#221 Joe Pyfer - UFC 17-Sec KO Secrets, Meeting Mike Tyson and Terrifying Childhood Stories

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Joe Pfeiffer, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you so much.

Like a kid in a candy shop.

Well, I'm pumped about this.

I am pumped about this.

And,

you know,

you know what I'm really excited about for this is your, your upbringing.

And is, you know, as we were discussing downstairs, you know, I just, I didn't grow up like that.

And,

I mean,

I didn't have it easy, but I didn't grow up like that.

And, uh, and, you know, just like through this show, man, I, I had no idea how many people,

how many kids go through some type of abuse, whether it's physical abuse, sexual abuse, or verbal abuse.

And like, it's, it's, I picked up on that years ago when I first started this, how many kids go through shit like that.

And then to see people break generational curses and and and pull out of that I mean it's I'm not going to say it's unheard of but the majority of people never make it out you know and and so to bring somebody like you on you know it just

with everything that you've been through as a kid I mean it just brings so much hope to other children that are going through that and and it it it proves to them that there's a there's a way out of that so that's that's the biggest thing that i want to interview you about and and that

I just commend you for pulling through it.

And I know

this is going to bring a lot of hope to a lot of people, man.

So thank you for being here and

giving us a window into your life.

Of course, man.

I'm an open book with it.

And I think the best thing I can do is share the story so it can inspire kids that are voiceless.

and don't have a way to express or don't know how.

I can only speak on my journey and what I've done with my,

I guess, pain and struggle that I've turned it into, you know, something that I can be successful at and obviously go and provide a way for myself to live.

But yeah, I mean, it's,

I think it's wildly more popular than everybody thinks.

And mine's kind of average compared to the abuse cases, you know, so I'm just fortunate that I had good people around me.

And, you know, as we'll get into it,

yeah, I still have those same long life friendships and the same people right next to me.

So I'm excited to tell it and share it and,

you know, dive into it.

Good deal.

Good deal.

Well, everybody starts off with an introduction here.

So, oh, I know, I've lost.

Joe Pfeiffer, a UFC middleweight contender with a professional record of 14 and 3, UFC record of 5-1.

Secured a UFC contract after a knockout performance on Dana White's contender series after some significant setbacks.

Known for your knockout power and relentless drive, earning you three Performance of the Night bonuses, the subject of the acclaimed documentary, Journey to the UFC, directed by your longtime friend Chandler Henry, who won best feature-length documentary at the 2024 Garden State Film Festival.

You know,

and

got a couple other things to get through in the interview, but I read

somewhere that you reject the title or the label role model.

Yes.

And, you know, I just, I wanted to ask you

why you reject that label.

Because, and here's, here's why I'm asking.

Because, you know, just in our conversations downstairs and through the research of, you know,

of your life story for this interview, I mean,

in my opinion, that's what you are, man.

You are a phenomenal athlete.

And people look up to that.

And, you know, we just talked about your upbringing.

and i mean you dude you are a role model for kids you're a role model for everybody whether you like it or not but more specifically like what matters you know is is

what matters to me is there's just not that many athletes that people can look up to these days that are decent human beings do the right thing that have been through hard times and you're one of them man and uh so i just wanted to ask you you know why do you reject the title role model i think i reject the the title role model for uh a couple things and i think one of them is that i'm an imperfect person and i don't like to view myself as a role model i'm just a guy that is passionate about what he does and wants to reach the highest level and i want to find out what my limits are you know i have no idea if i'll be a world champion i have the belief i'll be a world champion

But I make mistakes, right?

I say some things that people don't like.

So I don't think I'm fit to deserve, I guess, the title of a role model.

And I'm not sure if any human is really fit to be a role model, but I definitely believe I can be an inspiration.

I hope I could be a little

ignite like a little fire in somebody's heart to go and try and whether it's fighting or whether it's soccer or something with school where you can go and try to reach the highest, the highest level.

So I think it just bothers me being a role model because I know I'm not the best person in the world, right?

But I don't steal from people.

I don't hurt people for no reason.

And I don't think that

I've ever gone out of my way to do so.

So I think an inspiration is the safest way for me to be because I think this world is very judgmental, obviously.

And

yeah, I don't know.

I just don't think that I'm worthy of being a role model.

I think my story is inspirational.

And

I think my career has been inspirational.

You know, just a little bit of stats that you read off as someone who's only 28 years old, who's only been in the UFC for two and a half years.

And

yeah.

And I think my story is inspirational, but I don't know if it's a role model type.

I don't know.

It is, you know, but being a role model, I mean, that is a

responsibility that nobody asks for.

Your fans are the ones that deem you the role model, not you.

And you carry yourself very well.

Say some things that, you know what I mean, that a lot of people, whatever, man, it's your beliefs.

And,

you know, we see so many people in society, in politics, in Hollywood, in sports, and fuck everywhere, you know, that are scared to speak their mind and say what's actually on their mind.

And that is

that's becoming lost on the American people.

So, I mean, I mean, I think, you know, from what I know about you and what I'm about to learn,

from what I know right now, you are a great person.

The one thing I will say as far as the role model, too, is I think the reason I say that is

if there's going to be a role model type,

yeah, it's very hard.

I guess the role model type would be like how I never quit.

Like that could be a role model type part, but as far as just being the person, but you know, there's, there's often when we talk about athletes as being role models, I don't think there is a lot of role models as athletes, as like what we're saying, but I think it's because everybody wants all the glory and then they forget who they are.

And they fall in love with this identity of I'm an athlete or I'm somebody famous or I'm a Sigger and then they start treating people less than them.

I treat everybody the same.

If you give me respect, I give you respect.

And if you treat me like shit, I treat you like shit.

But I'm not going to go out of my way to be spiteful or anything like that.

So, but

I do have that other side of me.

We all do, don't you?

We do have that other side of me.

Yeah.

So, yeah, you know, I'm not a perfect person, and that's why I say about the role models, because I will fuck up.

And,

you know, I will say things that people don't like that can be controversial.

I've had that recently in my career.

I got some funny names, Poopy Pants Pfeiffer, Salty Joe Piffer, you know, all kinds of stuff.

So, yeah, Mexico did me dirty, man.

So, but yeah, no, it's, it's, you know, but I do think that my story is inspirational.

And I think the part, if you want to take anything and list that as a role model, you know, I would say the friendships that I have is the best thing to mimic, which is putting good people around you that, you know, aren't yes men, that don't kiss your ass just because of success or just because of spotlight and actually care about you as a human being aside from your performances, especially in this sport.

So, yeah.

Man, kudos to you for figuring that out at age 28.

Yeah.

That's that is

a hard lesson to learn.

It is.

It is.

And it doesn't come easy.

It's you really got to search for it.

You really have to ask questions and you really have to have good people around you to find it.

Otherwise, you get all this fame or success.

Not that I have fame or success, but I would say I'm successful in my journey for my goals.

And I still have goals that go deeper than just a gold belt.

They're more on a human level of being a good person and having good people in my life and achieving

success with just a wealth of family around me that I didn't get to have growing up.

So

super excited for that.

And I think the future holds a lot of cool things for me.

I'm sure exactly.

Hopefully I find out soon.

Well, hey, I don't know what the future holds for you, but I I do know in the near future.

So I got you a couple gifts here.

Oh, yeah.

One.

Oh, yeah.

Probably the only reason you came out here.

Get this for a year.

So I got to know, are these like some special gummy bears or are these just Sean Rhines gummy bears?

They're just gummy bears, man.

There's nothing.

They're legal in all 50 states.

So if that tells you anything,

it's just candy.

At least right now, they'll probably become illegal with the red dye shit.

It's all right.

I'll die for these just once.

Right up.

And I got you another gift, you know, finding out that you're a gun guy down there.

I got a buddy over at Sig Sour.

His name's Jason.

I told him you were coming on.

He wanted to

present you with

a little something there.

All right.

Let's see.

Let's go.

Thank you.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Oh, this is a big boy.

Yeah.

So down there, you know, you were talking about, I'm sure we'll dive into it a little bit, but you had mentioned that, you know, if things didn't work out

in the fighting world, that you thought about joining the military.

Yeah.

And

so that is a Sig Sauer P226.

I've never even heard of this.

Dude.

But this thing is hefty.

That is.

Now this I'm going to shoot.

That is the Primo.

So when I joined the SEAL teams, the sidearm, the secondary that we carried was a Sig Sauer P226.

Wow.

And so they revamped it.

That's the the Legion model.

Go ahead, pull that trigger band.

This is a 9mm?

That's a 9mm.

Oh, that's smooth.

You got to rack it.

Still feels smooth, though.

Yeah.

I mean, that's like nothing.

Wow.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Thank you so much.

I didn't expect this.

Damn.

Surprise.

I love it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Man, fantastic.

I love it.

Thank you so much.

You're going to have to help me figure out how I'm getting it back.

Oh, we got you covered.

All right.

We got you covered.

Awesome.

That's amazing.

Thank you so much.

You're welcome.

That's a great piece, man.

Another one to the collection.

There you go.

31.

Special one.

Special one.

And then I have a Patreon account.

Patreon account, subscription account.

We've turned it into one hell of a community.

I think we have almost 100,000 people in there now.

And so one of the things that I do is I offer the community the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question.

So this is from Eric Auger.

Joe, you've shared how Dana White not only gave you a UFC contract, but also covered your rent after a tough moment.

What gave you the courage to be so open about your situation back then?

And how did your life shift the moment you left that meeting?

Yeah, I would say

I think it starts way before

me being open about, you know, my situation.

I used to be super shy

and super reserved and

you know then one time

Sam Orpisa who was probably one of the most monumental people aside from Will Harmon who you'll learn you know took me in was a high school wrestling coach but Sam Orpisa I'd known since I was 10 years old and he told me when somebody tells you to eat or offers you food you take it you eat

and it always stuck with me it was just it was something really small but it was like if you don't take the opportunities given to you,

then you miss them.

And just not being shy to ask for something.

You know, the worst that you can be told, the worst thing you can be told is no, and you don't get what you want.

So, you know, I didn't tell him that story or situation for the sake of pity.

It was just, hey, look, I let him know I just fought and I'm about to be homeless on Friday.

I have no idea where I'm going to live because the house that I was living in

was sold.

So

I'd fought on Tuesday.

That's when Dana Wade's Contender Series is, and I would have flown home Wednesday, Thursday, I would have had to move out and Friday was, that was it.

I had nowhere to go.

So he had fronted me some money that got me a condo.

It worked out where my strength conditioning coach,

his landlord, he lived in the same condo complex.

And she had had one that just literally got like vacated.

She had just let go of tenants and it wasn't even up on the market yet.

And I told her I would pay her cash from what he had given me and that paid for my whole year upfront rent damn um but how it changed it was just you know it

uh like dana white's gotten a lot of flack you know essentially

people think that he's a heartless guy and i don't think that he is and he's been super generous with me and super nice to me and uh it's been nothing but good business um so it was nice to know that someone of his caliper you know who's apparently you know a lot of people talk about him in a way where it's like they don't care about their fighters and you're just a number.

And to a certain extent, you know, if you're not bringing the company money, I understand why it's like that.

If it don't make money, it don't make sense.

It's a business at the end of the day.

But it was very nice to see his heart and his genuine care for my well-being and made sure that he took care of me and gave me, I mean, essentially that allowed me to take the next fight the month later.

So it was very special.

And then on top of the B.

Joe Piper moment and everything, it was nice that I had that kind of impact on the president of the UFC.

So from a guy that I've been watching since I was five years old.

So yeah, it was it was a huge moment, but it just brought back humanity to

my life at the highest level with like somebody of that status.

So it was probably the most famous guy I've ever been in front of at that time.

Man, that's cool.

Yeah, so it was really cool.

Life-changing.

It literally was life-changing.

So I don't know how my

career would have been, you know, sleeping on somebody's couch and trying to train full-time.

And yeah, it was a rough situation, but you know he made it that much better and made it that much easier so how long ago was that uh two and a half years ago two and a half years i've been in the ufc two and a half years uh i had that fight in i think 2022 so a beginning of middle of 2022 so it's been about two and a half years right odd yeah what a guy that's cool it was pretty cool and then a lot of people were talking on him recently about the the the ben askren thing with the lung transplant uh he had a double lung transplant that he needed to get and uh people were like oh he didn't help but But, you know, then he came out and the post,

actually, this after this weekend, this Nashville card, he said that he had given money to Ben Askran to help him with his transplant.

So it's super cool.

You know, those are things that go beyond fighting and business.

And, you know, it's nice to see that he gives back and actually cares about people.

Is there like a

what's the community like, the UFC community?

As a whole,

behind the scenes, I mean, does everybody lift each other up?

I will say,

not really, man.

Not really.

So it depends.

Like, the fans are ruthless, man.

They either love you or they fucking hate you.

But, you know, as far as the fighters between each other, they're really respectful for the most part.

Like, I've never had an issue.

But then, you know, there's the guys that just have bad blood, beef, like guys like Khabid, Nate Diaz, Jones, DC, things like that.

They genuinely hate each other.

Cody Garbrandt, TJ Dillishal, those rivalries.

And so, yeah, it's a hit or miss.

But I I would say for the most part, fighters amongst each other are very respectful.

Ultimately, this is our job and we're competitors.

So I would say it's pretty respectful.

But as far as the fan base, man, it is a ruthless business.

I'll bet it is.

You will always be a fucking loser if they hate you and they will let you know for years.

I mean, I have a fan that's been dedicated to telling me that I'm a loser for like the past year and a half and I save all this shit.

I think it's hilarious, but yeah, so it's 50-50 for sure.

How hyped up is it?

As far as what part?

Theatrics.

None.

None?

There is no scripted.

There is no fake anything.

That's

all the other organizations aside from UFC.

UFC is the most important thing.

Let me rephrase that.

Let me rephrase that.

I don't mean like theatrics in the ring.

I don't mean any of that stuff.

No, I'm talking about press conferences.

No shit.

That's all real.

All real.

All real.

Yeah.

You don't get any type of...

The only thing we're told is don't touch each other.

That's it.

Everything else is real.

So whether the fighters between each other sometimes are cool and they'll say, hey, let's hype this up.

Let's talk some shit so that way we can get people interested.

You know, that's a private conversation.

But

yeah, no, none of it's fake.

Bright on.

Yeah.

Bright on.

I thought for sure some of the drama going on behind the scenes was maybe encouraged.

John Jones and DC truly hated each other.

And they still, if you've ever, you know, filed it, they still hate each other, I think.

So there's a little bit of respect there.

Like DC will give him his respect, but they still don't like each other as people.

Interesting.

Yeah, and they've already competed twice.

And so, yeah, no, none of it's fake.

Who's your arch nemesis?

Fucking Paul Craig.

Really?

Yeah, I don't like that dude.

I don't know.

I just, he didn't even do anything to me.

I just don't like him.

I don't like him.

I just don't like the one.

I don't like him, man, because you know, I had a fight last year, and I fought this guy, Mark Andre Barriott, who I did like after the fact, but

I called him out.

He said he accepted.

He was a 205er.

And I wanted to fight because he had beat the current champion, Magamed Ankalaev.

You know, he just got lucky, I think, for sure.

But, you know, he's a 205er.

I don't like his theatrics of putting on his face paint and getting in people's face and doing the mean mug and everything like that, but then fights like a bitch, in my opinion.

He lays on his back.

He's a back princess.

So I don't,

yeah, I don't know.

I don't like the guy.

And then I went into Gregrandpa against him in a a jiu-jitsu tournament and he put his name there then when they offered my name to him he disappeared so it's just you know i tried to beg the matchmaker to give me that fight it wouldn't happen and i'm like you know any fight that i've asked for i really haven't gotten which is kind of frustrating so

it is what you ask for fights is that is that i'll give them yeah i'll give them suggestions look the ufc basically is like they offer you a fight you take it if you don't they'll bench you um so it is what it is um you know you're really not in the business of picking your fights which is fine

You got to fight who they tell you to fight.

What happens if two people want to fight each other?

Does it go farther?

Not all the time.

Not all the time.

Like I said, me and Paul Craig, he said he accepted after I called him out, after I won my fight.

And then, you know, it never happened, and it was kind of just lost in the air.

So I was pretty disappointed with that.

When I first made my debut and I'd won my fight, I wanted to fight the guy I broke my elbow against.

He was already in the UFC.

He got a contract off of me breaking my arm.

And I felt some type of way about that because I didn't think he deserved it.

It wasn't like he made me tap.

It wasn't like he was whooping my ass.

It wasn't like he submitted me or knocked me out.

So I was like, how does this guy get a contract?

And then he went on.

He was like one and three in his first four or something like that or two and four in his first five or six.

And

yeah, they wouldn't give it to me.

I actually talked to Dana White personally and was begging him for the fight because I wanted to get him back.

Just because, you know, I got some pretty bad scarring from it and I wanted to hurt that motherfucker.

So damn Unfortunately, I've had to put it in the rearview mirror.

I think I'm so far ahead of him ahead of him that I'm never gonna get that fight back

It is what it is, but yeah, I fucking hate Paul Craig.

I think he's a bitch

Right on man.

Well, let's move into your life story you ready?

Yeah, where'd you grow up?

So I was born in Violin, New Jersey

Small town.

I lived in Pittsgrove from the time of four years old until 15.

And I'm one of five kids.

I got four sisters, two older, two younger, and we're all blood related.

And my parents were married for about 20 years before they got divorced.

And

yeah, so

grew up in Pitts Grove.

It was more of like a farmland type deal.

And

I loved nature, things like that.

I was a pretty quiet, timid kid.

My father started learning jiu-jitsu and MMA with a guy named Stephen Haig at

probably around when I was about four years old.

And then about four and a half years old, my dad started forcing, you know, and I don't want to say it in a bad way, but introducing me into Jiu-Jitsu and MMA.

And then that's when I started training.

And I wound up having my first jujitsu tournament at five years old.

You started at four years old.

Four and a half, yeah.

Four and a half.

And then I started competing right before I was six at five years old.

My first competition, I think, was August 3rd or August 4th of 2003.

And I was born in 1996.

So I would have been turning six that year.

Wow.

I've started my kid at three.

You started him at three?

Yeah, man.

Even better.

I wrestled.

I wasn't any good, but I wrestled.

And I remember in high school, I'd be like,

they would come around.

Oh, this guy started at five.

And I'd be like, oh, fuck.

Here we go.

Yeah, I will say I think wrestling is the greatest foundation even over jiu-jitsu.

I think wrestling, if you're going to go in combative sports, obviously, I think wrestling is the greatest.

I would also venture to say it's better than jiu-jitsu, even if you aren't going to be in the UFC, because it's still a team sport, but it's an individual score.

So the performance is about you, but you're obviously still working with your teammates and you still have discipline, you know, weight class.

You're still trying to compete to be on the varsity team, things like that.

And it just really teaches you to work as a unit, whereas jujitsu is a little bit more selfish.

And I think for kids, it's good to work as a team versus working individually and you constantly having all the attention, you know, so because then you think it's always about you.

So I know what wrestling did for me, and I started late.

And

I think I would be even more dangerous had I learned wrestling a little bit earlier than I learned jiu-jitsu.

So I think wrestling is great.

Teaches kids discipline, commitment,

diet, health.

How to lose.

How to lose.

Yeah.

They don't let you freak out.

If you freak out, you lose the team points.

So, and you can get sat out yeah so i would definitely say that that's a greatest foundation

you know i going through your

all the information that i've looked at on you i mean it's it's

i read that your first memories you think are a one-year-old no my first memories are about five years old five years old from what i was told my first memories that were bad is that and I was told this by my mother who has pictures that I started getting beat at a year old.

You started getting beat at a year old.

Yeah.

So the story behind that, and that's when the abuse starts, was from my father who,

I guess, beat me because I shit my diaper and wiped it on the wall.

But that was because I was left unattended in the crib or I was going to say crate, but I don't think that's the right word.

So I think it was a crib and my mom.

you know, I'd come home and there was bruises all over me around the top of my head,

down my spine.

And it was very frequent that it would happen so she was initially going to call um i'm pretty sure she called the cops on him for some reason i don't know if it was that but then she had wind up calling the cops on him um

for some abuse at some point but yeah i started getting beat at a year old

so

yeah

and um

We had had child services in and out of our life all throughout my childhood.

But yeah, so my earliest

My earliest remembrance of getting beat was, you know, I would say say five years old, pretty clearly.

I don't really remember anything before five years old.

I don't know if that's normal or not, but that's that's basically when I remember it.

And it was because of jiu-jitsu.

So that's my earliest memories is getting beat over jiu-jitsu, whether I couldn't learn to move fast enough or comprehend or something of that manner.

So, yeah.

How were your siblings?

Your sisters?

So I have a sister that was born in 94, a sister that was born in 95.

I'm 96.

My younger sister is 98 and then my other sister is in 2000 so um sarah being the oldest i don't she was february 16th of 98 or i'm sorry 94 so i don't know if she's 30 now we don't talk

you don't talk no we don't talk um just because you know there's there's

That's later on, but yeah, we don't talk.

We don't see eye to eye.

She's still going through, I think, a domestic, a domestic violent relationship.

And I don't want to be a part of that.

And she has kids.

And, you know, they kind of cut me off because I whooped one of my sister's boyfriends' asses at one point.

And,

you know, when they stopped talking to me over that, and then they were upset that I wasn't able to be in their children's lives as much as they'd liked, or they said I didn't have an interest.

And it's just kind of like, you know, do I want to have people in my life that don't want to move past the past?

Or do I want to have people in my life that are trying to, you know, hit new goals and actually achieve,

greatness.

I don't want to live in the past all the time.

So

they're kind of still stuck on the past and I'm not with that.

Why did you whoop your sister's boyfriend's ass?

Because I found out he was a meth head and he told me I was an amen on top of it.

He called me a pussy.

So I had to show him what was up.

Didn't like him anyway.

Guy was a pathological liar.

Cheated on my sister.

Now he's dragging her through a really ugly court case, which, you know, I'm not involved in or anything.

But, you know, that's just my outsider's view on him.

And, you know, he's trying to take her kids away from her type deal.

And

I think she's a great mother.

And so, yeah.

It doesn't take much to piss me off, especially if you're a scumbag like he is.

So, yeah, I don't respect men that get women pregnant, especially my sister, and then are out there doing drugs.

I don't care what low point I'm at in my life.

I would never do drugs.

I've never done drugs.

And

I sure shit wouldn't do it if I was about to have the greatest responsibility in the world, which was fathering a child.

So,

yeah, I had no respect for him for it.

So

how long ago was that?

This was two weeks before I broke my elbow in the contender, my first contender fight.

So,

yeah.

But unfortunately, my family has been so damaged

by the way that we were brought up.

And,

you know, there's really no loyalty between our family or there was none.

You know, I still, I talk to my mother now and I talk to that sister that I didn't talk to, whose boyfriend I beat up.

Me and her still talk now.

I talk to my youngest sister.

I've seen my second oldest sister, but I haven't seen my oldest sister in probably six, seven years.

Shit, man.

Six years, maybe, something like that.

Does that bother you?

Oh, of course.

It bothers me.

You know, but I think the, of course it's going to bother me.

You know, I don't think that they're bad people it's just it's really tough

to go around a family that you you know is

it's just all broken up and they're all they're all up they've all had issues um and i think a part of it is my father never taking accountability and just kind of damaging their life and then going and living his own life you know so

um avoidant of all abuse of all accusations and um

so yeah yeah it definitely bothers me i want to see them do well even if we didn't talk, I want to see them do well.

And I think that's what bothers me the most is my family's always split.

They're never, you'll never go to a holiday and everybody's getting along.

It's, well, you're talking to this sister.

Well, you're a traitor.

Oh, I tried and you're a traitor.

They all look at each other as enemies because they don't understand the value of family.

Damn.

And I think that's the part that's the most damaging about it all is that he really disrupted, you know, he really, I think, damaged their insight as to family having their back.

You know, it was boys versus girls.

It was me and him versus my mom and my sisters.

And that was just a dynamic that we grew up in.

And you're ratting each other out.

Or if you ever heard something that was super, you know, bothered somebody and you had been told, like, hey, yeah, you know, I feel this way or I'm depressed about this.

The second you had an argument, you throw it in their face.

So you never had trust between your siblings and you never had trust in your parents.

So,

yeah, man, we were all victims of this guy's abuse.

And

it was like we were little slaves to him.

Damn.

Let's dive in a little bit more deep.

What kind of stuff, let's talk about some positive stuff.

If there is any, what were you into as a kid?

Yeah, no, there's some positive things.

I would say one of my favorite singers, first memory I ever had that I actually remember from five years old is Celine Dehant.

Yeah.

I'm freezing, by the way.

Are you?

I'm chattering.

There we go.

I've been here a little bit.

She.

But yeah,

first song I ever remember hearing was I'm Alive by Celine Dion.

It was one of my favorites.

And

yeah, there were some good things.

You know, I'd gone fishing with my grandfather a couple times, who I only met a couple times.

And that was a really good memory for me.

I used to love it.

He would always play Celine Dion, so it was like a monumental point in my life.

And I thought A lot of her music got me through some really lonely times in life, especially being young.

It was always uplifting, always liked it.

You know, it sounds funny, but I loved it.

So that was a good memory.

And even, you know, I had some really good memories with my pops with some of the jiu-jitsu, especially when I won.

You know, he seemed to be very proud early on.

But that was very short-lived.

It was probably for about two tournaments that I can remember.

It was the first one.

First one and then probably in 2007 one of the Grand Plus quests that I had won he was very happy happy

so my first and then that was probably the last time that I ever felt like he was happy or proud of me

what are there some good times we went to the beach a few times me and him would go play video games at the arcade I was always into video games I was homeschooled so I grew up homeschooled from you know the time I started school until about eighth grade then that's when I was in school all the way up until I graduated I had a short stint where I was in public school from about five years old, started getting bullied, got pulled out.

And then eighth grade, obviously, until graduation, I was in public school.

You were getting bullied at five years old.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, well, just because we had hand-me-down clothes, we were the poorest, probably one of the poorest families that were going there.

So they'd make fun of my clothes or make fun of my hair or,

yeah, I don't remember.

Kids, I just remember getting into it with a kid in the locker room where they were going to jump me.

And, you know, a kid was like telling me some vulgar things like, oh, you can suck on these balls, all this shit.

Like, and you're talking about kids that are in fifth grade you know and i wasn't used to that i wasn't a fighter i trained but i didn't have a mean bone in my body it wasn't i was kind of a bitch honestly so um it just wasn't how i was raised uh my mom tried to stop me from doing jiu-jitsu didn't want me to have a mean demeanor and things like that um she didn't want my growth to get stunted because like When we trained, we trained hard.

It wasn't like a little like kid, like, hey, yeah, you know, good job type thing.

It was, what are you fucking retarded?

You can't get it.

getting slapped getting hit um getting screamed at the entire time you know crying and still trying to learn you know you can't put a kid in a stressful situation like that and uh

yeah you always felt like i always i grew up thinking that there was something wrong with me so just because i always thought i had like a learning disability or maybe i was fucking retarded like i don't i didn't i had no idea what it was so who would slap you around My father, my father.

So, you know, if you could learn something and he was trying to teach you, he would get very frustrated and scream at you, including my sisters.

You know, it wasn't just me.

My sisters all learned jiu-jitsu too.

My older sister used to be a pretty, she was a young Ronda Razzie.

Probably would have whipped her ass if she stuck with it.

But,

you know, then you start hitting puberty, you become a woman, and

it's just not what they're into.

So

it becomes uncomfortable for them, and they didn't want to do it.

And he basically disowned them over it and hated their guts.

But yeah, some back to the good memories, you know, we'd gone to the beach a couple of times and we always cherished those moments.

You know, we're kids, so it wasn't really hard to win us over with good times.

My mom did her absolute best.

And,

you know, even though I feel like she was an absent mother as far as love with me because of my father and just the dynamic of our family, I will always respect her work ethic with holding two and three jobs with a husband that refused to work.

He didn't work.

So he was a little truck driver and he got hit in an accident.

He got T-boned and

apparently blew his back out or

you know had a herniation I'm not sure what the details were of that but basically had a back injury and then went and got surgery in 2004 and collected SSD ever since and never worked a job he would try some modern end jobs like he did really cool woodwork like scroll saw work like portraits

but they never really made any money

And then he had an outdoor repair business with outboard motors.

So I would help him with that.

I was basically his tollboy,

which I loved.

you know i used to love i love cars i always love cars i always love loud shit and um

i always enjoyed being by the beach i always love boats i always loved fishing so that was a cool outlet even though it was miserable because you're getting screamed at the whole time you know getting the wrong tool shit like that but uh you know it was good for me it was really good for me so you know he tried to do an income as far as that but never used it to help the family never used it to buy the family shit it was just always for himself and it was never enough money to ever even do anything for the family anyway.

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all right so we were talking about we were talking about good things

good things yeah another good memory was obviously you know went in a couple of tournaments like I had said but those were good memories

video games were good memories to a certain extent but everything that was good wind up becoming super abusive so really yeah everything started out good and my dad had great qualities he really did

but

he let whatever demons that he has take over.

And

things really, really, really went.

I mean, he always had a temper, always.

But things really went bad after the surgery.

I think he started to lose his mind a little bit because of narcotics.

And I never really realized that until a couple of years ago, though.

But, you know, he was always on Gabapentin, Xanax, Perks, Oxies.

What's the other one?

I don't remember, but, you know, and he would always drink a yangling or two yanglings with it, you know.

And

that shit makes you very thin-tempered.

What do you mean started out good?

I mean, we just talked about at age one.

Yeah, I think when I say started out good, it's like

first tournament.

Super proud, super happy.

I won.

I submitted everybody.

Five years old.

Great memory, you know, one of my greatest memories in competition.

It's what started everything.

It's what I love.

I remember that, yeah, very well.

I'm pretty sure I leg locked a kid, and I armbarred a kid, and I think I leg locked another kid.

Or maybe I think I armbar, guillotine, and leg lock.

So it was a very good memory for me.

I got to see Ken Shamrock down there, which was one of my favorite fighters as I was young.

It was one of the first people I remember watching, him and his brother Frank Shamrock, who was pancreation.

And,

you know, he was proud.

And same thing with like video games.

It used to be be fun.

And then it got really bad.

I got one of the worst beatings of my life over a video game in the end.

Why?

For a fucking video game?

Because I was fucking good at video games and I was co-op playing with him and I was stealing his kills.

Sounds so fucking stupid.

Sounds so stupid, brother, but sorry, I'm fucking nice at video games.

You remember that?

Yeah.

Oh, of course.

Well, that last beating was, I was

15, 16.

I was 15 going on 16.

And it was right before, it was one of the last beatings I got before I ran away.

So started out good, ended bad.

Competition started out good.

And then if my dad's the kind of guy where if he's not in absolute control and he's not in the spotlight and I don't give all glory to him, you're dead to him.

So that's how it changed.

You know, the first competition, he was just happy.

And I think he had good intentions.

And I will always be grateful for his introduction into the sport.

It's how, you know, what it is.

It's how I've gone to, you know, do what I've done

because of his introduction.

But I will, I will say this, he gave me tools he never thought I would go and build a house with.

So

he gave me the tools and that's it.

And then other people gave me the blueprint and I've gone and built the house.

So that's the best way to look at this story.

And

yeah, you know, like I said, competition used to be good and turned bad.

Yeah.

When you say your first memory is getting your ass kicked by your dad, I mean, could you be descriptive?

What was that about?

I remember

we were wrestling in the living room.

It's also the memory of when I first remember hearing Celine Dion.

And he had a stereo and we were wrestling.

And I guess I choked him a little too hard at five years old.

Five years old?

At five years old.

He basically let me take his back and I put a choke on him and I remember squeezing it too hard.

I guess for his liking at five years old and he wound up flipping me over and slamming me right on my head basically like a ddt the way i landed straight up on my head and then he kicked me and that was the first beating into uh

into jiu-jitsu that i remember so uh i've been slapped a ton of times numerous times brother more than i could count um over learning you know over learning something slow

I used to get beat if I took too long with our homeschool curriculum just to do a phonics page, which was English for homeschool curriculum.

I mean, he would beat you with, he would beat your ass bad, you know, split your skin bad.

So

sisters got the same type of abuse, but I've been hit with a jump rope by him, which was probably the worst.

I've been hit with the metal end of a fly swatter.

I've been hit with spoons.

Yeah, I've been hit with a lot.

So, yeah.

And it was almost like he took pleasure.

That's the one thing that bothers me about that dude is he took pleasure in it.

The louder you screamed, it was almost like it fed the rage that he had.

Like almost if you've, like, which kind of like what I have with fighting, fighting, if I hit somebody and I'll knock them out, I'm going to keep hitting them.

It's like that.

It's like that.

It's like fuel to the fire.

I don't know.

It's a very weird,

very weird thing.

I think he thought like he was the man by doing it.

And yeah, it was a little bit disturbing because it's almost like he wanted an excuse to hit us or punish us.

We used to get put in the corner.

And I'm talking about all of us, not just me.

I got it double time because I was the boy.

But, I mean, our punishments would be standing in the corner too, but we'd be standing in the fucking corner for three plus hours.

So, yeah.

Damn.

So that was my first memory of getting beat

that I remember.

Let's walk through like a daily routine in your life as a kid.

Wake up, make myself eggs.

He would wake me up at like 7 a.m., which, you know, isn't crazy.

Sometimes 6 a.m.

And I would go outside and we'd had like a cinder block and he'd make me push it, sprint to it, throw it, sprint to it.

We had had like tops to outboard motors.

There were the capsules on outboard motors.

And we'd have like three or four of them because he had a couple boats there that he was working on.

And we'd set them up like hurdles.

So I'd run, jump over, jump over, jump over.

Then we would do sprints.

We just did a lot of like natural body weight workouts.

And then we would play video games or I would have to do some type of homeschool.

But at that time, my mom wasn't working three jobs.

So she was the one teaching us in the early half before he became disabled and um

yeah so we we would do that but then we would play video games we had a playstation one i've always been a playstation kid and you know i loved video games always loved video games it was like a little escape from reality for me and just like constant seriousness so um

and yeah that was it was probably video games and training that was most of my that was most of my life and sometimes we go to the shore um with like 20 bucks and just like that's all we had and we would fucking play arcade games so i used to those were the good memories you know and um

they didn't last very long when would he start beating did you notice any routine was it drinking was it drugs was it the same time every day was it no it wasn't the same time it it was it was very frequent i probably got beat a minimum of five times a week

um but you know it usually was over jujitsu So I started to resent jiu-jitsu and hate it.

And I just wanted to play with toys and I wasn't really allowed.

um and if i did play with toys he would come in my room and like kick all i've been spent like hours building lincoln logs and he would just come in and took pleasure in making me cry and would like fucking smash all like kick it all over my room just literally i'd be sitting there peaceful playing and he would come up the stairs and walk in and just kick all my shit over and then i would cry and he'd uh call me a pussy and walk out and um stop crying like a pussy or fucking toys and then just leave that's like five years old you know it hurts your feelings you don't understand it you don't know how to process it, and it's not that bad, right?

But I mean, it's still like, why?

So he would do a lot of things that just didn't make sense.

Um,

countless beatings over the jiu-jitsu, uh, you know, including my sister, screaming at them, smacking them, pulling them by the hair, um, throwing them.

Like, if he got so frustrated, he would grab you by your hair and fucking throw you face down and then tell you to go to your room and leave you in your room for days,

hours, and I mean hours, like eight to ten hours was a minimum was punishment by him.

So I used to be so afraid to leave my room after getting punished, I would piss out the window.

Because if I even tried to go to the bathroom to go get a sip, yeah, I got beat the fuck out of for it.

So I would piss out my window.

So

fucking terrified.

And I pissed myself until I was about 12 years old.

Wake up from nightmares and shit like that.

So I think, I think all the beatings and the

I don't know if it's

I don't know how the mind works, but I just think from all the like trauma of like shock of how bad you would get beat, I think just like led to like really bad nightmares, like devils chasing me and shit like that.

So I had a lot of

bad nightmares seeing like

I don't know if they were demons on the wall or whatever the fuck it was that I was thinking I was seeing.

Obviously it was not real, but yeah, I used to be in a really scared, dark place as a kid.

So.

Damn, man.

Yeah.

What was the, I mean, what would the conversation be between you and your siblings?

We were, we wouldn't really like have a conversation other than that we would say we fucking hated them and that we were afraid of him.

You know, we all used to say the same story so we wouldn't get in trouble.

There's one instance I think, so I lied about turning on an electric heater.

We always, we were so poor.

We got government assistance almost all my life.

And,

you know, after my dad had became disabled, like it was even harder, you know?

And

then my mom was never there to protect us from him because she was working.

So that was when shit became scary because it's like, what are we going to do?

Like, how are we going to fucking avoid this guy?

We couldn't even take a fucking spelling bee.

So you would have 20 words.

This is part of homeschool curriculum.

And you would write the 20 words on a, you know, line piece of paper.

And then you had in your homeschool book, you would, you know, spell the word.

You would write the word.

He'll read you the word and then you have to write the word.

It was part of spelling.

I mean, asking this guy just to take a fucking spelling bee was one of the scariest fucking build-up moment of courage parts of your life because the guy was so fucking aggressive.

What the fuck are you bothering me for?

Get the fuck out of here.

You don't you see I'm fucking doing something, but get the fuck out of my face.

So, like, we were afraid to learn.

But our mom's at work, so how the fuck are we supposed to learn?

And, you know, he would just sit there on his computer and fucking watch fight videos all day and

talk to his friends and play video games or fucking,

yeah.

So it was a little bit scary.

Did you guys stand up for each other at all?

So unfortunately,

no.

But

yeah, so no, it was really like the girls really tag teamed me a lot.

So I used to hate their guts because anytime there was a beating that was about to get served, they would all rat me out or all blame me just because it was easy.

And they didn't know any better.

you know it was just kind of what they were taught it's what we were taught

and um

you know i was the boy so i could handle it but uh yeah i mean my sisters used to be little little mean people at one time you know i'll get my ass beat and they'd walk by and smile at me and think it was funny and i'm sitting there crying and you know screaming or whatever And he used to do the most humiliating shit where you'd have to pull your pants down.

They're all sitting in the living room and you'd make them all sit in the living room and then fucking beat your ass bare naked in front of all of them, which is very humiliating.

You know, you got four fucking sisters.

I'm pulling my ass out in front of them just so you can beat me.

And he would beat you till you cried, until you screamed.

And that's how you would get split skin and shit like that.

I'd hit you bare ass.

Over the dumbest shit, man.

Over the dumbest shit.

I couldn't even tell you like necessarily too many specific ones of like why he would do it, but you know, it's not like we cursed.

We were a Christian family.

We went to church every Sunday, so we didn't curse.

We didn't use foul language.

But yeah, so it was, it was a little bit,

you definitely hold some resentment and anger for a guy after that.

But as a child, you have unconditional love for your parents.

You know, that was, he, I thought he was some great fighter.

You know, he came from Kensington, Philadelphia.

He had an abusive life.

He had fucked up parents.

I can't speak on his life other than that.

I don't know what's true, what's not true.

But

yeah, it was it was a very disappointing thing to have

as I got older the beatings get worse and the betrayal get worse.

He grew up like that.

He grew up like that.

He definitely had a harder life than me.

I don't know what's true and what's not, though, because of all the lies.

I think he's the type of guy who tells himself something.

Well, he's definitely the type of guy that tells him something until he believes it and then claims it as truth.

And that's just a little bit...

I don't know if that's a little bit narcissist or psychopath or whatever it is.

I'm not a psychologist, but

yeah, man.

he's told some wild stories that literally are not true that I'll give you an example with.

But the one, the one example I wanted to give you is that we had no heat.

So we lived in a farmhouse that you had to use oil for heat and we couldn't afford it.

It was a couple hundred bucks.

I think it was like 450 bucks every time you would fill it.

It would last like a month and a half, two months, and we couldn't afford it.

And it was winter and I went down in the morning.

I think I'm like six years old.

And I turned on the heater and I was sitting by the heater.

and the electric heater takes a long time to heat up and i was sitting by the heater forgot to turn it off

so i had it on low you know but regardless you know he tried to pull oh you could have burnt the house down blah blah blah blah so he lied this all up and he was like i'm gonna beat every one of you until one of you tells me the truth and i did a fucked up thing i blamed my sister i was scared I knew he would beat me the worst.

I knew he wouldn't beat them as bad as he beat me.

So I blamed my sister and

she got beat.

And I felt like a piece of shit.

And so after I felt guilty,

I told him that I did it and he beat me anyway.

So it was kind of like, what's the point in telling the truth if I'm going to get fucked up anyway?

But I understand, you know, at the same time, I understand you can't lie.

Or I shouldn't have lied.

And I let my sister get beat for something that I did.

And that was one thing he always held on to

try to say that I was a piece of shit kid at six years old and never let me live it down.

And my sister hated me for it and um so that caused like a little bit of tension between me and my second older sister and it is what it is but you know it was cold and uh it sucked but i mean he beat the shit out of her pretty bad and it was yeah still feel some type of way about it felt terrible so

that was one situation um with the girls but there's many um he's grabbed my older sister by her neck literally off her feet and slammed her head into we had horse hair drywall i guess um because it was a farmhouse.

And he's literally put her whole head through the fucking

wall.

He strangled them, ripped their hair, stomped them.

Same thing as me.

Strangled my mother, hit my mother in front of us numerous times.

I'm surprised he never went to jail.

He did get locked up once,

but I don't remember.

He was too young to remember what the charge was for, whether it was domestic violence or whatnot.

So, why would he be your mom?

Arguments couldn't win an argument, or the argument went on too long.

One instance was

my mom comes in, wasn't even confrontational, and she has her cereal and she sits on the couch and she goes, since when do you watch hockey?

He gave her the death stare, made no sense, gets up, walks over, and literally grabs her by her throat.

And she's holding her bowl of cereal out so she doesn't spill it on the couch.

She doesn't like making a mess.

So he grabs her by her neck and she's just waiting there and you see her turning purple.

She's turning purple, turning purple.

And he's like holding her still and then all of us kids start screaming and freaking out until she finally has to drop her bowl of cereal and start fighting him she starts to fight him and he drops her with a body shot we thought he killed her i mean florida and all of us kids started like trying to pull him off and she's laying there like like you know like winded winded and um

yeah we all hated him for it so that was one instance um he picked up a hammer um

he had punched her a bunch of times in front of us slapped her a bunch of times in front of us.

Yeah, he was just a violent dude, man.

And I don't think

there was a huge mood change.

Like, you know, I feel like he was a little bit resentful, not remorseful before 2004, but after that, I mean, once he was on narcotics every day, I mean, he was dependent on these things.

Like, he couldn't go without.

But the crazy thing is, when he got the surgery, they finished his surgery.

He had a fusion, so they put like a titanium cage in his back.

And

it's just the wildest thing because they finished his surgery in double the time that it takes to do that surgery.

I think it was like four hours and they finished in two because he was an in-shape guy.

So

I learned this from my mom because I was still a little bit too young to comprehend all of it.

But, you know.

He has a successful surgery and then he starts claiming that he has all this pain and all this shit.

And he goes in and he's trying to sue the guy and saying that the guy ruined his life and all this this crap.

But when they did MRIs and they did x-rays and they were doing it, there was no inflammation.

There was no fluid.

And they were telling him like, dude, we don't understand.

We understand what you're saying, but we don't see any source for your pain that you're describing.

Like it doesn't exist.

So we don't know what you're trying to do.

And he didn't become successful with the lawsuit or anything, but he did get SSD off of that.

And I think that's just what he wanted.

I don't think he wanted to work.

And he claimed to be disabled, right?

And all this pain.

But anytime he wanted to hop up and fuck you up because you pissed him off, it was like he couldn't, couldn't, he wasn't hurt at all, but he could still do jiu-jitsu.

He could still box.

And

yeah, it didn't make any sense, man.

So it just,

yeah, I mean, I've had surgery and I've tried to take, I think they gave me Oxy or a perk and I've tried one,

I think it was an Oxy or a perk, don't remember, and I fucking vomited.

I threw up, couldn't take it.

And, but I will say I felt very agitated after taking it.

So I can't imagine if that's what you're on all the time.

It suppresses emotions or agitates you.

And that's what you're on and you're dependent on for, I think, I think he was an addict.

It's the only way to say it.

You're an addict.

And you would drink with it.

And he used to fucking brag about how you could take Viking ins, like four Viking in and drink two beers and still drive home.

And

you're with us in the car.

Damn.

What would snap him out of it?

Out of what?

Out of his rage.

Nothing.

You couldn't stop that dude.

When he wanted to be that way, that's how he was.

Nothing would snap him.

I think fear of going to jail would be the only thing that would snap him out of it.

My mom would threaten to call the cops and put him in jail, and then that's when he would

get even more violent verbally, but you could tell he was afraid to go to jail.

He's a real big, tough guy against people that couldn't fight back.

That's always been him.

He somehow always seemed to pick the right people to fuck with that he knew couldn't whip his ass.

But his biggest claim to fame is that he was 115 and four.

And the crazy thing about that that is, you know, I'm Joseph Oliver Pfeiffer V.

He's Joseph Oliver Pfeiffer IV.

You look my name up.

I'm sanctioned.

I fought for commissions.

I've done medicals.

You can find my name anywhere.

Obviously, I'm in the UFC.

I'm legit.

This dude's been telling people for 20 plus fucking years, probably 35 plus years now.

He's 54 or 53.

that he's 115 and four.

How do we have Sugar Ray Leonard, Sugar Ray Robinson, fucking Jersey Joe Walcott, Walcott, Floyd Mayweather, you know, Rocky Marciano?

We have all these guys, amateur records.

My dad's telling everybody he's 115 to 4.

Where?

Look his name up.

Try to find it.

He's a fucking liar.

But he's said it so many times, and he's a convincing guy.

He's easily a master manipulator.

They can say it to you straight to your face without blinking, without switching up.

Like, yeah, I'm 115 to 4.

Where, bro?

Even in his, he's even made a documentary recently to try and say that I stole his story.

He's the real homeless kid, and people have been trying to put his name down in the MMA world talking about me.

But, you know, there's no proof behind anything he says.

He made a documentary?

Yeah, so he's made a whole documentary.

He was even trying to make another one.

He made a documentary basically saying that his son stole his story, being me, and I did it to get clout and attention and sympathy from people.

Where is this documentary?

YouTube.

And he's he's got 50,000 views off my name.

So,

but if you look at the documentary and you watch the documentary, there's nothing that addresses the allegations of me saying that he abused my mother.

There's nothing that addresses the abuse of his daughters.

And one thing that stands true, what he doesn't realize is there's six fucking people that say the same thing.

And he completely acts like they don't exist.

The same way that, you know, it's been 12 or 14 years since, I don't remember exact years, but, you know, it's been 12 to 14 years that he left my mother and moved in with another fucking reject that now divorced him um

but i think she's a piece of shit too because she stood there and watched me get beat worse than i ever got beat in my life and didn't do a fucking thing about it so i don't like that fucking lady but uh i still have like anger for that woman

but yeah um

why do you think So he left your mom, your mom didn't leave him?

Yeah, so the whole story is, you know, obviously all the things between me and him when i was 15 he was already cheating on my mother with a girl that liked me in high school's mom

and my mom and my four sisters left me and my father um because she couldn't take it anymore and the abuse of the daughters and she just needed to get away from them

and i hated my mom hold on why did why did you stay with him because all i had was jiu-jitsu That's why he was jiu-jitsu, yeah.

And I was brainwashed by him to believe that my mother was out to get us and ruined my life and his life.

And I loved him unconditionally despite all the abuse.

Um, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, man.

How does he mind you into thinking that your mother is the one after you when he's the one that's kicking your ass every day?

Yeah, I mean, I got beat by my mom too, nowhere near the same extent by him, but uh, the reason being is because, like I said, my mom was kind of absent with me because

I was like a little clone for my dad, everything he told me to say, I would say it.

And I think a part of the reason that became true is because

we're homeschooled.

So

not to say that we developed slower, but we definitely didn't realize what was normal and what was, we had no idea we were in an abusive home.

We just thought that that's the way it was because we were homeschooled until fucking eighth grade.

You didn't have any friends?

Nope, none.

I didn't have my first friend over until I was 14.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

Yeah, no friends, no phone.

I didn't have a phone until I had a job.

And I would fucking bail hay and do odds and end jobs here, you know, mow lawns and do things like that that to be able to pay for my phone bill.

So I had no friends.

How the fuck are we supposed to know when we're sheltered from everything?

And we always were told, and I think my mom, my mom always had the best intentions.

But my dad, you know, it was like we were little slaves for him.

He would bang on the fucking upstairs if he wanted one of the kids to come and fucking make him something to eat.

I've never seen that dude fucking cook a meal for himself.

Ever.

He didn't treat us like kids that he loved.

He treated us like servants that he had.

So,

yeah.

So, yeah, you know, I was in jujitsu and that was my identity.

That was the only thing that I could excel in regardless of what he felt.

But after that first competition, if I had ever beat anyone, it was, oh, you beat tomato cans, you beat crumbs, you're sandbagging, all this bullshit.

And I was, mind you, I was 13, you know, 12.

I was always going against older kids.

And if I lost, it was I was a disgrace to his fucking name and I was pathetic and he can't believe believe it, wasted his fucking time and his money and I was a piece of shit and I would get beat over that.

You know, if I lost, I would get my ass fucking whooped because I embarrassed him and his name.

And that was the craziest thing is embarrass his name.

What the fuck is your name?

What have you done?

I couldn't tell you.

The guy right now lives in a one-bedroom apartment.

He's been divorced twice.

The chick that he left my mother for divorced him.

Don't know why, but I'm sure it's something abusive.

There's plenty of cases that I could say that, you know, prove that he views people as his slave

and his servant more than he does a companion or someone that he loves.

But you know, he's been divorced twice, he lives in a one-bedroom apartment, he has no money.

And he has one recent friend that all of a sudden came out of the woodwork as his best friend to be in the documentary against me who's never met my mother or my sisters.

And now he goes back to a black Baptist church when he was one of the most racist people I've ever met.

So maybe not now,

but I mean

that's kind of that dynamic of this guy's snakeskin.

And

nobody knew what was going on.

Like what about your jiu-jitsu coach?

Yeah, so

my jiu-jitsu coach was my father when I was young.

He's the one that taught me everything when I was young.

So you wouldn't even interact with other kids unless you're in a tournament.

Yep.

I mean, I wouldn't even interact with them.

I'd just compete against them.

The only people I interacted with, so Steve Haig owned Fight Factory.

And I'm not sure if you're familiar with Eddie Alvarez.

He was a former UFC champion.

He fought Conor McGregor.

He was a 155 champion, fought in Bellator, fought Michael Chandler.

Really big name in MMA.

And he knew me since I was five years old.

There was numerous times that Steve Haig, Eddie Alvarez, Sam Warpiza, you know, had mentioned like, yo, you're going too hard on this kid.

He would make me fist fight fucking 16 years old, 16 year olds at 13 just to fucking do it and i'd be getting my head caped in but i was no bitch i'd still fight him where would he at the gym and then they would stop it i remember steve hagg stopped it and he was like dude what are you doing like you're making this kid fight a 16 year old who's like way bigger than way like a big kid's been in 50 street fights And what are you doing trying to like you're getting his fucking head caped in and he's crying and I'm bleeding and like you're just you're the whole time he's telling me I'm a fucking loser.

I'm not fucking listening.

See this kid's fucking retarded.

So they wind up pulling him aside and we're like, yo, you can't treat this kid like this and just numerous times they'd heard how he talked to me and they would try to tell him and he would tell him to fuck off stay out of his business don't tell me how to parent you don't have fucking kids who are you to talk to me and um

so eventually all their friendships ended because of it

and uh

yeah

so uh many people saw it um they didn't know the extent of it because nobody was ever over at our house for the most part.

So you legitimately had

no idea that that wasn't normal?

No idea.

Not until I went to public school.

And then I went to public school and I was starting to get smart.

And I was hearing about the things that kids would do with their parents and going on vacations and shit like that.

And I'm like, what the fuck?

And they're like, oh, yeah, we're all going.

Like, some kids would be like, oh, if you want to go hang out here, if you want to go do this or do that.

And I'm like, I can't.

My dad wouldn't even fucking drop me off.

My dad wouldn't drive me anywhere.

How quick did you pick up on that stuff?

I don't think very fast.

I mean, I would say

not very, very not slow either but i would say by the end of my eighth grade year my first year in public school my first full year in public school i was like this shit is not fucking normal and then into like my sophomore year i really realized like how sheltered we were and how good you know some parents were and involved they were

like he wouldn't take me to wrestling and it was wild it was like he didn't want the whole reason he didn't want me to wrestle is because he didn't want somebody else to coach me and how he always talked about me was like

um property like somebody's gonna take what i built that's how he would talk i built you you owe me your fucking life like those were the things he would tell me every fucking day so you feel fucking worthless you don't feel like you have any value you just feel like a fucking servant all the time and it's like dude what about me what about what i want to do i don't give a fuck about your feelings kill yourself all this like he would tell you to kill yourself yeah the last one of the last beatings i got Before I ran away, I remember telling him I started having like depression

to a severe level.

That's what I think it was.

I always felt like I never had, I always felt like this empty hole in my stomach and I could never identify what it was or understand what it was.

But after my father and I had left my mom and we moved in with this new fucking woman that he was with,

he didn't do anything with me, like nothing.

And

it was almost like he paraded me.

It was almost like he took pride in beating me up in front of her to show her what a tough guy he was, like how bad he was.

And like, it was just fucking corny, man.

It was corny, you know?

He knew I would never swing on him because he had told me a story because I was a Christian.

And he had told me a story about how he hit his father and knocked him out.

Which I don't know is true.

I have no idea if it's true, but that's what he had told me when I was really young.

And he was like, you got to promise that you'll never put your hands on your parents.

And I remember promising and like, I always held that close like i never wanted to have that kind of relationship where i'd hit my father or fall back against him

but he would fucking tee off on me and i wasn't getting slapped bro i wasn't getting you know like a spanking i was getting fucked up and uh i would have to cover like a real man and fucking shield and hide so i wasn't i mean he broke two of my teeth he fractured my orbital bone um

yeah so um

the dude was he actually broke my teeth in front of my friend what the first friend i had over his name is billy Cruz, and great kid.

Still friends with him today.

He had a fucked up life, too.

And we were over playing video games, playing Call of Duty.

I think I was whooping his ass as usual on there.

And

fucking,

he was trying to like pick on me the whole time, pick on me the whole time, pick on me the whole time.

And I finally got sick of it.

And I was like, dude, why do you always got to do this when my friend's over?

That's all I said.

Man, this dude jumped up and fucking punched me like he was fighting for a world title all the way into the kitchen and I was covering up and he fucking uppercut me and broke my teeth out of my mouth.

13, 14 years old.

And my friends standing there like, what the fuck?

Like, he got sent home after that.

His wife, his second wife, watched me get beat to death basically and did nothing about it.

Did nothing about it.

And then he brainwashed her.

to the point that she was like, oh, you were a bad kid.

You were always mouthing off, mouthing off.

And I was like, questioning isn't mouthing off.

Questioning why I'm getting beat isn't mouthing off

but his thing was like when i say jump you say how high you would ask him why you're getting beat all the time how would you ask him uh after i got up i would say why do you hate me so much and he would tell me he hopes i fucking die and i kill myself and my feelings don't matter and um

yeah that was pretty much the premise of it so um He would never give me an explanation.

It was just a rage.

You could tell.

He had like the crazy eyes, man.

He was one of them guys that has the crazy eyes.

And

I really started to fucking hate him.

So then I really started contemplating killing the motherfucker in his sleep or killing myself.

And that's when I had to get the fuck out of there.

But he left my mom to lead up to that part.

He left my mom

and was already cheating on her.

He had cheated on her already.

But then he was talking to this

lady and he moved in with her.

And she had already had two of her own kids and basically there was like fucking four or five of us in a two-bedroom apartment and the whole situation was fucked up and

yeah i mean

he did nothing with me he told me if i joined the wrestling team i can fucking walk to school so that's where will harmon came into play who was my wrestling coach who had drip would pick me up in the morning and drop me off sometimes i'd walk to school um if i ever missed a bus you know when i was living with him i had to walk walk to school a couple miles in the winter.

So it is what it is.

I'm appreciative of Will Harmon.

I think he saved my life in a dark place.

He was the only person who looked at me and actually gave a fuck about me and said, yeah, I think you can do it.

I think you can be a great wrestler.

I think you can be an MMA fighter.

I think you can do, I think Joe Pfeiffer can do whatever the fuck he puts his mind to.

And he was the first person in my life that ever really made me feel like that.

Like, man, somebody actually believes in me and cares about me because I'm just me, not because I am.

Sam Orpiza, he tried to cut me off from jiu-jitsu at 15 years old.

I started submitting that motherfucker when I was 16.

And so I think it started fucking with his head.

Like, this kid's starting to get strong.

This kid's starting to, like, I could manhandle him a little bit on the ground.

And so I think that's why the beatings got worse.

I think he was literally trying to beat me into submission and like being a coward and just always being under his thumb and never leaving him.

I think that was his biggest fear was once he realized I started excelling and getting in shape and really started loving it for myself from the time at 13 years old on,

it was my way of like rebelling against him.

I was like, fuck you, I'll start doing this for me.

And I remember telling him that one time, I'm not competing for you anymore.

I'm competing for me.

And I remember seeing like grudge his teeth, like pissed off.

Like, if he could have killed me, he would have.

And the amount of times that this man has threatened to shoot me is fucking crazy.

Crazy.

He would threaten to shoot you.

All the time.

All the time.

All the

And thank God when I lived with him, he didn't have a gun.

But then his fucking wife had a gun, a couple guns, and he made sure to tell me he had them.

He threatened to kill my coach,

my high school coach, and a Wawa, or threatened to beat his ass.

I don't remember which one either threatened to kill him or threatened to beat his ass.

But he was like, you're the one helping my kid.

And he was like, yeah, he's like, yeah, I should fuck you up or something like that, or I should fucking kill you.

And it was like, for what?

Because he's being the father role that you wouldn't be, you know, because he gives a fuck and you don't.

And,

you know, but I think my biggest gripe with that guy is the amount of, the lack of remorse and the lack of accountability.

He's not a man.

Men take accountability.

Men face, you know, they face the choir and they say, hey, I fucked up.

Never has he ever done that.

And anytime.

The worst part after I had left was that he made fun of the fact that I was sleeping in a park.

Mind you, I slept in a park for less than two weeks, and I joined the wrestling team, so I would shower there.

I got one free meal from school.

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Well, let's go back.

So,

one thing that is on my mind is,

you know,

you had just said that you had thought about either killing yourself or your father.

So,

what were those thoughts like?

Yeah, man.

Which one

were you leaning towards the most?

Killing myself.

Yeah.

How were you going to do it?

The only thing that ever came to mind, because it was the only thing I had access to, was cutting my throat.

How old?

I was 15.

15 years old.

Yeah.

You're thinking about slitting your own fucking throat.

Yeah, or his.

Or his.

I got tired of it, man.

You know, I got tired of expressing myself and I got tired of feeling that feeling of like worthlessness.

I felt like I had no value in life.

I felt like I was just breathing air.

And

then when he tried to cut me off from jiu-jitsu, I'm literally going to school and coming home to an abusive home.

And there's nothing positive in my life.

And he made it clear to know, let him know how much he fucking hated me.

And I should have stayed with your fucking mom.

If you were with my mom, if I was with my mom, I probably would have been put in juvie, which was probably true at that point with our relationship.

She had threatened to put me away in a home.

But I also hated my mom's guts because it's what I was convinced to do.

And I started cursing at my mom, you know, before we had left, you know, tell her to fuck off.

And one of the worst things for me that I still feel bad about

with my mom is

lying about where my dad was when he was cheating on her because I was given that responsibility to not tell.

I know.

Yeah.

You knew.

So when she left,

there was one instance.

He took advantage that I love video games.

And it was the only thing I had.

I didn't have friends to come over all the time.

You know what I mean?

It's not like I had a cell phone

unless I had like a little phone but i didn't i had like two people's numbers his and like one friend um

and uh one time he fucking it was like 2 a.m and he fucking leaves this is actually a great great part to tell so my mom's living with one of her friends on a farm with my four sisters and they're living in like it basically was a shithole and they were all sleeping in her living room on fucking couches and like blow-up mattresses and stuff.

So it's not like they had the comfort of like living in a nice house.

They were living in a shitty situation, but they were just happy to be away from him.

And I wasn't.

I was stuck with him.

And we lived off, she was gone for about six months.

And me and my father lived on instant oatmeal for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, besides the free lunch that I would get sometimes from the school.

And

a letcher got shut off at one point.

And one of my

black friends named Scott Roseborough, his grandmother had fronted us money so we could stay there because we were going to get evicted.

And then our elector got shut off and she paid back.

All for him in the end, you know, short story, all for him in the end to call him a racial slur, which you know what that means.

And never pay her back.

So he ruined my friendship with her.

I was still close with, you know, my friend Scott, but, you know, we lost connection over the years just because I think things just got awkward.

But yeah, so at like 2 a.m., he goes and leaves to go bang this woman.

who was cheating on her husband as well.

And they fucking a car.

And

only time he let me play fucking video games is when he was going out to do something fucked up.

And then when he was with this woman that he wound up moving at.

But wait, before I jump onto that, so he goes and he does that thing.

The lady's husband winds up finding out.

I don't know if it was days later or weeks later or whatever, because they were fucking around for a little while.

And I wasn't talking to my mom at all when she had left.

The guy finds out and comes to the house says he's going to kill me and him.

And he's an older dude.

He couldn't fight.

Dude was a bitch, but

shows up, banging on the door.

And my dad, the coward that he is, fucking hides in another room and tells me if he walks in, hit him with this.

And he had a wooden bat, like a wooden staff.

And it had like fucking, I don't know if it was electrical tape or something, but basically I had a wooden bat.

So I stood behind the door.

And if he was going to walk in, I was going to crack that motherfucker right in his head.

And thank God he didn't come in the house, but my dad was in the fucking dining room hiding like a little bitch and was ready to let me take the downfall for something he did.

Holy shit, but it shows the type of coward he is.

How old were you when that happened?

15

15 just turned 15.

So

and

you know, what's fucked up about this situation is the girl had spent her sweet 16 money on me and brought us Thanksgiving dinner

And so it was a really it was just a really dark time.

It was a very that was the first part where I remember feeling like I was always like sad and felt alone.

i always felt like a voiceless kid um where

i didn't know how to express myself because i couldn't talk to anybody i couldn't confide in my sisters because they didn't know any better we're all taught the same thing which is fucking telling each other and the second you get in a fight throw something that's hurtful in their face and we would cut deep

So I wouldn't tell anybody anything, but that was the first time where I just really started feeling like depressed.

And I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with me?

I didn't know it was depression.

I didn't know what it was.

I just, I had never learned what emotions were and didn't know how to process it.

And it was just like, what the fuck is going on in my life?

And

so that was that situation.

Then my mother moves back and they try to figure things out.

And he's fucking...

How did you feel about your mom coming back?

I missed her.

You did.

Regardless of how I hated her or thought I hated her, I missed her.

It felt

Yeah, it felt like a part of me died when she left and just felt very empty.

I mean, we would blanket off when she was gone.

We were so broke because he would only make like 800 bucks a month.

We'd blanket off the living room and get a propane torch and a propane tank, and that's how we'd heat the living room and fucking eat instant oatmeal for about six months.

We would boil water just to have hot water because we didn't have propane.

I couldn't afford to do it.

Didn't have oil to heat the house.

So I would boil.

It would take fucking two hours to boil water just to have a warm bath.

And by the time you fucking did all that, the water's warm.

And it's it's fucking like 39 degrees in your fucking house where you can't even sleep in your room you have to sleep on the couch so yeah and i'm still going to school and things like that came home the electric was off it was just dark it sucked i had my first thanksgiving without my mom and that's where like music was such a big help in my life

and this guy seemed to be fucking thriving because he was getting pussy

So

then my mom came back and he was still cheating on her.

And

I remember my mom crying because they were supposed to be working things out and she was crying and begging and asking me to tell her the truth.

And I was like, hey, he's at the gym training.

And she knew that it wasn't true.

But I just remember her crying and I just kept a straight face and kept playing video games and refused to answer her question because I thought if I had said something, I was fucking putting me and him in a jeopardizing situation.

And that's one thing that still bothers me because I know how hurtful that is.

Having gone through my own relationships and failures.

And so yeah, that sucked.

So then we fucking move.

He leaves her.

We move.

We move into an apartment.

And after the divorce and everything with my mom and stuff, I testified that I never wanted to see her again, which would stick until I was about 18

because I thought she fucking hated our guts and was going to take money from us and we were broke and all this shit.

But I was really just brainwashed, man.

So it sucked.

I didn't have any contact with her.

And,

you know, then this lady kind of tried to like force this role of like a mom.

And he tried to say, no, that, you know, your mom doesn't even give a fuck about you.

That's why she doesn't want to fucking see you and all this.

And she's the one that got you into school.

He acted like because they put me in public school, which you're supposed to fucking do, that this was like my new mom.

And I had to treat her that way.

And I was like, fuck out of here.

I got a mom.

So I never adopted her as my mom.

Never fucking liked the woman.

Always thought she was fucking on the spectrum, in my opinion.

So, and

yeah, I hated her guts.

And every time she had an autistic daughter, and she would basically go in and touch my family photos that I had taken, and I would get really upset and be like, Get the fuck off my shit.

And he would come back and beat me the fuck up over that.

So,

the fact that he beat me up over another woman's daughter who was touching my fucking belongings that weren't hers, regardless of your special needs, stay the fuck off my shit.

And,

you you know one time she was like yeah

i don't mean to like the daughter she was like i don't mean to you know talk about your family or nothing but your mom sounds like a complete fucking bitch i was like bro you can't even fucking feed yourself shut the fuck up i remember like snapping out and he beat the fuck out of me for that oh man he couldn't wait to do it i mean this dude rushed home to beat me up whatever he was doing he rushed home to stop my fucking head beat the fuck out of me for it and then goes in there and next thing you know i hear him fucking his fucking girl.

So

he's a lucky man, bro.

He's a lucky man.

And he's still out there till this day trying to fuck with me.

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But you say you left at 15, correct?

Yeah.

And so, I mean, right before I turned 16.

I literally was turning like 16 that way.

When are you in eighth grade, like 13, 14 years old?

Yeah.

So it took you two years to figure it out.

Yeah, two and a half years.

Yeah.

I realized at 15, he was a liar, and that's when it really broke my heart.

I realized all the lies he was telling.

And I was like, damn, my father's a fucking liar.

And then that's when I started turning on him.

And I started having resentment for him.

And then I was starting to challenge him by asking questions, which he hated.

And

what kind of questions would you ask him?

Like, why'd you tell this person this when you just did this?

And he would be like, mind your fucking business.

And,

you know, I'd be like.

Well, you told me when we left we were going to do this and play game and play games and you were going to live the bachelor life but we were going to do everything together like build this business with the outboard motors or we were going to rebuild a truck together and it wouldn't happen and i was like bro you do nothing with me anymore and just the stories he would tell people like the guy has his god complex Like he has something that everybody else fucking wants.

At 15 years old, like I said, he tried to cut me off from jiu-jitsu.

He goes, man, I'm fucking done with the game.

All these motherfuckers want what I got.

What the fuck do you got?

What did you go do that everybody wants, bro?

Like, I'm not even insulting.

I'm just asking the question.

So I remember telling him, why do you tell everybody that you were 115 and four?

But I've looked you up on the internet and I can't find it.

Who the fuck are you to question me?

I got beat up over that.

Fucking jumped up, fucking punched me in my face.

Simple things.

Mind you, this happened almost all the time.

Like I would play basketball across the street.

We used to live on, it's called Sandy Bank fucking road in Media PA.

We lived at one Sandy Bank Road.

Nobody lives there anymore, so I don't give a fuck to say the address.

But

Walden Elementary was right across the street and had a little basketball court.

So I would go play fucking basketball with the kids that I just became friends with as the new kid, which was already uncomfortable.

You know, I went from a school of 340 fucking kids in the middle of nowhere to a school that had 1,600 kids, and I'm the new guy again.

So I would go fucking play basketball.

I was supposed to be home at 8 o'clock.

I walked on the door at 803.

Second, the guy was malicious.

So that means you would have had to watch out the window to watch me fucking walk home.

And he would wait behind the door.

And the second I walked in, fucking punched me in the face as hard as he could and drop me.

Just because I was three minutes late.

From across the street where you can visually fucking see me playing basketball with kids.

Not stealing, not doing drugs, not never did it.

Not lying about where I'm at.

And

yeah, so it was just the kind of guy that he fucking was, man.

And,

but I would, I would question him all the time.

And so after the beatings, I would go on like these hour-long fucking runs, like two-hour runs, or I would just go walk for like six hours straight.

In the documentary, there's a good part where, you know, my coach is driving by.

He used to live in Delco.

It's the area, you know, it's like a couple towns in one.

Like it's a couple towns and all, but they could just call the area Delco.

And my coach, Sam Morpiza,

lived in that area.

And

I just got fucked up, got beat up, and I'm walking down the street and I have like fucking Walgreens headphones.

and I'm like crying, and I'm angry, and I'm squeezing my fucking hands because I want to kill him.

So I just would go on walks for an hour, and he would see me crying down the street, walking.

And he was like, I just wanted to pull over and help you, but I wasn't in the position to.

You know, you're still living at home with your father.

But I like, I would just walk for hours and then he would threaten to call the cops if I didn't come back.

So it's like, you beat the fuck out of me.

And then I go to leave and just walk.

clear my head and then he would say get the fuck back now it was always it was just a control thing man

and uh

one of the last beatings i got i'll give you the last beating that i got it was a three-part beating so it starts over this game called i think it was uncharted three or uncharted four and we were playing co-op

and i was getting all the kills i've always been good at video games whatever dude starts freaking the fuck out bugging out over me getting more kills than him you steal my fucking kills and you're always trying to outdo me and all this shit you fucking scumbag piece of shit all

and i'm just sitting there and i'm like smiling at first then he takes the controller and that's why he fucking freaks out he takes me smiling like what the do you want me to respond like i'm just gonna keep doing my thing like i'm playing a video game we're on the same team you dick like so he takes the controller and chucks it at me splits my head i still have a scar in the middle of my head from it and uh so i have started blood coming down my face and i looked at him like i wanted to kill him And he was like, yeah, you want to fucking try me?

So he jumps up.

He's like, you want to fucking try me?

Start hyping himself up and then just starts letting off on me in the the living room.

So I just curl up

and eventually I have like a blood full mouth.

I start laughing at him.

I was like, I don't give a fuck.

You can't break me, bitch.

Like, so I started laughing.

He's like, go pack your shit.

So I started packing my bag, comes in the room.

takes all my shit, throws it on the floor, starts fucking swinging on me again.

He was like, yeah, there's all the shit I've done for you.

Starts swinging on me again.

We fight and then fucking, and I never swung back.

And when I say fight, I'm just curling up.

I'm just trying to defend as best as I can.

And he's like, like grunting.

Like, you could tell he loved it.

He would grunt every time he would hit me.

Like every single time, trying to put everything he had into it.

But little bitch couldn't knock me out.

So

there's that.

And then I wind up walking out of the room.

I put my bag on the couch.

And he corners me in the kitchen.

And he starts fucking swinging on me again.

And he's like, I'm going to kill you, motherfucker.

I'm going to fucking kill you.

Comes back, fucking, like, leaves for like five seconds, comes back.

I should have just ran out of the door

but you know a little fear locked up i guess at that point uh or a little hope that he was gonna like calm down before i left and he fucking pulls out a pocket knife and he starts walking towards me you think he's gonna stab me with it he's like i'll kill you i'm gonna gut you and all this shit so i fucking shoved him right over the fucking table it was like a little plastic table shoved him over the table grabbed my fucking bag ran out of the house and never went back damn man slept in the park for almost two weeks Wind up meeting a kid that was getting racially bullied that I stood up for.

Hold on.

You slept in a park for two weeks?

Almost two weeks, yeah.

How old?

15?

Nine days.

Yeah.

15.

I was turning to 16 like the week after.

So no birthday for me.

But

joined the wrestling team.

Wasn't school had started.

Did the school have any idea that you were sleeping in the school?

Eventually, eventually, no, because this was before school season.

School started.

Like,

I was in the park for maybe three days before school started.

So then I was in the park for about a week after that.

And then, you know, we had pre-practice and things like that.

So I would just use the locker rooms to go shower.

But

yeah, it was

unfortunate.

But we had the pre-practice for the summertime already for wrestling season.

So we would do lifts.

and we'd do runs so that's how i was already being able to shower and go to school already

And I wound up meeting this kid who was getting racially bullied in the lifting room.

And they were calling him fat and all this shit.

And listen, he was definitely, he definitely has a disability of some sort, a special something, even if it's on the spectrum, something.

Like it was a very socially awkward child.

And it was very evident.

But

yeah, I wound up asking him if he had anywhere or knew anyone of a place that I could live or room that I could rent.

And he happened to have his brother that was in Juvie for arson.

He tried to light somebody's house on fire with a trash can in the garage.

And he was away at Juvie.

There were two African kids adopted by a white Welsh man who was the middle school teacher at Springton Lake to Pencrest High School, which is where I went in the same town, which was Media PA.

And

man, talk about living conditions.

There was fucking maggots, black mold, asbestos.

What was once like white carpets or cream colored carpets were fucking the color of this couch from cat piss infested house.

They never cleaned anything.

It was disgusting.

It probably took a couple years off my health, to be honest.

I lived off microwave food for the next two years of my rest of my high school life.

And the father was a really bad alcoholic, wound up losing his job,

was suffering with liver failure.

started having eyesight problems and all these things.

So when I had gotten my license, I was the one taking him to the doctor's appointments.

I was the one buying groceries.

I was the one trying to make the house clean.

Um, I had bought like the glue tiles where you would buy glue and then fucking put it on the floor and fucking like, you know, I tried to make it nice.

And,

you know, I'd wind up doing the hole upstairs and things like that.

His father funded it.

My dad spends it now that I stole from him by doing that.

Or

by saying that because the guy would give me his card to go buy his groceries that he wanted because he was physically physically unable and I was the only one that was trusted as a driver and had a driver's license to go do it.

My dad tells people that I stole from him and has now been friends with the kid that I used to live with and says that I was a racist to him, says that I stole from his father and the kid believes it.

So,

but that's what my dad does.

He finds weak people to prey on and brainwash.

Unfortunately for them, they're not smart enough to look past the type of true person that he is.

So we aren't friends and we haven't been friends.

And, you know, also my gripe with him was that he was friends.

See, the thing is, man, it's like I'm trying to be a little bit reserved because I don't want to put people's shit out there.

But basically, I mean, I mean, this kid's trying to fucking text my family who he met one time,

things that are very unfair.

But the kid's best friend was a fucking child molester.

And my dad says I beat him up because I'm a racist, but I beat him up because he brought a fucking child molester over to the house.

And the kid was 19 and fucked a 12-year-old.

So I told him, clear as day, I don't give a fuck if this is your house or not.

I take care of the house.

I take care of your dad that you don't give a fuck about.

If you fucking bring that kid over here, I'm going to fuck you up.

Brought the kid over here, kicked the kid the fuck out, threw him out, and then fucked him up.

Damn.

And that was the end of us.

And then one time I told him that he didn't give a fuck about his father.

And, you know, but mind you.

Mind you, the things that my dad is trying to stick on me are things as a teenager.

I'm still not a man.

I'm still an adolescent child.

I'm still a teenager trying to figure out his way.

You know, I got to make decisions now as a man.

And that's one thing I always owned up to.

I've fucked up.

I have fucked up.

I've said some things that I probably shouldn't have said.

I've done some things that I probably shouldn't have done.

But I didn't hurt anybody in that process.

I didn't take anything from everybody.

I was never malicious.

I never tried to ruin anybody's life.

And

you are a product of my environment to a certain extent.

But is that an excuse after you leave home?

No.

I don't take that excuse.

I'm not trying to give you an excuse, but I mean, you don't fucking know any better.

Yeah.

That's how you were raised for.

I had no guidance.

Exactly.

I had no, I met my grandfather a few times.

I met my grandmother a few times on my dad's side.

I don't remember my mom's mom.

I didn't, we weren't, I didn't have aunts, uncles, cousins, fucking grandparents that we saw or watched us or ever came to visit us.

I think my grandfather came to visit us maybe two or three times ever.

But I don't blame the guy because my dad's a fucking douchebag to work with.

You know,

looking back, it was like we used to be really upset about that.

Like he never comes and sees us, but that's how he would say it to be like, look, your grandfather's a fucking scumbag.

But it's not.

He's the scumbag.

He's the one who's always fucking causing division.

So yeah.

You know, this kid fucking brought him over and we wound up parting ways.

And now my dad has latched on to him and tried to coach him in boxing to not get bullied by people like me and and has convinced him that I did him wrong and I stole from his father and all these things.

And it's just wild, man.

It's really wild.

He latched on to an ex-girlfriend of mine

that I had an abusive relationship with where she was physically abusive to me.

And,

you know, and I don't give a fuck to say it because I can own it as a man, but, you know, this girl had cheated on me.

so many times so I would put holes in the wall, you know, not knowing how to channel that rage or wanting to fight guys over it it and things like that.

But I was one of these guys who was like, oh, you're broken.

I'm broken.

Me and you against the world.

But, you know, that's not, that's not healthy and it didn't work out that way.

So,

yeah, man.

My dad has been there.

I'll tell you this.

He's never been there to one single fight that I've left him tickets for, which was my first three or four amateur fights.

And he took pleasure in it because one time I shattered him out.

thinking he was there because he told me he was there and he was never there and he never showed up.

But in his documentary, he tells me my hands, people, a guy who doesn't even fucking know me

is saying that my hands were the best they ever were when I was working with my father.

And that's why I'm the fighter I am in all this.

I'm like, brother, we stopped training together at 15.

He said he was done with the game.

All these guys want what he's got.

He said, you ain't fucking training with these people no more.

Fuck this guy, fuck that guy.

And he calls my one coach, Samuel Pisa, Sammy the Snake, because he was so threatened to have somebody else come and coach his kid.

Because like he said, all he cared about was they're going to come and take what I built.

That's exactly how he would say it in front of me.

They're going to come try and fucking take what I built.

I built you, motherfucker.

You owe me your life.

You ain't shit without me.

You've never been shit without me.

You would be a fucking bum.

You'd be fucking sweeping floors.

But that was the normal talk.

That's how I was talked to every day of my fucking life.

Every day of my life, including my sisters.

You know,

I think yoga pants started coming out when, which I agree.

I don't think fucking little girls should be wearing fucking yoga pants.

That's my own opinion.

I'm a traditional guy.

But they would have little pocketbooks and that my mom would get them, very inexpensive.

You know, and they'd want to walk around or they started getting into makeup, girly things.

And he would call them fucking whores and skanks.

A great example of how you treat one of my sisters with their own abuses.

My second oldest sister was in her junior year of high school, I believe.

I may be wrong, but I think it was junior year.

And she told somebody in school or her counselor that she wanted to kill herself because she felt like her father didn't love her.

So

the concerned Joe Pfeiffer,

the fourth that my father is, goes to the school with, I think my mom.

I asked my mom about it.

She don't remember it.

She remembers the situation, but she doesn't remember if she was there or not.

But anyway, I'm pretty sure all of us kids went to pick her up with my dad.

And he's like, oh man, I don't know why she would say that.

Super concerned, like, you know looking at her like he's upset about it like you know i don't i don't know why she'd be like that so we go home he gives her the keys to open the door as she's opening the door and all of us kids are there he grabs her by her fucking hair and the back of her jeans and fucking chucks her on her fucking face face first on the floor second we get home Then he picks her up by her fucking neck and slams her in between the couch and starts strangling her and in between the couch.

And then we all start trying to pull him off and he fucking beats the shit out of me for it.

And uh

that's how you treated your daughter who was suicidal so um there was an instance where one of my friends were over and my sister was like trying to convince him to cut her wrists and he fucking beat the shit out of the kid um

but you know it was some dark shit dude it was some weird fucking just just weird fucking shit just you know but the guy

Has never taken accountability for one single fucking thing.

I've watched this guy literally tell me to my face that my my grandmother on my mom's side had a miscarriage and buried the kid in the backyard.

And he was crying to me one time after I had already moved away for about a year after I ran away.

And I'm trying to reconcile, reconcile with him or have some type of relationship because at the time everybody that didn't know details is saying, you only have one father, you only have one father.

And that used to, that used to guilt me because I had a good heart, man.

And I was a Christian and I always believed in trying to forgive, trying to forgive, get past it, trying to forgive.

You were a christian or you are a christian i am a christian yeah and um i i lost my faith a little bit from the probably about 18 to like 23 maybe 24.

see that um i was pretty bitter um because there was a lot of things that i prayed for that never came true the way i wanted but you know looking back i've lived a beautiful life um

of pain and success and uh Everything that has happened has happened for a reason.

And it's all been,

I think, God's timing.

So

I saw that you carry a picture of yourself at age 10 years old.

You saw I carry a picture?

Yeah, is that true?

I don't carry a picture of myself.

No.

What picture is this?

I must have read it somewhere that said that you, to remind you.

I have a, I don't carry it with me, but I do have a picture.

I don't carry any, I don't carry a picture of myself, but I do have a picture that I hold on to, and it's, it's me

at probably, you know under two years old with boxing gloves and a headgear on and i hold on to that because um

like i was really convinced i was going to be a fucking nobody

but i will say the thing that kept me going was i had this gut feeling that i was i don't want to say better than other people but i always believed i was above the competition i always believed like

I had this feeling like I'm meant to be more than the average.

I just had this feeling, just had this feeling, just had this feeling.

So I had all the other depression and all the other feelings too, but this, I know I'm not, this isn't, this isn't it for me.

And that's what kept me going, you know, from not hurting myself.

And then

high school was the hardest time for me because I was fucking angry at that point.

And

I really didn't have any filter anymore.

And I didn't give a fuck how people viewed me, whether they thought I was crazy or angry or whatever.

But I had been saying since I was in middle school, I was going to fight.

I wanted to hurt people.

I wanted to fight.

I wanted to fight.

I wanted to fight.

And that's exactly what I would say.

I want to fuck people up.

I want to hurt people.

And I want to make them feel the same fucking pain that I felt.

And it was the greatest motivation I could.

Like, rage has its time and its place.

And it got me through the early years until I became more mature and understood emotions and was able to control

and just digest why I'm angry.

Or what are you holding on to that you haven't let go?

Or

what are you holding holding on to that you haven't forgiven um

and uh

yeah so yeah

what was it that made you understand emotions my coaches my coaches you know seeing the way that they lived how they loved their wives how they loved their kids um how they treated their friends and uh you know sam warpiza and will harmon combined have been a savior for me will harmon if i didn't have that guy regardless of everything that i've went through

if that man didn't take me in i I wouldn't be here.

I would have never made the UFC.

He gave me four years of free housing and a home, a stable life, good food, and

unconditional love and support, which I've never had.

Was that your wrestling coach?

That was my wrestling coach.

How did that relationship develop?

So I was wrestling.

I joined the wrestling team and we had red versus gold, which was, you know, for varsity matches, but I had already won my position.

Another kid had already won his position.

He was a weight class above me.

I was a weight class below him.

I was 170.

He was 182.

And they wanted to find out who the best kid in the school was.

And I actually hated my head coach for it, Gregory Jacobs, who I love now.

You know, dumb child in me hated him.

But

they wanted to see who the best wrestler was on our team.

And I wound up beating him.

But I remember being so

angry about it because I felt like they're trying, they just want to see me fucking lose because I've said I was an MMA kid, like all these people are against me.

And I remember everybody's parents being there.

and i was the only one on the other side of the gym by myself and the only other person so we had we had the wrestling mat the gym floor the basketball court and then we had an upstairs indoor track and will harmon was up on the indoor track on my side only guy

and um i got my headphones and i'm pacing back and forth and i'm like

mad like i'm gonna try to kill this kid and blah blah blah that was just my attitude for competition and um

you know i look up at him and i'm like look at this i was like look at all these motherfuckers and their parents.

And I say, I ain't got shit.

He goes, who cares about that?

He's like, just go out there and give it your best, man.

He was like, I believe you.

I believe you can do it.

And those words, man,

because I just remember his face.

I just remember his face looking down and he was like, I believe you can do it.

And that's all I needed, bro.

That was like a fucking fire to the most.

It lit a fire that was crazy.

And I went out there and I beat him.

You know, it's not nothing to brag about.

It was, you know, he was a good teammate and a friend till this day.

But at that time, you know, everybody was talking shit that I was going to get beat.

And he's the kid that's been the States or been the regions already.

I've never wrestled because that was my first real year of wrestling and I beat him.

And now, now I was, you know, known as the best wrestler in that high school on our team at that time as far as like heavy, heavier weights.

And yeah, you know, it was good.

That was the start of our relationship.

And, you know, he was the first person to tell me he loved me in a long time.

And I remember I would, I would be there at 6 a.m., train, go to school, be there.

I was the first one there and the last one to go.

And

often, a lot of times I would just sit in a wrestling room and just fucking sob after practice at the end of the day because I hated my life.

And

I wanted to be something and I didn't know how to do it.

But I was just putting all my energy into wrestling and I fucking loved wrestling.

I loved it.

I loved working hard.

I loved fucking suffering.

And yeah, I remember just fucking sobbing many times after practice and Harmon happened to walk in and he comes over and just gives me a hug and didn't say anything other than I love you kid.

And

yeah.

Damn.

That was the start of that.

And I, you know, every lunch period, I would sit and not sit with kids.

I hated people my age.

And I would sit every single day with that man.

And he would split one of the one of his sandwiches that his wife made him.

And we would just sit there and play chess and talk about life.

And

man, that's how I I spent my fucking lunch periods with him.

So those are sentimental and I get choked up over those because, you know, I'm so appreciative of what he did and that he didn't have to do.

And he put his name on the line and his reputation on the line to support a kid like me that could have gone off the deep end.

And, you know, I never wanted to let him down.

And, you know, obviously.

He's been one of the most important people.

But, you know, to answer your question too, circling back about did the school ever know,

I don't know if it's called a truancy officer for if you miss a bunch of school or if you have troubled home or something, but somebody did come to the house and I don't know how I got away with it, but basically they were like saying I was going to have to come with them.

And they came to the place where I was living

because I was 17 and

by that time they had come there.

I was 17 and they were like, oh yeah, you know, you're going to have to come with us or saying something about like if I my parents lived here or was I emancipated or anything like that.

Something it was very vague.

I'm vague on the details of what they were there for but it was something about you know possibly taking me away and i remember looking at the chick

and i was a little arrogant prick and i was like do i look like i'm unhealthy do i need your help and i was like trust me if you take me away from here you ruin my life and i slammed the door in her face and i never heard but then they the psychologists started reaching out to schools child services things like that and i remember snapping on will harmon because i was like who the did you tell like i wound up almost turning on him because i thought he ratted me out and i was going going to get put in a home.

And luckily I didn't.

And I don't know how that's possible or how that happened, but

I'm sure it helped that I was living with somebody who was a school teacher at the Springton Middle Lake School.

But I don't know the details behind as to why, you know, regardless of how I felt, I'm sure they could have taken me, but they didn't.

And I'm just grateful that they didn't.

So

But yeah, they wanted to find it.

Harmon knew.

Harmon knew everything.

He was the only person I would tell everything to.

I would come into school with a a fucked up face back when I was living with him.

So, yeah.

Damn.

Yeah.

Why do you think you hated everybody your age?

Because all they cared about was being cool.

And I didn't give a fuck about being cool.

I wanted to be somebody.

And I didn't care about telling fucking high school stories about what girl you fucked or, you know, what corny fucking sport.

I also didn't like all the fucking football kids.

I didn't like any of the track kids.

Like, they all thought they were hot shit because they were wearing jerseys.

And I don't know.

I don't like kids.

Do you think it was because we felt resentment that

weren't living like the way that you were brought up?

I always wanted to play football and I didn't get to.

But I don't know if it was resentment.

I just

think I was much more mature than I thought I was by that time.

And I saw the real ugly part of life in one way.

You know, obviously, you know, like I said, mine's very average compared to some of the stories out there.

But

yeah, I just think I didn't connect with kids that did dumb shit talking about smoking weed and drinking and fucking girls and going to parties.

That wasn't me.

I had no desire to drink, party, smoke.

You know, I definitely did my fair share of whoring around, but that was to fill a void.

And,

you know, it was the only love.

or acceptance or validation that I got when I was frustrated and felt alone.

So,

yeah, I just didn't see the value in what they did.

I wanted to be an athlete.

I wanted to be in the UFC.

And I was saying that since I was in middle school, so I didn't relate to these kids when they would talk about these stories.

And then they would always fucking try to tell you, like, you weren't allowed to say the R word.

You can't say retard.

And I'm like, bro, shut the fuck up.

Like, I'll say what the fuck I want.

And so I didn't like being around those fucking nerdy kids.

Then you had the guys that thought they were fucking tough.

And I was almost in a fist fight every fucking day.

But none of them would fist fight.

When I went to this school, where the school I came from, everybody would fist fight.

Then I go to this school, and it's like preppy kids, and they all talk shit.

But then you would run up in their face, and they'd be like, kind of shocked that you're about to fight them.

And I'm like, well, what the fuck did you talk shit for if you weren't ready to fight?

It was like mind-boggling to me.

And everybody thought it was crazy because I was actually wanting to fight people over talking shit.

So a lot of kids thought I was fucking nuts.

And what wasn't, I just was about it.

And

I had a couple funny instances.

So

never like a full blown out fight in high school.

But

yeah, I had some funny things.

How did you reconnect with your mom?

So it's very recent.

It's recent.

Yeah, it's very recent.

It's been almost a year.

I despised my mom for a little bit when I was a little less mature.

But

how can I really fault a woman who was getting abused the same way as I was?

And just for that reason, because she's a woman, is why I give her forgiveness and an excuse because

she was traditional.

She was a Christian woman.

Was a Christian woman.

She doesn't really identify with Christianity anymore.

Nonetheless,

she lives her life how she wants.

But

she was a 24-year-old woman who had never been with another man and grew up in the church and met my father at the church because he was going to commit suicide apparently by jumping off the bridge.

They wound up sending him to a church after they got him off the bridge.

And then that's how he met my mother.

That's how they got connected.

So she thought he was her forever after, you know, and she was willing to go through thick and thin and,

you know, and do anything possible to make it work.

And obviously, it failed, and she has never been with another man since.

So um, he ruined the rest of her happy ending.

So, uh,

how did you reconnect?

My sister, it's a fucked-up situation.

My youngest sister was basically homeless because

my,

like I said, they're very backbiting towards each other, and they've been much better since I've been in the picture.

Um,

because I won't tolerate it.

Uh,

because the way I see it, just

so you understand why I think they respect it, is because the perspective in which I've given it to them, if I can fucking come out and be a better person, so can you.

And you have no fucking excuse because I kept enduring the abuse while you guys were

free from it.

And I had to run away.

You guys got the privilege of not having to deal with him again.

And

you guys are...

have one life and I tried to put it in the perspective of we have one life to know each other.

I have one life to know you and everybody else that I meet.

And if you're genuinely okay with treating each other like this when we're supposed to be the deepest love bonded people in our lives, like then you're a true piece of shit.

And that's exactly what I told them.

If you guys don't learn to love each other, then you're all pieces of shit.

So I think they've kind of been trying their best and it's been pretty good.

But they've done some malicious things to each other.

So I'm not proud of it.

And I don't support it and I don't condone it.

And I want them to be better because that's what I want to be around.

I don't want to be around shitty people.

Whether you call yourself my mother or my sister or my father, if you're a shitty person, I'm not going to be around you.

I don't have time for that shit.

My life's too short as it is.

I can't believe I'm 28 already.

I can't believe I'm here.

You know?

Like.

Who would have thought fucking little Joey Pfeiffer is sitting on the Sean Ryan show or has been on Joe Rogan or is about to break in the top 15 in the UFC?

But because I believed and put it out there and put the work in and put the right people around me, all this has come true, right?

You know, so I reconnected with them because my sister, Rachel, so I have two younger sisters.

The older of the two youngest is Rachel and then there's Amy.

And basically they were feuding and Amy had basically told my sister's,

I guess you didn't say baby daddy, some problems that she was having and basically ratted on her and it kind of like was a really scumbag fucking thing to do knowing that she's going through a custody battle.

So, my sister refused to let her come back to the house after she had lost her job.

So, my sister was sleeping in the car in the park.

I don't think it was that long, I think it was a day or two, or a week, or something like that.

But, you know, nonetheless, it's your fucking baby sister.

And I hadn't talked to these people in six years almost after I'd punched my sister's boyfriend in the fucking mouth.

And

this is two weeks before my last fight last year,

International Fight Week, I knocked out a guy named Mark Andre Berrial.

And I just had this guilty conscience because they had all reached out before trying to ask for help, but it was all monetary.

And I was like, no, fuck off.

Like, if you can't fucking have a relationship with me and give a fuck about me as a person, but I'm only good enough for you guys to need something, then go fuck yourself.

Get away from me.

And that's how my attitude was.

But, you know, I'm not a...

It bothered me when I heard she was.

really struggling and then that's when I was like okay now I need to step in because this is just fucking ridiculous.

Like, what is going on with these people?

And my sister had kind of taken over in a sense.

You know, I don't think she meant to, but she was kind of stuck in this fog where she thought she was running shit at the house.

And I had to remind her, this is my mom's house since I was four years old.

You don't run shit.

And I don't give a fuck what bill you pay.

If you don't pay the rent and you're not on the lease, you don't run shit.

And don't be a fucking scumbag.

You know, shoe, if the shoe was on the other foot,

you would always want somebody to give you a little bit of grace and give you that chance.

It's not like somebody got killed.

It's not like somebody got, you know, raped or fucking stolen or something, you know, crazy.

This is a family fight.

Get the fuck over it.

And I tried to give them that perspective.

And so I showed up.

I went down there.

I met her at the park.

And then I drove there.

My sister started running her mouth.

And she was heated, obviously, because she felt like my younger sister had a role in her having a really bad case with her children, custody-wise,

which I understand.

I don't think you should fuck with somebody's kids.

But yeah, I went up paying the rent for a few months for them so they could get on their feet and she could handle some of the lawyer bills and things like that.

And then I also paid a couple thousand dollars to fix my mom's truck that they, that blew up on her.

It's all they had.

It was the only thing they had to drive hours to exchange their kids for my sister.

So between,

you know, my mom working full-time, she's a truck driver.

And my sister needing to drive fucking six, seven hours every other week to exchange her daughter at that time you know that's the only car they have so um i did it for the kids i did it for her i did it for my mom and so i gave back and i helped them and i told them like i'm not here to reconcile but i'm here to hopefully inspire you guys to fucking give a fuck about each other again because it breaks my heart and that's why i don't want to be around you i want to see my sisters fucking thriving in life But this is the thing that I hate about my father, though.

This motherfucker did so much damage.

Women take damage differently than men.

100%.

They're just different creatures.

And you, I'm sure you would agree.

They all have been in domestic, violent, abusive relationships.

Except for my second oldest sister.

I think he's a pretty even-keeled guy.

He's had his problems.

I'm not going to put them out there, but I'm pretty sure he's pretty good to her.

Or at least works.

I have my feelings about him.

It is what it is.

But, you know, they have four kids together.

My oldest sister has two kids together.

Apparently, you know, he hits her and has threatened to kill her and things like that.

And my sister hit me up to help her get the kids out of the house.

And I said no, because it's been six years and I can't afford to jeopardize everything that I've built for someone I don't even think gives a fuck about me unless they need something.

And it's always been funny to me.

You know, they cut me, they've done this thing where they've cut me out or I've cut them off.

It's really them that cuts me off.

And then

when shit really gets,

when shit really gets tough and there's some deep shit going down, then the brother's good enough.

I'm I'm the only one that understands.

That's what they've all hit me with the same punchline.

And it took me a while to forgive them, you know, but I forgive them.

I love them all.

I forgive them all.

I love them all.

I've said some shit that's mean to them, you know, so hopefully they forgive me.

But...

You know, I was like, why would I go and get involved in helping you take kids from a man that I have no idea?

All I know is what I'm being told.

I don't know the other side of that.

And I don't believe in fucking with another man's family.

So

maybe if you were active in my life and I knew things that were going on, but she had said he had threatened to shoot me.

So I don't know what's true or what's not, you know?

I wouldn't doubt if he would threaten to shoot me.

He can't beat me, you know?

So, but I don't want to fucking put myself in this situation.

I haven't talked to you in years.

I don't know what's going on.

And now you ask me to put myself in that situation.

But I don't remember where I was going with that, to be honest.

CTE kicked.

Reconnecting with your mom.

Reconnecting with my mom.

So yeah, I went and paid the rent and everything.

And then, you know, naturally, I talked to my mom and she thanked me.

She reached out to me and thanked me.

And, yeah, we just kind of started slow from there, man.

And it's been really good.

You know, this is probably a year ago.

Yeah.

Almost a year.

Almost.

It hasn't been a year yet, but it's almost a year.

And this has probably been the longest connection that I've had with them since I was a child, since about 15.

Geez.

But it's been the most rewarding, too.

Is it hard?

Is it hard?

I think what's hard, I think, no, it's not hard right now.

It's not hard right now.

I think what does get to me, though, is that my mom's older.

And

I lost a lot of time with her.

So, that kind of gets to me a little bit.

So, I think she has a beautiful heart.

I think she's got a beautiful soul.

And

she's a respectable woman.

is how she likes to call herself.

And I agree with that.

And I used to hit her guts at one point.

And it irks my soul that i ever did and it's because of that motherfucker so um but luckily i'm a grown man now and i can i can you know defer from right and wrong good and bad and uh but yeah he he damaged all of them i think for life so that's the only thing that i really think that is hard is just that i lost a lot of time with her

but is what it is you know i have i am now in the present moment and that's where i think the maturity has really helped my career right is being in the present moment and now living in the now versus looking in the past looking in the past looking in the past that shit eats you up

do you guys have any tough conversations all the time yeah all the time we agree we agree to disagree all the time but that's okay i think we developed a relationship now where it's

um you can have those without we can have those tough talks and know that we aren't going to disappear from each other you know i i'm i'm not i'm also

not talking to her every single day because she understands that i have a busy life um i also have people that i love and care about that i'm taking care care of or, you know, trying to provide for and things like that.

So,

yeah.

But, yeah, it's good.

It's good now.

Damn, Bill.

That's tough, man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

This, this fucking guy is

interesting.

Interesting.

I think he should be studied.

I really do think he should be studied.

I mean, he hides in the church now.

Claims that he's a Christian.

Does nothing Christian.

You know, a great example example is I did

a little podcast for a little bit with me and my coach Sam Morpisa.

And

his best friend was Steve Hag who owned the Flight Factory, which was like the pinnacle of MMA in Philadelphia.

Like we had all the killers.

We had my coach Sam.

We had this guy Zach McCoskey, Eddie Alvarez,

a lot of really good killers that came out of there.

The guy got cancer and he had it right behind his nose, like basically in the middle of his head.

And because the guy came on my podcast, mind you, this was my dad's best friend for like 10 years.

And then, you know, he basically disrespected his wife when my mom and him separated one time.

He was sleeping over there and disrespected his wife.

And he, you know, Steve kicked him out.

And that's how they stopped being friends.

My dad called him a traitor and all this and started talking shit on his wife and all that crap.

Claims to be a Christian.

And this is really funny because if you watch the documentary, tries to play, talks real soft, talks like he's just like, yeah, yeah, you know, if I didn't use God as my compass, I wouldn't be here today.

And it's the fakest shit I've ever fucking heard, especially if you know the real dude that he is.

And

you watch the documentary.

Yeah.

Yeah, I want to know the lies he says because everybody's tagging me.

You know, he's, he hasn't talked to, let me put it this way.

So he has five kids.

This is the most crazy.

This is the craziest shit.

He has five fucking kids.

Me and four daughters.

Three of those daughters have never reached out to this motherfucker since he left.

Why?

Is it because you were such a great guy?

Is it because you didn't abuse them like you say?

Is it because they were brainwashed by their mom?

Is that your best excuse is that for over 12 years, I know for sure plus, it might even be 14 years, I don't remember what it is.

I think it's 12 years plus,

none of them give a fuck to talk to their father.

Why?

What could you have done that they don't give a fuck about you that much or they hate you that much?

Dude can't answer that question, but nobody's asking him that question.

You go watch the documentary, all it is is a fucking victim card.

My mom, this, and my dad, this.

He hated his fucking dad, wants to kill his dad, hated his fucking mom, apparently.

And then now you saw it all fucking sad that his mom passed away.

And it's like, dude, like, you tell so many fucking lies, you can't even keep track.

And,

but that's my biggest question to him.

How come none of your daughters give a fuck to talk to you?

Why?

And And how come, how come six people can say you did the same shit that I said?

Can you explain that?

And he just doesn't address it.

But he's going to make a documentary saying, I sold a story.

I used to beat up the kid I used to live with.

I stole from his dad and I'm a piece of shit.

And I had an abusive relationship as a kid.

It's like, bro, you're talking about a teenager.

His claim to fame is that I was a terrible fucking kid.

Even though I didn't steal, I didn't smoke.

I didn't fucking hide things.

Like,

his biggest thing is like that I lied lied about my sister turning on the heater and she got her ass beat so i was a piece of shit

yeah he said it showed the character that i was i was a scumbag willing to throw somebody else under the bus at six years old i'm like yeah you're right was a scumbag fucking thing but i've learned from it unlike you

so um

Yeah, it's just wild.

And, you know, he's trying to make another documentary now and people are trying to get me to go on shows and things like that to go talk to this guy and confront him face to face.

But I don't want to give him that platform yeah I don't want to give him that relevancy and that's all he cares about this man has never been there for any of my success but he has been there more than anybody for every fucking failure not realizing it's a lesson that I just keep growing from but he's been there for every single failure when I broke my elbow he sent a picture face down ass up told you this would happen as soon as you fight anybody real you get your fucking ass beat you're a fucking bum you'll never make it in the UFC I bet he fucking is rolling over in his bed now.

Like even recently, you know,

I heard something you know like he

tells people first of all brother he's never coached me for one of my fights ever he's never been to one of my fights but he tells everybody he was i was the best boxer because we trained for two weeks for my fourth amateur fight and then

our last stint was he shows up in my house i i just it is what it is i just slept with a chick right so we had a

um

an agreeance that we would train at 730 i think it was every every morning.

And I had a garage at a place I was living before I wound up being homeless again and had to go live with Armin.

So he would show up and he shows up at fucking seven o'clock and I'm not up yet.

I just done whatever with some chick and I fucking wake up to my phone fucking going off, going off, going off, going off.

And I'm like, dude, what the fuck?

So I answer the phone, but I can hear like a

like he's in my fucking house.

Just walked in the house, like no invited or nothing.

Like it's not his house.

And he's like, get the fuck downstairs now and I'm like who the fuck are you so I freaked the fuck out I'm like who the fuck are you talking to I'm like 19 at this point or just about to turn 19

and he's standing at the bottom of the stairs like he's like gonna fucking whoop my ass with his arms crossed across at the bottom of the stairs in the house that he wasn't invited in I fucking fly down the stairs I'm like who the fuck you talking to I called him all this shit And he threatens to come back and put a bullet in my head and all this shit.

And I was like, yeah, I was like, touch me, motherfucker.

And I was like, I'll kill you.

I swear to God.

I was like, I'll beat you so fucking bad like you'll die on a fucking feeding tube for all the times you hit my mom for all the times you hit my sister and it was the first time I ever saw like the bitch in him because he realized that he I wasn't ching quivering Joe no more I wasn't little Joey Pfeiffer that he could intimidate that he could bully that he could fucking make his bitch and um

I think that's why he threatened me with the gun because he realized he couldn't fuck with me no more And I was ready to fucking hit him at any point.

But the only thing I wouldn't do is I would never hit him first.

And that was just because of my christianity and because of my moral high ground that i tried to stick to um

and uh yeah he fucking drove away like a little bitch and didn't do anything another instance he threatened to shoot me was i was at my uh my insurance agent guy's place

who i've been friends with since i was 17.

and um i just always go up there to say hi every now and then and talk and i'd already obviously been away i'm like fucking 20 years old at this point living with harmony um

and she sees my black Mustang.

She worked down the street, his wife.

And she pulls in and asks, comes in and says, oh, I need one of my ID cards for my cars.

She didn't need a fucking ID card.

She saw my car and wanted to come in and fucking talk shit.

So she comes in.

Mind you, I haven't seen her in maybe, it was only like three, four months.

And by that time, like she used to be sympathetic.

and be like, oh yeah, I don't know why he's so angry.

I don't get it.

He just gets snaps out and all the shit.

She like spoke super fast and fucking weird.

And

she comes in.

She was like, what's up, you fucking piece of shit?

Like right in front of the guy and starts like coming at me heavy.

And I just start smiling and I'm sitting here real, real calm.

And I'm like, oh, what's the matter?

I said, did he fucking finally brainwash you?

And she was like, yeah, you're a fucking piece of shit.

And you're a scumbag kid.

And I'll just like.

just going off.

And I'm like, and she was like, yeah, because you're a mom, this and that.

I said, you know, it's crazy you speak about it, but I was like, you weren't there for it.

I said, all you are is just fucking vomiting.

All he's told you.

I was like, you never witnessed any of it.

Like, it's just fucking wild.

So we wound up going out in the front.

What do you know?

Who pulls up?

Fucking disabled Joe fucking pulls up.

And the only thing he's mad about is where the fuck were you when I called you?

You're supposed to be at work, bitch.

Go the fuck back to work.

Why aren't you where you're supposed to be?

This guy don't work.

So he grabs her by her fucking arm and shoes her to her car, like fucking throws her to her car and tells her to go back to work.

And I started laughing and we're out front.

Because my friend was like, yo, if you guys are going to argue, can you argue out front?

Whatever.

And he didn't want to inside the business.

And I was like, yeah, of course.

I was like i'm not even arguing she's just yelling at me so he grabs her by arm shoes her dare tells her to go back to work and then uh

he goes i i started walking behind him and i'm like laughing because i wanted a reason to fight him and i was like what you so angry about huh i was like what you all upset about i was like what's the matter and he like you know i was antagonizing him and uh he turns around he's like come back and fucking kill you motherfucker i'll shoot you right in your fucking face right in front of my guy right in front of your insurance dude he gets in his car and he speeds off i was like all right pussy i was like but you still haven't done and he's like yeah you keep calling that i'll he's like i'll ever see you again i'm gonna kill you and whatever so i wound up telling his wife i said wait till he turns on you

watch and see wait till his

wait till his demeanor changes and he puts his hands on you i said i guarantee you you'll be the next victim i said because i'm not around to get punched on no more i was like he's got to have somebody A guy like that's got to have something to abuse.

He's always had it.

He's never not hit somebody.

He's never not abused somebody so i have no idea why they got divorced but i would love to know damn man i know how he talked to her i heard how he talked to her and i just can't imagine with nobody else there to stop him what else has happened

so

yeah well i know there's some chatter about dr phil

yeah there's some chatter about dr phil and going on there but you know how did they get to him

so

there's a guy that goes to this this gym that he trains at and his son trains there and he met this guy.

Whose gym?

Your gym or your gym?

No, not my gym.

If he came to my gym, we would all beat him to death.

He knows better than to do that.

He's not that dumb.

My coach, my boys are loyal at Marquez, MMA, and Philly.

They're loyal.

And

he'll be damned if he ever even comes close to that city and steps near there.

If they see him, they'll kill him.

But

no, this is a gym that's,

I'm not going to mention it because it doesn't deserve fucking clout.

But there is a gym and he goes and trains there.

And this guy's son trains there.

And this guy was on Dr.

Phil.

His name is Butch.

He was on there because of his father murdering his mother when he was a child.

So that was his storyline on there.

Super cool guy.

Like him a lot.

But he was gathering content to do the story, a story on my dad becoming Joe Pfeiffer, the person he is.

And I'm not that, I don't want to put everything out there because I don't know what he's comfortable with or not, but basically the executive producer has reached out to me and has been trying to convince me that it's a good idea to go on there.

If, you know, if there's some reconciliation, and I said, look, at the very least, I forgive the guy.

I hate the things that he's done, but I forgive the guy.

Do you really?

Do you really forgive him?

100%.

Because I wake up and I don't think about him.

He has no control over my life, you know?

Like, he could sit across from me like this, and I have, there's no intimidation.

There's no threat.

threat um the only threat is if he had a gun and that's it you know but I carry two so and hopefully it never ever happens you know and I don't think it's funny to gamble about life but uh I mean there's got to be a sense of being extremely uneasy after been through that nah nah I think that would mean that I haven't forgiven him still There's nothing uneasy about it.

What could he say?

I stand on the truth.

I'm on a mountain of truth.

I have sources to back up my truth.

I have have witnesses to back up my truth.

I have friends to back up my truth.

I have teammates that have seen what he's done or how he's talked or how he's acted.

He has nobody.

He literally is going to die alone.

It's fucked up.

It's sad.

And I really want him to change.

And the only reason I was even contemplating it is because my mom wanted me to do it.

She wants him to leave me alone, but he just fucking attaches everything.

I don't, I can't see any of his social media.

Pretty sure he has me blocked or whatever, but I know he's always, people are always telling me he's talking shit on me.

He's writing essays.

He'll post pictures.

So like one of the things that he does is he'll show pictures in the documentary of me and him smiling.

So what he does is he takes a child's unconditional love for his parent of constant forgiveness and shows all these good memories and says, does that look like a kid that's abused?

Does that look like a kid that's abused?

Oh, look, he's smiling there.

Oh, look, you're smiling here.

Well, no shit.

Do you ever beat the fuck out of your kid and then tell him to fucking smile for the camera?

I don't think anybody does that.

So it's

his logic is very fucking shallow and really dumb.

So it doesn't threaten me whatsoever.

You know,

I think he's just a sick dude.

I think the narcotics for 20 plus years has really warped his fucking brain.

I don't really know if he has sympathy or remorse.

I think that part of his brain is probably damaged.

So he might be on the borderline a psychopath or is a psychopath.

He's for sure a narcissist.

He's always talked about himself, like the God complex, like he's always had something everybody wants and he's destroyed every single this is how i have to look at it before i'm in the ufc i've had lifelong friendships and i still have those same lifelong friendships today

this man has no

friends no

Like bro, you went from a family of five and a wife that loved you and carried and kids that loved you unconditionally to damaging them all to where they hate your guts.

Like,

I just don't want to carry around hate for the guy.

I just recognize who he is.

I used to, bro, I used to fight out of anger all the time.

When I was fighting early in my career, I would just blitz motherfuckers and just fucking try to kill him.

Like, I was literally like, and I still have that side of me, but I know how to control it a lot better where it doesn't involve him.

You know, I just want to kill a motherfucker because you're trying to take my, my, my money from me.

But before it was like, I really wanted to, like, hurt people.

And

even in my everyday-to-day life, like Road Rage, things like that, wanting to fight people.

And, you know, i've definitely saved myself from a couple big damaging blows where i could have been in prison and um i'm glad i have you know but that's because of the strong men that taught me how to be men he always claims that the only reason i am what i am is because of him and i think it's such an insult because people like will harmon who put their neck on the line who put their you know, opened their door to me, opened their home, Sam Orpiza, the guy was working two jobs, sleeping on floor in between his fucking jobs to provide for his family, and people like Chandler Henry, you know, who were able to in the documentary, you know, I can express myself now verbally, but I, he has a way with, you know, filming where he is able to express what I couldn't put into words.

And I think that's his talent.

And I think that's why this is doing, going to do so well and, and help a lot of kids.

So,

you know, but because of those men in my life, that's why I'm where I'm at.

Because I was smart.

I asked questions.

I never was somebody that didn't ask questions.

I always challenged everything.

Ask questions, ask questions.

I don't give a fuck if you laugh, if you think it's a stupid question.

If I don't know it, I will say I don't know it.

Because once I learn it, I'm not going to forget it.

So

yeah, dude's fucking there just waiting for me to fail at every moment, brother.

Do you want to reconcile with him?

No.

No.

There's nothing to reconcile.

I know what he is.

I know what he's done.

I want him to take accountability.

So that's reconciliation for me.

Take some fucking accountability and don't die a piece of of shit.

You owe that to my mother.

You owe that to my sisters because you fucked up their future too.

And they're still going through it.

Luckily, I'm not, but they're still going through it.

And

how do you think you, I mean,

I think downstairs before the interview, you said you've been, you have a significant other.

Yeah.

Been with her for three years?

Almost six.

Almost six years.

Sounds like your sisters don't have healthy relationships.

I don't know about your mom now.

Does she have any healthy relationships?

She's got a couple healthy friendships, but no significant other.

How have you learned how to treat a significant other, a significant other, respectfully and with honor?

People like Will Harmon.

Seeing how he loves his wife,

how he has kids that he loves.

He's got three now, and he has one special needs daughter with Prater-Willie syndrome and loves her unconditionally and provides for her better than anybody else could.

And the irony of it is that he was a special needs teacher when I was in high school for over eight years.

And then his first daughter is special needs.

Wow.

So, who better equipped to take care of it?

You know, nobody ever wishes for that, but who better could handle that than him?

So it's kind of crazy.

But yeah, you know, just understanding right and wrong is super simple.

Super simple.

Hitting your wife is wrong.

You know,

it's really easy not to do.

You love the person, you would never want to do that.

But, you know, it is a struggle because I disconnect very often.

You know, we've had our struggles in our relationship and separations and things like that.

But one thing I will say, because like I said, I don't really put my personal life out there or the status of whether I'm single or dating or anything like that, just because I don't want people involved in my shit.

But

that specific person, no matter how it makes anybody feel, was there for me

when I was a loser.

She was there when my arm broke.

She was there after my arm broke.

She was there when I got in the UFC.

She's probably one of the most special people in my life.

You know,

she always believed I could do it.

Probably one of the most special people in your life?

Yeah, well, aside from Harmon.

Aside from Harmon.

He gets first place.

I think because he saved my life.

But yeah,

it's him and her.

We'll call him a tie.

Right on.

I used to look at her when my elbow was broke because they told me I would never fight again.

And I used to be like, I'm going to make it.

And she'd well up and I'd well up and I was like, I'm going to make it.

I'm going to change our lives.

I'm going to change our lives.

I'm going to change our lives.

And man, damn, if I didn't fucking get it back and do it.

So, and I'm still going.

You've done it.

And I'm still going.

So it was a hard fucking road.

You know, we've been talking about all my family shit, but the fighting road was a whole nother fucking fight that had nothing to do with that guy, nothing to do with my past.

And that was a fucking struggle in itself.

You know, aside from my upbringing, I had one of the fucking hardest roads to get in the UFC as well.

Well, we're going to get into that in here next.

But before we leave this segment, just want to ask, what advice do you have for kids that are going through this kind of stuff right now?

speak up speak up talk to somebody if you don't know who to talk to find somebody um get an opinion you know gather information is the best thing you can do um like since i've been out here dealing with everybody from you know uh the daily wire which is what the documentary is going to be on july 25th and whatnot um

I've gotten all their opinions on the whole Dr.

Phil thing, too, you know, because I like Dr.

Phil.

I think it's, you know, it's cool, whatever, but

it's got to make sense.

And it doesn't really make sense sense to give this guy what he's always wanted, which is to be relevant.

You know,

he's nobody without me.

That's how I see it.

And, but yeah, speak up.

Put your fucking pent-up energy into a sport.

If you're a sports guy or a girl or whatever, you know, if you're, if you're a books person, fucking study more than anybody else.

Educate yourself more than anybody else.

Whatever you put that time into, it will pay you back.

Hard work doesn't go unnoticed

when when you have to put it to the test you know sometimes it goes unnoticed because nobody sees you doing it but when you start to perform and you've done all the hard work there there's no denying success from that so um put that put that anger and energy into a sport is the only thing i can relate to and um no matter how crazy an idea Within reason, I'm not talking about these fucking fruitcakes in the world today, but

as long as

you have that self-belief that you can go on and be something fucking big,

why can't you?

Why can't you?

Good advice, man.

Why can't you?

I'm a fucking nobody.

All generations of my family have been fucking bums.

I don't even say that my grandfather's been a bum.

That's not fair to say.

But when I say my father's a straight fucking loser, dude hasn't taken a fucking ounce of risk for his family or tried to better his life as a person or as a man, as a man at all.

It's a shame.

I'm 28 years old and I know more than that dude does.

He's fucking 54, 53.

You know?

take the risk.

Take the risk.

Be willing to fail.

Because failure is only a fucking, hey, I took a shot and I missed.

But you might learn how to do better next time.

So take 100% of those fucking shots, no matter how crazy they are, is my advice.

Love that.

Go for it.

Thank you.

Let's take a break.

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All right, Joe, we're back from the break.

We're moving on from the family stuff, but I did, I wanted to ask one more thing.

And this actually comes from a guy that's on my team who's got, believe it or not, a very similar upbringing to you.

And I'm just

so fucking proud of him because he has changed

his lineage and

he's gotten away from that generational curse.

And he's been with me since he was 17 years old and still with me today.

I think he's 26.

But he wanted, this question is from him.

And

so I told you at the beginning, like, this is going to touch.

a lot of people who've been in similar situations as you.

And what he wanted wanted me to ask you is

as you

as you start to amass the success that you're seeing in in getting in the ufc and making a name for yourself and

how do you combat the

the voices in your head the self-sabotage from all the shit that you went through with your dad and your family and and you'll never amount to nothing hoping you would die I'll fucking kill you.

How do you keep those voices from entering your head or what do you do when they do?

So I don't think you'll ever stop them from coming into your head, especially if you've had trauma

or anything abusive in your childhood that, you know, that has stuck with you for years.

It's always going to be there.

You know, I think it's natural for humans to doubt themselves.

It's our protective mechanisms.

When you go to do something scary, your brain tries to stop you from doing it because it knows the risk, the damage, the hurt.

But I think it's being in the present moment.

I think that is the master key to everything.

And Sean Brady, my teammate, who's also, you know, get on his title run, he's a top two guy.

He's number two at Walter Waite.

You know, he had a lot of performance anxiety in his career, and he turned it around.

And, you know, I used to pick his brain too.

This is where it comes back to what I said about asking questions because I still had the doubts.

If I lacked anything, I lacked.

I'm a very confident guy.

There's not a guy you could put in a room that I don't think I could knock out.

I think I have that chance against anybody, big, small, doesn't matter.

I think you've proven that.

Yeah.

Except Calvin.

That guy's tough.

But I still draft him.

But yeah, so

he,

you know, I asked him like, man, like, what do you, what do you think you did to chain?

He was like, just being where my feet are, being my present moment.

You know, he went and got help and

sports therapy and all those things.

But I'm not really big on like therapists.

I like to just kind of figure it out

or ask questions of people that I trust and things like that versus somebody I don't really trust trust and pay money to.

I don't connect with people like that.

But, you know, he was like being where my present,

being in the present moment, like, and just appreciating where you are.

You know, no matter what was done to me, it's what's shaped me to be the human that I am.

I think a part of anxiety comes from, obviously, doubt and the things that can go wrong.

But

if all I worry about is my effort and controlling that effort and my confidence and my preparation and my confidence and my education on things that I want to learn about and things like that.

Like I can't fail.

You can't fail.

Like

I'm not defined by a win or loss in the UFC, even if I got cut from the UFC.

It's not my identity anymore.

It's me going out there and taking the risk and giving it all that I have that I can judge.

And

that's who I am.

I go out there and I put it on the line every time.

And I try to look for the finish every time.

Or I try to apply myself to be a better person in my everyday life because that's the person you have to go to sleep with.

That's the person you have to wake up to.

That's the person you get your work ethic from.

So I would just say it's being in the present moment and realizing that your past doesn't define you.

Fighting doesn't define you.

And how you treat the people you love is true success.

The friendships that you have is true success.

It's not monetary.

It's not money.

It's not cars.

I love cars, but it's not cars.

It's not the fucking big house.

It's not the jewelry.

It's not the watches.

It's not the chains.

It's not the fame.

It's how you treat the people that you love most in your life.

That's how you're going to be based.

That's how you're going to fucking keep a sound mind.

And

yeah, so no, I don't think anything in the past has like affected me anymore.

It used to.

I used to be like, oh, if I lose, this motherfucker's going to laugh at me.

Or everybody's going to think I suck and all this shit.

And, you know, I've had my struggles when I lost my first UFC fight.

I walked into the fight.

I wasn't 100%, whatever.

I lost.

I wasn't the better man that night.

And everybody turned on me.

It was the first time I got famous pretty quick in the fight where I got a lot of hype behind me and that I lost.

And then everybody was like, you fucking suck.

You're a fraud.

You're a bomb.

You lost my fucking bet and all this shit.

Kill yourself.

You're this or you're that.

So it still continues.

Now it's not my father saying it, but it's people.

But these fucking people are unhappy in their life.

Imagine taking time to go and fucking shit talk a professional athlete you've never met.

Oh, it's why.

I could relate to you all day on this.

Of course, of course.

You could do, you could touch 100,000 fucking lives and save a hundred thousand people.

But if you piss one fucking person off and they don't like it, oh, you're a piece of shit to them.

Who cares?

So live your life by the standards of the people that, by the standards of the people that you keep in your circle is what I would say.

And I think that's helped me, you know, not let the negative thoughts get in my way and have to come in my brain.

I've been reading this book called Inner Excellence.

I think for athletes, it's a must-read.

Sam Moore Pisa

is always influencing me to read books.

I hate reading books, but I'm not a big book reader.

A little tuber tolerant for it, but I still do it.

And, you know,

yeah,

it's been a great, it's the ego.

It's the ego.

A lot of our fears are ego driven.

So it's been the most humbling, fucking annoying thing to try and digest because your ego gets in the way of everything.

It influences everything.

Like, why are you insecure about something?

Well, because you're afraid to fucking lose in front of thousands of people or millions of people on the TV.

And it's like, bro, you got to let go all that.

You can't control all that.

The only thing I can control is my performance.

Did you work hard for this moment?

Yes, I fucking turned over every stone I could.

All right, then go out there and give it your best effort.

Might be a win on the other side, might be a loss, but whatever it is, you're fucking ready for it.

Man, it is

astounding that you've figured this out by age 28 years old.

Because I got real fucking men in my life.

Now, imagine if my father fucking had been a real man.

Yeah.

Maybe I would have fucking got it.

Maybe I wouldn't have, but I think this is my story to tell.

This is my platform to tell it.

And, you know, thanks to guys like you, I get to do it.

Let's talk about,

so let's start moving into Will.

I know he was, what was his last name?

Harmon.

Will Harmon.

Will Harmon.

You had mentioned earlier that he had put his job on the line for you.

How did he do that?

I mean, he was picking me up, you know, not that that's against the rules, but he was trying to take me in his house before I had gone homeless, but he couldn't do it because the student teacher thing can't do it.

Or he would have.

But, you know, he didn't consult with anybody even after, you know, I graduated and opened up his home.

And I think he put his job on the line just by simply fucking protecting my story.

and the things that I was going through and keeping that close to heart.

And I'm sure he had conversations about it in some way, but I know he got a lot of people off my back.

You know, he stopped me from getting suspended from school a bunch of times for slamming kids into shit or uh one kid was saying some homophobic slurs and i said some shit back and threatened him and didn't get suspended so he was always putting his neck out there for me i broke doors in high school and fucking did a lot of stupid shit out of anger and he always was just there cleaning up my trail so I didn't get in trouble.

So, you know, necessarily not anything to get fired over at all.

But, you know, just even those small things went a long way.

Like, I lost my senior night and I fucking broke one of the billco doors, like big ass door, fucking kicked it right off the hinges and broke it.

He came in the next morning before anybody knew and fucking fixed it.

Wow.

And I slammed a kid into

the glass and busted his face.

And he went on, and I should have got suspended.

And he stood behind me saying, Yeah, it's like, you know, I know what was being said, and this is what's going on in his life.

And, you know, it really went to bat for me.

And I couldn't really afford, like, if I had gotten, I probably would just dropped out of school.

So he kept me going to school.

I didn't have good grades.

and all I wanted to come to school with was to see him, play chess with him, eat lunch with him, and wrestle.

So my man was there.

I mean, what was it like for you?

So you didn't move in with him until 18?

I was 19.

19.

19.

Yeah, I lived.

So I moved in with a friend at the time

who was not a real friend.

And he moved in with his girlfriend and I moved in with my first girlfriend at the time.

And we were both in very, very toxic relationships.

And

yeah, I don't even give a fuck to say it because it is what it is.

But when I was working 60 hours a week, the dude was fucking around with my girl while he was engaged to his girl.

And I didn't find out until six months after I had already broke up with her.

And then, you know, we couldn't afford to stay where we were staying.

And I got my car repossessed.

My phone got shut off.

My insurance got shut off.

And Harmon took me in.

And

the worst part about it is my teammate,

one of my teammates at a former team team that I was at, fucked the girl

of my friend.

So it was like a big fuck fest between everybody but me.

And

yeah, that is what eventually led them to break up, which means we couldn't afford to stay where we were.

And then I found out that and then I was like, man, I'm going to kill this motherfucker too.

And, you know, I told Harmon about it.

And he was like, you got to come with, you got to come live with me.

He's like, I just bought this house.

He just bought the house.

It was perfect timing.

And he was like, I got extra room for you.

And

my car got taken away it was one of the most humiliating feelings

and um

you know he taught me a very good lesson it was like probably the first lesson he gave me under his roof as to what it is to be a man of your word and he gave me the money to get my car out of repossession and pay it off and he said i'm giving you this money not because i expect you to pay it back but if you tell me you're going to pay it back that's your word and if you don't i'll still be friends with you and i'll still love you and support you but i might look at you differently.

And that was right before my pro debut.

I moved in with him.

I paid him back over two fights, but I moved in with him right after my fourth amateur fight.

So then I had one more amateur fight and then went pro.

And I paid him back by that fight cash.

And

it was one of the best feelings in the world.

And

yeah, I finally had a stable home.

I finally had good food.

I finally had heat.

I finally had my own bathroom.

Yeah, it was, it was special.

What was that like for you going?

I mean, you went 19 years in the same environment, same type of environments, different abuses, different experiences, but none of them a loving,

traditional family dynamic.

And so then you get inserted into Will's home with his kids, with his wife, with him.

I mean, it was just me, him and him.

Something that you'd never, it was just you and him?

Yeah, just me, him, and his wife before they had kids.

This was before they have kids.

So what was it like for you

to experience real love in a real home?

I developed this mentality that things were too good to be true.

So every time I thought something good was happening, it was going to happen, I knew I like expected it not to happen.

Like even something as simple as like going to a fucking water park as a kid.

Like, nah, it's too good to be true.

It's not going to fucking happen because it didn't.

Every good thing that we looked forward to as kids, including my sisters, we all expected it not to happen.

It would just get shot down.

We never got to enjoy it.

And

so it was very uncomfortable for me for a long time.

And then when I moved in there, it was like I had this overwhelming peace of like, I can fucking heal.

Like I can rest.

Like I can go to sleep and not worry about someone kicking my door.

And like

one of the triggers I used to have was somebody knocking on my door because there used to be a slit in my room at my old house.

And there was an old farmhouse.

So everything was like slanted and lopsided and shit and like beat up.

And I had a little slit in the door from him fucking kicking my door in all the time.

So he would, I just remember seeing his fucking eyeballs look in to see if I was in my room when he would punish me or to see if I was like asleep or something.

I would fake sleep every time.

And I remember one of the most traumatic fucking things is hearing that motherfucker walk up the stairs because it used to creak.

I'd hear the fucking creak and I would jump in bed and then fucking try to hold my breath so he didn't think I was awake and he wouldn't bother me.

And I remember fucking, I had a like a mesh,

a mesh blanket and I remember seeing his fucking eyeballs.

It was like it was in prison, bro.

The dude was fucking, like, I'd be like real quiet.

He always did like traumatic, like, like, not traumatic, but startling shit, like kick the fucking door and scare the fuck out of me.

And then trash all my toys and then fucking leave and laugh.

And so it was like, I always.

I always like, or he would kick the fucking door in, and I didn't even know why, and then start beating the fuck out of me for something I apparently did fucking wrong.

Whether it was getting in an argument with my sisters or maybe a fucking fist fight earlier.

Me and my older sister used to fucking fight all the time.

But my rule was I wasn't allowed to fucking hit her back.

So I used to hate her.

She'd fuck me up all the time.

And

until I got older.

But

yeah.

So one of my triggers was like somebody knocking on the fucking door.

I didn't have to deal with that.

He did it a couple times and I would like freak the fuck out.

It was like a PTSD fucking thing.

Like I hated it.

It like made me angry as i don't know why i was like ready to fight people over it but i didn't have to deal with danger anymore i was able to be in a house where i could have food i didn't i do we used to get yelled at all those kids for even opening the door for more than like 15 seconds in the fridge get the out of the fridge like you were afraid to eat yeah man or you were told you couldn't eat you know because we only had so much food and it would fucking go so fast you know we're a household of seven and uh so yeah it was like you know i didn't have to worry about how much food i ate he used to make fun of me for how fast i ate because i would like scarf down food and uh because we always had a lack of food um but uh

yeah it was the first real like peaceful moment in my life that i had

a security period definitely definitely like you know what i mean it just it didn't feel real it felt like it was only gonna last so long and then you know probably after like the first year i was like man

Like this is fucking awesome.

This is amazing.

And yeah, I'll never not be thankful for for that, man.

Do you still train with him?

Nah, he's old, man.

He's 40.

He claims he's old.

He's not old.

He's on a different goal in life.

He's out there trying to run five miles in 30 minutes.

That's one of his goals.

And yeah, he's a little banged up from wrestling.

Plus, I whoop his ass now.

It's not even fair.

Yeah.

We used to be competitive.

Yeah, I still would, he still would catch me in high school, but I could beat him.

But now it's like, yeah, I'm a lot bigger.

So he don't, old man don't want that ass whooping no more.

But

I've been trying to get him back into lifting and everything.

But, you know, he's got three kids now.

One daughter has special needs.

And, you know, he's got a wife and everything.

It was really hard for him to take the time to, you know, really go out and train.

But he was only ever a wrestler anyway.

You guys still see each other a lot?

Yeah, pretty often.

You know, sometimes we go to Lowell's and I don't get to see him that often or we don't talk that much.

But, you know, we still, I got him out to the last fight because it was in our home, home, like in our state.

And,

you know, anytime I get to talk about him, I do.

And, you know, we still hang out and still see each other.

And I hope to do that till the day he passes away and I pass away.

So I hope that happens.

That's a friend for life for me, man.

So I'll never forget everything that he's done.

And I'll always cherish our lunchtime periods, playing chess.

splitting the sandwich that his wife would make.

I've never seen somebody put so much meal on a sandwich, but it was banging, man.

It was banging.

I used to think that that was like the most like, man, man, how do you afford this?

Like, that's how broke I was.

Man.

Oh, man.

So, yeah, no, Harmon is a godsend to my life and for sure saved my life from very, very, very dark times.

And, you know, he literally looked at me when he took me in and he said, I believe you can make it.

And he's like, and I want to see how far you can go.

And I want to see what you're made of.

And

you can live here for free.

But if this is what you really want to do, I want to see you chase it.

That's all I did, bro.

Eat, sleep, train.

Just kept going.

And that's why, when I lost my first contender, that's why I felt like a fucking loser.

Because when they told me it was over, I was like, I lied to everybody.

Little did I know.

Let's move into...

So, I mean,

19, you're living with him.

You had already gone pro?

No, so I turned pro

by the time I was 21.

I had five amateur fights, 21 or 22.

When did you start fighting amateur?

2017.

2017.

How old were you then?

19?

19.

So I had already had fights by the time I moved with him.

I had four fights by the time I moved with him.

And then I did my last amateur fight with him and then my pro debut.

So I think it was 19, 19 or 20.

Whatever I was, what I'm 28 now.

Full MMA fight?

Full MMA.

How old were you with the first one?

19, yeah.

19?

Yeah, because I was still getting escorted.

I was either 19 or just turned 20 because I still got an escort across the casino floor.

Holy shit.

Yeah, and Harmon Harmon was the escort.

How did that?

I mean, how did that come about?

How do you transition from wrestling jiu-jitsu into full sales?

So I always had this dream, though.

I always had this dream.

I always wanted to fight.

I always wanted to fucking be in the UFC.

I always envisioned people chanting my name and 20,000 fans and me walking out and

in the UFC.

It was never anything else.

It wasn't Bellator.

It wasn't one championship.

It was always UFC, UFC, UFC.

And I was working fucking 60 hours a week in a deadbeat job for Verizon.

Fucking wireless phone sales that I fucking hated.

I hated everybody I worked with.

I fucking I cannot see you selling cell phone plants.

Everybody laughed.

Yeah, it was fucking terrible.

I hated that fucking job.

Fucking dookie, bro.

Oh, man.

I didn't sell shit.

So yeah, I was working 60 hours a week and I wound up just taking a fight just to take it.

Who approached you?

I mean, how did you even, how did you get in there?

I

I told Sam Orpiza, who wound up becoming my coach.

He wasn't my coach for my first four.

I'm sorry.

He wasn't my coach for my first three amateur fights.

I was at a school called Balanced Studios with a guy named Rick Miguel Reese, who's a longtime black belt, was there at my first competition when I was five years old.

Like, dude's known me for years.

Love him to death.

Great inspiration, like fucking, solid fucking dude.

So I was a part of that team for a while.

After Fight Factory went away, he closed the gym.

Steve had closed the gym.

I joined Balanced Studios.

And so I was working 60 hours a week.

And I had one of my teammates, Basil, and I had Rick Miguels as my corner.

But I had reached out to Sam about wanting a fight.

And he got me my first fight with an organization called XCC at the time.

And

Real Scumbag promoter.

I'm not going to mention her name.

She fucking flipped me off right before my last fight.

Fucking bitch.

Funny story.

Nobody talks shit on you, woman.

But so yeah, she I got a fight and I fought this guy.

I was 178 pounds fighting at 185.

Didn't lift, had my own schedule, didn't do shit, barely was training.

Would train like once every fucking, once a Sunday, was sparring and just went and took a fight, knocked the guy out in fucking 17 seconds, flatlined him.

17 seconds?

17 seconds, threw a fucking inside kick, hit him with a cross right hand, put him out face down.

They took him out in a stretcher, oxygen tank, and he had like brain hemorrhaging.

I don't know if that's brain bleeding or something, but he was never cleared or allowed to fight again ever since.

So I felt terrible about that.

I actually saw his coach last year for the first time.

And he was like, yeah, you know, you never was allowed to fight after that.

He's the one that told me.

And I was like, damn, bro, that fucking sucks.

Like, tell him I'm sorry.

But yeah, I smoked that dude.

Immediately had another fight.

Was training for, this is why I said this woman is a scumbag.

Was training for my next fight.

was going through that toxic relationship with that first girlfriend still living in that environment you know like i told you you about all the shit that had happened there.

And she basically would break up with me and then go to a college party and fuck dudes.

And fucking, I was like fucking gutted.

I was one of them dumb kids that didn't have any confidence in the love world, didn't know how to navigate it, didn't know it wasn't love, you know, two broken kids against the world type thing, like I had said.

And fucking, I was heartbroken, so I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping, I got down to like 168, and I had to force drink myself to get up to 174.

Wow, And I still fought.

And

this is where I don't like the woman is that she had known I was going to fight a collegiate wrestler the entire time.

So I was training for a boxing guy.

And then she switched it the day before and says, oh, yeah, your opponent pulled out.

But we have somebody else for you.

I asked the kid.

The kid's like, yeah, I had a little training camp.

So anyway, I fought this kid.

He was much bigger than me, whatever.

I rocked him.

He just fucking wrestle fucked me for like three rounds.

And I wasn't upset about it.

And I was like, what the fuck like this is what I want to do but I'm not upset about it and I was like I can't have a half foot in half foot out so I fought one more fight after that so I'm one and one I go fight again I choke a dude out smoke him in the first round

and uh and then I was like you know what this just isn't fulfilling I feel like I'm fucking off and I was like I can't have one foot in one foot out I'm gonna quit my job and at that time I had already quit my job at Verizon I worked at Honda Piazza Honda for a little bit as a salesman got fucking bent over with that job.

Didn't get any fucking sales.

I'm sorry.

No, it is funny.

Just don't strike me as a salesman.

This reminds me of like my first job after the SEAL team, so I became a real estate agent for like two weeks.

Yeah, and you raise, you're like, dude, this shit sucks.

So I was like, man, fuck that.

So then I worked even better.

It gets better.

I worked at fucking LA Fitness for a little while.

Nice.

Selling gym memberships.

And then this fucking turd of a manager I had was changing the last names of the people that I would schedule to come in to buy memberships or you know join the gym and was taking my commissions so I remember I worked like 67 hours one week and

I got like a $453 paycheck and I was like you fucking bitch like I hate your guts and uh

I was like, what am I doing?

I was like, I'd rather be broke than fucking work this much to just have that little bit of money.

And I hadn't had any sponsorships yet and fighting or anything like that.

And I was begging Sam Morpisa to coach me.

And

he put me through the fucking ringer, man.

So I wound up quitting my job.

And I went in and I gave her the finger and fucking threw shit off her desk.

And I said, you're a fucking scumbag for stealing from a kid.

And I gave her the finger and left.

And she tried to tell me she was going to call the cop.

So I was like, call him, bitch, you fat fuck.

Like I was fucking, I like said a lot of fucked up shit to her.

But I quit.

And then I just pursued fighting full time, man.

And I always knew I could have done so much more because I would go in and train with guys that were training full-time and do hold my own and do better than hold my own and i was like man these guys train every day and they're bigger than me they got strength conditioning they have money for supplements and i'm still fucking them up

so i finally got serious man and i was like this is it plan a or nothing and um

that's when my car got repossessed all those things so then i fought another fight against this guy i had real beef with

It's a hilarious fucking thing.

He was like talking shit.

He was going to eat McDonald's and knock me the fuck out.

He said he was going to knock it put his nuts on my face if he knocked me out, all this shit.

Mind you, this guy's like 34.

I'm 20.

So I was like, all right, bitch.

Like, you know, it was the first time that I sold tickets.

I was in the negative every time I sold tickets before that.

I didn't sell shit.

Nobody wanted to see me fight.

Nobody gave a fuck.

This one, I sold 150 tickets as an amateur, which was huge back then.

And I actually made a couple hundred bucks.

And

I knocked him the fuck out.

I dropped him with a jab.

I was screaming.

I was like, get up, motherfucker.

I was like, come take my name.

Talk all that shit.

I was like, get up, motherfucker.

Like, I wanted to, I tried to kill this guy.

So then I fucking send him to the shadow realm, knock him the fuck out, and uh, knocked him out bad.

Like, he was in a pool of blood, like, split his fucking mouth open

and put him out one shot.

And that's when my career really started taking off.

That's when people are like, yo, this kid's got something.

I mean, you're known for knocking people out.

Yeah.

Fast.

Yeah.

How do you do it?

I've been a lot of bar fights.

Yeah.

Never dropped somebody.

That's crazy.

Hey, I hit.

Doesn't doesn't connect, buddy.

Yeah, I think

well, that's part of the problem.

You got to connect to be able to put somebody out.

Yeah, I think, I just think, you know, this is where I credit my father.

I got to start so young, so my understanding is better than someone who just started.

I understand rotation, rotating my hips and landing at one time and having speed.

You know, it's not all about just power, but it's speed, it's timing.

It's the perfect, it's the perfect shot.

When you land that perfect shot, you'll feel a whip right through your body.

You'll feel like a, it's almost like a snap, like boom, like a whip crack.

And you'll feel it.

It's like a, it's like a wave.

It like travels up.

You'll see like the whip in your muscle.

If you watch some of my fights after this and you see like some of the shots that I hit people with, you'll see it like riffle all the way through my tricep.

Like it'll get like a jiggle, like whoom.

And it's, um,

so I think that's part of it, you know, and everybody at this level has knockout power and they're all good.

Where's the placement?

The placement?

I mean, listen, temple, ear, this is probably the most dangerous one.

And then if you can catch that chin, because really all a knockout is, is your brain bouncing off your skull and you go unconscious.

It's your body's way of protecting you.

Or at least that's what I think.

I'm not a fucking idiot.

It doesn't seem like good protection.

It's not, because then you're fucking defenseless.

But

yeah, so I just have a really good understanding.

And I always prided myself in power.

I actually never knocked anybody out.

I've dropped people before that, and I've hurt people, but I never really knocked anybody out until I knocked out

the first guy in my amateur fight.

So I won that fight and then I fought again, knocked that guy out, made my pro debut, knocked that guy out,

fought another fight, won a decision.

How did you make your pro debut?

So I made my pro debut.

I was four and one as an amateur and I just felt held back.

I was like, bro, I want to elbow motherfuckers.

I want to knee them in their face.

I want to kick them in their face.

Like, I'm a complete mixed martial artist.

Like, I want to use all the tools.

I felt so held back with, like, when you're an amateur until you become an advanced amateur, you can can kick the legs without shingards, but you can't kick them in the face.

If you drop somebody in the amateurs with the shin guards, you can't hit them in the face.

You can only hit them in the body.

And I'm like, well, the fuck's the point in dropping them.

So I made sure when I hit people, I just had to fucking put them out in one shot.

And it was the intention.

My intention was to actually like, I used to picture Mortal Kombat.

When I hit you, your head fucking shatters.

And

I still had that rage.

I still had that anger.

So when I was hitting you, I was putting everything into every shot.

And it paid off.

Now it doesn't pay off because you got guys that are defensively responsible.

They know how to weather the storm.

And, you know, they have good game plans.

And they've been there, done that against guys who everybody hits hard.

So it's a little bit different now.

You have to really be technical to get that shot.

But I was ready to make my pro debut.

At this point, I already got Sam came on board.

Sam Orpizo, who's very monumental as to why my hands are as good as they are.

He came on board for my fourth amateur fight against that guy that I told you was talking shit on me.

His name was Adam Atia.

Complete fucking loser.

And

yeah, so

I beat him.

I had Sam.

Sam used to fucking make me show up at 3 a.m.

just to see if I would show up.

Make 5 a.m., 6 a.m.

drive all the way to Philly, 40 minutes, just to see if I would show up.

And I did it time and time again, time and time again.

And I kept asking him and begging him to coach me.

And I finally got him on board.

And I told him I would do whatever it takes.

you know, to be successful at this.

And I'll wake up at any hour.

I don't give a fuck what time it is.

Let's do it.

And I did that.

And he definitely tested that.

And,

you know, I just started improving and getting better and getting better and getting better.

I would say where I developed the slowest, though, was the diet.

You know, I didn't have money to really like eat super, super clean like I do now.

But yeah, I made my pro debut and fucking smashed the dude.

Smashed the dude.

I mounted him and fucking like I was just bing.

This is where I say I wouldn't stop if there wasn't a ref at that time.

Because I was so anger filled

that I would like get off on fucking hurting people.

So i remember i was sitting on top i like i fucking was beating his ass for like i did it in the first round but i was beating his ass and i fucking took him down threw him down i already cut him with an elbow on his head and i fucking mounted him and i postured up and just started hitting him and the dumbest thing he could have done was try to hit me back and then i wound up hitting him and his eyes rolled and i must have hit him like eight times before the ref got me off and he was like he was like crucified like out and i just kept fucking hitting him like i wouldn't stop yeah and the ref like threw me off and that was my pro debut uh it was probably one of my favorite wins because just how violent it was and like you could see the anger and shit like that

and for me it wasn't just anger towards my father and my life, but it was anger towards like you motherfuckers don't think I'm gonna make it and I'm coming so

That was my pro debut

then I fought

My second fight against a guy who fought in Bellator who had like a lot more experience than me and I beat his ass dominated him It was so slippery.

I definitely could have finished the fight, but it was so slippery and humid in there.

I remember I I couldn't fucking place my feet or anything.

And I won a decision.

And then I won all finishes.

I was 6-0.

Won my first title for Art of War.

This company called a venue called Art of War.

And then I lost my first fight.

What's Sam thinking leading up to this?

Leading up to what?

To your first loss.

I mean, you're just crushing.

He knew he, I was more than ready.

I was more than ready, but I didn't let him know where I was mentally.

I was suicidal again.

you were suicidal through the winds yeah yeah i was angry man it was eating me up i hadn't forgiven my father i hated my life like i still wasn't making any money you know you basically fight for free bro and all the way up until you get to the ufc you know they might give you two grand maybe and that that's as a professional with like fight experience you know when you're an amateur you don't get paid a purse you only get ticket sales and i didn't sell any tickets at the for my first three

So I wound up owing money because I would spend the money I had I needed to fucking survive before I was was living with Harmon.

But then, you know, my first, I think I made 500, 500, my first pro fight, maybe 700, 700, or maybe 350, 350, something like that.

I don't remember what it was.

And,

but I started picking up some sponsorship, so it made it a little easier, you know, and Sam, like Sam didn't just coach me.

Sam, he was a fighter too.

He fought in Bellator.

He was 13 to 3 as a professional, very successful MMA guy, but then he had a kid, and then he had another kid, and just like fighting was not feasible if you lost.

And he lost one of his last fights as an MMA fighter

and uh it just wasn't it just didn't make sense for him to do it anymore I mean when you say suicidal how how suicidal are you talking about but bro thinking about it every day multiple times yeah every day every day I just had this dark cloud over me like I started feeling worthless because I had the problem with now that I'm a fighter my identity is fighting and then I forgave my father like I tried to let go of it right before my I was 6-0 right before my seventh fight

professional fight I so i'd already won a title art award then i went to this company called ring of combat which were awesome and i won the title there and mind you i was finishing everybody in the first round i only had one decision so i wasn't i knocked everybody the fuck out and won the belt in like 50 seconds or something like smashed this guy and uh then i was fighting a guy who honestly wasn't really that good he was like six and four at the time or five and four or five and three something like that and i was six and oh

And

I was supposed to fight a guy who was 10-3, but he was a replacement because the guy pulled out, got hurt or something.

And it was the first time I ever walked into a fight and I was like, there was no music that could hype me.

There was no people that could motivate me.

And I was just like, I don't want to do this.

It was the weirdest fucking feeling, man.

It was a weirdest feeling.

And it was the first time that I had had my girl's family come and watch me because we didn't like each other at first.

They didn't like me.

I didn't like them.

You know, I'm the disgruntled angry kid who used to fight kids and fucking

was was an angry kid and they didn't want me with

their daughter type shit.

And, you know, I didn't blame them.

Looking back, I don't blame them at all.

And I love their family.

You know, they are a family to me.

And the Kaka family is probably another godsend.

Not even probably.

They are a godsend.

They've been wonderful people.

So.

I walked out there, man, was trashing this fucking guy, dominating him and everything.

And then I fucking was tired.

I had his back, I had mount, but I didn't have the finishing mentality.

So I wasn't trying to ground and pound like to get him out of there.

I was just trying to control him.

And I don't know why.

And

it still fucking bothers me because

like, bro, I took him down at will.

I dominated and everything.

So then I took a shot.

I was already tired.

I blew my nut.

I was done.

And I didn't have anything to fight for.

I didn't know what I was fighting for.

First time it ever happened to me.

Didn't have the anger.

Didn't have the fucking let me prove everybody wrong.

And I fucking took a shot, like slipped.

like kind of like did a split and I was against cage and he stuck a guillotine and I didn't tap and got put to sleep.

Wake up and fucking, that was the first time I was devastated and I was fucking crying, looking at myself in the mirror, like, what a fucking loser, what a pussy, and all these things and just like real negative.

And,

you know, that's where

that girl is very special, you know.

I mean, did you talk to anybody about suicidal tendencies or not before that?

You just, no, just bottled it up.

I was always used to handling emotions on my own.

One foot in front of the other.

Harmon, I didn't tell Sam.

I didn't tell, you know, I told Harmon about the abuse at home, but I would never tell him about suicide.

I would never tell him about depression because I thought it was weak to talk about it as a man.

And when it's not, there's nothing wrong with talking about it.

Especially if you're struggling with it, you know?

So

after that, I did.

And, you know, I got myself right.

And I came back.

And I also went and got a different look from another team because the team that I was training at, which was Balanced Studios, they're amazing jiu-jitsu school, but they are not an MMA program school.

And at least to make it to that level to the ufc level and so i went out to colorado and trained with a team called elevation and went trained with neil magney um who's in the ufc been a long time bet whatever and i got a different look was training at altitude came back you know got another first round or second round knockout and got my mind right got myself physically right like was lifting and eating right and doing all these things and i just started going on a tear

and um

Then I got that contender series fight.

How did that come on your plate?

After my return.

So I lost, then I won, and then I got the contender series fight.

And so now I'm 7-1, and I go to fight this guy, Stoltzfus, who I broke my arm against.

Did they approach you?

Yes.

So they approached my management.

My management approached them with my record.

You know, you have a manager that goes who I've signed with since I was 1-0.

His name is Lloyd Pearson, and I've been with him.

He's under Vayner Sports, and I've been with him since I was 1-0.

It's like, and he doesn't take people that are that young in their career.

But Chandler had initially done a documentary that was about my life trying to get into the ufc but it was deleted because we just redid it once the story made sense when i got in the ufc um but anyway nonetheless they saw the documentary eddie alvarez i was close with who was in the ufc former champion um he was a champion of bellator champion in ufc fought and won uh fought dustin poirier conor mcgregor fucking

um

all kinds of people rafael de Sanyos is who we beat to win the belt

um

so anyway Lloyd manages Eddie, and then that's how that connection happened.

And then they signed me at 1-0.

So

Lloyd paid for me to go out to Denver.

That's how I got to go out there because I didn't have the money for it.

Gave me a car and everything.

And me and my girl went out there.

And, you know, so

it was a good experience for me.

But yeah, so he contacted the UFC.

UFC offered me a fight against this guy who was 12-1, which was Dustin Stoltzfus.

I go out there and I fight him.

And I had Sam Moore Pease and I had one of my best friends at the time in my corner.

That was it.

I had one real coach.

I had no training partners.

It was just me and him.

And

it was during COVID.

So I, yeah,

it was bad.

It sucked.

And

so I go out there and I fight and I lost.

I broke my elbow.

Get put in an ambulance.

Don't get to meet Dana White.

All he posts is like, oh yeah, Joe had a dislocation.

He'll be fine.

Cause that's all we thought it was at first.

Turns out I exploded the radial head in my elbow, which which was like, I can't, I can turn my hand like this, but I can't turn my hand like this.

So now I, I have, I can't power clean, I can't turn my hand, my arm doesn't go straight.

Um, when I had my first surgery, so before I skip to that, I got an ambulance, I'm fucking crying, and I'm like, dude, I did 20 years in this fucking sport to fail.

And I remember asking God, like, why?

What the fuck am I supposed to learn from this?

What is the point?

And da da da da da da da.

Victim, victim mentality.

And, you know, had I just been patient and realized that no storm lasts forever, I would be okay.

But I went to another dark place again.

And I got the first surgery,

but they told me you'd never fight again.

They were like, you're done.

You're not fighting again.

Like,

you'll slip the, you'll dislocate it even easier now

because they had to cut one of the capsules.

which I guess is like a ceram wrap that holds all your joints and muscles and ligaments in place or something like that.

Could be fucking that up, but that's essentially the idea.

So I get the surgery and my arms like this, literally like this.

So,

and I do all the therapy and the rehab and all this shit.

And I come and I see, I drive to Sam's house and I'm like, look, man, I was like, I'm going to fucking come back.

I'm going to fight.

I'm going to fight.

He's looking at me like, what the fuck, Joe?

Like, it's not going to happen.

And then I tried to go back.

I joined Team Marquez, which is where I'm at now.

My head coach is John Marquez.

Jonathan Webb's my jiu-jitsu coach.

And then I was close with Sean Brady.

I knew Sean Brady since I was 13 years old and he was 16 years old.

And I had always like stayed in contact with him.

Not often, but every now and then we always had a good mutual respect for each other.

And I'd been telling him before I lost the contender series that I wanted to make the move over there because I knew I needed a real team if I was going to make this my career.

I needed real sparring partners, real regiment.

Like we didn't even have an MMA program.

The way I made it to the UFC and the way I won all these fights was literally simply hitting pads,

hardly sparring.

Maybe once a week I sparred with Basil Jafez, who's in in the UFC.

I'd spar with him, who was a 70-pounder, who I would do very well against.

And it wasn't enough.

Wow.

I had my best friend at the time that it was only a wrestler who knew no fighting at all.

And I would just use him as a drill dummy.

And that's how I made my first fucking contender series run.

Holy shit.

No strength conditioning coach or nothing.

So look at all these pieces that I didn't have to the puzzle.

And that's the other thing that gave me motivation.

It's like, once I get these things right, I'm going to go on a fucking tear once I get these things right I'm gonna go on a fucking tear So anyway, I have the first surgery.

I'm fucked up from it.

My elbow's fucking stuck.

I have excruciating pain every time I extend it's the worst nerve pain I've ever felt in my life Let alone the surgery itself plus the break worst fucking pain I ever felt and

You know all the while I keep telling my girl like

you know at that time like I'm gonna make it.

I'm gonna make it.

I'm gonna do it for us.

I'm gonna do it for us.

I promise.

I promise.

I promise.

I promise.

So I go and I get it.

I go back to the same surgeon.

I'm like, look, dude, something's fucking wrong.

Takes an x-ray.

He's like, ah, there's nothing we can do.

Like, you know, if you do it, if we do any more surgery, like, you're going to have nerve damage.

You're going to have fucking, it's going to be loose.

It's going to be like flailing around in there every time you punch, which it was.

And so I went to this guy named Dr.

Tosti, who I'm friends with today.

And I fucking love that man.

And he got me back in the fucking cage.

And

he said, you have a 30% chance of success.

And as soon as he said that, as he was talking, I was like, when?

Let's do it.

When?

Scheduled it four days later or a week later and right there in the office and fucking went and did it all over.

So I was back to square one.

So I wasted a whole year of therapy and rehab just to go do it all over again.

Except this time, he slit the whole outside again and he slit the whole inside and he had to cut the capsule.

I had a torn forearm still, which is why I was in so much pain for almost a year.

And mind you, while having a torn forearm, they're hanging fucking weights off of you and chains and fucking making you do all this shit and stretching it while I have a torn forearm.

So the pain was fucking, I've never felt something like that.

And so I go get the second surgery and here we go.

Long road to fucking recovery again.

By the time I was good, I went and joined Team Marquez and went over there and was training with Sean.

You know, I got cleared probably two weeks right before I was allowed to fight.

I scheduled a fight when I wasn't cleared and then I got cleared literally two weeks before the fight.

But two weeks before the fight, I break my left thumb off the joint and I already have all these nerves.

Like, do I still got it?

Am I going to be able to make it?

Blah, blah, blah.

I'm fighting a World Team Trials wrestler.

I was supposed to fight a former UFC fighter.

His name is Kyle Magalesh, Brazilian, and he pulled out of the fight.

I think he was just a bitch and didn't want to fight because apparently he had a heart issue, but then he was eating fucking burgers on his Instagram.

I don't know what really went down, but

yeah.

I don't know what went down.

So they gave me this guy who was derek brunson who was also a ufc fighters wrestling coach guy made he was he he didn't make the world team uh world team for wrestling but he did compete in the world team trials which is a very high you know respectable level of wrestling and mind you he was young in his career he was three and oh four and oh i was seven and one or seven and two

but i was out for two years so

um

Yeah, so I go and I have that fight.

I fucking squeeze my hand into the glove, got past the commission without them knowing I had a broken hand.

And

I couldn't throw my left hand the whole time in the return fight, but I remember my nerves being the worst they ever were.

Scared as fuck, like, dude, what the fuck am I doing?

Why am I doing this?

Like, do I still got it?

Like, what the fuck?

Went out there and faced those demons and, you know, got the second round knockout and fucked that dude up.

And,

you know, then my coach told the

commentators, he's like, you just did that with a broken hand.

And they were taken back by that.

And, you know, I had my speech about like, I didn't lose that fucking fight.

It was a freak accident.

And I want to get my fucking shot back.

I deserve it.

And

especially after what I've gone through just to get back here.

And I said, you know, I knew as soon as I came in here and that bell rang, like, that this wasn't fucking over.

And I'm coming.

And shortly after that,

you know, they hit up my manager.

the UFC and they said, hey, look, we got another fight for him if he wants to do this.

And I think it was August.

And when I got the call, I was was playing a lot of street ball and I

fucking broke my ankle, dislocated my ankle like three weeks after the fight.

So I'm in a boot and they're like, Do you want this fight?

And I was like, Yep.

This is the UFC.

You're the UFC, yeah.

My manager calls me.

He's like, Do you want to take this fight?

And I said, Well, I'm sitting in a boot, but I was like, Fuck yeah, let's do it.

Let's run it back.

And it was against a guy who was an LFA middleweight champion, used to be a 205 champion.

I think he was a 208 champion.

I don't remember, but he was like 7-1 or 8-1, had all knockouts, all finishes.

And I was the underdog again.

And

the guy that I was living with, me,

my girl, and him, all lived in the same house

at that time.

And fucking, when I went away to corner one of my teammates, Andrew Petroski, in the UFC, they had done a bunch of showings, and we didn't know they were going to sell the house.

But the showings happened while I was away.

And then when we got back, he tells me like two, three weeks before, we didn't think we were going to have to move for like months.

And he tells me like two, two weeks, three weeks before my fight, yeah, you guys got to find somewhere to live because we're out of here on this date, which is Tuesday.

I fought, Friday, we were kicked out.

And I'm like, well, fuck.

Where am I going to go?

I don't have any money.

I don't, I don't, you know, whatever.

But first things first, I got to win this fucking fight.

And

meanwhile, while that's happening, he fucking overdosed on pills or something.

And I remember I found him in his room fucking bugging the fuck out like cross-eyed as fuck.

I'd never dealt with anybody overdosing in front of my face but i knew something was wrong and i went in the room and i was like yo i'm gonna go train or whatever and the dude was like fucking like couldn't even talk he's like

i'm like what the fuck is wrong with you i remember making fun of him like what do you what the fuck are you doing like what the fuck's wrong and he's like like and then i realized he was fucked up and i don't till this day i have no idea what it was um

but his parents i told his parents i said look i can't deal with this motherfucker you gotta come get him take him to the hospital i'm fucking done with this dude and there was a a whole lot of shit leading up to it that I don't care to talk about, but the dude was just a fuck up.

And

so

I go train, whatever.

The week before the fight, dude disappears again.

First of all, he went to a rehab.

And then I picked him up in the rehab.

And I was like, dude, you know, you always talk to me.

Like, what the fuck, bro?

Like, why wouldn't you tell me something like this?

And all that.

He's like, oh, I'm sorry, all this crap.

And then fucking does it again in a week and disappears and nobody can find him.

Overdosed again in a hotel.

And then at that point my attitude was like i hope you fucking die this time because if you're gonna keep fucking taking advantage of everybody that loves you something i never had

and you have good parents and you have a good mother you have a good father and all you give a fuck about is fucking fucking up every opportunity that was ever given to you then i don't want you around me and so and then he tried to call me the day before my fight and be like yeah i figured you want to hear that i'm alive and i'm like bro honestly i didn't care if you were dead and i remember hanging up the phone and being like like fuck off like so then I fought all the fights sucked ass on that fucking card there's five fights ten fighters and I fight and

once again I'm standing you know I thought was fucked up is I'm standing in the fucking room behind the doors you walk out of these doors and you go right to the cage at the apex

So it's a very big moment.

It's very intimate.

You don't have any walkout music.

It's very quiet.

There's no fans.

It's just UFC staff and your fighters.

That's it.

And the coaches.

So you can hear everything.

And that was my first environment, like second time trying to do it in this environment, which I kind of liked, but it's a little more intimate.

And they're fucking playing on the screen, my arm breaking in front of my face before I walk out.

And I remember just being like, all right, motherfucker, like,

I don't know.

I had that victim mentality still.

I felt like they were doing it on purpose.

I'm like, why the fuck would they play?

Why would they have a TV right at the entrance where I can see my fucking arm breaking?

Looking back, that's not what they were trying to do.

It's just, you know, telling the backstory as my journey coming back so anyway i go out there i fight i fucking knocked the guy out um

and then i screamed at dana white thank you for the fucking opportunity and i was like sign my shit and i like screamed at at him

and uh nobody's ever screamed at dana so and uh

my coaches were worried that yo motherfucker you might not get a contract because you just cursed at him

And I was the only one that got a contract and he drops the whole beat Joe Pfeiffer if you want to get in the UFC, act like Joe Pfeiffer, beat Joe Pfeiffer.

What did he mean by that?

I think it was the way I interpret it is he knows the story of how I broke my elbow and it was done.

And I came back and I won a fight and I still asked for a fight and I took it and I came back and I was the only one that was like passionate.

I was the only one that was like...

relentless.

Like I was going to fucking get it finished.

Like I didn't stop trying to win the fight.

Like he said, like I was trying to fucking smash this dude.

And

I think he loved the energy afterwards it was like i was fighting for something much more than just the fight for the win i was fighting for my fucking life i was fighting for a fucking way to provide for me and my girl and and things like that you know and um

i think he appreciated that so i think it was just the resilience of my story the resilience of the journey not being not accepting no and going away like i fought and i came back they promised me a return fight and they they didn't give it to me they said nah go get one more win so i was fucking pissed about that came back got the win then i get the the thing and all the media basically everybody wrote me the fuck off one of the most hurtful things about the first fucking loss in the in the in the contender series was

i heard sponsors

like telling people they were like yeah he's fucking done yeah i fucking wasted my money on this kid and all this shit and like i didn't hear from they wouldn't answer my texts answer my phone calls and nothing like i lost so many people through that process You find out who's real when you're at your low.

And I'm thankful for it again.

And so yeah, I think B.

Joe Pfeiffer is just the resilience of never accepting the odds not being in my favor.

And I kept fighting, kept fighting, kept fighting.

And

I wasn't going to quit.

So I go out there and I beat a guy I was supposed to lose against on paper, which means nothing.

And

then I scream at him to give him my fucking opportunity.

You know,

I think that fired him up too.

Like somebody who wants to be here.

Somebody who's dying to get this opportunity.

That's a motherfucker that deserves it.

So I think that's why he used me as an example.

And he was very frustrated at the other performances of the night.

So it also helped that

they didn't do good.

And then,

yeah,

he wound up.

How did that make you feel to get that kind of recognition from Dana White?

Man, I was fucking floating on Cloud 9.

I never smiled so much in my life.

It felt so good to just smile and just be happy of what I've done for once.

I didn't have that moment before that, you know.

And even people on the regional scene, like local to home, I don't think that they thought I was going to make it.

I think they knew I had potential before I got hurt.

But then after that, nobody really thought I was coming back.

They thought I was done.

And

so, yeah, it was one of the best feelings in the world.

And then he wound up flying me out that weekend.

So it was cool how things transpired, right?

So obviously, I felt in cloud nine.

He wound up giving me money to house me for the next, you know, I told that story for the next year.

But then Dana personally flew me and my girl out to Texas for the Amanda Nunez

Juliana Pena 2 fight, I think it was,

where she got her belt back.

And,

you know, I got to meet Mike Tyson, which was like my favorite fighter of all time.

I'm not a guy that's a fanboy.

I don't really care to meet people aside from, honestly, you've probably been one of the people that I'm most excited to meet aside from Mike Tyson.

But I would say this is a lot more meaningful just because of...

the impact of it.

But yeah, he was one of my favorite boxers.

I grew up watching him.

I loved his aura, like the black shorts, the mean mentality.

like i really related with that so he flew me out there so i won my fight on tuesday i flew home in the airport on wednesday they had already sent me another fight and i accepted the fight in the uh the baggage claim area waiting for my fucking bags and it was on my birthday one month later on september 17th so i i flew home tuesday I'm sorry, I fought Tuesday, flew home Wednesday, accepted another fight.

Thursday, I moved out of the condo that I was in.

It works out, like I told you, with the condo with my strength conditioning coach,

Adam Ferris.

He owns Pursuit.

He's the one that got me fucking yoked now.

But

that man changed my fucking life, too.

Bro, every person that I've added has fucking done, they've changed my life.

So,

yeah, Wednesday I flew home, took another fight.

Thursday, I moved out.

And Friday, I moved into the condo.

Saturday, I flew out to the fights.

And

first time I'd, you know, ever been able to go to an event that fucking close, like sitting next to me right next to Dana right behind him and uh

yeah it was a fucking fairy tale man you know and even just walking through like the title the the fighter tunnel because I stopped and fought in the I hadn't made my debut yet so I don't know what any of that's like but I'm walking out through the tunnel where the fighters would walk and like people are screaming my name and saying yo pfeiffer yo b joe piper and all this and it was like damn that's how fast it changes And it was just, it was just great, you know, to see the smile on

my girl's face and the smile on my face.

And

it was a true moment to always be proud of and never forget.

So it was beautiful.

It was beautiful.

That's awesome.

And I finally got my chance.

That's all I ever wanted was just an opportunity, man.

I didn't want anything given to me.

I just wanted an opportunity.

And I knew that's the kind of performance I could have.

I knew that was the type of breakout I could be because I'm not a character.

I'm just me.

So there's no like sifting through my attitude to find out who the real guy is.

I just say say how I feel.

And what better sport to be in than fucking UFC to say how you feel?

I don't have a boss that's like fucking checking in on me or monitoring what I say to a certain extent.

So yeah.

Yeah.

So it was cool, man.

It was cool.

It was really cool.

Very grateful and fucking fuck, man.

You know, now I could look my girl in the face back then and say,

I fucking did it.

We fucking did it.

And that was the most,

yeah i'll just leave it at that so i don't cry like a pussy that's amazing that's uh that's that's amazing man

and i get to look at sam or pizza in his face after all the time never charged me a fucking dime just wanted to see me do better than he did because he got screwed over with some management and some people and things like that like the mma world did him dirty but i could look harmon in the face and see hey

We've been saying this before everybody else believed.

You were one of the only motherfuckers that believed.

And then Sam, and then my best friend at the time, and then Chandler.

You know, I've been friends with Chandler since I was in high school.

So, and then now he look at the career he's got.

I think he is one of the most gifted people behind the camera.

And I think his gift is expressing what you don't know how to say.

So now he lives a life where he gets to do this shit and make documentaries about fucking stories that are 10 times mine.

How the fuck is that not a fairy tale?

Don't hype him up too much or I'm going to steal him.

Take him.

He's available.

You help him by doing that.

You know, now he's married.

You know, he's able to provide.

He's got two kids, two beautiful little kids.

And it's a really cool full-circle moment.

Is there a driver behind when you're going out there

that is to prove your old man wrong?

Not no more.

Nothing.

Nah.

Not even so far in the rearview mirror.

Not even a little bit.

Fucking amen.

You know why?

Dude, you know why?

Because this is me.

Good for you.

I did all this for me and the people that I love, and he's not one of them.

So he can't be included in that.

What's the point in proving him wrong?

I already did that.

What has he done that's better than me?

You know, not even from a fucking money standpoint.

But who has he impacted?

What lives has he changed?

What lives has he inspired?

I'll say my wrongs.

I'll admit my wrongs.

I'm a man.

I can say when I'm wrong.

Something he's never done.

All he's ever been is a victim.

And that's not me.

And I refuse to die that way.

And I refuse to live that way because I only get to live once.

So

when I say fuck that guy, it's not I hate you.

It's like, fuck that guy.

Who are you?

Yeah.

You couldn't sit across from me and even compare.

You're not a man.

So

how's your relationship with your girl's parents now?

Amazing.

Yeah.

Amazing.

They're awesome.

They're amazing.

Yeah.

They're great Christian people.

I love her brothers, her sister.

They've included me on holidays where that's my tradition, which I used to always hate holidays.

And now I look forward to it because I get to see her whole family.

And

yeah, it's very special.

They made me a fucking Cornhole master.

Her brothers

used to hate Cornhole.

Her brothers got me so good at Cornhole now.

And, you know, it's just the simple things, man.

It's the simple things, you know.

Even when we...

That one.

Huh?

You better marry that one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a lot of stuff i still want to do like there's a lot of things i want to accomplish before that um

but yeah if if i'm going to have kids and i'm ever going to get married that's probably the one

so

hopefully i don't it up what turned it for him for her parents

i think just realizing the person that i was you know they had the stigma about who i was

and

Yeah, they had the stigma about who I was and didn't know who I was.

They had an idea of what everybody has has said, who I am versus who I was.

And, you know, I was a little douchebag then, you know?

She had only had one guy before me and one boyfriend.

And, you know, like I said, I grew up super Christian and everything.

So I didn't have to deal with any baggage.

I know the girl's not a whore.

She doesn't have a past.

I don't have to deal with any of that crap.

And

got a good head on her shoulders.

And

but

you know, there was an instance where I just there was a couple which I'm not gonna I'm not even gonna fucking put it out there because I was immature but you know I used to fucking have a loud car never fucking pull in the driveway because I felt like they were against me because they didn't they didn't want her to ever like leave her ex at first

and um I basically took her from him so

um

probably not the way that they wanted it to go uh

and they also wanted to protect their daughter and make sure she wasn't getting involved in something bad or with a bad guy and you know, there's just take my round fighters that were violent and mean people and all this shit.

So I don't blame them.

And I also didn't act accordingly to change their minds.

I was kind of like this

think what you want of me type shit.

I don't need to win nothing over with you.

But now it's just, I don't know when it changed, man, but they just, it just clicked one day.

And I think it's just a realization of like what I was trying to do, how I've done it.

And when I won my contender series fight, you know, I made sure to say that I love the Kaka family and all that.

And I do.

I love them kids.

I love them kids.

I love her parents.

And they're very wholesome, great people and I'm very fortunate to be involved in their family so yeah

what's it like going to Christmas and

Easter and Thanksgiving and homie I love it you know

yeah it makes you have any of that as a kid we had some Christmases we had some Christmases but you know the Christmases that we had were always

They weren't as special because you knew how much was going on.

Like, you can't really just fake because a holiday comes around.

That

the everyday life isn't terrible.

Yeah.

So it wasn't very meaningful.

Um,

from my mom getting abused, me getting abused, my sisters getting abused, to us all faking smiles because we got gifts.

Now, as kids, we're not faking the smiles, but you know, the parents are because you know what's going on.

But my mom, like I said, I always give my mom, she's a respectable woman.

And

like I said, despite the absent years that we've had between us, she always worked her ass off.

And that's where I get my work ethic from.

And

yeah,

you know, I hope that she is proud of herself because she did the best that she could in that situation.

And she didn't make all the right decisions.

And she probably.

Have you told her that?

Yeah, we've had that difficult conversation.

You know, I've let her know.

how she wasn't there and didn't protect me the way she protected the girls.

Have you told her that you hope that she's proud of herself?

Oh, 100%.

I've told her over and over she should be proud of herself.

She still works every single day and goes out there and fucking hustles while that dude sits on his fucking back playing with his dick, fucking acting like he's a cripple.

But the second you give him something ego-driven, he's on it.

Guy doesn't have any physical ailments anymore.

So, you know, she's probably going to work till the day she dies, which sucks.

Unless I have a chance to change that one day.

What would you like to see for your mom?

I would like her to meet somebody and be happy.

You know, I don't think there's anything worse than leaving this place without a significant other

to hold hands with when you close your eyes for the last time.

So I think it's a beautiful thing.

And,

you know, she kind of has a sour taste towards men.

I think she's getting much better with it because of me, because not all men are pieces of shit.

By a large margin, I think.

You know, it's definitely hard to find a lot of really good men, but I would like to see her meet somebody and be happy.

Even if happiness doesn't include a significant other, I just want to see her happy and, you know, enjoy some things.

I want her to go do some things.

You know, a lot of her life has been dealing with her daughter's troubles because they all have troubles.

And I've tried to tell her, you can help how you can, but you're not obligated to.

They need to figure it the fuck out.

So

I just hope she puts herself first sometimes.

So that's my wish for her.

Put yourself first sometimes.

You're 58 years old.

You you know yeah

your life shouldn't be dealing with your kids problems joe we're i know you got a flight to catch so we're wrapping up the interview but i got a just a couple of topics that i want to ask you about one of them is we didn't get a chance to dive into it much but you know you were talking about ctd traumatic brain injury that's a lot of stuff that

guys from my background deal with and And I know that comes with, you know, with fighting, with striking, football.

With everything everything that you've experienced, and you said that, I think you said that you wanted to have kids in the future.

Would you want your kids

to fight?

To fight.

No,

it's not the right sport to make the most money.

You can go play football, you can go play baseball.

The pay grade is so much different.

MMA is going to be on its way there, I hope, in the future, but it'll probably be past my time or at the end of my time.

But the pay grade is fucking drastically different.

And

I wouldn't want to see my kids like this is a very brutal sport.

And when I say it's brutal, it's brutal fan base-wise.

These motherfuckers are relentless.

They'll follow you the fuck around for a year just to insult you.

Are you serious?

It's that bad.

Oh, yeah.

I'll show you some shit.

But yeah, they'll follow you around for a year and tell you you're a fucking pussy.

You suck.

Oh, you're a fraud.

You lost my fucking parlay.

Like, anything and everything.

Salty Joe, Poopy Pants Joe.

Oh, you talked shit on mexico yeah i did and fuck it um

and i stand behind it so it is what it is but yeah i mean

yeah no i don't think i would want it you don't make no money you don't make no money you're gonna fucking spend 20 years trying to be the best and mma is gonna evolve so much by the time i'm done that it's gonna be fucking impossible to get in So I would rather see my kid go and fucking play MLB and make fucking millions or go play in the NFL and make fucking millions.

I mean,

I'm a big sports guy, but yeah, so I don't think I would direct my kid.

I would definitely want to teach my kid to defend himself and, you know, take no shit from nobody.

And he'll definitely learn to fight, but he won't learn to fight in an abusive fucking environment like I did.

Because then they'll resent you.

They'll resent the sport.

It's honestly that way with a lot of kids, even in just simple wrestling.

So, you know, because the parents have tried to live through their fucking kids too much and instead of just being proud of them and trying to push them.

There's a, there's a fine line between pushing and motivating and fucking breaking down and,

what's the fucking word, discouraging, you know?

And you got to have some positive reinforcement behind what a child is doing or else they don't want to fucking do it.

Have you looked into CT and TBI and shit like that?

Is there any discussion about that in the FI community?

About what you're in for when it's over?

When these injuries are...

No, I've kind of

steered clear of it because i don't want to fucking think about it it's like me getting on a motorcycle and being like well you could fucking get smashed in the road i don't think about it um i do a good job protecting myself for the most part but yeah i'm gonna have some form of fucking cte because of just the training it takes to get to a fight that's where the real damage is

and um

you know i i worry about it when i do think about it have you looked at psychedelics at all Are you aware of what those are doing?

Like mushrooms?

Mushrooms, Ibogaine.

you haven't i've heard of mushrooms and like my teammate does them um one of my teammates does them like micro doses and shit like that but i haven't done it yet i want to um because i think it'll be helpful but uh right now i know that uh

my boy's over at alp

they're protecting me against dementia alzheimers and uh opening up a few neuro passages well let me educate you a little bit if you don't mind yeah So this came up on my radar because a lot of, you know, a lot of from explosions getting getting blown up, breaching doors, falling out of helos, whatever, you know,

a lot of CT, a lot of traumatic brain injury.

And so through my interviews,

actually this guy, DJ Shipley, who I just, I don't know why, I think you should connect with him.

He's a fucking animal.

But good friend of mine.

Eddie Gallagher brought it up.

He was, I don't know if you know, he was a SEAL.

He had brought up psychedelics, caught my ear.

Then I interviewed this guy, Marcus Capone, former Dev group guy who started this

nonprofit with his wife, Amber, called Vets.

Interviewed him, started researching all about psychedelics.

And so at the time, Stanford was doing the study on Ibogaine, and they were flying in guys that had verified TBIs,

which, you know, if you look at it on the imagery, whatever the, whatever,

whatever they're, whatever imagery they're using, it shows like these black spots in the brain.

These guys would fly down there, and you know, they're forgetting shit, they're losing their tempers, they're, you know, it just fucking changes you, man.

It changes who you are, your temperament, your memory,

all kinds of your mood, all kinds of stuff.

And they fly these guys down to Mexico because it's illegal here, and they'd do Ibocaine, and then

they'd have a rest day, and then they'd fly right back to Stanford.

And every, I think it was,

we'll have to pull from the studies, but everyone

that came back, the black spots were gone.

Done.

Brains totally lit up, changes our life, changes our mood, cures addiction,

cures, I mean, I haven't drank in over three years now, and I didn't even go down there for that.

Basically what it does is it replenishes the receptors in your brain, which take the cravings away.

So it was like, you know, people congratulate me.

Oh, congratulations on three years.

So, dude, I didn't, it was like a light switch.

I just didn't want it anymore.

Yeah.

Came off Adderall, came off sleeping pills, came off,

I wasn't really doing any opiates at the time, but

it cures it like that.

And

it cures, seems to cure TBI.

What is TBI?

Traumatic brain injury.

So if you're getting kicked in the head,

you're going to have TBIs.

Yeah, I've been hit where I've seen, I've never been knocked out, but I've been hit where I've lost like half vision.

I've been hit where I see black spots.

I've been hit where I've seen white flashes.

So, you know, I've been doing this sport for a long time.

My dad dropped me when I was 12.

I was still conscious, but I think I was like the first like real, I'm sure I've had concussions before that from getting stomped, but that was the first time I ever got hit and got dropped.

But yeah, I'm definitely, I would love to talk to him for sure.

Well,

this is the key.

Yeah.

I'm giving you the key for your future.

Health is wealth.

Yep.

So if you don't value your body, you're probably a fucking turd.

Yeah.

One more question.

Looking back,

what would you tell your 10-year-old self?

Hold on.

The rise is about to get wild.

Just hold on.

Just have faith.

Hold on.

Don't quit.

Life is precious.

Life is beautiful, depending on the perspective you choose to see it through, what lens you choose to see it through.

And then there's a really fucking ugly, dark, evil side to it.

And that's why it's super important to people the company you keep.

And

there's always good that you can find, there's always evil that you can find.

Both exist.

Good is losing.

But,

you know, try to keep it as calm and quiet as you can.

Value being in your own home.

and doing the simple things in life.

But hold on, man.

Hold on.

Don't let let go.

And don't let anybody discourage you from any idea you have.

Go out there and try it.

And if it don't work, try the next thing.

Just keep fucking trying.

Keep trying, keep trying, keep trying.

It's like water in a fucking crack.

You'll find a way to break through.

And

make sure you have something higher than yourself to pray to.

And that being God.

I don't think there's any other thing that you should pray to other than God.

So he's the one for all of of us, I think.

That's how I'll choose to live my life.

And

yeah, hold on, brother.

Good for you, man.

Thank you.

Well, Joe, it was an honor to interview you, man.

It really is.

And I know this is going to help a ton of people.

So

thank you for being open.

Yes.

Thank you for having me on.

And thank you for this milestone in my life.

I can honestly say, until this past week, never ever in the fucking million years where I thought I was going to be able to sit here and talk to you.

That's pretty fucking.

And I've been watching this for a while.

Well, it's my honor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

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