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 the record of 19 and 0 before

losing to Jorge Mazvedal with the flying knee that caught everyone by surprise.

He's also into cryptocurrency, disc golf, and is the cohost of Flow Wrestling Radio

Live.

This is Alex 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?

Well, I thought, I mean, I was in bias.

I thought Tyron one, I had five rounds of three, and 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, but that was the only thing I would give him.

And I guess a lot of people just didn't see it that way.

They thought he landed more significantly more punches.

I just didn't think I really did any damage.

It was a split decision.

Split decision.

Yeah.

Were you surprised?

Well, it was the thing, so the thing I said when I went in to fight him, I said, maybe

he's good.

Maybe he's not.

We really have no idea to this point, you know?

And so I knew Tyron was a lot better boxing than I was.

And so I thought, okay, Tyron's, I think he's a good likely that Tyron beats him up.

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.

And if you saw it 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 a elite level athlete, combat athlete, lost

to somebody who just takes it really seriously, but is nevertheless not elite level?

Hmm.

But I think boxing is a really specific rule set.

So I'll speak about Tyron, not myself.

Tyron had good striking, but obviously it was his first boxing match ever.

And within mixed martial arts, you have 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 career, 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 in mixed martial arts where as boxing there's

only one.

If it was his first fight, yes, I thought Tyron was going to win.

I thought this was going to 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.

How did ten times, how many times do you think Jake wins?

I guess Tyron.

I guess Tyron.

Hmm.

If they fight again and again and again, like iterative.

Yeah.

So I mean, part of the thing is, okay, so Jake's corner said you need to knock out going into

the eighth round, right?

So I think they thought, maybe they're trying to motivate him, but I don't see it 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 clearly 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.

And I feel like Tyron thought maybe he was winning and didn't have the urgency necessary.

And so I think there's a chance he turns it up a lot.

Hmm.

Man, I would want to watch him again before I, so I have this problem with my personality.

Here's my personality, Lex.

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.

So I would like to see them go once more because I would like to see, hey, can Tyron, if, because

if Tyron can turn the pace and Jake can't handle it, then I think it's an eight, one

or nine, two, right?

If it goes the exact same way and maybe Tyron was a close split decision, I'm saying, oh,

it's probably going to be close every single time.

We're probably going to 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 going to look like.

I feel like Tyron would get a knockout and then you would still be in the same place.

Like not, not knowing, not knowing what to predict.

Yeah.

Okay.

So your fight with Jake Paul, looking back, you ever had a little bit of time now.

How would you analyze that fight?

Oh, well, I mean, the fight specifically, I got cracked with an overhand right.

So I mean, it kind of sucks.

I would say, you know, and this is where I was like, I don't, I really don't care.

And everyone's like, why would you get me to turn to your reputation?

It's like, well, I wanted to do it.

I had an enjoyable time training and in the buildup.

Obviously, I wasn't skillful enough to, to get the win.

I did it even, even despite the fact that I know what's going to happen, 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 starting, 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 going to double my net worth, but it's going to add significantly and 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.

We didn't have something going on Friday night.

Me and my buddies would get together and we had some boxing goes to my base and we'd

punch each other in the head.

So it's like, for something I think is enjoyable and not going 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, let's see.

Probably not very good.

I think he's pretty good actually and I'm not very good.

Now it's probably at a low point for me because, so when I started training for that, I was

like 215 pounds, which is the heaviest I've ever been.

I came off my hip surgery.

Like when I said, yes, like I'll do it, like I literally started working out like the week

before for the first time in my, you know, it's just a surgery because I wasn't able

to do anything.

So could I, could I perform better?

Yeah.

But now after watching him box Tyron, like if you ask me, Ben, can you beat Tyron?

Probably not.

But I don't think I can beat Tyron.

So in boxing.

In boxing.

Correct.

In boxing.

Yeah.

So my chances of beating him, you know, and watching that card, it's like, damn, like,

it's kind of be fun to box someone who I know sucks, who I know can beat.

That's what would be fun, you know, because like the training, the preparation was fun.

But then obviously, I got my butt kicked that sucked, you know, because we're on this podcast.

Yeah, of course.

Okay.

Well, I was going to drop an F5, but I wasn't quite sure.

I think it sucked.

Is this where you could, you could drop all, all of the F bombs you want.

So preparation wise, do you think you were more prepared for that fight or the, the Jordan

boroughs exhibition?

I mean, like, how did you approach it mentally?

You know?

Well, the boroughs thing, I, I obviously, it's okay.

So when I retired the first time in 2017, boroughs was the only current, like, we'll

say really elite level wrestling that I'd never trained with.

I was really good friends with the Nebraska head of the coach, still am.

And I said, Hey, I just want, I'm going to pay my own way.

I want to come down and train with Jordan because I want to see what it feels like.

You know, I want to, I want to get in there and mix it up.

I've mixed it up with David Taylor and Kyle Dake.

I mean, there's just something about 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

he is.

What was the like training with him?

Like what, can you give some insights?

Yeah, of course.

Like what the, like how hard is the, the live training?

Is it more drilling?

Is it technical?

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 only went full live for one, I think it was like a 12 or 15 minute go where it was

just go wrestle.

We did a bunch of simulated live, but obviously he, he had, so I was a senior in college and

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, 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, when was the chest strap, it wasn't my headlock, one was, uh,

I don't know, it's called the, we called the lightning dump, but it's a lightning dump.

Yeah.

So 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 don't know, right?

Great name.

It's a good name.

So, uh, yeah.

But so what I said with that is like, he was still trying to be the best in the world.

I was just trying to go work out Jordan Burroughs cause I enjoyed wrestling, um, is like someone

who at that point when he has five world titles at that four or five at that point a lot.

And so I use it in my high school kids is like, Hey, this is the guy who's the best in

the world, who's bringing someone in and saying, well, how do I do this?

How do I do that?

What about this?

What about that?

And so the level of inquisitive, inquisitive, 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 going to add anything to my game, you know, whereas you've seen

many progressions in Jordan Burroughs game, he just made his 10th world team.

And you, yeah.

And I, you know, if you have a really keen eye, you've been able to watch him change.

You know, so I've been watching him since 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?

Cause he's, he's got that double leg.

Yeah.

I didn't get that one anymore.

Was that?

He like hit his double leg for the first time against Alex Deer, he hadn't hit it in years.

Hmm.

Yeah.

So that's like, when people think about Jordan Burroughs, they think about the double leg

because in his early years, fire, he had a great double leg, right?

And even in the, so in those years, I would say the, the biggest thing with Jordan Burroughs

double leg wasn't 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 it would be from fun, creative angles and out of scams, boop,

all things on you, you know, and it was 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 the, one of the first world championships

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 or the other way.

Then he started developing really good, like low single ankle pick type thing, you know,

and then his hand, 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 is like, holy shit, like just not from an athletics standpoint, 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

beat him?

And if you can beat him, well, of course you can beat him.

Yeah.

How do you solve the Jordan Barrow's problem?

Well, so for a, a folks out wrestling standpoint, folks out, so, you know, he, he had some competitive

matches, a junior senior year, he had a two one win over, or maybe three, two over Michael

Chandler, who was my teammate who's fighting, you'll see now, he had a two and one over

title called well.

So I think you can glean some insight into that, you know, he got ridden, he got so mad

about this up on the podcast.

So during Corona, 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, he wanted to come on the podcast the next day.

So hopefully he doesn't listen to this like, fuck you, man.

You know, but you know,

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, you know, Michael Chandler wrote him for two minutes plus and that was his junior

year, not a senior year, sure, right, but it's close.

So I think there's some things there.

I think the interesting thing would be if, if I would have stuck around, right?

So I chose to go into mixed martial arts after a dozen eight, I would have been 74 and he

would have been 74.

So we would have had a 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

at freestyle than he was at folk style, you know, although he was very good, he's better.

This is like raw speed, explosiveness, present a problem to you.

Well, so he was never, I mean, he didn't really excel on the mat in kind of either style in

freestyle.

He has got some good lace transitions, but in folk style, like his whole, like in his

entire college career, I think he has like 10 pins, which is almost nothing, you know?

So he was getting 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 really 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 want to say never, but the amount of times he gets turned

is incredibly rare, very, very rare.

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?

Where we're only doing takedowns.

So yeah.

Were you surprised that he lost to Dake in the trials, to Kyle Dake?

Oh, Kyle's so, so he's so good, right?

I mean, I think, I think his performance in the Olympics was, was, his loss then was,

was shocking to, I mean, we noticed that happened to Kyle Dake, you know?

He's been a guy who's competed with Jordan Burroughs for ever, and obviously he was on

the losing side for a while, and now he's on the winning side.

But I think a lot of people thought it was a coin flip, and I think actually Kyle Dake

made it feel like it's not a coin flip.

Now, to me, it feels like Kyle Dake 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, you saw in clings of like,

oh wow, there might be eventually a changing of the guard.

Yeah.

In 19, Kyle came out and he had the one throw, but then he lost one of the matches decisively.

And then he was hurting 14.

And in 16, Kyle Dake actually went up to 86 kilograms.

So in, actually in 16, at the trials we had, so Jake Herbert was number one seed.

He was former, as Guy Russell was a former world silver medalist.

So you had David Taylor, who had not made a team yet, who is now a world champion, Olympic

champion.

Dake in the bracket, who was a two time world champion now.

And you had Jayden Cox in the bracket, who had not made any teams yet, but is now, what,

a four time world medalist, two time world champion.

So, and then obviously Jayden came out on top of that, won his first Olympic medal,

Olympic bronze medal.

So Kyle didn't wrestle Jordan in 16, and Jordan, Kyle's contention the whole time,

and they argued about this.

So I actually did a little bit of backstabbing, but it was not, it's not backstabbing.

And both of them were just one.

I didn't tell any of them.

Okay.

So Jordan got mad.

So we were talking about this fake match during Corona, right?

Yeah.

We had to make, we had to make up something to talk about.

Yeah, of course.

This is obviously no matches.

So we talked about this fake match.

And do you stand behind that statement, by the way?

Listen, here's what I said.

Kyle, Kyle Dake is four time NCAA champion.

Yes.

I said, you got to pick a, you got to pick a winner.

I said, Kyle Dake wins two, one on a minute and six ride time, which I mean, is literally,

we're talking as close as it gets, as close as it gets for Kyle Dake who's a four time

NCAA champion.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, we were talking over Jordan Barrow's, over Jordan Barrow's, in

a Folk Style match.

In a Folk Style match.

The Hypothetical.

The Hypothetical.

Completely Hypothetical.

Now or in college?

In college.

In college.

Both of them at their peaks at 165 pounds.

Right.

So completely Hypothetical.

And so Jordan called in.

He was all pissed at me for picking Kyle Dake.

He wants to come on the next day and argue his point.

So I said, that's that, that's dumb.

We had to pick a winner.

We had to do something hypothetical.

So then I called Kyle Dake and I said, Kyle, Jordan's going to come on and argue his case

in the morning.

If he's going to do that, why don't you come in and argue your case?

So no one else knew Kyle was coming on the podcast.

So they both show up and they went at it.

But one of the contensions 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 in the best 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're going

to reward them because we want that person on the team again.

So it's crazy though that you're like Kyle Dake had to wrestle because he's not wrestling

bums in that position and then, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know how wrestlers do it because you have to go to war like three matches and then

face Jordan Boroughs.

Yeah.

Especially a few of those years with, you know, Daked, the name Andrew Howell, but there's

a really competitive matches.

David Taylor had really competitive matches with him.

Isaiah Martinez even got in there at the Erringer.

So he had some really competitive matches before he ever got to Jordan Boroughs.

So I never answered your initial question was, how did I feel?

So the Jordan Boroughs match, I was not in wrestling shape at all, meaning wrestling

is heavily dependent, especially in 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 athletic shape was great, but it was mainly for fighting.

I wasn't wrestling.

So I think they were actually trying to do Boroughs, Daked, beat the streets.

It's the biggest fundraiser in wrestling every single year in New York, in New York

City.

They usually raised like a million dollars.

They started all these programs in New York City to get, which I really wonder what they're

doing with the money now because they probably can't have the kids wrestling because New

York's crazy.

Anyway, I think New York figures out a way what to do with the money.

Hence Michael Malus complaining that they're corrupt and all that, 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 with my, anyway, so I was called like, I don't know, two weeks

before the event and said, Hey, you know, someone was supposed to wrestle Jordan Burroughs.

It fell out.

Would you wrestle him?

I said, Yeah, sure.

Why not?

You know, and it's like, listen, 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.

It wasn't kind of hard.

He went hard.

Yeah.

That asshole wouldn't give me a point.

Yeah.

I said, this is bullshit.

Jordan, I told him through the match, like this is bullshit.

You're fucking going too hard right now.

I'm not a wrestler.

I'm not a wrestler.

I'm a fighter.

I'm coming in here.

So yeah.

So I had a really good idea.

I mean, we wrestled together.

I think in, he had probably been mad because I think in the live go, we did like the 12

or 15 minutes.

Did you score a takedown in that?

I believe maybe or maybe it was a turn, he'll probably say, no, I didn't, but whatever.

Yeah.

So I knew what was going to happen.

I knew what the outcome was going to be.

I knew I could probably hope I could stay competitive and maybe lose like 10 to or something

like.

Yeah.

Well, let's walk back because I think I originally brought it up in terms of how prepared were

you against Jake Paul versus Jordan and Barrow's.

So did you prepare for Jake, cardio wise?

Yeah.

I did, but it was, I told you, I started training for my, I mean, once I had my hip surgery,

they said, you know, for the first six weeks, you can't even walk.

And it was hard for me to listen to them because by week four and a half, five, I was feeling

pretty good.

I want to get rid of 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.

All right.

So that's the next step.

So, okay, I'm going to take this year.

So I do my crutches for six weeks.

The next six weeks, it's still like really low weight bearing, can't 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 going to 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 do, be a full time boxer.

So it's like, how do I put a boxing camp together?

So I found, you know, I had, I had my old teammate, 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 canine out of Michigan.

He came over three weeks.

He was great.

I went to Freddie Roach for a week.

So I kind of like, you know, try to get as many good as ideas as I could.

And then my thought was like, okay, well, if this dude sucks, I can just be tough and

you know, block of you 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.

Cause I'm, I was never going to boxing in the first place.

All of my standup 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 only, 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 going to 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 to take down, if you include

the knockout round against Mazvid all, I got to take down every round except two.

So it was like, it was like 53 out of 55 rounds in MMA.

I got to take down somewhere, somewhere in there.

Okay.

So you're hunting the takedown once you, once right away.

Once you get a, your hands on them, you get to take down.

Yeah.

Okay.

But the incredible thing about you, I just recently talked, uh, spent a couple of days

with Jimmy Pedro and, uh, 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 the wrestling and MMA, but the way you took

these losses against people that are, I don't know, below elite level.

It's fair.

I was also going to get pissy, but, but I, it's completely fair.

I thought he was a bum too.

No, that's not what I meant.

Oh, I'm in trouble.

It's okay.

No, it's good.

No, no, no, no.

But like, what can you explain the psychology behind that?

Like the, what, is there a system behind this, is there a philosophy behind this?

Well, I, so I, I wasn't very good in the beginning and I think, I think that's where

it 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 till 13 and still at 13.

I'm, I'm, it's not going to be great.

I'm getting better.

Right.

I'm pretty good.

I've actually, I've actually, I have writing this book on sports psych, but this, it's,

I got, well, I got someone ready for me kind of thing.

Cause 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?

Cause if you don't have that, you're never going to 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 cause 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 a grade when I was starting

to get better.

It was like, and there's, there's an internet, well, there's no one was using the internet.

It was like a wrestling magazine and 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.

Sure.

I'm like in competition against them.

In competition.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In competition.

Hey, I heard there's this tournament.

Here's the magazine and 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 winner 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 Wisconsin.

The state of 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, cause I'll push them very hard

on this, are scared of challenging themselves.

They like being the big fish in the 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 enjoy competing thoroughly, right?

And I understood from a young age because it wasn't very good, losing is 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 a hatred of losing.

You just, I don't like losing.

I still don't like it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But you seem to, okay.

But you don't, you don't seem to, you seem to kind of shrug it off a little bit.

Okay.

So like with, specifically with these two instances that you're bringing up with the

Mazvedal, it feels definitely so, okay, let's go.

Let's go deep.

Let's go deep.

So the Mazvedal one, it feels different cause, so wait, wait, wait, wait, let's, for

people who don't know, Mazvedal loss was your first loss.

First loss.

In MMA.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, it was a dramatic loss.

Very dramatic.

And there was this kind of buildup as you were 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 was thoroughly enjoying it, I didn't feel the pressure.

So the Mazvedal fight is, he got one fucking move on me.

It's not like 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 knew that too.

That's why he didn't want, he didn't want to sound the, sound the bad agreement.

That's why I had to taunt him and why he got so mad cause I had to continue to taunt

him in order to get him to sign, right?

So that one hurt because, as for people who don't know my MMA career, I'll just go through

it fast.

I did three fights in like smaller leagues.

I got signed by Bellator.

I was undefeated for three and a half years.

I was nine and oh, when I got done with that in 2012, 2013, I, at that point in my head,

I was just going to transition to the UFC cause 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 him.

I should ask him sometime.

He was to refuse me any entry into the UFC.

He just said, I went to his office and he really said, we're not interested.

We're not going to make you an offer.

Did you, did you mention something to, uh, about him, about the UFC?

That was a year before that.

That was a year before that.

That might play a role in it, I think.

So, uh, yes, what happened a year before that was, uh, I called him a liar, which, but listen,

I'm writing this one cause he said you can't test for drugs cause I'm, I'm all natural,

which you could help 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, well, there's no way you could test.

I said, bullshit.

You, you so very specifically, I said, you saw it does it for all of their sports worldwide.

You can do it.

And then it was funny cause I hired you saw it a couple of years later.

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 literally go to Vegas.

Um, it's a long story.

You can read about it other places.

I, so I got released from a belt.

It's not like this is a negotiation.

I got released from my belt or contract.

I said, I'm out of here.

I'm going, I'm going to go to the UFC.

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, I think dominating people.

Yeah.

I didn't have a competitive fight.

And so, um, I retired 18 and O never, never again for someone who loves a challenge, never

getting to really challenge myself was incredibly frustrating.

And I left the door open.

I said, if I ever get the chance to prove him in this world, I'd love to come back.

So somehow a year later, I get traded trades have never happened.

I'm the one and only trade ever.

I would have 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 going to get the title shake against Marty.

And, um, it's like this, this is what I've been working for the entire, I've been trying

to prove I was the best part of the world for the last 10 years and I have, I've not

been afforded this opportunity.

Um, so when I lost to George, that was, that was hard because I, it was, it's 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.

So that one was hard.

Um, at the same time from like just a competitive logistic and it's 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 going to 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 a big 10s, you were a nationalist 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 there definitely would have been

a lot of time spent getting better at the entry point to the take down, right?

Which I already spent time there.

Um, I don't, I, and I, I hate making excuses, but yeah, the, the hip, the hinging of my

hip where I couldn't do was preventing me from doing some things.

That'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 flying

knee.

He did a flying knee.

And then 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, the, I think a lot of

things in combat will probably everything, but I focus specifically come to happen subconsciously.

Like our brain is reading what's coming at us and, and lost times is stuff we've seen

before.

So we can judge how to move correctly misread because it's something you haven't seen before

had not seen him come at that specific angle.

Yeah.

So that was also 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, I'm taking this because I want to put the sport

wrestling out there in a big way.

I want to help them raise a lot of money.

We sold at Madison Square Garden who 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 going to 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 going

to be back coaching wrestling on Monday because that's what I enjoy doing.

And I was back coaching wrestling on Monday.

And once I'm out these middle school kids, give me a little bit of shit about it.

And that's it.

But that's about it.

Where were you in terms of your shape and how you felt in the Mazvedal 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.

So 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.

And maybe they are all fueled by extra supplements.

I don't know.

But for me, that was evident, but you get this, so you get this crosshair where you're,

if you're smart, like, you know, like I mentioned, Joan Brose 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 of the, maybe more tools in the 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.

No, so I felt, I felt, I was great.

Obviously the hip was an issue.

It's funny because so that I knew I had a lot of pain here and I knew it was because

of this.

And it was like, okay, whenever I'm done, I'll just get it taken care of, whatever.

But I, every time I train, I'll 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, the surgery is on

the left side.

There was no pain on the right side of my back.

I'm like, that's fucking weird.

Like every, every morning I wake up, there's a lot of pain there, you know, 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 my, so it was 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 if this is 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 had my hip surgery scheduled for December one.

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, it was, I was ready to just check those wrongs 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, uh, of all time?

I didn't prove it.

I don't deserve it.

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 is 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, obviously, Walter weight at that time

was a champion for a long time there.

So I was around tire was a champion, Anthony was a champion at lightweight.

I was, you know, same gym as him and we had a lot of people coming through.

Yeah.

Would you face time?

Would I have fought him?

I don't think so.

I mean, so he was still the champion when I came into the UFC 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 it 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 get to get into.

You might do exhibition matches and all that kind of stuff, right?

That's who?

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, would you love to go wrestle someone?

Yeah, I would.

I would.

Right.

I love, I love wrestling and get in there.

I love, you know, I love like, so one of my guys has gotten to be pretty good.

He's in college.

He got into a tool.

He just won a junior world title this year.

And so when, when I'm doing private lessons, I have such a thing about the development

of the athlete.

Sometimes I can wrestle hard, but most of the time it's like, I'm just going to 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 Keaton goes back this summer and he's trained for the general

title.

So to be able to shake hands sometimes and say, like, how am I going to try to kick

your ass?

So you try to kick my ass, you know, like just to go, like, yeah, it's a good feel.

It's so much fun.

And I don't get to do that very much.

So if you said, Ben, would you love to do some matches in the answers?

Yeah.

The problem, unfortunately for me, and maybe you can talk me off a ledge here is like because

of where I've gotten to my career.

If I choose to do wrestling matches, it's going to, people are going to be really excited

about it.

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 where there's an event and like, you know, there's a buildup and an

announcement.

Yeah.

And you can also do like a Khabib style, like in the room, there's cameras and you're kind

of going.

It's like.

Like Khabib does that?

No.

Marcel did that.

He whipped my ass a few times.

Yeah.

Exactly.

I mean, I've seen Khabib with some videos.

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, 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 the, with the internet, that's a compelling

way to do.

Yeah.

This is the one thing I've thought about doing because I told you about my buddy who is 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 Ask When Challenge.

You want to hear my rule set?

Yeah.

Let's go.

I'm not sure I'm going to do this.

People are going to show up to your, like in Wisconsin.

I just select you.

I'll start with a thousand bucks, right?

All 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?

We don't want it to be content you over the pin.

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, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, 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 is the kind of consolation prize for showing up.

If you pin me, you get whatever the jackpot is.

Wait, who's adding to the jackpot?

I am.

Money.

Money.

But then, what's the incentive to keep winning for you?

Because the jackpot is...

Well, because obviously, I would put the content somewhere and people would watch it.

Oh, so you're going to make money?

Yeah.

So you'd make money that way.

But it's not exponentially growing, right?

It's just going up by, like...

Yeah.

I really think there's probably only a couple of people that could pin me.

So I would either 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 date shows up.

I don't think he could pin me.

Yeah.

I mean, like...

How would that match go?

Jordan Burrows could beat me, but he can't pin me.

He was never a pinner.

Yeah.

He ain't going to pin me.

There's only a few people who have the skill level to do so, right?

It takes a lot.

Because that was...

So pinning was one of my specialties.

I had the fourth most of all time and I won the pinning award the last two years.

So you could even be done 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 thing is kind of...

People get so mad at me.

Sorry, Jiu Jitsu.

I think it's bullshit.

And you want me to tell you why it's bullshit?

Yeah.

So like, if Jordan Burrows whooped my ass and the score is 16 to 2, but he can't pin

me, then I get to go to overtime and get a cradle on him.

I'm probably going to pin him.

So I'm better than Jordan Burrows?

Nah, that ain't right.

He just whooped my ass.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Like, if we can go the whole...

Because they do submission only.

So if Jordan Burrows beats me up for like, it's eight minutes, 10 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 10 minutes, Jordan Burrows, he's going to outscore me significantly, but he

will not pin me.

I promise you that.

Okay?

So now we go to the overtime.

Strong words, but yeah.

He won't...

Jordan Burrows is not going to...

He's going to beat me.

I will give you that.

God, they won't pin you either.

No.

Okay.

They will both beat me on points very badly.

Now David Taylor, he might pin me because he's a very good pinner also.

They'll beat me very badly.

They will not pin me.

But now we get to overtime and we get to pick like, right?

So in Eddie 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 going to probably not going to pin me, right?

Maybe there's a chance, but probably not because it's not their specialty.

So for people who don't know, the Eddie Bravo thing is when it goes into overtime, you get

a dominant position on a person and you get to...

Yeah.

Yeah.

Basically put them in a cradle.

This is the wrestling equivalent.

Yeah.

But you take their back.

Yeah.

So then I don't think that's very fair because if someone whoops your ass, they whoops your

ass and then...

And so I think the reason why Jiu Jitsu people accept that rule set is that I don't think...

I think they know this, but wouldn't admit it.

I don't think their point scoring system 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 fall, near to the pin because that's the ultimate goal of the sport.

Because in Jiu Jitsu, for example, if I were to get a takedown, 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 close to like 12 submissions, but somehow I slipped out of all of them.

Now I went to zero, like that's ridiculous, like he should very clearly win because he

almost submitted.

You know what I'm saying?

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.

Why 30 minutes?

Why not unlimited time?

Why go until whenever?

Well, because then it's just a cardio thing.

Because at some point, 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 for the most part.

What position are you going to be stuck in?

But you can't, you just can't have a gigantic amount of action for 30 minutes.

So I related, because some of my kids, when I'm 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, say if I had you do, uh, hanging cleans at a relatively

heavy weight as hard as you could, you're not going to last seven minutes.

You're going to, your pace will slow down, right?

So my thing is like, well, you're pasting the step, step here, because in 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 both people would know that.

So they would kind of slow it down.

Um, but yeah, I think a third, a third, I mean, I've, I've wrestled 30 minute goes.

I've wrestled 60 minutes.

I've wrestled hour long goes.

Um, you're not going to get so tired, you're going to fall over in that time period.

But at some point, if we, if it's unlimited, some will get so tired that are dehydrated

that they're just going to freaking fall over.

Yeah.

So 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 it

dynamic?

Well, if they're working that hard, then they might exhaust themselves, right?

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, go, I love this.

This is a great idea.

Well, I figured I'd 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, $20,000, the possibility to win.

And not, not much fanfare, just a camera and just, that's it in my wrestling room.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like the Gracie challenge.

Yes.

Yeah.

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 going

to pin them.

Yeah.

If they're not really elite.

So yeah.

But I don't know.

I, I, that's something I've been thinking about.

This has been like fun for me to think about, um, obviously a place in my skill sets because

my cardio is good and my pinning 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, dominated 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 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 know you moved to America at what

age?

13.

Okay.

Um, at least I don't know what it was for you, but in America at 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 and I was kind of chunky.

And then I'm in fifth grade.

I don't, and I can't, I can't tell you, 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.

And at age 11, I said, I don't want to play baseball and I like baseball, but I don't

want to play baseball because I want to wrestle more because I want to get better at 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 August, any of those other months.

Um, what was that desire to get better?

What is it?

So it's not about, I don't know where it came from.

I just wanted to get better.

I want to get better.

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 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.

Cause 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 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 because they need someone

to let's go.

So I don't, I don't know what inspired me.

I'm not sure.

So age, at age 11, fifth grade, I quit.

I started, so then I started having more success, you know, where I'm like, say placing up the

state tournament in high school.

So you, right?

And so sixth grade, I placed it like the state local youth state tournament, you know, so

I'm like having more success.

Seventh grade was the first year I won the youth state tournament.

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, so we have a year on club and our impetus was that we didn't

have this opportunity to go to a club year round.

So we had a mat in my basement.

I had to go find, hey, you want to, you want to come wrestle?

Oh yeah, to find partners for myself.

What'd you do?

Did you drill?

Did you live wrestle?

What'd you do in that 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, but probably my freshman, sophomore, junior year, I found

two kids who were really consistent, who would come out like you'd come out on, he'd come

out on 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 swoop their ass, they're not going to come back, you know?

So it was like, I would let them get as close as they could, as I thought they could do

a takedown before not getting it and then try 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.

And that was kind of like the start cause 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.

The relationship is so important with that, like that I've, I've had a few drilling partners,

training partners that were really important to my life.

And I always wonder 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 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 cause now we have, you know, just at my academy, we probably

have 50, 60 high school kids only that are year round, that 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 and it's like, you little

bitches.

Like, you know, I, I, I, I, some days I get really mad about it cause it's like, I had

no partner.

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 with that dude.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

So what was the switch to change?

Was, was it gradual or gradual?

Okay.

So, uh, it was, it was the ninth grade I quit football cause I want to get really serious.

Um,

What position?

Football.

It was actually a nose tackle.

And I was, but at that point, so I, okay, so I was also the other thing I kind of left

up here.

I was really fat growing up 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 cause weight matters.

I went from 130 pounds to a hundred pounds in sixth grade.

Um, so by the time I was a freshman, I was 119.

So I had, I still wasn't as heavy as I was on sixth grade.

So I was pretty small too, but I was also slow unfortunately.

So they put me a nose tackle.

I, you know, I like the combativeness so I was decent at it.

Um, so that's where you wrestled 119?

My freshman year.

Yeah.

So yeah.

So then I still, I would start having a lot of success statewide, but not nationally.

It's my national success didn't come to like my junior year in high school.

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 recruited and then, but then even when

my freshman year of college, I, uh, this is where I love competing.

I would go every weekend cause 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 red shirt freshman, which is incredibly rare.

I had 10 losses.

So it's not 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 I made it into your finals.

So my, my, I made a gigantic jump in that red shirt year to the, to the real freshman

year.

So a few questions.

Yeah.

Where did the funk style of wrestling, the, the creative style get developed at which stage?

So I, so I think like looking retroactively, there was no, there was no intention to start

when I was in high school with those kids, but I think that's kind of like, well, what

was happening, right?

So what I would really say is I had, I had one influential coach, my retro year of college

named Mike Ironman, a 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, cause we, you know, the retirement

was there.

We had all American 157.

We had all American 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.

It 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 gotta be a way, you know?

So Mike Ironman showed me a couple of things, but then it was just like this creative expansion

for the next, you know, through, say three to five years.

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 relative high level for, we'll

say 80 to 90 years in America.

And there's still new things being developed.

And so when you see something new, you're like, oh, damn, like that's great.

Or like Jason Nolfe may have to win Dixie.

I'm like, why did I think of that shit?

Like, why did I think of that?

It's so easy.

I should, I should have thought of that, you know?

So there's this like obsession with the sport or wrestling and, you know, positions where

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 so obsessed, but maybe, but you know, some days I had, I couldn't

finish the single leg on this specific person or, or they, maybe they were finishing on

me and it was like, go home and I was just fucking obsessed about that one position.

Like, okay, how do, what, what am I missing here?

And not just accepting like that, whatever the coach has to 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?

And 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 and 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 like, you know, there's a lot

of things that are on the cutting room floor that never made it to the light because you

thought they'd be good and they failed and they sucked.

And then, you know, to the point where I like my senior year, I got to this point where

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'd just go in my head and then like some of that just happened.

That's the move.

And then I'd go try to practice it.

Sure enough.

Boom.

That's the move.

That's exactly what we have alpha zero playing learning chess.

Yeah.

Oh, no.

It's called self plays.

You have, what did the figures have like a clear, no faces.

They were just like, did they have a human form or is it just like stick figures, essentially?

Yeah, it was not like humans, it was more like stick figures.

It wouldn't stick figures exactly like they were.

Sorry.

They had some volume.

Yeah.

It was like, it was like a great person and they had, you know, three dimensions essentially

because I had to see how the things moved and yeah.

I mean, this is exactly what open AI and deep mind at Google are, I don't know if you've

seen, but there's something called reinforcement learning and 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 their two feet and then they figure

out how to push the other person off of the pedestal.

Wait, so, but what about like, when you look at the, the Boston dynamics or sometimes they

have trouble with like jumping and balancing and the other stuff.

So are they, are they doing that same program or no?

No, no, no.

It's different.

Everything Boston Dynamics is doing is hard coded.

So it's not, it's not learning the, all of the sophisticated movements and strategies

like high level strategies and movement.

That's all something that Boston Dynamics is not doing.

If it does it, like the parkour stuff, that's all hard coded.

People like project and think like these robots have like discovered like how to move in sophisticated

ways they haven't.

Well, that's why when you and John were talking about the grappling robot, I mean, the one

thing I was, I was obsessing about in my head is that with the chest, right, if a chest

piece moves, right, 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 move, 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 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 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 force is coming

at me at this.

So I need to do that, right?

They're just doing it.

But yeah, 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, there'll be the limitation.

So then it'll be just the same exact, whether it's a human.

But then, but it's, even with, so if we go human max force or Jordan Rose double max

force, right?

That's the highest, that's the highest we get.

Then we go down from there.

Even with, even within that, it's like, sometimes I can shoot single leg with a maximum force

of, I don't know, we'll just say, we'll say 20 is the number, right?

I don't know, I'll shoot at 20 because I feel sometimes I shoot at 15, sometimes I

shoot at 12, right?

Because you feel something in your opponent that makes you do it differently.

So they would have to learn how, and then, you know, all of these different things.

And sometimes maybe I clamp a little harder.

So the, the robot would have to learn all of these different incoming inputs to the system

and then create this reaction.

Oh, no, no, no, 100%.

So this would be all continuous.

Like, yeah.

So unlike chess, it would not be just chess is discreet.

There's, it's one and you move, it's a, 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.

And it's, it's fascinating.

So I've been fascinated thinking about it since you guys talked about it with, I, it's

it was a long time ago.

I listened to it probably three to four weeks ago and I've kind of been like obsessing about

it ever since.

Yeah.

It just changes when, so unlike boxing, for example, or striking, it, you know, once

you grab a hold of somebody, it, it changed, you're now one body.

Right?

So 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, I think it'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, 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, but then even like

for me, I'm, you know, I'm a few, or is it 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 is 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.

Yeah.

I think that's all easy to take advantage of for a robot is just, there's so many things

that the big problem is ethically, I don't know how many people are willing to train

with a robot because you're going to get hurt.

Well, couldn't you make a robot change the robot or no?

Yes, but then it's expensive because they're going to put the padding on that thing.

I know, but then it's not, you know, then 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, 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 to spend a lot of money because you have to have them

wrestle for like a lot.

To get better.

Yeah.

And then the open question is how long does it take to get good enough to be a human?

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?

Wrestling by far.

Not even close.

That's, yeah.

That's the sense.

So because there's an infinite amount of moves, right, 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.

Now, now you have X amount of choices 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?

Cause I should have seen like, I'm not going to wait and say, what's your defense?

Yeah.

Right?

It's going to be instantaneously.

And then also again, based on the force and the vectors and the angles, you have to

calculate that and adjust.

So really, you know, if you're saying, why can't you sing like it's not like moving

chess, it's not one move, right?

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 a hundred milliseconds up like that.

I don't know.

It's the sensation to, to, to like from the, the signal traveling up your, to your brain

and down.

I don't know what that number is, but a robot certainly could do way faster.

It, you would actually have to like constrain the speed.

Well, so the robots are already killing the chess people, right?

Yes.

So, yeah, theoretically they could eventually beat wrestlers, but you asked what was hard

wrestling a chess.

Yeah.

And I think wrestling is because of the time component in it and then the, and the physicality

of, you know, is it this force or that force?

You know, cause if, if I'm going to say, say we're in a seatbelt side by side, right?

A wrestling seatbelt, not what you just do.

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 one.

In another case, it's really evident I should go that way.

So the other thing to consider just like with chess, the AI systems, so human versus human

plays 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.

That's 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 is what I'm talking

about, the wrestling's so fun is there's even after 80, 90 years, there's this continuous

evolution.

There'll be some like low single type thing, like John Smith type of situation.

Well, like a down block go behind is something that has really, I would say really in the

last five ish years has really been evolved.

What's a go behind?

Down block go behind.

So when you, 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 an eye attack that shoulder, and then I start hitting a

go behind on you, right?

And so like that in its current incarnation, it absolutely was around, 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.

Now I really want a robot because I want to be a head of the game.

I want to know what I'm missing.

I mean, one interesting thing you have with Alpha zero that plays chess is 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

Alpha zero can wait like five moves.

So so basically you have, you potentially with wrestling, you might have a robot that

like puts itself in bad positions, but in a certain kind of way, then that will actually

lures the opponent in to trap exactly what my style is based on.

You basically narrow one thing to do is you narrow the set of choices.

You put yourself in a bad position, but it narrows a set of choices for them because

they're not used to it.

They're not used to it.

And then you drag them 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 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.