Skip to content
The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

JRE MMA Show #109 with Gordon Ryan

Gordon Ryan is a submission grappler and mixed martial artist currently signed to ONE Championship.

Joe RoganhostGordon RyanguestGuest (secondary, reading article)guest
Jun 27, 20242h 45mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:20

    Gordon Ryan’s rapid rise and crediting Jon Danaher

    1. NA

      (drum music plays) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

    2. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) Well, uh, welcome, man. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it.

    3. GR

      Of course. Thanks for having me.

    4. JR

      Long time coming. How the fuck did you rise so far ahead of everyone else in the jujitsu world? Let me just tell everybody before things get started. Um, Gordon is undeniably the best pound-for-pound jujitsu player on earth. Not just the best, but pretty, pretty ... I- i- it's a pretty good statement to say that you're the best ever, and you're only 25.

    5. GR

      Yeah. (laughs)

    6. JR

      That's crazy.

    7. GR

      Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

    8. JR

      How the fuck does that happen?

    9. GR

      Uh, so, uh, I'm gonna go ahead and give, give credit to Jon. I mean, uh, I, I think that without him, I maybe would've been successful or would've been ... I, I would've been, you know, maybe the best in the world at some point in my career, but I don't think that without Jon, uh, I would be where I am right now, and I don't think that I would've gotten this good, uh, in, in this amount of time. You know, I've only ... I've been training 10 years. I've been competing com- uh, professionally for five years, and, uh, I think that, you know, a big part of the reason why I am where I am is 'cause, 'cause of Jon's coaching.

  2. 1:20 – 5:09

    Inside the Danaher mystique: full names, rash guards, and the fanny pack

    1. JR

      Yeah. And we're, we're talking about Jon Danaher, for people who don't know, who is a, a literal genius and a mastermind in jujitsu, and a true mad scientist. And watching him coach you guys is very fascinating because he's so serious and stoic, and, "Gordon Ryan, pass over the left leg. Gordon Ryan, post."

    2. GR

      Yeah. Yeah.

    3. JR

      Like, the way he talks, like, it's really int- ... he says your full name too. It's, it's real-

    4. GR

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      It's very interesting.

    6. GR

      Gordon Ryan, Garry Tonon, Craig Jones.

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. GR

      It's always, it's always the full, the full name.

    9. JR

      Yeah. Why? What is ... He's a, such an odd duck.

    10. GR

      He does it to address us, um, because a lot of times, like, if a guy like Nicky, for example, like, there's a lot of guys named Nicky.

    11. JR

      Right.

    12. GR

      So he makes sure, he makes sure that you know he's talking to you when he says, "Nicky Ryan, Nicky Rod, Craig Jones, Gordon Ryan."

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. GR

      So you know that, you know that when you hear your name being called, your first and last name, you know that, okay, this person is addressing you in a room of, you know, five, 10,000 people.

    15. JR

      He's such an unusual human being. There is not a single person on the planet Earth like Jon Danaher, one of the most brilliant guys I've ever met, obsessed with jujitsu, mostly. Like, that's ... If you cr- ... You got a pie chart of his brain, it would be like, it's like 20% room for other shit, 80% of his brain is jujitsu.

    16. GR

      Yeah. I mean, it's not, it's not even just jujitsu. It's just martial arts in general.

    17. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    18. GR

      Like, I mean, people who know Jon on a personal level and have trained with Jon know that Jon knows just a much, just as much about MMA as he does, or even more about MMA than he does about jujitsu. Um, he, he's been coaching MMA with George and with Chris Weidman for longer than he's been coaching jujitsu. I mean, he's only been coaching professional jujitsu athletes for five years. Uh, and I've watched him personally teach judo privates to judo Olympians, watch, uh, teach them, have them ... I watched him teach wrestling privates to wrestling world team members, wrestling Olympians. Um, you know, he knows al- just as much about the other martial arts as he does about jujitsu. It's crazy.

    19. JR

      Yeah, and never walks around without a rash guard on, which is-

    20. GR

      That's also correct.

    21. JR

      (laughs) Which is the oddest thing ever.

    22. GR

      I've s- I've seen him one time ever with a ra- with a, with a T-shirt on because, uh, we went to Long Island to train with Chris Mu- uh, Chris Weidman one time, and, uh, he forgot his change of rash guards. So he had a street rash guard on and he didn't have a second rash guard to change into-

    23. JR

      (laughs)

    24. GR

      ... and Chris didn't have a rash guard for him, so they gave him, like, this pink flamingo T-shirt that he ended up ... We did a whole session with Chris Weidman. It was right before he was gonna fight Luke Rockhold the second time, which ended up never happening. But, uh, we did this whole session with Jon with like this pink tropical T-shirt on, and then he changed out of the T-shirt to get back into his street rash guard and leave to go home.

    25. JR

      (laughs)

    26. GR

      Like, it was just like ... (laughs) I'm just like, "Okay, this is happening." I posted it, and everyone was freaking out about it. (laughs)

    27. JR

      (claps hands) Just how crazy is it that he has a street rash guard?

    28. GR

      Yeah. He's got his ... He's got street rash guards, he's got, uh, training rash guards, and he's got like his nighttime, like, dinner, date rash guards. Like he's got like a da-

    29. JR

      (laughs)

    30. GR

      Like a date rash guard, he's got a dinner rash guard. Like, he's got it all, he's got it all sorted out.

  3. 5:09 – 8:44

    Why DDS keeps winning: details, innovation, and a submission-first mindset

    1. JR

      (laughs) He's, um ... It's just, it's so fascinating to watch what he's done in coaching this Danaher Death Squad and create ... Like, he's unquestionably the greatest jujitsu coach on earth, and this is also widely regarded. Like the way you're widely regarded as the best pound-for-pound grappler, he's widely regarded as the best jujitsu coach. And it's, it's, um ... It's really interesting to see that you guys just, uh, are, have been dominating the grappling scene, and to watch all this play out and to see people study you guys but still not be able to catch up.

    2. GR

      Yeah I mean, what most people do is they just see, like, a general outline of what we do, but no one, no one looks at what, the specifics of what we're doing. They say, "Oh, you know, Gordon's a good leg locker. Let me try to do leg locks," or, "Gordon's trapping hands from the back. Let me try to do that." But they don't see the very specific details, and the specific details are what's gonna be the difference between finishing a high-level guy and having a high-level guy escape. Um, so what everyone does is they just see the general idea and have the general outline of what we're doing and they try to just copy that. Uh, (clears throat) but-When you just try to copy the best guys, if you just try to copy everyone else, you get the same results as everybody else. You have to go further than what the best guys are doing and you have to innovate and, you know, I get, I look at the other best guys in the world and I say, "What are they doing, you know, that works against the other high-level guys and how can I make that better?" Not just, "Let me try to arbitrarily copy what they're trying to do."

    3. JR

      Now, what is missing in, like, if you take the rest of the people that are in the top 10, like, what are they doing differently?

    4. GR

      What everyone does in jiu-jitsu is they try to do the least amount of work possible to win a jiu-jitsu match, right? So, they try to jump past your guard, they score an advantage, they score a couple points, and then for the next seven minutes, they do nothing. Whereas, what we try to do is we try to take the hardest route to a victory and we try to submit the guy. So, what you see is a complete ... (sighs) there's just a complete different mindse- a com- a completely different mindset between what the rest of the guys are doing and what we're trying to do. We're trying to go out and we're not, we're not satisfied unless we hit a submission. And in my case, sometimes I call the submission and I'm trying to, you know, go out and hit a sp- a specific submission. Um, but, you know, they're happy just going out and (sighs) having a match where there's 10 minutes on the feet, they just hang on each other's collar ties, and then they win a ref decision and they run around beating their chest like they just, they- they- they did something. Um, so just the mindsetting- the mindset for winning in competition is completely different.

    5. JR

      Now, how did that happen? How did jiu-jitsu get to be this sport where you have so many stalemates? You have so many guys that do this thing where they run around just collar tying each other and pushing each other around and no one ever takes a chance? No one, no one ever realizes that, you know, hey, we've only got four minutes to go, I gotta make something happen.

    6. GR

      I, I think it's training program. I think that the rule sets mean very little. Um, if you look at a guy like Roger Gracie, no matter what rule set he competes in, he's trying to finish you. Uh, if you look at me, no matter what rule set you go into, I'm trying to finish you. If it's EBI rules, I'm trying to finish you. If it's IBJJF rules, I'm trying to finish you. And, uh, you know, I think that most people's training programs are built around positional control and doing the least amount of work possible to win. You know, people train stalling tactics. You know, we don't, we don't, we don't do that. We just try to get better at jiu-jitsu and better at submissions. Um, whereas our training program is built around control that leads to submissions. No matter what, no matter what rule set we go in to compete under, we're always trying to control the guy and then submit him. Whereas most people, they have a training program built around positional advances where they're just trying to do whatever they can to win and a win's a win and if- however they win, they're happy with it.

  4. 8:44 – 15:13

    How Danaher’s training evolved: leg-lock era to positional systems and EBI dominance

    1. JR

      And when, what year did you start with Jon? How long ago?

    2. GR

      Uh, I started training with, um, (sighs) the first time I ever started training with him was 2014, but I st-

    3. JR

      And was that the first time you had trained or were y- had you trained somewhere else first?

    4. GR

      Uh, no, no. I, no, I started training, um, 2000, late 2010, almost 2011 (coughs) with, uh, with Miguel Benitez. Um, he was, uh, one of Ricar- one of Ricardo Almeida's brown belts owned his school and this guy Beni- Miguel Benitez was a blue belt under the guy who owned that one, th- one of Ricardo's affiliate schools. And I started training under him from, like, white to mid-level blue belt and then Garry actually took over, Garry Tonon took over the school when I was, like, a purple belt and then, uh, purple belt, I started training part time with Jon 'cause I just graduated high school and I had to go to college and work to afford to get to the city. Um, but then somewhere around mid-level purple belt, I think it was like 2000- mid to late 2014 is when I started training with Jon full time. So I've been training with Jon full time, like s- you know, six years or so.

    5. JR

      And has the training changed since you first started? Like, a- and have you discussed this with Jon? 'Cause he's got such a complex system of, of training and, and taking people through positional dominance to submission. Like, has this evolved during the time that you've been with him? Like, what was it like at the beginning?

    6. GR

      Yeah. Yeah, at first it was just, he was just trying to get us better at jiu-jitsu, specifically better at leg locks because the big hole in the high level competition jiu-jitsu, uh, scene was leg locks. Nobody really knew how to do leg locks well. So the first couple years of us training was just him trying to get us competent and th- then eventually to be the best in leg locking. Um, and then, n- and then once we, once we got there and once we could beat the best, best guys in the world or at least hang with the best guys in the world, then it was more specific towards, um, winning under certain rule sets. You know, EBI came along and, you know, h- okay, how can now you guys can do jiu-jitsu, you're competent everywhere, how can you su- how can you succeed and how can you beat certain players or how can you win under specific rule sets? So, it, it went from just a broad idea of initially getting better at jiu-jitsu just as a whole and then more specifically, how can I win ADCC? How can I win EBI? How can I beat this guy? How can I beat that guy?

    7. JR

      But has his training program evolved in terms of, like, how he takes people through advancements? Like, how they, how they start out in learning and then get to a place of position where they're a black belt in competition? Like, does he have this all written out? Like, how is he, how is he doing this?

    8. GR

      Yeah, I mean, he doesn't tell us too much about it, he kind of just comes in and he shows up and he teaches moves and you're like, "Okay, this is what Jon's teaching, this is what we should be, w- we should be, uh, w- we should be doing." Um, but, uh, (clears throat) a lot of it has, we used to just do all open rounds, now we have a lot more positional rounds in place, uh, where we start in certain positions so that if we get to those specific positions, even though people have been training for twice as long as us, we've been training a lot longer in those specific niche positions, uh, than they have. So we actually have a lot more experience in those positions than, than they do, even though they've been training in jiu-jitsu for much longer than we have. So, it, it, our whole thing is to, is to get to our key positions where we know w- where if we have one breakthrough, if I can get to the guy's back or I can get to the guy's legs, we've been in those static positions a lot longer than the other guys have and even though they've been training twice or three times as long as we have, we've been having, we have a lot more experience in those domains than they do.

    9. JR

      Now, did that start with EBI where they have that very specific two option positions after the, the first initial time period?

    10. GR

      That was, that was a big, a big part of it. Um, you know, when EBI came out, we actually came into the gym, uh, one day and we tried to do back escapes and...It was just the worst workout ever. Like, we had a 0% escape rate. Nobody escaped. And, uh, Jon's like, "Fuck, like, this is gonna be a real problem if someone locks a body triangle on you." You know, like, none of us figured out how to get out. He comes in the next day, and he finds a match between Roger Gracie and Tim Kennedy in MMA, and Tim Kennedy successfully escaped Roger's back control multiple times during the match. So, this guy went home and spent the entire night looking for matches where guys, high-level guys can escape the back. And he came in, and he taught us the escapes that Tim Kennedy used versus Roger, and we went from one day having a 0% escape rate to, like, an 80% escape rate the next day. And then we kind of just built it from there and everything snowballed and then, you know, we ended up dominating the EBI's.

    11. JR

      So, it really takes a combination of things. It takes obsessed athletes and it takes an obsessed trainer. And, and an obsessed trainer in, in one way, there's something interesting about Jon in that he's, he's injured. Like, his knee's-

    12. GR

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      ... all fucked up. He's had a hip replacement and, from rugby, right?

    14. GR

      Yeah, yeah.

    15. JR

      And, you know, he can't compete, but when he was training early in his career, like, everybody used to talk about how, what a motherfucker he was.

    16. GR

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      Like, I remember it early in his, his-

    18. GR

      Even, even being all fucked up, like, he was still beating up, like, the best guys in the world. It was crazy. Like, imagine only being able to use one of your legs.

    19. JR

      Yeah.

    20. GR

      Like, I tore my LCL and I was like, "There's no way I can train with a blue belt right now, never mind having to train with the best guys in the world."

    21. JR

      Yeah. It's, um, it's pretty remarkable. But his mind is so unusual. It's so extraordinary. And when you take the two, the combination of that, like, he's got such a dedicated crew of assassins too. This is also interesting. Because it seems like his dedication and his obsession is at least partially contagious.

    22. GR

      Yes.

    23. JR

      And then you guys also motivate each other, and the success obviously, the Danaher Death Squad is so well-known and so successful. That must be motivating as well, and it's also attracting a lot of other killers that wanna be like you guys, that come there to train and learn and grow. But it's a, it's such a f- it's such a unique combination.

    24. GR

      Yeah. I mean, you see a guy like Jon, who's injured, um, and he's just, you know, miserable some days 'cause he's in so much pain. He comes in every single day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and he gives his best every single session. So, you know, you as an, as an athlete, you know, this guy's giving you all that he can for, not asking anything in return. The only thing he's asking for is that you show up. So, like, you have basically a, a, a series of cheat codes in front of you, and they're there all year round, every single day. You kind of feel like a shitbag if you don't show up to train.

    25. JR

      (laughs)

    26. GR

      So, it's like, you know, this guy, this guy's giving you everything. It's like, "Okay, if I don't show up, like, I'm kind of an asshole."

  5. 15:13 – 20:34

    Seven-days-a-week training, obsession, and constant novelty

    1. JR

      We went to dinner after the last, uh, event that they had here, when you, uh, fought Wagner Rocha. And, uh, Jon was outlining what happens when guys come to train, like guys who've never been there before.

    2. GR

      Yeah, it's uh-

    3. JR

      He says, "I'll see you tomorrow." And then, "Tomorrow?" "Yes, tomorrow." Like, you guys train like this every day? Seven days a week?

    4. GR

      Seven days a week.

    5. JR

      That's what's crazy. Like-

    6. GR

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      ... there's no days off?

    8. GR

      No days off.

    9. JR

      Um, is there an argument against that?

    10. GR

      Um, I don't really think so. I mean, if we're, if we're tired, we just train lighter. Um, you know, there's no... E- even if I feel like I'm just completely beat up and I just, I don't wanna get up and go to training, even if I just go there and I train really light and I'm, I'm there mentally and you're thinking about the sport, I mean, you're getting better. Um, whereas if you just spend the day on the beach or something, then you're not thinking about the sport and, uh, it- it hinders progression. So, I- I think that, you know, some people argue you need a rest day, you need this, you need that. I mean, if I have a rest day, I can rest and I can not train hard and I, I just go lighter and maybe I work on submissions. Maybe, um, I'm playing defensive the whole time and I get submitted 10 times during the session. Who cares? You know, you're training lighter, but you're, you're actively resting and you're still thinking about the sport, so you're there mentally.

    11. JR

      That's very controversial though, because most trainers in most sports will tell you that you need rest days, that you need days where you do nothing, and then even days where you don't even think about your sport, because that's actually gonna refresh your enthusiasm.

    12. GR

      Yeah. Jon's the exact opposite. Like, for us, he says, like, in order to stay interested in the sport, you need to be constantly working towards goals and you constantly need to be innovating so that you're working on new things. I mean, people get bored with jiu-jitsu when they're working on the same thing for six months at a time, a year at a time. They're not getting any better, they hit a plateau, and then they feel like, uh, "You know, I've been doing the same shit for the last two years. I'm bored of it, I don't really wanna do this anymore." Whereas with us, every day it's something new, you know? Every week it's something new. Every six months you turn into a completely different grappler. Um, so it's-

    13. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    14. GR

      ... easy to stay interested in a sport that you come in and you know that you're gonna show up to a session, and if you don't show up to that session, that Jon's gonna teach something that you probably have never seen before, something that's new. And, you know, you're gonna come in the next day and everyone's gonna be trying to hit it on you and you'll be like, "What the fuck is this?"

    15. JR

      (laughs)

    16. GR

      "When did you teach this?" And he'll be like, "Oh, yesterday when you weren't here." And it's like, "Oh, okay. That makes sense."

    17. JR

      Wow. So, it really does demand a synergy between an obsessed trainer and obsessed students.

    18. GR

      Yeah. Like, Jon goes home, like, we're, like, bullshitting right now, talking. Or like, you go home and watch TV and relax. Jon goes home and he studies tape. Like, Jon just, like... What he does for fun is he studies tape on, on various martial arts. Like, you, you reference any fight or any wrestling match or any boxing match or jiu-jitsu match, like, Jon will give you, like, a full background story on the whole... Like, he just, he knows everything, and not even just about martial arts. He just knows everything about everything. He's like the closest thing to Google that you can get, in my opinion. Um, like you just ask him a question about any dif- any given subject and he knows something about it. Um, so, you know, it-... when he goes home every night and he studies tape, you, you're, you know for a fact that the next day he's coming in and he's showing you something that he watched from, like, the u- Like, the other day he showed us something that, uh, uh, uh, an Asian kid hit from the U23 World Championships in, like, 2018 that he was, like, that, uh, that he was, uh, he was, uh, taking people down with in, uh, in the wrestling championships. And it's just, like, this guy, like, went home and, like, started watching the U23 Worlds from, like, 2018. Like, who does that?

    19. JR

      (laughs) He and Lex Friedman had a conversation while we were at dinner where Lex brought up some obscure wrestlers from Dagestan and Jon was like, "Oh, yes. Yes." And he starts-

    20. GR

      Oh, yeah. He knows all about them.

    21. JR

      ... going into detail-

    22. GR

      Yep.

    23. JR

      ... about these people.

    24. GR

      It's crazy.

    25. JR

      And also, he studies why they're successful. Like, that's, that's a fascinating thing too. You know?

    26. GR

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      He, he doesn't just study the fact that this is a group of people doing things. It's like, "Why are there outliers?" And so he analyzes what, what causes an outlier.

    28. GR

      Yeah. Why are these guys the best in the world?

    29. JR

      Yeah. And, and then he applies that. And he really does. I mean, that's the... The crazy thing is that when you look at the, the domination of your team and you look at it over the course of, you know, six years, it's, it's relentless. Like, it's continual. It's, it's constant and it keeps going. And because of this philosophy of seven days a week training and constant innovation and always refreshing the mind with new techniques and, and always stimulating the athletes with new options, you're, you're seeing this never-ending progression. Where as I look at other teams and you get these elite guys who are at a world championship level, and even elite guys at a world championship level, even though they win world championships and they d- they do really well, they, they are stagnant in their progress, at least observationally.

    30. GR

      Yep. Yeah.

  6. 20:34 – 22:28

    Legacy goals and the problem of finding opponents

    1. JR

      What is your ultimate end goal? Do you have an ultimate end goal? Now, you're, here you are so young to be not just the best on the planet, but arguably the best of all time at 25.

    2. GR

      Yeah. Um, I just, I just wanna finish my career and I want people to think that, okay, there's just absolutely no chance that anyone could ever touch what you've done in your career. Like, right now, sure, I'm arguably the best of all time, but, you know, people can surpass my records. Um, when I finish my career, I want people to sit back and think, "Wow. Like, no one's ever gonna get close to that."

    3. JR

      (laughs) So-

    4. GR

      That's a, that's a wild goal. But that keeps you motivated?

    5. JR

      Yeah. I mean-

    6. GR

      Since you're already the best. 'Cause you're in a weird situation, I should tell people that don't understand jujitsu or don't know the, the landscape. You can't get fights. You're having a really hard time getting fights. I mean, props to- It's, uh, it, it's been tough.

    7. JR

      ... Wagner for stepping up, because he's a smaller guy and, you know, and he's one of the rare elite black belts that did choose to step up, because you're, you're in this weird position right now where people are worried about their reputation.

    8. GR

      Yeah. I mean, it's crazy because, like, I'm, like, one of the nicer guys to compete against. Like, I don't rip submissions. I'm not, like, smacking you in the face or poking you in the eyes. Like, I, I'm, I'm pretty mild as far as, like, you know, f- being, like, very physical when I compete against you. I'm, I'm actually pretty nice when I compete against you. If you look at a guy like Tyson, like, he was just murdering people and he had no shortage of fights. Like, everyone wanted to fight him. It's just so strange that, th- there's not even strikes involved and I just can't get people to actually step up to compete. It's, it's, it's weird.

    9. JR

      Do you think that's a financial thing, though? Because when Tyson was involved, at least you'd get a couple million bucks if you get your head knocked off.

    10. GR

      It could be. Like, people are fighting me for, like, six, $6,000.

    11. JR

      Yeah. (laughs)

    12. GR

      So, I mean, it's definitely, it's definitely, uh, you know, the... If you're, if you're, if you're going to get out, get knocked out by Tyson for $10 million as a little bit then, it's a little bit different than getting embarrassed by a shit talk, shit talking fucking Gordon for, like, five grand.

  7. 22:28 – 28:39

    Trash talk, ‘King Ryan’ persona, and calling submissions in advance

    1. JR

      That's the other thing that's unusual about you, is that when people think about successful mar- martial artists, they think of these stoic warriors who bow to each other and show respect. You talk so much shit, and you talk so much shit to people online. You go back and forth with people online. You post pictures of them looking stupid. You make, like, memes. You have all these things that you put o- You use social media. And most people who do things the way you do it suck.

    2. GR

      Yes.

    3. JR

      That's what's crazy. It's, like, to be the best of the best, but also to be talking mad shit all the time, it's one of those combinations where I'm sure your opponents are like, "Fuck!"

    4. GR

      Yeah. Well, if you talk shit and you don't have the skills to actually back it up, you just look like a clown.

    5. JR

      Yeah.

    6. GR

      Like, you're like a guy like Dillon who just talks shit on Instagram, but then he's, like, 18-16 as a black belt. Like-

    7. JR

      Right.

    8. GR

      ... and he has, like, two, like, two fights against some guys in Bellator. Um, bu- but if you can go out and you can, you can talk shit and you can say, "I'm gonna do this," like, you can say, "I'm gonna finish this submission, I'm gonna finish this match by triangle" and then go out and finish match by triangle, like, people are like, "Oh, shit." Like, even if they hate you, they have no choice but to listen to you and respect you.

    9. JR

      Well, I like what you did with your first, the, one of your matches that I saw, you, uh, it was a couple matches ago, you said you were gonna fish- finish with a mounted triangle. But you said that before the match.

    10. GR

      A mounted armbar, yeah.

    11. JR

      Mounted armbar.

    12. GR

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      Excuse me. And then this last match, you drew a picture of a triangle, put it in an envelope, and then gave it to the commentator and said, "Don't open this until after the match."

    14. GR

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      And it, you finished by triangle. But that time you didn't let him know. Did... The first time, you said it in advance, though, right?

    16. GR

      I, I, I said it right before the match, so he probably didn't see it.

    17. JR

      Oh, okay.

    18. GR

      I, I, I, I posted it right before the match, but the, the chances of him looking at it when he was, like, getting ready to walk out were probably pretty low. Whereas the one with Wagner, there's no way he could have seen it, because I just...I put it in the envelope and they didn't open it until after the event.

    19. JR

      Yeah, because there was, there was times when you had him in good positions, where I was wondering, like, if you were letting him go 'cause you said that you wanted to maul him.

    20. GR

      Yeah, I want- I wanted to, I wanted to abuse him for, like, the first 20 minutes and then finish him with, like, 10 minutes left, which is what I did. Um, if I wanted to triangle him before that, I could've probably done it pretty easily, um, especially on the back, but, uh, that's just not what I wanted to do.

    21. JR

      Why did you want to punish him like that?

    22. GR

      Uh, just 'cause we have some history. He used to... Well, whenever we competed, he would always be, like, super dirty and, like, you know, putting his hands in my face, and he's just, like, a very aggressive style competitor. Um, and when I was, like, 18, 19, he always... He would always, like, walk around backstage and, like, knock my crowns off my head, like, when I wouldn't-

    23. JR

      He used to, he used to wear... For folks who need to know this, he used to wear a Burger King crown.

    24. GR

      Burger King crown, and now I've updated to a plastic crown.

    25. JR

      (laughs)

    26. GR

      I walk around tournaments with, like, a robe-

    27. JR

      (laughs)

    28. GR

      ... like, a, a king's robe and a crown on my head. And then everyone's like, "Who's this asshole?" I'm like, "I'm the asshole who's gonna win the tournament tomorrow."

    29. JR

      (laughs)

    30. GR

      Um, so I show up and it's just, like, super obnoxious, and then I just show up and I just beat everybody up and everyone's like, "Wow, that fucking asshole with a crown."

  8. 28:39 – 32:17

    Social media crackdown: deleted comments, bans, and the cost of trolling

    1. GR

      Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a full-time job. But now I can't even do it 'cause Instagram just erases all my posts. So-

    2. JR

      Really?

    3. GR

      Yeah. Instagram. I just stopped pretty much using Instagram. I just, like, post, like, once a day or once every other day now. But Instagram deletes. Like, if I go on and I comment something and I, like, attack a hater who attacked me, I retaliate, like, 60% of my posts just get erased now. So it's like, it's not even... I would spend hours a day on Instagram. It's like a full-time job. But now it's, like, not even worth my time because I know that if I go on and I write, you know, 30 comments, 20 of them are gonna get erased. So it's not even worth my time dealing with it anymore.

    4. JR

      What do you think is going on? Do you think someone's reporting them?

    5. GR

      I think it's a combination of people reporting it, and I think it's just the algorithm has, like, had b- like, has a hit on me and I think that, like... Like, 'cause it shows you your violations. I have, like, hundreds of violations.

    6. JR

      (laughs)

    7. GR

      Like, 300 violations. Like, I tell people to kill themselves and stuff. So, like, uh, it... Now they just started threatening to, uh, delete my account and they delete, like, all my comments. So it's not even worth going on and attacking people, like... 'Cause normally it's fun for me to, to entertain the fans by attacking the haters.

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. GR

      But now it's just, like, Instagram just erased, like, 60% of my shit, so it's not even worth attacking people 'cause you spend six hours online and four hours of them are useless 'cause all your comments just get, get erased.

    10. JR

      So, even if you just have a post and you leave the post up, if you have comments in the p- under the post-

    11. GR

      They'll delete-

    12. JR

      ... they'll delete your comments?

    13. GR

      They'll delete my comments. Yeah.

    14. JR

      What?

    15. GR

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      I didn't even know they did that.

    17. GR

      Yeah, yeah. They del- they delete comments all the time. Like, people attack me, I retaliate and then they start to, uh... And then we go back and forth and then, like, the whole comments section gets erased. So you spend, like, four hours on a comment thread and then the original comment gets erased and then before you know it, like, you just spent four hours on Instagram and it was all useless.

    18. JR

      What the fuck is wrong with them?It just, uh, it just drives me nuts. I just, I don't understand why they do it.

    19. GR

      And it's just getting worse. Like-

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. GR

      ... it's not, it's not getting any better. So now, I just kinda go on, like, once every, on- once every day or so, once every other day. I just promote, like, a fight coming up or an instructional that's coming out and then I just, I don't even bother arguing with people anymore.

    22. JR

      What about videos? Can you make videos, like YouTube videos or, or talk and shit in a Instagram video? Will they delete that?

    23. GR

      Uh, it depends on, it depe- I mean, if people report it, they pretty much just, 'cause I have so many strikes against me, they pretty much just, if someone reports it, they just instantly delete it and they don't even give me a chance to fight it anymore. They're just like, "Yeah, fuck you. You had so many violations." Uh, they, uh, they just erase it. But, um, uh, I def- I can, I can do some stuff, uh, but it's, it's getting ... the window of what I can work with is getting smaller and smaller by the day.

    24. JR

      (laughs)

    25. GR

      So, it's just like, uh ... (sighs)

    26. JR

      It's just, it is one of the weirdest problems to have, to be the best in the world at something and then to have someone like Instagram, like, deleting-

    27. GR

      Yeah. They're just-

    28. JR

      ... comments and-

    29. GR

      And I'm like-

    30. JR

      ... posts.

  9. 32:17 – 36:24

    MMA transition and team loyalty: waiting for someone else to ‘carry the crown’

    1. JR

      Now, obviously, the next course of progression for a guy like you would be MMA.

    2. GR

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      Now, I know that you had talked about doing MMA in the past, but now it seems like it's actually gonna happen.

    4. GR

      Yeah, um, so Jon doesn't want me to compete in MMA because he feels like jiu-jitsu is just about to break into that next level of professional sports. Uh, so for me, at least right now, I feel like I need at least someone from my team to be able to do the things that I'm doing before I can kinda move away from jiu-jitsu into MMA. Because right now, we have Gary in MMA, he's carrying our flag, our team's flag in MMA, and we have me at the top of the heap in jiu-jitsu. So like, if Craig or Nicky Rod or my brother, um, can start doing the things that I'm doing and they win an ADCC Absolute maybe or, you know, they go out and they start beating and submitting all the high level guys, then I feel like maybe I can leave, uh, jiu-jitsu. 'Cause if I start fighting MMA, I'm gonna focus on MMA, um, so I feel like if one of my teammates can kinda take my place, then I can start moving into MMA and then, and go from there.

    5. JR

      So you look at it as a ... You really do genuinely look at it as a team effort.

    6. GR

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      You're not looking at just as you're-

    8. GR

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      ... as an individual.

    10. GR

      M- most athletes are very selfish and they just take, take, take, whereas we have, we have a, we have a very great, a very good team cohesion and, uh, you know, we're always looking out for one another and, you know, I find that that's the way that people operate best. Um, if you look at most teams, it's basically just a bunch of tough guys in a room who train together, who have no loyalty and if someone offers them a better deal, they're gonna go somewhere else and, and train there. Um, whereas with us, like, uh, whereas with us, we're very loyal to Jon and, uh, you know, everything that, everything that we do is the same. Like, my game is very similar to Jon's, very similar to Gary's, very similar to Craig's. We all are taught by Jon and we all follow the same ideas and the same philosophy of jiu-jitsu. So the loyalty within the team is, uh, i- is very strong and, uh, you know, I, I feel that it's al- it's always gonna be a team effort. Um, you know, without, without Jon I wouldn't be as good as I am. Without Gary I wouldn't be as good as I am. Without Nicky ... It's the collaboration of minds in the gym that, that really pushes you forward. Um, so you know, I feel like we're different in that, in that sense that we're not a team that recruits people. We're a team that builds, that builds athletes from almost the ground up. Like, you see like a, you know, a lot of the big MMA teams, uh, or even the big jiu-jitsu teams like Atos for example, they recruit guys, guys who are already successful. They recruit them, they give them a place to live, they give them a training program and they, they just recruit tough guys. But if you look at a guy like Andre and you look at his black belts, they all have vastly different games. Kinan's game is different than Andre's. Renger's game is different than Andre's. Kenan's game is different than a- than Andre's. And it's basically just a team of recruited guys who are a bunch of tough guys training in the same room. Whereas Jon, we have a team of homegrown guys who all do the same thing, like they all have discernible games that all mimic what Jon teaches, uh, and they just have, you know, slight changes in variations due to our physical attributes and, and, uh, and, and, uh, personalities.

    11. JR

      Now, when you say you think of it as a team, you made- this is taking it to a completely different level 'cause you're not willing to progress your career outside the realm of jiu-jitsu until someone else can carry the crown.

    12. GR

      Yes.

    13. JR

      That's, that's next level commitment to the team philosophy.

    14. GR

      Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like I said, you have a guy like Jon who's like the most selfless person in the world, like he shows up every day and he gives you everything. Like, you know, I want, I want what's best for the team, uh, even if it's not what's best for me, you know? I wanna, I want what's, what's best for, for, for Jon's team, uh, you know? I want him to go down in history as being the guy who had the absolute best team in the world and, um, you know, right now you can make the argument that sure, you know, Gordon's the best in the world but the rest of the guys don't win as much as him. So, I, I wanna get those, the rest of the guys on my team to, to my level so that you don't have the argument anymore of, sure Gordon's good but he's the only one who really wins when it counts. Um, you know, I want, I wanna go into ADCC with my team and I wanna win every single division.

    15. JR

      (laughs)

    16. GR

      So ...

    17. JR

      That would be insane. That, you know, that's not outside the realm of possibility either. That's what's crazy.

  10. 36:24 – 41:03

    ADCC ambitions, superfight rules, and Garry Tonon’s double workload

    1. GR

      Yeah, I mean next year we have Gary, Mike cut to 66 kilos. So if Gary's at 66, my brother will be at 77, Craig'll be at 88, I'll be at 99 if they let me do the division, and then Nicky Rod will be at 99 plus, so-

    2. JR

      What do you mean if they let you do the division?

    3. GR

      So-For ADCC, when you win the absolute, you go to the super fight. So, the s- the, the, the, the super fight champion fights the winner of the absolute. Now, I won the absolute last year, so I'm only supposed to have one fight.

    4. JR

      Hmm.

    5. GR

      But I've requested to do the weight division as well, 'cause you normally would just do the super fight. But I wanna do the super fight and I also wanna do my weight division. So I'd have, instead of having one match, I'd have five matches. No one's ever asked to do that. People have asked to do the absolute before, but the problem is, if I win the absolute and then I win the super fight, the super fight winner's supposed to fight the absolute winner. So you can't fight yourself.

    6. JR

      Right.

    7. GR

      So you, it k- it doesn't make sense to do the super fight and the absolute. But it does make sense to do the weight division and the absolute. So if I, if I, if they let me do the weight division, I'll be the first person in history to ever, to ever do the weight division plus a super fight at the same time.

    8. JR

      Wow. Now how is Garry juggling training for MMA and, and jujitsu as well?

    9. GR

      Dude, that guy is a machine. He basically just, he didn't (laughs) , he didn't do less jujitsu to do MMA, he just added MMA on top of the jujitsu sessions. So he trains MMA seven days a week and he spars lightly seven days a week, and then he finishes that, and right now we don't have a gym set up in Puerto Rico, so we're working around the schedule, the class schedule of the gym owner. So we have MM- he does MMA at 9:00, and then he s- trains for like an hour, spars, then he has like a 30-minute break, and then he does, uh, and then he does jujitsu at 11:00, and he just adds the session on. So he does MMA and jujitsu seven days a week, and like within like two hours of each other.

    10. JR

      And when he's training MMA, he's also grappling.

    11. GR

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      So he's grappling twice?

    13. GR

      Yeah. Most, most of the MMA training is, is shoot boxing, is standing to take downs, because he's already so good on the ground, he needs to get, he needs to work on fence wrestling and, and shoot boxing. Uh, but he definitely, he d- def-, definitely is some grappling when he does MMA, so he, he grapples and, and spars, and then he pretty much goes right to jujitsu and has to do that. So, I mean, that's m- definitely not an easy thing to do and seven days a week is definitely not an easy thing to do.

    14. JR

      And how is he doing in terms of striking coaching? Like, is he, did he bring someone with him to Puerto Rico? Was he using a different person in New York? What, what was he doing?

    15. GR

      The- he uses Jon. Jon is our striking coach.

    16. JR

      Really?

    17. GR

      I'm telling you, Jon knows just as much about every martial art as he does jujitsu. Like, Jon is our wrestling coach, Jon's our jujitsu coach, Jon's our striking coach, Jon's our MMA coach. Like, Jon coaches G- Garry for every aspect of MMA, wall wrestling, everything.

    18. JR

      Holy shit.

    19. GR

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      So he coaches him for kicking and everything?

    21. GR

      Yeah (laughs) . Dude, people don't know this about Jon. Jon's first martial art was Muay Thai. Jon did Muay Thai for over a decade when he was growing up, and he studied all the best Muay Thai guys. I mean, Jon knows a lot about striking. I mean, he, he coach- like I said, like people don't know this about Jon, they think he's just a leg lock guy, or just a grappler, like he coaches Garry, and like Garry's like, he's progressing fast, a- as far as the striking's going. Um, he's only been striking for a year and a half now, and he's, uh, you know, he looks, he looks comfortable out there.

    22. JR

      He does.

    23. GR

      Um, and uh-

    24. JR

      That's shocking that he's only been doing it a year and a half. I was surprised.

    25. GR

      Yeah, year and a half, two years maybe. Uh, but yeah, Jon's his coach. Jon, Jon, Jon coaches everything (laughs) .

    26. JR

      (inhales) So does he have different training partners that train with him in the MMA aspect?

    27. GR

      Yeah, so he has a couple guys who live there, uh, and then he has a couple guys who he brings in who stay with him. He's, like I said, a three-bedroom apartment. So he brings in guys from New York, and then he has like one or two guys that live there and he spars w- with them every day.

    28. JR

      Wow. So that was his, that was his approach from the minute he started competing in MMA? 'Cause he's had how many fights now, six?

    29. GR

      I think six, yeah.

    30. JR

      And this is all in one championship, right?

  11. 41:03 – 46:52

    Recovery habits: sleep, stretching struggles, and Rogan’s sauna pitch

    1. JR

      Now what are you guys doing for recovery? Do you do anything specific? Do you have deep tissue massage? Do you have co- ice baths? Do you, what do you do?

    2. GR

      I get massages sometimes, just when I feel like I'm really tight, but mostly just use a guy to help me stretch 'cause I'm not disciplined enough to stretch like I should normally.

    3. JR

      You saying you're not disciplined enough to do anything is fucking hilarious (laughs) .

    4. GR

      (laughs) Like to stretch, like I, I like, I hate stretching, um, and-

    5. JR

      A lot of people hate stretching, it's weird.

    6. GR

      ... and with, in a, in our, like in our sport, like b- I, s- we spend all of our time doing this with concave shoulders.

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. GR

      So anything where I round my shoulders, I can do perfectly, but anything where I have to bridge like this, 'cause most people just explode, explode, sp- I don't ever explode, everything's, everything's always like this, contraction. So when I have to, like, open myself up like this, like if I tried to put my hands over my head and s- do a squat, like my hands end up like almost parallel to the floor. Like my shoulders-

    9. JR

      Wow.

    10. GR

      ... are just like the most inflexible thing. Uh, so I, I, I work with a guy who helps me, helps me stretch occasionally and Nat helps me stretch occasionally. Um, but the, the big thing for me that I neglected for a long time was sleep. I feel like that if I can get like six to eight hours of sleep, um, I can recover, you know, pretty well. I feel like for a long time I would just n- get like three, four hours of sleep at night, and it was okay when I was 19 years old, but now I feel like I need the extra sleep and I feel like if I can get a decent night's sleep, uh, you know, I can sleep forever, so it's easy for me to have a good night's sleep and not have to wake up in the middle of the night. Um, but if I can get a good night's sleep, I feel like I can recover pretty, pretty well.

    11. JR

      So is the issue just going to bed on time?

    12. GR

      Yeah, I mean, I usually, we, we finish pretty early, so um, you know, I do the MMA session with, with, uh, with Garry either-... now, since I signed with ONE, I've been doing a lot of fence wrestling. Jon's been coaching me and Craig with fence wrestling 'cause Craig's competing in SUG and I'm competing at ONE in the cage. So, I wanna wrestle people on the fence a lot. Uh, so I'd usually do the MMA session with Garry, and then I'd do the jiu-jitsu session, uh, after that. And then we come home, I eat food, I relax for a little bit, I lift weights, and then I'm usually in bed by like, you know, 9:00, 10:00. And the jiu-jitsu ... the MMA doesn't start till 9:00, so I mean, I sleep for eight to 10 hours every night, usually.

    13. JR

      So, you generally like to lift weights at night? 'Cause I, I've seen videos of you getting up in the morning and lifting weights in the morning.

    14. GR

      I, I do, yeah. Sometimes I go through kind of cycles where I'm like, "Man, I feel really good when I get up and I lift weights early," 'cause then it's, it's out of the way. But, uh, I'm, I've never been a morning person. I hate waking up in the mornings. So I do it for like three weeks, and then like I travel to like compete or something, and then the routine gets fucked up, and then I get back home and I'm like, "I'm not waking up tomorrow at 5:00 AM to lift." So, then I end up going back into a routine where I lift at like 8:00 PM, and I, I go back and forth between when I lift. Sometimes it's before, sometimes it's after.

    15. JR

      So, if you train at night, like what time is your training over?

    16. GR

      I usually train from like 8:00 to 9:30.

    17. JR

      Oh, and so then you'll lift weights after that?

    18. GR

      No. So I'll, I'll lift weights from like 8:00 to 9:30, but if we train-

    19. JR

      Okay.

    20. GR

      If we ... We train jiu-jitsu at 11:00 AM.

    21. JR

      Oh, okay.

    22. GR

      So, so-

    23. JR

      Every day?

    24. GR

      Yeah. So we're f- so we're finished by 2:00.

    25. JR

      So you have enough time to recover and eat and ...

    26. GR

      Yeah. You go home, you shower. If you wanna hang out at the beach for a little while, you can. And then, you know, you eat food. When you've digested, you maybe take a nap, and then you wake up and you lift.

    27. JR

      Now, do you do anything else, uh, like ice bath, sauna?

    28. GR

      No. No, I've never done that. I've never, um ... I'm not oppose- I w- Uh, ice pass, uh, uh, ice baths, I'm definitely opposed to. I hate cold water. I just will not-

    29. JR

      (laughs)

    30. GR

      ... not get in like anything below 80 degrees. Uh, but, uh, I'm not, I'm not opposed to anything else. I'm not opposed to, to saunas and stuff like that. I just, it's something that I've never done.

  12. 46:52 – 51:29

    Injuries, rehab, and competing through setbacks (LCL surgery, ADCC camp turnaround)

    1. JR

      Yeah. It's, uh, it's legit. Now, in terms of, uh, striking, how much striking have you done?

    2. GR

      Uh, a minimal amount. I'm a white belt equivalent. Um, I, I've done it, uh, but the problem is when I was getting, uh, ready to initially fight MMA, it was, uh, it was like 2018 I started, I started working with Jon. And, uh, then in 2000- early 2- no, sorry, 2019. In early 2019 I tore my LCL and I came right back from that surgery and I had to jump right into an ADCC camp. So my thing was I had to get my knee better and then I have to prepare for 2019 ADCC. Uh, and then I did 2019 ADCC and then, uh, you know, after that I sat down with Jon and Jon's like, "You know, this was a huge ADCC. I think grappling is gonna start to go into a direction where it's gonna start to be like a real professional sport. Um, I think you should stick with grappling at least for a few more years before you do ... b- before you decide to move to MMA." Like what Jon doesn't want is for, uh, for me to leave grappling just as it explodes into the next level.

    3. JR

      Right.

    4. GR

      So I think that, uh, you know, after I was, uh, I was actually getting ready to, uh, to start talking to promotions about, about fighting MMA and then, uh, I, then I hurt my knee and then I had to do the ADCC camp. And then we did the ADCC camp and Jon's like, "Dude, like you have a super fight next year. It's gonna be in Vegas. Like it's gonna be huge." So he's like, "Just focus on that for now and then see where we go after that."

    5. JR

      Now, you started competing with, when you tore your knee, you started competing before it was really 100%.

    6. GR

      Yeah. So I competed six months to the day, uh, after the LCL reconstruction, uh, in my first tournament. And then I competed at ADCC seven months to the day after the reconstruction. So it definitely wasn't 100%, but it was okay enough to, to compete, at least.

    7. JR

      What did you do for rehab?

    8. GR

      I just work with a, with a PT who my surgeon recommended. Um, my big issue was that my hip, on the one side, locked up. So, my hip, on my left hip, I tore my left LCL. My left hip locked up and was like, was losing all of its flexibility to kinda overcompensate for the LCL being torn. So, a big thing was like opening up my hip and my whole left lower back was all tight. So, a lot of it, like the first few months of rehab was just him just working on flexibility and getting range of motion back. And then, um, they used, uh, for the rehab, they used that, uh, that BFR, blood flow restriction.

    9. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    10. GR

      Where they put that thing around your, around your, my rou- uh, they put a thing around my quad, and it cuts off 80% of the blood flow, and then you do like very mild exercises, like sp- body weight squats or lunges and stuff. And the idea is that it stops the blood flow from getting down to your leg, and then when you take it off, the blood rushes down to the bottom of your leg and it promotes healing. So, they used that and I used that for a few months and it, it seemed to help and then, you know, I just, it was like... I actually, we did a 12-week ADCC camp and I was just miserable the whole camp. Like, I started wrestling again, and my timing was off. I was getting exhausted. I just felt terrible. And like 10 weeks into the A- 10, 10 weeks into the camp, I was like, "Jon, there's no way I'm gonna be able to do this." And then, like, on the 11th week, I just like, from a Friday to a Monday, I just came in and I just started beating the shit out of people, and I was like, "Wow, I, I think I might be able to do this."

    11. JR

      (laughs)

    12. GR

      So, like, like the whole 12-week camp, I was just miserable and I was like, "There's no way I can do this." And then like a three-day span, I went from like just being terrible, and then all my timing started to come back, my hand fighting from the standing position started to come back, and I was like, "I think I might be able to do this." And then by like the time ADCC rolled around, I was like, "All right, I'm in."

    13. JR

      (laughs)

    14. GR

      And it ended up working out.

    15. JR

      What do you attribute that to? Like how'd you do that?

    16. GR

      Uh, I mean, I don't know. I think it was just... I was, I was doing rehab like, like I was supposed to, and the knee itself wasn't really the issue. It was just my body lagging behind for like, you know, you don't train for four months, your, all your timing, y- you know, your timing's all off. You get, you start wrestling and your hand fighting's off, you're a da- a day late and a dollar short on your shots. You just feel, you feel like, you know, there's nothing physically that... there's nothing th- that, that bad physically wrong with you. Like, my knee wasn't like, you know, gonna buckle or break in half or anything, but I just felt like my overall timing for everything was off. And then, uh, like, and I started wrestling hard for like two weeks and everything started to come back. And then like, you know, from one day to the next, almost it seemed like I was like, "Okay, I feel like everything's kinda coming back now." And the last like week or two before ADCC was when like I really started to feel like I was, I was who I was before I hurt the knee.

  13. 51:29 – 57:28

    Grappling’s growth needs personalities and submission-oriented rulesets

    1. JR

      I think Jon has a real point in terms of, uh, saying that grappling is on its way to becoming a legitimate professional sport, like a much bigger professional sport.

    2. GR

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      I think he's right. But I think it needs you. I think it needs you. I think it needs someone like you.

    4. GR

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      It needs a big personality who's also doing fucked up things like writing a triangle down on a piece of paper-

    6. GR

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      ... putting it in an envelope and handing it to the commentators before the match and then finishing someone with that.

    8. GR

      Yeah. The, the thing is like, it needs more of me.

    9. JR

      Yes.

    10. GR

      Like I'm al- like one guy can only do so much.

    11. JR

      Right.

    12. GR

      Um, so that's the issue is like everyone's talking about, "Oh, you have to be humble and respect," and nobody wants to come out and watch an interview that, where the guy's like, "Oh, you know, I trained really hard for this fight. I'm sure he trained hard too. He's really tough. It's gonna be a great..." Like, everyone says that. Nobody wants to fucking listen to someone coming out and, you know, if there's 20 matches and all 20 guys say the same thing.

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. GR

      Like they want a guy who's coming out and like, you know, "Fuck this pussy. I'm gonna beat the shit out of him." Like people are like, "All right-

    15. JR

      (laughs)

    16. GR

      ... I can get behind that." So (laughs) , you know, they can kind of live vicariously, vicariously through you because they want to do that. You know, they want to go up, they want to go, uh, you know, up to their boss tomorrow and be like, you know, "Fuck you, I'm gonna beat the shit out of you."

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. GR

      And you know, they can kinda, they can kinda get behind that because they can't do that in their, in their ord- in, in their, in their lives. Um, but you know, there's, there's always gonna be a limit on how big grappling can get as a sport because, uh, grappling is a participant-based sport where most people who watch grappling either participate in grappling or they have family members who are doing it and they're watching their cousin compete. Um, whereas, you know, the UFC or the NBA or the NFL, like most people who watch MMA aren't showing up the next day to get punched in the face.

    19. JR

      Right.

    20. GR

      Like people are just watching it because they, they, they wanna, they wanna be entertained. It's a spectator sport. So I, I do believe that it's going to get much bigger in the coming years, but I also believe there's gonna be a cap on it. Like it'll never be the size of football, for example, or the UFC for example.

    21. JR

      Yeah, it might not be, but I think it can be bigger than people give it credit for because of the submissions because people are so accustomed to seeing submissions in MMA-

    22. GR

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      ... and to see people pull off submissions in jujitsu-

    24. GR

      It's like a knockout in boxing.

    25. JR

      Yes, yes. Especially when you have good commentary which, uh, Who's Number One does, you know? And a l- a lot of these commentators are, are really educated now 'cause they're such fans of the sport so they can talk people through submissions and let people know exactly what's happening and when someone's in danger and when they're free. But I think you're right in terms of we need more big personalities and more competition. The fact that-

    26. GR

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      ... you're having a hard time getting matches is weird.

    28. GR

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      You know, with all these big heavyweights out there, there's a lot of guys who are your size who they're not stepping up.

    30. GR

      Yeah. And another thing you need too is you need a training program that pushes you towards submissions. Like nobody wants to watch two guys in 50/50 fighting to fucking scissor back and forth-

  14. 57:28 – 1:01:37

    Danaher the polymath: PhD, tape-study obsession, knives, and pig-hunting roots

    1. JR

      Yeah. It's got, it's gotta be so weird to have a guy like that as a mentor.

    2. GR

      There's-

    3. JR

      'Cause you know there's only one of them out there.

    4. GR

      Yeah. And it's just, like... You know on the mats it's, like, literally, like, a cheat book. Like, you ask Jon a question about anything, you ask him about... A striking question, you ask him about a grappling question, doesn't matter. You ask him about a Frisbee question and he knows the answer. Um, and then you have a guy who's there all day long, all year long, and he knows everything about everything. And you're just like, "Wow. Like, this is... This is like nothing you're ever gonna find anywhere else."

    5. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    6. GR

      And he doesn't, he doesn't have a f- he doesn't have kids or a wife. He doesn't have... He doesn't compete himself, so his primary focus is on just making us better. Like, that's what he loves to do. Like, most coaches, they go home and they're in their, they're in the camp for one of their own fights. They're focusing on themselves. They go home, they have a family to raise. Like, that's not Jon. Like, Jon goes home and he watches tape from a 1956 boxing match.

    7. JR

      (laughs)

    8. GR

      And he comes in the next day and teaches Garry something.

    9. JR

      You can't compete with that.

    10. GR

      Yeah. It's, it's tough.

    11. JR

      There's no other guy like that.

    12. GR

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      Especially a guy like that who's... Isn't he a PhD in philosophy as well?

    14. GR

      Yeah, yeah. He's a-

    15. JR

      From a legitimate university.

    16. GR

      Columbia, yeah.

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. GR

      He was a teacher at Columbia.

    19. JR

      That's... Imagine.

    20. GR

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      H- where are you gonna get one of those?

    22. GR

      That's, that's-

    23. JR

      Just one of those on Earth.

    24. GR

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      (laughs)

    26. GR

      I mean, it's, it's tough. I mean, if, if you... Like, he's, he's applied... Like, you have, like, a, like, uh, an actual genius competing against, like, most instructors that, like, you know... A lot of the, a lot of the top-level coaches that are coaching jiu-jitsu in the US grew up in, like, a favela in Brazil. And there's nothing wrong with that. They, they moved to America, America, they became successful. But, like, to compete against a guy like Jon who's, like, a legitimate genius and is, you know, teaching at Columbia University in New York and then just applies that intelligence to the sport of jiu-jitsu, it's just not fair in most cases. Like, the, the, the, the level of intellect is just, there's just no comparison.

    27. JR

      But it's also the level of intellect and this obsessive dedication-

    28. GR

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      ... to teaching people.

    30. GR

      Like, the only thing he enjoys is knives.

  15. 1:01:37 – 1:13:56

    Wild hogs, bison management, and ethics of eradication vs hunting

    1. GR

      But apparently, they're a big problem here, right?

    2. JR

      It's a giant problem.

    3. GR

      It's a huge problem, right?

    4. JR

      But they're still delicious.

    5. GR

      Yeah, they are.

    6. JR

      So if I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna gun down 10 hogs, I am-

    7. GR

      You want, you wanna eat at least one of them.

    8. JR

      I'm gonna at- at least eat one-

    9. GR

      (laughs)

    10. JR

      ... and the other ones I'm either gonna donate to the hungry, like, there's prob- programs called, uh, Hunters for the Hungry. You could donate it, but I just, they, a lot of times, they just leave 'em there and let 'em rot.

    11. GR

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      Because they, they, their idea is just eradication. They just wanna eradicate 'em and it's really hard to do.

    13. GR

      Yeah.

    14. JR

      It's very difficult.

    15. GR

      And there's so many and they're pretty smart, too. Like, they-

    16. JR

      They're smart as fuck.

    17. GR

      Yeah.

    18. JR

      They're smarter than dogs.

    19. GR

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      It's a weird animal, man, because, uh, you know, they were brought over here in, like, you know, fucking 1600s or whatever it was. Whenever the European explorers came over here, they brought over pigs and they've just run amok.

    21. GR

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      Now they're everywhere.

    23. GR

      And, and, like, Texas is one of the worst places I hear for them.

    24. JR

      They opened up one road in Texas and the day they opened up the road, like, they did construction on this road, lay all the thing. The day they do the, the open up the road, they had 40 car accidents with pigs.

    25. GR

      Oh, my God.

    26. JR

      (laughs)

    27. GR

      (laughs) I mean, I was, I was, like, talking to my buddy in Dallas and he would, like, he went on like a 15-minute rant about how the pigs just destroy everything in Texas. And I was like-

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. GR

      ... "Whoa, that's, like, kinda sensitive for you. I didn't realize how bad it was." (laughs)

    30. JR

      Oh, it's bad. Uh, I think, overall, this... Let's see, like, how much damage do wild pigs cause in Texas per year? I think it's in the billions.

Episode duration: 2:45:14

Install uListen for AI-powered chat & search across the full episode — Get Full Transcript

Transcript of episode spRiboB_pMo

Get more out of YouTube videos.

High quality summaries for YouTube videos. Accurate transcripts to search & find moments. Powered by ChatGPT & Claude AI.

iOSAndroidClaudeChrome