm not thinking about this thing and
then once i step in it's time to go so i
didn't have this like anxious buildup
and that was how for me i took it away
but like me you know like you said you
have
a way to get it away obviously because
yeah i guess so i guess there's little
little tricks you come up with yeah you
start thinking about it's not fishing
maybe i should try the fishing thing but
i hate fishing so boring
well maybe maybe it's good to think
about that
all right ben this is uh like i told you
i'm a big fan i'm a big fan of your
wrestling your fighting your personality
uh thank you for coming down thank you
for talking today
huge honor
bam let's go wrestle
thanks for listening to this
conversation with ben askren to support
this podcast please check out our
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me leave you with some words from
muhammad ali
only a man who knows what it is like to
be defeated can reach down to the bottom
of his soul and come up with the extra
ounce of power it takes to win when the
match is even
thank you for listening and hope to see
you next time
you