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

Speaker 1 The following is a conversation with Craig Jones, martial artist, world traveler, and one of the funniest people in the sport of submission grappling.

Speaker 1 While he does make fun of himself a lot, he is, legitimately, one of the greatest submission grapplers in the world.

Speaker 1 And underneath the veil of non-stop, sexualized Aussie humor and incessant online trolling, he is truly a kind-hearted human being who's trying to do good in the world.

Speaker 1 Sometimes, he does so through a bit of controversy and chaos, like with a new CJI tournament that has over $2 million in prize money. And it's coming up this Friday and Saturday.

Speaker 1 Yes, the same weekend as the prestigious ADCC tournament. The goal of CJI tournament is to grow the sport, so you'll be able to watch it for free online, live on YouTube and other places.

Speaker 1 All ticket profits go to charity, mainly to cancer research. So I encourage you to support the mission of this tournament by buying tickets and going to see the event in person.

Speaker 1 Craig gave me a special link that gives you a 50% discount on the tickets. Go to lexfriedman.com slash CJI and it should forward you to the right place.

Speaker 1 They're trying to sell the last few tickets now. It's a good cause.
Go buy some.

Speaker 1 And also, let me say, as a fan of the sport, I highly encourage you to watch both CJI and ADCC, and to celebrate athletes competing in both.

Speaker 1 From CJI with Nikki Ryan, Nikki Rodd, Rotola Brothers, Fion Davis, Mackenzie Dern, and more, to ADCC with Gordon Ryan, Nicolas Margali, Giancarlo Badoni, Rafael Lovato Jr., Mika Galvao, and more.

Speaker 1 I have a lot of respect for everyone involved.

Speaker 1 I trained with many of them regularly and consider many of them friends, including Craig, Gordon, and of course, John Donagher, who I will talk to many, many more times on this podcast.

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Speaker 1 It is a pretty interesting mystery what's going on in the brain while we sleep.

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Speaker 1 So yesterday I had a really hard training session in jiu-jitsu. I did, I don't know, 10, 11 rounds maybe, and it's just all the water from my body is gone.

Speaker 1 Because I usually don't drink water when I'm training. Not for any particular reason, but just because I don't want to take a break.
I really want to go to a place where I'm exhausted.

Speaker 1 And so, once I'm done with training,

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I think in this episode, Craig brings up doing

Speaker 1 couples therapy with Gordon. You know, I'm a big fan of those guys.
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Speaker 1 level and consistently innovate. I'll innovate everybody else.
It's so so fascinating to watch. So part of me hates that there's shit talking going on online.

Speaker 1 I understand it's part of the sport, but I do hope that there is,

Speaker 1 at least amongst the fans, more celebration of the athletes involved. And I'm now still working through the footage of the Olympics for judo and wrestling.

Speaker 1 It's just, I love all the sort of one-on-one combat sports.

Speaker 1 And all of the Olympics in general and all sports, man. I love football and basketball.
Steve Curry's performance at this Olympics is just like legendary. You can't look away.

Speaker 1 That guy was just on fire. I love it when an athlete steps up and it's their day

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Speaker 1 When you brought the $1 million in cash on

Speaker 1 Rogan's podcast, did you have security with you? We had security, but only by Joe Rogan's request because he said, you really going to bring it? Yeah. Do you have security? I said, no.

Speaker 1 He's like, don't worry about it. I'll send my security.
So you were going to deal with our security? Yeah, we're going to wing it. I thought, I mean, I was told not to tell anyone.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I sent pictures of it to everyone I know. Yeah.
So that was probably a security risk. Yeah.
So it's just you in a car with a bag of cash. Yeah, it was a company that sponsors me.
Shuffle.com.

Speaker 1 It was their friend, a friend of theirs. So a guy that's never met me before.
Yeah. Just took the risk to show up to a stranger's house with a million dollars in cash to bring to Joe Rogan.

Speaker 1 It was a big risk of him. And he just put it in the car and drove it.
Drove it over there, yeah. Yeah.
With no security except Joe. Except Joe.
That's common sense.

Speaker 1 And then Joe said he'd never seen a million dollars before. Yeah.
But I don't know if I believe him.

Speaker 1 That's what everyone says. That's what Pablo Escobar probably says also.
What's your relationship with risk?

Speaker 1 Especially with the risk of death. I would say I'm very risk averse.
You are? No, you're not. That's a lie.

Speaker 1 My relationship with risk, I like a bit of excitement. I like a bit of adventure.
I'm more about the adventure, but I will not let

Speaker 1 the risk get in the way of her. And also, obviously, just got back from Ukraine.
I'm happy to take a few risks if it's part of what the locals want me to do. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like in Kazakhstan, we did some things that were dangerous. Like if the locals are like, come along.
Join in on this activity. I feel personally obligated to go with them.
So it's not about the risk.

Speaker 1 Like you're not attracted to risk, you're attracted to adventure. And the risk is a thing you don't give a damn about.
Yeah. If it comes along with it.

Speaker 1 Sometimes the best adventures involve the most risk, unfortunately. Speaking of which, you went to Ukraine, like you said, twice recently.
Twice. Really pushed the limit there.
Including to the front?

Speaker 1 To the front. Tell me

Speaker 1 the full story of that from the beginning. How did you end up in Ukraine? So we're in Kazakhstan.
We're doing some filming in Kazakhstan. And obviously, Borats still a very traumatic memory for them.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And some of my jokes felt like they don't go as well in that neck of the woods.
So we had some difficulty filming out there. So we filmed this horse game.
Have you ever heard of Cockba?

Speaker 1 Thanks to you, yes. It's a game, a very, very old game.
They cut a goat or a sheep. I didn't get too close to look at it, but they cut its head and legs off.
And they use it as some form of bull.

Speaker 1 And then they'll have like up to a thousand guys on horses violently trying to pick this up and drop it in the the other end's goals basically the goals used to be concrete now it's just a tarp but local business owners will throw down huge amounts of money for the winners and these horses have been trained from a very young age the riders have been trained i've never ridden a horse before we wanted to film something that made it look like i was going to go into the horse uh pit into the cockpar pit however The drunk stunt man that we used just decided that when he took my horse reins, he would take me straight into the pit instead of ending the shot there.

Speaker 1 So I was in there amongst, I guess, the horse riders, the cockby riders, and we weren't leaving. We just were in there for quite a while.

Speaker 1 And he was just, he could talk a little bit, he could talk English pretty well, actually. And he's like, oh, I thought you'd want to check it out from the inside.

Speaker 1 And then while we were in there, someone picked up. the sort of carcass and a wave of horse riders came at me.
I was quite concerned at that point because they're bashing into each other.

Speaker 1 And obviously they're angry. They're seeing a foreigner in there.
I was wearing like basically Biggie Smalls Kooji Geku looking sweater. So I stood out.

Speaker 1 They definitely didn't like that I was participating in a game that they probably trained their whole life for and that amount of money they could win is very, very significant.

Speaker 1 And there's me in there. They're also pointing out bor out, borat, thinking I was making borat jokes, which again,

Speaker 1 very traumatic memory for the people of Kazakhstan. Were you making borat jokes? No, but I guess it's the same type of humor.
But

Speaker 1 just, i guess i'm not pretending to be kazakh i'm just there being an idiot and enjoying the local culture but we're over there in kazakhstan we did that that was obviously a bit risky did they learn to love you i think they learned to love me and then to hate me again so it was like a bit of a all-encompassing relationship for the kazakh people but we we basically abandoned ship it was proven too difficult to film some things some sensitive subjects over there And I said, where should we go next?

Speaker 1 And I just looked at the map and I was like, we're near Ukraine.

Speaker 1 Ukraine was a place that I'd been offered to teach a jiu-jitsu seminar prior to, I guess, the war commencing, the full-scale war commencing.

Speaker 1 And we're looking for a bit of adventure, something interesting to film, something following the news.

Speaker 1 Obviously, very controversial in the news. People have very strong opinions.
And I was like, let's go over there. Let's throw a charity event.
Let's do something.

Speaker 1 Let's train with the people and really experience of ourselves. So we set up the seminar.

Speaker 1 Turned out to be the biggest seminar for jiu-jitsu in Ukraine history, which is wild considering obviously they are at war, but everyone came together to support it.

Speaker 1 And one of the soldiers there, one of my friends there, good friend now, who's on the front line, he made a comment on there and he said, Hey, like, this is a seminar to donate profits to the soldiers, but we're on the front line.

Speaker 1 And I was like, you know what? I'll come to you. And he's like, listen, I can't promise you'll survive, but I'll promise you'll have a good time.
And I said, that's all I needed to hear.

Speaker 1 So we connected and my friend Roman, we went really really close I think we were at the closest point seven kilometers from the front line obviously very surreal experience to be over there seeing basically how the battles fought with all drones how long ago was this I think it would have been March or April so we went there we went basically spent two nights up on the front line went back to Kyiv and that was it for that trip in terms of crazy stuff that happened obviously just the people living like you download the air defense tracker so at any time there could be an air sign going off an air alert on your phone could be like drones heading your way planes are in the air missiles flying and then those missiles will change direction and stuff so the air alert you don't know if it's heading a different direction but they just sort of warn everyone so you live under a constant state of of fear basically and then on that first trip the heaviest moment was i was going downstairs in the hotel to work out which is honestly a rare thing these days, doing something healthy with myself.

Speaker 1 You're working out. Getting in the gym, pumping some iron.
And this was divine intervention that a hypersonic missile was shot down by the Patriot Defense System just like five minutes from the hotel.

Speaker 1 So the whole hotel and the attached gym just shook like crazy. And

Speaker 1 some people started freaking out. Most people went to leave to go outside, which I don't think is recommended, but you want to see what's going on out there.
This was in Kiev. This was in Kiev.

Speaker 1 So it got shot down. and then some of the local troops actually took me to the site of where just part of the missile had landed in the ground and left this huge sort of indentation.

Speaker 1 They'd already cleared up most of the,

Speaker 1 I guess, shrapnel from the missile. I don't know if I should or if I was legally allowed to do this, but I took some of that missile back home with me.
I don't know where I left it actually.

Speaker 1 But I thought maybe that would raise some alarm bells and airport scans, but

Speaker 1 I took it regardless. And that was basically the crazy thing that happened on that first trip.
The Patriot Defense System is incredible. It's an incredible piece of technology.

Speaker 1 And that's from the United States. It's expensive.

Speaker 1 But it's incredible. And so that's protecting Kyiv.
That's protecting Kyiv, yeah. That was at the time where the U.S.
hadn't voted to, I guess, keep funding the weapons over there.

Speaker 1 So it was kind of a tense moment because I think, I don't know, everyone was thinking like, when do those air defense missiles run out?

Speaker 1 So that was a heavy moment for me thinking, look at what it shot out of the sky. Like, imagine if that didn't, they didn't have that.
But we, yeah, that was probably the most surreal moment.

Speaker 1 But Kyiv largely, life goes on most of the time as per normal.

Speaker 1 I was faced with crazy messages and comments, even just posting that video. Like, I'm getting paid by Ukraine and stuff.
And it's just like

Speaker 1 people just don't understand that life has to go on. Like, Kyiv's here, the front line's far away.
Like, the cities have to largely try to operate as normal or

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 life will not go on in those villages and cities. Well, it's human nature as well.
It's not just Kiev, it's Kharkiv, it's even Donbass,

Speaker 1 Kherson.

Speaker 1 People

Speaker 1 get accustomed to war quickly because it's impossible to suffer for prolonged periods of time. So

Speaker 1 you adjust and you appreciate the things you still have. Yeah, some buller moves out there.
I love seeing like people that just... crazy stuff's going on from the war and they don't even react to it.

Speaker 1 They don't go to the bomb shelter. It's like a baller move, like, I'm not going to change my lifestyle.

Speaker 1 Actually, on that first trip as well, something else that I probably shouldn't have been allowed to do was go to Chernobyl.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so Chernobyl, I believe, troops came through Belarus and there was some fighting going on in Chernobyl.

Speaker 1 I think the whole world got concerned at that point if any sort of radiation leaked. But Chernobyl, as it stands, the troops backed out and it's completely covered in mines.

Speaker 1 Very, very difficult to go to go to Chernobyl.

Speaker 1 Basically, as a tourist or as like a i guess uh idiot like myself should really probably not be allowed in a place like that but we were able to get there we passed like four security checkpoints it took two attempts first time we tried to go in there was with the special forces guy we cleared two security gates then they stopped us and basically threatened us with arrest i i rightfully so really have no business going to Chernobyl.

Speaker 1 We made a connection. I won't say this connection was, but he had heard about what I had done sort of with a charity event and opened some doors for us to be able to go to Chernobyl.

Speaker 1 So we got to see Chernobyl. We had some filming restrictions there just because it was a crazy military sort of conflict at one point.
And we got to actually see Chernobyl.

Speaker 1 Chernobyl had always been a dream of mine to see because it's just such an interesting place. And to see it under these conditions, very, very strange.
Yeah, what was that like?

Speaker 1 So there's no civilians there now. It's just completely empty.
I guess it's kind of like the fantasy you have.

Speaker 1 I imagine people go on tours of Chernobyl back in the tourist days when it was a tourist spot and it would be busy full of tourists.

Speaker 1 We got basically a private tour, so we got to really feel that abandoned sort of vibes.

Speaker 1 I guess I was interested in it from Bland Call of Duty and then Chernobyl series, all the documentaries and stuff, but very, very strange place to go visit.

Speaker 1 And it is now a minefield, like a lot of parts of Ukraine. That's one of the

Speaker 1 dark, terrifying aspects of

Speaker 1 war is how many mines are left, even when the war ends for decades after. There's mines everywhere because demining is extremely difficult.
And that

Speaker 1 could continually kill people.

Speaker 1 I don't think it'll be a tourist spot for a very long time because if you were thinking about areas to demine when the conflict ends, an area where if you accidentally trigger a mine could cause a radiation leak, it's probably going to be very low on the list.

Speaker 1 So, tourism for Chernobyl,

Speaker 1 who knows how long until that returns. Why do you think you were able to get to Chernobyl?

Speaker 1 Why don't you think

Speaker 1 the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian soldiers, don't see you as a threat?

Speaker 1 Maybe they were hoping I did step on a mine. Maybe my jokes didn't go too well there.
So, your connection was actually Putin. He was trying to get rid of you.
Putin, yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I mean, we felt pretty safe when we're there.
There was an air alert went off. They were kind of more concerned with me dying just for the PR side of things.

Speaker 1 It's like Australian tourists. In one of your videos, I actually, you know, heard Ukrainian language, they're talking about we don't want to lose an athlete.
That's what they're saying.

Speaker 1 As you're loading the rocket launcher. Oh, yeah, the rocket launcher.
I shot a rocket launcher with the troops on the first trip, but the second trip I went back to, which was only maybe

Speaker 1 four to five weeks ago. Yeah.
This time we went to some crazier spots. So we went to Odessa, which has been hit a ton.

Speaker 1 I really enjoyed the video of uh old man stretching and like exercising on the yeah what is that just local local custom well odessa people are known historically to be wild that was wild it was abrasive to the eyes but i appreciated it especially a middle-aged man in underwear with a beer belly doing a sundance at dusk that would frighten many people

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. The battleship would turn around.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so where else? Yeah, so we went to Odessa. We briefly went back to Kiev.

Speaker 1 we

Speaker 1 so i made a connection with the police chief of basically the entire country last time and he had said to me that if i wanted to go somewhere sort of really heavy in terms of action we could go to curse on and he's like i'll personally escort you to curse on yeah and i was just like well here we have an invitation for adventure I think it's a great idea to go.

Speaker 1 And I thought, you know what? I'll completely lie to my cameraman and tell him it's a safe trip to go on so that he can pass that information on to his fiancé

Speaker 1 and she won't have any concerns.

Speaker 1 So we basically take this huge journey all the way down to Kherson.

Speaker 1 We switch at a city outside. I can't remember the name, but we had to switch to sort of armored vehicles.
And I remember the guy that picked us up there said, hey, give me a phone number

Speaker 1 for someone to call to recover your bodies.

Speaker 1 And he said that in a joking way, but I think it was serious. But I said, just leave it.
You know, I'm not, I don't think they need it.

Speaker 1 I don't think there'd be much left probably if we get hit over there but we go basically into Kherson I think Kherson's population used to be like 250,000 now it's like basically all military down to 50,000 so we went into the police basically station and the bunker underneath the top of the building was destroyed and then one of the local guys just took us on a city tour which again we had some filming restrictions because obviously anytime something's hit i guess the other side wants to be able to see what damage has been done.

Speaker 1 So if you take any footage of recently destroyed buildings, that's going to help them recalibrate and target the next shot.

Speaker 1 So Kurson being so heavily hit, it's basically within range of every single thing Russia has, every form of weapon, drones.

Speaker 1 Before we took the tour, he put some drone blocking things on top of the car, which didn't look reassuring.

Speaker 1 He also took a helmet out the back of the car, which I thought he was going to give to me, but he just threw it in the back of the pickup truck and said, oh, you won't need this.

Speaker 1 You'll be dead anyway. And I was like, oh, I've made a great life decision with this little Khurson tour.
But then we took a tour of the city.

Speaker 1 And Kherson used to be kind of like a beautiful beach city by the Dnipro River. But basically, it's just the river that separates Russia from,

Speaker 1 well, I guess the Russian land they've taken from Kherson. So Kherson split across that river.
And there's just Russians on the other side of the river and Ukrainians on this side.

Speaker 1 So very, very dangerous spot khakiv makes a lot of press because of the long-range missiles that hit but kherson's just being hit all the time so we took this tour we went along the river we went to within one kilometer of the front line so that was the closest we got after this point

Speaker 1 we heard artillery strike and

Speaker 1 because you're in an armored vehicle it sounds further away than it is obviously the sound doesn't get in so i thought it sounded far away We could see some smoke that actually appeared close in the distance.

Speaker 1 The guy driving us took us to a point where a large building was blocking us from, I guess, the angle at which the missile would have came from. And I thought, well, I thought everything was cool.

Speaker 1 I thought it was, that must have been off in the distance. And then we heard two more strikes hit very, very close.
They sounded really loud.

Speaker 1 And then I think he's radioing in to see if everything's safe, if we can leave this point. And then we basically raced back.
But

Speaker 1 I started to realize we were in danger at any point where he really sped the car up or sort of took sort of evasive movements in the car but we got out of there and I think I had someone translate it later and basically yeah he was checking to see if the roads were clear for us to leave ultimately it ended up being someone died and a few people injured from that blast which was less than half a kilometer from us and basically they were rating radioing saying end the tour come back to police station

Speaker 1 artillery is terrifying because there's just shelling and it's the the destructive power of artillery is insane. Yeah, and it's constant all the time.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and you hear that noise and you're like, is that coming or going? Very, very concerning. Right.

Speaker 1 You don't know. Yeah.
You don't know. And just like that, it could be you.
Luck. Gone.
Last time the village we went to,

Speaker 1 basically

Speaker 1 it was the day we left. So we stayed there overnight.
The day we left, it just started getting extremely shelled. And the soldier we're with just took a selfie video of us.

Speaker 1 And basically, in the location we were in, just hearing just artillery strike after artillery strike, just being like, oh, you guys left. And the fun began.
So they take it in good spirit.

Speaker 1 I was trying to use their energy to reassure myself. But I guess when they see it every day,

Speaker 1 they're kind of more adjusted to it.

Speaker 1 They're not freaking out. every time something crazy like that goes on well they have to right yeah they have to be in good spirit you have to be joking and laughing.

Speaker 1 And yeah, the guys are always laughing and joking. They were laughing and joking at me quite a bit, holding weapons, trying to shoot weapons and stuff.

Speaker 1 They got a lot of enjoyment out of me shooting the RPG. Yeah, they're probably still telling stories of that crazy Australian-American that rolled in.

Speaker 1 They helped me out, though, in my marketing campaign for the tournament. We were able to secure a Lada,

Speaker 1 classic Soviet Union car.

Speaker 1 We towed it, we painted it with the logos of the other event, the ADCC. Yep.
And we got to shoot some RPGs at it. Yeah.
Great experience. Great fun.
Yeah. It's a very creative marketing campaign.

Speaker 1 Very dangerous one. I don't think like Coco Pepsi are going to do that one.
So it's very, very innovative. It was a bold move.
Luckily, they let me get away with posting it.

Speaker 1 But when we were there, it was at a basically at a shooting range and we cleared them out for a while. So we'd blown up the car, we'd set it on fire, we'd done all this sort of stuff.

Speaker 1 I remember we were trying to blow it up. It wasn't quite hitting.
One of the missiles was was lodged in under the car, so it's kind of risky. That could have gone off at any moment.

Speaker 1 But we needed to get it to ignite. We needed to get a shot where it was on fire.
The logo of the enemy tournament was basically on fire. So we poured gasoline on it.
We shot the gasoline tank.

Speaker 1 That didn't work. That must be a movie trick or something.
And then we decided we'd light on fire a rag and just throw it into the blowing out back window.

Speaker 1 So I'm with this guy, a special forces guy, and we throw the rag in the back. Like soaked in gasoline rag? Yeah, and we start running.

Speaker 1 And he's like, stop, stop. He's like, it didn't go off.
So we're sitting there quite close to the car, lighting it, trying to light more as we walk back to the car.

Speaker 1 And then we just hear the car ignite. And he's like, run, run, run.
So we came quite close to death already at that point. But we wanted to get the shot with some photos in front of the burning logos.

Speaker 1 But we had told the guys at the shooting range to basically give us 10 minutes or so so we could take the photos.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they didn't wait the full 10 minutes or if we took too long, but they started firing at the targets anyway. And then the ricochets were flying very, very close to us over our head.

Speaker 1 One landed right by my leg. We're like, shit, we better get out of here.
Obviously, not much safety concerns at that point, but we survived basically artillery strikes.

Speaker 1 We survived a bit of friendly fire with the bullets coming our way. But again, I was strangely calm because the other guys were calm.
But then afterwards,

Speaker 1 they said to me, they were like, oh, bro, if you got shot, we'd just have to dump your body at a hospital. We wouldn't be able to explain why you're here blowing up cars.
Right.

Speaker 1 Right. And you're American and athlete, international celebrity.
They'd be like, what is, what is he doing on the front line?

Speaker 1 There's no real good explanation for it. But I mean, even through the jokes and stuff, it's good to like highlight what's actually kind of happening over there.

Speaker 1 You know, it's obviously very, very bad.

Speaker 1 What's the morale of the soldiers like? Is there still an optimism? Is there still a hope?

Speaker 1 I mean, there's sort of the battle fatigue, you know, and as they say, like all the heroes die early, you know, the guys that the real heroes that are willing to sacrifice themselves, they're the ones that are going to get taken out quick.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, that's the reality for them over there, but their thoughts are mostly that it's going to be a prolonged war. Like when I ask them about how fast the front line moves, they're like, oh.

Speaker 1 It could take six months to move one, 200 meters.

Speaker 1 So it just feels like it's going to go on forever.

Speaker 1 And from the Ukrainian side's perspective those guys talked to me about how when they hear radio intercepts of russian soldiers marching to the same front line spot is that basically

Speaker 1 they're marching into certain death at certain locations and based on the radio transmissions they know they're going to die but they head forth anyway straight forward into a ukrainian position which is just wilds me i guess like world war ii they just keep throwing troops at it

Speaker 1 And you see a ton of footage they take themselves, which is just mind-blowing.

Speaker 1 Obviously, some of this footage doesn't make it to the internet because it's got important sort of details in those conflicts. But like, they're showing first-person perspectives of trench warfare.

Speaker 1 It's just crazy to see what some of these guys have gone through.

Speaker 1 So I went to a lot of the same places as well, including Kherson.

Speaker 1 What was your sense of the place? Kherson was like, it was just so so destroyed. I think at this point, most of the civilians are gone.

Speaker 1 I saw a lot of just elderly people left behind, especially a lot of old men. And I just think they're just like, hey, I've lived here my whole life.
I'm just never leaving.

Speaker 1 So no matter the level of danger, those guys just remain. And then it's largely just, I guess, military in Kherson.
But that place felt very, very dangerous.

Speaker 1 I didn't realize until we got there just quite how destroyed it is.

Speaker 1 How did that experience change you just seeing war head on

Speaker 1 how did it change me i guess just realizing a lot of these soldiers are just like you kind of distance yourself from them thinking that they're something separate but really speaking to a lot of the ukrainian soldiers like my friend roman he hadn't lived in ukraine for eight years he lived in france he had a life he's got a wife over there he's got a daughter He basically volunteered to come back to protect his mom and brother who still live there.

Speaker 1 So it's like you sort of, I used to view them military guys because in Australia and I guess in the US,

Speaker 1 they don't have this conscription ongoing right now. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like, whereas obviously there's guys like Roman who volunteered, but then there's a lot of Ukrainian soldiers that were conscripted into the war.

Speaker 1 So it's like you just realize how a lot of these guys are everyday people. They're just in this crazy situation where Roman felt obligated to return to Ukraine.

Speaker 1 Like from my perspective, anyone from Australia or US,

Speaker 1 it's just a different perspective on like those, they feel different to the regular people fighting in Ukraine from my perspective. Yes, defending the land that is your home.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like Japan was coming for Australia, I guess in World War II, they attacked the north, but really there was no

Speaker 1 foot battle and there was no soldiers on the ground within Australia. I guess the US too during World War II.

Speaker 1 So it's like a completely different perspective from our recent histories compared to like if you were a Ukrainian and there's Russians within the defined border, their responsibility to protect their homeland and their family is just something you can't imagine.

Speaker 1 But also, after having spent time with them, you can see why they feel such a strong sense of obligation to protect

Speaker 1 Ukraine, protect their family and friends.

Speaker 1 And in a lot of cases,

Speaker 1 the soldiers are using their own funds to buy equipment,

Speaker 1 whether it's bullets, whether it's guns, whether it's armor. Is that still what you saw? Yeah, I mean, in terms of the weapons, America provides weapons.
So we saw a wide selection of weapons.

Speaker 1 Some of those would be old Soviet weapons, like obviously the RPG we shot and what we shot out of it is all Soviet. It's very old weaponry.
And then you've got US weapons that have been given as well.

Speaker 1 But in terms of the basic soldiers' equipment, like if they want good quality stuff that might be the difference between them surviving the winter or the summer, just in the extreme temperature range, like they have to pay for that all themselves.

Speaker 1 So they always joke about when foreign soldiers come over to train them.

Speaker 1 Or they a lot of foreign soldiers come to learn about sort of the drone technology they've developed on a budget is they always joke with them about how like

Speaker 1 everything from most countries is basically supplied. All the good quality standard equipment they'd need is just supplied by the government.
But in Ukraine, obviously, funding is very stretched.

Speaker 1 So these guys, to have the best equipment, they have to basically find money to pay for it themselves. And they'll do that by seeking donations.

Speaker 1 Best way to get donations would be to grow social media profile.

Speaker 1 So that's when you see a lot of sort of social media warfare from a perspective of gaining fame to secure donations for their battalion to be able to fight better or protect themselves.

Speaker 1 And also some of the social media warfare, I guess, is psychological warfare against the enemy.

Speaker 1 You'll see like private telegram groups where they're showing what they've done to the enemy, what the enemy's done to them.

Speaker 1 It's just crazy. Yeah, there's telegram groups on both sides.
And it's basically, some of it is propaganda, some of it is psychological warfare, but some of it is just the human nature of being like

Speaker 1 of increasing your own morale and the morale of the people around you by showing off successfully killing other human beings, which are made other in war.

Speaker 1 And the nature of this war has evolved. So drones have become more and more prevalent.
They're consumer-level cheap drones. Can you speak to that?

Speaker 1 Have you seen the use of FPV drones? Yeah, so I mean, basically, like a $300 to $500 drone.

Speaker 1 I think it's like carbon fiber, 3D printed, and they can attach different forms of weaponry to it, whether it's just dropping a frag, they could drop a mine out of it.

Speaker 1 I know they were talking about how they had a liquid that could basically burn through sort of a lot of cars and tanks. So the person inside would basically melt alive, which sounds horrible.

Speaker 1 But what's mind-blowing to me is you could have like a $3 million Russian tank that could be destroyed by a $300

Speaker 1 drone, which is just crazy how fast the war changes. I think they're kind of the world leaders in budget drone technology.

Speaker 1 They didn't obviously obviously don't have the budget for these crazy elaborate uh massive drones i did see some higher budget bigger drones over there but for the most part those fpv drones is really how most of the battles are fought and you're seeing the um

Speaker 1 you're seeing the cameras on them so you can see like basically a kanikaze drone will chase someone down and they have that footage and that's what the police chief said to me when he he gifted me one of the drones they used and he basically said he's like artillery is scary but a drone will follow you into a building.

Speaker 1 It's like kind of a haunting thing to think about. Like they'll see the drone, they'll hear the drone, they might try to shoot it down, or they might try to run.

Speaker 1 But if it's a kamikaze one, those guys are pretty good at flying them. It's going to chase the soldiers down.
A lot of soldiers like pretending to be dead.

Speaker 1 It's really crazy, some of the footage out there of those FPV drones.

Speaker 1 So it's a terrifying tool of war and tool of psychological war and used by both sides increasingly yeah both sides use it i remember i was with roman in marseille and he had his break period he was allowed to leave the country because he's volunteer he basically volunteered to join the army ukrainian men can't really leave ukraine right now but roman i was in marseille and this was a surreal experience for him we went to the beach and there was some tourists there flying a drone and you just saw his instinctual reaction to that drone sound in the sky flashback to that

Speaker 1 Currently, they're all,

Speaker 1 as far as I know, all human-controlled, so FPV.

Speaker 1 But to me, increasingly terrifying notion is of them becoming autonomous. Because the best way to defend against a drone that's FPV controlled is for AI to be controlling that drone.

Speaker 1 Just have swarms of drones that are $500 controlled by AI systems. And that's a...

Speaker 1 Terrifying possibility that the future of warfare is essentially swarms of drones on both sides. And then maybe swarms swarms of drones, say, between US and China over Taiwan.
That would be wild.

Speaker 1 Because, I mean, they do those crazy drone light shows where they do those performances with the lights and stuff. So they're already pretty sophisticated with sort of pre-programming.

Speaker 1 Those are pre-programmed. So the low-level control, flight control of those is done autonomously, but there's a interface for doing the choreography that's hard-coded in.

Speaker 1 But adding increasing levels of intelligence to a drone where you can detect another drone, follow it, and defend yourself.

Speaker 1 In terms of the military on both sides of the Ukraine war,

Speaker 1 that's a technology that's like the most wanted technology is drone defense. Like, how do you defend against drones on both sides?

Speaker 1 And anybody that comes up with an autonomous drone technology is going to help whichever side uses that technology to gain a military advantage.

Speaker 1 And so, there's a huge incentive to build that technology.

Speaker 1 But then, of course, once both sides are starting using that technology, then there's swarms of autonomous drones who don't give a shit about humans, just killing everything in sight on both sides.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that's terrifying. The civilian deaths that are possible there are terrifying, especially when you look 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now.
Yes, I mean, it's surreal.

Speaker 1 Like when we went to Kurson, he was like the entire sky is just

Speaker 1 full of drones. At any given time, they could decide to come and attack.
So like just the, they could just sit there forever waiting, waiting for you to come out of that booth.

Speaker 1 They'll wait a long time when someone goes and hides inside or potentially if it's an open window, fly straight through the open window to get it, to get people. Yeah, so you're not even safe indoors.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there's nowhere to hide and they can wait for a very, very long time. And as far as I know, even politicians, like you're in danger everywhere in Ukraine.

Speaker 1 So if you want to do a public speaking thing and doing it outside, you're in danger because it's very difficult to detect those drones. It could be anywhere.

Speaker 1 So it's a terrifying life where you don't know if you're safe at any moment, anywhere in Ukraine. Well, sure.
I mean, it's crazy what happened to Trump.

Speaker 1 I thought maybe the next attack on a public figure might come in the form of drone technology, some sort of something along those lines. I wonder how they protect against that here.

Speaker 1 If that happens, just imagine the insanity that would ensue. Because we understand the idea of a gunman with a rifle shooting somebody, But just like a drone,

Speaker 1 just imagine the conspiracy theories. Who controlled that drone? Where did it come from? Yeah.
And now everybody, I mean, that will just cause chaos. And the range is ever increasing.

Speaker 1 One of the battalions in Ukraine, because those FPV drones have short range, pretty short range, but they were able to attach it to one of the larger drones with a signal booster.

Speaker 1 So that could potentially go up to 30, 40 kilometers into the distance. So the drone that hits you could be flown by someone so far away from you.

Speaker 1 And if they did that domestically, that would be very frightening to think of the sphere of where it could have come from.

Speaker 1 Do they, when you talk to the soldiers there, did they have a hope or a vision how the war will end?

Speaker 1 No, really.

Speaker 1 I guess it just seems to everyone that it's sort of, there's going to be no middle ground. When I was there, there's a kind of optimism that they would be victorious, like definitively.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so is there still that optimism? And also,

Speaker 1 are they ready for a prolonged war?

Speaker 1 I mean, I think it would be a soldier-by-soldier basis. I know like

Speaker 1 each of them had a different perspective. I remember I would ask them about like in terms of US politics and their fears, because the first trip I went there,

Speaker 1 US hadn't agreed. to resupply weapons.
So it was a very different feeling in the air there of concern over what was going to happen.

Speaker 1 But they still remained quite optimistic that no matter who got in, they felt would do the right thing.

Speaker 1 But in terms of prolonged war, most people think it's going to go for a very long time, like the children's hospital that just was bombed in Kyiv.

Speaker 1 Anytime there's a moment like that, that reignites everything. And I think it happens on both sides.
So I know that there was an attack in Crimea. It was an attack on a beach, I guess.

Speaker 1 And I don't know if that attack on the hospital was retribution for that, but that's sort of the energy that is felt. Like

Speaker 1 they might have battle fatigue, but when something happens to civilians, especially kids on your side, kind of reinvigorates the energy to fight for as long as necessary.

Speaker 1 And in terms of a case-by-case basis, one of my friends, Dimitri, over there who transjuits a gym, he was very passionate about it just because of the history.

Speaker 1 Like he brought out documents of his grandfather being executed by the USSR. So I know that when the war started, he basically took a bicycle helmet in his AK-47 and went out into the streets.

Speaker 1 And he's like, I'd rather be dead than live under Russian rule again. So, I mean, very

Speaker 1 case-by-case basis, sort of personal history for them, I think.

Speaker 1 Did they comment on

Speaker 1 U.S. politics, whether they hoped for Trump or for, in that situation, Biden, now Harris, to win the presidential election?

Speaker 1 I think they most of the guys try to keep it pretty positive. You know what I mean? Like some people did think that maybe if Trump was elected, he wouldn't continue to fund it.
But

Speaker 1 they really try to stay optimistic. Most of the people I spoke to really try to remain optimistic that they would be protected if if it comes down to it.

Speaker 1 But obviously there was a nine-month period where they weren't refunded.

Speaker 1 So as that stretched, obviously they're refunded now, but it takes a lot of time to get that equipment back to the points at which they need it.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, if ammunition had ran out, patriot defense system had ran out,

Speaker 1 really, really sort of scary prospect there. I don't know what's,

Speaker 1 I guess no one knows what's going to happen there.

Speaker 1 Did you lie to people and say you were close to the president so they can be nice to you? Like so they can convince you to continue the funding? I'm an Australian diplomat. Diplomat.

Speaker 1 That could be a nice way in. Yeah, that would have been a nice way to the top.

Speaker 1 Luckily for me, most of the place I travel to, Jiu-Jitsu gives me access to so many different individuals. It's super bizarre.
Like oligarchs, royalty, I guess, tech wizards.

Speaker 1 Just it's a strange group of people, like a cult around the world of just, I get strange access just for being good at

Speaker 1 wrestling dudes. Yeah, martial arts.

Speaker 1 There's a, there's like a code and there's a respect, a mutual respect. Even if you don't know anything about the other person, if you both both have done martial arts.

Speaker 1 I mean, there's similar things with judo, with jiu-jitsu, with grappling, all that. I don't know what that is.
Yeah, it's like an inner circle.

Speaker 1 That's kind of like, because this film project we're working on, it's kind of focused on that.

Speaker 1 Because of the history I have in jiu-jitsu and traveling and doing seminars and just getting access to strange experiences from the local, strange in a positive way.

Speaker 1 And participating in those experiences, that's what I sort of wanted to focus this travel show on was the community of jiu-jitsu people around the world kind of

Speaker 1 really has no sort of ethnic background, religious background, even level of wealth.

Speaker 1 As cheesy as it sounds, kind of a good equalizer on the mats. And that community camaraderie sort of knows no limits there.

Speaker 1 Including like mats, the shittiest mats in some small town in the middle of nowhere. 100%.
Even like Sheikh Tanun, who started at ADCC, I know when he went to the U.S.

Speaker 1 and he studied there, he would train at a very simple gym. He wouldn't declare who he was.

Speaker 1 Like, I watched a documentary produced about sort of the story of Sheikh Tanun and how he studied in America basically in anonymity. The people at his gym didn't know who he was in his country.

Speaker 1 And he trained there, he trained with them for years, cleaned their mounts like anyone else. And then they didn't realize who he was until he said, Hey, I want to invite you to my country.

Speaker 1 But he actually meant basically as royalty, come.

Speaker 1 And and then they realized who this guy was and the significance of him as gangster that's great one of the things i love about no gi jiu-jitsu is like you don't see rank so on a small scale there's no hierarchy that's that emerges when you have the different color belts everybody's kind of the same it's nice yeah you get to like see the skill the skill speaks but there's just like a mutual respect and whatever i mean you can quickly find out who

Speaker 1 I actually wonder if I would be able to figure out the rank of a person. You think you can usually figure out how long a person has has been doing jiu-jitsu?

Speaker 1 I like to think with some of the aggressive clothing choices I've made and sold in the sport that that should be a beacon that that person

Speaker 1 has hopefully some talent because they're fearlessly provoking the other party there.

Speaker 1 Oh, it's it's like in the jungle whenever there's like a insect that's red, that is like really flamboyant looking, that means they're dangerous. It's a target, yeah, though.
Yeah, being flamboyant.

Speaker 1 If you come on the mats with something pink, a pink ghee or something, people are circling circling in fast, especially in Eastern Europe.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, you mentioned the project. Can you talk about that? I saw there's a preview that you showed.

Speaker 1 Craig Jones gone walkabout. Gone walkabout, yeah.
And so you showed a preview in Indonesia where you're both kind of

Speaker 1 celebrating and maybe poking a bit of fun at Hicks and Gracie. Hicks and Gracie, yes.
I like to

Speaker 1 match looks from time to time. And it homage.
You look sexy.

Speaker 1 It's comfortable, actually. I enjoy it.
Yeah, you should keep it. I'll only wear this now.

Speaker 1 I'll wear this for the Gabby match.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, we're trying to do a documentary series because the way I see it is I want to grow the sport of jiu-jitsu.

Speaker 1 And every, this sounds funny to say now because I'm doing a tournament, but everyone tries to do it through competition.

Speaker 1 But as we know, most jiu-jitsu gyms you visit, a very small percentage of people compete, let alone compete regularly.

Speaker 1 You'll go to gyms that could be brown or black belts that don't know many of the big name competitors. So my thoughts were, we're never going to grow this sport by competition.

Speaker 1 We're going to grow it by appealing to the large majority of people that do it, which are just people that enjoy it for the benefits it provides to them, whether health or psychological.

Speaker 1 And obviously, many people inspired by Anthony Bourdain,

Speaker 1 basically he was looking at what he did with food by showing the very interesting characters in the food culture, the food industries, especially with street food, and building around that.

Speaker 1 So, I'm trying to look at jiu-jitsu like a giant cult. Scientology isn't starting with Planet Xeno, it's starting with John Chavolder and Tom Cruise.

Speaker 1 So, if we can create a documentary travel series highlighting the diverse, interesting people that participate in the sport, in that sense, I hope we can grow up, but also doing some charity work along the way.

Speaker 1 Like, as we'll release the Indonesia Bali episode pretty soon, but as an australian i do do a lot of damage culturally around the world so i'd like to uh

Speaker 1 do some good as well we've we've done a lot of damage to bali so give back to local communities we have an australian there that runs an academy academy christos he's one of the guys we're donating a portion of the ticket sales to from our event but he basically went straight into a balances slum started teaching jiu-jitsu on a mat under a tree and then slowly through donations has built a gym And his real focus is not just taking money from people and gifting it to them to help the community, but to teach them skills.

Speaker 1 So he'll take a lot of the disadvantaged kids and he'll teach them things like photo editing so they can get that work from the internet. Really, incredible guy.

Speaker 1 It's good to know that you see yourself as the John Travolta Jiu-Jitsu. Many masuses have accused me of the same thing, unfortunately.
All lies.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 there's a lot of similarities between the two of you. So you mentioned Anthony Bourdain.

Speaker 1 What do you like about the guy?

Speaker 1 What do you find inspiring and instructive about the way he was able to, as you said, scratch beneath the surface of a place? I just felt like he was very authentic, wasn't afraid.

Speaker 1 Like, this is something I had trouble with when we first started doing the travel show. It's easy to do a travel show if you only say positive things about a place.
Yeah. You know? But

Speaker 1 he would find a very creative way to show what's good and bad, a very honest reflection of the place.

Speaker 1 so that's something i would strive to do however in some places it's very difficult you know what i mean like for example kazakhstan if i were to say something negative about kazakhstan they'd be like who's this yeah foreign idiot talking about our culture and i think that was what's incredible about bourdain is he could talk about both the good and bad of places and he would do it in such a way that it was tasteful and was respected by the locals yeah that's actually a skill that you're incredibly good at you make fun of a lot of people but there's something

Speaker 1 maybe there's an underlying respect, maybe it's the accent, maybe, I don't know what it is.

Speaker 1 There's a love underneath your trolling. I'd like to think so.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, yeah. Gabby Garcia,

Speaker 1 there's a deep, a deep, passionate love underneath the trolling. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Speaking of which, let's talk about CGI.

Speaker 1 You're putting on the CGI tournament.

Speaker 1 It's in about a week. Same weekend as ADCC.
$3 million budget, two divisions, two super fights. Winner of each division gets $1 million.

Speaker 1 Everyone gets $10,000.

Speaker 1 How do you even say that? Plus one. $10,000 plus one, yeah.
Plus one.

Speaker 1 Just to compete. So it's August 16th and 17th.
Everybody should get tickets. Same weekend as ADCC, which is August 17th.

Speaker 1 Okay, so what's the mission of what you're doing there?

Speaker 1 The mission has always been, first and foremost, increase athlete pay so adcc has invested a ton into the sport obviously i mentioned sheikh tanu shake tanun's done so much for the sport of grappling particularly no gi grappling so he's grown it he has funded this for a very very long time but we've kind of hit a point since 2017 where the audience the crowd watching live and at home behind a paywall has grown considerably.

Speaker 1 We had things like Meta Morris, we had the Eddie Bravo Invitational, Polaris, all these sort of professional events that have also contributed to growing the sport.

Speaker 1 And obviously, people like Gordon Ryan have definitely increased the popularity of the sport. But the payment for ADCC has never gone up

Speaker 1 despite, again, the growth of it.

Speaker 1 What I did, a lot of fans were asking me earlier in the year, they said, Craig, you're going to do ADCC. And I said, that is a big commitment of time,

Speaker 1 energy, expenses on steroids to get my body ready for a tournament that I'll probably lose. And if I lose on day one, I make $0.

Speaker 1 If I lose on,

Speaker 1 if I lose in the final, which I have done a couple of times, I only get $6,000. I think third place is $3,000.
Fourth place is $1,000. So if you make day two, you get paid.

Speaker 1 But for me personally, seeing ADCC 2022, you're looking out to a sold-out crowd of like 10,000 people. It's on Flow Grappling, which you know paid quite a bit of money for the streaming rights.

Speaker 1 I can't comment on what that number would be. And then you go home, despite having put in all that effort with only 6,000.
And they basically, the argument is you're paid in exposure.

Speaker 1 But again, there's many ways to expose yourself. You know what I mean? That's just one of the platforms to do so.

Speaker 1 My problem was that they announced that they were going to go from Thomas and Mac to T-Mobile, which is a jump in quality of stadium, but not a significant jump in sort of seating.

Speaker 1 So we've gone from like 11,000 seat arena to I think a 15,000, 16,000 seat arena.

Speaker 1 And I knew that Flow Grappling would have had to pay more money because now the sport's growing so much.

Speaker 1 And I can personally kind of track the growth of the sport through selling instructional DVDs, instructional online products, because that keeps growing.

Speaker 1 And we're targeting those white and blue belts vulnerable to internet marketing. And that audience continues to grow.
And those will be the people that largely watch ADCC, events like this.

Speaker 1 So I simply said, in response to a lot of fans asking me, why are you going to do ADCC? And I just simply made a video saying, no,

Speaker 1 probably not. Probably not.
It'd be nice to make some more money. And then I listed a bunch of sports.

Speaker 1 such as cockbar that you get paid more to win cockbar in the villages of kazakhstan the payment structure is higher

Speaker 1 and i received a very aggressive response response, not from any of Sheikh Tanun's people, but from basically who runs the event today.

Speaker 1 One of those guys, amongst giving me death threats, said, Hey, T-Mobile costs $2 million.

Speaker 1 You don't know what you're talking about in terms of business and production. And he's probably right.
But to me, $2 million is a waste of money for a jiu-jitsu event.

Speaker 1 I don't think we're at that level yet. Like, that's where the UFC hosts events.
You know, $2 million, that's an expensive, expensive venue. So we argued a bit on the internet.

Speaker 1 And he said, hey, if you don't like it, why don't you go get $2 million and put on your own tournament? And I said, I might just do that.

Speaker 1 And one of my anonymous friends kindly donated a $3 million budget. And I actually messaged him before the show to say, hey, we won't reveal your identity.

Speaker 1 Because obviously anyone that has money is going to get asked for more money.

Speaker 1 or asked for money from others. So he wants to remain anonymous.
But he basically just said to enjoy the trolling aspect of of it and also contribute to the sport of jiu-jitsu.

Speaker 1 Well, it's good to know that the anonymous funder appreciates you for who you are, Craig Jones. He sees my true identity and he wants to provoke.

Speaker 1 It's trolling for a good course.

Speaker 1 But basically, we were able to find Thomas and Mac Event Center, which was their original venue. And it just so happened to be available that same weekend, which we're very happy about.

Speaker 1 So we booked that out.

Speaker 1 We decided to, ADCC pays 10 000 to the winner we were like you know what we'll pay ten thousand dollars plus one to show up so to show up in our event you're going to get paid more than to win adcc

Speaker 1 and not only that we're going to broadcast it for free so on meta x and youtube you'll be able to watch this event for free that's amazing it's very considerate to the flow grappling streaming platform i believe to have also a free alternative on the same weekend and the brilliance of this whole thing is i was largely criticized for not knowing anything about business, but the people criticizing me decided to host a tournament, a 15,000-seat arena.

Speaker 1 They decided to take sponsors.

Speaker 1 They decided to use the streaming platforms with sell subscriptions based on the athletes that would enter it, but not give any of the talent, the athletes, a contract, which gave me this beautiful position to basically say, hey, what do you prefer?

Speaker 1 The prestige of an ADCC gold medal or money.

Speaker 1 And that's the feud feud so far. And

Speaker 1 we put that out into the world. I didn't chase too many athletes down.
Obviously, a lot of these guys really need money. So you throw a million dollars out there, people are jumping on board.

Speaker 1 So initially, we started getting, we got two local guys here in Austin, the Tacker Brothers, they jumped in first. And they're great kids.
They really legitimize the whole thing.

Speaker 1 If we pick certain athletes, like just B-team guys straight away, it's already looking a bit dodgy. But we've got some legitimate athletes, especially the under 80 kilo divisions, full of

Speaker 1 minus two or three guys. That's the best people in the world in that weight division.
And as we started to grow our roster here,

Speaker 1 what happened, I'm going to say this allegedly for legal reasons, is that the first move ADCC did

Speaker 1 was they matched the female pay to the men's pay. So the women always traditionally got paid less, I think $6,000 for first place.

Speaker 1 As soon as we had Fion Davies, the reigning champion, come across to do a superfight with us, bang, ADCC raised the prize money of the women's division to equal the men's.

Speaker 1 So, me being a feminist activist throughout many of my years on this earth, immediately got women's pay raised in the sport of jiu-jitsu, equalized, basically, which went counter to everything the promoter had said because he said it was out of his control to raise money.

Speaker 1 He said only the only the ADCC, I guess, coming directly from the Sheikh or the Sheikh's sort of guys could raise the prize money, he got it raised.

Speaker 1 And then what happened was, once we started getting some of these big names here, so some of the best guys from ADCC would be in this division.

Speaker 1 We've got a bunch of champions or medalists or really the top betting favorites for their divisions there.

Speaker 1 They started, and again, I can't emphasize this enough, allegedly paying show money, which has never historically been done before, to keep athletes in their show.

Speaker 1 So you're saying allegedly there were some under-the-table payments by ADCC. Do you have secret documents proving this? I do have the documents.

Speaker 1 No, some of the guys obviously told me, you know how it is? You slap a million dollars on the table. It looks great.

Speaker 1 That was me proving I had the money, which wasn't even my money to begin with, but it was basically me saying, Hey, the money's real.

Speaker 1 I don't know why, but strangely, a lot of people don't believe me when I'm telling the truth. I don't know why they wouldn't.

Speaker 1 But what logically happens is they're like, oh, look how much money he has. We're going to

Speaker 1 give us more show money. So they're negotiating with me.
There was one particular Brazilian businessman, manager. I won't say his name, but he looks like the thing from Fantastic Four.

Speaker 1 And he was a manager for some of these athletes. And he would take a massive 20% cut.
So what he, and I got to, I got to pay respect to this,

Speaker 1 respect to this because it actually caused trauma to the other team as well. But he would, I would invite an athlete to CJI.

Speaker 1 He would go to the other organization and he would say to them, hey, what sort of deal could you give me to keep this guy? You want to keep him in your event?

Speaker 1 And he would use CJI to leverage more show money for his guys, of which he gets to grease the wheels with 20% for himself.

Speaker 1 However, at CJI, everyone gets $10,001 across the board and a million dollars prize money. So there's no room for really negotiation for the tournament aspect of us.

Speaker 1 So he has a vested interest in putting his guys in ADCC because he can negotiate show money money and he can basically take 20% of that for himself.

Speaker 1 But really, for the sport of grappling, this is incredible across the board because by us stealing or at least borrowing a bunch of athletes from ADCC, ADCC had to fill their divisions.

Speaker 1 So they filled their divisions with many other competitors that wouldn't have ordinarily had the chance to do ADCC.

Speaker 1 And really, although we've scheduled it the same weekend, ours is actually Friday, Saturday, ADCC being Saturday, Sunday. Our day starts pretty late.
So we start 5 p.m. Saturday.

Speaker 1 So really, ultimately, it was a big marketing ploy to go head to head, pretending like we're making the fans choose, but the fans will be able to watch both events.

Speaker 1 You'll be able to go all day Friday for us. You'll sadly miss the ADCC Hall of Fame ceremony where you'll see many of great speakers, public speakers, philosophers tell their stories about hardship.

Speaker 1 Just like at the end of any jiu-jitsu seminar or beginning if you're blessed like that, you might have a 45-minute monologue about how they're more knowledgeable than doctors, lawyers, classic black belt technique.

Speaker 1 But you will miss that with great metaphors about lions and about lions, yes. About being a humble lion, most importantly.
But humility is important.

Speaker 1 You can watch all that Friday, you could watch most of ADCC Saturday, and then Saturday night in Las Vegas, I will be doing what many men have done before, and that is wrestling a giant woman.

Speaker 1 Can you speak to that? How are you preparing

Speaker 1 for this moment of violence on a Saturday night with Gabby Garcia? So Gabby Garcia is

Speaker 1 the legend of sort of women's grappling. I think she's won more than anyone else.
So between me and her, we would at least have 15 to 20 world championships, I'd imagine. Yeah.
She's huge.

Speaker 1 I say that in an endearing way. she might be six foot four

Speaker 1 six foot three

Speaker 1 and her weight varies depending on what time of the day it is between 220 and 275 pounds but she's going to be coming in quite big and strong me i am about 179 pounds right now

Speaker 1 and a 5'11 so i've got a significant size disadvantage she has the credentials but we're gonna we're gonna scrap it out scrap it out and see who's best the greatest woman's competitor of all time or a guy that's never worn anything.

Speaker 1 Has it added some complexity to the picture that, you know, there's some sexual tension in the room whenever the two of you are together? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or maybe I'm being romantic, but it seems like there's you've slowly started to fall in love with each other. It's been three years of seduction.
It's been a long time.

Speaker 1 It's inspiring for many young men that follow you and look up to you. Just

Speaker 1 the romantic journey that you've been on. It's truly inspiring.
Yeah, I would say it's a motivational message to the guy that keeps sending DMs to a girl on Instagram for years.

Speaker 1 That maybe after three years, it could also happen for you too.

Speaker 1 No matter her height and weight, I think persistence is the key here.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we do have a wager on the line.

Speaker 1 This might be the first wager of its kind, I would hope, in combat sports history.

Speaker 1 If she wins, I'll personally give her a million dollars. If I can foot lock her, we're going to collaborate together in an OnlyFans sex tape.

Speaker 1 Did she agree to this? She shook on it.

Speaker 1 You do have an OnlyFans channel. Is that still up? It's after August 17th, it's going to be firing.
It's going to be on fire.

Speaker 1 Wow. I think that, and honestly, when we talk about Secret Investor, I think that could fund the entire tournament.
It'd be that. That'll be the only paywalled thing about this tournament.

Speaker 1 It's your only fans. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's going to be a spiritual experience for me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'm totally distracted now.

Speaker 1 Can you talk about the rule set?

Speaker 1 So we're using the angled walls inspired by karate combat. Karate Combat did those angled walls.
Those are awesome. You're calling it the alley.
That's really, really interesting.

Speaker 1 So it's like in a pit, I guess. and the angled walls are yeah so karate combat have a a square pit

Speaker 1 we have a rectangular alley we like the visual of just you're in the alley with someone you know you come we both know what goes on alley there's only a couple things that could go on back there what's the second thing never mind i got it but why this is brilliant why the angled walls are brilliant for grappling is because any grappling tool this goes without question goes for ibgjef adcc

Speaker 1 the reset is one of the most annoying aspects of the sport. And one of the aspects of the sport that these, some of this sneakier guys take advantage of.

Speaker 1 There's guys out there that are brilliant at playing the edge, open the ref will reset them, or they'll shoot a takedown near the edge.

Speaker 1 And you might watch, and again, I'm picking on ADCC here, but you might watch an ADCC match where 90 seconds of a 10-minute match is the referee grabbing them, bringing them back to the center, or trying to recreate something

Speaker 1 of a position that landed outside. Not only is that sort of boring to me,

Speaker 1 and it sort of could be bias.

Speaker 1 You know, like, again, it's happened to me in events where like I've, the ref's gone, stop, I've stopped, he's moved a little bit more, and then there's an adjustment in the reset.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's cheating to a certain extent, but it's just more of an annoyance. They bring it back, they reset it to the best of their ability in the center.
The angled wall mitigates that.

Speaker 1 And it mitigates it in such a way that it's a disadvantage to be pushed up against the angled wall. You're very easily taken down against the angled wall.

Speaker 1 You could use a cage like the UFC does or any sort of MMA organization. However, cage wrestling can be slow.
You're obviously at the vertical and it can stagnate there.

Speaker 1 Guys are very good at using split squats to really defend that position.

Speaker 1 And for me personally, I don't love the cage for grappling. I'd like to differentiate it for grappling.

Speaker 1 What holds people back from using the alley or a pit-like structure is the viewing the viewing angle because if obviously if you're one of the vips or you pay for expensive seat

Speaker 1 that angled walls above you a cage you can see into an elevated platform sort of stage you can see clearly into because yeah because it's basically flat but the athletes could fall off and injure themselves so if something happens ufc fire passes the elevated flat stage it's kind of scary to be near the edge you you go you go off you're going to land on concrete you might want to do that to the other guy if you're that way inclined.

Speaker 1 But the alley, the angled wolf solves all those problems.

Speaker 1 Very minimal referee interference. Again, the only thing that holds people back is the expense of building it.

Speaker 1 But again, when you're spending someone else's money, you will spare no expense in production. So we've spent a lot of money on the alley, and we've really gone out of our way to create an experience.

Speaker 1 that around the alley we've elevated everything so that the people watching will be able to see down into it because aden your instinctual thought is oh it sounds great but how am i going to see in it unless i'm far up like you'd need like a coliseum like structure which is basically what we've attempted to create so that you get both a perfect place to to wrestle to grapple in as well as a perfect viewing angle for the fans well i think it's an amazing idea what about

Speaker 1 the jiu-jitsu on a slant

Speaker 1 You've triangled

Speaker 1 somebody on a slant. Is there like some interesting aspects about the actual detailed techniques of how to be effective using a slant? I'll be honest, I competed for karate combat twice.

Speaker 1 Never once did I ever step foot into the pit. Just again, like you said before the podcast, if there's a right way of doing things, I'm probably doing them the opposite.
The wrong way.

Speaker 1 I actually no idea why you people take advice from you, but they do.

Speaker 1 I'm mostly an inspirational speaker at this point. Yeah.
You and Tony Robbins are like this. Same size at least.
But in terms of the training for it,

Speaker 1 obviously the athletes are very difficult. Some of these guys have gone out there and built their own angled walls.
Yeah, I saw that. That was a cool video of that.
They're getting into that.

Speaker 1 That's a smart thing to do. There's a million dollars on the line.
You should probably invest in that. But I also like a new surface that no one's competed on.
No one's gamed it yet.

Speaker 1 No one's like, we're going to see it unfold.

Speaker 1 Like when UFC, when people start figuring out how to use the cage, we're going to see this unfold in front of our very eyes, how the strategies work for this.

Speaker 1 The other thing we've done too is we're doing rounds. So qualifying rounds would be three five minute rounds.
The final would be five fives. Why I want to do that is to incentivize action.

Speaker 1 We're going to incentivize action through penalizing people, but we really want, I love a short burst, a break, and the guys can go hard again.

Speaker 1 I don't like a jiu-jitsu match where the guy takes the back early and he's like, oh, if I keep this position, I've won. And that's something that people that don't compete don't realize.

Speaker 1 It's if you take some, if you get a good position early, get up on the points. You just sit there and go, oh, let's ride this to the end.
That's why I want rounds so that you might take guys back.

Speaker 1 You really incentivize to get that finish.

Speaker 1 And the way we're trying to grow the sport is to steal the MMA scoring structure, which a lot of people are criticizing because they think it's overly complicated. They don't understand it.

Speaker 1 But to the mass audience, they understand a 10-point must, understand a decision in that sense, understand it being scored round by round. So we're trying to appeal to a broader audience here.

Speaker 1 But we think based on the structure, based on how hard we'll call stalling penalties, based on you wanting to finish your opponent quick to have a better chance at a million dollars, because it's 10,001 to show up and a million to win.

Speaker 1 If you ain't first, you're last. There's no reward for second place.
So I'm punishing the one position I've only ever been able to achieve in tournaments.

Speaker 1 Are Are you worried that because of how much money is on the line, people will play careful?

Speaker 1 A very generous friend of mine has provided this money. I'm like, unless you guys go out there and try to kill each other and put it all on the line, I just won't do it again.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm giving you guys a massive platform. We've turned down offers from streaming platforms that wanted to buy the rights to this event because the marketing's going very well.

Speaker 1 We're turning down money to grow the sport. The ADCC promoter said he wanted to grow the sport.

Speaker 1 So, what he did is he put it behind a paywall and he used the money from the paywall to buy a more expensive arena. I don't think that's how you grow the sport.

Speaker 1 I think you grow the sport like comedians do these days. Like, guys like Mark Norman will release a special for free.

Speaker 1 Andrew Schultz did it first, released a special for free, and it grew his audience massively. I think that's what Jiu-Jitsu needs.

Speaker 1 We need an exciting show that's not behind a paywall that'll grow the sport, grow the audience, and really then ultimately we can get to a level where it could be behind a paywall.

Speaker 1 But I just don't think where they are. Yeah, I think a million dollars is a lot of money, but the opportunity here, because it's open and freely accessible by everyone, is to put on a show.

Speaker 1 And then you get a million every year.

Speaker 1 If this is a crazy, exciting event, the funding is going to be so easy year after year. And the other aspect we're doing to it is,

Speaker 1 unfortunately, I'm not going to make any money off this thing, it's a non-profit, and the money from charity, except the only fans, but whatever.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the real cash cow, but that's the real work, too. Yeah,

Speaker 1 and that's not for charity, that's for your personal bank account, the only fans. Are you also

Speaker 1 for the follow-up therapy? But

Speaker 1 that'll be an expensive gig for whoever takes that on board. Love hurts

Speaker 1 that physically will, yeah.

Speaker 1 Ticket proceeds to charity. So, like, obviously, we've got the $3 million budget, we've got got production expenses.

Speaker 1 We've got the team of staff to hire.

Speaker 1 But if we could sell this thing out, we could potentially donate a ton of money to charity. One of those charities is Tap Cancer Out.

Speaker 1 And what's great about this is Rich Byrne is a black belt from New York who's in the banking world. He used to run an event called Kasai Grappling.
He went through cancer.

Speaker 1 He basically had a very aggressive cancer. He had it treated.
And now he basically has said to us that whatever we donate from the profits of the event, he's going to match dollar for dollar.

Speaker 1 And we've also had another guy who wants to remain anonymous agree to match dollar for dollar as well.

Speaker 1 So the more ticket sales revenue we can create here, the more we can actually give back to charity. So it's really all round.

Speaker 1 It's going to be a great event. Yeah, Tap Cancer All is great.
And all the charities that the athletes have been selecting are great.

Speaker 1 What's been the hardest?

Speaker 1 You are wearing a suit, so you figured out how to to do that. The tie was difficult, for sure.
The tie was difficult, but you figured it out. And

Speaker 1 congratulations on that. But you've never run a tournament.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 I've never wrestled a big woman either. Well, I have, but not in this form.
Not in a competitive environment for OnlyFans.

Speaker 1 What's been the hardest aspects of actually bringing this to life? The first one was people believing it was real. That was quite difficult.
And then

Speaker 1 communicating with the athletes. That's basically where my responsibility is

Speaker 1 securing these guys, getting these guys to commit to things.

Speaker 1 It's very difficult.

Speaker 1 There's a reason a few athletes in every sport really stand out. And it's kind of professionalism and kind of the way they market themselves.
And I think those two things do go hand in hand.

Speaker 1 So we're in a sport where there's not enough money where a lot of these guys do have managers.

Speaker 1 I think in MMA, things would be a lot easier for the promoter because you're not talking directly to the athlete.

Speaker 1 You're talking to a guy who might, who's obviously taking a cut, but like he's, there's a middleman.

Speaker 1 So in a situation where you're talking directly to the athlete, it can be very difficult, can be very annoying, can be very hard to reach these guys. They can be very non-committal.

Speaker 1 That, for me, has been one of the biggest challenges. The guys that I speak to that are like, I'm in.
And they're like, I'm out. I'm in.
Like navigating this area.

Speaker 1 One other aspect is because we did this basically from idea to event will be less than three months, three and a half months. So it's like we're having to do so much in such a short period of time.

Speaker 1 Little things like of the show money we've given them, they're expected to basically secure their own flight and hotel to the event. We're cutting down on staff.

Speaker 1 Because that would be one of the, if I had to coordinate, getting these guys flights, I would just jump off a building. Like it's hard enough to get them to agree to the event, let alone coordinate.

Speaker 1 Hey, what date do you want to come in? It's like herding cats.

Speaker 1 really just the interpersonal stuff's been difficult obviously going up against adcc the legacy event has been pretty damn difficult as well well established huge history they've been selling tickets for two years everyone's known it's been coming for two years that thing was largely sold out before we even announced the event so we're going head to head with this event so from a ticket sales perspective very difficult what's been uh reddit question what's been the most surprising people who turned down on your invite Ooh,

Speaker 1 I mean, we can name names. I mean, obviously, Kainan, he was a semi-in, semi-out.
His suggestion was actually to do a second and third place prize rather than a million.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, no, we want all or nothing. It's all or nothing here.
That's a better spectacle, better entertainment. Yeah.
Probably more injuries, but it's all or nothing.

Speaker 1 Miki Galvao, the one that got away. Yeah.
That's sad. But we got the Ratolos.
The Ratolos,

Speaker 1 props to these kids, because Cade's the reigning champion. These are two of the best guys in the sport.

Speaker 1 Allegedly

Speaker 1 were offered pretty significant show money to stay. But they hit me up and they said, hey, promise us one thing.

Speaker 1 We're on opposite sides of the brackets and we'll fight to the death in the final for the million. And we know, everyone knows that.
We've seen them compete against each other multiple times.

Speaker 1 So that was not a surprise because I know they're good kids, but to basically turn down allegedly show money to do this event, to support the event, to me is incredible.

Speaker 1 Mika Galvao, things would be more complicated there. Like, obviously, Mika officially joined ADCC before he secured the Ratolos.
Cade beat him in the final.

Speaker 1 Mika's personally motivated to face off against Cade. So he didn't know Cade was in our event before he agreed to ADCC.

Speaker 1 There's more to that story, too, in terms of Mika doing ADCC because a bunch of the kids in his team, I think they're being flown out to do the ADCC kids events.

Speaker 1 So there's like his two teammates, well at least one of his teammates will be doing the ADCC 66 kilo division. So his dad, his coach, doesn't really want to split time between two events.

Speaker 1 That's a difficulty for athletes there.

Speaker 1 But obviously disappointing. We couldn't secure Mika.
Mika said he was about the legacy.

Speaker 1 So he wanted to be the youngest guy ever to double Grand Slam, which is basically win all the gear events and win the ADCC that same year.

Speaker 1 My thoughts were,

Speaker 1 if I was in his position, and I never was obviously a prodigy, a talent like that, is I thought he had a position to make a statement in the sport to kind of, as cheesy as his hands, be on the right side of history, to have turned down a double grand slam to be in an event that supports athlete pay.

Speaker 1 Again, i don't overly criticize him but i think in terms of your legacy and reputation to be at a point and choose to do that is much more memorable than him getting that double grand slam which i'm sure he will win the adcc 77 killer division this year but it'll be somewhat tarnished anyway so i i do feel bad for some of the athletes that win this year and potentially people will be like oh yeah but there was half the people went in the division i feel bad for those guys but at the end of the day most of these guys had an opportunity to be a part of an event that really there's no downside to.

Speaker 1 You have a chance to be paid more money than you've ever been paid in your life.

Speaker 1 You're selling tickets that are going to go to charity, and it's not behind a paywall.

Speaker 1 So, anyone anywhere in the world can stream this event, watch it, and there's no barrier to entry in terms of finances. Was there ever any chance that Gordon Ryan would enter?

Speaker 1 I don't think so. I don't think so.
Is that something you tried? Me and Gordon don't text each other too often. I tag him on Instagram and things, but he doesn't respond.

Speaker 1 Tell me about your history with Nicholas Merigali. My history with Nicolas Marigali.
Actually, it dates back to a time where probably he does not even remember. Back when I used to wear a kimono.

Speaker 1 So I went to Abu Dhabi World Pro. I was chasing my gee dreams.

Speaker 1 I lost in, I can't even remember, again, probably the final. No, me, I probably lost in the final against Tommy Langlacker in the weight division.
This was the last year they did the absolute.

Speaker 1 I went into the absolute. I made it all the way to the semis.
Nicholas Merigali destroyed me in the gear. I did hit a nice little reversal on him, though.

Speaker 1 He passed my guard, and I somehow reversed him from side control. That's the only part of the match I share, after which he swept me, submitted me.
You reversed him from side control. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So that could be like an instructional.

Speaker 1 That could, yeah, exactly. Exactly.
But right place, right time, though. But then years later, I left the team.
Merigali replaced me. So they've brought in a more credentialed, handsome,

Speaker 1 doesn't speak as well, but they've brought him in. He's my replacement.
He's coming to the team. We face off at ADCC.

Speaker 1 I do a heavier division thinking I looked at the names and I was like, that looks like an easier division. And I had two teammates at the time that were in my 88.

Speaker 1 And I was like, those guys will have have to face off first round. I'll have to face one of them second round, the way they do the seating and the structure of the bracket.
So I was like, I'll do 99.

Speaker 1 I'll leave 88 for the boys. They both lost my division first round, unfortunately.
So I face off against Marigali beginning of day two.

Speaker 1 A lot of pressure because Danaher used to corner me, used to be my coach. Now he's cornering.

Speaker 1 the Brazilians who we used to complain about as the enemy. And I'm like, what's going on over here? It's like karate kids stuff.

Speaker 1 I face off against Merigali, I go hard early because I think he can't defend leg locks for the first three minutes. I'm just attacking legs, legs, legs.
I ended up sweeping him, getting on top.

Speaker 1 No points before the points period, but I'm very tired. I'm very tired at this point.
Merigali's big, like there's some guys that get juiced up to hit a certain weight.

Speaker 1 That's what I did to enter this division. You can't keep your gas tank.
Merigali's just a big dude.

Speaker 1 I don't, who knows if he's on the juice or not, but he's just naturally sits around 230 pounds or even 225.

Speaker 1 When you're naturally that big, your gas tank's a bit better. Again, if you balloon yourself up on every substance possible, gas tank's surprisingly not too good.
So we have a bit of a close one.

Speaker 1 Decision goes my way. Ultimately, finals next, I lose that.
But that is sort of our competitive history. We were meant to have a match that had been pre-booked immediately after ADCC.

Speaker 1 So we agreed to this before ADCC.

Speaker 1 I was like, the price is right. I'm in.
So I sign up for it and I'm thinking ADCC that we're going to face off soon after.

Speaker 1 Mirigali chose instead to have some vacation time. He wanted to go on vacation.
He wanted to have a relax, a bit of relaxation down in Brazil. So the match is scrapped.

Speaker 1 Flo hit me up and they say, can you do February? And this was about the time that Volks fought Islam in Perth. I was like, no, I can't do February because I'll be helping Volkanovsky.

Speaker 1 That's going to take precedence over this match. Flo goes, you know what, we'll do we'll announce it anyway.
We'll sell those tickets anyway.

Speaker 1 We'll get the people hyped and then we'll just have you pull out. And I'm like, all right, do it.

Speaker 1 I'm like, do whatever you want. That's fucking probably not a good idea.
But they do that.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 people keep trying to rebook this match. But now I barely even train anymore.
I'm busy being a promoter, traveling around.

Speaker 1 So now instead of facing him in competition again, which I would do if the price was right, they'd have to pay me very well. Two of the shows have offered me the match, but the money, terrible.

Speaker 1 What do you think is a number that would

Speaker 1 convince you?

Speaker 1 It would have to be, I would think, half a million dollars. Otherwise, I just can't be bothered.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 It has to be worth it because to put a price on a guy that takes himself as serious as Merigale. Merigali is a very serious man.
He's talking about authenticity.

Speaker 1 He's talking about words he doesn't even understand.

Speaker 1 For me to give him the opportunity to live in a world where he had won the last match against me, it's hard to put a price on that.

Speaker 1 You know, when people say it's not about the money, it's not about the money. It's about me waking up every day knowing that he knows he lost to me.
So you think you've gotten it in his head? Yes.

Speaker 1 How do you think you would do if you were to face him for the said 500,000?

Speaker 1 For the 500? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think over five minutes, I beat anyone in the world.

Speaker 1 Do you still think you got it? I still think I got it. Gabby about to find out, too.

Speaker 1 All right, so you're going to make a statement with Gabby, like that

Speaker 1 it'll be a match she remembers.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 she for sure will remember. I think the fans will remember it as well.

Speaker 1 I'm open to it. Like, if we do this match, I'm taking it very serious, but we'd be open to rematches.
I've always said I would have a MMA fight with her.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't be afraid. to hit a big woman.

Speaker 1 So unlike with Amerigali, if you win, you're not going to ride off to the sunset with Gabby. I'm a bit of a romantic.
I think she deserves a few finishes, you know? Not one and hit the bed that night.

Speaker 1 So you think you can actually beat Nicholas Merigali? I think so, yeah. I mean, you could throw a riddle at him before the match.
That would fucking complicate things for him for the next hour.

Speaker 1 Will you and Gordon ever get along again?

Speaker 1 I think so. I think we need.

Speaker 1 The origins of MDMA was couples therapy in the 70s in Houston, I believe. I believe something like that for us could resolve these underlying issues.

Speaker 1 You're a man of Reddit because they suggested that you should consider ketamine therapy sessions.

Speaker 1 Imagine a therapist sitting down with him.

Speaker 1 They'd be like, clear the schedule for the next couple of weeks. With all due respect, Greg, I can't imagine a therapist sitting down with you.

Speaker 1 That would be a terrifying thing. I do have a therapist, actually.
They prescribe me Vivance.

Speaker 1 He's quite confident in my

Speaker 1 Russian website.

Speaker 1 It's the old Sean Connery thing. It's not a therapist.
It's just something that's spelled the same.

Speaker 1 I think me and Gordon, a debate of some type would be awesome. Like a political debate? Yeah, me representing Kamala Harris and him representing Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 So intellectual sparring. An intellectual battle, a battle of wits.

Speaker 1 Can you just speak to your trolling?

Speaker 1 Is there, like, underneath it all, is there just a respect for the human beings you go after? For sure. They have to be worthy of being attacked.
You know what I mean? Like,

Speaker 1 if someone attacks, that's the thing. It's like you want a worthy adversary, not in a sense of,

Speaker 1 I don't want to battle someone that has better banter than me because I'm going to lose, but I want to battle someone with a profile large enough that it doesn't look like you're just.

Speaker 1 Who do you think is the biggest troll or shit talker in martial arts? Hernando Laranjo.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, you can't, you can't even put him in the. He's in the other class of human being

Speaker 1 He's overqualified chail Sonan comes to mind

Speaker 1 you versus chao who who's a better shit talker if you look the entirety of the career chao is better I mean I think if you can shit talk in MMA because it's there's far worse consequences for you if you're still willing to do it when really violent things can happen to you

Speaker 1 I mean I'm getting death threats, but like he he has a certainty of violence against his opponents in MMA.

Speaker 1 So on Reddit, somebody said you are a coral belt level troll and uh just happened to be good at jiu-jitsu so what did it take for you to rise to the ranks of trolling from white belt to to black belt to coral belt like what's your journey with talking shit that's a good question hey i think it would have happened after i moved to america because in australia like we just on a daily basis say some of the worst things you could ever imagine like in private life yeah just we're just trying to ruin each other's day yeah in a way that's so blase

Speaker 1 you're going back and forth and the guy that actually gets upset and says some real shit that's your victory you know what i mean like you're like oh we got you you're actually that actually bothers you all right we'll take that as a victory all right so when you come to america and everybody takes themselves a little too seriously those are just a bunch of victims yeah you can take advantage of an australian entering american banter is like neo fuck getting his matrix skills you're just like whoa i see everything coming.

Speaker 1 Do you ever look in the mirror and like regret how hard you went in the paint at somebody?

Speaker 1 I don't think so. I don't think so.
You say you're proud of yourself? I think what I offer is some balance.

Speaker 1 It's like I'm bringing some justice. Ultimately, it'll probably come back in spades to me.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't know. As a fan of yours, as a fan of Gordon's also, but as a fan of yours,

Speaker 1 I see the love behind it. I don't know.
It seems always just fun. The shit talking seems fun.
I wish you'd buy it back.

Speaker 1 It doesn't buy it back anymore, though. What's your relationship like with Mo, the organizer of ADCC? I mean, it's been a love-hate relationship.
I guess with Gabby,

Speaker 1 it's like any good relationship. If you don't get blocked at the end of it, were you really in love to begin with? Right.
That's my thoughts, anyway.

Speaker 1 But so, in terms of my friendship with Mo, me and Mo were really close friends for a long time, would talk a lot. He was instrumental in us moving Dana her desk squad to Puerto Rico.

Speaker 1 He lives in Puerto Rico, spends most of his time in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 1 I've spent time with him in Florida, California. But in terms of our relationship, I'm trying to think of an exact time where it went south.
But I guess in my

Speaker 1 him being the ADCC organizer, in my

Speaker 1 attack of athlete compensation

Speaker 1 was taken personally, which is obviously going to ruin whatever friendship you had. And that started around the time you were thinking about CJI.

Speaker 1 I mean, to be honest,

Speaker 1 CJI

Speaker 1 was a result of the response of my discussion of athlete compensation.

Speaker 1 So me and Mo had been close friends, even after the Danaher

Speaker 1 team broke up. We were still close friends for quite a while after that.
But it does complicate things when someone is,

Speaker 1 for all intents and purposes, as an ADCC competitor, and he runs ADCC, the event, he's in control of it now. He is your boss.
So that does complicate our friendship.

Speaker 1 Have you had a conversation since you announced CJI? Have we had a conversation?

Speaker 1 When did you get blocked?

Speaker 1 I honestly didn't get blocked. I was just joking.
Nah. Honestly, we had a disagreement about athlete compensation.
I said, let's do a podcast and talk about it because I'm a big fan of transparency.

Speaker 1 If you think I'm an idiot for thinking athletes should get paid more, tell me it.

Speaker 1 Show it to me. And I've made public statements.
Other people have asked why we don't get paid more money. You can both tell me and the world.

Speaker 1 at the same time, the grappling world at the same time, but was not interested in doing a podcast.

Speaker 1 Again, maybe he thought I was going to hit him with some gotcha questions or something, but really, at the end of the day, I personally believe you've got nothing to hide.

Speaker 1 If you are confident in the business decisions you've made, then there's no gotcha moment that I could actually do.

Speaker 1 I could easily, I would have done the podcast if I looked like a complete idiot, would have released it anyway, because it would be a good message to where we are in the sport.

Speaker 1 But again, considering what I know about Thomas and Max Price, which I believe we're paying $200,000 for, and T-Mobile's $2 million.

Speaker 1 How do you justify no increase in athlete pay while we have a $1.8 million increase in venue cost?

Speaker 1 So you're saying that there could potentially be poor business decisions, poor allocation of money that could be reallocated better to support the athletes? I've never once thought

Speaker 1 this was some organization where Mo's likes stealing money for himself. I'm just saying that,

Speaker 1 and again, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So he might fully think that what he's doing is going to grow the sport.
I'm going about it in a completely different way.

Speaker 1 I don't think we need T-Mobile. I don't think we need it behind a paywall.
I think we need cheap venue. Still maintain good quality production.
Release it for free. If you want something to grow,

Speaker 1 present it for free.

Speaker 1 Is there a future where the two of you talk? Yeah, for sure. He keeps insisting on talking face to face.
I don't have a problem with that, but my argument is this is a public feud.

Speaker 1 The public, like this is, this is a, we're having a disagreement. Let's settle the disagreement in a way that answers the question to the fans.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 1 if one of us is a complete idiot, then I believe the world of people following this story are entitled to know which one of us is an idiot. If you talk to him, would you be good faith? Like, would you

Speaker 1 turn off the, or turn the troll down from 11 to like a 3? Yeah, I don't even think I'd need to troll him. I'd just say, hey, why, like, like, show us the books.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like, honestly, when our event's done, we're going to be pretty transparent. Obviously, we are ran as a non-profit.
We're going to be pretty transparent about everything.

Speaker 1 And, I mean, obviously, ultimately, all the views we get.

Speaker 1 When flow grab, when an event's on Flow Grappling or Fight Pass or any other streaming provider, unless it's a pay-per-view, you're not going to know how many people watched.

Speaker 1 So that's one aspect of what we're doing:

Speaker 1 we're going to have a visual sort of guide to how many people are fans of grappling. Yeah, transparency in all of its forms.
That's what bothers me about the ILC with the Olympics

Speaker 1 is that there's this organization that puts on an incredible event, but it's completely opaque. It's not transparent.
And the athletes don't get paid.

Speaker 1 almost at all. So it's usually from sponsorships.
And

Speaker 1 they sell sell distribution, broadcast distribution. And so like it's mostly paywalled after after the fact.

Speaker 1 It's very, unless you're a super famous athlete or a famous event, it's hard to watch, I don't know, the the early rounds of the weightlifting or the judo or the

Speaker 1 all of the competitions where most of those athletes get paid almost nothing and they've dedicated their whole life. Like they've sacrificed everything to be there.

Speaker 1 And we don't get to watch them openly. You can't, in many cases, you can't even pay for it with with ioc

Speaker 1 i've got to experience this because i'll have like podcast conversations with like judoka for example and i put like a little clip in a podcast and uh the olympics channel takes it down immediately so they have all the videos uploaded private they're private oh to flag the copyright they just flag the copyright automatically from the private videos they could release they could release somewhere even if it's paywalled which i'm against but paywall it but make it super easily accessible.

Speaker 1 So the flow grappling model is still okay. I'm against it.

Speaker 1 But if you do a really good job of it, okay, I can kind of understand a membership fee, but like it should be super easy to use.

Speaker 1 But in the case of the Olympics, first of all, in the case of the Olympics, the whole point of the Olympics is for it to be accessible to everybody.

Speaker 1 So paywalling goes against the spirit of the Olympic Games.

Speaker 1 And I will say the same is probably true for many sports like grappling, especially for major events like ADCC, That I feel like they should be openly accessible to everybody, like on every platform.

Speaker 1 But you, what was the decision like for you to, to make it accessible on YouTube and X? Well, I mean, just because basically it's going to grow the sport. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like it's if you have to subscribe to a platform to watch something you have a mild interest in, a mild curiosity in, there's a financial barrier there.

Speaker 1 So I want to open it up because again, we have an investor who's contributing and is happy for it to be spent this way, happy for us not to be held hostage by these sort of streaming providers.

Speaker 1 And really, like, again, I'm not making accusations against Flow Grappling or UFC Fire Pass.

Speaker 1 They are making the right business decision by not providing streamer numbers because that's leverage that those people can use against the streaming provider.

Speaker 1 But for me, as an individual athlete that really wants to understand the metrics of how many people actually watch this sport to leverage that in my own sponsorship negotiations, then if I'm in a position to have this out free and also give every athlete involved the same metrics and information, like you will literally be able to see the spikes when you compete.

Speaker 1 And you'll be able to take that. and present it for opportunities for sponsorships for businesses to say, look, look how many views this got.
I was one of the most viewed moments of this event.

Speaker 1 So, I want to put the power back in the athlete and take it away from the host. And it creates a lot of incentive for the athlete to make it exciting.
Yeah, this is your time.

Speaker 1 It might never happen again. I fully intend to run this every year.
That's the goal. But again, it might never happen again.

Speaker 1 Is there a possible future where the 2026 ADCC is run by Craig Jones? Could I take over ADCC?

Speaker 1 I think from

Speaker 1 an ADCC perspective, it would make a lot of sense. I think it would make a lot of sense to wait to see if

Speaker 1 this event turns into Fire Festival first before you commit to something like that. But I think a more modern approach to the promotion of the event, again, I keep going back to the comedians.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? If you want to grow your brand, whatever that may be,

Speaker 1 provide content for free

Speaker 1 and you can paywaller eventually.

Speaker 1 You can grow the audience, create the audience free you know i think the again if your goal is to create a huge sport here then it's like if we're already a niche sport and competition aspect of that is an even smaller niche then we need to grow that providing this content for free well having just chatted with uh with elon musk who fundamentally believes that the most entertaining outcome is the most likely that to me if the universe has a sense of humor

Speaker 1 you would certainly craig Craig Jones would certainly be running ADCC, which would be, I mean, it would just be like beautifully hilarious.

Speaker 1 It would be a poetic

Speaker 1 ending. It would be an underdog story from a man that could never win the event to running the event on behalf of the Sheikh Tanun.

Speaker 1 So I saw B-team videos of the CJI camp, people training super hard.

Speaker 1 So you aside, who don't seem to do things in a standard way,

Speaker 1 what does it take to sort of

Speaker 1 put yourself in a peak shape, peak performance

Speaker 1 for a huge event like the CJI or the ADCC?

Speaker 1 I mean, it's psychologically, it's really, really brutal. Like for me, anytime I'm leading up to any event of any meaningful significance, it's

Speaker 1 horrible on a psychological level because you're always thinking about, are you training enough? Are you doing enough?

Speaker 1 If you feel any signs of sickness, injury, the stress levels increase, your sleep quality decreases, it's all those little subtle things that are so hard to mitigate.

Speaker 1 So like whether you feel like you're training hard enough or you're over training, those to me are the most difficult aspects. And I think really those are an individual thing.

Speaker 1 And that's really something where a coach can provide what he thinks to you is the right amount.

Speaker 1 of work you know and i think that's different for different people i think nikki rod could do eight hours a day you know what I mean? I think Nikki Ryan, eight minutes.

Speaker 1 I saw a video of Nikki Ryan, like with a trash can throwing up. Yes.
And like the top comment is like, that's him doing the warm-up.

Speaker 1 That is satisfying to watch, honestly.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But yeah, so you're supposed to train hard enough to where you have this confidence that you're prepared. Yeah, I mean, and it's an impossible thing to grasp.
It's like

Speaker 1 some of the best performances I've had, I've been called up last minute, minute or I've been sick or my camp's been horrible.

Speaker 1 And for me personally, I've gone in there and thought, oh, relaxed, almost like, oh, well, you know, like you got called up a week ago, you were injured, you missed four weeks of your camp.

Speaker 1 And I went in there super relaxed and accepting of the result and performed much better.

Speaker 1 Sometimes when I know three months out, I've got an event coming up and that event only happens every two years.

Speaker 1 It just, the stress of that alone. Like I personally, on an individual level, more of a, I'd rather wing it.
I'd rather be in the stands and just roll down.

Speaker 1 Like Gunnar Nelson, I remember he had a brilliant performance in an ADCC Absolute and he was out drinking the night before. He had no idea he was competing the next day.

Speaker 1 He was in the stands eating ice cream and they called his name out for the absolute and he went out there and I believe he got bronze. I believe he beat Jeff Munson.

Speaker 1 So it's like, it's different for different people. Obviously, you don't want that to be the standard.
You've got to be putting in the work at all times.

Speaker 1 But even now, in my crazy travel schedule, where I don't train anywhere near like I used to,

Speaker 1 as long as your game is technical and as long as your body's in good condition, I believe you can still train well against world-class guys.

Speaker 1 You might not be able to do an hour straight, but if you're technique-oriented,

Speaker 1 you're just losing fitness. So, is it possible

Speaker 1 to out-cardio Craig Jones? Like, is your game game fundamentally a technique-based game? For sure, for sure, yeah. I've never wanted to win anything bad enough to train properly for it.
Right.

Speaker 1 But isn't that the secret to your success, being lazy? I think so. I think that's

Speaker 1 the only logical explanation, you know? And I also use it as mind games, too. Like, I,

Speaker 1 again, no one knows whether what I'm saying is true or not. Right.
And I'm not saying this story.

Speaker 1 to say anything bad about my opponent at the time, but I booked two matches in two consecutive weekends and

Speaker 1 I'd been traveling. I think I just got back from

Speaker 1 one of my trips. I'd been international.
So I didn't even know where the fuck I was.

Speaker 1 You're in Texas right now, by the way. Just in case you forgot.
Texas, just for you. Just came back.
Thank you, man. This is an honor.
But I hadn't really even trained. I couldn't train.

Speaker 1 Like, I was traveling, just had no ability to train. I trained for like a week, had the Phil Rowe match, and I said to myself, I was down in Mexico City, and I said, you know what?

Speaker 1 If you win this match, you've got to face Lovato next week. Don't go out and party.
Don't celebrate the victory.

Speaker 1 But as a 32-year-old man at the time hitting a flying triangle submission, I thought that deemed a worthy after party.

Speaker 1 And we got out of control that night. And it wasn't until the next day I woke up.
I was like, oh, I have Lovato next weekend. But I'm also.

Speaker 1 People don't know whether I'm telling the truth or not, but it's also, I'm almost too honest because I'll be like doing interviews saying, yeah, I was out partying. I barely trained.

Speaker 1 The opponent looks into that and they question it: Is he telling the truth? Is he baiting me? Is he really that unconcerned? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 It's almost a psychological battle in and of itself, but for the most part, it's true. So, to you, being psychologically relaxed is extremely important, just not giving a damn.
I wonder what that is.

Speaker 1 Not too much pressure. I don't want pressure, I don't like the pressure, but you like the pressure when it comes to internet shit talking.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, you get to silently sit back and think about a good response, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 How important is it to just go crazy hard rounds leading up to competitions like that?

Speaker 1 You said sort of Nikki Rod, but like on average, for like athletes at the world-class level, do you have to put in the hard rounds? Yeah, I think you have to put in the hard rounds.

Speaker 1 It depends at what point in your career you are. You know, like I think like someone like Nikki Ryan might almost train too technically too often.

Speaker 1 And when he comes to competition, it's a confronting experience when someone hits him hard and he feels that pressure so i think different people require different things when nikki when nikki rod is breaking the spine of a 37 year old father a three bus driver it might be time for him to train in a more technical manner so it's like you've got to cater it to what they need and again depending on the opponent it's a game of strategy you know like for me when i was more active

Speaker 1 I look at an opponent that I want, that I could steal some clout from, off of which the clout you can make money. And I think to myself, what's the best rule set I can beat him in?

Speaker 1 That's the strategy. And then how would I beat him in that rule set? So there's so many strategic layers to it that go above and beyond just the training for me.

Speaker 1 But nowadays, I like to, if I train, short duration, high intensity. That's the best for me.
I don't like this six little like 10, six minute rounds, whatever. Like, I don't like this long training.

Speaker 1 I don't like, it's, it's, for me, it's too much toll on the body. I think

Speaker 1 I go to the gym, we bang, maybe the first round slightly light, and then just bang it out. Two hard rounds, tops, a little bit of problem solving, get out of there.
Because you want to feel

Speaker 1 a little bit of the competition intensity.

Speaker 1 That feels the best on my body. When you're traveling, you're doing seminars and you're just doing jiu-jitsu with folks.

Speaker 1 Are you training with them? I'm sure there's like from everything I see, people would love to train with you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they want to, they want to,

Speaker 1 I mean, I don't know what it is. Obviously,

Speaker 1 you,

Speaker 1 yeah, I guess you, it's like people want to play basketball with like a basketball star or something, you know what I mean? But

Speaker 1 I guess if you played one-on-one with a basketballer, there's no great risk of injury. You know,

Speaker 1 that's the real problem is like

Speaker 1 if you don't roll at your seminar, the seminar participants don't feel like they got the full experience. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 there's snipers at these seminars. There's these sharks that are circling wanting to attack you.

Speaker 1 And you have to look at it. You look at it from both perspectives.
I think you should provide excellent technique, excellent question and answer time. And I think you should roll a little bit.

Speaker 1 For the most part these days, I'll just roll 30 minutes straight. I'll just do 10 guys, three minutes, no break, 30 minutes straight.

Speaker 1 I might even get the guy to pick because, again, if you, some of these guys come in hot. Yeah, it's terrifying, man, because

Speaker 1 the thing is, like with Anthony Bourdain

Speaker 1 sort of analogy here, like you're exploring all parts of the world.

Speaker 1 You just want to be there in the culture, teach good techniques and just socialize. You don't want to like, there's just a bunch of killers that are trying to like murder you.
Yeah,

Speaker 1 to them, they're like, I get to test myself. against a world-class athlete today.
And to you, you're like, oh,

Speaker 1 I'm in Odessa. I'd like to get to know the people.
Yeah, exactly. Try some food, have a couple of drinks, and enjoy the place.
But to them,

Speaker 1 it's time to go. You got to rope it open a bit, you know? Like, if I, if I meet pressure with pressure, I get tired.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But if I don't provide resistance where they think there should be resistance, now

Speaker 1 it slows their pace down. They get shocked a bit.
But 100%,

Speaker 1 if I'm at a seminar and someone's rolling too hard with me, if I feel like I might get hurt, I'll 100% rip a submission submission on them.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? Like, it's like you're confronted with a threat. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You have to meet it with a threat. It's like I've spoken about this with Ryan Hall.
Ryan Hall will give him a warning and then gone. And I think it's perfectly acceptable.

Speaker 1 Like, I won't endanger them for no reason. But if you're coming hot, you better tap fast.
If I feel a threat, you better tap. I'm not going to break it for the sake of breaking it.
But if you're,

Speaker 1 if you

Speaker 1 do some crazy shit that might potentially hurt me and I get a submission and I'm tired, if you're fresh, you can catch a heel hook, hold it tight, the guy tries to wiggle out, you got it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 If you're tired and you've been nice with a heel hook and then they slip out and club you in the head, then next time

Speaker 1 it's going to be the last time.

Speaker 1 Well, last time, see, you're another level, you and Ryan Hall are just world class, but like

Speaker 1 for me, I'm trying to find navigate through this because I'd like to be able to roll, you know, like 10 rounds for fun for cultural. Oh, but they're coming for you, too.

Speaker 1 And unfortunately, ripping submissions or like, you know, neon belly, some kind of dominant position, people don't like hear the message at all.

Speaker 1 Or if I let them submit me a bunch of times, they don't calm down either.

Speaker 1 So it's, I've been trying to figure out how to solve that puzzle because I'd like to keep rolling with people across the world for like for many more years to come. But it's tough.
You can't do it.

Speaker 1 If you've reached any level of notoriety, whether it's in the sport or just as a celebrity, you're better off to just have three, four trusted training partners and train privately.

Speaker 1 That's the sad situation. People used to say, oh,

Speaker 1 you could be such and such a good anti-gym. No, those days are over now.
Now,

Speaker 1 if you show up and you have any sort of name, they're coming to kill. You better, honestly, you're better off.
It's so much safer.

Speaker 1 training is about trusting trust is built from safe rounds yeah strangers are scary i don't know i'm trying to develop a radar when i look at a person trying to like figure out are they are they from eastern europe i tell you what the most dang

Speaker 1 yeah that's a good one you know what anyone that wears a pit bull sports rash guard yeah or anyone from the country of poland be ready oh polish people go hard people go hard i've never had a flow roll with a Polish person.

Speaker 1 Somebody on Reddit asked, how many legs did you break in Eastern Europe? Three or four.

Speaker 1 To send a message or just for your own personal enjoyment? I don't enjoy it. You know, they

Speaker 1 don't enjoy the violence. It is humorous after the fact, though.
But I mean, it's just like, hey, like, bro, I'm jet lagged. I'm tired.
I'm here for you guys. Why are you trying to hurt me?

Speaker 1 You know, like, if I get a submission, tap. Don't hesitate at all.
Don't hesitate, you know, like it's like it's, I mean, you just is dangerous, it's a dangerous thing.

Speaker 1 And when strangers going crazy, it's their show. They think they're getting an invites to CJI if they tap me.

Speaker 1 It's just wild.

Speaker 1 So, speaking of which, just for the hobbyist,

Speaker 1 for a person just starting out,

Speaker 1 what wisdom can you provide? Like, say you were tasked with coaching a beginner, a hobbyist beginner.

Speaker 1 How would you help them uh become good in a year

Speaker 1 what would be the training regimen what would be their approach mental physical in terms of practice

Speaker 1 to jiu-jitsu i mean honestly picking safe training partners and trying to understand the positions and not just freaking out like uh you might escape if you freak out but you also might be stuck in something and you injure yourself so it's like i think if you can

Speaker 1 It's just about longevity. You know, like

Speaker 1 if you can train, find a a pace to train at and a like sort of intensity and the right people, you could potentially train five years without injury. It's really about how you move.

Speaker 1 If you are always moving in an explosive way, eventually you're going to do that from a position in which you can't move and then someone's going to tear.

Speaker 1 And you also want to be able to trust training partners. to not go too crazy, inflict too much pain.
You know what I mean? It's like,

Speaker 1 yeah i think i've managed to avoid a lot of injuries because i just never roll too athletically explosively i think i'm probably incapable of moving at that rate of speed so that's part of it is you the way you move but i guess you also don't allow anybody to put you in a really bad position in terms of hurting you i let them put me in bad position but i try to stay relaxed at all times you know that's the That's the key here is like,

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, obviously you got the cheesy, keep it playful but it's like you if you really keep if you can remain calm in bad positions that is a skill that's your confidence not in yourself but that the other guy is incapable of submitting you that's the ultimate confidence you can give them whatever you want so the thing you want as a beginner is to focus on minimizing injury by by relaxing by not going by not freaking out yes keeping it at a pace so you can understand what just happened the thing is like how do you know if you're freaking out or not as a beginner it feels like a if you're panicking yeah.

Speaker 1 If you're that's a good

Speaker 1 if you're I mean, I see a lot of beginners kind of breathing, starting to breathe hard, they tense up. That's probably underneath that is panic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you can make someone panic, you will fatigue them.

Speaker 1 It's the same, it's like if you're even if you're higher level and you're worried about getting your guard passed, it's the panic that leads to fatigue in your guard retention.

Speaker 1 But if you're if you're so flexible, you remain calm, I think it's because you're not panicked. Fear is the mind killer,

Speaker 1 but also you have one of the more innovative games in in jiu-jitsu history how'd you develop that how do you how do you continue throughout your career how how were you innovating what was your approach to learning and figuring positions out figuring submissions out i mean financial motivation if you can hit moves that no one else knows how to do yeah you can sell those instructionals but also it keeps it interesting because it's like uh

Speaker 1 i mean it can get stagnant and boring you know like a lot lot of people get to blue belt. They're good at one thing.
They only do that one thing. I think it's finding creative ways to beat people.

Speaker 1 And sometimes creativity is in how they respond to it. So if you can find a humiliating move to do to someone, well, not even necessarily humiliating, but a move that is unexpected.

Speaker 1 When you get hit with something you don't expect, I think that is sort of really one of the most fun aspects of it. You know what I mean? Like

Speaker 1 you train to stay better than the people you're better than.

Speaker 1 That's what keeps you in the game and finding creative ways to beat those people is some of the most entertainment so that's just something that brings you joy uh

Speaker 1 is by doing the unexpected yeah trying to if you get swept with something that you don't think should work

Speaker 1 i think that's fulfillment

Speaker 1 so your your game is even a bit trolly interesting so like but what's the actual process of like in it like with the z guard all the innovative stuff you've done there how do you come up with ideas there i mean you just studying tape just just study, study tape and try to reverse engineer.

Speaker 1 Like, if I see a if I see something or I train with someone and it feels,

Speaker 1 you know, when you have those moments where you're like, oh, I don't even know what they're doing here.

Speaker 1 And if you can put someone in a position they don't understand, that's also where they panic. So it's like creating different ways to make people panic.

Speaker 1 But also, I mean, just innovation, like having fun with it. You know, like, I guess the artistic aspect of it is fun.
You can be creative in how you can beat people. Did you say artistic or autistic?

Speaker 1 Both. Okay.
Both. Just checking.

Speaker 1 What's like the most innovative thing you've come up with? What's like some of the cooler ideas you've come up with on the mat? I don't think I've come up with anything, but I've popularized things.

Speaker 1 You know, like certain styles of leg entry. I definitely didn't invent them, but I popularized them.
Octopus Guard. playing more from turtle sort of the pinning style of game like you could like as a

Speaker 1 because of my jokes online, put me in a position of power in the sport so that when I post content, it can popularize a move or at least an instructional popularize a game.

Speaker 1 But it's still, I'm not trying to sell inauthentic products. I'm still, I want the technique to work, be

Speaker 1 emotional. But put some humor on top of it.
Like, power bottom, your instructional names are pretty good. And but you changed that one, I saw the name of that.

Speaker 1 I mean, unfortunately, Meta, the ads, were not appreciating some of that humor. So we had had to soften the titles a bit.

Speaker 1 You got a phone call from the man that said, change this. I didn't.
Allegedly,

Speaker 1 the company hosting it.

Speaker 1 Right. Right.

Speaker 1 What do you think about Zuck in general? Like the fact that he trains Jiu-Jitsu. Have you got a chance to train with him? Because

Speaker 1 I haven't trained with him. I met him when Volks fought Ilya.
We've spoken briefly. Interesting guy for sure.

Speaker 1 Loves Jiu-Jitsu. Loves MMA.

Speaker 1 He's really intending to compete in something, I think. Competed in jiu-jitsu, intends to compete in MMA, has a beginner's mind, is humble about it.
It's interesting.

Speaker 1 Was he ever in consideration for CJI?

Speaker 1 I mean, we would love to have him. We'd love to have him.
But he is coming off of ACL Sergio. I think his return to sport is August.
So I think he'll be back training again soon. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What's your relationship has been like with Volkanovsky?

Speaker 1 Like, what have you learned about martial arts, about grappling in different domains just training with him i mean for me personally what's so interesting about volkanovsky is his

Speaker 1 i guess where he came from you know like it's like uh you have pre-existing ideas of what a ufc champion is again i would say it's similar to when i started training jiu-jitsu and i first traveled to america and got to train with some really famous people you realize how relatable they are in some aspects volkanovsky trains a freestyle and it is humble beginnings, humble origins.

Speaker 1 Like it's like it's a small gym in a small sort of beachside city. They're running puzzle mats.
You know what I mean? When you think UFC champion, you don't think puzzle mat gym. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like he's not training at a American top team. He's not at one of these big gyms.
So to me, it just shows what you're capable of through hard work and sort of self-educating in such an isolated place.

Speaker 1 It's insane to me that he's still considered probably the pound for pound best featherweight ever, in my opinion. And he's basically come across and started late from a rugby background.

Speaker 1 But also, in terms of what I've learned on a technical level, I've picked up a lot of stuff from him in sort of grappling exchanges, how to get back up, obviously wall wrestling.

Speaker 1 In terms of how hard he trains, how hard he works, the cardio aspect is insane. His cardio workouts are absolutely insane.
So he's the opposite of you.

Speaker 1 Complete opposite of me, probably publicly and privately

Speaker 1 as an athlete. Yeah.
The amount of work he puts in and just his

Speaker 1 sheer sort of mental willpower. I remember there's been a couple of times where I've watched him do weight cuts where like, that's horrible.
You're watching your friend.

Speaker 1 You know, obviously we started as

Speaker 1 like basically I would help him in certain jiu-jitsu aspects and then becomes a close friend of yours.

Speaker 1 But the whole process of the MMA fight is horrible especially when you care about the person fighting because some of those weight cuts you see are awful like you're basically seeing guys eyes rolled back in their head like him just powering through a five kilo 10 pound cut yeah and just constantly talking about how easy it is but well clearly

Speaker 1 I mean these guys look like they're dying you know like to push through that and then to push through some of the moments in his in his fight to watch him be completely relaxed until like five minutes before the fight.

Speaker 1 And then he starts talking about, you're never going to take this belt away from my family. Like he's singing about his family before he fights his kids.
You know, you see the character change.

Speaker 1 It's just absolutely insane to watch. On the other side of that is obviously watching the ups and downs.
There's been so many ups. The last two have been downs.

Speaker 1 So you're seeing the full spectrum of the highest highs and the lowest lows. How's he able to deal psychologically with loss? I don't know.
Obviously, still hungry, still motivated.

Speaker 1 Yeah, obviously, I thrive in a losing environment, but

Speaker 1 him, on the other hand, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 We don't talk too much on that level. Obviously, we check in his friends, see what he's up to, see what he's planning.
Yeah, we were trying to get him a grappling match at CJI.

Speaker 1 I won't say the reasons it fell through,

Speaker 1 but we were setting one up with Mike Musumichi, but we couldn't get it done.

Speaker 1 And you can't say the reasons why. I can't say the reasons, but it would have been awesome.
Do you think you could have set that up if you had more time? Like set something like

Speaker 1 part of the challenge here is for some of these gigantic matchups. I feel like it takes time.
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 Being the promoter, tournament, not as bad. The super fights, really, really difficult.
I don't think we could have set it up with more time that particular match, but that was the dream.

Speaker 1 That's what we're hoping to do. But there's a lot of other interesting matchups that you could have possibly gotten through if there's more time.
Yeah, I'd love to see.

Speaker 1 I mean, personally, I really want to see Volks and Ortega have an actual grappling match because we saw him get out of those deep submissions and apply a ton of grounding powder.

Speaker 1 I'd love to see him just have a grappling match. I'd love to see more of the UFC stars have grappling matches, especially if they've had any head trauma in a fight.

Speaker 1 It's like, hey, let's keep them busy because as you see, some of those guys go crazy if they can't train.

Speaker 1 What about the fights against Makachev? You think Volk can beat him? I think the first fight showed he could beat him for sure. Showed it's possible.

Speaker 1 Even in the second fight, when he reversed the grappling exchange, I wish he'd tried to take Makachev down.

Speaker 1 I really think he has a huge strength advantage against Makachev, and I personally believe he has a fence wrestling advantage. You might not see it in us

Speaker 1 in a sense of the technical hip tosses and things like that, like really, but I do believe Volks, one of the best, if not the best, cage wrestler in the world.

Speaker 1 Who do you think wins in a grappling match? That would be interesting. It would be interesting.
The problem is

Speaker 1 to almost to while you, while you are a champion like Islam is, you could just never book him. You could never get it.
What do you think makes the Dagestani wrestlers and fighters so good?

Speaker 1 I mean, I think personally, those guys are just like, they just love it. It's just about like

Speaker 1 it's how they train like it's a fight to the death you know what I mean like it's just built in them they don't want to concede an inch ever I think for MMA and wrestling that can be very very good I think sometimes when those guys come over to jiu-jitsu specific events they get leg locked they fall into traps overly aggressive or overly evasive but I think the way they train just is perfect for a fight a fight they can just forward pressure, eat some shots, grind a guy against the wall.

Speaker 1 Fence wrestling is technical. Jiu-Jitsu is far more technical.
There's way more things you can do in a grappling scenario from top and bottom than I think against the wall.

Speaker 1 So a grinding nature of how they train works really good to walk a guy down and take him down against the wall. And then obviously with ground and pound, very good to hold a guy down.

Speaker 1 So I think just never conceding an inch in training is just,

Speaker 1 they've done that since they were born, basically. So you learn how to grind somebody down yeah like they're just trying to break each other at all times trying to have some dominance over other

Speaker 1 over their friends and who they train with but you think in the grappling context that's that that will not always translate no not when you can pull guard and submit from your back i think that sort of negates some of that grinding pressure i think that has to be met with more

Speaker 1 slow technical lateral movement. I think that's the way you like, well, that's that would be the dream for me is a guy just comes straight forward into my guard.

Speaker 1 So that grind, that grinding approach works well if he's taken me down and got already close to me.

Speaker 1 But if I'm laying flat on my back and he's standing and he has to engage, he has all that danger at range.

Speaker 1 But if he can connect to my body before we go down, now we're in his world again, I think. I wonder if it's like, you know, Edis Prime could be versus you, for example.

Speaker 1 Who do you think wins there? Buggy choke for sure. Buggy choke.
No way. I know you're joking.

Speaker 1 We get him with a buggy acting. Really?

Speaker 1 So you can get the buggy choke

Speaker 1 at the highest level. Can you educate me on that? Like, that legitimately can work at the highest level.
Buggy choke for sure, yeah. Really? You can catch anyone.
Really?

Speaker 1 Okay. You're not a buggy believer.

Speaker 1 I'm not a buggy hater either. I'm just

Speaker 1 agnostic on the buggy choke. Khabib would go to sleep for sure.
Yeah? Yeah, there's no way he would tap to a buggy choke. I tried.
Who was it? I faced recently. I faced a Russian guy from Tatar.

Speaker 1 I couldn't buggy him. I was trying to close Garbwan, though.
Sort of like it is harder to pull off. But

Speaker 1 I had to put him to sleep twice at the end of the match with a triangle, but he was just willing.

Speaker 1 Like, I don't know. Eastern European guys, it's like,

Speaker 1 they're treating it like a real fight, you know? Have you ever

Speaker 1 gone hard with a Dagestani person? Like, grappling, wrestling any of the fighters any of them are me guys

Speaker 1 have I have I have I

Speaker 1 I mean they do train hard they do train hard when I did the seminar in Odessa it was at a school but another school in the city brought like 10 Dagestani guys

Speaker 1 all of them went insanely hard okay I was like guys

Speaker 1 okay

Speaker 1 it's a small sample size but they all wanted to be broken what do you think you as the wise sage of jiu-jitsu if you look 10 20 years out, how do you think the game is going to evolve? The art of it?

Speaker 1 The art of it.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think obviously people are going to keep innovating, perfecting certain things, throwing out information, bad sort of techniques, bad sort of, but I mean, it's so hard to predict.

Speaker 1 It's like that's the game of making money off the instructionals, is predicting where we go next. It's so, so difficult.

Speaker 1 What do you think is going to be the most popular submissions on CGI and ADCC this year? Is it going to be Foot Locks or Rear Naked? I think

Speaker 1 actually, CJI,

Speaker 1 I think there's going to be a lot of guys that don't tap, that take injuries. A small concern is that a guy wins the match, but is so injured, he can barely go on to the next match.

Speaker 1 Win the battle, lose the war. We are going to see that, aren't we? People refusing to tap.
We're actually, we did the walkthrough yesterday, and we were like, one ambulance is not enough.

Speaker 1 Get a second one here. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because if they take one guy injured to hospital, we we can't continue until an ambulance comes back. So these guys are going to go, everyone will be dagger standing for a day.

Speaker 1 That's what I think this tournament will achieve.

Speaker 1 But progression, it'll just be the integration of wrestling into jiu-jitsu. You know, I think that would be the most exciting way the sport could progress.
It's basically

Speaker 1 folk-style wrestling, but an integration of submissions from the standing position too.

Speaker 1 If you just follow the rules of you should always be fighting to get on top, whether that's a submission that leads to a sweep or a sweep, and you should be trying to avoid being pinned.

Speaker 1 And as long as the game revolves around that and guys engage each other offensively on the feet, that would be the most exciting, best way to

Speaker 1 watch the sport. Yeah, when I show the sport of jiu-jitsu, the most exciting stuff is whenever both people want to be...

Speaker 1 wrestling scrambling wrestling they want to both want to get on top yeah this is like fighting versus guard stuff.

Speaker 1 I'm a guy that totally agrees with you, but if I think the guy's a better wrestler, I will concede. You know, like, it's like, that's the guess, the hard part.

Speaker 1 But then the whole crowd will then mock you ceaselessly, as they should for conceding. That's what the million should be.

Speaker 1 We should have a tournament or a round-robin thing where it's like the million goes to the most exciting man. Yeah.
Who took the most risks.

Speaker 1 I mean, in a way, that's what's going to happen because this is quite open.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 the benefit of being exciting is you're going to be glorified on social media. And if you're going to be boring and stall, you're going to be endlessly sort of willified.
And forget about medals.

Speaker 1 Social media glory is all that matters. Well, in a certain sense, on a basic human level, yeah.
I mean, not what all that matters, but it's

Speaker 1 you're not going to, if you're going to stall, you're going to become a meme, I feel like, especially with CGI. And so is there, are the rest going to try to stop stalling?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we're going to penalize them hard, hit them hard, get that boring shit out of you.

Speaker 1 So, what percentage of athletes would you say are on steroids?

Speaker 1 Would you say 100%? Anyone that's ever beaten me. Okay.
They're taking more steroids than me.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I wanted to test them, but not to do anything bad, but just in the name of science to see what people are running.

Speaker 1 You know, it's so hard to say because you train with people and they don't even tell you what they're on. I tell the world what I'm on and they go, look at you.
you're not taking any steroids.

Speaker 1 That's like, it's like such a secret, secret thing. I personally think it's almost impossible to say, but occasionally you look at a guy and you're pretty certain, you know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the looks of it, but it could also go the other way. Certain people are just genetically built

Speaker 1 and they look like they are, and then there's probably others like yourself.

Speaker 1 It's a self-defense mechanism because you'd rather assume that that guy was on steroids, then his genetics are so far superior to yours.

Speaker 1 You're like, nah, it must be steroids. Yeah, that's the part of accusations of people being on steroids that I hate.

Speaker 1 It's like without data, people are just like, it's a way they can say that somebody's cheating without

Speaker 1 because I like celebrating people, and sometimes people aren't on steroids and they aren't cheating, and they're just fucking good. What about Gabby Garcia?

Speaker 1 I think she's beautiful, strong,

Speaker 1 and you're a a lucky man to share the mat with her. You should be honored.
And

Speaker 1 I'm betting a huge amount of money on her. Me too.

Speaker 1 Either way, you're going to get paid. She's paying 11 to 1.
I bet on love as well. So we are aligned in that way.
Love will prevail. Okay, you put Alex Jones to sleep.

Speaker 1 Just to reflect back on that.

Speaker 1 What was... He was too woke.
He needed it. So that's you fighting the woke mind virus virus or whatever? I think it was on the pulse too much.
What was that like?

Speaker 1 I didn't see the full video. I just saw a little clip.
I thought he was dead for a second, but for some strange reason couldn't stop laughing. Yeah.
I don't know. I was like, please wake up.

Speaker 1 There's something funny about it. I was like, his blood pressure is higher than mine.
I hope that didn't cook him. Yeah, that would be quite sad.

Speaker 1 It's so crazy. He's murdered somebody.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's probably the most

Speaker 1 just entertaining human being ever.

Speaker 1 He just says the crate, like

Speaker 1 off air.

Speaker 1 He's always on. It's like that's just

Speaker 1 he's always ready to say some wild shit. It's the craziest shit possible.
What's it like going to sleep? I somehow have never gone to sleep. I went to sleep one time.

Speaker 1 Lachlan Giles was demonstrating a technique on me, but I woke up straight away. But for 10 seconds, I didn't know who I was, where I was, what I was doing.
But that's it.

Speaker 1 That's the only time I went out. So inning.

Speaker 1 Didn't feel good, though. Some people say it feels good.
It did not feel good. Because you were like, what, Panicked? Lost? Yeah, I was just, I just didn't know what was going on.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then you loaded that in. That's a cool.
That must be a cool feeling to load it all back in, like, realize where am I. I feel like that sometimes at a hotel when I'm like traveling.

Speaker 1 It's like, where the fuck am I again? When you wake up? Maybe that's what it's like. Some people push it too far.
David Caradine. You know? What? What?

Speaker 1 I'm too dumb to get that joke.

Speaker 1 What erotic asphyxiation? Oh, good. Thank you.
Thank you. Now I know.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 given all the places you've gone, all the people you've seen recently, what gives you hope about this whole thing we got going on? About humanity, about this world?

Speaker 1 We start war sometimes. We do horrible things to each other sometimes.

Speaker 1 I missed all that. What gives you hope? That you can still make fun of anything, as long as it's funny.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm fighting for. People talk about cancer culture.
I just think the joke wasn't funny enough.

Speaker 1 Headpoint delivery.

Speaker 1 Well, thank you for being at the forefront of making fun of everything and anything. And thank you for talking today, brother.
Thank you, Brian.

Speaker 1 Thanks for listening to this conversation with Craig Jones. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now, let me leave you with some words from Anthony Bourdain.

Speaker 1 Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world, you change things slightly.
You leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life and travel leaves marks on you.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.