JRE MMA Show #167 with Cory Sandhagen

Elite performance often comes from extreme, single-minded focus.

Stories like Justin Gaethje playing golf 260 days straight—and winning a Ferrari at Fanatics Fest—illustrate how obsessive repetition and full commitment in any skill (golf or fighting) dramatically compounds improvement.

MMA still needs serious structural reform in gloves and judging.

Rogan and Sandhagen argue UFC should adopt better gloves (like Trevor Wittman’s) to reduce eye pokes and hand injuries, and overhaul scoring so near-submissions, positional grappling, and damage to joints are scored more like knockdowns in striking.

Training partners and smart sparring are key to career longevity.

Cory still spars hard but emphasizes that defense-first styles, good partners who don’t ‘blast’ each other, and better training gloves let fighters get intense work in without burning out their ‘mileage’ or brain cells.

Camp structure and letting coaches truly coach improves performance.

Sandhagen admits he used to micromanage his camps out of insecurity; after the Umar Nurmagomedov fight he consciously surrendered more control to Trevor Wittman and his team, which he says made his life better and sharpened his fighting.

Staph, antibiotics, and bad weight-cut habits quietly wreck fighters.

They detail multiple severe staph episodes, year-long antibiotic use (Gordon Ryan), and how post-weigh-in ‘cheat’ eating sabotages performance; Cory highlights using targeted carbs, electrolytes, and avoiding foods that wreck his digestion as critical advantages.

Adapting mindset—from hunting knockouts to solving problems—elevates a fighter.

Cory explains he lost to Umar partly by chasing big moments and abandoning his usual layered, defensive game; he now focuses on being the best all-around martial artist in the cage and winning every exchange, not just landing highlight-reel shots.

Fighting can be a laboratory for ego, spirituality, and meaning.

Sandhagen describes using meditation, ‘watcher’ awareness, and even an internal hero’s journey (where he symbolically lets go of Jesus as an attachment) to dismantle egos and fears, treating love, service, and self-observation as performance tools, not just life philosophy.