BTG 133 - My Bloody Best Fight

[Music] hello and welcome to Breaking the guard on today's episode I'm going to talk about a old war story of mine this is uh one time I took a really short notice fight and this became uh probably my best MMA fight which was in bog fight season 4 in Costa Rica now uh some background into this because if you're new chances are you don't know anything about uh bodog fight or what that was uh in the early like 2007 89 era bodog fight was a new promotion that was coming out that uh was being funded by a very wealthy guy in Canada calinir which was part of like a casino like an online casino something to that effect and he was trying to create a valid competitor to the UFC now unfortunately obviously it went defunct but he was throwing all sorts of money at it and the production values were pretty high at the time and to this day you I ask people because many people on this season that I was in we had uh you know Jake Shields Roy Nelson [Music] um man my names are slipping me uh chel [Music] sonan Cain Velasquez lots of uh famous fighters and eventual Champions and UFC stars like the treatment that we got from bodog fight was above any other promotion to this day so they really went out of their way to give like Hollywood style treatment and that might have been part of the problem as far as budgeting was concerned but in any case uh my brother and I had been coaching George masol is and if you don't know like George masol started MMA training with my brother and I and we got him up to I think like 11 And1 or 121 career before we had differences of opinion and you know he switched teams but at the time uh he was fighting with that promotion he had I had taken him to two fights one in Costa Rica one in St Petersburg Russia uh he's won both and this was supposed to be his third fight there and I also had two other Fighters That was supposed to be joining us so I was supposed to go down to coach three fighters in Costa Rica because they were doing two seasons simultaneously it was 30 something fights in basically three days consecutively kind of a crazy thing to do and uh I was nursing an injury at the time my knee was pretty bum I wasn't able to Grapple or wrestle at all and I had popped a rib on this side so like I again I was just running and coaching more than I was actually training and what ended up happening was George had a knee injury as well so he had to pull out the fight then uh one of my Fighters had a Visa issue so and decided to tell me like two weeks before and then another one fell out I think it was another Visa issue right because both of them were were Cubans so this put me in a very terrible spot as a coach because when I was talking to the Matchmaker Miguel erado I felt so embarrassed because I'm like my God like how am I supposed to look like I know what I'm doing here when I had three Fighters just vanish you know two weeks out of the event so but you know I had to make the call so I spoke to him and I don't know what possessed me but as I was speaking to him I said hey for the one um the heavyweight fight I'll take my guy's spot right and not heavyweight it would have been light heavyweight 205 and then he's said oh okay and at the time my record was one and0 so not very intimidating for most people the guy that I was replacing AR gandu was was uh at the time must have been 4 and0 or 5 and0 solid wrestler uh you know he had some power and the opponent he was facing was Anthony rehea which was a guy with 50 something fights a veteran he had a mixed record right um I forget what the record was but he had a lot of fights and more wins than losses so not a easy fight to jump into on two weeks notice in my view because I was studying the tape because I was setting up the strategy for arel uh he looked like somebody who was easier to take down that was willing to stay on the ground and not try to stand up so the strategy was going to be take him down ground and pound right and in my view watching the the videos that we had at the time it looked like he's a tall lanky guy so I'm like oh you know very skinny long legs be easy to take him down right I'm short stocky so that will favor me getting underneath them and despite the injuries I had going and lack of training I was like okay yeah I'll do it and I was supposed to fly three days after I made that decision to Costa Rica cuz in bodog they wanted to have a lot of b-roll or whatnot so you would go there like 10 days before a week before and they would you know do all this footage beforehand so you had to had basically my training camp was going to be in Costa Rica and I remember before the the fight I'm like okay well I got to do some get some sparring sessions here you know like because this is probably going to be like the safest Spar I'm going to be able to do and I was going with one of the guys that had the Visa issue smaller than me something like okay should be pretty safe I told him hey look whatever you do don't hit me to the body and this side my ribs popped I wor I was even wearing the tech window you know body protector this guy we start you know sparring gets me in the clinch and throws a round knee poom right into my rib and it pops and I was so freaking upset I'm like what a right like again not the the smartest guy right or just a dick I don't know man like I don't know how much more obvious I could have made it right uh I remember that stopped the training I'm like okay well I guess I'm just going to have to fly out tomorrow and this was the day before I had to fly I'm like I guess I'm flying out tomorrow my rib freshly popped uh so I'm not really sure uh what I was thinking CU pretty crazy uh in retrospect like I wouldn't let one of my Fighters go in that condition right uh but nevertheless took the flight went to Costa R and uh it was beautiful right this was probably my like fourth or fifth time there because Costa Rica at the time was hosting lots of fights I think because of the online casinos money was being funneled around and uh we were on the west coast I think in this Resort of Barcelo uh really beautiful they had a you have to keep in mind there's 30 or 32 fights over the course of three days and that means there is like 60 Fighters and the Entourage for each Camp which is probably at least two or three Fighters or two or three coaches so easily over a 100 people in the fight game all in one hotel and then you have to consider all the bodok people so like the whole resort was basically Fighters you had like a handful of civilians the rest of it was just Fighters so it was very interesting right um I remember they would do like two training sessions every day and they would like split up like they would have like a you know like a blue Corner Red Corner type thing and uh I since I had been at a couple of boow doogs I knew some of the regulars uh like one of the friends that we had made was the the dams Rodrigo on Karina Dam and um they had actually helped me because because I was injured I wasn't able to train with uh mpid doll and he did also didn't have a partner so they partnered up and they worked out to be a good match so I was working with them but since I wasn't really doing any sparring or I couldn't even wrestle I was just doing lots of padd work more or less with uh with George and my kickboxing trainer uh Eric castanos uh so I was just doing a lot more conditioning really but those training sessions were very interesting because again there would be 30 fighters in the room because like I said they split them into different areas and it was all outdoors and it's Costa Rico so it's like a rainforest it's really hot humid very easy to sweat there and uh you had this big Open Mat area that was covered with a roof and you would see all sorts of people training and man some people train very differently right like I remember I think Pelle was training uh he was part of our side and uh if you don't know who P Landy he was a incredible kickboxer and he was basically going full blast to the body with his poor sparing partner and you would hear the kicks Echo and slap on this guy's body body from like the whole room and it was just I was like cringing every time like oh my God right like I would hate to be that guys UK you know just getting devastated we also had uh I remember there was one exchange I had with chel sonan by the way like if you guys never met him in person super nice guy uh he obviously wasn't like a big time guy yet but he was already a well-known commodity at this point but uh he knew everybody's name super respectful never big shouted anybody and I remember he approached me and he knew be my name uh to my surprise and he had asked me uh like questions on like submission defenses and this was also an eye opener because uh he was asking me like very basic things how to escape a triangle choke how to escape a armar and then the one that really mystified him was how to escape by um plada and I like showed him the very basic and I even prefaced it I'm like look not I'm not trying to insult you or anything but I just want to show you just in case you don't know this like if someone gets you know you for roll and I showed it more as a matter of fact thing just so I was complete because then I was going to show him you know stepping over and all that and he said whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa go back go back what is this for roll business and that's when I realized man some people really know don't know any groundwork at all right and uh I wasn't maybe he was trying to be you know's trying to be very nice to me I I don't think it was because based off his submission losses he really didn't have a lot of groundwork which is surprising for somebody who's a wrestler you know and but that wasn't too uncommon like I felt like sometimes wrestlers are so like ego itical or like they think they could just stay in their Lane and not have to learn anything new when having just a blue belt level of jiujitsu with world class wrestling will make you a monster and I've made this argument many times particularly Kevin randomman would probably have been the best example any case still a nice guy um best trash talker in the game for sure and uh so I got to work with them and it was cool seeing a lot of people in there that I've known like Roy Nelson like I said was there and uh I had grappled them already so we're in good terms but you also had the Diaz brothers there because I think Jake was fighting in that card and uh that's actually I think where I first met Jake Shields not I think we hung out like once you know but not really on a super friendly level so to speak but just to chitchat you know as an acquaintance but uh the the things that were weird about this was you were supposed to be in a fight Camp again we were fighting 10 days from we were staying there 10 days so I think for me it was like nine days out my fight because I was on the second day it's strange because it's like a vacation and a fight camp at the same time because we're staying on a Beachside Resort so you have the ocean and they're also taking us to like exotic location because they want to do like you know these uh b-roll films where like we you know we're like running through the beach or we're lifting a log or we're doing some silly stuff like that you know we're like a ziplining or doing weird things that you normally would not do before a fight so uh it was definitely a a challenge as far as mindset you know and uh I that was one thing that almost it could have potentially hurt a lot of the fighters were they were taking us on this uh bus to one of these locations uh and it's going uphill and it's loaded with Fighters so pretty heavy and as it's going up the hill it's the car's engine starts to stall and then the truck starts to slip back and the bus driver is like everyone out everyone out this bus is rolling backwards all the fighters had to jump out of it you know and then eventually uh he gets it to stop and we all have to get behind it and start pushing it to try to get it to jump start again it was a pretty wild moment uh but yeah so there was a lot of weird things going on there now the day of the weigh-ins was the first time I actually got to go face to face and see my opponent I hadn't seen him I can't recall seeing them prior maybe like a glance you know just walking down the hallway or something like that but not really get a good look at him and uh they did the WIS just like you know well they I think they did a ceremonial one as well and that's the one that I remember I don't know if they did a like a off camera one I can't recall now but I was so underweight it was a 205 uh weight class I think I weighed in at 189 or 191 I was so light right cuz my weight class would have been 185 and he weighed in I think at 205 on the dot cuz he was cutting and when we went to do face to face it was more like face to chest because significantly taller than me and he was thick so I realized that like ah like I I this is a a literal David versus Goliath match up here right not my first one uh but it wasn't what I was expecting I thought it was a tall skinny guy like no no he's a he's a big 205 five and uh I'm like all right I know what I'm at least now I know what I'm getting into and uh since I didn't really cut weight there was no real incident it was pretty easy for me just had to wake up go there and then had my normal meals went back to bed and fight day was very interesting because I was about to say fight night but it wasn't a fight night it was a fight morning the fight started like at 10: a.m. again it's a weird uh something that for Fighters very unusual right we normally fight at night and this is not even like a time zone difference it's in you know Costa Rico so it's Central Standard Time you know which would have been like 1 hour earlier than Miami time uh but that's what it was uh they set up the fights in the morning and I imagine it's because it was an outdoor venue they had it on the beach they set up the the ring cuz they used the boxing ring on the Beach so they built the whole platform they had a little roof over the top but it was open air and uh they had like the warmup areas with like tents around the the thing it was really bizarre but I remember getting up it's like you know I think I got up around 9 or something like that I'm like okay I got to fight in a couple hours uh you know started warming up my main Corner man at the time was mid doll which was probably wasn't a great bet but unfortunately my brother does not had never cornered me in an MMA fight because he was too anxious he uh as as my big brother he he was fine doing grappling but whatever reason MMA you know he felt like he wouldn't be able to contain himself and so he's like uh I'll send masal I'll send the you know or my kickboxing coach and they'll do the job all right fair enough uh but my mouthpiece you know which I had a we mouthpiece that was molded was lost and you know as the corner man that's kind of your job to keep track of these things so we ended up having to find a boyum bite mouthpiece which was at the bottom of of mf's bag I remember had like a pubic hair inside of it I had to like wash it off in the sink and there was no microwaves or no like range so I had to basically get a coffee maker with a hot water put it in there enough where I can kind of bite into it didn't really work but I'm like well I need a mouthpiece so I'm not going to be allowed to fight this is all I got and that's going to become an issue later so I had this rinky dinky mouthpiece then my kickboxing coach uh went to you know as we're doing the warm-ups starts wrapping my hands and he is wrapping my hands very thick right I'm like theer like this is a MMA fight and you're rapping me like I'm doing boxing I'm not going to be able to to grab anything but at the moment we were running out of time because I had to do the walk out soon so he couldn't redo the rap so it's like all right that's it I guess I'm going out like I'm not going to be grappling this is just going to be a kickboxing Affair against a guy who's primarily a striker although to be fair I was doing more striking at that point so I'm like all right I was willing to engage we get into the walk out it's kind of weird because it's like as long like L-shaped line that you had to walk through you call and it's just the sand and then you walk into the platform and you know they had the camera men following you it was a weird experience for me you know it's the first time that I was fighting you know in the middle of the day outside in the beach and the crowd was just Fighters so it was like 20 or so people and the ring girls which they like 10 of them uh and just get into the ring it was very surreal and my opponent was the first to walk in so I was already I was the second one to walk out I did introductions get into the fight and the fight was going well for me you know uh at least I felt initially he had an upper hand he definitely you know connected a good leg kick on me that that spun me around okay I gota watch for these I did connect a good knee and at one point I was able to Parry in one of his punches and land a clean right hand I remember when I hit him with the right hand I saw his eyes roll back a little bit and I was like okay I can hurt this guy right but shortly after that he was able to Corner me uh in the ring ropes and uh he landed a stiff left that just crushed my nose and at that moment moment I went wrestler mode dropped shot in took him down but and then I just started raining down ground pound and uh I remember the crowd going crazy but I also remember that my nose just was leaking like a faucet just the ref comes in stops it and I'm not sure why he stopped it cuz they didn't have a doctor come in to check me out he just asked me do I want to continue I'm like of course of course like the fight just got real right I'm bleeding a ler place I need to get some retribution now this is where this same guy who is a nice guy his name is Troy W he was a referee he's the same referee that's kind of goofed me with me on ADCC CU he used to ref ADCC also so like even though we were very friendly like he was like the worst referee for me he always gave me terrible calls and the terrible call here was he stood us up back on our feet I'm like man I was on top of this guy right like I got my nose broken you know and I needed to score this takedown and I got it and now you're going to put me back on my feet like this is the like my concern now was that you guys were going to stop the fight because if he hits me again in the nose it's going to be over right and now I have to like you penalize me but he wasn't having it so we had to stand up on our feet and that was dicey and uh there was one particular exchange where Anthony really caught me good I think he threw like a uppercut left hook that connected boom boom and I remember like well if I take any more of those it's going to be over right like there weren't good shots to absorb fortunately I was able to blast him again with a double leg take him down and then my pre-fight assessment was correct in that he wasn't uh trying to get up back up to his feet he was just trying to play guard and I was able to really punish him with a ground pound and at the time I was big on throwing overhands like uh like Fedor style overhands so I was connecting a lot of big shots and um doing some good damage I was able to pass get into Mound uh I did eat some up kcks from him that uh made me think twice about standing up again because at one point I was trying to stand and pass and and he just poof caught me with a really good uh upkick and I was like yeah uh one of those could end the night you so like I got back down and I just worked for my knees more and uh again Landing lots of heavy shots was able to get into the mount finish the round on the mount and I had the feeling I had won that round uh I pretty much stole the round because he obviously won the first half or not not the first half but I think the first third of the round but then the Tak down and all the ground pound had put the round in my favor but now we're moving into round two it was very obvious that uh I needed to take him down immediately and play the same strategy which was my strategy for my fighter and I was successful in doing that round two I was able to rush him to the ground uh run him over he actually was trying to chimur me off a double leg that's kind of funny uh but well once I got him down then uh I was able to do a lot of damage with the ground pound this round because I pretty much had the whole round on top there was one point where I was standing I I threw the ankles by and then landed a giant hammer over overhand right and I think that was a turning point because I saw his guard kind of just fall apart at that after that shot I was able to get side control side control kind of sucks for though this was like a pride rules in a way well not not really actually it was weaker than Pride rules because you couldn't elbow uh at all so side mount without elbows or knees is pretty much useless so I remember I was just throwing some hammerfist but I really wanted to work into the mount and uh I was able then to move into the mount and I heard someone say there was one minute left and at this point I'm like I need to finish this fight all right because one thing I haven't mentioned was that my mouthpiece was coming off every like 30 seconds and the reason why is that once my nose was broken couldn't breathe through my nose at all and my mouthpiece was so loose that whenever I opened my mouth to breathe it was just flying out and they were warning me because they were thinking I was using it like a stalling tactic no it's just that I couldn't keep it in there if I wanted to right um and I was gassing right I was I was putting out a lot of energy to to finish so when I heard out there was 1 minute left I'm like I'm going to go berserk here and get the TKO so I started letting my like he was trying to hold me down for a little bit so like I just kind of rested composed and then once I felt an opportunity I kind of busted up and postured and just started letting my hands fly and I was throwing both my hands as fast as I can and I was thinking you know do as much damage as possible and also just get a lot of hands on him and you know in modern MMA and this is 2007 so it's a modernish like he they see enough punches being landed without the opponent able to defend they stop the fight and I'm throwing throwing throwing throwing connecting a lot I'm like man like this seems like forever and up to a point I felt it was like maybe 10 15 seconds like my hands are getting tired from throwing all these punches and I have to switch to go to one arm punches so now I start punching with one hand because I can't chamber both the hands and I'm thinking like what am I going to have to do to get this fight to stop man because I've connected like 20 punches on this guy consecutively and you know he's just like shelled up but he's getting hit you know I'm getting the guard is pretty open so I'm getting my my punches in and finally the referee comes in to stop the fight and uh I'm able to get up I remember at the time my corner wanted like to like parade me around in celebration but I was so tired like I just need to sit down dude like I just I emptied the tank and then some uh to get that finish um yeah it would have been a problem if I didn't get the finish I think if I had to go into a third round it would have been a problem and uh he was all right the opponent he was able to get up uh I definitely it was interesting his face was was just black and blue the next day all over here looked like an alien I don't know why like I I guess I was scoring a lot of forehead shots just follow from the overhands because I wasn't uh particularly aiming too well back then I was just looking for a head shot so I was just there's overhands tend to land where they land but uh I remember winning that and uh that was a pretty amazing moment a good comeback from behind in away at least from the face uh nothing that surprised me because it wasn't the first time I broke my nose I've broken my nose multiple times at wrestling matches and that never stopped me like usually from Cross faces or well not usually they were both from Cross faces that got my nose broken and I just rustled through it I don't think like some people act like breaking your nose is like a fight ending thing and from my experience it's not it's just like getting a cut or something like that it's not that big a deal uh it does affect your breathing for sure but it's a fight like I expect these type of things to happen the idea that I would quit because my nose broke is absurd to me because uh but then again like I was saying in that I know there's a quote for me because they they interview you before and like I was I I had said this and I meant it which I was willing to die to to win right I was in that mindset that I would sacrifice everything to for victory and uh I meant it it wasn't like some people say it to be cute no no I was 100% serious I was ready to die for well would have been I think I want we want fight the night for that fight and we did win fight of the night for that fight and uh I got like 10 grand for that fight which at the time was good money for 2007 for a guy who's one0 featured on television that was posted Nationwide um public ACC TV that was pretty good deal and uh what's funny people thought that the nose would be the most painful thing but it wasn't the thing that I remember after the fight I was complaining about was my leg cuz that one good leg kick he got in he got one that like thumped you know that's that was the one that spun me around and I was like oh man this freaking Ki is the leg is killing me the nose like I knew it was hurt like it's not really bothering that much right but uh in the aftermath uh they were telling me Oh we have to take you to the hospital because they have to fix your nose and I remember I didn't want to because I'm like man like uh they're going to charge me a fortune to get this thing fixed I don't know if the the insurance is going to cover it blah blah blah and then they're like oh no the event insurance is going to pay for everything and then when they said that oh okay then that's let's do it and that was interesting cuz we had to take a helicopter ride because I said we're like in a jungle and I guess to take us to the hospital uh they had to use a helicopter so me and George got on the helicopter flew across and uh getting into the hospital was interesting CU it was like a freaking war zone right and what was hilarious it was just all the fighters and there was like one because there was some unfortunately some traumatic uh injuries imagine the course to 30 fights there's going to be some uh damage but it seemed like there's one girl I think that broke her leg and one guy who the the the bone was popping out or the arm like there were some crazy injuries and I remember walking down the hallway and you would see people in stretches I was like what the these this hospital has no idea what's going on here they must be like where are all these people coming from you know like I didn't Costa Rica doesn't have a military like what's what is the war here you know uh so in back mine seemed like a minor thing cuz I was fine I wasn't really in any pain it was just that my nose was broken and the doctor they did the x-rays and stuff and they confirmed that yeah like and he can confirm like it looks like you broke your nose twice be prior one this way and then the second time it fixed it kind of but this third one it said he cracked it and it pushed the bones away from each other and he was saying you know with the separation of the bone the lower part is not going to get any blood flow it's going to end up dying and then your nose is going to collapse and you know you might have some breathing issues or whatever and that was enough to scare me you know I was like 24 or something I'm like okay you know do what you got to do and fix it so they put me under uh I wake up I got the nose fixed but they got these plugs all the way inside my nose now so it's like a they put like cotton swabs or whatever it is they're like this long and they're just man they're like inside your brain you know so it doesn't feel great you can't breathe through your nose at all everything's through your mouth but your nose is still leaking blood so like you had like I remember going back to the hotel and they have this like little bib for me that's like around my nose and I'm just covered in blood the whole time I'm like well if I was looking to spit any game at any of these Winger rolls or whatnot it wasn't going to work like I looked like a freak show you know with his Contraption on but uh spend the next couple days there and uh they you know the bulog wanted to set up a future fight with me for because obviously I got fighted at night they wanted me to do another fight there and we were like in the works to set it up but Miguel was also erado the Matchmaker was also connected to ADCC and and he was able to help me get invite into that 2007 ADCC which was great the only issue once again was that it was like 3 months from then and I had a broken nose I had the rib and they're like well you know I I told him yeah put me in I'm like I'm just going to have to heal fast enough after this to be able to get in there but I think that definitely helped me get that fight uh like that invite uh so I'm grateful for that great experience overall and when I got back home I think it was a month later where like they put it out on TV and that was the one time in my life where I had some uh celebrity Factor because I remember when I would go out people would recognize me in the street cuz they they had some weird channel it's called I on TV but it was on everyone's TV it was like CBS NBC type of thing so like you could anybody could watch it you didn't need to have a paid thing so you imagine back then they they're showing MMA fights you're going to watch it and plus they had like all sorts of beautiful ring rolls there so like a lot of I candy there too uh so I I remember at that time I was dating and I would be going out on dates and like people would walk up up to my table go oh man I saw your fight it's amazing this and that and like they would want a picture or something like that and great for me right cuz it made me look like a big shot you know but uh unfortunately I learned the 15 minutes still ended right and uh that didn't last that long that was like and it's funny you know when you when you see it for yourself right because uh you know after a few months no one was approaching me like that anymore now I mean I still get that from people who are jits right like people who are really into Jiu-Jitsu and know who I am that might happen but very rarely but at that point it was like every time I was leaving my house I was getting recognized so um that was interesting to experience as well unexpected and uh that was my short notice fight story with bodog fight right uh things that I learned from that one don't take a short notice fight you have to respect every opponent right I went in there and I clearly underestimated the the threat that this guy post just because I watched some video and I guess maybe there was a funny lens or whatnot it just he didn't look as big as I thought he was and uh two not going in with somebody who wraps the hands the way you need them wrapped is important because I remember in the commentary they were saying oh you know David is a submission he they had ho Gracie as one of the commentators actually pretty cool also OG of the the UFC and um he was saying oh you know as a Grappler he's going to look to try to score submission and I could hear that because they were you know ringside and I was thinking like I'm not going to submit anything here because I can't grab my hands were like casts you know I was just there to punch right like I couldn't grab something if I one itude so that also obviously if someone was a Grappler that kind of impaired my game plan quite a bit I had to go in there just hitting uh which I can tell you is a lot of fun right uh gr on pound to me is like one of the funnest things possible it's just I don't know why it is uh maybe I'm a sist but uh it it is very satisfying when you land a clean shot right like a lot of those overhands when they just connect on the chin poof was like man uh very satisfying I'm not sure why but it is and uh but any case having somebody who doesn't understand how you need your hands wrapped and every fighter needs their hands wrapped differently I have some guys that don't even wrap at all it's just a glove and they prefer that whereas some guys need a lot of protection on the wrist some need you know some protection over the the hand so like it all depends but in MMA we usually want a very good grapping ability even if you're not a Grappler you still need to be able to grab right and this I remember I could barely close my hand uh it wasn't a good job right uh obviously having somebody keep track of my my items like the the mouthpiece was also important so the lack of preparation for this was very evident to me right as far as like me physically I wasn't in great shape uh um you know my corner team was kind of strung together not really well thought out uh you know I was fighting somebody that well I I had I knew the game winning game plan and it did work I really hadn't trained the level of conditioning required to like execute it super clean you know or at least where I didn't take a good amount of damage and again didn't respect the opponent enough because uh again I trusted video that was like maybe bad angle or just like I said funny lens but I mean it wasn't wrong in the strategy but I just had a very different impression of the size right and coming in so light also not great like I said I was like it was either 189 or 191 I can't remember which one and he was 205 so and that's me without trying to cut weight 14 lbs under the weight class right whereas he cut weight you know probably 15 20 lbs to make 20 five so yeah there's at least a 30 lb disparity of size which when you watch the fight it's very evident and I'll put a link to the the the the fight below just in case so you guys can watch the whole thing and you can see the interviews and all that stuff but yeah that was my best fight story as far as MMA is concerned uh and I think it was a good way of defining my style as far as like it would be gritty take down pounds lots of ground on pound part of me wishes I would have done more Pro MMA because I I think my style worked really well for that but uh I got into grappling and I I was doing so well with the grappling I was already world class that I felt like I I really need to take advantage of that opportunity and I obviously it paid off did well but there is always a part of me like man like I I wonder where how far could have gone in in MMA and I imagine if I picked the right weight class pretty far because guys around the same era you know like like Jake for example he got very far uh so it would have been something to think about but you know I'm I'm not disappointed with my path but one thing I have to mention here that I'd be I would be neglecting I think an important part of History was my pursuit of the Kimura trap started with bodog and what I mean by that was I remember the I was I like Kimura I've gotten a few Kimura victories and you know as a wrestler American Kimura hammerlock you know they're all like familiar territory and since you could do it from dominant position is one of the submissions that we like doing as a a top oriented guy but when I took George to St Petersburg for his bodog fight uh I had mentioned in the beginning Rodrigo dam was the guy that we ended up having him as a training partner since I couldn't train and he was big he was a very good submission guy and in particular he was a big Kimura guy but he was using kimor to take the back he was using uh kimor to set up armbars like those were like two sequences that you would see from him repeatedly and I know he would get George with it several times but I would see him grapple with other people and he was catching everybody with this so it got my attention because he was using the Kimora trap idea basically and those were like the two Pathways I saw aming a lot it was like Kimora to armbar Kimora to reneo and I remember like having a mental not this like this is is something I need to work on but I I really didn't until the Costa Rica one cuz I remember the Costa Rica one we had a training session where we were kind of exchanging techniques like he was asking me for some wrestling tips and then I asked him about those Kimura tips so he showed me his Kimura to armar setup and his Kimura to a backt setup and I was like okay I'm going to get these engrained in my memory and and build them because I've seen how uccessful this guy is in doing it and that's what started my uh my journey and uh now he was in the first I know like people like you can watch Andre gaval back like in 2002 doing like kimor from top half guard and rolling to the back and zanji maybe even earlier so by no means was he or I and I think Lloyd Irvin had sent me a video of one of the old school catch wresters back likeing 1950s doing kimor into back Mound and stuff so like this thing's old right but uh that Rodrigo danam was the one that introduced me to that concept at least the first guy that really got it across to me and when I went home that's when I started drilling this repeatedly but what start I basically started with two moves right Kimura to armar and Kimura to back mou and and as I drilled this over and over again I started seeing lots of different ways of using it I said oh I could do a Kimora to side triangle Kimora to heers I could do same side Kimora and then I started seeing all the different positions I could do it from I could do it from you know from a sprawl I could do it from the turtle I could do it from the guard I could do it from bottom guard I could do it from side mount you know like so I like fleshed out this whole system after that but without this fight happening that would have never happened right so like in my story like this is probably the most important fight I've ever had uh because without this kimor trap system doesn't show up and that is probably my most profound uh contribution to the sport is making that submission sequence mainstream like I said I'm not the one that invented it I'm not the one that created but I definitely did credit for the one that popularized it and systematized it in a way that was very easy for people to pick up so uh even though I would say like as a learning lesson like I wouldn't take a short notice fight based off this experience at the same time I definitely do not regret this experience it was a vital part of my life right like my life would take a very different direction if I didn't do this um I might have not gotten into ADCC in 2007 right uh and that would change my whole you know grapping trajectory and definitely not having the kimor Trap would change my whole grapping trajectory so um it's funny how these kind of chance events these are these are the opportunities that people present you that you know you wonder like if what would happened if I would have taken this opportunity right and this was definitely one of them um this wasn't like this wasn't like the smartest move from the outside like obviously if you told me everything that would happen as a result I would do it but beforehand didn't seem like it was a a game changer right like I said M had fought in two of them and you know he was doing good but it wasn't like you know he was skyrocketing to fame or whatnot so it wasn't evident that fighting in this would be like a career changing opportunity it just happened my case it was so uh for that I'm grateful and especially for Miguel D for allowing me to jump into that season as a guy who's one on0 uh this probably could have only happened in Costa Rica like I said because I think my opponent had like 40 something fights you know so uh anywhere else the boxing commission would say like no this is a mismatch but uh fortunately they were able to make it and uh it worked out in my favor and anyhow uh that's all story I have for you guys hopefully you enjoyed that and U I'll catch you all next week