#439 – Craig Jones: Jiu Jitsu, $2 Million Prize, CJI, ADCC, Ukraine & Trolling

The following is a conversation with Craig Jones, martial artists, world traveler, and one of the funniest people in the sport of submission grappling. While he does make fun of himself a lot, he is, legitimately, one of the greatest submission grapplers in the world. And underneath the veil of non-stop, sexualized Aussie humor, and incessant online trolling, he is, truly, a kindhearted human being who's trying to do good in the world. Sometimes, he does so through a bit of controversy and chaos, like with a new CGI tournament that has over $2 million in prize money. And it's coming up this Friday and Saturday. Yes, the same weekend as the prestigious ADCC tournament. The goal of CGI tournament is to grow the sport, so you'll be able to watch it for free online, live on YouTube, and other places. All ticket profits go to charity, mainly to cancer research. So I encourage you to support the mission of this tournament by buying tickets and going to see the event in person. Craig gave me a special link that gives you a 50% discount on the tickets. Go tolexfreement.com/ CGI and it should forward you to the right place. They're trying to sell the last few tickets now. It's a good cause. Go buy some. And also, let me say, as a fan of the sport, I highly encourage you to watch both CGI and ADCC and to celebrate athletes competing in both. From CGI with Nicky Ryan, Nicky Rod, or Tola Brothers, Fion Davis, Mackenzie Dern, and more. To ADCC with Gordon Ryan, Nicholas Margalli, Giancarlo Boudone, Raphael Lovato Jr., Mica Gavalle, and more. I have a lot of respect for everyone involved. I train with many of them regularly and consider many of them friends, including Craig, Gordon, and of course, John Donahar, who I will talk to many, many more times on this podcast. And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got A sleep, for naps, element, for hydration, better help for mental health, net sweet for business stuff, Shopify for selling stuff online, and express VPN for privacy on the interwebs. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, there's a bunch of ways to get in touch with me. If you want to give feedback, go tolexfreement.com/survey. If you want to submit questions or videos or call-ins for me to answer on the podcast, go tolexfreement.com/amay. And there's a bunch of other ways atlexfreement.com/contact. And now, onto the full adries. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting. But if you skip them, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff. Maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by A sleep. And it's pod 4 ultra. It is a pretty interesting mystery what's going on in the brain while we sleep. Because it's not like the thing shuts off. It's actually a pretty active and dynamic process. It's also humbling that we need sleep. It is a little death. It is a thing like food that our body requires. And that to me is humbling. It's another reminder that we're mortal. Another reminder that we're merely human. That we're merely a biological organism. In fact, it's a reminder that not just our organism, our body, but the entirety of human civilization is fragile. I've been studying a lot about both ancient civilizations and the modern civilizations that were driven by ideologies, especially the communist ideologies. I'll probably do a few videos on those, certainly if you podcast. Just thinking deeply about the ideas that drive humanity. Anyway, all of these things I dream and think about when I'm laying on the extremely comfortable asleep bed that controls the temperature and boy isn't needed on these hot Texas summer nights. Go to asleep.com/lex and use code "lex" to get 350 bucks off the pod for ultra. This episode is also brought to you by Element. My daily zero sugar and delicious electrolyte mix. It is one of the most delicious things I consume in a day on days like this. So yesterday I had a really hard training session in Jiu-Jitsu. I did, I don't know, 10 or 11 rounds maybe. And it's just all the water from my body is gone because I usually don't drink water when I'm training. Not for any particular reason, but just because I don't want to take a break. I really want to go to a place where I'm exhausted. And so, once I'm done with training, the level of deliciousness that cold water with a watermelon salt powder for my element is difficult to describe. It's really, really refreshing. And I found that if I don't consume electrolytes after training like that, like I started getting headache, I just started feeling off. And so, replenishing the electrolyte after is really important. And of course, I also make sure I drink element beforehand as well. But yeah, all that is important to support the body when you're doing those difficult training sessions. And it is one of the things that allows me to escape whatever the trauma that's going on in my mind. And the community, the art of it, I love it all. Get a sample pack for free with any purchase, try to drink element.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by BetterHelp, spelled H-E-L-P. Help. They figure out what you need to match it with the licensed therapist in under 48 hours. I think in this episode Craig brings up doing a couple's therapy with Gordon. You know I'm a big fan of those guys, training with them and just the way they approach this really complicated art and their ability to achieve sort of world-class level and consistently innovate. I'll innovate everybody else. It's so fascinating to watch. So part of me hates that there's shit talking going on online. I understand it's part of the sport, but I do hope that there is at least amongst the fans more celebration of the athletes involved. And I'm now still working through the footage of the Olympics for Judo and wrestling. It's just I love all the sort of one-on-one combat sports and all of the Olympics in general and all sports, but I love football and basketball, see if courage performance at this Olympics is just like legendary. We can't look away. That guy was just on fire. I love it when an athlete steps up and it's their day and it's just perfection. Anyway, check out BetterHelp at BetterHelp.com/lex and save on your first month. That's BetterHelp.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Netsuite, an all-in-one cloud business management system. It is the machine within the machine of a business that provides a common language where the different modules of the business can communicate. All the messy stuff. It really was fascinating to watch the rate of progress that XAI is doing and Tesla is doing. I'm building up their compute center. It's fascinating to see the process of a business solving the puzzles and doing so rapidly and figuring out how to construct a collection of humans that is able to develop processes, simplify them, optimize them, and all of that together, efficiently. Without any kind of bottlenecks or if there's bottlenecks, you remove the bottlenecks and doing so at a rapid rate and iterate, iterate, iterate. All of that. That's the different existing successful businesses or not just successful but revolutionary businesses. It truly is beautiful to watch. The art of cutting through the bullshit of bureaucracy really is beautiful. And yeah, you should have the right tools for the job and Netsuite is good and Netsuite is trusted by 37,000 companies that have upgraded to it. Take advantage of Netsuite's flexible financing plan at netsuite.com/flex. That's netsuite.com/flex. This episode is brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great online store. Shopify is an exemplary sort of manifestation of capitalism, the good side of capitalism. I've been working on a video on communism, the history of communism, because a lot of people have been throwing around the word communism and fascism and all of that. And I've been taking seriously the understanding of the history of these movements and ideologies and taking seriously the words and the meaning behind the words and the historical meaning behind the words, the economic system, the political system, implications of those systems. All of that just understanding the history, understanding the ideas and explaining them and internalizing them seriously and walking through the fire calmly. But anyway, Shopify is a platform where a very large number of people can sell stuff and a very large number of people can buy stuff. And they're free to do so, and the system is very low friction for everybody involved. So there is a small manifestation of the vibrant market of individuals, humans interacting and flourishing together. So sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com/lex. That's all lower case, go to Shopify.com/lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. I use them to protect my privacy on the internet. Now, of course, on the topic of communism that I've been researching, and not just communism, but totalitarian regimes, often these utilize mass surveillance, and not just totalitarian regimes, but all societies. There's a temptation by those in centralized control to maintain power, to maintain leverage on the people. There's a temptation to utilize mass surveillance, and of course, the job of the people is to fight back, fight for their privacy, fight for their freedom of speech, freedom of thought to all of that. All of that that fights off the descent into the dystopian worlds of the 1984 ilk. Anyway, a good VPN is step one of protecting yourself, and I've always been using ExpressVPN. I love it. It's fast. It works on any device and operating system, including Linux, my favorite operating system. Good ExpressVPN.com/lexpod for an extra three month free. This is Alex Friedman podcast to support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, I invite you all to come to the pool, with Craig Jones and me. When you brought the $1 million cash on Rogan's podcast, did you have security with you? We had security, but only by Joe Rogan's request, because he said, "You're really going to bring it? Do you have security?" I said, "No." He said, "Don't worry about it. I'll send my security." So you were going to do it without security? Yeah. We're going to win. I thought, I mean, I was told not to tell anyone, but I sent pictures of it to everyone I know. Yeah. So that was probably a security risk. Yeah. So it's just you and a car with a bag of cash. Yeah. It was a company that sponsors me. Shuffle.com. It was their friend. A friend of theirs. So a guy that's never met me before just took the risk to show up to a stranger's house with a million dollars in cash. Yeah. Bring to Joe Rogan. It was a big risk of him. And you just put it in the car and draw it. Draw it over there. Yeah. Well, no security, except Joe. Except Joe. That's common sense. And then Joe said he'd never seen a million dollars before. Yeah. I don't know if I believe him. That's what everyone says. That's what Pablo Escobar probably says also. What's your relationship with risk, especially with the risk of death? I would say I'm very risk of us. You are. No, you're not. That's a lie. My relationship with risk. I like a bit of excitement. I like a bit of adventure. I'm more about the adventure, but I will not let the risk get in the waver. And also, obviously, just go back from Ukraine. I'm happy to take a few risks if it's part of what the locals want me to do. You know what I mean? Like in Kazakhstan, we did some things with dangerous. Like if the locals are like, come along, join in on this activity, I feel personally obligated to go with them. So it's not about the risk. Like you're not attracted to risk. You're attracted to adventure. And the risk is the thing you don't give a damn about. Yeah. If it comes along with it. Sometimes the best adventures involve the most risk, unfortunately. Pretty good on which you went to Ukraine, like you said, twice recently. Twice, really pushed the limit there, including to the front, to the front. Tell me the, the full story of that from the beginning. How did you end up in Ukraine? So we're in Kazakhstan. We're doing some filming in Kazakhstan. And obviously, Borats do a very traumatic memory for them. Yeah. And some of my jokes felt like they don't go as well in that neck of the woods. So we had some difficulty filming out there. So we filmed this horse game. Have you ever had a cock bar? Thanks to you, yes. It's a game, a very, very old game. They cut a, a go to a sheep. I didn't get too close to look at it, but they cut its head and legs off. And they use it as some form of ball. And then they'll have like up to 1,000 guys on horses, violently trying to pick this up and drop it in the other end's goals, basically. The goals used to be concrete now. It's just a top, but local business owners will throw down huge amounts of money for the winners. And these horses have been trained from a very young age. The riders have been trained. I've never ridden a horse before. We wanted to film something that made it look like I was going to go into the horse pit, into the cock bar pit. However, the drunk stunt man that we used just decided that when he took my horse reins, he would take me straight into the pit instead of ending the shot there. So I was in there amongst, I guess, the horse riders, the cock bar riders. We weren't leaving. We just were in there for quite a while. And he could talk English pretty well, actually. And he's like, oh, I thought you'd want to check it out from the inside. And then while we're in there, someone picked up the sort of caucus and a wave of horse riders came at me. I was quite concerned at that point, because they're bashing into each other. Obviously, the anger they see in a foreigner in there, I was wearing like, basically, big e-smalls, kudji, geku looking sweater. So I stood out. They definitely didn't like that I was participating in a game that they probably trained their whole life for. And that amount of money they could win is very, very significant. And there's me in there, those up pointing out, Borat, Borat, I think I was making Borat jokes, which again, very traumatic memory for the people at Kazakhstan. Were you making Borat jokes? No, but I guess it's the same type of humor, but I guess I'm not pretending to be Kazakh. I'm just that being an idiot and enjoying the local culture. But we're over there in Kazakhstan. We did that. That was obviously a bit risky. Did they learn to love you? I think they learned to love me and then to hate me again. So I was like a bit of an all-encompassing relationship for the Kazakh people, but we basically abandoned ship. It was proven too difficult to film some things, some sensitive subjects over there. And I said, where should we go next? And I just looked at the map and I was like, when near Ukraine? Ukraine was a place that I'd been offered to teach a Jiu-Jitsu seminar prior to, I guess, the war commencing, the full-scale war commencing. And we're looking for a bit of adventure, something interesting to film, some of the following the news, obviously very controversial in the news, people have very strong opinions. And I was like, let's go over there, let's throw a charity event, let's do some, let's train with the people and really experience with ourselves. So we set up the seminar, turned out to be the biggest seminar for Jiu-Jitsu in Ukraine history, which is wild, considering obviously they are at war, but everyone came together to support it. And one of the soldiers there, one of my friends there, a good friend now who's on the front line, he made a comment on there and he said, hey, like this is a seminar to donate profits to the soldiers, but we're on the front line. And I was like, you know what, I'll come to you. And he's like, listen, I can't promise you'll survive, but I'll promise you have a good time. And I said, that's all I needed to hear. So we connected and my friend Roman, we went really, really close. I think we're at the closest point, seven kilometers from the front line. Obviously, very surreal experience to be over there, seeing basically how the battles fought with all drones. How long ago was this? I think it would have been March or April. So we went there, we went basically spent two nights up on the front line, went back to Kiev. And that was it for that trip in terms of crazy stuff that happened. Obviously, just the people living, like you download the air defense tracker. So at any time, there could be a air sign going off an air load on your phone, could be like drones heading your way, planes are in the air, missiles flying. And then the missiles will change direction and stuff. So the air alert, you don't know if it's heading a different direction, but they just sort of want everyone. So you live under a constant state of fear, basically. And then on that first trip, the heaviest moment was, I was going downstairs in the hotel to work out, which is honestly a rare thing these days, something healthy with myself. You working out, getting the gym, pumping some iron, and this was divine intervention that a hypersonic missile was shut down by the Patriot event system, just like five minutes from the hotel. So the whole hotel and the attached gym just shook like crazy. And some people started freaking out. Most people went to leave to go outside, which I don't think is recommended. But you want to see what's going on out there. This was in Keith. This was in cave. So it got shut down and then some of the local troops actually took me to the site of where just part of the missile was landed in the ground and left this huge sort of indentation that already cleared up most of the, I guess, shrapnel from the missile. I don't know if I should or if I was legally allowed to do this, but I took some of that missile back home with me. I don't know where I left it actually. But I thought maybe that would raise some alarm bells and airport scans, but I took a regardless. And that was basically the crazy thing that happened on that. strip. The Patriot defense system is incredible. It's an incredible piece of technology and that's from the United States. It's expensive, but it's incredible. And so that's protecting Kiev. That's protecting Kiev, yeah. That was at the time where U.S. hadn't voted to, I guess, keep funding the weapons over there. So it was kind of a tense moment because I think, I don't know, everyone was thinking like, when do those air defense missiles run out? So that was a heavy moment for me thinking, look at what it shot out the sky. Like, imagine if that didn't, they didn't have that. But we, yeah, that was probably the most surreal moment, but Kiev's largely, life goes on most of the time as paranormal. I always face with crazy messages and comments, even just posting that video, like I'm getting paid by Ukraine and stuff. And it's just like, people just don't understand that life has to go on, like, Kiev's here, the front lines far away, like the cities have to largely try to operate as normal or just life, life will not go on in those villages and cities. Well, it's human nature as well. It's not just Kiev, it's hard Kiev, it's even Donbass. Herzan, people get accustomed to war quickly as it's impossible to suffer for prolonged periods of time. So you get a just, you adjust and you appreciate the things you still have. Yeah, it's some bolder moves out there. I love seeing like people that just crazy stuff's going on from the war and they don't even react to it. They don't go to the bomb shelter. It's like a ball of moves like I'm not going to change my lifestyle. Actually, on that first trip as well, something else that I probably shouldn't have been allowed to do was go to Shinobu. Yeah. So Shinobu, I believe troops came through Belarus and there was some fighting going on in Shinobu. I think the whole world got concerned at that point if any sort of radiation leaked. But Shinobu, as it stands, the troops backed down and it's completely covered in mines. Very, very difficult to go to Shinobu. Basically, as a tourist or as like, I guess, an idiot like myself should really probably not be allowed in a place like that. But we were able to get there. We passed like four security checkpoints. It took two attempts. The first time we tried to go in there was with the special forces guy. We cleared two security gates. Then they stopped us and basically threatened us with a rest. Rightfully so, we have no business going to Shinobu. We made a connection. I want to say that this connection was, but he had heard about what I had done sort of with the charity event and opened some doors for us to be able to go to Shinobu. So we got to see Shinobu. We had some filming restrictions there just because it was a crazy military sort of conflict at one point and we got to actually see Shinobu. Shinobu always been a dreamer mind to see because it's just such an interesting place. And to see under these conditions, very, very strange. Yeah, what was that like? So there's no civilians there now. It's just completely empty. I guess it's kind of like the fantasy you have. I imagine people going to a Shinobu back in the tourist days when it was a tourist bar and it would be busy full of tourists. We got basically a private tour. So we got to really feel that abandoned sort of vibes. I guess I was interested in it from playing Call of Duty and then Shinobu series, all the documentaries and stuff, but very, very strange place to go visit. And it is now a minefield, like a lot of parts of Ukraine. That's one of the dark, terrifying aspects of wars, how many mines are left, even when the war ends for decades after this mine is everywhere because the demining is extremely difficult. Then that could continually kill people. I don't think it'll be a tourist spot for a very long time because if you were thinking about areas to demine when the conflict ends, an area where if you accidentally trigger a mine could cause a radiation leak, it's probably going to be very low on the list. So tourism for Shinobu, who knows how long until that returns? What do you think you were able to get to Shinobu? Why don't you think the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian soldiers don't see you as a threat? Maybe they were hoping I did step on a mine. Maybe my jokes didn't go too well there. So your connection was actually Putin. He was trying to get rid of you. Yeah. Now I don't know. I mean, we felt pretty sad from there. There was an air alert went off. They were kind of more concerned with me dying just for the PR side of things. It's like Australian tourists. In one of your videos, I actually heard the Ukrainian language they were talking about. We don't want to lose an athlete. They're saying as you're loading the rocket launcher. Oh yeah, the rocket launcher. I shot a rocket launcher with the troops on the first trip, but the second trip I went back to, which was only maybe four to five weeks ago, this time we went to some craziest spots. So we went to Odessa, which has been hit a ton. I really enjoyed the video of Old Man stretching and exercising on the destination. Yeah, what is the local custom? Well, Odessa people are known historically to be wild. That was wild. It was abrasive to the eyes, but I appreciate it. Especially a middle-aged man in underwear with a beer belly doing a sun dance at dusk. That would frighten many people. The battleship would turn around. Yeah, so where else? We went. Yeah, so we went. Odessa. We briefly went back to Kiev. So I made a connection with the police chief of basically the entire country last time, and he had said to me that if I wanted to go somewhere sort of really heavy in terms of action, we could go to Kursan and he's like, oh, personally, escort you to Kursan. And I was just like, well, here we have an invitation for adventure. I think it's a great idea to go and I thought, you know what? I'll completely lie to my cameraman and tell him it's a safe trip to go on so that he can pass that information onto his fiancee. Yeah. And she won't have any concerns. Yes. So we basically take this huge journey all the way down to Kursan. We switch at a city outside of camera, but the name, but we had to switch our sort of armored vehicles. And I remember the guy that picked this up there said, hey, give me a phone number for someone to call to recover your body. And he said that in a joking way, but I think you were serious. But I said, just leave it, you know? I'm not, I don't think they need it. I don't think we much left probably forget hit over there. But we go basically into Kursan. I think Kursan's population used to be like 250,000. Now it's like basically all military down to 50,000. So we went into the police basically station and the bunker underneath the top of the building was destroyed. And then one of the local guys just took us on a city tour, which again, we had some filming restrictions because obviously anytime something's hitting, I guess the other side wants to be able to see what damage has been done. So if you take any footage of recently destroyed buildings, that's going to help him recalibrate and target the next shot. So Kursan being so heavily hit. It's basically within range of every single thing Russia has, every form of weapon drones. Before we took the tour, he put some drone blocking things on top of the car. We shouldn't look reassuring. He also took a helmet out the back of the car, which I thought he was going to give to me. But he just threw it in the back of the pickup truck and said, oh, you won't need this. You'll be dead anyway. And I was like, oh, I've made a great last decision with this little Kursan tour. But then we took a tour of the city and Kursan used to be kind of like a beautiful beach city by the Nipro river. But basically it's just the river that separates Russia from I guess the Russian land they've taken from Kursan. So Kursan split across that river and there's just Russians on the other side of the river and Ukrainians on this side. So very, very dangerous spot. Karkiv makes a lot of press because of the long range missiles that hit, but Kursan is just being hit all the time. So we took this tour. We went along the river. We went to within one kilometer of the front line. So that was the closest we got. After this point, we heard artillery strike. And because you're in an armored vehicle, it sounds further away than it is. Obviously the sound doesn't get in. So I thought it sounded far away. We could see some smoke that actually appeared close in the distance. The guy driving us took us to a point where a large building was blocking us from I guess the angle at which the missile would have came from. And I thought, well, I thought everything was cool. I thought it was, that must have been off in the distance. And then we heard two more strikes hit very, very close. They sounded really loud. And then I think he's ready to in to see if everything safe. If we can leave this point and then we basically race back. But we started to realize we're in danger at any point where he really sped the car up or sort of took sort of evasive movements in the car. But we got out of there and I think I had someone translate it later. And basically, yeah, he was checking to see if the roads were clear for us to leave. Ultimately, I ended up being someone died and a few people injured from that blast, which is less than half a kilometer from us. And basically, they were writing, radioing saying, in the tour, come back to police station. Our artillery is terrifying because there's just shelling. And it's the destructive power of artillery is insane. Yeah, and it's constant all the time. And you hear that noise and you're like, is that coming or going? Very, very concerning. Right. You don't know. Yeah, I don't know. And just like that, it could be you. It's gone. Last time the village we went to, um, basically, it was the day we left. So we stayed there overnight. The day we left, it just started getting extremely showed. And the We just took a selfie video of us and basically in the location we were in just hearing just artillery strike after artillery strike Just being like oh you guys left and the the fun began so they they tagging in good spirit. I was trying to use their Energy to reassure myself, but I guess when they see it every day It's they're kind of more adjusted to a they're not like they're not freaking out every time something crazy like that goes on Well, they have to right. They have to be in good spirit. You have to be joking and laughing Yeah, the guys are always laughing and joking They were laughing and joking at me quite a bit holding weapons trying to shoot weapons and stuff They got a lot of enjoyment out of me shooting the RPG. Yeah, they're probably still telling stories That crazy Australian American that rolled in they help they help me out though in my marketing campaign for the tournament. Yeah, we're able to secure a lot of Classic Soviet Union car We towed it we painted it with the logos of the other event the IDCC Yeah, and we go to shoot some RPGs at it Yeah, great experience great fun. Yeah, it's a very creative marketing campaign very dangerous one I don't think like cocoa peps are gonna do that one So it's very very innovative as a bold move luckily they let me get away with posting out But when we were there was at a basically at a shooting range and we cleared them out for a while So we'd blowing up the car with set it on fire. We've done all this sort of stuff I remember we tried we were trying to blow it up It wasn't quite hitting one of the missiles was lodged in under the car So it was kind of risky that could have gone off at any moment But we needed to get it to ignite we needed to get a shot where it was on fire the logo of the enemy tournament was basically on fire So we poured gasoline on it We shot the gasoline tank That didn't work that must be a movie trick or something and then we decided We had light on fire a rag and just throw it into the blowing outback window So I'm with this guy a special forces guy and we throw the rag in the back like soaked in gasoline rag Yeah, and we start running Yeah, and he's like stop stop. He's like it didn't go off So we're sitting there quite close to the car Lighting it trying to light more as we walk back to the car and then we just hear the car ignite And he's like run run run so it came quite close to death already at that point But we wanted to get the shot with some photos in front of the burning logos But we told the guys at the shooting range to basically give us 10 minutes or so So we could take the photos I don't know if they didn't wait the full 10 minutes or if we took too long but they started firing at the Targets anyway and then the ricochets were flying very very close to us over our head one landed right by my leg Well, like shit, we better get out of here. Obviously not much Safety concerns at that point, but we survived They say artillery strikes. We survived a bit of friendly fire with the bullets coming out way But again, I was strangely calm because the other guys were calm But then afterwards they were they said to me they were like oh bro if you got shot We just have to dump your buddy at a hospital. We wouldn't got to explain why you're here blowing up cars Right Right in your american and athlete International celebrity I'd be like what is what is he doing on the front line There's no real good explanation for but I mean there even to the jokes and stuff. It's good to like highlight What's actually kind of happening over there, you know, so it's very very bad What's the morale of the soldiers like? Is there still an optimism? Is there still a hope? I mean the this sort of the battle fatigue, you know, and as they say like Holy heroes die early, you know The guys that the real heroes that are willing to sacrifice themselves they're the ones that are gonna get taken out quick Unfortunately, that's the reality from over there But their thoughts are mostly that it's going to be a prolonged war like when I ask them about how fast the front line moves they're like oh Could take six months to move one two hundred meters So it just feels like it's gonna go on forever and from The Ukrainian side's perspective those guys talk to me about how When they hear radio intercepts of Russian soldiers Marching to the same front line spot is that basically They're marching into Certain death at certain locations and based on the radio transmissions They know they're gonna die but they had fourth anyway straight forward Into a Ukrainian position, which is just whilst me. I guess I well, well too. They just keep throwing troops out of And you see a ton of footage they take themselves Which is my blog. Obviously some of this footage doesn't make it to the internet because it's got important sort of Details in those conflicts, but like they show in first person perspectives of trench warfare It's just crazy to see what some of these guys have have gone through So I went to a lot of the same places as well including her son um What was your sense of the place? Curse on the slack list. It was just so destroyed. I think at this point most of the civilians are gone I saw a lot of just elderly people left behind especially a lot of old men And I just think they're just like I have lived in my whole life. I'm just never leaving So no matter the level of danger those guys just remain and then for the it's largely just I guess military and cusson but that place felt very very dangerous. I didn't realize Until we got there just quite how destroyed it is How did that experience change you just seeing war had on How to change me I guess just realizing a lot of these soldiers are just like you kind of distance yourself from them thinking that they're something separate But really speaking to a lot of the Ukrainian soldiers Like my friend Roman he hadn't lived in Ukraine for eight years He lived in France. He had a life. He's got a wife over there. He's got a daughter He best he volunteered to come back to protect his mom and brother who still lived there. So it's like You sort of I used to view them military guys because in Australia and I guess in the US They don't have this conscription ongoing right now. Like whereas obviously this guy's like Roman who volunteered But then there's a lot of Ukrainian soldiers that were conscripted into the war So it's like you just realize how a lot of these guys every day people They're just in this crazy situation that we're Roman felt obligated To return to Ukraine like from my perspective anyone in it from Australia or US Just it's just a different perspective. I'm like those they feel different to the regular people fighting in Ukraine from my perspective Yes, defending the land that is your home Yeah, like Japan was coming for Australia. I guess in World War two they attacked the north but really there was no Foot battle and there was no soldiers on the ground within Australia I guess US two during World War two so it's like a completely different perspective From our recent histories compared to like if you were a Ukrainian And there's Russians within the defined border Their responsibility to protect their homeland and their family is just something You can't imagine but also after having spent time with them you can see why They feel such as strong sense of obligation to protect Uh to protect Ukraine protect their family and friends and in a lot of cases The the soldiers are using their own funds to buy equipment Whether it's bullets, whether it's guns, whether it's armor Is that still what you saw? Yeah, I mean in terms of the weapons America provides weapons so we saw a wide selection of weapons some of those would be old Soviet weapons Like obviously the RPG we shot and what we shot out of it is all Soviet It's very old weaponry and then you've got US weapons that have been given as well But in terms of the basic soldiers equipment Like if they want good quality stuff that might be the difference between them surviving the winter Or the summer just in the extreme temperature range like they have to pay for that all themselves So they always joke about when foreign soldiers come over to train them Or they a lot of foreign soldiers come to learn about the sort of the drone technology they've developed on a budget Is they always joke with them about how like Everything from most countries is basically supplied all the Good quality standard equipment they'd need is just supplied by the government but in Ukraine obviously Funding is very stretched so these guys to have the best equipment they have to basically Find money to pay for themselves and they'll do that by seeking donations Best way to get donations will be to grow social media profiles. So that's when you see a lot of Sort of social media warfare from a perspective of gaining fame to secure donations for their battalion To be able to fight better or protect themselves And also some of the social media warfare I guess is psychological warfare against the enemy Yeah, you'll see like private telegram groups where they're showing what they've done to the enemy what the enemy's done to them It's just crazy Yeah, there's telegram Groups on both sides and is basically some of it is propaganda some of it is psychological warfare some of it is just the human nature being like Of increasing your own morale and the morale of the people around you by showing off successfully killing other human beings Which are made other and war And the nature of this war has has evolved so drones have become more and more prevalent There'll consume a level cheap drones can you speak to that have you seen have you seen the use of FB FB drones? Yeah, so I mean basically like a three to five hundred dollar drone I think it's like carbon fiber 3d printed and they can address attached different forms of weaponry to it whether it's just dropping a frag, they could drop a mine out of it. I know they were talking about how they had a liquid that could basically burn through sort of a lot of cars and tanks, so the person inside were basically melt alive, which sounds horrible, but what's mind blown? To me, you should get out of like a $3 million Russian tank that could be destroyed by a $300 drone, which is just crazy how fast the war changes. I think they're kind of the world leaders in budget drone technology. They didn't obviously don't have the budget for these crazy elaborate massive drones. I did see some higher budget bigger drones over there, but for the most part, those FPV drones is really how most of the battles are fought. And you're seeing the cameras on them. So you can see like basically kamikaze drone will chase someone down and they have that footage. And that's what the police chief said to me when he gifted me one of the drones they used. And he basically said he's like artillery is scary, but a drone will follow you into a building. It's like kind of a haunting thing to think about. Like they will see the drone, they'll hear the drone. They might try to shoot it down, or they might try to run. But if it's a kamikaze one, those guys are pretty good at flying them. It's gonna chase the soldiers down. A lot of soldiers like pretending to be dead, it's really crazy. Some of the footage out there are those FPV drones. So it's a terrifying tool of war and tool of psychological war and used by both sides increasingly. - Yeah, both sides user, I remember I was with Roman in my say and he had his break period. He used to allow to leave the country 'cause he's volunteer, he basically volunteered to join the army. Ukrainian mankind really leave Ukraine right now. But Roman, I was in my say, and this was a surreal experience for him. We went to the beach and there was some tourists there flying a drone and you just saw his instinctual reaction to that drone sound in the sky, flashback to that. - Currently they're all, as far as I know, all human controlled, so FPV. But to me, increasingly terrifying notion is of them becoming autonomous. There's the best way to defend against the drone that's FPV controlled is for AI to be controlling that drone. Just have swarms of drones that are $500 controlled by AI systems. And that's a terrifying possibility that the future of warfare is essentially swarms of drones on both sides and then maybe swarms of drones say between US and China over Taiwan. - That'll be wild 'cause I mean they do those crazy drone light shows where they do those performances with the lights and stuff, so they're already pretty sophisticated with sort of pre-programming. - Those are pre-programmed, so the low level control, flight control of those is done autonomously but there's an interface between the choreography that's hard coded in, but adding increasing levels of intelligence to a drone where you can detect another drone and follow it and defend yourself. Like in terms of the military on both sides as the Ukraine war, that's the technology. That's like the most wanted technology is drone defense. Like how are you defending your drones on both sides? And anybody that comes up with an autonomous drone technology is going to help whichever side uses that technology to gain a military advantage. And so there's a huge incentive to build that technology. But then of course once both sides start using that technology then there's swarms of autonomous drones who don't give a shit about humans, just killing everything inside on both sides. And that's terrifying because there's civilian deaths that are possible that are terrifying, especially when you look 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now. - Yes, I mean it's surreal. I wanted to curse on he was like the entire sky is just full of drones at any given time. They could decide to come and attack. So like just the, they could just sit there forever waiting, waiting for you to come out of that building, but they'll wait a long time when someone goes and hides inside or potentially if it's open window flush straight through the open window to get people. - Yes, you're not even safe indoors. - Yeah, there's nowhere to hide. And they can wait for a very, very long time. And as far as I know, even politicians, like you're in danger everywhere in Ukraine. So if you want to do a public speaking thing and doing outside, you're in danger 'cause it's very difficult to detect those drones. It could be anywhere. So it's a terrifying life where you don't know if you're safe in any moment, anywhere in Ukraine. - Well, sure, I mean it's crazy. But having a Trump, I thought maybe at the next attack on a public figure might come in the form of trying technology, some sort of something along those lines. I wonder how they protect against that here. - If that happens, just imagine the insanity that it would ensue. 'Cause we understand the idea of a gunman with a rifle shooting somebody. But just like a drone, just imagine the conspiracy theories, who controlled that drone? - Where'd it come from, yeah. - And now everybody, I mean that will just cause chaos. - And the range is ever increasing. One of the battalions in Ukraine, 'cause those FPV drones have short range, pretty short range, but they were able to attach it to one of the larger drones with a signal booster so they could potentially go up to 30, 40 kilometers into the distance. So the drone that hits you could be flown by someone so far away from you. And if they did that domestically, that would be very frightening to think of the sphere of where it could have come from. - Today, when you've talked to the soldiers there, did they have a hope or a vision how the war will end? - No, really. It just seems, I guess it just seems to everyone that it's sort of, there's gonna be no middle ground. - When I was there, there's a kind of optimism that there would be victorious, like definitively. And so is there still that optimism and also, are they ready for a prolonged war? - I mean, I think it would be a soldier by soldier basis. I know like each of 'em had a different perspective. I remember I would ask about like in terms of US politics and their fears 'cause the first year I went there, US hadn't agreed to resupply weapons. So it was a very different feeling in the air there of concern over what was gonna happen but they still remained quite optimistic that no matter who got in, they felt would do the right thing. But in terms of prolonged war, most people think it's gonna go for a very long time, like the children's hospital that just was bombed and gave. Anytime there's a moment like that that reignites everything and I think it happens on both sides. So I know that there was an attack in Kramir. There was an attack on a beach, I guess. And I don't know if that attack on the hospital was retribution for that, but that's sort of the energy that it felt like they might have battle fatigue but when something happens to civilians, especially kids on your side kind of reinvigorates the energy to fight for as long as necessary. And in terms of a case-by-case basis, one of my friends, Dimitri, over there who trains you just to answer Jim, he was very passionate about it just 'cause of the history. Like he brought out documents of his grandfather being executed by the USSR. So I know that when the war started, he basically, it took a bicycle helmet. He's AK-47 and went out into the streets and it's like I'd rather be dead than live under Russian rule again. So I mean, very case-by-case basis sort of personal history for them, I think. - Did they comment on US politics, whether they hope for Trump or for in that situation, Biden now hairs to win the presidential election? - I think most of the guys tried to keep it pretty positive. Like some people did think that maybe if Trump was elected, he wouldn't continue to fund it, but they really tried to stay optimistic. Most of the people I spoke to really tried to remain optimistic. They would be protected if it comes down to it, like, but obviously there was a nine-month period where they weren't refunded. So as that stretched, obviously they refunded now, but it takes a lot of time to get that equipment back to the points at which they needed. So I mean, if ammunition had ran out, Patriot defense system had ran out, really, really sort of scary prospect there. I don't know what's all, I guess no one knows what's gonna happen there, but. - Did you lie to people and say you were close to the president so they can be nice to you? Like, so they can convince you to continue the funding? - I'm an Australian diplomat. - I mean, that could be a nice way in. - Yeah, that would have been an outside of the talk. Luckily for me, most of the place I travel to, to give me access to so many different individuals, it's super bizarre. Like oligarchs, royalty, I guess tech wizards. It's just a strange group of people, like a code around the world of just, I get strange access, just for being good at wrestling, wrestling dudes. - Yeah, martial arts. There's like a code and there's a respect. I mean, if you don't know anything about. The other person, if you both have done martial arts, I mean, there's similar things with judo, with jiu-jitsu, with grappling, all that. I don't know what that is. - Yeah, it's like it in a circle. That's kind of like, 'cause this film project we're working on, it's kind of focused on that, is because of the history I have in jiu-jitsu and traveling and doing seminars and just getting access to strange experiences from the local strange, in a positive way, and participating in those experiences. That's what I sort of wanted to focus this travel show on was the community of Jiu Jitsu people around the world kind of It really has no sort of ethnic background, religious background, even level of wealth. As Jesus, it sounds kind of a good equalizer on the mats, and that community camaraderie sort of knows no limits there. Including like mats, the shittiest mats, and some small town in the middle of nowhere. 100% even like Shakedown, who started ADCC, I know when he went to the U.S. and he studied there, he would train at a very simple gym, he wouldn't declare who he was. Like I watched a documentary produced about sort of the story of Shakedown and how he studied in America, basically in anonymity. The people at his gym didn't know who he was in his country, and he trained there, he trained with them for years, cleaned their mats like anyone else, and then they didn't realize who he was until he said hey, I want to invite you to my country, but he actually meant basically as a royalty come, and then they realized who this guy was and the significance of him. That's gangster. That's great. One of the things I love about Nogi, Jesus, is like you don't see rank, so on a small scale there's no hierarchy, that emerges when you have the different color belts, everybody's kind of the same. It's nice. You get to see the skill. The skill speaks, but there's just a mutual respect and whatever. You can quickly find out who, I actually wonder if I would be able to figure out the rank of a person. You think you can usually figure out how long a person has been doing you just. I like to think with some of the aggressive clothing choices I've made and sold in the sport, that that should be a beacon that that person is a blue belt, has hopefully some talent because they're furiously provoking the other party there. So it's like in the jungle, whenever there's an insect that's red, it's like really flamboyant looking. That means they're dangerous. It's a target. Yeah. Being flamboyant. If you come on the mat with something pink, pink, gay or something, people are circling in fast, especially in Eastern Europe. Okay. So yeah, you mentioned the project. Can you talk about that? I saw there's a preview that you showed. Craig Jones gone. Walk about. Yeah. And so you showed a preview in Indonesia where you're both kind of celebrating and maybe poking a bit of fun. Hicks and Gracie. Hicks and Gracie, yeah. So I like to match looks from time to time in a no match. He looks sexy. It's comfortable. I actually enjoy it. Yeah. You should keep it. Oh, only wear this now. Oh, wear this for the Gabby match. I mean, yeah, we're trying to do a documentary series because the way I see it. It is, I want to grow the sport of Jiu Jitsu. And every, this sounds funny to say now because I'm doing a tournament, but everyone tries to do it through competition. But as we know, most Jiu Jitsu gyms really visit a very small percentage of people compete, let alone compete regularly. You go to gyms that could be brown or black belts that don't know many of the big name competitors. So my thoughts were, we're never going to grow this sport by competition. We're going to grow up by appealing to the large majority of people that do it, which are just people that enjoy it for the benefits. It provides to them whether health or psychological and obviously many people inspired by Anthony Bourdain. Basically, he was looking at what he did with food by showing the very interesting characters in the food culture, the food industries, especially with street food and building around that. So I'm trying to look at Jiu Jitsu like a giant cult. My anthology isn't starting with planet Zino. It's starting with Junge of Otter and Tom Cruise, so we can create a documentary travel series highlighting the diverse, interesting people that participate in the sport. In that sense, I hope we can grow up, but also doing some charity work along the way. Like as we'll release the Indonesia Bali episode pretty soon, but as an Australian, I do do a lot of damage culturally around the world. So I'd like to do some good as well with, we've done a lot of damage to Bali. So give back to local communities. We have an Australian there that runs an Academy, Academy Christos. He's one of the guys we're donating a portion of the ticket sales to from our event. But he basically went straight into a Balinese slum, started teaching Jiu Jitsu on a mat under a tree and then slowly through donations has built a gym and his real focus is not just taking money from people and gifting it to them to help the community, but to teach them skills. And he'll take a lot of the disadvantaged kids and he'll teach them things like photo editing so they can get that work from the incident really incredible. It's good to know that you see yourself as the John Travolta Jiu Jitsu. Many masseurs have accused me of the same thing unfortunately. All lies. Yeah, there's a lot of similarities between the two of you. So you mentioned anything, Bourdain. What do you like about the guy, what do you find inspiring and instructive about the way he was able to, as you said, scratch beneath the surface of a place? I just felt like he's very authentic. Wasn't afraid. Like this is something I had trouble with when we first started doing the travel show. It's easy to do a travel show if you only say positive things about a place, you know? But he would find a very creative way to show what's good and bad, a very honest reflection of the place. And I would strive to do, however, in some places it's very difficult. Like, for example, Kazakhstan. If I were to say something negative about Kazakhstan, they'd be like, who's this foreign idiot talking about our culture and I think that was what was incredible about Bourdain is he could talk about both the good and bad of places and he would do it in such a way that it was tasteful and was respected by the locals. Yeah, that's actually a skill that you're incredibly good at. You make fun of a lot of people, but there's something, maybe there's an underlying respect, maybe it's the accent, maybe I don't know what it is, there's a love underneath your trolling. Hopefully, yeah, Gabi Garcia is a deep, a deep passionate love underneath the trolling. Yeah. Speaking of which, let's talk about CGI. If you're putting on the CGI tournament, it's in about a week. Same week as ADCC, $3 million budget, two divisions, two superfights, winner of each division gets $1 million. Everyone gets $10,000, how do you even say that? Plus one. $10,000 plus one, yeah. Plus one. Just to compete. So it's August 16th and 17th, everybody should get tickets. Same week as ADCC, which is August 17th, okay, so what's the mission for what you're doing there? The mission has always been, first and foremost, increase athlete pay. So ADCC has invested a ton into the sport. Obviously, I mentioned Shaitanu, Shaitanu has done so much for the sport of grappling, particularly Nogi grappling. So he's growing it. He has funded this for a very, very long time, but we've kind of hit a point since 2017 where the audience, the crowd watching live and at home behind a paywall has grown considerably. We had things like Meta Morris, we had the Eddie Bravo invitationals, Polaris, all these sort of professional events that have also contributed to growing the sport. And obviously, people like Gordon Ryan have definitely increased the popularity of the sport. But the payment for ADCC has never gone up, despite, again, the growth of it. So what I did, a lot of fans were asking me early in the year, they said, "Great, give me ADCC." And I said, "That is a big commitment of time, energy, expenses on steroids to get my body ready for a tournament that will probably lose." And if I lose on day one, I make zero dollars. If I lose on, if I lose in the final, which I have done a couple times, I only get $6,000. I think third place is 3,000, fourth place is 1,000. So if you make day two, you get paid. But for me personally, seeing ADCC 2022, you're looking out to a sold out crowd of like 10,000 people. It's on flow grappling, which you know, paid quite a bit of money for the streaming rights. I can't comment on what that number would be. And then you go home, just by having put in all that effort with only $6,000 and they basically the argument is you're paid in exposure. But again, there's many ways to expose yourself. That's just one of the platforms to do so. My problem was that they announced that they were going to go from Thomas and Mack to T-Mobile, which is a jump in quality of stadium, but not a significant jump in sort of seating. So we've gone from like 11,000 seat arena to I think a 15, 16,000 seat arena. And I knew that flow grappling would have had to pay more money because now the sport's growing so much. And I can personally kind of track the growth of the sport through selling instructional DVDs, instructional online products because that keeps growing. And we're targeting those white and blue belts vulnerable to internet marketing. And that audience continues to grow and those will be the people that largely watch ADCC, events like this. So I simply said in response to a lot of fans asking me, why are you going to do ADCC? And I just simply made a video saying no, probably not, probably not, be nice to make some more money. And then I listed a bunch of sports such as cock bar that you get paid more to win cock bar in the villages of Kazakhstan, the payment structures higher. And I received a very aggressive response. it's not from any of Shakedown Oons people, but from basically who runs the event today. One of those guys amongst giving me death threats said, "Hey, T-Mobile costs $2 million. You don't know what you're talking about in terms of business and production." And he's probably right, but to me $2 million is the waste of money for a jujitsu event, I don't think we're at that level yet, like that's where the UFC host events, you know, $2 million, that's an expensive, expensive venue. So we argue a bit on the internet. And he said, "Hey, if you don't like it, why don't you go get $2 million and put on your own tournament?" And I said, "Am I just doing that?" And one of my anonymous friends kindly donated a $3 million budget. And I actually message him before the show to say, "Hey, we won't reveal your identity," because obviously anyone that has money is going to get asked for more money from others. So he wants to remain anonymous, but he basically just said to enjoy the trolling aspect of it and also contribute to the sport of jujitsu. Well, it's good to know that the anonymous funder appreciates you for who you are. Great, Jones. He sees my true identity and he wants to provoke. It's trolling for a good cause. But basically we were able to find Thomas and Mac event center, which was their original venue, and it just happened to be available that same weekend, which we're very happy about. So we booked that out. We decided to 80CC pays $10,000 to the winner. We will pay $10,000 plus one to show up. So to show up in our event, you're going to get paid more than to win 80CC. And not only that, we're going to broadcast it for free. So on Metta, X, and YouTube, you'll be able to watch this event for free. That's amazing. We're considered to the flow grappling streaming platform, I believe, to have also a free alternative on the same weekend. And the brilliance of this whole thing is I was largely criticized for not knowing anything about business, but the people criticizing me decided to host a tournament at $15,000 seed arena. They decided to take sponsors. They decided to use the stream platforms, which sell subscriptions based on the athletes that would enter it, but not give any of the talent the athletes to contract, which gave me this beautiful position to basically say, hey, what do you prefer, the prestige of an 80CC gold medal or money? And that's the fuse so far. And we put that, we put that out into the world. I didn't chase too many athletes down. Obviously, a lot of these guys really need money. So you throw a million dollars out there. People are jumping on board. So initially we started getting, we got two local guys here in Austin, the Tech Up Brothers, they jumped in first. And they're great kids. They really legitimized the whole thing because if we'd pick certain athletes, such as B Team guys straight away, it's already looking a bit dodgy, but we got some legitimate athletes, especially the under 80 killer divisions, full of minus two or three guys. That's the best people in the world in that weight division. And as we started to grow our roster here, what happened, I'm going to say this allegedly for legal reasons, is that the first move 80CC did was they matched the female pay to the men's pay. So the women always traditionally got paid less, I think $6,000 for first place. As soon as we had fee on Davies, the reigning champion come across to do a super fight with us, bang, 80CC raised the prize money of the women's division to equal the men's. So me being a feminist activist, to many of my years on this earth, immediately got women's pay raised in the sport of digits who equalize basically, which went counter to everything the promoter had said, because he said it was out of his control to raise money. He said only the only the 80CC, I guess, coming directly from the shake or the shakes, sort of guys could raise the prize money, he got it raised. And then what happened was once we started getting some of these big names here, so some of the best guys from 80CC would be in this division. We've got a bunch of champions or medallists or really the top betting favourites for their divisions there. They started again, I kind of emphasized this enough allegedly, paying show money, which has never historically been done before, to keep athletes in their show. So you're saying allegedly there were some under the table payments by 80CC, do you have secret documents proving this? I do have the documents. Now if some of the guys obviously told me, you know how it is, you slap a million dollars on the table, it looks great. That was me proving I had the money, which wasn't even what I might need to begin with, but it was basically me saying, hey, the money's real. No, I don't know why, but strangely a lot of people don't believe me when I'm telling the truth. I don't know why they wouldn't. But what logically happens is they're like, oh, look how much money he has, we're going to give us more show money. So they're negotiating with me. There was one particular Brazilian businessman, manager, I wouldn't say his name, but he looks like the thing from Fantastic Four, and he was a manager for some of these athletes, and he would take a massive 20% cup. So what he, and I got to pay respect to this, respect to this, because I actually caused trauma to the other team as well, but he would, I would invite an athlete to CJR, he would go to the other organization, and he would say to them, hey, what sort of deal could you give me to keep this guy, you want to keep me in your event, and he would use CJR to leverage more show money for his guys of which he gets degrees to wheels with 20% for himself. However, at CJR, everyone gets $10,000 across the board and $1,000,000 prize money. So there's no room for really negotiation for the tournament aspect of us. So he has a vested interest in putting his guys in ADCC because he can negotiate show money, and he can basically take 20% of that for himself. But really, for the sport of grappling, this is incredible across the board because by us stealing or at least borrowing a bunch of athletes from ADCC, ADCC had to fill their divisions. So they filled their divisions with many other competitors that wouldn't have ordinarily had the chance to do ADCC. And really, although we've scheduled it the same weekend, ours is actually Friday Saturday, ADCC being Saturday Sunday, our day starts pretty late. So we start 5pm Saturday. So really, ultimately, it was a big marketing ploy to go ahead to head pretending like we're making the fans choose, but the fans will be out of watch both events. You've got to go all day Friday for us, you'll sadly miss the ADCC Hall of Fame ceremony where you'll see many of great speakers, public speakers, philosophers tell their stories about hardship, just like at the end of any jujitsu seminaural beginning, if you're blessed like that. You might have a 45 minute monologue about how they more knowledgeable than doctors, lawyers, classic black belt technique, but you will miss that. With great metaphors about lions and about lions, yes, about being a humble lion, most importantly. But, you can watch all that Friday, you can watch most of ADCC Saturday, and then Saturday night, in Las Vegas, I will be doing what many men have done before, and that is wrestling a giant one. Can you speak to that? How are you preparing for this moment of violence on Saturday night with Gabi Garcia? So, Gabi Garcia is the legend of sort of women's grappling, I think she's one more than anyone else. Between me and her, we would at least have 15 to 20 world championships, I'd imagine. She's huge. I say that in a endearing way, she might be 6'4", 6'3", and her weight varies depending on what time of the day it is between 220 and 275 pounds, but she's going to be coming in quite big and strong. Me, I am about 179 pounds right now, and a 5'11", so I've got a significant size disadvantage. She has the credentials, but we're going to scrap it out, scrap it out and see who's best, the greatest woman's competitor of all time, or I've got this never learned anything. Has it added some complexity to the picture that there's some sexual tension in the room, whenever the two of you are together, or maybe I'm being romantic, but it seems like there's you slowly start to fall in love with each other. It's been three years of seduction, it's been a long time. It's inspiring for many young men that follow you and look up to you, just the romantic journey that you've been on, it's truly inspiring. Yeah, I would say it's a motivational message to the guy that keeps sending DMs to a gallon Instagram for years. That maybe after three years, it could also happen for you to matter her high and weight, I think her persistence is the key here. Yeah. And we do have a wager on the line. This might be the first wager of its kind. I would hope in combat sports history. If she wins, I'll personally give her a million dollars. If I can foot like her, we're going to collaborate together in an only fans sex tape. Did she agree to this? She shook on it. Great. You do have an only fans channel, is that still up? It's after August 17th, it's going to be fire, it's going to be on fire. Yeah. Wow. I think that, and honestly, when we talk about Soviet Investor, I think that could fund the entire tournament. - That'll be the-- The only pay-walled thing about this tournament is your only fan. Yeah. It's going to be a spiritual experience for me. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I'm totally distracted now. Can you talk about the rules set? So we're using the angled walls inspired by Karate combat. Karate combat through those angled walls. Those are awesome. You're calling it the alley. That's really, really interesting. So it's like in a pit, I guess, and the angled walls are. Yeah. So Karate combat have a square pit. We have a rectangular alley. We like the visual of just, you're in the alley with someone, you know. You come, we both know what goes on the alley. Yeah. Any of a couple things that could go on back there. What's the second thing? Never mind. I got it. But why this is brilliant? Why the angled walls are brilliant for grappling? It's because any grabbing tournament, this goes without question, goes to Ibijjef, ADCC, ADCC. The reset is one of the most annoying aspects of the sport. And one of the aspects of the sport that these, some of the sneakier guys take advantage of. There's guys out there that are brilliant at playing the edge, open the ref will reset them. Well, they'll shoot a takedown near the edge. And you might watch, and again, I'm picking on ADCC here, but you might watch an ADCC match where 90 seconds of a 10 minute match is the referee grabbing them, bringing them back to the center, or trying to recreate something of a position. That landed outside. Not only is that sort of boring to me, and it sort of could be biased. You know, like, again, it's happened to be in events where like, I've, the refs gone stop. I've stopped. He's moved a little bit more, and then there's an adjustment in the reset. I mean, it's cheating to a certain extent. It's just more of an annoyance. They bring it back. They reset it to the best ability in the center. The angled wall mitigates that. And it mitigates it in such a way that is a disadvantage to be pushed up against the angled wall. You're very easily taken down against the angled wall. You could use a cage like the UFC does or any sort of MMA organization. However, cage wrestling can be slowly obviously at the vertical, and it can stagnate there. Guys are very good at using split squats to really defend that position. So we, and for me personally, I don't love the cage for grappling. I'd like to differentiate it for grappling. It holds people back from using the alley or a pit like structure is the viewing, the viewing angle. Because if obviously if you're one of the VIPs or you pay for expensive seat, that angled walls above you, a cage you can see into an elevated platform sort of stage. You can see clearly into, because it's basically flat, but the athletes could fall off an inch of themselves. So something happens. UFC fire passes. The elevated flat stage. It's kind of scary to be near the edge, you go off, you're going to land on concrete. You might want to do that to the other guy, if you that way inclined, but the alley, the angled wall solves all those problems, very minimal referee interference. Again, the only thing that holds people back is the expense of building it. But again, when you're spending someone else's money, you will spend no expense in production. So we've spent a lot of money on the alley and we've really gone out of our way to create an experience that around the alley, we've elevated everything so that the people watching will be able to see down into it. Because Adam, your instinctual thought is, oh, it sounds great, but how am I going to see in it, unless I'm far up, like you'd need like a Colosseum-like structure, which is basically what we've attempted to create, so that you get both a perfect place to wrestle, to grapple in, as well as a perfect viewing angle for the fans. But I think it's an amazing idea. What about the Jiu-Jitsu on a slant? You've triangles on somebody on a slant. Is there some interesting aspects about the actual detail techniques of how to be effective using a slant? Oh, be honest. I can bet if a karate come back to us, never once did I ever step foot into the pit. Just again, you said before the podcast, if there's a right way of doing things, I'm probably doing in the opposite. The wrong way. Actually, no idea why people take advice from you, but they do. I'm mostly an inspirational speaker at this point. You and Tony Robbins are like this. Same size at least, but in terms of the training for obviously the athletes, it's very difficult. Some of these guys are going out there and built their own angled walls. Yeah, I saw that. That's a cool video of that. They're getting into that. That's a smart thing to do. There's a million dollars on the line. You should probably invest in that. But also like a new surface that no one's competed on, no one's gained it yet. No one's like, we're going to see it unfold. Like when you have to see when people start figuring out how to use the catch, we're going to see this unfold in front of our very eyes, how the strategies work for this. The other thing we've done too is we're doing rounds. So qualifying rounds would be three, five in a round. The final would be five, five. Why I want to do that is to incentivize action. We're going to incentivize action through penalizing people. But we really want, I love a short burst, a break and the guys can go hard again. I don't like a Jiu Jitsu match where the guy takes the back early and he's like, if I keep this position, I've won. And that's something that people that don't compete, don't realize. It's if you take, if you get a good position early, get up on the points. You just sit there and go, oh, spread this to the end. That's why I want rounds. So that you might take guys back, you really incentivize to get that finish. And the way we're trying to grow this board is to steal the MMA scoring structure, which a lot of people criticize because I think it's overly complicated that don't understand it. But to the mass audience, they understand a 10 point mass, understand a decision in that sense to understand it being scored round by round. So we're trying to appeal to a broader audience here. But we think based on the structure, based on how hard we'll call stalling penalties, based on you wanting to finish your opponent quick, to have a better chance at a million dollars, because it's 10,000 and one to show up and a million to win. If you ain't first, you're lost. There's no reward for second place. So I'm punishing the one position of only ever been out of achievements. Are you worried that because of how much money is online, people will play careful? A very generous friend of mine has provided this money. I'm like, unless you guys go out there and try to kill each other and put it all on the line, I just won't do it again. Like I'm giving you guys a massive platform. We've turned down offers from streaming platforms that wanted to buy the rights to this event, because if the marketing's gone very well, we're turning down money to grow the sport. The ADCC promoter said he wanted to grow the sport. So what he did, he put it behind a paywall and he used the money from the paywall to buy a more expensive arena. I don't think that's how you grow the sport. I think you grow the sport like comedians do these days, like guys like Mark Norman will release a special for free. Andrew Schultz did it first, released a special for free, and it grew his audience massively. I think that's what Jiu Jitsu needs. We need an exciting show that's not behind a paywall that will grow the sport, grow the audience, and really then ultimately we can get to a level where it could be behind a paywall, but I just don't think where they're yet. Yeah, I think a million dollars is a lot of money, but the opportunity here, because it's open and freely accessible by everyone, is to put on a show. And then you get a million every year. If this is a crazy, exciting event, the funding's going to be so easy year after year. And the other aspect we're doing to it is, unfortunately, I'm not going to make any money of this thing. It's a non-profit and the money from charity, except the only fans, but whatever. Yeah, that's the real cash cow. But that's the real work, too. Yeah. And that's not for charity. That's for your personal bank account, the only fans. Are you also? It's for the follow-up therapy, but it'll be expensive gig for whoever takes that on board. Love hurts. That physically will, yeah. We take a proceeds to charity. So obviously, we got the $3 million budget, we got production expenses, we got the team of staff to hire. But if we can sell this thing out, we can potentially donate a ton of money to charity. One of those charities is tap cancer out. And what's great about this is Rich Byrne is a black belt from New York, who's in the banking world. He used to run an event called Kassai Grappling. He went through cancer, he basically had a very aggressive cancer, he had it treated. And now he basically has said to us that whatever we donate from the profits of the event, he's going to match dollar for dollar. And we've also had another guy who wants to remain anonymous, agreed to match dollar for dollar as well. The more ticket sales revenue we can create here, the more we can actually get back to charity. So it's really all round, it's going to be a great event. Yeah, tap cancer, I was great and all the charities that the athletes have been selecting are great. What's been the hardest, you know, you are wearing a suit, so you figured out how to do that. But the tie was difficult for sure. I was difficult, but you figured it out and congratulations on that. But you've never run a tournament. I've never wrestled a big woman either, well I have, but not in this form. Not in a competitive environment for only fans. What's been the hardest aspects of actually bringing this to life? The first one was people believing it was real, that was quite difficult, and then… communicating with the athletes. That's basically my responsibility is securing these guys, getting these guys to commit to things. They're very, it's very difficult. There's a reason a few athletes in every sport really stand out and it's kind of professionalism kind of the way they market themselves. And I think those two things do go hand in hand. So we're in a sport where there's enough money where a lot of these guys do have managers. I think in MMA, things would be a lot easier for the promoter because you're not talking directly to the athlete. You're talking to a guy who might, who's obviously taking a cut, but like he's, there's a middle man. So in a situation where you're talking directly to the athlete, it can be very difficult. It can be very annoying. It can be very hard to reach these guys. They can be very non-committal. That for me has been one of the biggest challenges the guys that I speak to that are like, I'm in and they're like, I'm out. I'm in like navigating this area. One other aspect is because we did this basically from idea to event will be less than three months, three and a half months. So it's like we're having to do so much in such a short period of time. Little things like of the show money we've given them, they're expected to basically secure their own flight and hotel to the event. We're cutting down on stuff because that would be one of the, if I had to coordinate getting these guys flights, I would just jump off a building. Like it's hard enough to get them to agree to the event. Let alone coordinate, hey, what date do you want to come in? It's like hurting cats. So really just the interpersonal stuff's been difficult. Obviously going up against ADCC, the legacy event has been pretty damn difficult as well. Well established, huge history. They've been selling tickets for two years. Everyone's known when it's been coming for two years. That thing was largely sold out before we even announced the event. So we're going head to head with this event. So from a ticket sales perspective, very difficult. What's been a radical question? What's been the most surprising people who turned down on your invite? Ooh. I mean, we can name names. I mean, obviously Kainan, he was a semi in semi out. His suggestion was actually to do a second and third place prize, rather than a million. And I'm like, no, we want all on nothing. It's all on nothing here. Well, that's a better spectacle, better entertainment. Yeah. Probably more injuries, but it's all on nothing. Miki Gavao, the one that got away. Yeah. That's that. But we got the Ritolas. The Ritolas props to these kids because Kade's the reigning champion. These are two of the best guys in the sport. Allegedly, we're offered pretty significant show money to stay. But they hit me up and they said, hey, promise us one thing. We're on opposite sides of the brackets. And we'll fight for the death and the final for the million. And we know everyone knows they were. We've seen them compete against each other multiple times. So that was not a surprise because I know they're good kids. But it's basically turned down allegedly show money to do this event, to support the event. To me, he's incredible. Miki Gavao, things would be more complicated there. Like, obviously, Miki officially joined ADCC before he secured the Ritolas. Kade beat him in the final. Mika's personally motivated to face off against Kade. So he didn't know Kade was in our event before he agreed to ADCC. There's more to that story, too, in terms of Mika doing ADCC because a bunch of the kids in his team, I think they're being flown out to the ADCC kids event. So there's like, his two teammates, well, at least one of his teammates will be doing the ADCC 66 kilo division. So his dad, his coach doesn't really want to split time between two events. That's a difficulty for athletes there. But, obviously, disappointing, we couldn't secure Mika. Mika said he was about the legacy. So he wanted to be the youngest Kade to double grand slam, which is basically win all the gear events and win the ADCC that same year. My thoughts were, if I was in his position, and I never was, obviously a prodigy, a talent like that, is I thought he had a position to make a statement in the sport, but kind of, as Jesus' hands be on the right side of history, to have turned down a double grand slam to be in an event that supports athlete pay. Again, I don't overly criticize him, but I think in terms of your legacy and reputation, to be at a point and choose to do that is much more memorable than him getting that double grand slam, which I'm sure he will win the ADCC 77 kilo division this year, but it'll be somewhat tarnished anyway. So I do feel bad for some of the athletes to win this year, and potentially people would be like, "Oh, yeah, but there was half the people "wanted the division." I feel bad for those guys, but at the end of the day, most of these guys had an opportunity to be a part of an event that really there's no downside to. You'll have a chance to be paid more money than you've ever been paid in your life. You're selling tickets that are gonna go to charity, and it's not behind a paywall. So anyone anywhere in the world can stream this event, watch it, and there's no barrier to entry in terms of finances. - Was there ever any chance that Gordon Ryan would enter? - I don't think so. I don't think so. - Is that something you tried? - Me and Gordon don't text each other too often. I tag him on Instagram and things, but he doesn't respond. - Tell me about your history with Nicholas Marigale. - My history with Nicholas Marigale? - Actually, it dates back to a time where probably he does, not even remember, back when I used to wear a kimono. So I went to Abu Dhabi World Pro's chasing my ski dreams. I lost in, I kind of remember, again, probably the final. No, me, I probably lost in the final against Tommy Langlaka in the weight division. This was the last year they did the absolute. I went into the absolute. I made it all the way to the semis. Nicholas Marigale destroyed me in the gai. I did hit a nice little reversal on him though. He passed my guard and I somehow reversed him from side control. That's the only part of the match I share after which he swept me, submitted me. - You reversed him from side control? - Yeah. - Okay, so that could be like an instructional, also. - That could, yeah, exactly, exactly. - But the right place, right time though, right? - But then, years later, I left the team. Marigale replaced me. So they've brought in a more credentialed handsome, doesn't speak as well, but they've brought him in. He's my replacement. He's coming to the team. We face off at ADCC. I do a heavier division thinking, I looked at the names and I was like, "Ah, it looks like an easier division." And I had two teammates at the time that we were in my 88. And I was like, "Those guys will have to face off first round. "I'll have to face one of them second round, "the way they do the seeding and the structure of the bracket." So I was like, "I'll do 99. "I'll leave 88 for the boys." They both lost my division first round, unfortunately. So I face off against Marigale beginning of day two. Lot of pressure, because Danahas used to corner me. He used to be my coach. Now he's cornering the Brazilians. So we used to complain about as the enemy. And I'm like, "What's going on over here?" So I karate kid stuff. I face off against Marigale. I go hard early because I think he can't defend leg locks. For the first three minutes, I'm just attacking legs, legs, legs. I ended up sweeping him, getting on top. No points before the points period. But I'm very tight. I'm very tight at this point. Marigale is big. Like there's some guys that get juiced up to hit a certain weight. That's what I did to enter this division. You can't keep your gas tank. Marigale is just a big dude. I don't know, who knows if he's on the juice or not, but he's just naturally sits around 230 pounds, or even 225. When you're naturally that big, your gas tank's a bit better. Again, if you balloon yourself up on every substance possible, gas tank's surprisingly not too good. So we have a bit of a close one. Decision goes my way. Ultimately, finals next, I lose that. But that is sort of our competitive history. We were meant to have a match that had been pre-booked immediately after ADCC. So we agreed to this before ADCC. I was like, the price is right. I'm in. So I sign up for it, and I'm thinking ADCC that we're going to face off soon after. Marigale chose instead to have some vacation time. He wanted to go on vacation. He wanted to have relax, but a relaxation down in Brazil. So the match is scrapped. Flow hit me up, and they say, can you do February? And this was about the time that Volks for Islam and Perth, I was like, no, I can't do February because I'll be helping Volkanovsky. That's going to take precedence over this match. Flow goes, we'll announce it anyway. We'll sell those tickets anyway. We'll get the people hyped, and then we'll just have people out. And I'm like, all right, do it, do it, do it, do it, everyone. That's fucking probably not a good idea, but they do that. And then people keep trying to re-book this match. But now I barely even train anymore. I'm busy being a promoter, traveling around. So now instead of facing me in competition again, which I would do if the price was right. That after paying me very well. Two of the shows have offered me the match, but the money terrible. What do you think is the number that would convince you? It would have to be, I would think, half a million dollars. Otherwise, I just can't be bothered. Yeah. I have to be worth it. Because to put a price on a guy that takes himself as serious as Mary God, he's very serious, man. He's talking about authenticity. He's talking about words he doesn't even understand. For me to give him the opportunity to live in a world where he had won. the last match against me. It's hard to put a price on that. You know, when people say it's not about the money, it's not about the money. It's about me waking up every day knowing that he knows he lost to me. So you think you've gotten it in his head? Yes. How do you think you would do if you were to face him for the said 500,000? For the 500? Yeah. I think over five minutes, I'd be to beat anyone on the world. I still think you got it. I still think I got it. Gabby about to find out. All right. So you're going to make a statement with Gabby that it'll be a match. She remembers. Yeah. Yeah. She for sure. I think the fans will remember it as well. I'm open to it. Like, if we do this match, I'm taking it very serious, but we'd be open to rematches. I've always said I would have a MMA fight with her. I wouldn't be afraid to hit a big woman. So unlike with Miragalli, if you win, you're not going to write off to the sunset with Gabby. I'm a bit of a romantic. I think she deserves a few finishes, you know, not one and hit the bed that night. So you think you think you can actually beat Nicholas Miragalli? I think so. Yeah. I think you could throw a riddle at him before the match. That did fucking complicate things for him for the next hour. Well, you and Gordon never get along again. I think so. I think we need the origins of MDMA was couples therapy in the 70s in Houston. I believe I believe something like that for us could resolve these underlying issues. You're a man of Reddit because they suggested that you should consider Academy and Therapy sessions. Just imagine a therapist sitting down with him. They'll be like clear the schedule for the next couple of weeks. It was all due respect. I can't imagine a therapist sitting down with you. That would be a terrifying. I do have a therapist. Actually, they prescribed me five ends. He's he's quite confident in my. This is a man of Mamballi or what did you say? It's a Russian Russian website. It's the old Sean Connery thing. It's not a therapist. It's just something that's spelled the same. I think me and Gordon a debate of some thought would be awesome. Like a political debate. Yeah. Me representing Kamala Harris and him representing Donald Trump okay. So intellectual sparring. An intellectual battle. A battle of wits. Can you just speak to your trolling? Is there like underneath it all? Is there just a respect the human beings you go after? For sure. They have to be worthy of being attacked. Like if someone attacks that's the thing, it's like you want a worthy adversary. Not in a sense of I don't want to battle someone that has better bandit than me because I'm going to lose, but I want to battle someone with a profile large enough that it doesn't look like it just. Who do you think is the biggest troll or shit talker and martial arts? And not a Lorenzo. Yeah. Well, you can't you can't even put them in the he's another other class of human being. He's overqualified. Chail Solomon comes to mind. Chail's good. You versus Chail. Who who's a better shit talker? If you look the entirety of the career. Chail is better. I mean, I think if you can shit talk in MMA because there's far worse consequences for you. If you're still willing to do it, when really violent things can happen to you, I mean, I'm getting death threats, but like he has a certainty of violence against his opponents in MMA. So on Reddit, somebody said you are a choral belt level troll and just happened to be good at Jiu-Jitsu. So what did it take for you to rise to the ranks of trolling from white belt to black belt to choral belt? What's your journey? We're talking shit. That's a good question. Hey, I think it would have happened after I moved to America because in Australia, like we just on a daily basis say some of the worst things you could ever imagine. I can private life. Yeah, just we're just trying to ruin each other's day. Yeah. In a way that so blas A, you're going back and forth and the guy that actually gets upset and says some real shit, that's your victory. Like you're like, oh, we got you. You're actually the Ashley Brothers. You all right. We'll take that as a victory. So when you come to America and everybody takes themselves a little too seriously, those are just a bunch of victims that you can take advantage of. And Australian entering American banter is like Neo fuck getting his matrix skills. You're just like, whoa, I see everything coming. Do you ever look in the mirror and like regret how hard you went in the paint? That's somebody. I don't think so. I don't think so. You see you're proud of yourself. I think what I offer is some balance. It's like I'm bringing some justice. Ultimately, it'll probably come back in spades to me. Yeah. I don't know. As a fan of yours, as a fan of Goren's also, but as a fan of yours, I see the love behind it. I don't know. It seems always just fun. The shit talking seems fun. I wish you'd buy it back. It doesn't buy back anymore though. What's your relationship like with Mo, the organizer of VDCC? I mean, it's been a love-hate relationship. I guess it's Gabby. Like any good relationship, if you don't get blocked through the end of it, will you really in love to begin with? Right. That's my thoughts anyway. But so in terms of my friendship with Bob Miyamoto, we're really close friends for a long time. We talk a lot. He was instrumental in us moving down to the desk to Puerto Rico. He lives in Puerto Rico. He spends most of his time in Puerto Rico. I've spent time by him in Florida, California, but in terms of our relationship, I'm trying to think of an exact time where it went south. But I guess in my, him being the VDCC organizer, in my attack of athlete compensation was taken personally, which is obviously going to ruin whatever friendship you had. And that started around the time you weren't thinking about CJA. I mean, to be honest, CJA was a result of the response of my discussion of athlete compensation. So me and Moe had been close friends even after the Danahe team broke up. We were still close friends for a quite a while after that. But it does complicate things when someone is for all intensive purposes. He has an ADCC competitor and he runs ADCC, the event. He's a control of it now. He is your boss. So that does complicate our friendship. If you had a conversation since you announced CJA. Have we had a conversation? What did you get blocked? I don't see you getting a blocked host this joke. Honestly, we had a disagreement about athlete compensation. I said, let's do a podcast and talk about it because I'm a big fan of transparency. If you think I'm an idiot for thinking athletes should get paid more, tell me it. Show it to me. And I've made public statements other people have asked why we don't get paid more money. You can both tell me in the world at the same time, the grappling world at the same time, but was not interested in doing a podcast. Again, maybe he thought I was going to hit him with some gotcha questions or something. But really, at the end of the day, I personally believe you got nothing to hide. If you are confident in the business decisions you've made, then there's no gotcha moment that I could actually do. I could easily, I would have done the podcast if I looked like complete idiot would have released it anyway because it would be a good message to where we are in the sport. But again, considering what I know about Thomas and Max Price, which I believe are paying $200,000 for and T-Mobile's $2 million. How do you justify no increase in athlete pay while we have a 1.8 million increase in venue cost? So you're saying that there could potentially be poor business decisions, poor allocation of money that could be reallocated better to support the athletes? I've never once thought this was some organization where most like stealing money from self. I'm just saying that and again, the road to hell's paved with good intentions. So he might fully think that what he's doing is going to grow the sport. I'm going about it in a completely different way. I don't think we need T-Mobile. I don't think we need a behind the paywall. I think we need cheap venue, still maintain good quality production, release it for free. If you want something to grow, present it for free. Is there a future where the two of you talk? Yeah, for sure. He keeps insisting on talking face to face. I don't have a problem with that, but my argument is this is a public feud, the public. Like this is this is a we're having a disagreement. Let's settle the disagreement in a way that answers the question to the fans. Because if one of us is a complete idiot, then I believe the world of people following this story are entitled to know which one of us is an idiot. If you talk to him, would you be good face? Like would you turn off or turn the troll down from 11 to like a three? I don't even think I need a troll. I might just say, hey, show us the books. Honestly, when our event's done, we're going to be pretty transparent. Obviously, we are ran as a non-profit. We're going to be pretty transparent about everything. I mean, obviously, ultimately, all the views we get, when flowgrap, when an event's on flowgrap thing or flight pass or any other streaming provider, less it's a paper view, you're not going to know How many? people watched. So that's one aspect what we're doing is we're going to have a visual sort of guide to how many people are fans of grappling. Yeah, transparency in all of its forms. That's what bothers me about the IOC with the Olympics is that there's this organization that puts on an incredible event, but there is it's completely opaque. It's not transparent and the athletes don't get paid almost at all. So it's usually from sponsorships and they they sell distribution broadcast distribution. And so like it's mostly pay walled after after the fact it's very unless you're a super famous athlete or a famous event it's hard to watch. I don't know the the the early rounds of the weightlifting or the judo or the all of the competitions where most of those athletes get paid almost nothing and they've dedicated their whole life like they've sacrificed everything to be there and we don't get to watch them openly and you can't in many cases you can't even pay for it with with IOC. I've got to experience this because I'll have like podcast conversations with like judoka for example and I put like a little clip in a podcast and the Olympics channel takes it down immediately so they have all the videos uploaded private the private all the flag the copyright automatically from the private videos they could release they could release somewhere even if it's pay walled which I'm against but pay walled but make it super easy accessible so the floor grappling model is still okay I'm against it but if you do a really good job of it okay I can kind of understand a membership fee but like it should be super easy to use but in the case of the Olympics first of all in the case of the Olympics the whole point of the Olympics is for it to be accessible to everybody so paywalling goes against the spirit of the Olympic Games and I will say the same is probably true for many sports like grappling and especially for major events like ADCC that I feel like that should be openly accessible to everybody like on every platform but you what was the decision-like for you to to make it accessible on YouTube and X and well I mean just because basically it's going to grow the sport you know what I mean like it's if you have to subscribe to a platform to watch something you have a mild interest in a mild curiosity and there's a financial barrier there so I want to open it up because again we have an investor who's contributing and is happy for it to be spent this way happy for us not to be held hostage by these sort of streaming providers and really like again I'm not making accusations it's flow grappling with UFC firebust they are making the right business decision by not providing streamer numbers because that's leverage that those people can use against the streaming provider but for me as an individual athlete they really wants to understand the metrics of how many people actually watch this for to leverage that in my own sponsorship negotiations then finally a position to have this out free and also give every athlete involved the same metrics and information like you literally be able to see the spikes when you compete and you'll be able to take that and present it for opportunities for sponsorships for businesses to say look look how many views this got I was one of the most viewed moments of this event so I want to put the power back in the athlete and take it away from the host and it creates a lot of incentive for the athlete to make it exciting yeah this your time it might never happen again I am fully intent to run this every year that's the goal but again it might never happen again is there a possible future where the 2026 ADCC is run by Craig Jones could I take over ADCC I think from an ADCC perspective make a lot of sense I think we make a lot of sense to wait to see if this event turns into fire festival first before you commit to something like that but I think a more more than approach to the promotion of the event again I keep going back to the comedians you know I mean if you're if you want to grow your brand whatever that may be provide content for free and you can pay waller eventually you can grow the audience create the audience free you know I think the again if your goal is to create a huge sport here then it's like if we're already a niche sport and competition aspect of that is it even smaller niche then we need to grow that providing this content for free well having just chat with with young musk who fundamentally believes that the most entertaining outcome is the most likely that to me if the universe has a sense of humor you would certainly Craig Jones would certainly be running ADCC which would be I mean it would just be like beautifully hilarious it would be a poetic yeah ending would be an underdog story from a man that could never win the event to run in the event on behalf of the shakedown. So I saw beating videos of the CGI camp people training super hard so you aside who don't seem to do things in a standard way what does it take to sort of put yourself in a peak shape peak performance for us for a huge event like the CGI or the ADCC I mean it's it's psychologically it's really really brutal like for me anytime I'm leading up to any event of any meaningful significance it's it's horrible on a psychological level because you're always thinking about are you training enough are you doing enough if you feel any signs of sickness injury the stress that was increased your sleep quality decreases it's all those little subtle things they're so hard to mitigate so like whether you feel like you're training hard enough you're overtraining those to me are the most difficult aspects and I think really those are an individual thing and that's really something where a coach can provide what he thinks to you is the right amount of work you know and I think that's different for different people I think Nikki Rod could do eight hours a day you know I mean I think Nicky Ryan eight minutes I saw a video of Nicky Ryan like with a trash can throwing up yes and and the top comment is like that's him doing the warm up that is satisfying to watch obviously yeah but yeah so you're supposed to train hard enough to worry you have this confidence that you're prepared yeah I mean it's an impossible thing to grasp it's like some of the best performances I've had I've been called up last minute or I've been sick or my camp's been horrible and for me personally I've gone in there and thought uh relaxed almost like oh well the you know like you got called up a week ago you're injured you miss four weeks of your camp and I went in this super relaxed and accepting of the result and performs much better sometimes when I know three months out I've got an event coming up and that event only happens every two years it just the stress of that alone like I personally on an individual level more of a I'd rather wing it I'd rather be in the stands and just roll down like Gunna Nelson I remember he had a brilliant performance in an 80 CC absolute and he was out drinking the night before he had no idea he was competing the next day he was in the stands eating ice cream and they called his name out for the absolute and he went out there and I believe he got bronze I believe he beat Jeff Munson so it's like it's different for different people obviously you don't want that to be the standard you've got to be putting in the work at all times but even now in my crazy travel schedule where I don't train anyway near like I used to as long as your game is technical and as long as your body is in good condition I believe you can still train well against well-class guys you might not be able to do an hour straight but if your technique are intited you're just losing fitness so this is a possible outcard to outcardio Craig Joes like is is your game fundamental technique based game for sure for sure yeah I've never wanted to win anything bad enough to train properly for it right but isn't that the secret to your success being lazy I think so I think that's the cannot like the only logical explanation you know and I also use it as mind games too like I again no one knows whether what I'm saying is true or not right and I'm not saying this story to say anything bad about my opponent at the time but I booked two matches and two consecutive weekends and I've been traveling I think I just got back from one of my trips I've been to international snow I didn't even know where the fuck I was but you're in Texas right now by the way just I guess it's about Texas just for you thank you and it's an honor but I hadn't really even trained I couldn't train like I was traveling just had no ability to train I trained for like a week I had the fuel road match and I said to myself I was down in Mexico City and I said you know what if you win this match you got a face Lovato next week don't go out and party don't celebrate the victory but as a 32 year old man at the time hitting a flying triangle submission I thought that deemed a worthy after party yeah and we got out of control that night and it wasn't to the next hour cup I was like oh I have Lovato next weekend but I'm also people don't know whether I'm telling the truth or not but it's also I'm almost too honest because I'll be like doing interview saying yeah I was out party and I belly track the opponent looks into that and they question it, is he telling the truth? Is he baiting me? Is he really that unconcerned? It's almost a psychological battle in and of itself, but for the most part, it's true. So to you being psychological or your lax is extremely important, just not giving a damn. I wonder what that is? Not too much pressure. I don't want pressure. I don't like the pressure. But you like the pressure when it comes to internet. Shit talking. Well, I mean, you get a silently sit back and think about a good response, you know? Yeah. How important is it to just go crazy hard rounds leading up to competitions like that? You said sort of Nicky Rod, but like on average, for like athletes at the world class level, do you have to put in the hard rounds? Yeah, I think you have to put in the hard rounds. It depends at what point in your career you are. You know, like I think like someone like Nicky Rod might almost train to technically too often. And when he comes to competition, it's a confronting experience when someone hits him hard and he feels that pressure. So I think different people require different things. When Nicky Rod is breaking the spine of a 37 year old father or three bus driver, it might be time for him to train in a more technical manner. So it's like you got a caterer to what they need. And again, depending on the opponent, it's a game of strategy, you know? Like for me, when I was more active, I look at an opponent that I want, that I could steal some clout from of which the client you can make money. And I think to myself, what's the best rules that I can beat him in? That's the strategy. And then how would I beat him in that rule set? So there's so many strategic layers to the goal above and beyond just the training for me. But nowadays I like to, if I train short duration, high intensity, that's the best of me. I don't like this six or like 10, six minute rounds, whatever. Like I don't like this long training. I don't like, it's for me, it's too much to hold on the body. I think I go to the gym, we bang, maybe the first round slightly light and then just banging out two hard rounds tops, a little bit of problem solving, get out of the, because you want to feel the, a little bit of the competition intensity. That feels the best of my body. When you're traveling, you're doing seminars and you're just doing just with folks. Are you training with them? I'm sure there's like, from everything I see, people would love to train with you. Yeah, they want to, they want to, I mean, I don't know what it is. Obviously, you, I guess you, let's say, it's like people want to play basketball with like a basketball star or something, you know what I mean. But I guess you played one on one with a basketball. There's no great risk of injury. You know, yeah, that's, that's, that's the real problem is like, if you don't roll at your seminar, the seminar participants don't feel like they've got the full experience. But there's snipers of these seminars. There's these sharks that are circling wanting to attack you. And you have to look at it out. You look at it from both perspectives. I think you should provide excellent technique, excellent question and answer time. And I think you should roll a little bit. For the most part of these days, I'll just roll 30 minutes straight. I'll just do 10 guys, three minutes, no break, 30 minutes straight. I might even get the guy to pick, because again, if you, some of these guys come in hot, yeah, it's terrifying, man, because it's the thing is like with Anthony Bourdain, sort of analogy here, like you're exploring all parts of the world. You just want to be there in the culture, teach good techniques, and just socialize. You don't want to like, there's just a bunch of killers that are trying to like murder you. Yeah, to them, they're like, I get to test myself against a world-class athlete today. And to you, you're like, oh, I'm in Odessa. I'd like to get to know the people, try some food, have a couple of drinks, and enjoy the place. But to them, it's time to go. You got to rope it open a bit. If I meet pressure with pressure, I'll get tired. But if I don't provide resistance where they think there should be resistance, now it slows their pace down, they get shocked a bit. But 100%, if I'm at a seminar and someone's rolling too hard with me, if I feel like I might get hurt, I will 100% rip a submission on them. Like it's like you're confronted with a threat. Yeah. You have to meet it with a threat. It's like, I've spoken about this with Ryan Hall. Ryan Hall, give him a warning, and then go on. And I think it's perfectly acceptable. Like I won't endanger them for no reason. But if you're coming hot, you better tap fast. If I feel a threat, you better tap. I'm not going to break it for the second break in it. But if you do some crazy shit that might potentially hurt me, and I get a submission, and I'm tired, if you're fresh, you can catch a heel hook, hold it tight, the guy tries to wiggle out, you got it. Yeah. If you tie it, and you've been nice with a heel hook, and then they slip out and club you on the head, then next time, it's going to be the last time. Well, last time, see you're another level, you and Ryan Hall just world class. But like for me, I'm trying to find navigate through this, because I'd like to be able to roll, you know, like 10 rounds for fun, for cultural. But they're coming for you too. And unfortunately, ripping submissions are like, you know, neon bellies, some kind of dominant position. People don't like hear the message at all. Or if I let them submit me a bunch of times, they don't calm down either. So I've been trying to figure out how to solve that puzzle, because I'd like to keep rolling with people across the world for like for many more years to come, but it's tough. You got to do it. If you've reached any level of notoriety, whether it's in the sport or just as a celebrity, you're better off to just have three, four trusted training partners and train privately. That's the sad situation. People used to say, oh, you could be such a such a good any gym, not those days are over now. Now if you show up and you have any sort of name that come in a kill, you're better. Honestly, you better off, it's so much safer. Training is about trusting, trust is built from safe rounds. Strangers, scary. I don't know. I'm trying to develop a radar when I look at a person trying to like figure out. Are they are they from Eastern Europe? I'll tell you what the most tank. Yeah. That's a good one. You know what? Anyone that wears a people's sports rash guard or anyone from the country of Poland, be ready. Oh, Polish people go hard. People go hard. I've never had a flow roll with a Polish person. Somebody on Reddit asked how many legs did you break in Eastern Europe? Three or four to send a message or just for your own personal enjoyment. I don't enjoy it. You know, they don't enjoy the violence. It is humorous after the fact, though, because, I mean, it's just like, hey, like, well, I'm jet lagged. I'm tired. I'm here for you guys. Why are you trying to hurt me? You know, like if I get a submission tap, don't hesitate at all, don't hesitate. You know, like it's like, it's, I mean, you just use dangerous. It's a dangerous thing. And when strangers go on crazy, it's that shot. They think they're getting an invite to the CJA life. They tell me. It's just wild. So speaking of which, just for the hobbyist, for a person just starting out, what wisdom can you provide? Like, say you were tasked with coaching a beginner, a hobbyist beginner. How would you help them become good in the year? What would be the training regimen? What would be their approach, mental physical in terms of practice to jitter? I mean, honestly, picking safe training partners and trying to understand the positions and not just freaking out. Like, you might escape if you freak out, but you also might be stuck in something and you injure yourself. So it's like, I think if you can, it's just about longevity. You know, like, if you can train, find a pace to train out and like sort of intensity and the right people, you could potentially train five years without injury. It's really about how you move. If you are always moving in an explosive way, eventually you're going to do that from a position in which you can't move and then someone's going to tear. And you also want to be able to trust training partners to not go too crazy and flip too much pain. It's like, yeah, I think I've managed to avoid a lot of injuries because I just never roll to athletically, explosively. I think I'm probably incapable of moving at that right of speed. So that's part of it is you the way you move, but I guess you also don't allow anybody to put, you know, really bad position in terms of hurting you. I let them put me in bad position, but I try to stay relaxed at all times. You know, that's the, that's the key here is like, I mean, yeah, obviously you got the cheesy keeper playful, but it's like, if you really key, if you can remain calm in bad positions, that is a skill. That's your confidence, not in yourself, but that the other guy is incapable of submitting you. That's the ultimate confidence. You can give him whatever you want. So the thing you want as a beginner is to focus on minimizing injury by relaxing, by not going, by not freaking out. Yes, keeping it a pace, you can understand what just happened. The thing is like, how do you know if you're freaking out or not as a beginner? It feels like a, if you're panicking. Yeah, that's a good, if you're, I mean, I see a lot of beginners kind of breathing, starting to breathe harder, they tense up. That's probably underneath that is panic. Yeah, if you could make someone panic, you'll fatigue them. It's the same. It's like if you're, even if you're high level and you're worried about getting your guard past, it's the panic that leads the fatigue in your guard retention. But if you're so flexible, you remain calm. I think it's because you're not panicked. Fear is the mind killer. But also, you have one of the more innovative games in Jiu-Jitsu history. How do you develop that? How do you continue throughout your career? How are you innovating? What was your approach to learning and figuring positions? How are figuring submissions? I mean, financial motivation. If you can hit moves and no one else knows how to do, you can sell those instructionals. But also, it keeps it interesting, because it's like, I mean, it can't get stagnant and boring, you know? Like, a lot of people get to blue about their good at one thing, they only do that one thing. I think it's finding creative ways to beat people. And sometimes creativity is in how they respond to it. So if you can find a humiliating move to do to somewhere, we're not even necessarily humiliating, but a move that is unexpected. When you get with some of you don't expect, I think that is sort of really one of the most fun aspects of it. Like, you train to stay better than the people you're better than. That's what keeps you in the game. And finding creative ways to beat those people is some of the most entertainment. So that's just something that brings you joy, uh, is by doing the unexpected. Yeah, trying to, if you get swept with some of the, you don't think should work, I think that's fulfillment. So you're, your game is even a bit truly interesting. So like, but what's the actual process of like, like, with the z-guard, all the innovative stuff you've done there? How do you come up with ideas there? I mean, just studying type. Just study, study type, and try to reverse engineer. Like, if I see, uh, if I see something or I train with someone, and it feels, you know, when you have those moments, we're like, oh, I didn't even know what they're doing here. And if you can put someone in position that don't understand, that's also where they panic. So it's like creating different ways to make people panic. But also, I mean, just innovation, like having fun with it. You know, like, I guess, the artistic aspect of it is fun. You can be creative in how you can beat people. Did you see artistic or artistic? Both. Okay. Just checking. What's like the most innovative thing you've come up with? What's like, some of the cooler ideas you've come up with on the mat? I don't think you've come up with anything, but I've popularized things. You know, like certain styles of leg entry. I definitely didn't invent them, but I popularized them Octopus guard, playing more from turtle, sort of the pinning style of game. Like you, like, as, uh, because of my jokes online, put me in a position of power in the sport so that when I post content, it can popularize a move or release an instructional popularize a game. But it's still, I'm not trying to sell inauthentic products. I'm still what I want the technique to work be optional, but put some humor on top of it. Like, power bottom, their instructional things are pretty good. And be changed that one. I saw the name of that. I mean, unfortunately, meta, the ads were not appreciating some of that humor. So we had to soften, soften the titles a bit. You got a, you got a phone call from the man said, changes. I didn't allegedly, right. The company hosting it. Right. Right. Uh, what do you think about Zuck in general? Like, uh, the fact that he trains, just a, have you got a chance to train with them? Cause you train. I haven't trained with him. I met him when Volkswagen earlier. We've spoken briefly. Interesting guy for sure. Um, loves Jiu Jitsu. Loves MMA is really intending to compete in something. I think competed in Jiu Jitsu and tends to compete in MMA has a beginner's mind. It's humble about it. That's interesting. Was he ever in consideration for CGI? Oh, I mean, we would love to have him. We'd love to have him, but he's coming off of ICO surgery. I think he's returned to sport. He's August. So I think he'll be back training against him. Yeah. What's your relationship has been like with, with, with, uh, Volcanowski? Like, what, what have you learned about martial arts, about grappling and different domains just training with him? I mean, for me personally, what's so interesting about Volcanowski is his, I guess where he came from, you know, like it's like, uh, you have pre-existing ideas of what a UFC champion is. Again, I would say it's similar to when I've started training Jiu Jitsu and I first traveled to America and got to train with some really famous people. You realize how relatable they are in some aspects. Volcanowski trains a freestyle. And it, it is humble beginnings, humble origins. Like it's like, uh, it's a small gym and a small, sort of beach side city. They run in puzzle mats, you know what I mean? You think UFC champion, you don't think puzzle mat gym, you know what I mean? Like he's not training at a American top team. He's not at one of these big gym. So to me, it just shows what you're capable of through hard work and sort of self-educating in such an isolated place. It's insane to me that he's still considered probably the power of our best featherweight ever, in my opinion. And he's basically come across and started late from a rugby background. But also in terms of what I've learned, on a technical level, I picked up a lot of stuff from him in sort of grappling exchanges, how to get back up, obviously wall wrestling, um, in terms of how hard he trains, how hard he works, the cardio aspect is insane. His cardio workouts are absolutely insane. So he's the opposite of you. So complete opposite of me, probably publicly and privately. As an, as an athlete, yeah. The amount of work he puts in and just his, uh, she is sort of mental willpower. I remember there's been a couple of times where I've watched him do weight cuts where like that's horrible. You watching your, your friend, you know, obviously we started as like basically, I would help him in certain jujitsu aspects and then becomes a close friend of yours. But the whole process of the MMA fight is horrible, especially when you care about the person fighting because some of those weight cuts you see are awful. Like you basically seeing guys eyes roll back in their head, like him just powering through a five kilo 10 pound cut and just constantly talking about how easy it is. But while clearly, I mean, these guys look like they're dying, you know, like to push through that and then to push through some of the moments in his in his fight to watch him be completely relaxed until like five minutes before the fight. And then he starts talking about you're never going to take this belt away from my family. Like he's singing about his family before he fights his kids. You know, you see the character change. It's just absolutely insane to watch on the other side of that is obviously watching the ups and downs. There's been so many ups the last two have been downs. So you see in the full spectrum of the highest highs and the lowest lows. How is he able to deal psychologically with loss? I don't know. Obviously still hungry, still motivated. Obviously, I thrive in a losing environment, but him on the other hand, I'm not sure. We don't talk too much on that level. Obviously, we check in his friends, see what he's up to, see what he's planning. Yeah. We were trying to get him a grappling match at CJA. I won't say the reasons it fell through, but we were setting one up with my chemistry, but we couldn't get it done. And you can't say the reasons why I said the reason, but would have been would have been also you think you could have set that up if you had more time like set something like like part of the challenge here is some of these gigantic match ups. I feel like it takes time. Yeah, that being the promoter to one of them, not as bad. The super fights really, really difficult. I don't think we could have set it up with more time that particular match, but that was the dream. That's what we're hoping to do. But there's a lot of other interesting match ups that you could have possibly gotten through if there's more time. Yeah, I'd love to see. I mean, personally, I really want to see folks in Otaga have actual grappling match because we sort of get out of those team submissions and apply a ton of ground impact. I'd love to see him just have a grappling match. I'd love to see more that UFC stars have grappling matches, especially if they've had any head trauma in a flat. It's like, hey, let's keep him busy because as you see, some of those guys go crazy if they can't train. What about the fights against Markachev? You think Vaul can beat him? I think the first white showed he could beat him, for sure, showed it's possible. Even in the second fight, when he reversed the grappling exchange, I wish he'd tried to take Makachev down. I really think he has a huge strength advantage against Makachev and I personally believe he has a fence resting advantage. You might not see it in a sense of the technical hip tosses and things like that, like really, but I do believe folks, one of the best, if not the best, cage wrestler in the world. Who do you think wins in a grappling match? That would be interesting. Right. The interesting. The problem is, while you are champion like Islam is, you could just never book him. You could never get it. What do you think makes the Dagestiny wrestlers and fighters so good? I think personally, those guys are just like, they just love it. It's just about like, It's how they train like it's a fight to the death, you know what I mean like it's just built in them They don't want to concede an inch ever. I think for MMA and wrestling that can be very very good I think sometimes when those guys come over to G2 specific events They get leg-lop they fall into traps overly aggressive or overly evasive But I think the way they train just is perfect for a fight a fight they can just Ford pressure eat some shots grind a guy against the wall Fence wrestling is technical G-Jitsu farm won't technical. There's way more things you can do in a grappling scenario from top and bottom Then I think against the wall. So a grinding nature of how they train works really good to walk a guy down and take him down Against the wall and then obviously with ground and pound very good to hold a guy down So I think just never conceding an inch and training. It's just They've done that since they were born basically. So you learn how to grind Somebody down. Yeah, like they're just trying to break each other at all times trying to have some Dominance over other other Over their friends and they train with but you think in the grappling context that they will not always translate Not not when you can pull guard and submit from your back I think that sort of negates some of that grinding pressure. I think that has to be met with more slow technical lateral movement I think that's the way you like well, that's that would be the dream for me is a guy just comes straight forward into my guard So that grind that grinding approach works well if he's taking me down and got already close to me But if I'm laying flat on my back and he's standing and he has to engage He has all that danger at range. Yeah, but if he can connect to my body Before we go down. Yeah, now we're in his world again. I think I wonder if it's like you know at his prime could be versus you for example Who do you think one's there buggy choke for sure buggy choke. No way. I know you're joking We're getting with the buggy I can really So you you can get a buggy choke on at the highest at the highest level Can you add you keep me on that I get that legitimately can work at the highest level buggy choke for sure. Yeah Really catch anyone really? Okay, you know the buggy believe though I Not I'm not a buggy hater either. I'm just I'm agnostic on the buggy choke. Can be we go to sleep for sure. Yeah, yeah, there's no way he would tap to a buggy choke I try who was at our face recently our face rushing guy from Tata. I couldn't buggy him I had I was trying to close guy one of the sort of like it is harder to pull off but he I had to put him to sleep twice at the end of the match with a triangle, but he was just willing Like I don't know Eastern European guys. It's like what like They fight they treat it like a real fight, you know, you ever like gone hard with the daggers to any person like grappling wrestling Any of the fighters any of them and me guys Have I have I I mean they do train hard they do train hard when I did the seminar in Odessa It was at a school, but another school in the city brought like 10 daggers to any guys all of them Went insanely hot. Okay, I was like us. Okay. Oh, it's a small sample size, but they all wanted to be broken What do you think you as the wise sage or jiu jitsu if you look 10 20 years out? How do you think the game is gonna evolve? The art of it the art of it. I mean, I think obviously people are gonna keep innovating Perfecting certain things throwing out Information bad sort of techniques bad sort of but how it's so hard to predict it's like that's the game of making money for the Instructionals is predicting where we go next. It's so so difficult. What do you think is gonna be the most popular submissions? CGI and ADCC this year is it before logs or we are naked. I think Actually C.J. I I think there's gonna be a lot of guys that don't tap the take injuries. Yeah, I small concern is that a guy wins the match, but it's so injured He's can barely go into the next match. Yeah, but we in the battle lose the war. We are gonna see that aren't we? People refusing to tap we're actually we did the walk through yesterday and we were like one ambulance is not enough get a second one here Because if they take one guy injured to hospital, we can't continue until an ambulance comes back So these guys are gonna go every one will be dag a standing for a day. Yeah, that's what I think this tournament will achieve But progression it'll just be the integration of Wrestling integer duty. You know, I think that would be the most exciting way the sport could progress is basically Folk star wrestling, but an integration of submissions from the standing position to If you just follow the rules of you should always be fighting to get on top whether that's a submission that leads to a Sweep or a sweep and you should be trying to avoid being pinned and As long as the game revolves around that And guys engage each other offensively on the feet that would be the most exciting best way To um worship sport. Yeah, when I show the sport as you get to the most exciting stuff is whenever both people want to be a Wrestling scrambling wrestling. They want to both want to get on top. Yeah, that looks like fighting versus Guard stuff. I'm a guy that totally agrees with you But if I think the guys have been arrested, I will concede, you know, like it's like that's the guess the hard part But then the whole the whole crowd will then mock you ceaselessly as they should for conceding That's what the million should be we should have a tournament or a round rubb and thing where it's like the million goes to the most exciting man Yeah, who took the most risks? I mean in a way that's what's gonna happen because this is quite open So they're the benefit of being exciting is you're going to be Glorified on social media and if you're going to be boring install you're going to be endlessly sort of Willified and forget about metals social media glory is all that matters Well in a certain sense on a basic human level. Yeah, I mean, not what all that matters, but it's You're not gonna if you're gonna stall you're gonna become a meme. I feel like especially with CGI and so is there are the rest gonna Try to stop stalling. Yeah, we're gonna penalize them hard hit them hard get that boring shit out of here So what percentage of athletes would you say are on steroids? 100% anyone that's ever beaten me Okay, I'm taking more steroids than me. I Don't know I wanted to test them, but not to do anything bad But just in the name of science to see what people are running You know, it's so hard to say because you like you train with people and they don't even tell you what they're on I tell the world what I'm on and they go look at you. You're not taking any steroids. It's like it's like such a secret secret thing I personally think it's almost impossible to say with it, but occasionally you look at a guy And you're pretty certain, you know, yeah, the looks of it But you could also go the other way certain people are just you know to keep built it and They look like they are and then there's probably others like yourself It's a it's a self-defense mechanism because you'd rather assume that that guy was on steroids than his genetics is so far superior to yours You look not must be steroids Yeah, that's the part of accusations of people being a steroids that I hate It's like without data people are just like it's it's a way they can say that somebody's cheating without Because I like celebrating people and sometimes people aren't on steroids and darn cheating and they're just fucking good. What about Gabi Garcia? I think she's beautiful strong And you're a lucky man to share the mat with her. She should be honored And I have I'm betting a huge amount of money on her, so they too Either way, you're gonna get paid she's paying 11 to one I bet on love as well So we are aligned in that way love will prevail. Okay. You put Alex knows to sleep Just to reflect back on that What was it was too work you needed it so you that's you fighting the walk mind virus or whatever I think it was on the pulse too much. What was that like I didn't I didn't see the the full video I just saw a little clip. I thought he was dead for a second But I for some change reason couldn't start laughing. Yeah, I don't know how's that please wake up. There's something There's something funny about it. Yeah, I was like his blood pressure's higher than mine. I hope that didn't cook him Yeah, that would be quite sad It's so crazy. He's murder somebody. Yeah, he's probably the most Just entertaining human being ever off like just just he just says the crate like off air He's always on. It's like that's just He's always ready to say something wild shit. It's crazy as shit possible What's it like going to sleep? I somehow have never gone to sleep. I went to sleep one time Lockman jobs was demonstrating a technique on me, but I woke up straightaway, but for 10 seconds I didn't know who I was where I was what I was doing, but that's it. That's it. That's it. I'm over now. So any Didn't feel good though. Some people say it feels good. They don't feel good Because you were like what panicked lost. Yeah, I was just I just didn't know what was going on Yeah, and he loaded and that's a cool. There must be a cool feeling to load it all back in like realize where am I? I feel like that sometimes I don't hold tell what I'm like traveling. It's like, where the fuck am I again? That when you wake up? Maybe that's what it's like some people push it to the far David Karin, you know, what what I'm two I'm too dumb to get that joke What a rotic asphyxiation. Oh good. Thank you. Thank you. Now I know know. So given all the place you've gone, all the people you've seen recently, well, gives you hope about this whole thing we got going on about humanity, about this world. We start war sometimes, we do horrible things to each other sometimes. Wow. I missed all that. Well, gives you hope that you can still make fun of anything as long as it's funny. That's what I'm fighting for. People talking about cancel culture, I just think the joke wasn't funny enough. Head pole delivery. Well, thank you for being at the forefront of making fun of everything and anything. And thank you for talking today, brother. Thank you, right? Thanks for listening to this conversation with Craig Jones to support this podcast. Please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you some words from Anthony Bourdain. Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind however small. And in return, life and travel leaves marks on you. Thank you for listening. I hope to see you next time. [Music]