Pono & Anthony Blackburn: PowerSlap: The Next Big Thing in Combat Sports? | DSH #1445

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Good for you.

Watch One Piece.

Yeah, that's a good anime.

Hockey, dude.

You can feel flash.

It's intense, and I love it.

It's my favorite thing ever.

Be in that room.

You feel that energy.

All right, guys, Pono and Anthony here, PowerSlap Fighters Champions, and got a big fight for both you guys this Friday.

Thanks for coming on.

Thank you.

Yeah, pleasure to be here.

You guys ready?

Is this the most you trained for fights?

Come on, man.

I've trained all the time.

Yeah.

That's it.

We're always ready.

Let's go.

Yep.

Stay ready.

So that way you don't have to get ready.

Yeah.

You got Mike Baron walking you out.

Come on.

Shout out to Mike.

He's been on the show twice.

Yeah, I mean, he's been very influential in my life.

You know, we've, you know, got onto the high-ticket sales and closing, been able to go through the Closer Academy, became part of the inner circle, and just been really close to me, man.

He just, you know, took me under his wing, showed me everything that's, you know, he's been doing in San Diego and been building.

And now is that time for me to return the favor.

So he's going to be coming out with me and doing the striker walkout.

It's the very first ever striker walkout.

How'd you get the approval on that?

Oh, you got to go.

Well, it's tickets that you buy through the on location.

But then since it's so close to the event, we have to kind of, you know, talk to the right people to get into it.

But, I mean, we've, we were able to land it.

So

he's good to go.

Yeah.

I can't wait till they add that element to the sport, the walkouts, because I feel like that's what makes the UFC so lit, too.

Oh, yeah, for course.

Yeah.

I mean, you're just having more people see.

There's more eyes in the game now than ever before.

So

what about you, man?

How'd you get into all this?

Dude,

it's a funny story, though.

I'm from Michigan, and i grew up playing sports really competitive skateboarding bmx and stuff too a lot of extreme sports just always had a tenacity to want to get better and compete and uh i seen the opportunity one day i was hung over on a saturday scrolling on facebook and it was like a whole ad calling me out think you got what it takes it said sign up here and i just wow

that uh that actually works right

you know so yeah it was it was crazy you know i had my first

first match and after that,

after that win, I was just gas pedal, called my coach, which Brandon Bordeaux, the other Michigan champion.

We have the same coaches,

James Isham, out of my hometown of Wyndot.

But yeah, I called him after won my first match and said, dude,

we got to hit the gas in this and full send it.

And he started studying film right away.

And now we are two and a half years later, I'm undefeated, never been knocked out, never been knocked down.

Iron Chin.

Yes, sir.

It's cool to to see because the sport's so new, like how people are going about it, like their strategy and everything, hiring coaches.

It's really fascinating to me.

It's only two and a half years old, huh?

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, very, fairly new, you know, and they started off with season, started off introducing it to people, you know, just having the basic recruitment of just the random Joes and people around the world.

And then, you know, now it's progressing to be more athletic.

You've got other people that are really into like MMA and it's just flowing properly now.

Yeah.

It's one of the fastest growing sports out there right now.

It's cool to see the growth.

Our mutual friend Sean Chase took me to like the first or second one ever.

And now to see it at Fountain Blue with, you know, a thousand plus people, it's nuts.

Tickets were a thousand bucks.

Did you see that?

They're scalping them right now for 800.

Crazy.

Sold out.

I remember the first event, they were giving them out for free.

Right, right, right.

Get as many butts in the seats, right?

Have everybody come in and attend and get the eyes on it so that way they can start building.

And now, I mean, from PowerSlap 10 competing on PowerSlap 10 to now PowerSlap 13, I mean, ticket sales have just gone up and up.

I mean, you guys are going to Saudi now.

You're going to New Orleans.

Oh, yeah.

All over the world.

Over international.

Crazy, right?

It's good.

That's good.

I love growth.

Man, I can't wait to get to the bayou.

Yeah.

To what?

To the bayou.

What's up?

Which is

Louisiana.

Oh, Louisiana.

I've never been there.

Me either.

I haven't been there either, but it's getting closer and closer to his spot in his area.

So it's just like, okay, yep, you gotta home turf for you.

It's like, so Michigan's all the way at the top, but Louisiana, I went.

I went to New Orleans peak COVID.

So it was weird.

Yeah.

Nobody was in the streets hardly.

Like I went to Jackson Square.

That's like a pretty historical place.

10 people maybe in the whole area.

It was really scary, weird.

Yeah.

So I'm excited.

Yeah.

Can't wait for that.

What's full scope management about?

What's going on with that?

So we originally had a company or a management agency called Heavy Hitters.

And me and my wife had started it and just kind of worked our way through trying to, you know, get into the sport at a very early stage.

So that way we can help everybody just kind of grow within you know adding more uh events you know getting in front of more eyes and you know we same thing mutual friend we've met sean chase and it's became family to us and now we've you know we've been able to merge over to full scope and really do our thing and you know it's just getting

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More eyes on us now because of just having that open opportunity to be getting in front of events and, you know, just doing other things that, you know, power stop shrekers aren't really open to right now you know we're just kind of making that break in the mold when it comes to doing anything social socially besides of the stuff that we post ourselves right you know so now we need to have that that open door to be able to just kind of expand and just really get all these people that are getting into the sport and people that have already been in the sport just more exposure you know to be able to get seen everywhere You guys are getting some of the most exposure I've ever seen.

Like I'd say PowerSlot fighters and then podcasters.

You guys would get like hundreds of millions of views.

It's crazy.

Like Like you knock someone out, it's going viral the next day, right?

Oh, yeah.

I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would see something like this, even just being in PowerSlap alone.

But I mean, my last few videos, I've got 340, 350, 380, and it just

continues to grow.

That's nuts.

We just want to stretch this out as much as possible and see where this takes us.

It's still fairly new and it's going to continue to keep on popping up everywhere.

You tap on Instagram, there it is,

social proof, you know, people getting knocked out and

some of the most viral stuff that you're going to have to see.

So, you know, just keep it entertaining.

It'd be cool to see how it evolves.

Like if they do two-on-twos, if they start mixing it up.

Yeah.

That would be crazy.

That'd be nuts, right?

Two-on-two.

Take this one.

You can hit them.

WWE style.

I just think that, you know,

since you're in such a broad kind of, you know, we're getting athletes, we're getting the Joe Schmo like me.

I just, you know, I just like competing and I'm hard-headed.

Yeah.

Now you're going to get professional wrestlers.

You're going to get, you know, I'm hoping someone that fell out of the UFC and is like, all right, let me get PowerSlap a try.

And it's going to be, you know, some decently known name.

And all these people have such unique stories.

Like, you're getting a crazy amount of different

people from all picks of life.

Yeah.

I think that, you know, to get everyone in the space to tell that story is.

what we're working towards.

It is fascinating.

Yeah.

Everyone's got their character arc developing right now.

Yeah.

It's every, it's every Hawaiian boy's dream to become a fighter in the UFC and to do something amazing like this.

And it's like now PowerSlap comes along and you just have a golden opportunity to do something where, you know, it doesn't require as much as where it comes to the point of like training and learning different arts, jiu-jitsu and kickboxing, Muay Thai.

But I mean, with PowerSlap being the way it is, it's still a sport that you have to take seriously.

There's, there's technique to it, there's angles to it, there's drives to it, an arm drive, knee drive.

There's so many things you can open up, wide array of different ways to attack it.

And not anybody would ever think of that.

You know, it's just like, nah, this guy's just going out there and delivering a slap.

Yeah, that's how it was in the beginning.

Now you've got more

like just the athletic side of it.

You got to be, you know, physically fit, mentally ready for stuff that goes on out there on the stage.

So now it's just, it's a big thing for, you know, to take on the technique side of it, to do all these things and really just, you know, put the time and the discipline into it you know really really practice practice what you preach and it's really fun too because you know it's a new sport but everyone's training in their own way you know everyone's got their own flavor of slap so it's really cool to see how each person evolves too if you follow it and you're a fan and you're like oh man you could see these people been really putting the work in and studying the game and you have to break down film you watch everybody's matchback not just yours wow you watch other promotions too and it's you know if you're not doing this now you're falling behind and i'm sorry but we're gonna leave you in the dust

i'm guessing it's getting serious now yeah yeah

if you're super tall would that be an advantage or no

um so i mean everybody looks at it from a point where it's like okay he's a lot bigger he's a lot stronger he's like this At the end of the day, if you don't have the chin for it,

it's going to prove itself.

You've got to have a chin for this.

That's the biggest thing.

Your defense is the key.

Offense, you can have, you can can switch up you can do all the things but if you can't take a hit i mean it's gonna you're gonna fall short and after after you know taking a hit you know we we already know that you diminish you diminish after a while once you've been hit on the button and people continue to find that button on you every single time you might fall short every single time so you know there's things that you can do you know obviously neck training base you know really getting a stable base on you, being able to understand within the rule set of what's going on on the power slap stage, how you can utilize utilize all the little pieces to it, like the podium, being able to have three points of contact, that you've got a baton that you have to hold behind you.

A lot of people just hold it and just kind of flare out their arms.

No, why don't you just tighten down your arms and use like a motorcycle handle and just kind of tighten it down to your body so your body becomes one unit.

People, you know, surrender their chin, you know, a lot of that is.

You don't want to do any of that stuff out here.

No freebies should be given in this sport.

But a lot of people learn from that by giving out freebies first.

And then after that, you know, making the step to make the adjustments, make the changes.

Oh, okay, I got to do something different on this next roundup because this guy, and even on the striker side of it, the guy might change the angle of the hit while you start to brace a certain way.

He sees it, he notices.

It's on the spot chaining.

Like, you literally have to be on the spot.

Okay, I make this decision to change the way that it is before you take that hit.

So, wow.

I never realized how technical this was.

It's getting to where it's a chess match.

Yes.

I would say.

Yes.

Nice.

I love chess.

So this is fascinating to me.

I didn't realize how much technique went into this.

The way you're describing it.

Like you're really calculating on the spot.

You have to.

You have to.

It's growing.

It's growing.

It's growing really, really fast.

So, you know, that typical person that comes in and just believes that it's just a slap, you're going to get washed out very fast because there's going to be people that are more athletic, that are really thinking about the game different.

than what you're already thinking about it.

And, you know, you're going to fall short every single time.

It's good for people to also also see that, too.

So that way they have the ability to understand that, hey, I don't have to go one-dimensional every single time, and I have to go into the same route and the same movement.

I have to change with the way things are going on stage.

Got to be faster to the punch.

You know, that's that's what I believe in.

It's like, and you got to be, like I said, you don't have to get ready if you stay ready.

And that's, and that's a big part in this is that you should always be training.

You should always be focusing.

Don't let it go to the, you know, to any kind of judge's decision in any shape or form, right?

Because you do have three round matches.

You have to do five round matches.

You don't want none of that stuff.

You want to prepare the best that you can, be the best version of yourself when you go out there and just kill.

Do what you got to do.

You're out there for one job and one job only.

It's to entertain the people and to win your matches and do what you're supposed to do.

Yeah.

I like the mental game that goes on, too, during the fights.

Oh, yeah.

You can see it in the eyes.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

You can tell.

You can tell if someone's in fear.

The eye shift.

You know, he doesn't want to stare at you anymore.

The glare.

Like, oh, no, I don't want to look at him in his face anymore.

I just, I better look down.

I better look away.

It's like, it's coming.

Yeah.

That's why I like the face-offs because you get your first gauge really of, all right, tomorrow, I'm going to see what he's about right now a little bit.

But

if you break eye contact, that's a little taste of what's coming tomorrow.

Yeah.

That's, that's the side of the sport that people don't talk about, but it's important, right?

Because you're in there one-on-one.

You've already done all the training.

So what's there to...

to do it's the mental side that's it we signed it we're ready here it is we're right here on the stage ready to go.

You have no defense except for the little minute things that you're going to end up doing.

Outside of that, I mean, you just stand there and you take it.

It's the best thing about this boy that I really feel.

It's like it's no BS.

It's the surrender.

You're surrendering.

You're surrendering over to what it is.

You know,

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I can't do anything else.

I can't block.

I can't move my hands.

I can't do nothing else.

Can't shift my neck back.

Here's my chin.

Here's my face.

Smack me and let's go.

Let's get ready for the next one.

And then I got to go back.

Once I get smacked and once I get hit, I get to go back to my corner and really just hype.

Put my hand in the chalk.

I'm squeezing on everything.

This is it.

I'm going to put you out.

And so

you took the wrong step into this ring.

You know, it's like, it's done now.

That's when you work the crowd and everything to them in-betweens and that's smart.

Feed off that energy.

You got to read the room.

And I firmly believe that, you know, the judges are definitely hearing and looking around at what's happening during the match as they're judging.

At least subconsciously, for sure.

That has to have some kind of play on their judgment for sure.

Like the reactions, you know, we're all humans.

Yeah, obviously that's going to factor into their judgment for sure.

Sway it a little bit, if you know.

You got to know how to, you know, play it off.

Yeah, you know, it's got to not hurt.

You got to eat it.

You guys ever take a hit and you're like, shit, I got to play this off right now.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, of course.

I've gotten my orbital cracked.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, that one.

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Back and nodded at him.

I just knew definitely something was bad because my eye was blurry right away.

Shit.

Yeah, you'll tell from me, you know, as soon as I take the hit and there's fire, like, just like, oh, okay, this is it, guy.

I'm coming right back.

Hold on, stay right there.

And I'll come back.

But, you know, I've, I've been, you know, I faced Dorian Perez on this on this last one on PowerSlap 12, and he isn't no joke.

He's solid.

He's stable.

It's hard.

He has a chin.

You know, so it's like, it's hard to break him.

And he has that mentality of like, oh, let me check you real quick.

Hey, you ready?

I'm ready because I'm ready to die, you know?

And I'm like, oh yeah?

Okay.

He hit me.

He hit me on that one and it made me think a little bit different.

That first whack that I took from him made me think different.

You could tell from me being like, oh yeah, to like,

I got to lock it in.

Yeah.

Let me start thinking, you know, like it really has to get into my head right now that.

It's like, this guy is a rock.

And how do I break rocks?

I got to get the jackhammer out.

I got to figure out what's the next move.

And now, you know, I went, I went with the same slap three rounds.

You know, you sort of start shifting, you know, go on two, go on three, change the angle.

Oh, so you could go on whatever count.

I didn't know that.

As long as you let the referee exactly know what you're going to throw, that's it.

You can do that, you know, and just make sure you throw what you say you're going to throw.

You know, there's been a lot of times where people have, you know, said, oh, I'm going to go on two and they go on one, or they go on three and then I'm going to.

So you just got to make sure that you, you stay coherent out there there and you make sure that you, you know, whatever you say that is going to happen, you deliver.

See, me, I have it easier.

I go right on one every time.

Oh, every time?

My thing about it is if you were going to have an actual fight and you were going to hit somebody in real life situation, you're not going to be measuring like that.

And that's what I've just applied the whole time.

I've never, I don't even practice going on anything other than one just because

I stuck it in my brain a long time ago that it doesn't make sense to sit there.

I think too much about it.

That's like you're in the moment on stage like that

and everything's had, like, you're looking through your peripherals and shit's happening.

You're like,

you know,

taking a long time to just sit there and think more about something.

Right.

I'm just let it rip.

I can see both points of view because you don't want your opponent to brace for impact on the same count every time.

Right.

So that's where you're coming from.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you got to, you know, there's, there's some points like, like he said, he goes right on one.

I go right on one as well.

You know, that's my, that was my original go-to.

And I was on season three, road to the title.

And when I hit Devin Jenkins, it was right on one.

When I hit James Siegman, it was right on one.

You know, and this is Cooper, right on one.

And it's worked for me.

It's been, it's been a solid, you know, a solid foundation for me to stay that way.

Because just like you said, I don't have to think.

I put my hand up as soon as I put my hand up, I get the timing off, I send it, I bring it all the way back, and I push.

And that's it.

I'm done.

I don't have to think about it anymore than that.

But because of it being such a,

once you get into a certain level, a certain bracket, five to 10, you won't have a problem.

People, you know, they, they are not adjusted to what's going on, even though they know it's coming on one.

Sometimes that element of surprise, even though he knows it's coming on one, there's some kind of element.

And, you know, but when you get from five and above, these people have been doing it.

He's been in this, he's been in the game.

He's a skin in the game.

You know, you've got people like Damian DeBell.

You've got Dwayne Crespel.

You've You've got all these bigger names that are just building up.

And this is, I'm just speaking on the heavyweight division.

Every division is like that.

But once you get past five, you got people that are actually more.

I not say that nobody below is serious, you know, but like

on that level, yeah, these guys are there for a reason.

Yeah.

There's levels to the game, right?

You got to change it up.

You got to do something different, you know, and it's only in those times when you can't figure out the puzzle.

You can't figure out the puzzle, you got to add a little, a little bit difference to it so that way you can try to figure it out so yeah

i'm definitely excited a little bit of different strategy i mean having that in your back pocket that you know being able to go on two or three uh-huh

that might prove uh beneficial in the future it doesn't hurt because you never know yeah you make those mid-match changes could throw someone off and

because they're expecting the right they're expecting the on one you know especially from us you know they're expecting that they're expecting for everybody to go on one and it's like okay now two comes up.

He's thinking.

Soon as I put my hand up, he's thinking already.

Oh, no.

Here we go.

Now I got to time my brace.

Bam.

You got him.

You know, he can be faster to the punch.

You guys ever get shocked with who you see in the audience?

Well, well, I'm going to be honest, you know, the last few times, I just don't pay attention.

Really?

I don't.

You know, I've seen maybe one familiar face, Bert, that just like is like, hey, what's up?

But everything else, I shut out.

Wow.

Visualization is key.

And I do this stuff two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning, one o'clock, doesn't matter.

I'm in my backyard.

I'm walking.

I'm doing the whole ape.

That's that guy.

That's this guy.

That's this person.

That's that person.

All right.

I'm up to the line.

Check my hands.

Check my ears.

I do everything.

I do it that way.

So that way I never have to worry about anything else happening outside of the box.

When I get up on the, on the stage, I make sure I do my signals.

I make sure I do my thing.

I get to my corner and then I'm pacing.

I'm pacing back and forth.

I'm not going to look at anybody else.

i'm not going to think about anybody else until he walks up on the stage and i lock once i lock eyes with you brother we on it's on now now it's different you now you're in front of me and there is this pain coming i feel it already in my soul in my body yeah it's coming for you you watch it for you you watch uh one piece yeah that's a good anime hockey dude you can you can feel the clash

it's intense and i love it that's my favorite thing ever to just be in that room and feel that energy when you're about to compete and everything's about to just blast off on that first round.

It's unreal.

It's an unreal feeling.

Yeah.

The first fights, I feel like it's always like a knockout or some crazy fight.

So it sets a tone for the night, you know?

Yeah, I remember the first few fights I went to, the first fight, KO every time.

They strategically set the card up that way.

They planned it.

Yeah, that's what I figured.

Because I noticed as the championship fights are near the end, they're usually not knockouts, right?

Yeah.

I've been very, very lucky to, you know, have the opportunity to open up the main card twice now.

You know, I went against Cooper Housing and opened up the card and Dorian Perez and opened up that card.

And it's like, you set the tone, you set the pace for whatever's going to happen after, you know, and people will look at that and read your energy and be like, okay, I got to come up a little bit harder than what he did.

I got to do something a little bit different than what he did.

And so if you set the tone every single time, you know, it comes out for a good show.

Yeah.

Every single time.

It's kind of nice to go first too, because you get it over with.

And you get everything out of the way, but then they don't have, you know, you're the one they're gauging everything off of.

So it's not like, you know, once you get out done, because it's going to happen during the card, there's going to be moments where you get outshined.

But that first match is supposed to be like a mini pop, and then they go through some more.

And then that main card.

leadoff fights supposed to be another big pop to the finish right final the main card supposed to be the biggest so yeah do you guys separate business and friendship like you guys have both Fighting this Friday Do you talk to the opponent at all?

Do you keep it separate?

I do you talk to them?

I talk to everybody

There's there's only a few people that I just like in internally I just don't like but other than that I like everybody.

This is a this is a different different aspect of the sport is that I mean, it's it becomes a family thing.

Like, oh, yeah, man, I'm hanging out with you.

You know, we have our family get-togethers and, you know, we're just really kicking it all the time.

Like, even when it comes up to the actual like match itself, you know, I'm still having a conversation because we, we come to a, a good understanding.

Same thing with James.

We come to a good understanding that we're going to go out there, we're going to put on a show.

You knock me, I knock you.

It is what it is.

After this, we can shake hands.

We can be friends.

We can do all the other things, you know.

It's like there's only a few handful of people that are not about that, that don't do all that stuff.

But other people are

into it, you know?

What's one thing I, one thing I feel about

everyone that got in at the same time, like obviously there's waves of it.

Like we were part of the, I was part of the first wave.

You guys were season two, right?

Season three.

Season three, so that's like the second wave.

Yep.

But, you know, we're all trying to blow this sport up at the same time.

So what I love about it is like the brotherhood-sisterhood type of feeling that

we are competing against each other,

but I can still go and, you know, I'll talk and chat with Azael.

We're hanging out at the pool.

Yeah.

I have no hard feelings.

I know we're in this to

rip each other's faces off.

And, you know, it doesn't have to be any animosity.

It's just business.

Yeah.

Well, respect to be able to separate those.

Yeah.

I feel like I would go, if I was to slap my best friend in the face, I would hold back like subconsciously.

But

you also have to have the understanding.

You know, it's like, you know what?

This is, yeah, you signed up for this.

You know, so if, yeah, if you're, if we're friends, we're friends, you you know, but in the day, you still sign that paper and, and you had the opportunity to say no, you know,

I had the opportunity to say no.

I didn't.

You didn't.

Okay, it's agreed.

Yeah.

We, now we know what it is.

After I whack you and put you out on the ground, we can hug it out.

But until then, you have to battle.

That's just it.

You got to come to acceptance.

Are you allowed to talk during the matches?

Shit talk.

Yeah, you are.

But like, remember when Dorian was mouthing to you, like, come and hit me.

Mark would always say, you know, keep the talking to a minimum when they're lining up, just so they're not moving their jaw around or their head.

Yeah.

So in between rounds, that's where you got to do.

That's where I feel like it's got to be showtime.

You get that 15 seconds.

Shoot, if you hit a backflip or something, might as well start doing some stuff.

Yes, of course, of course.

Or, you know, I had a pretty cool moment.

at a 10 where Theo was like, yeah, I ate a shot and I flexed at Theo and Taylor Luan was like, like, you know, he's hype too.

Oh, that's dope.

What's up, Taylor?

And I, you know, yelled at him in the crowd a little bit.

So that kind of interaction, that's got to be kind of cool to,

you know, they remember you for that moment.

So

I think that's cool.

Get those little memories and moments.

Yeah, this sports has definitely taken a turn in the last like two events where it's moving on to, you know, now we have NXT wrestlers that are coming in and the whole, you know, non-televised card is going to be wrestlers there.

So they're taking the entertainment aspect, right?

They're coming from that side of it where it's like, okay, let's get more entertainment in here.

Yeah, it's a new shift from

just

when we started, it was, all right, we're real focused individuals on this new sport.

All right, I'm going to go up there and give it a mile and slap this guy, turn around, chalk up, and there's nothing in between.

They're just walking back and forth, slapping each other.

Well, now it needs to be like,

like some of the wrestlers said, I don't even care, dude.

If I get knocked out, I'm flipping birds on the way down, you know, something other than just being blah.

Yeah,

you got to make your mark, right?

Yeah, it's a new, it's a new wave.

I think that's where we're starting to go.

Nice.

What have you guys,

yeah, what have you guys taken away from Dana White, just being around him, learning from him?

He's a promoter.

He's the master promoter, man.

Getting into boxing now, too.

He knows exactly what to do and how to do it.

And the biggest thing is that he trusts his team.

He trusts every single person under him to do exactly what is put forth.

Hey, I want this, this, this, this, and this.

I don't take anything less.

We need that to happen.

We need that to do stuff.

So I love him just because he is that guy.

He is the one that's paving the way for every single person.

And just with this sport becoming the way it is, I mean, it's just going to continue to grow.

He's already expanded into other stuff like the boxing thing.

And it's just.

BJJ rode to the title.

UFC, BJJ,

it's just going to continue to keep on flowing.

And that's the kind of guy that he is.

He's, you know, he's all about that flow.

I want want things to work effortlessly so i trust him i trust obviously i trust him with my life right i'm out here slapping people for him so

his authenticity has just been uh impressive to me over the years out of any gm of any major sport just how raw and authentic he is oh yeah i feel like that's what separates him

like the players respect him yes whereas other sports some old guy or whatever and the players don't even care about the gm yeah he's front row center and he's not and he's not sugarcoating nothing he's not sugarcoating anything for anybody.

You know, he's just he tells you how it is.

This is exactly what you have to do to be the most successful person in this sport or in any other sport that he creates.

You know, it's like, go out there and go get it.

You know, he gave you the blueprint.

Yep.

Don't do anything else less.

That dude kind of just works harder than everybody.

He does.

He does, dude.

He's always on the go.

It just blows my mind.

Everything is so methodical

and he knows like having these influencers and stuff come out for these events is, you know, everyone's like, well, that's kind of what's going on with that.

They're getting invited and, you know, we're paying for tickets, but that's what's going to blow the sport because they're the ones that are getting way more eyes when they had Aiden was streaming live.

One of them.

Yeah.

I mean, that's 100,000 views.

Yeah.

Most of the time when he's live, it's just strategic.

It's just.

That's not even counting clips.

That's just live viewers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's just mind-blowing how methodical and smart and his team is

top-notch that was brilliant honestly that strategy of inviting all the influencers out keeping them on one side to make content

yeah he's putting the right people in the right places you know even like you know the president you're like frank frank is an amazing guy you know he's going out there and he's really doing everything the way that he needs to do it and if things things not going the right let's switch it let's make this turn immediately let's do this let's do that and even erica you know being being able to go out there and do all the matchmaking being able to take on a whole bunch of other different things, positions, you know, it's, it's, it's pretty cool to watch that, you know, the production side of how everything is put together.

You know, they've got a good solid team, and we trust them.

Absolutely.

Next time I see you guys, there'll be two of these, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, Isael's definitely going to make weight.

We ain't got to worry about that.

Last time, I got a little.

Oh, you didn't make weight?

No, I made weight, but my opponent, he made weight backstage.

It was like he was on good, up right out of the sauna, and then the analog scale on the stage for the live taping was

0.5 over,

and he was out of time.

So they didn't even, he could have like cut his hair off and probably made weight.

Whoa.

They were like, oh, no more time.

So they had to cancel it the day off.

No, they just made it a regular bout instead of a

title match.

So that changed your whole strategy then.

Three slaps instead of five.

It was five rounds.

We went five rounds.

Oh, it was still five.

Yeah.

Oh, they're not letting that go.

They're going to let it go for five.

He's just not going to put put the title on the line, you know.

Because that's a whole different mindset, I feel like three versus five.

Right.

It's a shorter, it's a shorter match, you know.

So it's, you've got to go in one.

You've got to go on,

like, you got to perform the whole three.

You've got less opportunity to pull ahead in rounds, you know.

Two rounds to win instead of four or three.

Is there a lot of momentum in this where like you'll kind of feel like it's going your way?

Oh, yeah.

Cause

obviously people, people say that the coin toss means a lot more than it does.

I think that if you're mentally prepared, like you signed up for this sport, you know, if you're not pussyfooting and being real about it,

you're ready and it doesn't matter.

I'll win regardless.

Really?

I was actually hoping to lose the coin toss because Isael's been saying, I've got power and he's going to feel my power and power, power this, power that.

Buddy, my neck is almost 18 inches.

Power that.

You know what I'm saying?

Should have brought a bat.

Should have brought a baseball bat.

That's where I'm at.

I think

there's going to be

a lot of neck for him.

Damn.

18-inch neck.

God damn.

I've never measured mine, but that sounds long for a neck.

Yeah, with your match, I just see two Warriors just going head to head.

I love it.

Two of the top Warriors.

Has he lost yet?

His losses are kind of...

He challenged for the belt in middleweight.

And he lost twice, but they were, you know, pretty good matches.

Good matches.

He was always on the smaller side at middleweight, and I've, you know, been smaller at welterweight,

but

this match is pretty well even.

I think, you know, body style, he's a little bit stronger than me, but

it's really even.

So I'm excited for it.

Let's go.

You got a big match too, man.

Yeah, James Siekman, ranked number four in the world.

He fought against Nate Bernard on his last one, his last very match, you know, but I think the bigger one for me is that I faced him on season three real to the title, you know, and I went through some adverse moments during that time where I didn't have my main weapon.

I had to strike with my offhand, my non-dominant hand.

I still was able to go out there and perform.

I fought Devin Jenkins on the very first hit, knocked him out in the second round with the non-dominant hand.

So I had something to prove, you know, and it's like, okay, well, I got to go back out there and do it again with James Siekman.

And he was able to eat.

my two hits that I gave him and you know respond and come back and be able to lay me down.

So I know for sure what this sport does is teaches you life lessons.

You know, don't ever think that you're always ahead of the game all the time.

You got to prepare yourself and get ready for everything.

You know, there's always going to be factors where it's going to go against you.

It's going to be a lot of more resilient times that you have to bounce back from things.

And at this moment, after all the stuff that happened and I was able to prove myself with Cooper Housley and go out there and, you know, make it definitive, you know, one hit with the right hand.

That was it.

He was down and on the ground.

I also showed that I had a chin.

I was, I've, I lost the coin toss and I took the first hit and I had, I flinched.

Well, the referee called me for flinching.

I didn't think I flinched, but he called me for it.

And so I had to take two.

So I took two hits

and then delivered the knockout.

And I mean, to me, that's, that's huge.

Dorian Perez, same thing.

Guy that just demolishes people, has a great chin.

went out there and stood all three rounds with him.

I probably would have stood all five rounds with him.

So now I know that I put my chin to the test and I know that I can stand out there and take these hits.

I know that I've practiced a lot more than what it was when I first thought it, you know, coming onto the show and, oh, I'm a green pea and I'm just going to go and slap these guys and I got all the power in the world and I'm going to break necks.

Yeah.

Okay.

Life lesson, life check, you know, go out there and be more strategic, more planned, more methodical in the things that you do.

And now that's it.

Now I get to go and face James Siegmund for another round and it's the redemption match.

You know, I'm trying to get my

flowers back for whatever had happened, you know, prove everything that it wasn't the way it was supposed to be.

And I need to set that straight, you know.

Let's get it.

He's ready for it too.

I know he is.

You know, talked to him already.

So

he's ready for the pain.

I'm ready for the pain.

We're ready to go.

Can't wait.

Friday.

Well, thanks for coming on, guys.

That was fun.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

We'll link your Instagrams in the video.

Thanks for coming on.

I'll see you next time, guys.