Club Shay Shay - Daniel Cormier Part 2
Listen and follow along
Transcript
This is an iHeart podcast.
Is your AI built for everyone,
or is it built to work with your business's data?
IBM helps you integrate and govern unstructured data wherever it lives
so your business can have more accurate AI
instead of just more of it.
Get your data ready for AI at iBM.com.
The AI Built for Business.
IBM.
Look, school is starting and I'm just a kid.
And let's be honest, I'm not going to shop for myself.
But we can get up to 40% off back-to-school essentials on Uber Eats.
Did I mention I need poster board for my science fair, lunch for my field trip, and unlined note cards for my history quiz tomorrow?
Or were they lined?
Anyway, Uber Eats has like all the back-to-school stuff on there.
So come on, let's order now on Uber Eats and get up to 40% off.
We're cool, right?
Cool.
Not literally everything.
Promotion ends 916 and it's subject to change or cancellation.
Exclusions may apply.
Check out for availability.
Drew and Sue and Eminem's Minis.
And baking the surprise birthday cake for Lou.
And Sue forgetting that her oven doesn't really work.
And Drew remembering that they don't have flour.
And Lou getting home early from work, which he never does.
And Drew and Sue using the rest of the tubes of Eminem's Minis as party poppers instead.
I think this is one of those moments where people say, it's the thought that counts.
MMs, it's more fun together.
Opening a bottle of Hendrix Gin is more than the beginning to an elevated cocktail.
It's about being open to the extraordinary, the unusual.
That spirit lives in every sip of Hendrix, distinctly infused with rose and cucumber for a refreshingly curious flavor.
Whether you're mixing up a crisp cucumber lemonade or an unexpected garden spritz, Hendrix adds a marvelous twist to every summer sip.
To learn more about Hendrix, visit hendrixgin.com/slash US.
Drink responsibly, Hendrix Gin, distilled from grain, 44% alcohol by volume.
Copyright 2025.
Imported by William Granton Sons Inc., New York, New York.
Thank you for coming back.
Part two is underway.
You and Connor went back and forth on social media.
But you said it's over for Connor.
I mean, the money, the money that he made from Floyd, the money that he's made off his alcohol, the money that he's making now to go back into, I mean, you're worth $300 million to go in there and it's like, you know what?
I want to get kicked in my face, hit in my face, elbowed in my face.
Need.
Yeah, there's no need there.
Yeah.
He doesn't need that.
He doesn't need this anymore.
Marvin Hackler said, it's hard to get up in the morning when you're sleeping on satin sheets, right?
Way back in the day.
Yes.
There are a few sayings in the world that are untrue.
Yeah.
That was.
Right.
Like, you know, that one where it's like, to be the champion, you got to defend the belt?
Yeah.
That's bullshit.
Ric Flair started that.
To beat a man, you got to beat the man.
Yeah, Rick Flair started that, man.
I'll beat the man that beat the man and be just as happy.
Give me one belt.
The moment they put that belt on you, you're the champion.
But fighters have actually believed that.
Connor,
it's the,
and he's one of the biggest superstars in the world.
Right.
He can't walk into any room without everybody knowing who he is.
So the access he has, how's he going to look past all of that to go to a training camp to fight?
Right.
Especially if he wants to do it right.
Francis Nganu, he was in the UFC.
He left.
It seems to be there's some speculation that he might be wanting to come back.
There was this talk about Francis fighting John.
Yep.
Would you like to see that fight?
I would have.
I would have.
Not now.
I would now still.
Back then I wanted to because Francis in his last fight against Cyril,
his wrestling looked better.
But I do believe that if he fought John, that's a more serviceable fight for John because John can wrestle now.
Yes.
And he probably would just take Francis down.
Yeah, you don't want to stay toe-to-toe with him.
No, and dude, do you remember when he would elbow people back in the day?
Like,
he just, I think Francis would have to knock him out.
But Francis could knock people out, man.
I've never seen anybody hit harder than Francis and God.
Yeah, he got power.
He's got the most power I've ever seen in my life.
He'd be knocking dudes.
He hit Alistair Oveream in his head.
The back of his head touched between his shoulders.
He hit him with an uppercut.
The back of his head touched between his shoulders as he was falling down.
I've never seen anything like it.
But Francis boxed because, okay, he tights in Fury and it gave him some confidence.
And then he ended up fighting Anthony Joshua.
Got knocked out, but he made some money.
I mean,
he's the only one that's actually done that and it worked out because he was a heavyweight champ.
Right.
And Shannon,
he looks like the heavyweight champ.
Yeah.
When he became the champion, I was like, okay, look at him.
Now you look like you're looking at the baddest man on the planet.
Yes, absolutely.
You're looking like this dude, Francis and Gano looks like he can walk into any place.
and you go, Well, that's a dude I'm not trying to take.
I ain't messing with you.
And
he had it.
So when he moved over, it worked.
He was a heavyweight champ.
Yeah.
But shit, he dropped Tyson Fury.
Yeah.
Remember, he knocked him out.
I thought it was over.
Yeah.
Man, you should.
I exploded out of my chair.
But then Anthony Joshua beat him back.
And you saw when Joshua dropped him
the difference in a boxer and a guy that, because Francis was like this, he needed to grab him.
He got flatlined.
And the thing is, is that boxers understand how to faint.
Yep.
When he gave him that faint, when he gave him that faint, Francis went, boom.
I was like, oh my God.
And
a boxer throwing a punch and an MMA, look, I understand that, you know, they both hit hard, but boxers, it's just something about that punch and where it's coming from.
I mean, it's.
Shannon, I went trained one time in Oakland when I first started, boxing gym.
They hit you with a jab, and it's like, what the hell was that?
Because they know how to punch.
Yeah.
And they sit on everything.
Yeah.
Boom.
Boom.
It's not jab, jab, touch.
You try to take you down.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm just mad in there, getting my ass whooped.
I'm like, I want, I can beat everybody up in here.
I'll start wrestling every one of you fools.
They were like, pissed off.
Because the dudes just putting it on you.
They just putting it on you.
Because there's nothing you can do.
Why do you fight Brock Lesnar?
The WWE got him.
The WWE took him back.
That was my golden goose, man.
We had that moment in the ring.
I pushed him.
He pushed me.
WWE paid him back.
They were paying Brock like six, seven million a year, maybe $10.
Right.
You telling me, Brock, you can go fight D.C.
and lose, or you can go fight.
Who says you're going to lose?
I'm beating Brock Lesnar, man.
I was beating Brock Lesnar.
That was a big dude, man.
Safe.
Don't matter, dog.
Shea.
I was beating Brock Lesnar.
It was one of the safest fights I could have had.
I'm telling you, dog.
That's the truth.
It's just the truth.
I like Brock, too.
He's a great guy, but I watch what Kane did to him.
I watch how he would react to getting punched.
And I was going to punch him.
He would have to take me down to win the fight.
And I can wrestle.
Yeah, but he's not a wrestler.
I mean, he was a wrestler.
Yeah, he was.
But if he shoots on me, I'm going to make it so hard for him to get that takedown that by the time he gets it,
he's exhausted.
Now I'm up to my feet, and then you're done.
That's right with Kane.
He took Kane down.
Kane got up, started kneading him in his face.
I saw Brock recently.
He still has that scar on his eye from when Kane kneed him in the face.
Yep.
Still got that big scar on his eye.
Damn.
It's crazy.
Emma is crazy.
Is it true you got a scholarship to LSU?
I got offers back then, but I had bad grades and I just was not going to college to play football.
It was hard to.
It was hard for me in the school that I was in to,
first off, there's way too much pressure on football down there in Louisiana
bad yeah
and we weren't very good but I mean I was the all-state MVP defensively I was pretty much mr.
everything in football because I was a good little linebacker right but I was small right and they were talking about me playing cornerback or free safety strong safety I was like how I'm supposed to chase how I'm gonna chase Randy Moss I'm an Indian though so like
I'm not smart right I didn't really know the difference between strong safety is more like a linebacker.
Yes, yes,
but I was thinking I'm going to be chasing dudes like Randy Moss because he was graduating the same year.
I was like, there's no way.
No, I'm good.
Yeah, I was like, I'm going to just go wrestle, man.
I'm good.
I did.
I got an offer to go play football.
You was in Herschel Walker's
corner.
Yes.
MMA.
Yes.
Could Herschel have made a career out of that?
Or he did what he was supposed to do?
Have one fight and move it along?
Shannon, I got to tell you, man.
Was he really the greatest?
He's one of the greatest athletes, wasn't he?
Yeah, he was, yeah.
Shannon, this man
was so strong, but I don't think I've ever seen anybody like he was very stiff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He had no flexibility.
Oh, he was, even in football?
Yeah, he was stiff, yeah.
Bro, he was so stiff, but when he hit you, oh, and then shit,
he would like move his feet.
He would move his feet, but they never left the ground.
They never left the ground.
Bro, Herschel would be walking towards you like this.
So
when this man will hit you, sometimes he shocks you.
You know how he rubs you be?
Yeah.
Sometimes Herschel's shocking dudes.
Hey, anywhere in the back,
I swear to God, it was the most.
Herschel Walker is a different individual.
Herschel Walker has had some stuff in his life where it's like his anger.
Yeah.
But if you meet him, you've met him.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, for sure.
He is the nicest person.
We were all broke back in the day.
Herschel was staying at the Intercontinental or, what's the name of that hotel?
Downtown San Jose?
No, but it was called something else before.
It was a nice one, but Herschel owned a chicken company.
You know, Herschel owns that chicken.
One of the biggest ones in the country.
Yes, he does.
But because of that, they service that restaurant down there.
So Herschel got free rooms at this beautiful hotel downtown San Jose.
He would feed us all.
But he wouldn't eat.
He would eat one time a day, bro.
He would eat soup and bread and some eggs.
So I'm like, yo, this is the nicest guy ever.
Multi-millionaire, rich, nice, football Hall of Famer.
We got at the ring
or in the hallway to walk, and bro, something flipped on him.
I said,
this dude is dark.
I was like, this is a dark son of a gun, bro.
He started talking to himself.
Talking about, I'm going to kill this motherfucker.
They ain't going to do that.
Talking about killing this dude.
Wow.
To get himself there,
he went there.
I was like, yo, I've heard people talk to themselves, to hype themselves up.
Herschel was on a whole nother level.
It was the most intense thing I've ever seen in my life.
And he went out there and he won.
Wow.
He was over 40.
Yeah.
He was over 40, retired from football for many, many years.
Went in there, did his thing, and won a U.S., won a fight in strike force, which at the time was the second biggest organization of all time.
But, bro, to see him go to that place, Shannon?
Yeah.
You'd be be like, yo, this dude is crazy.
I look back at the other dudes.
I was like, are y'all seeing this?
Everybody acting normal.
Herschel talking about killing motherfuckers.
Herschel talked about killing people.
Did you ever think about doing WWE?
So I thought about it right after I was wrestling.
But then it's hard.
People talk about that stuff being fake.
Hey, man, it's scripted.
Yeah, but it ain't fake.
It hurts.
Yeah.
Oh, those falls hurt.
You fall.
Because you got to throw your arms back.
Yeah.
So every time it's like, it's like slapping against the ring.
Or when you run the ropes, those ropes, they burn you.
It's hard, man.
And that's why you see them all break down like that.
They're all like messed up.
Their knees don't work.
They're like football players and us.
Y'all got it hard.
Football's hard, man.
The wear and tear on the body is...
It's crazy.
And so is MMA.
In wrestling, I'm one of the lucky ones.
I feel like I got out pretty clean.
Right.
Derek Lewis.
Yeah, back beast.
Bro.
He came in there to do one thing.
You already know.
He ain't tried to take you down.
He tried to kick you.
He tried to knee you.
He tried to elbow you.
Trying to knock you out.
He tried to knock you out.
The knockout kick.
That's it.
He got more knockouts than anybody in the history of UFC.
He hits hard.
I fought him.
He hits hard.
When he hit me, I was holding his leg up.
Yeah.
And he just kind of went like this and it skimmed down my eye.
Next day I woke up with a big old black eye.
Wow.
He kicked me.
I had knots all in my forearms.
He was, oh, but he knocks these dudes out, man.
He knows exactly.
Ayo, did you see him a couple weeks ago?
Did you see his poor wife in there, man?
Did you see her?
He threw out the ground if he got there.
Did you see his wife?
She was in there so embarrassed.
The camera pans to her.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm in there interviewing this man.
I'm like, this dude, Derek, we're about to see some crazy stuff.
And I go,
who you want to fight next?
Like, what do you want next?
He looks over at his wife, like,
gonna be a lot of grounding pound going.
I was like, boy.
And then she gotta stand there and try to stay composed, knowing that Derek's out of his mind.
But you were the first man to submit it.
I did.
Yeah.
He couldn't wrestle.
It was why I fought him.
They called me three weeks before the fight to fight him.
Right.
And you like, sure.
Yeah.
Easy money.
Yeah.
I knew.
I knew he couldn't wrestle.
So
I knew
his cardio.
And if I can extend him, he would get tired.
Right.
But yeah, just if you couldn't wrestle like I was fighting you.
Yeah, but you got to get, I mean, you got to get past those three rounds because you let him get you in the first round.
Yeah, he hits you and knock you out.
Yeah, he goes.
But I just shot on him right away.
Right.
Right.
Because he was so inexperienced with his wrestling that I like backed him up and just grabbed his leg.
Right.
That's one thing I learned fighting the heavier guys.
Yeah.
They don't balance well on their feet.
Right.
So I would just kind of move them around until they fell down.
Wow.
Learn something new.
Who's the hardest puncher?
What's the hardest punch you've taken?
Who hit you though?
Probably Dan Henderson.
That little dude, he was like, he was made of concrete.
Damn.
Hendo.
He hit so hard.
He hit me.
He was on his back.
And he hit me.
And he
knocked out one of my bottom teeth.
I had to go to like an emergency dentist.
Damn.
On Labor Day, on Memorial Day, after he hit me from the bottom.
He hit hard.
Even from in close, he would just.
And it was just crazy.
Obviously, there are things that you can't do, but are there dirty things that guys, you know, you're not supposed to eye gouge somebody, and you're not, obviously, you can't bite, you can't do certain things, but is there certain things that guys do that the ref can't see?
I always had a trick where when I would get on top of them, I would always cover their mouth.
I would literally try to smother them.
Damn, DC.
Yeah, I know.
Nasty.
Dirty.
Josh Bournette, that's not dirty.
It's like, I'm just trying to like,
Josh Bournette would like always like kind of,
if you let him go behind you, his hand was going like.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, them dudes,
dude.
His life and death out there, Shannon.
His life out there.
So he's like, I saw, hey, I fought Josh Bournet.
I was trying to take him down.
He was elbowing me.
Boom.
Boom.
Cut me wide open here.
First fight I ever had a black eye.
He needed me in the eye.
Cut my head open.
When I was a kid, I was playing football with the older kids.
One dude clotheslined me, broke my collarbone.
Yeah, it was bad.
I walked to my mama's house because I'm trying to be tough, right?
I'm a young kid.
I can't cry.
As soon as I saw my mom, I fall on the ground.
Yeah, yeah.
They put me in a cast, broken collarbone.
I fought Josh Barnett.
My mom passed in 2022.
When
I
fought Josh Barnett, I had won my first big world title, Strike Force.
I was bloodied, man.
My eye was open.
Everything was, they put stitches for the first time.
I walked into the hotel and I'm good, taking pictures.
Everybody, y'all, champ.
The moment I saw my mama, I started crying like a baby.
I'm in her lap like a seven-year-old kid again.
Please make me feel better.
Right.
That's how nasty he was in there, dude.
He was elbowing me, he was grabbing me, he was doing everything he could to just like inflict pain on me.
He does that.
Jones does that.
Certain guys, just no matter where you are, they're just trying to hurt you.
And like, that's a,
yeah.
But you got to be so well-rounded to do this thing now.
Yeah.
If you aren't, you're screwed.
Look at Ilya Toporia.
He's a monster.
He's a monster.
He's like, he's one of the best fighters of all time.
And he's only fought eight times in the UFC.
Wow.
He's amazing.
These guys are amazing.
What does it feel like to knock someone out?
What does it feel like to get knocked out?
Because you were, and I know exactly what you're saying because I've been knocked out and I can't remember anything.
I don't remember driving to the stadium.
I don't remember what I had to eat.
I don't remember anything.
I just remember looking up at the scoreboard and asking my teammate Rod Smith.
I was like, we call him Foots.
I say, Foots.
How we get to leave?
Because
I don't want to laugh.
No, no, but I'm like, how did we,
I just remember like we were losing before this happened.
And now it's the fourth quarter.
And I'm like, what happens if we win this game?
He said, boo, we go to the Super Bowl.
I was like, yeah, yeah, we go to the Super Bowl.
But
it's a funny feeling to get knocked out because you really don't remember anything.
Hey, my coach told me that is bad.
I'm laughing because my coach told me, was that the last time you asked him?
You probably asked him again.
No, no, that was, I was like.
No, you probably asked him again.
I started jumping up and down the side.
I looked at him.
Cause we over over at 14 with like three minutes to go, and we got the ball.
So
this dude, so I get knocked out, right?
That was John when he kicked you?
When John kicked me, and he hit him with the follow-up shots, right?
The only time I'm knocked out, I'm crying, right?
Yeah.
I go to my corner, I ask my coach, I said, what happened?
He tells me.
I break down crying, right?
Yeah.
Rogan interviews me.
As we're walking out of the octagon, I look to him and I go, hey, what happened?
He tells me, I break down crying.
He told me I did that seven times.
He had to keep explaining it to me.
And then every time he explained it, I would have the exact same reaction.
Like it was the first time I had heard that shit, man.
That's bad.
Yo, Jenny, that's bad.
He said he told me seven times.
And then I'm in the ambulance because they're trying to get me in the ambulance.
I'm refusing.
Right.
Finally, I get in the ambulance and I wake up.
And I was present like nothing had happened.
I was like, I lost.
They were like, yeah.
Yeah.
He lost.
I was like, God damn it.
I swear to God,
I woke up and I'm ambulance
and realized like, I lost.
Did you not?
Because obviously.
So how did he set the head kick up?
It was beautiful.
It was beautiful, man.
It was beautiful.
He kept body kicking me.
That's what he did in the first fight, too.
And I kept checking.
I kept blocking.
I kept blocking.
But then in the second round, I was fighting good.
First round, real good.
Second round, real good.
So now I'm feeling good because I feel great.
My cardio is great.
Yeah.
Third round, but the whole time he's just kicking me in the body.
Third time, he tries to kick me in the head.
And the third round is the first, one of the first attempts.
And I was like, nah.
Yeah, yeah, nah.
But then he actually gave me one that looked like he was going to the body.
And so I did this.
And
you're supposed to lean.
Yeah.
Right?
You're supposed to kind of lean to kind of take some of the impact off.
But when I lean, he was not going low.
He was going high.
Caught you.
Boom.
Right on the side of the head.
So then I started doing the chicken dance, right?
Like, you know, when your legs.
Yeah.
And this is the, this is the, this is where, and this is where, that's why I can't stand this dude.
Because somebody else that's not as good would have let me off the hook.
Right.
Because I was still there.
And again, that's me.
Football, neck, big neck, you know, short neck.
Yeah.
Can take, most people just fall down from a head kick like that.
I was still there.
So I'm like doing this thing, running away from him.
Yo,
he kicks my leg to spin me.
Yes, I remember.
So he kicks my leg.
Kick your leg out.
Yeah, so I spin.
It's like that shit you put the kids where they go.
Yeah, so you have to get drunk.
Then you don't know where you're at.
When I did that, I fell.
And that was it.
I could not, my body was gone.
But like, if I was on my feet, I might have been able to grab him.
I might have been able to hold him.
I'm Jake Hofer, and this is Back 40, a limited series show on Wire to Hunt, part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network.
Each episode, I'll be asking eight wide-tail hunting pros a focused, thought-provoking question about hunting and land management.
How do I hunt the best part of the farm with less than ideal access?
Should you?
That's what the real question is.
Stand without good access is not a good stand.
Listen to Back40 on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
I'm Dan.
He's Ty.
Hello.
And we're the solid verbal college Football Podcast.
College football season is here, and you know what that means.
Your team is going to break your heart three times, probably before Halloween.
Uh-huh.
But fear not.
The Solid Verbal will be right there with you through every soul-crushing loss and impossible comeback.
Join us all season long, all year long, as we ride the roller coaster of this ridiculous sport.
Whether you're a diehard fan or a casual observer, we'll help you make sense of all the chaos and, of course, celebrate the madness.
Tune in for previews, recaps, bits you won't hear anywhere else, and all the emotional support you need as a college football fan.
We don't just love college football, Ty, we live it.
Listen to the Solid Verbal College Football podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Ready for a home that smells like you?
Meet Pyrrha, the premium smart home fragrance diffuser easily controlled from an app.
Schedule, swap, and adjust set intensity anytime, anywhere.
This week only, subscribe to two premium fragrances per month for 12 months and we'll send you a Pura Plus starter set free.
That's a $70 value.
Supplies are limited, so head over to Pura.com now and grab your free set before the offer ends.
This is Larry Flick, owner of the floor store.
Labor Day is the last sale of the summer, but this one is our biggest sale of the year.
Now through September 2nd, get up to 50% off store-wide on carpet, hardwood, laminate, waterproof flooring, and much more.
Plus two years interest-free financing, and we pay your sales tax.
The Floor Store's Labor Day sale.
Don't let the sun set on this one.
Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.
The Floor Store, your area flooring authority.
I might have shot.
I would have done something.
But because he's such a great finisher, he kicks my leg out from under me.
So then I spin.
And when I spin, I'm like seeing all these lights.
And all of a sudden, your body starts falling.
It was like a kid trying to hit a piñata.
It was crazy, man.
Then I fall on my stomach.
Of all times in my world, to fall on my stomach.
Like fall on your back to where you could see him coming, maybe get my feet up to try to block him.
But instead, I fell on my stomach.
And then he jumped on me and started finishing.
And I know this from watching it.
Right.
So you watch it.
So you watched, when you lost that fight, you watched it over?
Not for a long time.
I didn't watch the fight.
But it's on the highlights and stuff.
The UFC don't shield us from the.
If you lost,
if you lost, you're going to see yourself getting beat at some point.
Right.
That's why with him and Steve A fought, it was the worst.
The whole week, I'm just out there.
I was like, damn, did I ever win a fight?
I'm just getting beat the whole time.
Right.
It was terrible.
I mean, that, I mean,
like you said, I mean, his toolbox, toolbox, the way he can finish a fight with an elbow, he could submit you.
The elbow's been bad.
And then that back, that spinning...
That spinning back kick, he got shot.
He called Stipe perfect.
Poor Stipe, man.
And
he doesn't telegraph it.
Well, the heavyweights, so boxing or wrestling, they're not doing all that.
You could tell right away when he needs Stipe, Stipe was like, what is this?
Yeah,
they're kneeing now.
Normally, a guy is trying to either take me out of the box with me.
Maybe a couple leg kicks here and there.
John was hitting him with all kinds of stuff.
John hit him with knees, elbows, spinning kicks.
When he hit him with that spinning kick, Steve A.
You could tell Steve A looked like a guy that hadn't fought for three and a half years and was 42.
He looked and he turned down him.
I was like, oh, John got him.
But he is very good at setting everything up.
That's why he didn't have to cheat.
He did not have to cheat.
That's where my biggest issue is.
You don't need to cheat.
You got all that.
Keep that guy.
Use what you have.
And he always get mad at me.
He's going to be on me now.
I'm going to.
Oh, I live.
The other day he said he lived rent-free in my house, in my brain, or something like that.
I'm like, man, shut up.
I didn't care about you.
Obviously, you were there.
When Anderson Silver, was that
Rockhole or was that what?
Chao Sunnin.
No, when he checked him.
No, that was Chris Wideman.
Wideman.
Widemannon.
Had you ever seen that before?
Because it happened again.
Another fighter got checked.
Hey, Chris Wideman checked Anderson's, broke his leg.
Yeah.
Then Chris Wideman kicked somebody else's.
Wideman kicked a guy named Uriah Hall, broke his leg.
So the same thing that happened to Anderson, Chris did to himself.
I can't watch it.
Did you watch it?
I watched it.
Can you actually watch the?
I can't.
It looked like his leg.
It broke half.
Yeah.
You watched it.
I can't watch it.
Even next to the octave.
But
I was watching it live at the time.
But all those replays, I was like, you know how to look.
Because when you see it, you're like,
damn, that look.
And then
you try to put, you know, try to balance yourself, and you just, I'm like, damn.
Look like his leg broke.
Yes.
Dude, I had to ask Rogan and Annik,
I'm like, did it break?
Did it break?
Did it break?
They're like, oh, it broke.
It was like, do not watch it.
That was a throw up.
I mean, because.
You guys know how to how to check because it's called, you know, you check, you like.
You check the kick.
Yeah, you put, you either lean into it or you pick your
knee up.
And what they were doing were kicking on the inside.
That's why when you kick on the inside, they just turn their knee in.
If you kick too hard, man, you break your leg.
That's why I don't kick too much.
Hey, that's why I was out there boxing just like everybody else.
What's the worst injury you sustained in a fight?
In a fight,
just more damage like facial stuff, like black eye,
cut face.
I never got hurt really bad in fights, but in training, ribs, torn ACL,
torn ACL, ribs.
I tore some sort of
this ligament in my shin one time, kicking.
Broken hand.
I couldn't punch.
I didn't know how to punch.
Remember he's had this idea that Floyd had
frail hands?
Yes.
That was me.
Like, I broke my hand five times when I started fighting.
Wow.
Every time I would land right,
I would break my hand.
So then I have a doctor called Stidham.
He did a great job with my
with this and it never broke again.
He put a plate with like eight screws because it just kept breaking.
But when knocking someone out,
you don't feel nothing.
You literally don't feel anything.
If you knock them out with a punch,
it's like sometimes you feel and it's like that loud impact.
Yeah.
When you land the right way, sometimes it's like you don't even punch him.
It's like you go right through him.
But you know it.
Well, they fall.
They fall.
When I hit Steepee with that one that put him down to become the double champ,
I had thrown that punch so many times.
And it just so happened to hit him and he went down.
I didn't even feel nothing.
Yeah, like what Usman caught
George Nasbedal.
Yeah, hold them as well.
When he caught him with...
His chin went all the way.
I was like, oh my goodness.
Masbodal was mad at me one time time because
I was on NFL NFL live and I said
when the mug when you when you
you called him up.
Yeah,
put him in a concussion pro call though.
He got to go in the tenth because his chin went all the way back there.
Yeah.
He went down bad.
That was Kamaru punched through him and he just crumbled.
Yeah.
It was nasty.
Kamaru looked good coming back.
Let me ask you this.
When you saw Anderson Silver,
he could box a little bit, but he fought Jake Paul.
See, I have a problem with all that.
I don't know how y'all feel.
I don't know how you guys feel about the Jake Paul Anderson, the Jake Paul.
I wanted to see him fight boxers.
Boxers that's his age.
Yes.
I don't think that's asking too much.
No, Mike Tyson.
Yeah, Mike Tyson's.
He beat up on Mike.
Mike's 60, man.
Mike did make like 27 mil, so I get it.
But
60 years old.
I want Jake Paul to fight guys that.
He says he wants to fight Canelo.
Canelo fights 154 or 160.
That's one of his best weights.
He'll fight heavier cure.
He fought the guy at 175.
Yeah.
And got beat.
Evil.
Yeah, but it's like
Jake weighs
210, 215.
Yeah, but that means he'd be a heavyweight.
Yeah, he's like a heavyweight.
And
he says he wants to fight Anthony Joshua.
If he fights Anthony Joshua.
Everybody's wish and dream of him getting finished will come to fruition.
But I think the thing is.
He's better now.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, he takes it seriously.
He can find it.
But
you can appreciate that.
You can tell that he spends time in the gym.
You tell that he has serious coaches and he's taking this craft seriously.
He ain't just getting in there.
And people are like, oh, it's just.
He's a YouTuber.
No, he ain't.
No.
He's a boxer.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
So Jake Paul's a millionaire.
Yeah.
Jake Paul's not training at the local YMCA.
No.
He's got real coaches on the screen.
He got real coaches.
He's got high-level coaches.
Yes.
And he lives to box now.
Yes.
He's even boxing seriously now, so he should be able to compete.
Yes.
He's a boxer.
He's not that same kid.
That's why I keep telling those MMA guys, every time they tell me, I got a chance to fight Jake Paul.
I'm like, man, don't do it.
He boxed.
That's what he does.
He's a boxer.
You don't have a boxer.
No.
Like my friend Ben Ashren.
Yeah.
Ben went and fought him.
Ben should have never fought him.
Yeah, no.
Because he was going to get Ben never could wrestle.
He could never box.
No.
He's a wrestler.
Tyron Woodley.
I was so sad when tyron woodley kept losing to him i love t wood man and i was like t-woods like well you don't see the butt that love you you don't see them punches bro you're not that's not what that's not what we do i can't box these guys no he tried to jake paul tried to uh mess with me for a while until i went up to him in orlando i said i don't play like these kids i said stop playing with me his bodyguard said oh i said i'm gonna slap you too
I said, I don't play like that, man.
Don't leave me alone.
I swear to God.
I was at the commentary deshann.
I'm sitting there.
He in the back making faces at me.
I took my headset off.
I put it down.
I got up, walked right to where he was in the stands.
I point right in his face.
I said, man, I don't play.
Leave me alone.
I said, I'm not the children that you're messing around with.
I'm not going to play with you.
Leave me alone.
His bodyguard, you ain't going to do nothing.
I said, I'm going to slap the shit out of you, too.
Both of y'all can get it.
Fuck y'all.
The security act, UFC security, can't get me.
Yeah.
Because you know, man, come on, we grown-ups, man.
I'm not playing.
Everybody don't play like like that.
No, man, leave me alone.
Unless you really want to fight.
John Jones, I respect because he fights me.
Right.
But leave me alone.
I'm not playing those childish games.
Right.
Yeah, leave me alone.
Do you think you see the guys in MMA going to fight, go in the box?
For the money.
For the money.
They do it for the money.
Look, man.
Can you blame them, though?
No, no, no.
There's only a select few people that make the big money in the UFC.
Correct.
It's the God honest truth.
I mean,
champions make money.
Yes.
Lorenzo Fertita Furtito was the best.
When Lorenzo Furtito was there, he would do these discretionary bonuses
where they would just give you money.
He had an idea of what he wanted the champion to make and he would make sure you got it.
Right.
So when I fought John Jones, my contract was $85,000.
I lost the first time.
On Monday, Dana called me and goes, you did a great job.
We're going to send you a check for a million dollars.
What?
Swear to God.
$85,000 and then you got.
He gave me a million dollars.
They gave me a million dollars.
A check for the first time ever made that, obviously, as a wrestler.
It was the first time I'd ever made seven figures.
They called me and said, you did a great job.
Here you go.
Then I fought again
a few months later, and I had got a new contract and it might have been $300,000.
And then we sold a few hundred thousand pay-per-views.
And
they called me and said, hey, we're going to give you X amount of dollars to get you back to a million dollars.
Wow.
They would do that, man.
They were like,
because that's what people don't understand.
Like, I know they talk, well, this guy, these guys are underpaid, but it's like
when you become a champion and then you're benefiting the business,
they take care of you.
Yeah.
But even
the lowest boxers make are so low, bro.
Yeah.
Like,
they make it seem like everybody making Floyd May with the money.
They're not.
And they're not.
They are not all making that money, bro.
They're making $1,000.
Right.
I mean, they make them, look,
but like you said.
But the good guys will make good money.
Yeah.
What does a guy make that?
So, Tank and all them dudes are getting paid right now.
They're in the millions.
But they're the equivalent of the Iliad Taporias
and the Israel Adesanias.
They're those guys.
But as you go down,
as you go down the card and you go down the pay scale, I bet it's all pretty equivalent or very equal.
So, yeah, people talk like all boxers make money.
They don't.
You work for the company now in the commentary.
But how is it negotiating with Dana as a fighter?
Did you negotiate with them?
I have managers.
You have managers.
I have managers.
But
I was always really good about that.
I would stand on what I believed.
You know, one time I got,
he was like, that didn't happen.
I was like, but it did, boss.
I was like, of course it did, boss.
I said,
we were negotiating my contract when I first came over and I wanted like a certain amount of money.
Didn't want to do it.
Dana was like kind of throwing a fit.
Lorenzo goes, It's fine, we'll figure it out.
And by the time I got to the airport, it was figured out.
Right?
He was like, That didn't happen.
I was like, It did.
I was like, It's not a big deal because I understand you have to protect your business.
Right.
And I have to protect myself as a business because I have a small window to happen.
But then when I was retiring, right,
Hunter Campbell, who now does a lot of the stuff with the guys, he calls my manager and he goes, So, guys, what do you think?
Same as he made as champ plus pay-per-view?
Like, yeah.
Even though I wasn't a champ, they still gave me the same pay I made as the champion and the pay-per-view.
So it was like, I have nothing negative to say because I've had all great experiences.
You've had great experience with it.
The worst experience I had was that.
Right.
When he said, I don't want to give you that.
And I was like, well, okay.
Then I'll just fight.
And then I won't have a contract.
Right.
And then we can negotiate after that.
And they're like, uh-uh, we ain't doing that.
We ain't going to let you get to Francis.
We ain't letting you get to undefeated, heavyweight or light heavyweight with no contract where other people can start going, hey, we want you.
Right.
Right.
So then eventually I just re-signed with the company.
If Dana were to ever step down, would you run the UFC?
That would be a dream job for anybody.
But of course, I would love to do something.
If they ever trusted me with that, I would do the best job I ever could do.
Because
it's one of the greatest organizations in the world.
It's one of the biggest sports organizations in the world.
And they've done such a great job of building it that
the job itself is just don't fuck it up.
Don't mess it up.
Don't mess it up.
Right.
Because Dana does, what he does is he's so passionate about it.
Yeah, he is.
That I can't imagine a UFC without him.
But if not, but Dana's standing on business now.
He's standing on business.
You can be his best friend.
He's going to get you.
He's going to walk you out the door and say, hey, man, give me a look.
Give me a little look.
Give me that a little bit.
I'm running out.
You can give me a little small pour right there.
Yeah, hit me up.
That's good.
Let me get that.
That's pretty good, man.
It's great.
I'm taking that bottle.
You can take it.
That's coming with me.
No, but we'll get your address.
We'll send you and send them to your dad.
My pops passed away, but.
Oh, my bad.
I'm sorry to hear that.
It's okay.
But
we'll make sure you take that bottle.
Yeah, you take it.
Yeah, I will drink it in his honor.
I'm going to do exactly like him.
My pops was show home.
My pops had them hard days, man.
My pops was working the hard day.
Well, yeah, if you sleep in Louisiana, he grew up hard.
Grew hard and working outside.
My dad used to show up, sit in that truck for two hours because he knew hard there there at work got to come deal with us.
Yeah, well,
yeah, he probably had to help something drained to come in the house.
Yes, he did.
Yes, he did.
Joe Rogan.
I didn't know a whole lot about Joe Rogan.
I just knew him as the guy that Fear Factor.
So I didn't know that.
He became Joe Rogan.
Yeah.
Because that's what I mean.
Because I love Fear Factor.
And then
they just got too ridiculous with it.
I was like, I can't do this no more.
I mean, it was really good.
The first couple of seasons was really, really good.
And to see what he's turned into as a podcaster, but in the mma in ufc he's your howard koselle yes yes he's he's he's very good he's i mean he is very very good i've never met a person that actually remembers more than rogan
we we go to dinner after the fights yeah and uh
he'll be talking about events at ufc 15 and i'm like UFC 15?
Was that in 2004?
Bro, we had 300.
Now you're talking about 15.
He's like, I'm telling you like this.
But his memory to recall all these things, I've never seen anything like it.
But yeah,
and
Shannon, it says something when you do a job just for the love of doing the job when you don't have to do it.
Right.
Joe doesn't have to do UFC.
No, he don't.
With the Spotify thing that he has going on and everything.
And Dana said that when he first started doing it, he did it for free.
Yeah.
He called a fight for free.
And, you know, then they worked it out something later.
But to just, because he loved the sport so much and and you know he he fights and obviously you know he he know he works at it and uh yeah uh but he does an unbelievable job yeah he's tremendous man i i think he does a great job as a founder you're moving fast toward product market fit your next round or your first big enterprise deal but with ai accelerating how quickly startups build and ship security expectations are higher earlier than ever getting security and compliance right can unlock growth or stall it if you wait too long with deep integrations and automated workflows built for fast-moving teams, Vanta gets you audit-ready fast and keeps you secure with continuous monitoring as your models, infra, and customers evolve.
Fast-growing startups like Langchain, Writer, and Cursor trusted Vanta to build a scalable foundation from the start.
Go to Vanta.com to save $1,000 today through the Vanta for Startups program and join over 10,000 ambitious companies already scaling with Vanta.
That's vanta.com to save 1,000 for a limited time.
You didn't start your company to manage payroll, file taxes, or chase invoices.
But someone has to do it.
And that someone doesn't have to be you.
Escalon Services handles your finance, HR, and accounting needs under one roof so you get back to what you love, building your business.
Head to Escalon.services and use the code SanFran for a special listener-only deal.
Escalon.
Because founders deserve peace of mind too.
Looking for a mortgage, credit credit card, or auto loan?
Then you should know your FICO score.
Did you know 90% of top lenders use FICO scores?
Visit myfico.com/slash free today to get your FICO score for free.
My FICO makes it easy to understand your credit with FICO scores, credit reports, and alerts.
Visit myfico.com/slash free.
That's myfico.com/slash free.
Or download the MyFICO app and discover the score lenders use most.
That's myfico.com/slash free.
Looking to transform your business through better HR and payroll?
Meet Paycor, a paychecks company, the powerhouse solution that empowers leaders to drive results.
From recruiting and development to payroll and analytics, Paycor connects you with the people, data, and expertise you need to succeed.
Their innovative platform helps you make smarter decisions about your most valuable asset, your people.
Ready to become a better leader?
Visit paycorp.com/slash leaders to learn more.
That's paycorp.com/slash leaders.
Job of calling the fights and
I think that he
you could tell his passion for it.
Yes.
And everything.
I mean you guys do so you guys do like I mean hours and hours of TV a week.
You got to love this too.
You do or you can't do it.
You can't do it.
Yeah.
And you can feel it.
I could see it in you too.
I've watched you from afar.
Yeah.
And I've admired how well you've done and how you've really
broke through the glass ceiling.
Because
there was an idea of who you were supposed to be at fox yeah and then eventually you said this idea is not it doesn't work for me right and you became bigger than that idea yeah and now it's like so i'm so happy i don't really know you well enough to say i'm proud of you i appreciate it but i'm happy for what you've done and what you've accomplished because you deserve it man hard work deserves to get uh credit for it and i appreciate that yeah let me ask you this what have you most learned about money because growing up how you grew up
You know, living off $1,500 a month and you got a $1,200 rent and then basically I got to eat for the next 29 days, I got to live off 150 bucks.
Now that you have, you make decent money.
Yep.
What have you learned about it?
Money's hard to keep.
Money's very hard to keep.
That's a people who don't understand.
Money's hard to keep.
You pay a lot, you pay a lot of taxes, you pay a lot of other things.
It just gives you an opportunity.
I feel like money gives you the ability, one, you're going to be exactly who you ever wanted to be.
Yes.
So if a person's ugly because they have money, they always were ugly.
They just didn't have the ability to be ugly.
You're going to be exactly who you want to be, and you have access to more things that you have.
And I also learned that because you have the ability to pay for stuff, most things are free.
Yes.
Isn't that the craziest thing?
That's the crazy thing.
When people have the most money, they get the most stuff for free.
When you are living off that $1,500, you want to go buy, you want something, you got to pay for it.
But when you have the money that you have and you can pay for it, everybody's like, could you please just take this?
And I just want to see you have it.
Hold it.
Shannon, could you just hold it?
Right.
and you're like
okay and most times you're like i'd rather pay for it instead of holding for you
it's like it's just it's just that but also just that it gives you a free it's it's it's freedom it really is just freedom like
it's it's the freedom to to do things and take care of the people that you love more than anything i bought my mom a house wow that was one of my greatest accomplishments yes to have her
get a big house, right?
And then my mom was a house cleaner whenever I was growing up.
So she would take us to these people's houses.
And while she worked,
the people were beautiful.
One family I still remember to this day called the Lowe family in Louisiana, Lafayette.
She'd go Monday and Wednesday there.
They gave us a car.
They gave us like a brand new car.
Just this wonderful family of people.
I made sure she had house cleaners when she was older.
Wow.
So instead of going to clean people's houses, like those are the things that I'm so proud of in my life and my career.
That you're able to do for your mom.
To do for your mom.
I mean, you know that.
You do for your mom.
Absolutely.
It's like there are people in your life that mean more than anything, and that's
you take care of them.
Finding a mate, obviously, wrestling, you know, ain't it like they come in loot, like they beating down your door.
Say, oh yeah,
I want to wrestle.
Because it's not like, you know, you're not on television.
It's a hard job.
It's a grimy job.
You're moody some days are better than others.
When you found a wife, how did you know?
I've had multiple.
Oh, so yeah, you can't, you can't really.
I'm not the best in love.
You know what?
And I tell someone who was telling me this the other day.
They said, Shannon, the best and worst decision.
When you made the best decision, did you know it was the best decision at the time?
No.
No.
When you made the worst decision, did you know it was the worst decision at the time?
No.
No.
You just live with the decisions you make.
That's all you can really do.
But you
part of being great is being selfish.
You got to be.
And when you're so selfish, it's hard for relationships to work.
Absolutely.
And I think that is like probably the thing that athletes need to worry about the most.
Got to find somebody that understands that.
Yes.
And not many people do.
They don't.
It's really hard.
Everybody says they can be, oh, I understand.
Everybody can be second until they actually have to be second.
Until also until
everybody can be second when they don't have.
The moment there's a comfortability to life, it's like, wait a minute, everything that we hoped would happen has now happened.
Now we worry about, but it's not done yet.
The job's never done.
No.
I feel like for high thinkers like you and myself,
to just retire,
could you imagine that as life?
You die.
A part of you would die.
Yes.
And so for me, it's like, I need to be chasing a career.
I need to be chasing.
I got to work.
I'm a worker.
Got to work.
It's what I was put on this earth to do.
But that can be be seen as selfish.
It is.
Yeah.
And but that's the
that's the only way you can become great.
It's the only way.
And greatness is not a sometime thing.
It's an all-the-time thing.
It's an all-the-time thing.
You don't get to be great just when you want to be great in front of people.
You got to be willing to do that work behind closed doors.
Yeah.
But you don't ever know anything.
Your biological father was shot and killed by his second wife's
father in self-defense.
Dude.
You remember that?
Oh,
yeah.
I remember
watching Thanksgiving Day of 1986.
We're at my aunt's house, Marjorie.
We're all sitting down.
We ate.
We're all watching the color purple.
And
my mom getting a call and she goes crazy.
It was hysterical.
I was a seven-year-old kid.
I had no idea what was going on.
Then they told her, your dad's just been killed.
Joseph has just been killed.
Your ex has been killed.
She was crazy.
She has to sit down now and tell me that.
My older brother is 12 years older than me.
Imagine a 19-year-old kid learning that his father's been killed.
I'm at seven just
crying because I don't have the greatest memories.
I don't have the memories of my dad.
Like the night, like your brother does.
Like my brother does.
But I also don't have like, Shannon, I can retain one real vivid memory of my father.
Okay.
And that was we were at a truck stop because he drove trucks.
Okay.
That's it.
That's the only real vivid memory I have of my father.
But
my dad, Percy,
had already moved into my life when I was three.
Right.
So I'm four years into that relationship with my mother.
And it was just sad, man.
I remember going to that funeral and
I see my dad in that casket.
He's got two families, right?
Because
while my mom is not with him anymore, they have kids.
Her reaction told me that she still loved your dad.
I don't think they ever fall out of love.
It's like something that they don't really let go of, especially that first one.
But my mom's sitting there with my dad.
And let me tell you,
I knew my mom still loved my dad.
One time, I don't know if my dad, I don't quite understand if my dad was cheating.
I don't know what it was, Shannon.
But my mom took the car at a four-way stop.
The other woman was driving the other car.
She hit her.
What?
She hit her.
My mom was an angel.
You better hold.
Don't hear about her.
Do you say my mom was an angel?
Your mama played a bubble car.
My wife was an angel.
She can't.
I play bubble cars and real cars, though.
Tom said, Why'd you hit her?
She goes, That's my car, too.
This my car?
That's my car.
I want to record my girl.
I said, oh my God.
But it was that a little red light.
It was a bump.
Yeah, but it wasn't like a hard hit, but she liked it.
She hit her.
But yes, but yes.
So yes, she must have still loved my dad.
But yeah,
it was awful.
You mentioned that
your stepfather intervene came in your life at a very young age.
Yes.
What did you learn from him?
Everything.
Everything.
Percy Benoit was, man, he was the best.
He was the best.
He worked so hard.
He made decisions, him and my mother, that made me appreciate them more than, I don't know if I ever could appreciate anyone in my life.
When we were like
seven, eight years old at that time when my dad got passed,
they decided not to take government assistance anymore.
We want to make it on our own.
We were struggling.
But they did.
They took no help.
They just made it on their own.
Then they bought their first house together.
And then I watched that man get up in the morning and he would go and work for the city of Lafayette.
It was hot, man.
It was 95, 100 degrees, 100-degree humidity.
You know what Louisiana is like.
He would take the lime and make the baseball fields.
He would cut the fields and the grass.
And he would come home at 5.30, eat real quick.
And he would get a bath because we didn't have a shower,
jump in his truck and go to a pizza parlor and wash dishes to make an extra 60 bucks every time he did that.
And he did that constantly.
And then when I got old enough, I realized more what he was doing.
One of the days that he wasn't going back to there,
he was going to the cemetery and he was cutting it and he was weeding next to the graves to make more money.
So when I got old enough, he started taking me with him.
And he's like, you get $35 a month.
So every time you do this, I guess I made $8 or $10, right?
Because it would take us a little bit of time.
I learned to work.
He taught me to work.
And I think by him teaching me to work,
it has
defined my life.
It's defined my life.
I don't,
I was the captain of the Olympic wrestling team.
And it's because I worked hard.
They saw me.
They saw me and said, I want this guy to lead our team.
Is that the type of father you are?
You try to be what Percy wants you to your own kids?
That's what I try to be for my kids.
I try to be present and show them.
I'm working, man.
I'm making a life for you guys that can be.
And I hope that you see and appreciate what I'm doing.
Because while
I don't see the struggle, they don't see the struggle that I saw.
They do see that their dad is willing to just...
I took my daughters to a photo shoot I did for Monster Energy the other day.
And they were like, dad, you work hard.
I was like, I wanted to give you, just kind of see what dad does when he gets up at 5 a.m.
and he's back home by 6 to make sure you guys have dinner.
Right?
It's like those types of things,
they mean the world to me.
My dad was the best.
You lost a daughter.
I did, man.
Doing an 18-wheel accident.
Yeah,
that was the worst.
That was the worst.
I've had a lot of things happen in my life that
I try not to let define me.
Like, like try not to let like certain things define me like the bad.
But
yeah, that was the worst.
I was 23 years old.
I had a daughter named Kayla Nemery.
And
we were in college or just finishing college.
So
her mom was from Killeen, Texas.
Okay.
And they were driving home to see her parents.
But her car didn't have air conditioning.
and she was like i'm gonna put my kid in the car with my friend because they have a newer car right
yeah and it got rear into it by 18 wheeler that was the worst man
if she was with her mom
she would have been fine but
we make these decisions at times that we think are
the right decision and
it has killed her mom's life i was you know what dc i was about to ask you i bet she beat herself up bro i should have i should have just rolled the window down she should have been with me yeah it her mom's life is it hadn't been the same has it no
that girl that girl was on a track team at Oklahoma State well I went to school and
she had such a big future and now it's like she's at home taking care of her mother
that that losing that kid losing our kids like it killed her I was able to
I was able to spin it and say that every time I wrestle, every time I fight, I have an angel sitting on the cage to watch over me.
Her mom was never able to do that.
It's sad, man.
That was the worst thing that's ever happened to me.
Because as parents, we expect our kids to bury us.
Yes.
We don't expect to bury a child.
Not that young.
Not that young, man.
She's three and a half months old.
So like to put her in a casket,
yeah, that shit sucks.
Even just thinking about it, like, it sucks.
Has it changed the relationship that you had with subsequent subsequent kids that you hold them tighter?
That you, like, you realize how, just how fragile life is?
Yeah.
That tomorrow is not promised.
Even three hours from right now isn't promised.
No, I know.
Yeah,
it's bad to the point that, Shannon, at times you got to like,
you have to, I have to like.
I have to like
consciously try not to be as much of a like a helicopter parent.
I'm trying to like,
because I know how important it is for them to experience things,
but
it is scary.
Like my son is getting older now.
I just started, I let him ride his bike to the barbershop now to get a haircut.
That was something I could have never done.
Like never.
You talk about a bicycle or a motorbike.
One of those electric bicycles.
Electric bike.
Okay, electric.
Okay, okay.
So I let everybody, but I always, but
I make him put his location on the moment he leaves the house, location on.
So I'm trying, dude, but yeah, it's hard.
It really has changed me in terms of parenting.
You try, you try.
It's important.
Like,
I did a lot growing up.
I had a lot of freedom.
Yeah.
And
it gave me a little bit of street smarts and the ability to adjust and make my way around life.
I mean, people probably wouldn't know this about you, but you've had a, I mean, mean, you've had a lot of death in your family.
Your grandmother, your cousin, you lost a child at a very young age.
People ask me, because they know how close I am with my grandmother, they will ask Shannon, how did you get over?
I say, you never get over it.
No.
You just get better at dealing with it.
Yeah.
How have you been able to get better at dealing with?
Loss?
Well, at 20, when you lose a kid at that age, right?
Like,
you feel like nothing ever is going to feel worse.
But
I've managed to learn how to take those things and try to make them push me forward.
Okay.
So
with my daughter, like I had never made a United States team.
After my daughter passed, I made six in a row.
Wow.
Swear to God.
My daughter passed in June or in May of
May of 20
that you didn't didn't know.
Yes.
And from I by August I wrestled in the World Championships for the first time, then the Olympic Games and all the way through.
My mom,
when she passed a couple years ago, obviously I don't do anything competitive anymore.
But in terms of my media career, it's just gotten bigger.
Yep, because I work harder now because I know that even though I don't have to provide for her in the way that I did before, I still need to work because she was part of that work.
I want to do more TV because she watched everything,
right?
So, even though she's not there watching now, like I know she watched it all.
So, I try to
spin it.
That's the only way because otherwise, it cripples you.
It does.
It really does cripple you.
Like, you and like, I've heard stories about you and your grandmother, and it's like, and how special a lady she was to you.
Yep.
But yeah, you don't ever get over losing somebody you love that much.
You can't.
This cutting weight thing, you said that in this Thanksgiving,
you weighed 257.
Yeah.
And basically 45, 50 days, you were down to 204.
Yep.
Obviously, that's very taxing on the body.
Yes, it is.
Very taxing.
That's it.
To cut that kind of water weight, because
that's not all just
good weight.
And you went into renal failure at one time, right?
I did at the Olympic Games.
Yeah, but I wasn't that big at the time.
I was just...
In wrestling, I didn't have the access to the, I didn't have the access or the resources.
I couldn't have done that without my chef.
Right.
I had like Tyler Minton
was working for me at the time.
He
every meal,
every meal, every drink, he would feed me, then he would write it down.
He would feed me, then he would write it down.
I got to drink a kombucha every day.
That was it.
Outside of water, that's all I had.
Right.
And some sort of like electrolytes,
stuff to make sure I wasn't cramping
when I went to the cage to train.
But outside of like that, I had water and every meal.
Here you go.
And at the right times.
When I was wrestling,
I would eat until Wednesday, and then I just would not eat until I weighed in on Friday or Saturday.
I would go three days without anything.
Marab DeWallace really still does that.
The champ at 135 yesterday.
He just will not eat.
You don't have to do it that way anymore.
You don't.
He's got money.
But yeah, I would
my kidneys quit on me at the Olympic Games.
Ended up in the hospital.
That wasn't a dime, man.
Because they don't let you take diuretics, does it?
Can't take diuretics, can't take IVs, can't do nothing.
If I could have taken IV after Wayne's, I'd have been fine.
It was right before the Olympic Games that they did away with IVs.
I didn't want to cheat.
I didn't want to cheat.
My body, dude, that was a.
What's the most weight you've had to cut?
So
by design,
if I was fighting on Saturday,
when I showed up to Vegas on Tuesday, I probably was like 220,
if it was good.
But I remember one time I
in New York against Rumble and Buffalo, I was like 231 on Sunday
before the fight on Saturday.
What?
231.
And you got to get down to 205?
Yeah.
But I was like,
I was heavy, so I'd go run, lose like five pounds.
You lose a lot of weight, Shannon.
Yeah.
And you drink a lot of water.
Right.
These nutritionists are so good at manipulating weight now.
Yes.
You have no idea.
So like
if I'm like 217, 218, 220, like 220.
Oh, you and Sweet Spot.
You and your wheelhouse.
Because now I've got that with two gallons of water in a day.
Right.
Right?
That's 16 pounds at minimum.
So by the time I get in that that sauna, I'm like,
it all comes off.
But it's only for a short period of time.
Right.
Like, I'm at 204 and a half for maybe an hour.
When you re when you re hydrate that.
Yeah.
What do you, what are you going back up to?
You go rebound to what?
220?
225?
When John Jones, when I fought John Jones, and I was in peak physical condition.
Yes.
There was nothing I could do to get over 222.
Like, I mean, literally trained there for the last four weeks of camp.
Because I was so locked in.
Right.
When I I fought Rumble Johnson, I weighed 231 on Saturday night when I fought him the next day.
Wow.
I weighed 205.
Yeah, I gained 26 pounds overnight.
That's too much.
I felt so sluggish and horrible.
But yeah, I've cut a lot of weight.
You lose like 10 pounds an hour, though, when you do those weight cuts.
Wow.
Do you feel your height?
I mean, because like...
You look
probably a tick under six foot tall.
I'm five.
I've gotten shorter.
I'm like five, ten
on a good day.
Five ten and a half.
I've shrunk, Janet.
Have you shrunk at all?
Have you gotten short at home?
Yeah, I think so too.
I think as we get older,
we shrink it.
I believe I have.
But when you, when you, you use, like, for,
I would think somebody your size, your height would be ideal, is ideal for wrestling.
Oh, for wrestling.
Because you got a short torso, but you got long legs.
Compact, yeah.
And I'm good at getting close.
Once I get, if I get,
they say I'm sticky.
If I get close to you, I'm sticking to you.
Like, you're stuck in a fly trap.
Like, seriously, it's like.
So you're trying to close the distance.
Oh, if I got close, you're in trouble.
If I can grab you by the head, I'm punching you up with cuts.
If I can grab your leg, then you're really in trouble.
Because I had a thousand ways to finish a takedown.
The moment I got your leg, you're in a lot of trouble.
Yeah.
Because I'm either going to move you here, left, right, up, down.
It's all subtleties.
It's the same thing.
So like, Shannon,
I could actually try to guard you right now, and I could not.
Because even if you might not be able to run as fast as you did, you're going to give me something in the shoulders or something in the eyes that's going to get some separation.
Correct.
That's mere wrestling.
I'm just like, here, here, here, here.
And they get lost.
Do you like,
it's funny.
Like, when you grab somebody here, because I'm watching these boxes and you watch them close up, he'll throw a punch and he put his hand up because he knows what's coming.
And he'll do this and he'll throw that.
Oh, he'll do this and he'll do that.
So you know, like, if I got this
i know what he's gonna do absolutely i'll try i'll manipulate you to do what i want you to do wow yeah i'll manipulate you that's why like my takedown offense i think i might have landed 50 of my takedowns 40.
wow they're like dude he only landed 40 like yeah but the first few aren't designed to take you down right they're to set you up for number four five and six when i really want to get when i really want to get you down Then you get up in the air, I flip you, or I trip you.
It's like, yeah, it's like, it's all setups.
You mentioned boxing was your first love, though.
Yep, I did.
Because it's all I knew.
It's what we knew.
Like they would watch, my uncles, I'll watch the Wild War to sports every weekend.
And we'd watch like George Foreman clips and Muhammad Ali clips and Mike Tyson.
So it's like, we're watching this greatness and it looks like us.
Right.
That is where the difference was.
You watch that greatness and it's like, wow, this dude looks like he could be where I'm from.
And he's making, he's the man.
he's a superstar that's what drop drew me into boxing because every story was about a kid from a tough neighborhood yes he was from michigan he was from louisville kentucky he was from like just all these places the streets yeah comedian streets like wait a minute this looks very familiar
and look at him today right so yeah
it it just drew me in like bud and canelo
That's a tough fight.
I saw Bud recently.
He's big.
Bud bigger than you think.
He's stronger than you think.
He's strong, too.
Yo, bud's son is ridiculous we had wrestlemania right up the street he got a belt
he walked past me and he was looking at me the whole time he looked at me say you the wrestler i knocked you out on uf seat i was like boy you crazy when he crazy bud told me he had to whip him bud said he went to sean uh
what's his name sean crawford sean taylor sean uh sean sean porter sean porter bud said sean porter but bud say that same went to sean porter said my dad knocked you out.
Sean Porter had to call him and be like, but yeah, Sun's crazy.
Bud said, I had to spank you.
He's crazy.
But yes, he's bigger.
It's a big-time fight.
Canelo better have his game ready.
Yeah.
Because if not, he's going to get beat by Bud.
Yeah.
But I mean, like I said, Bud, I mean, Bud walks, Bud fought at, you know, last fall at Junior Middleweight at 154.
But Bud walks around at like 180.
He's big, man.
And he's tall, too.
Yeah.
He's very tall.
He looked big.
I saw him inside the
apex for training yeah he looked big you went and watched train too i uh no we did a we did an uh interview with him and but he i say he's he's stronger than you think he's stronger than you could tell yeah he's stronger than you think his hands full he does you were bullied as a kid is that why you got into wrestling and and fighting because you were bullied you're like i ain't taking this ish no so i was bullied bad shannon okay like this guy used to beat me up all the time he would beat me up for no reason it was like no reason to fight me he would just pick off me if they they could have three other kids fight.
He would show up to watch the fight.
Then once that fight was over, he's like, I might as well give me one.
And did they get it, dog?
I was scared, too.
I was so scared of him.
And then I learned to wrestle.
Once I got him, it was over, man.
Once I got him once, it was over.
But yeah, yeah, it gave me self-defense.
I think wrestling is so important for kids because then you learn to defend yourself.
And also, it gives you a confidence.
I got this academy in my, my, in Gilroy, the Daniel Corner Wrestling Academy.
Kids walk in there hunched over, looking like scared.
Right.
Because the ones that have been doing it for a while have this intensity about them.
They're strong and they're confident.
Six months later, they're like walking in with some, I'm like, okay, this is what I need.
That's what wrestling gives you.
I think it's the best.
Right.
Have you ever been arrested for street fighting?
One time.
I got arrested in college when I was a freshman.
I punched a guy, man.
What do you do?
So I went to a junior college in Kansas.
And
one of the biggest mistakes that young black men make when they go to different places is they almost try to recreate themselves.
You can be a great kid, but you will portray yourself as a gangster or a bad guy.
Right.
Because you want people to not only respect you, you want to make sure you fit in, and they kind of fear you a little bit.
It's like very important.
So I did that, and I'm at this party.
And we go to this party, and the guy comes out.
It's his house, and he starts talking.
And he said something that I viewed as disrespectful when he came charging towards me.
So I punched him.
Bro,
I don't know if his jaw was like super like loose.
He went down and his jaw broke really bad.
So blood's like everywhere.
We run off, me and all my wrestler friends.
The cops come to get us.
We're in Kansas.
I was like, well, man,
I saw this Mexican dude do it and run away.
They said, nah, man, it was you.
It was you, Eric.
You're not trying to put it off on somebody.
I tried to put it on a Mexican dude, man.
I was like, yeah, they ain't got got many brown people out here.
They ain't got many brown people out here.
They said, nah, it was you.
They put me in jail.
I was crying, dude.
Then they put me in jail on a Friday night, Shannon.
And in those little towns.
Oh, you're going to get dick till Monday.
And then once Monday come, they got 72 hours to see.
Yeah.
And they kept me in jail till Wednesday.
Damn.
I was crying.
My mom actually,
to pay to get me out, she had to put it up against her house.
Wow.
To get me out of jail, she put her house on the line as a counter for the
bail.
For the bail.
Yep.
And then I was like, this woman will do anything for me.
I'm the one that messed up.
I ran her phone bill up, calling her every day, thousands of thousands of dollars.
They ain't had nothing to pay that, but she answered it every time.
That's why she was the best to me.
Everybody, like, oh, you love your mama more than you'll love anybody in the world.
I was like, you saw what she did for me?
She was the best.
You tried some everything.
You sold drugs as a kid?
You tried to.
Shannon, I was a bad drug dealer.
What's a what's all?
Shannon, you don't want to hear this story.
Shannon, we made hard, we made fake drugs one time.
Oh, Lord.
Shannon, we went.
So would you cut grass and just put it.
This was when I was a kid.
No, no, no.
No.
Back when I was growing up, it wasn't weed.
It was crack.
I tried to sell crack, Shannon.
I was broke.
I needed $20.
Bro, you don't know how to cook.
I don't know how to cook.
I don't know nothing about it.
But listen to what we did, though.
We took some wax
and put orangel on it.
Because I guess that it must numb the face or something.
One of my friends told me that one.
So I gave it to the drug.
I gave it to the dude.
He gave me the money.
He
thought.
He looked up.
I took off running.
I took off.
Man, he called me, man.
I called the money back.
I gave him.
Here you go, man.
You got me.
You done ate the crack now.
You out of this ball.
That was the last time.
That was the last time I ever tried some stupid shit like that.
I was like, man, this is sports for me.
It was bad.
Could a boxer ever be the MMA fighter in a street fight?
No.
No.
They would get taken down.
It would happen too fast.
I saw James Toney fight Randy Koutour.
James Toney was one of the slickest, best boxers of all time.
He tapped without actually tapping Randy.
He just waved at the ref, like, save me.
Right.
That's what happens when boxers fight.
The baddest man on the planet, the baddest man on the planet is a mixed martial arts fighter.
Nothing else.
In terms of hand-to-hand combat.
Right.
Yeah, the baddest man on the planet is the UFC heavyweight champion.
Every time.
Unless Francis Nganu is out there fighting for someone else.
Then there's a chance that he's the baddest man on the planet.
There's a chance it might be somebody else.
He might beat whoever we have because he's that good.
But if not, it's either Tom Aspinall, Francis Nganu, and John Jones.
Right now, those are the baddest men on the planet.
Nobody else.
We come back and have a conversation five years, ten years from now.
Yep.
What's DC doing?
Probably the same thing.
Probably doing the same thing.
Working UFC fights.
I love my job.
I love calling fights.
I think I have the best job in the world.
Yep.
Podcasting, doing television.
Same.
Because I don't think that right now,
I don't think that right now
I'm willing to stop you.
Like we said earlier, you're a worker, I'm a worker.
I just might be living in the town wherever my son or my daughter goes to college.
I just can't let it go.
I told my daughter the other day, if you, I said, pick a school close and I'll pay everything.
She wants to get far away.
She wants to.
I'm in.
You dig into colleges yet?
She goes, what?
No.
She goes, Dad, I'm 13.
I go, could you go to Cal?
I'll like, stay close.
I go, I'll pay your your rent.
I'll give you a stipend.
I'll do everything.
She was like, No, you don't have to.
You're good.
You want to get away from my ass.
Cormier.
Cormier.
Yes, you're the man.
Is it Cormier or Cormier?
Cormier.
Cormier.
Cormier.
Yeah.
DC.
That was good.
All my life.
Been grinding all my life.
Sacrifice.
Hustle paid the price.
Want a slice.
Got the roll of dice.
That's why.
All my life.
I've been grinding all my life.
Been grinding all my life.
Sacrifice, hustle paid the price.
Want a slice, got to roll a dice.
That's why, all my life, I've been grinding all my life.
This is an iHeart podcast.
