BTG 120 - Hero's Death Denied

[Music] hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard we're in the year 2025 now and uh I wanted to go back and recall some stories from my competition days that I feel might be used to Young competitors or just anybody who's interested in the thoughts going through a competitor's head and I'm G to be picking a few matches that I have a particularly strong memory for and they're both with uh BJJ Legends Salah hio the first time I went to compete with him was at the Arnold Classic and this must have been like 2002 maybe even 2001 really early in the game uh it was the first time that I ever competed in the aror classic also the last time it was Winter it was very cold and um I believe I came down with a a flu or a cold or whatever it was because I was feverish the the day of the the competition I had the bad draw because I think I was still a relatively unknown quantity at the time so I had pulled saloo who was the number one seed I was I guess the 16th seed at the time and um I knew of his reputation so he was already established as one of the greats and I was starting to come up the ranks to make a name for my myself and I was extremely nervous I don't I think maybe only one other time that I've ever felt that nervous before a fight I was worried about losing I was worried how it's going to win um my coach not my brother but uh Mike cardoso had given me Intel right he's like look he's a incredible half guard sweeper you know you got to watch out for the half guard you can't let this guy pull half guard on you whatever you do you have to take him down before he pulls half guard otherwise you're not going to get the points and then you're going to be at a disadvantage so I'm running through my head how I'm going to force this take down and at the same time you know I'm worried about facing one of the best guys in the jiu-ju world while combating a fever and going through chills and whatnot so not an ideal scenario uh nevertheless step onto the mat and once the match starts going I feel good right uh but I do notice something that's off as I'm trying to take him down he's giving me really good sprawls like very heavy sprawls and I thought hm it's weird that a guy who's like a all Jiu-Jitsu half guard guy has such a good defensive wrestling and I couldn't get close at any of these shots so while I'm trying to figure out a better setup for my takedown which I thought was going to be a a gimme he ends up blasting me with a double leg and taking me down and then I end up being put in my half guard and now I'm like okay now I'm two down two zero and I have to try to get my way up against one of the best guys in jiujitsu and I'm having a really hard time making any space Salo is all over me and I don't think he was able to pass my guard I could be wrong if he did it was it was briefly because I spent almost an entire round on my back and I just couldn't find a way to get up and the whole time in my head I'm thinking what the hell happened here and uh I thought this is going to be the reverse scenario and I think within the last minute I managed to get a underhook Escape get up to my feet and then I was in desperation mode because I was down points and I needed to score a taked down to tie it up so I started shooting a lot of wild shots at one point I shot in he had a front headlock and I did something that I wouldn't normally do which is I try to peek out from the front headlock which is a bad idea and he ended up capitalizing on that sliding around the side getting a rear naked choke no hooks and I remember eating the choke and I was like a damn it and I and I tapped and I think this was the second time in my career that I've tapped I think I've only tapped four times all to rear naked chokes no hooks by the way it's a the the lion kill is definitely the king of the submission that's the one that has always gotten me uh but I remember after the match being upset with myself because I didn't like the fact that I tapped or that I got taken down and this whole game plan went completely arai and uh the rest of the the trip went poorly as well because I was competing alongside my brother and his ex-wife and my brother ended up losing his first match uh and then his ex-wife ended up winning but she was so sick as well that she couldn't continue and it was a real bummer because we had paid for the flight and all this so like uh the prize money would have helped you know and she would have probably won to be honest uh at the time but you know it is what it is so then we ended up just bailing and it was just a like a real of a trip you know it just didn't go the way we wanted but I learned a lot of things there like one the amount of nervousness that I had against this opponent even though he was great I realized like it was overblown right and even though I was sick and feverish it didn't really play a factor honestly didn't you know like when when it came to competition time it all cleared out right and then afterwards I you know I didn't feel sick after either like it's like the competition help clear it away so uh to me the the big problem was the intelligence was bad right it turns out that apparently he was training with Daryl goler who was a very well-known wrestler and was building up his wrestling game and obviously he had built up quite a bit so I would have played a very different strategy if I knew I was going to go up with against a guy who was actually wrestling versus just a pure Jiu-Jitsu guy which at that point in my career most of the guys I grappled didn't have any wrestling they were all Jiu-Jitsu guys so I was scoring takedowns very easily uh so I didn't realize I was getting into a scrap uh so that had set me back but I remember being upset a lot about this the tap and my brother was telling me just to let go of and I was just really upset about tapping like I'm like man I should have just kept fighting and you know if I went to sleep I went to sleep but uh I had something that changed my mind later which was we're watching the women's final and there was these two girls going at it uh one of them drops a guillotine gets in and starts cranking it and I was talking to somebody I looked over looked back and I'm like what happened here did someone throw a water bottle because I saw there was just like a giant pool underneath them both and then the lady who had the guillotine starts freaking out let's go of it and pushes the girl off of her it turns out that she had choked the girl unconscious and unfortunately for the girl on top something times you lose control of your bowels and she just completely emptied her bladder so I saw that I'm like you know what it's probably a good thing that I tapped then I rather that I tapped and had to deal with you know the humility of having to been forced to tap and having to pee myself in public you know and lay face down in a pool of my own urine right so like there's worse things than that so I'm glad I saw that ear in even though I have gone to sleep I've never went to sleep just out of stubbornness right like if I went unconscious doing a choke it was because I was fighting it to The Bitter End and I I just it never occurred me to even tap right it wasn't like oh this is in I'm done but I'm just going to go to sleep anyways I I've never had that mindset uh I think that would be kind of foolish but uh that was that uh we move forward maybe I think early or late 2005 I just finished competing I think in my first ADCC didn't go the way I wanted I won my first match lost my second one uh and I was hungry for Redemption I go into our grapples Quest Pro division absolute first match Rafel LV Jr and uh going into this I wasn't doing well in a lot of ways one I had separated my AC joint on my left shoulder the week prior to the competition I couldn't compete I couldn't train I was just on a bike because I couldn't even run because the movement of left and right was devastating so I had to be on a stationary bike and just pedaling you know and uh it was hard to make way cuz I struggled I when you know the day of the way in I had to get on sweats and you know you know go running put the Plastics on and uh it took me a bit to get the weight off and it wasn't like I was super lean either I felt like I was kind of sloppy because I wasn't able to train as much as I wanted to because of the injury but I was still entering uh the competition and I've heard of lado because he has done well in fact uh by chance at that same AR classic I was in he was in as well he ended up facing Salah hiber in the finals and he ended up losing to him but they ended up creating a relationship after that point and Salo took on uh Lavado as one of his students and that's why now you see the uh well you don't see Salo as much but you see zanji is in his Corner quite a bit and helps train him because uh he became one of their their students and that was true in that case as well because they were both coaching well no they weren't coaching him yet but they were friendly with him at that point I believe because Mark Layman uh at the time was coaching laado now day of the competition I go to compete I feel in constant pain because of my shoulder but whenever I I've competed I can't recall having an injury that I could consciously be aware of that hindered me because it kind of just all shuts off I've always been able to perform when I had to and I don't think anybody knew I was stepping into a match with an injury uh so when people are like oh you you hurt this you hurt that I feel the only real effect for me was not training the way I would want to train at least with the extent of the injuries that I had that which these were mostly minor right um well not minor but it wasn't like I couldn't move my arm as I could it's just in a lot of pain but once you have the you know the excitement and adrenaline pump and all that that all this goes away and you wouldn't even know anything was wrong with me but I go into that match Lavado at this point he is not what you see now it's right now he's a huge guy really strong Big Frame at that point he was like your typical Jiu-Jitsu guy in the in the old days which is the long lanky uh no wrestling whatsoever he was all guard so he would pull guard and I would work to P try to pass this was a weird rule set it was like ibjjf mix with ADCC it was it was very strange but I was scoring advantages and I remember it was A8 minute regulation round I ended up scoring uh like four advantages he had two advantages and the match ended so I raised my hand right away because I'm like okay I got this one in the bag and without hesitation they called for overtime and I looked over at the the ref table I'm like what's going on I had four advantages he had too this is over and I believe it was Kenny floran who is a ref and he had said oh it looks like the table lost track of the advantages so I was like well my brother is filming let's look at the tape I said oh we can't do that like what the hell is this you know like we have rules for a reason you know and they made us go into overtime and in all the genius of the overtime of this uh weird rule set was that uh it's going to be the same rules so I'm like okay fine know it gets weirder later so the overtime was just like a two-minute round uh same scoring system I'm winning two advantages to one there's like 5 seconds left I'm standing over lato trying to pass he goes for like a Ashi heel hook where I literally just Spin and never caught my heel on anything and then the ref gives them an advantage I'm like you got to be kidding me so now it's tied up match ends and now they go sudden death in sudden death first to score wins advantages don't count mind you we've done 10 minutes of grappling already there's been zero points on the board Lovato's guard was very difficult uh to work against uh hard to pass because he was so flexible and so long uh he wasn't able to really score anything on me either so we were kind of at a stal meate you know I was only able to score advantages through like near passes but he was always able to recover and they would give him like submission advantages for this thinking about a submission so uh we go into this overtime and within the first five minutes of the overtime I was able to get to north south and I remember I got chest to chest so you know we're north south my head's over you know his chest or his stomach and I'm chest to chest and I'm holding him and I'm counting out loud because I used this tactic against Henry Gracie because it was like a 5-second control time and I think I got to like 7 seconds and then uh Lavado recovered and there was no points at that moment I ended up standing up and walking off the mats and I go this is rigged I'm not going to win this you they keep cheating you know like this should have been a score and uh my brother is yelling at the referee the referees uh you know arguing back I think Brian Simmons was trying to negotiate something and I was ready to be done right I was fed up with what I felt was an unfair uh bias against me and I then heard Lavado say something oh he's gonna give up you're gonna win Lavado and if you've never heard Mark Layman coaching he's really annoying as a coach uh so something about the tone of his voice really pissed me off so then I just got back on the mat and I go you know what this if you want me to make a circus out of the show I'll stay here all day long with lato you know and we'll we'll just be here for two hours grappling and I remember when I said that I felt that Lavado shrank a little bit like he didn't look like he liked hearing that maybe he thought he was going to get the win because I was going to dis disqualify myself but it looked like his Spirit broke a little bit I don't know if that's true or not but that's what I felt so they restart the match and 40 minutes later mind you the whole it's a 16 man tournament so there's a right side the bracket left side of the bracket the other side of the bracket is already on the finals all right and they're just held up by my our match and Lavado you know is pretty much been defending his guard the entire time I'm attacking on top the entire time just not getting uh any Clos to the passing so I think it was like 50 it was longer than 4 it was like 55 minutes or something cuz at some point they stopped and like okay we need to change the rules so they go first Advantage wins so it's a point or Advantage will win the the match once they made that change I ended up getting the First Advantage pretty quickly because I was putting a lot of guard passing pressure and I ended up winning the match at 58 minutes which at that point in time was the longest grappling match I think in the in history at that point it's been passed I think by Keenan and Gordon and by the others now as well I think the whose number one events or who's next had a much longer and much more boring match as well so it's a record I'll gladly give away uh but I I won that match but now I had another match waiting and I basically had about five minutes of rest before I had to go into this next match and I remember just lying down and just feeling pain everywhere in my body and even if I wasn't previously injured a 58 minute match with with someone like lato is not a lot of fun it's brutal uh but I got up I'm like all right who's next and there was this guy Betto Aruda I never heard of him black bout Brazilian guy and uh I remember I was actually losing that match in the beginning I think he scored a takedown on me or maybe he swept me I don't know what happened but I know I was down early but I ended up making it back either I reversed him or took him down a couple times and I ended up winning that match on points so then I was on to the semi-finals now and that match was against Salah hio so this would have been the rematch or this is the rematch that I have with Salo and this is a match that I really wanted and I remember this was the reason I wanted to compete in this this tournament because I knew he was competing in it now all the circumstances are kind of stacked against me uh but I remember um they gave me a little more rest than that one I think I had like 10 minutes so I'm lying down and just feeling all this pain going through me and I'm just thinking to myself and I I spoke to whoever was listening and in my own head right and I just said let me win this match if you let me win this match he can take my life and I'll be fine with that I just want to win this one it means a lot to me I just want to beat this guy I'm willing to pay whatever price you know you can take my life strike me down with a thunderbolt just let me win this match against Salo and uh said that and it hit me pretty hard because I didn't mean that trivially I meant it I was 100% serious if there was a demon that would have had me sign a contract there I probably would have signed it right or not probably I would have because I wanted that win and I remember getting up okay it was my time to go on the mats and solo I have no ill will towards him he's a really good guy and he actually came up to me goes hey David look you're a warrior man like you don't have to do this right but I was so amped up I don't think I was that particularly kind to him at that moment I was kind of this like short I'm like no I'm ready to go and he's like oh okay um and we had our our match he scored well it was again it was a weird rule set it was was kind of like ADCC roles mixed with you know ibjjf rules so they scored him a taked down cuz he shot a single leg where he went to turtle and then I think they took the points back because my brother contested it then he scored a guard pass which I felt wasn't fair in my opinion because I was kind of doing octopus guard before it was cool like he got P but I was around his hips and then I managed to escape and we got back up to her feet but they scored him a guard pass for that so now was down 3-0 he shot in again I scored my best move on him which was a lateral drop but unfortunately because ADCC rules it didn't score so I ended up getting on top of him in his guard but it was short time wasn't finding anything so uh he managed to scramble back up to his feet uh he ended up shooting or I think I ended up shooting on him he got a guillotine I ended up having to flip over he got like a almost like a mounted guillotin I think and I was just defending the the guillotin until the match ended which was like a few seconds left so I ended up losing by that guard pass and um I didn't have any shame in it though that match I poured it all out you know I did everything I could to win didn't win and uh he was gracious in in Victory I got off the mats I laid down and remember the first thought was like why didn't you let me die and I was I was ready to and then I I just really wanted that win and I'm not saying that's a good head space I don't think it particularly was but that was the space I was in at that time that I was uh very willing to die to win something which mind knew wasn't going to change my life financially right I I believe the prize money was a th000 bucks if I and mind you after beating Salo I would have beat him I would have to then go against zanji next and zanji was heavyweight zanji uh it would have been a rough uh it would have been a hell of a bracket to win right especially after that ordeal of had gone through uh so and I had to pay my own flight and everything else so I would have maybe made like 200 bucks profit at the end of the day so not a financial Victory it was just about honor it it was just it meant something more than the the medals and the trophies right or the the fame but uh I got over it and I afterwards I still it was very nice of Salo he gave me his training gear well what the gear that he competed in right which was his rash guard and his board shorts and I guess it's Japanese custom to do that to honor an opponent uh I thought that was really cool no one has ever done that to this day that I've competed with and I still have it with me somewhere in my closet although at the at the time I thought it was a little funny because she's like oh here you know I'm like oh that's very gracious of you and then I'm like it's completely soaked in my sweat and your sweat and you know whatever else is in here like probably better in the laundry if you have give the clean first you know but uh but the spirit of it was really nice and I still have those things um and I still have the memory of all of these events and look back and see kind of changes in the psychology that I had where my earlier matches I was so wanting to prove myself that I was willing to do anything to do that and uh you know willing to sacrifice life and body and injury and whatnot and I feel that's like a defe attitude in the way where I I forgot where I heard this I know some podcast uh I I can't recall it but a lot of people when they talk about something that they they love or something that they believe in they always talk about what they're willing to sacrifice as far as like oh you know I will I would I'm willing to die for this I'm willing to do this for this I'm but it's always something that you were losing and this gentleman I think it was about um it was about the black uh suffrage movement or whatnot and he was saying like the problem is too many people are willing to die there's not enough people willing to kill and what he meant by that was it's not like I have to become a martyr in order to accomplish my goals right cuz I'm already succumbing to defeat basically and hoping that My Sacrifice will pay for somebody else whereas the attitude I should be having is that I'm willing to destroy anything in my path like I will that's a different type of price to pay but I'm willing to kill to defend what's mine or to protect what I believe in and when I heard a phrase that way I'm like that's a lot better that's a lot better right like I rather still be alive right and you know not leave behind people that could have used my services and you know my my love and my support versus you know dying some type of Hero's death right now I'll be the guy that lives so I think uh it's better to have something to live for than something to die for right and that's kind of my takeaway from this a bit whereas I was so willing to die for so many things like no no I'm that kind of shows that I don't really have a lot to live for honestly I feel like in in a way i' rather be so motivated to succeed that I'm going to find impossible ways impossible paths to Victory and stay on top anyhow that's a few stories uh of my grappling and just the mindset I had going into it you know uh hopefully that's entertaining for some of you maybe it gives you a little bit of insight into some of the earlier days again this were back in the early 2000s when I was competing there wasn't a lot of sports psychology going on back then I think now people are a little better prepped although not fully to be honest but at least the information is out there now it wasn't really out there back then the only book I was armed with which mind you was a great book was uh wrestle to win by Beasley hendris I unfortunately I believe it's out of print but it was a really good simple book that set up a lot of my foundation for sports psychology and what I used for a lot of my competitions uh but the a book that my brother wrote which is also available on video form on the on my website david.com black belt psychology feels it captures all those things that was in that book but a lot more and it's specifically tailored towards Combat Sports so uh if you could read both read both if you can't I'm GNA be biased towards my brother because it's a book that we also had all of our Fighters read and uh of our new generation Fighters and they've all had such a great spirit that I feel like that's a big part of it so little endorsement there for black belt psychology it's available at david.com on a video format as well that's all I got for you guys this week uh I will see you all next week