I kicked someone's fucking elbow

six weeks before my last fight, and my fucking left toe, I have a turf toe, and it still fucking hurts. Just from kicking an elbow hardest. Because I'll throw teeps and body shots as hard as you can in sparring. Like, you're going to be all right. So I whipped a fucking teep and landed it on an elbow, and I fucking swear my foot and my toe turned the other way. It didn't, but that shit still hurts to today.

You remember John vs. Chael Sonnen. He still has to tape his toes up. I believe it. He has to tape his big toe to his little toe just to hold it in place while he fucks people up.

Yeah. That

sounds fucking funny. It's funny. I gotta tape my toes before I fuck you up. But he has to otherwise it's just like it's so torn apart that I

guess it just doesn't hold anymore that was

the first fight you didn't wrap your ankles against Aljo right? we weren't allowed to in Boston

but yeah I didn't wrap him I didn't feel like I needed to either I felt my shit was good but usually I like to get a little fucking and

that probably gives him a grip on his single legs

yeah before the fight let's not even give him that little bit. Because wrestling, I'll grapple or wrestle with really fucking high-level wrestlers. We have so many fucking good guys we train with. Get in on a single leg, I'll limp leg out. But wrestlers are used to being able to, you know, when someone tried to limp leg or use that shoe to kind of hold on. And fighting, I mean, unless you have your ankles wrapped. Who was the fight? I think it was Luque versus RDA. In between rounds, they took off his ankle wraps. Did that happen? I think that was right before we fought Aljo, too. Took off the ankle wraps because he was using it as a little grip. Even that little tiny advantage.

It makes a difference. It makes a difference. You know, like Eddie Bravo used to always say, like, you wear as much as you can on your legs. It'll make your guard more dangerous. Like in jiu-jitsu tournaments. Like, and in fighting, like Frank Mir used to try to wear these long-ass knee sleeves. Like, if you could wear long knee sleeves and shorts. Another couple guys did. George Sotaropoulos did that. He basically almost had pants on. Like, he had knee sleeves, and then above the knee sleeves, he had, like, tights where the shorts were. So there's so much friction, and that would aid you. And so if you've got that shit on your ankles, for

sure that's going to aid a guy grabbing your ankle. Especially for that minor adjustment. Fuck.

Yeah. I

was worried about that fight. I was like, those motherfuckers. Usually, I mean, even against like Peter Yan, I was like, okay, it's fucking, I can beat this dude. But Aljo, I knew I could beat Aljo too, but I was like, this dude's fucking dangerous. Like he's fucking, especially the tear he's been on, just beat Henry Cejudo. So the dude's fucking in his prime. Like this motherfucker's dangerous. And to choke Sanhagen out the way

he did. That

was one of my... When you think about fights going good or bad, when you think about it bad, especially when you've seen it happen. You know he can do that. He did it recently. So I'm like, I just don't want to get in Paris and just be that guy. I just don't want... Corey's got to live with that forever. And And that sucks.

Yeah. I

mean, he's – I mean, obviously, we all know how good Corey is, and, like, that probably wouldn't happen again, but it doesn't matter if it would or wouldn't happen again. It fucking happens. I think sometimes

when things like that happen, it just changes your approach to fighting and steals your mind, and I think that's what it did with him, and he just became way better. Yeah. Because the Corey Sanhagen that we think of now like the guy wheel kicked Marlon Marais Yeah, like that's a different Cory. Frankie Edgar knee. Frankie Edgar knee. That's one of the nasty. He's an animal now. He's a fucking animal. He's just he flows in there. Mm-hmm. You know, but like that fight like and then it's crazy like Marlon dude. At one point in time, Marlon Marais was the motherfucker. Gosh, for

like this long, it's all you got sometimes.

He was so big for the division and fucking super jacked, and his striking was nasty. Remember when he knocked out Aljo with that switch kick? Yeah. Ooh, his left high kick off the switch was beautiful. Aljo shot into his knee. That's right. Yeah, he shot into his knee. I thought he was dead.

You know what's funny is I was actually at that fight, and I was, I don't know where I was at in my career, but I think I was only one fight in maybe. But I was at that fight and watched that, and I hadn't really been to fights before. And I was just watching the stands as just a normal fucking, wasn't sitting in the UFC section. And I was like, oh, fuck.'d it was he was out for five ten million it was scary that's

always a scary ones right when someone's running in and then the other guy catches them with a knee or a kick like like fucking cyborg and Michael Venom oh that's gross oh that was the worst one ever makes you that makes

you question one like do I still know what we're talking about Michael

Venom page we were just talking about earlier who's just so phenomenal caught this guy cyborg not Cyborg that you think of like Chris I bug but her husband. It's also side which must have been a confusing household. Oh He crushed his skull so his oh with that like him moving in and that knee landing perfectly. The pain he was in. Literally fractured the front of his skull. And they had to have it. Look, he's got a dent in his skull. Look how shattered it was.

That's insane. Insane. That looks like a video game type shit. Insane.

Now, also, what does that do to your brain?

Yeah, that's not good. Like, what's going

on in there? And he was like, I'll be back, and everybody's like, dude, hang on. I think that might be a wrap.

Yeah, especially if you have kids. Like, I know once I had a baby, I'm like, you think a little bit different. It's like, okay. Well,

that's why you can't do ayahuasca. Not yet. Because you think of everybody as you. Oh.

Yeah.

Fuck. just chew Adderall and punch people.

I've never done it. Well, I think I might have done Adderall once. I've never done it. But I'm like, I don't really need to. I think I like it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tim always tries to get me doing it. Oh, yeah.

Oh, my God. He went right into that. That was a crazy one. Yeah.

Now he went on like a fucking eight fight losing streak too, didn't he?

Yeah, you know what happened? Henry. Henry got him in that second round. That is, go to the first round, see if you can find Marlon Marais versus Henry Cejudo round one. Just find the fight and we'll watch the whole. So the first round, Marlon is fucking Henry's legs up. I mean, he just looks incredible. He looks like a world champion Muay Thai fighter. Yeah. And then Henry made the adjustments. Marlon gassed the fuck out. Yeah. Oof. But, dude, he looks so good. It's just Marlon couldn't keep up the pace. And I often wondered how much of it had to do with Marlon cutting weight. Because he was so big. Yeah. That guy never looked like a 135 pounder. He always looked like a featherweight. God,

he's just so short, though, for the division, too.

For bantamweight?

I mean, I guess not short for the division, but he's only I mean, Henry's like fucking, what, 5'3"?

Yeah. Henry's

so fun. I feel like Henry's obviously good as fuck, but I feel like he thinks he's a little bit better than he is when he was trying to teach Habib how to fucking throw kicks. Habib, remember that video? I've never seen that. He was trying to teach Habib something, and he was landing a kick with his foot on Habib's knee. Habib's like, what are you doing here? It was just funny. But yeah, I remember watching this fight, because I didn't know if I was going to fight Henry or Aljo. I was kind of preparing for both So I remember watching this fight back thinking, like, fuck, he made some good adjustments. There

was a good leg kick by Henry there, but Marlon caught him with some great counters. Like, look at that right there. Just look at that counter left and then the right hand over the top. Sharp. The left body kick. Sharp. And then starting to really put it on Henry in these exchanges. Every one of these exchanges, he's the guy who's getting off the harder shot. And that fucking switch kick he does is so pretty. That switch kick off the left leg. If you got a fast one, like an Edson Barbosa one, it's such a dangerous weapon. I never saw anybody throw it faster than Barbosa.

Yeah, dude, it's fucking slick. He's at 45 now, right? Yeah. Isn't that weird?

It is weird, yeah. I don't like when

people go down like that.

It's hard. It's like Frankie when he went down later in his career.

BJ went down. It's just like... Cub Swanson tried to go 35 for one fight, too. Yeah, it

just crushes you. And especially as you get older, I think it's even more punishing and more difficult to come back 24 hours after such a brutal weight cut and fight. Those

weight cuts are not fucking good for you. Remember not long ago, remember the commissions would start at 24 hours

before the event would start? That was right before I got in the UFC. I'm so fucking glad they changed that and we could weigh in at 9am. It's a game changer. Yeah. Well,

really what they should figure out how to do is not have weight cutting. Really, the best thing to do would be to have more weight classes and to just eliminate that whole bullshit. It's crazy.

I wonder what Aljo would fight at then because, like we talking about earlier, that motherfucking gets up to 170 pounds.

I bet he'd fight at 165. That's

crazy.

Yeah, that's what I think he would fight at. I think that would fight at 155. Actual 165 pound guys. Yeah. Look, I mean, I'm not disparaging anybody doing it because it's part of the sport, but it's sanctioned cheating. Yeah. That's what it is. You're not really 135 pounds. Like, Aljo's not 135 pounds.

I do find advantages in there because I know I'm doing it right. I know I'm doing it as scientific, as healthy as possible, and as disciplined as I possibly can where I know other guys aren't. Like, I don't think Aljo did his weight cut better than I did and the rehydration. I have the team around me to fucking make sure we're doing it perfect to where I don't think a lot of fighters are. They're just doing it. I know how to make weight. I'm going to fucking get it off and I'm going to fucking just. How

much of a relief is it for you when that's over, the camp's over, the fight's over? How long do you just eat whatever the fuck you want?

Well, yeah, in camp. We just

had Terry Black's barbecue.

Yeah, yeah. No, I definitely, especially when I'm traveling, it's not like, if we're traveling, I'll get a cheeseburger. I'll fucking, you know, not be super disciplined. But when I go back home, I try to still keep it clean. Like, we'll still eat, have something good for dinner. But right now I'm dealing with this little back injury. And I'm like, I know if I eat, the worse I eat, the longer it's going to take to heal. Right. So I've been trying to, this last week i would i would do like a 24-hour fast like i don't need to eat i'm not really working out um and then if i did eat we were eating really clean so but after a fight a couple weeks i just don't give a fuck but it's still not like snickers and fucking skittles and shit like that um you

see guys like patty who you know saying that like he's kind of really developed an eating disorder because it's like the cut is so hard that after it's all off, all he wants to do is eat whatever the fuck he wants to drink.

Yeah. Even when you're full, it's like, but I don't have to make weight. So you mentally trick yourself and it's – there's definitely something there. Like you definitely – You

got to crash diet 30 pounds in eight weeks. got to be so strict and you got to train twice a day so you're starving going to these sessions so you for sure cause the eating disorder yeah yeah yeah it only makes sense it

only makes sense i mean because it's like how much like wrestlers too especially like how much of your time is fixated on losing weight it's like a big part had kurt angle on which is an amazing podcast because did you listen to it yeah when he was talking about how he weighed 199 pounds and he didn't want to cut weight to make 198 so he just wrestled heavyweight he's like i think i could beat him anyway and i was like what an animal yeah so he's like but plus i ate whatever i wanted i trained however i wanted i was always recovering there's something to that because like there was a video him beating this dude was 270 pounds in a wrestling match Yeah, what a stud. Yeah, what a stud. I don't need to lose a pound Most people like I could lose a pound.

Yeah, that last camp about two and a half no probably three weeks out I had this some meat that did not sit well with my stomach. I had diarrhea bad for like 10 days to the point where i was getting a little worried i'm like okay because i was looking to step up and it's like you've had if you have diarrhea for like more than two three days or whatever it's like you probably got a parasite or some shit for 10 days every single night i'd wake up two to three times right when i woke up in the morning i have to fucking shit my brains out was and but my weight came down real fast so that i was like well i guess that's a benefit because i was like 155 156 and then by the end of those 10 days i was walking around like 152 i was like well that worked out but that sucked

remember that it's crazy for that camp too because usually we'd be working a lot on the wall a lot of different stand-ups a lot on our guard developing the guard normal plotters and stuff instead of giving up your back. But we literally didn't get to grapple zero, five weeks out. Six

weeks out to the day from the fight. But yeah, it could have been beneficial because we were doing a lot of mitts. I was just hitting mitts, hitting mitts, shadowboxing, boxing. Focusing on not getting grabbed. And what did you have it in your head saying, if I get grabbed, I'm dead it's life well i was going into that fight when i was 100 healthy six weeks before the fight got announced i'm like it's life or death if he grabs me not because i don't think i can grapple but that's the mindset i want because that's really gonna make it to where i'm not gonna let and if he does grab me i'm gonna do everything i'm fucking capable of that's why i try to i mean i feel like i got out of that so fast like the longer we're here the better it is for him but yeah so we went into that fight life or death if he grabs me. And then when I got that injury, I was like, it's just that times fucking ten. I cannot let this motherfucker touch me.

So what was the extent of

that? I had a muscle strain in between my ribs, and I couldn't even get into, like, a light clinch. I don't know. It fucking just, yeah, it hurt so bad. I haven't even tried to grapple since the fight yet, too, because I'm dealing with this little back injury right now. But I'm hoping by now it should be good. The muscle strains are fucked.

The ones in between the ribs are so hard. And sometimes people tear the cartilage as well. Did you get an MRI? I did get

an MRI. I didn't tear anything that I remember. I think it was just a muscle strain. But we gave it a couple weeks to say, all right, let's just see if it'll heal in a couple weeks and then try to grapple again tried to grapple in just the littlest kind of together movement couldn't do it which sucked because that was the fight i had the most mental demons going in because i was like i'd like to be able to grapple you know i'd like to be able to fucking grapple going because even for all fight week i told the whole team like i don't want to do anything to where i feel this because i my mind, it's fixed. I'm good. I haven't heard it in a couple weeks. I convinced myself that it was 100% fine. And so all fight week, we didn't even clinch once. No grapple. No zero exchanges.

I'd take a Michael Jordan type athlete, though, just to have that kind of pressure going against this guy who's the best on the fucking planet and just being in the moment and not worrying about that. I mean, fucking impressive.

Yeah. Well, the result was amazing. That was probably one of the prettiest right hands I've ever seen in my life. Floating back too. I mean, it's literally like Muhammad Ali, Sonny Liston. Yeah. Yeah. Steps back away.

Bam.