JRE MMA Show #12 with Ben Askren

Ben Askren 0:00 Yeah, my oldest one's s- super-

Joe Rogan 0:02 Here we go, five-

Ben Askren 0:03 Okay.

Joe Rogan 0:03 ... four, three, two, one. (claps) Ben Askren, ladies and gentlemen. Dude, I've talked about you on this podcast-

Ben Askren 0:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 0:10 ... at least a dozen times. You are the number one guy that I'm most disappointed never fought in the UFC.

Ben Askren 0:17 Yeah. And I, I always get, uh, whenever you talk about me, I get like 15 texts, like, "Hey, Joe, Joe's talking about you now."

Joe Rogan 0:22 (laughs)

Ben Askren 0:22 And, you know, they'll send me clips or whatever. So obviously appreciate that. Um, but yeah, I never, I never really got to fight those top guys, and it was for reasons beyond my control.

Joe Rogan 0:32 Yeah, and you're done now.

Ben Askren 0:34 Yeah, I, so I said, I said... I, I don't wanna say I'm done period. I said I'm done excluding the fact that I get to fight and prove I'm number one. That would be the excluding factor.

Joe Rogan 0:43 So if you could get in the UFC, you'd be willing to do it again?

Ben Askren 0:47 I mean, I don't care where it is, right? I, I, I really-

Joe Rogan 0:49 Right.

Ben Askren 0:49 ... genuinely don't. And obviously that would be the, the thing that makes sense. But there is legislation, like the Ali Act and other things going through, so I don't know that maybe... You know, I'm still 33, so I'm not old, and you know, if you look at GSP, he took four years off-

Joe Rogan 1:01 Yeah.

Ben Askren 1:02 ... from one fight to the next fight. So I'm not g- it's not like I'm gonna age overnight. Um...

Joe Rogan 1:05 Well, your style too. You avoided so much-

Ben Askren 1:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:08 ... damage.

Ben Askren 1:09 I didn't get, I didn't get hit o- once this, in 20- 2017, so...

Joe Rogan 1:12 Really? (laughs)

Ben Askren 1:12 Yeah, I didn't get hit once.

Joe Rogan 1:14 (laughs)

Ben Askren 1:14 Yeah, in three fights. So yeah, I, I-

Joe Rogan 1:16 And that was ... Uh, you should tell people, you were fighting in ONE FC-

Ben Askren 1:18 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:19 ... which is a big Asian organization.

Ben Askren 1:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:20 It's like the Asian version of the UFC.

Ben Askren 1:23 Yeah, so O- ONE FC started in 2012, I think. Um, obviously my contract with Bellator came up in 2013, and then there was that negotiation process, which obvi- obviously went south.

Joe Rogan 1:32 And what happened there? You were the champ-

Ben Askren 1:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:34 ... of Bellator-

Ben Askren 1:35 Yes.

Joe Rogan 1:35 ... and then all of a sudden you left, and everyone-

Ben Askren 1:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:37 ... was like... So you're, you're still undefeated, right?

Ben Askren 1:38 I'm undefeated, 18-0.

Joe Rogan 1:39 So what the- what the fuck happened that Bellator let the champion go?

Ben Askren 1:43 Well, that wasn't what happened. So-

Joe Rogan 1:45 No.

Ben Askren 1:45 And there's, there's so much misinformation out there-

Joe Rogan 1:47 Okay.

Ben Askren 1:48 ... and, you know, I, I'm popular but I'm not that popular. And so a, lots of times my story gets mistold because I get spoken over by other people, right?

Joe Rogan 1:56 Ah.

Ben Askren 1:56 And they don't hear what I say. So here, here's what happened. Um, obviously ... So prior to me in Bellator, Hector and E- Eddie were the ones that left, right? They were ... Hector was the-

Joe Rogan 2:06 Hector Lombard-

Ben Askren 2:06 Yep.

Joe Rogan 2:07 ... and Eddie Alvarez-

Ben Askren 2:07 Eddie Alvarez were the-

Joe Rogan 2:08 ... was then at UFC. Both of them.

Ben Askren 2:09 Both the middleweight champ and then the lightweight champ, and they both got taken care of pretty well. But if you, if you remember Eddie's situation, I don't know if you remember this, he got an offer from the UFC, still under the matching period with Bellator. Bellator says, "We matched it," right? And i- in terms of what was in the contract, it was matched, right? But because Bellator has no pay-per-view venue ... Well, if UFC says, "We'll pay you on pay-per-view," Bellator says, "Well, we will too." But that's not real life, right?

Joe Rogan 2:37 Right.

Ben Askren 2:37 That, that's fictitious.

Joe Rogan 2:38 They don't have ... They've done two pay-per-view shows ever.

Ben Askren 2:40 And they've never met any type of threshold.

Joe Rogan 2:41 Yeah.

Ben Askren 2:42 So, you know, they say it matches but it doesn't, so they ... I don't know if you remember, but they went to court over it, and UFC won. Eddie ha- got the right to ... I'm sorry, he didn't win. He, he somehow did like a one f- more fight in Bellator and then went to the UFC. I don't know exactly what the finality of that case was. But anyways, when that happened, his, his contract became public knowledge, right? And so a lot of UFC fighters were pissed because he, they gave him a whole bunch of money. And so when I, I, I was 12 and 0, I, well, I had my last fight in Bellator against Andrei Khushkov July 30th, maybe 31st, of, uh, 2013. Beat him up pretty good. And then I had a 12-month matching period. And so what was expressed to me by the UFC brass was that, "You need to get rid of your matching clause and we will make you an offer, but we will not make you an offer until that happens."

Joe Rogan 3:31 Get rid of your matching clause?

Ben Askren 3:32 Yes.

Joe Rogan 3:33 How do you do that?

Ben Askren 3:34 Well, here, here's how I went about doing it. (laughs) 'Cause it's 12 months, right? That's a-

Joe Rogan 3:38 Right.

Ben Askren 3:38 ... freaking ... I'm not gonna sign on for 12 months.

Joe Rogan 3:40 Right.

Ben Askren 3:40 So I called Bjorn every three days and said, "Hey, Bjorn, I'm not gonna re-sign, please let me"-

Joe Rogan 3:44 Bjorn is the guy who was running Bellator at the time.

Ben Askren 3:45 Correct, yeah. And now he, you know, he got fired, but-

Joe Rogan 3:48 Yeah.

Ben Askren 3:48 Um, and Bjorn had a terrible reputation, but I never ... I had a decent relationship with him. I never like butted heads too bad. So every three days I said, "Bjorn, let me go, I'm not coming back." And then so everyone says, "Well, Bellator didn't wanna re-sign me." Well, that's, that's not true at all. Every three days, "Bjorn, let me go. Bjorn, let me go." Because, you know, I love challenges. What, what I love more than anything in the world is to challenge myself. If you look at my wrestling career, that, that's what it's all about. Taking the next best thing every single time. And so yeah, so finally in ... And all this time, you know, Dana and the UFC is saying, "We want Ben Askren, we want Ben Askren." I'm ranked number seven in the world or what- you know, somewhere around there, 12 and 0. And so I remember I was going to the Asian food store 'cause I was gonna make some Tom Kha soup and Bjorn calls me and said, "You're released. Full, full ... You're released, you can go." And I say, "I appreciate that." So Friday morning, it was Thursday night, Friday morning, it's in November sometime, uh, eh, maybe mid-November, um, morning, they fax over the release. My management faxes it to UFC headquarters and all of a sudden that afternoon there's a, you know, like a little scrum where everyone's asking Dana questions. And then Dana says, "We're not interested in Ben Askren." And I said, "Wait, what just happened there?" Right? Because for the last three months they were saying, "We were interested, we're interested, we're interested, we're interested." Now I finally produced this full release from Bellator that I got, and now they're not interested. And so I said, "Wow, I just got caught in the middle of this." And, uh-

Joe Rogan 5:16 So w- was there a reason given?

Ben Askren 5:18 Well, so okay, so then Monday ... So then I say, "Eff that, I'm buying my ..." So I bought a plane ticket to, to Vegas for Monday. So that was Friday that happens.

Joe Rogan 5:26 (laughs)

Ben Askren 5:26 I said, "Fuck that, I'm going to Vegas."

Joe Rogan 5:28 Right.

Ben Askren 5:28 "I'm not taking this shit," you know?

Joe Rogan 5:30 Right.

Ben Askren 5:30 So, uh, Monday I buy my plane ticket to Vegas, I fly out to Vegas to UFC headquarters. Uh, Lor- I met with Lorenzo, Dana was on the little speakerphone dealy, and they offered me, uh, a Zuffa contract, but it would be confidential and I would have to fight one fight for the World Series of Fighting. Which is like, "Well, that's bizarre."

Joe Rogan 5:51 What?

Ben Askren 5:51 Yeah. And they said-

Joe Rogan 5:52 One fight for the World Series of Fighting?

Ben Askren 5:54 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 5:54 What was their relationship with the World Series of Fight- the World Series of Fighting-

Ben Askren 5:56 I don't, I don't know.

Joe Rogan 5:57 ... was like a feeder organization at that time.

Ben Askren 5:59 Something, yeah. I mean, I, I-

Joe Rogan 6:00 In a, in a way.

Ben Askren 6:01 Yeah, and it-

Joe Rogan 6:01 'Cause Marlon Moraes, Justin Gaethje, both those guys-

Ben Askren 6:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:04 ... came from champs over there-

Ben Askren 6:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:05 ... to the UFC.

Ben Askren 6:06 I think the relationship was, is very hazy between the old World Series of Fighting and the UFC because there was also people that went the other way, right? Andrei Arlovski gets-... drop from UFC, goes to World Series, Anthony Johnson.

Joe Rogan 6:17 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 6:17 Boom. All these people.

Joe Rogan 6:18 Yeah.

Ben Askren 6:19 So they say, "One fight, one fight. World Series of Fighting. We will pay, Zuffa will pay you."

Joe Rogan 6:24 Hmm.

Ben Askren 6:24 "But you do one fight."

Joe Rogan 6:25 Okay.

Ben Askren 6:25 And I say, "Well, that's effed up, but okay." I said, "I don't think anyone's gonna go for it, but I'll do it." So I leave, and, uh, about six hours later, I got a phone call that says, "That deal is no longer available. We are not gonna make you an offer." Yeah. So, wow. Wow.

Joe Rogan 6:43 And you have no idea why?

Ben Askren 6:44 Well, I, I, so I... Here's my guess. I've never got to sit face-to-face with Dana and say, "What was your problem with me?" I think there's four things, in my mind. Number one, he didn't really like me. Um, stemming from the... I called him out on the steroid thing. You know, where he said, "It's impossible." And this is where our disagreement... "It's impossible to test all UFC athletes." And I said, "Well, that's not true. USADA does it all over the world for all kinds of athletes, right?"

Joe Rogan 7:08 Right.

Ben Askren 7:08 "You can do it. It's just expensive, but let's just call what it is. You're a private business. You don't have to do drug testing." It's gonna be-

Joe Rogan 7:14 Well, obviously they do it now, so you were right.

Ben Askren 7:15 They do it now, yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:16 They do it through USADA-

Ben Askren 7:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:17 ... so you were totally right.

Ben Askren 7:18 Yeah, so I, I was correct. And now, but that was... You know, when Dana is wrong in an argument, and he's got this huge army that follows him, and he said, "I'd rather..." He... I think his quote was about... He goes, "I'd rather watch flies fuck than Ben Askren fight." You know?

Joe Rogan 7:30 I think he said something like-

Ben Askren 7:31 Or-

Joe Rogan 7:32 ... "Ambien takes Ben Askren-"

Ben Askren 7:34 He-

Joe Rogan 7:34 ... "and he goes asleep."

Ben Askren 7:34 Yeah, yeah. There were, there were a few of them.

Joe Rogan 7:36 (laughs)

Ben Askren 7:36 So the personal attacks start, right? So that, that's number one. Number two, my fighting style is not highly attractive. But I also think that's a little bit of fake news, because if you look at Georges St-Pierre as the... consistently. Now, obviously McGregor has trumped him, but only a couple of times. But if you look at consistent basis, Georges St-Pierre is the number one draw of all time. He heavily relied on takedowns and ground and pound.

Joe Rogan 7:56 Yeah.

Ben Askren 7:56 I mean, he didn't have a finish in, like, five years or something.

Joe Rogan 8:00 Well, let me just say what my-

Ben Askren 8:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:01 ... take has always been on you and that style, is that it's important, and that it real- it really works.

Ben Askren 8:08 Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 8:08 Like what you, what you're able to do really works. And I've always said this, and it was proven Sun- uh, Saturday night in the Stipe Miocic-Francis Ngannou fight.

Ben Askren 8:16 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:16 Wrestling is the most important part of MMA.

Ben Askren 8:18 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 8:18 The ability to take the fight to the ground. Obviously, Stipe has a lot of other attributes.

Ben Askren 8:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:22 He, he took tremendous punches in that fight. I mean, I know you didn't get a chance to watch it, but-

Ben Askren 8:26 I, I saw some highlights though.

Joe Rogan 8:26 Holy shit.

Ben Askren 8:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:27 I mean, the first round was chaos. I mean, y- Francis Ngannou's a terrifying guy.

Ben Askren 8:32 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:32 And Stipe took the shots, used great movement, used striking of his own. But m- most importantly, after a while, got his wrestling going.

Ben Askren 8:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:39 And then once he got Ngannou to the ground, Ngannou didn't have any answers.

Ben Askren 8:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:41 He didn't know what to do. What you're... what you've been able to do to guys like Douglas Lima, who just, uh, fought Rory MacDonald-

Ben Askren 8:48 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:48 ... for the Bellator title.

Ben Askren 8:49 Really good fight.

Joe Rogan 8:50 Korshkov, who's another fantastic fight-

Ben Askren 8:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 8:52 ... who, uh, you know, has beaten a lot of really top flight guys.

Ben Askren 8:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:56 You're able to use your wrestling and completely nullify all their striking and offense.

Ben Askren 8:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:00 And that's a huge part of fighting. Fighting is not what's exciting for people to watch. Fighting is what actually works.

Ben Askren 9:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:07 And what you've been able to do time and time again, is take these guys who look like world beaters and completely nullify their offense, take them to the ground, and beat the shit out of them.

Ben Askren 9:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 9:16 That's huge. That's very, very important.

Ben Askren 9:19 Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, not... So, we'll, we can get back to the UFC thing Yeah. ... at it later. But, so, yeah, I mean, when I started fighting, right, it was just like, "Hey, let's go fight." I, I didn't really make coaching and so I didn't move to Duke's until tw- Rufus. Duke Rufus. Duke Rufus, yes, until 2010, I think. So I started... No, no, 2011. I'm sorry, because I was in Arizona. I was coaching for Arizona State University. But when I moved there, I know, "Hey these... uh, there's a lot of elite strikers in this gym," I said, "but I'm, I'm never gonna be an elite striker, but if no one can hit me, they can't beat me." They're not gonna outlast me. They're not gonna out-grapple me. They're not gonna beat me. If they can't knock me out, they're not gonna beat me. Plain and simple. So my whole goal was, "How do I not get hit?" Not... I don't need to be a great striker hitting people. I just need to not get hit. If you can't knock me out, I'm gonna eventually get you on the ground and I'm gonna beat your ass.

Joe Rogan 10:06 Right.

Ben Askren 10:06 Right? And so that was kind of my whole goal when I got into MMA, is, "How do I not get knocked out?" Right? And so you said, obviously, I've be- you know, found a really good way to do that. And it, uh, it added a lot of longevity to my career, where I wasn't taking damage that, uh, a lot of other people were taking. And I, I think there's also a lot of other things to being a really high level wrestler that, you know... Besides, obviously, you can control where the fight happens, right? But there's a lot of other things that high level wrestling provides us, right, that came from that world, that other disciplines don't get. You know, a lot of competition. We, we compete thousands of times, right? How to get our mind right. Um, these wrestlers are just strong. I mean, there's just a different strength. I did actually, I got to go work out with Jordan Burroughs last week. He's a Middletown world champ. And it's like you forget how strong wrestlers are. Like, you grab them and you're like, "Good God, this guy is like..."

Joe Rogan 10:55 (laughs)

Ben Askren 10:55 You know, I don't feel that from MMA people. I grab him and I'm like-

Joe Rogan 10:58 Right.

Ben Askren 10:58 Oh my... Everywhere, it's like there's nowhere he's weak. Um, very, very disciplined, right? 'Cause wrestlers like... We've been in the system from youth wrestling to high school wrestling to college wrestling, where we're under, you know, coaches and have a very strict training plan, and understand how to put a training regimen together, where a lot of other martial arts don't have that kind of structured system. So I think there's a lot of advantages that we, as, uh, wrestlers have when we commit to mixed martial arts.

Joe Rogan 11:22 And if I could add to that, the intention is pure. It's pure for competition, because there's no financial reward.

Ben Askren 11:27 Yes, mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:27 It's not a bunch of people that are getting into wrestling because they want to get rich.

Ben Askren 11:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:30 It's a bunch of people that really want to prove that they're the best. And so you have so many top flight guys that are incredibly mentally strong, feeding off of each other, knowing that they're gonna be competing against each other-

Ben Askren 11:42 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 11:42 ... and almost no financial possibilities-

Ben Askren 11:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:45 ... except for coaching.

Ben Askren 11:46 Well, yeah, there's a co-... I mean, now... So 2018 to 20... uh, 2008, when I was wrestling, and then when I decided to make that jump to MMA, there is a lot better financial structure for senior level athletes. Now, none of them are getting rich, and there's only about a dozen of them making, like, a decent living, right?

Joe Rogan 12:03 Yeah.

Ben Askren 12:04 And so-

Joe Rogan 12:04 Which is crazy.

Ben Askren 12:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:05 There's thousands of wrestlers.

Ben Askren 12:06 Exactly. So your point's mostly correct, but there are a handful of top United States athletes now who could do nothing but wrestle. Where when I was in, in 2008, when I was training, that wasn't even the case. I had to go do camps. I, I was coaching at Missouri, so I was doing other things in addition to wrestling.

Joe Rogan 12:21 So, like a top Olympic athlete, what, what else would they do to make money?

Ben Askren 12:24 Well, so like, in tw- in 2008, I was doing a lot of camps, right? You'd travel around the country, do camps, make money. Um, coach a college team. I was making money that way. So, a handful of things I did. Like I, I w- it wasn't just wake up and train every single day.

Joe Rogan 12:37 But the athletes of today that you were saying-

Ben Askren 12:38 Now, that's what they're doing. That's it.

Joe Rogan 12:40 Coaching and-

Ben Askren 12:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:41 ... a bunch of different things. Yeah.

Ben Askren 12:42 No, no, no, no, no. Some of them don't have to do anything now.

Joe Rogan 12:44 Ju- So you're saying they just do it from-

Ben Askren 12:45 Like-

Joe Rogan 12:45 So, where are they getting the money?

Ben Askren 12:46 Jordan Burroughs and James Green, for example, um, sponsorships are slightly more lucrative than they were then. There's something called the Regional Training Center system, um, which, you know, most major colleges have one. That's a lot more lucrative, and that, that's fundraising, right? They're not, they're not earning money. The, the RTC people go say, "Hey, rich guy, would you like to fund this program that'll help us develop Olympically athletes?" Sure. Okay, right? And then the United States, uh, USOC has slightly more funding given to USA Wrestling than in the past.

Joe Rogan 13:16 Well, it's the tragic story of John du Pont. I mean, that's literally why that whole ... if ... people have seen that movie. What-

Ben Askren 13:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:22 ... what was that movie called?

Ben Askren 13:23 The Foxcatcher.

Joe Rogan 13:24 Foxcatcher.

Ben Askren 13:24 Yeah. Awful.

Joe Rogan 13:24 It's a crazy story of, um, Dave and Mark Schultz and this millionaire, cra- billionaire-

Ben Askren 13:32 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:32 ... crazy guy-

Ben Askren 13:33 Five billionaire, yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:33 ... who wound up shooting Dave Schultz, and, uh, was this weirdo guy that was-

Ben Askren 13:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 13:38 ... running this camp. And these guys kinda got stuck training with this guy.

Ben Askren 13:42 Yeah, because, I mean ... a- and that's '96 was when Schultz got shot, right? And so, that's 12 years prior to, you know, my Olympic birth then. And so then, it's even worse.

Joe Rogan 13:53 Yeah.

Ben Askren 13:53 I mean, these guys are literally making nothing. And that a- then ... And then, you know, then we can go back to the argument of amateurism in, in the Olympics is stupid, which was abolished. Like '92, The Dream Team, was kind of totally abolished with amateurism.

Joe Rogan 14:05 Yeah.

Ben Askren 14:05 But yeah, those guys in that era, the '84, '88, '92, nine-... they were making nothing. And so when this guy, John du Pont, offers them money and stipends and places to live, they don't really have a better option. And it-

Joe Rogan 14:15 Right.

Ben Askren 14:16 ... it's freaking sad, to be honest about it, and then obviously USA Wrestling sanctioned him because he gave USA Wrestling a lot of money, so yeah, it was really a bad thing. And, and so we're doing a lot better in 2018 than we were 10 years ago, and way, way better than we were doing 20 years ago.

Joe Rogan 14:29 Yeah, the Olympic thing where they try to treat the Olympics like it's an amateur sport event. It's a business. You're making-

Ben Askren 14:38 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 14:38 ... billions and billions of dollars off these athletes-

Ben Askren 14:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:41 ... who get paid zero.

Ben Askren 14:42 Zero.

Joe Rogan 14:42 It is ... To me, it's disgusting.

Ben Askren 14:44 It is.

Joe Rogan 14:44 I think it's just this relic of ancient thinking, and these guys are using it to steal money-

Ben Askren 14:50 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:50 ... from young athletes. That's what I think.

Ben Askren 14:52 A- 100%.

Joe Rogan 14:52 I think the whole thing is theft.

Ben Askren 14:53 Yeah, I, I, I usually don't know who more ... who's more evil, the USOC or the IOC or the NCAA, 'cause the NCAA runs right along the same lines.

Joe Rogan 15:01 Yeah.

Ben Askren 15:01 And I, I think both are pretty evil and both are archaic and both need to be changed. And, and you know, if you could abolish the NCAA and the IOC, that'd be fantastic for athletes worldwide.

Joe Rogan 15:11 Yeah. Well, especially when you look at the football teams that are getting literally billions and billions of dollars-

Ben Askren 15:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:17 ... every year.

Ben Askren 15:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:18 And these athletes are ruining their lives. I mean-

Ben Askren 15:21 Yes.

Joe Rogan 15:21 ... you have football players that maybe play one, two seasons if they're lucky.

Ben Askren 15:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:25 They get their back blown out, their legs get blown out, and then they never have an NFL career. And meanwhile, the university has made tons of money off of them.

Ben Askren 15:33 Tons of money.

Joe Rogan 15:34 And they make nothing.

Ben Askren 15:35 Yeah. And, and you know, to make that e- even worse, 'cause I actually had this ... I had a whole podcast about this argument with someone, and to make that ... And we're on the same side of this, but to make that even worse, if you're an NCAA athlete, Joe, you can't even make money off your own image and likeness.

Joe Rogan 15:46 Yeah.

Ben Askren 15:47 It's, it's-

Joe Rogan 15:47 You can't have a YouTube channel.

Ben Askren 15:48 It's effing insane.

Joe Rogan 15:49 Where you get ... Yeah, it's crazy.

Ben Askren 15:50 So, not only will they not pay you anything, which I think we can debate and argue on that, but the fact that they can't make money off their own na- own image and likeness i- that's ... It should be criminal for that to happen.

Joe Rogan 16:02 Jamie, you were telling me about this, right? Like a guy got in trouble for having a YouTube channel where he was mon-

Guest (third person in studio) 16:06 Yeah, he was a pun- punter for like a, a college football team, or a kicker.

Joe Rogan 16:09 Do you remember his name?

Guest (third person in studio) 16:10 I don't remember his name at all. No.

Ben Askren 16:11 Just mon-

Guest (third person in studio) 16:11 No. No.

Joe Rogan 16:11 Crazy.

Ben Askren 16:11 And there was a, there was a wrestler from the University of ... I wanna say University of Minnesota. He made a rap album, and he had to either quit the wrestling team or donate all the money back, or something like that. It's like ra- uh, rap, rap and wrestling have ... They have nothing to do with each other. The fact that he can't go make money off freaking recording an album-

Joe Rogan 16:31 Yeah.

Ben Askren 16:31 ... is like mind-blowing.

Joe Rogan 16:32 It's disgusting.

Ben Askren 16:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:33 'Cause you're keeping a kid from being industrious.

Ben Askren 16:35 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 16:35 You're keeping a, a young guy who's trying to find his way through the world, you're keeping him from being successful.

Ben Askren 16:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:40 And th- but tho- that kind of success, like figuring out a way to make some money off of-

Ben Askren 16:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:44 ... your name doing rap, that could lead to all sorts of paths in life. Like he's, he's learning as a young guy, like, "Hey, look. I could d- be industrious. I could go do this. I could be creative. I can go do that." Like this is what we should be encouraging people to do, to take chances and make money. The idea that you're saying like, somehow or another this spoils his amateur-

Ben Askren 17:02 It's crazy.

Joe Rogan 17:02 ... athletic standing is just stupidity. I think it's fucking disgusting. It drives me nuts.

Ben Askren 17:07 Agreed 100%.

Joe Rogan 17:08 It just drives me crazy.

Ben Askren 17:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:09 So, we're back to your situation with-

Ben Askren 17:11 Okay.

Joe Rogan 17:11 ... the UFC. So, the UFC says, "We're not interested in you."

Ben Askren 17:15 No offer.

Joe Rogan 17:15 No offer.

Ben Askren 17:16 No offer.

Joe Rogan 17:16 So, Bellator's released you.

Ben Askren 17:17 So I, I, I had spent three months telling Bellator-

Joe Rogan 17:20 Do you think-

Ben Askren 17:20 ... "I'm not coming back."

Joe Rogan 17:21 ... do you think they played you? Do you feel like the UFC might have played you?

Ben Askren 17:23 Absolutely. They played me 100... So, okay, so number ... The reasons: Dana doesn't like me, number one. Number two, my style, uh, not, not great, right? They-

Joe Rogan 17:30 Didn't you say something like, "He's a bald, steroided, something or other." Do you remember what you said?

Ben Askren 17:34 (laughs) It was mostly after the fact.

Joe Rogan 17:35 Oh, okay.

Ben Askren 17:35 You know, after that went down that I really tortured him, but um-

Joe Rogan 17:39 (laughs)

Ben Askren 17:39 ... you know. The, but the, the original one was, "He's lying about this, the USADA thing." So that was the, this, the simpler ... So, those people who say me and Dana had beef prior to me not getting an offer-

Joe Rogan 17:50 Have you met him?

Ben Askren 17:52 Yeah. 'Cause I mean ... Yeah, n-

Joe Rogan 17:53 Have you talked to him or heard of him?

Ben Askren 17:54 We've never had a at-length conversation, so...

Joe Rogan 17:56 He's a great guy. A lot of people-

Ben Askren 17:57 Well ...

Joe Rogan 17:57 ... get the wrong impression of him. I mean, I really love the guy.

Ben Askren 18:00 Yeah, you and I have had different experiences with the man, so ...

Joe Rogan 18:02 I'm sure we have.

Ben Askren 18:02 Yeah, it was a pleasure.

Joe Rogan 18:03 I always feel like I should be there when people have experiences with him. Like, "Let me- let me let you know the Dana I know."

Ben Askren 18:07 Yeah. So, uh, so that would be two. Number three, I think obviously stealing a key piece away from Bellator was-

Joe Rogan 18:13 Right.

Ben Askren 18:13 ... important to them. Um-And then number four, I think they thought I really had the ability to be their champion, and if someone can be a Bellator champion and make this transition directly to UFC and then be the UFC champion, uh, you know, they remember this when they're going on-

Joe Rogan 18:28 Right.

Ben Askren 18:28 ... Bellator's now on Spike now, that Bellator would use that to say, "Look, we're the same. He was a champion here, he's a champion there." So I, I think those four things are ... And I, hey, I've never got to sit down face-to-face w- with Dana and say, "Why was there no offer?"

Joe Rogan 18:40 Right.

Ben Askren 18:40 That one. I've never got ... You know, like, when Anthony Pettis was the champ and, you know, I'm, I'm helping coach him, where Tyron Was, I, I've haven't had more than five words with Dana in, in passing, right? And so it would be really interesting to me to sit down and say, "What was it ... Tell me for real." 'Cause I have my assumptions on what the deal was, but I don't really know. And then if I have to add number five, number five is I think he got the idea that I would never be a yes-man, which I'm, I'm not going to be and never would be, um, where Dana really kinda likes the yes-men champions. I mean, you, you can see he's got, he's got some heat with Tyron, he's got some heat with Stipe as we saw on Saturday night, and he ... Dana really struggles with the personalities that won't cater to what he wants to happen.

Joe Rogan 19:21 Well, fighters very rarely are yes-men. And that's by nature of who they are.

Ben Askren 19:27 A little bit, yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:28 You know, especially the really good ones, especially as things start going well and start going their way, they realize they're the fucking man. I mean-

Ben Askren 19:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:33 ... this is ... If you're the guy who's running the division, you're the guy who's running the division.

Ben Askren 19:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:38 And you're not gonna take any shit from anybody.

Ben Askren 19:40 Yeah, but that's ... And, and you see as some of these guys ascend, right, up the ranks-

Joe Rogan 19:44 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 19:44 ... they do. Like Jon Jones started having trouble with Dana, right, but didn't have it-

Joe Rogan 19:48 Well, Jon Jones-

Ben Askren 19:48 ... until he was-

Joe Rogan 19:48 ... was having all sorts of problems.

Ben Askren 19:50 (laughs) Well, he's got trouble with everybody.

Joe Rogan 19:51 His, his problems I think had very little to do with Dana and more to do with his actions outside of the cage.

Ben Askren 19:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 19:56 I mean, inside the octagon he was ... And the way he was promoted, he was promoted fantastic.

Ben Askren 20:01 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 20:01 But he's just crazy.

Ben Askren 20:03 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:03 Jon's crazy, you know?

Ben Askren 20:04 Jon is crazy, that's-

Joe Rogan 20:05 Jon needs a babysitter.

Ben Askren 20:06 That's factually ... That-

Joe Rogan 20:07 I mean, Jon's-

Ben Askren 20:07 I-

Joe Rogan 20:07 ... is the baddest motherfucker at 205 ever. He just needs a babysitter.

Ben Askren 20:09 How anyone let him drive a car anymore when you got-

Joe Rogan 20:12 (laughs)

Ben Askren 20:12 ... that much money is beyond me.

Joe Rogan 20:13 I know. (laughs)

Ben Askren 20:14 Like, pay some, pay your buddy 40 grand a year-

Joe Rogan 20:16 Exactly.

Ben Askren 20:17 ... and, and have him drive you permanently.

Joe Rogan 20:18 Yeah.

Ben Askren 20:18 Like, why he was driving his own car?

Joe Rogan 20:20 Yeah.

Ben Askren 20:21 That, that one's beyond me.

Joe Rogan 20:22 Well, they didn't know until they bought him a Bentley and then he wrapped it around a tree.

Ben Askren 20:27 But did-

Joe Rogan 20:27 I mean, that's when, that's when they should've known.

Ben Askren 20:29 And then, but then there was the other one where he hit and r- ... That was at ... The hit and run was after that one.

Joe Rogan 20:33 Yup, the hit and run was after that one, and then there was the other one where he got s- pulled over speeding in his-

Ben Askren 20:37 Yes.

Joe Rogan 20:37 ... Corvette, and he told the cop to go fuck himself.

Ben Askren 20:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:40 (laughs)

Ben Askren 20:40 Terrible decision. What are you doing?

Joe Rogan 20:42 He's a fucking wild dude.

Ben Askren 20:43 Yes.

Joe Rogan 20:44 That's why he's so good. It's one-

Ben Askren 20:46 But that-

Joe Rogan 20:46 ... of the reasons why he's so good.

Ben Askren 20:46 Absolutely, but then you put, you gotta put safeguards in place, right?

Joe Rogan 20:49 Yes.

Ben Askren 20:49 Like, like you're making how many million a year? Multiple-

Joe Rogan 20:52 Yeah.

Ben Askren 20:52 ... at least.

Joe Rogan 20:53 For sure.

Ben Askren 20:53 You can't pay someone 40 grand to drive you around.

Joe Rogan 20:55 Listen, you're, you're preaching to the choir, right?

Ben Askren 20:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:58 I mean, br- I wish that I could clone me and send me all through all these camps-

Ben Askren 21:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:03 ... and be like, "Jon, Jon, Jon, listen to me. Everything's gonna be fine. I got a driver."

Ben Askren 21:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:06 "We got a Cadillac, we got an Escalade out here. (snaps fingers) Get in the car."

Ben Askren 21:08 Wh- wherever you wanna go.

Joe Rogan 21:09 Yeah. We're, we're going places, baby.

Ben Askren 21:11 Wherever you wanna go.

Joe Rogan 21:11 We're gonna have some fun, but no driving, no driving.

Ben Askren 21:13 None. No, none.

Joe Rogan 21:13 We don't need driving. We got music. We got fun. Let's go.

Ben Askren 21:17 Oh my gosh.

Joe Rogan 21:18 (laughs)

Ben Askren 21:18 I mean, seriously.

Joe Rogan 21:19 Yeah. Well, that's what you would have if, you know, you had, like ... You know, it's ... I don't know what he's doing. I don't ... I'm not ... I never been to Albuquerque. I don't know-

Ben Askren 21:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:27 ... wh- how he's living, but-

Ben Askren 21:28 Mm-hmm. Well, obviously-

Joe Rogan 21:29 But you can't, you can't babysit everybody. You got the UFC has 500 fighters on its roster. I mean, how-

Ben Askren 21:34 The-

Joe Rogan 21:34 ... many of those guys are prone to wild behavior? I would say 350.

Ben Askren 21:37 Uh, a lot of 'em. Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:39 (laughs)

Ben Askren 21:39 Most of 'em, right?

Joe Rogan 21:39 Yeah.

Ben Askren 21:40 High-risk males that-

Joe Rogan 21:41 Yeah.

Ben Askren 21:41 ... play a sport where you have the potential to be hurt every single time you step out onto-

Joe Rogan 21:44 Yeah.

Ben Askren 21:44 ... the job. Yeah. But when you're making millions of dollars, you gotta put safeguards against yourself.

Joe Rogan 21:50 Yeah, but I think also what makes Jon so good is his self-confidence, and he probably is g- like, "Ah, I got it."

Ben Askren 21:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:58 "Yeah, I fucked up before, but I got it now."

Ben Askren 22:00 So I'm really into sports psychology, and I want someone to write this book 'cause no one's ever written it, but I think there's this, uh, I call it the hypocritical elite athlete. So there's two sides to every coin, right? And if you're a really elite athlete, you need both sides of those coin, and I'll give you a great example 'cause it's kinda what you're talking about. There's these guys who are ultra-elite preparers. They eat right, they sleep right, they train right, they do everything right, right? But then if one little thing goes wrong, it messes with them, right? If they don't get the right food or their weight cut's bad, they, they start panicking, right? And then on the opposite side of the coin, there's these cowboys, right? And they're just like, "I'm not gonna eat right, I'm not gonna sleep right, I'm not gonna do anything right. But when the time to step in the cage, I'ma fight my ass off and nothing's gonna bother me." Right? And so you need, you need both sides of those coins to ma- to make it whole, and so you want someone ideally who does everything right, but at the same time when, when something goes wrong or their toe hurts or whatever, they can just say, "Well, it doesn't really matter. I'm gonna go compete anyways." Right? You wanna have both sides of those, and that's why I think a lot of the UFC fighters are more on the cowboy side of it, like, "Well, I'm not really gonna do a lot of things right, but I'm just gonna go f- I'm, I'm a fighter. I'm just gonna go fight."

Joe Rogan 23:09 Like Cowboy, like-

Ben Askren 23:10 That'd be-

Joe Rogan 23:11 ... Cowboy Cerrone.

Ben Askren 23:11 ... great.

Joe Rogan 23:11 He's perfect.

Ben Askren 23:11 That's an example, and it is-

Joe Rogan 23:13 (laughs)

Ben Askren 23:13 Yeah, the namesake of my argument. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:15 Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point, and it, it is, uh, it's probably ... One of the more fascinating things about any f- form of high-stress, high-level competition is there's no real guidelines of how to prepare your mind, you know? I mean, everybody teaches you how to wrestle.

Ben Askren 23:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:30 Everybody teaches you how to kickbox. There's all these martial arts schools that teach you technique. There's very few real, like, rock solid programs-

Ben Askren 23:38 Yes.

Joe Rogan 23:39 ... and of how to, how to manage your mind.

Ben Askren 23:41 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 23:42 Like, like, like I think you should be taught a- a ... almost like in, in a step-by-step basis, like, hey, you get a flat tire, do you kick-

Ben Askren 23:51 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:51 ... your car-

Ben Askren 23:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:52 ... and scream, or do you just go, "This is what it is, and hey, I could've been born in Ethiopia with no feet."

Ben Askren 23:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:57 Right? I could be-

Ben Askren 23:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:58 ... living in uh, a fucking coal mine somewhere. No-

Ben Askren 24:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:00 ... I'm lucky, I'm fortunate.

Ben Askren 24:01 Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Rogan 24:01 This is nothing. This is a minor setback.

Ben Askren 24:03 No, I, and so like I, I actually started going to graduate school for sports psychology. I got nine of the 36 credits done.And then I, I actually got a scholarship to go further and, you know, get it paid for. Um, but I was just, I was traveling so much. That was 2007, '8, when I was trying to make the Olympic team and I was gone all the time. And then once I was out of school for a year, I was just like, "There is no freaking way-"

Joe Rogan 24:24 (laughs)

Ben Askren 24:24 ... "I'm going, I'm not going back to school. I'm not gonna sit in a classroom."

Joe Rogan 24:27 (laughs)

Ben Askren 24:27 "Not gonna freaking write papers."

Joe Rogan 24:28 Right.

Ben Askren 24:28 I'll still study sports psych on my own, right?

Joe Rogan 24:30 Right.

Ben Askren 24:31 And so actually every Monday I do something called the Mental Monday on one of my Facebook pages and just, I, people message me questions and I talk about the mental aspect. Because you're right, there aren't enough people that talk about it. And then, you know, in wrestling there's actually this company that's being highly successful now called Wrestling Mindset. And they have a training program for athletes' minds because you're right, there's nothing out there.

Joe Rogan 24:49 Is there a website for this?

Ben Askren 24:50 Yeah. Re- it's wrestlingmindset.com.

Joe Rogan 24:51 No kidding.

Ben Askren 24:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:52 That's great.

Ben Askren 24:52 And they're starting to ex-

Joe Rogan 24:53 That's, that'll apply to everything.

Ben Askren 24:54 Well, they're starting to explan- expand into different disciplines. But you're right, I think, I think there's these general principles of sport psych which can kind of go into any domain, right? And you're, you're 100% correct that every single individual is different, right? And one of the ... Like, for me, uh, I'm, I'm an over-thinker, right? I'm obsessive. I'll do something over and over and over and over again, right? And so like when I was 14, I was at this big national tournament and I was obsessing about who I'd have to wrestle and all this stuff, and it wore me out mentally and I got my ass kicked, right? And my coach said, "Hey, I was that person many, many years ago," and it helped me just to talk about fishing, right? 'Cause that made me, uh, 'cause I, if I don't think, I don't wanna think about what I'm gonna do. I'm not one of those guys, 'cause if I think about it too much I'll obsess. And so ever since age 15 I've, I've always taught myself and trained myself to not think about the competition within like, you know, six hours, right? So maybe the day before I can think about it or a couple of days before I can think about it. But like, even when I'm in an MMA locker room, I'm not thinking about my fight. Uh, my mind's off of it, because if I'm not, if I don't understand what my strategy's gonna be by six hours before, and I haven't trained myself by six hours before, I'm fucked.

Joe Rogan 26:02 Right.

Ben Askren 26:02 I'm already fucked.

Joe Rogan 26:03 Right.

Ben Askren 26:03 Like, what am I gonna do? It's six hours.

Joe Rogan 26:05 Right. You're not gonna get better.

Ben Askren 26:06 I'm not gonna come up with a brilliant strategy in six hours, you know?

Joe Rogan 26:09 (laughs) Right.

Ben Askren 26:09 So like, six hour... You know, I, I intentionally fly people to my fights who are just my friends who have no intention of telling me what to do MMA-wise and just wanna bullshit backstage. Right?

Joe Rogan 26:21 That's really smart.

Ben Askren 26:22 Because keeps me really calm, 'cause otherwise I start obsessing.

Joe Rogan 26:24 Right.

Ben Askren 26:24 And that's gonna lead to something really negative. So it's like, one thing is where ... You know, but some people are the opposite, like they eff off too much and you kinda gotta bring them back to focus, right?

Joe Rogan 26:32 Right.

Ben Askren 26:33 You know, another sports psych concept is, is what level of energy do you want going into the competition? Some people you gotta get them amped up. Some people, most people, you gotta calm them down quite a bit. Like, "Let's relax. Let's execute." Because when you're too amped up, you're not gonna execute.

Joe Rogan 26:45 Right.

Ben Askren 26:45 So I think there's a lot of these sports psych concepts that can cross over many different genres. But you're right, no one trains you about it.

Joe Rogan 26:53 I think it's a huge part of the sport and it's, it's, it's overlooked because the sport is not just ... And I think this is true with every sport. The sport's not just the movements that you make.

Ben Askren 27:02 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:02 It's what's going on inside the machine, the manager of the body-

Ben Askren 27:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:06 ... is the mind. And if the manager is like poorly formed and the structure's all out of whack and you, you, you have like whenever a problem comes up you fall right into a pit-

Ben Askren 27:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:15 All these things should be addressed and you should develop this mindset, developed ability to manage your mindset at a, I think, at a young age. I think it's, it's really critical.

Ben Askren 27:25 Yeah. No, I totally agree. And you know, I think, I think one interesting thing which I don't know if it's gonna happen in MMA or not, we'll see, right? There's very few people who came from a wrestling background that are head coaches of MMA teams, right? Who came from this very, very structured environment of say... College wrestling, it's like you go to ... I went to, I remember my first training camp I went to American Top Team in Florida and I show up, it's 11:00 practice, show up at 11:00.

Joe Rogan 27:50 Right.

Ben Askren 27:50 "Uh, where's, where's everyone at?" Right?

Joe Rogan 27:53 Right.

Ben Askren 27:53 And then we started at 11:45, like 45 minutes late. And then so the next day I'm like, "Well, am I supposed to show up-"

Joe Rogan 27:59 Brazilian time.

Ben Askren 27:59 "... at 11:45 or should I show up at 11:00?"

Joe Rogan 28:01 Right.

Ben Askren 28:01 Because if we say 11:45, I could show up at 11:00. So I show up at 11:30 and then they start at 11:20. You know? Like, what the hell?

Joe Rogan 28:08 Right.

Ben Askren 28:08 Whereas in college wrestling, if you're a minute late (laughs) you're, you're gonna get punished in college wrestling, right?

Joe Rogan 28:13 Right.

Ben Askren 28:13 It's a very structured, organized system. So I'm very curious to see the day where there is an MMA team that is very structured like a college wrestling team would be. I think it would be very effective towards performance for athletes. And, but then again you are gonna have ... It's a different structure because college wrestlers are poor, right? Where you're gonna have a bunch of MMA fighters who get rich and then say, "Well, I don't wanna do what you're saying right now."

Joe Rogan 28:34 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 28:35 And how are you gonna make them, right? They're the one paying your paycheck. So it, it does become an interesting circumstance, but I think if there was someone who ran a highly structured mixed martial arts team as structured as a college team, I think they would have a gigantic amount of success and I think their guys would get a lot better a lot faster. Um, and I think you'd see a really interesting dynamic develop between the high level athletes and the coaches.

Joe Rogan 28:57 Well, I think they're still try to, trying to figure out what's the best way to coach fighters.

Ben Askren 29:01 It is. It's crazy.

Joe Rogan 29:01 And I think everybody's got their own way of doing it, you know?

Ben Askren 29:03 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 29:03 Firas Zahabi's way is different than the way they do it at American Top Team. Matt Hume is doing it different-

Ben Askren 29:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 29:09 ... than the way Duke does it. Everybody's got their own way, and the only way you could tell is how well the athletes compete.

Ben Askren 29:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:15 I mean, that's the only way you really find out who's correct and who's need, who needs to make adjustments.

Ben Askren 29:19 Yeah. And it's really hard in fighting because I mean, even your highest level camps, how many, say Bellator and UFC, how, how many high level MMA fights do they have per year? Maybe 30? I mean, I think that'd be a lot for most of these teams.

Joe Rogan 29:32 Right.

Ben Askren 29:33 And so you only get 30 sample sizes, right?

Joe Rogan 29:35 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 29:35 Whereas a college wrestling team, you're gonna have ... Between everybody on the team, the all 40 guys, you're gonna have at least 1,000 matches every single year, min- minimum, right? And then obviously every event is scored by team, every dual meet is scored by team, every NCAA championship is scored by team. So you get a very good indication of what coaches are doing it right and what coaches are doing it wrong. And then obviously with the recruiting process, the coaches that are doing it right now get the, the next crop of the best talent, right? And so you have a very good idea of what's working and what is not working. Where in MMA, I think we struggle to see that because the sample size isn't large enough, um, to give us a really, really direct correlation.

Joe Rogan 30:12 ... now, you were able to instigate your strategy in pretty much every single one of your MMA fights. The only fight where you really struggled was the Jay Hieron fight.

Ben Askren 30:21 Jay Hieron fight, yeah. Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 30:22 Yeah, that was, that was a close fight.

Ben Askren 30:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 30:24 What was different in that fight?

Ben Askren 30:25 Well, th- so that was the, my first fight at Duke's. Um, obviously Jay Hieron's pretty damn good too.

Joe Rogan 30:30 Yeah.

Ben Askren 30:31 I really don't wanna take that away from him. I think he was ranked number 16 in the world or something at that point in time. So that was my first fight at Duke's, and I think the biggest mistake I made... I mean, and obviously at that time I'm two, literally two years into my fighting career.

Joe Rogan 30:41 Right.

Ben Askren 30:41 So I stopped wrestling completely. Um, I didn't do one wrestling practice. I moved to Duke's August 1st. Well, I moved to Wisconsin August 1st, started training at Duke's August 1st. I fought, uh, three months later at the end of October. I literally did not do one wrestling practice.

Joe Rogan 30:56 So what were you doing?

Ben Askren 30:57 Uh, I was just, I was striking like six times a week. I was doing jujitsu a handful of times a week, and then I was doing conditioning. And so then after that fight, my wrestle- well, and then actually I went to, my brother was living in New York at the time who, my brother's also an NCAA champ. Um, went to visit him for Thanksgiving, and he whooped my ass. And I'm like, "I freaking suck at wrestling." Like-

Joe Rogan 31:14 (laughs)

Ben Askren 31:14 ... you know, like I went cold turkey. And so it's like, "Okay, I don't need to wrestle every day to be great at wrestling anymore, but I need, I need to wrestle once a week, twice a week, w- with high level competition." So at that point in time, and for pretty much the rest of my career, I would go to one of the local colleges once a week or twice a week just to keep my skills sharp. And so I think that was the biggest mistake I made in the Hieron fight is that I didn't wrestle at all prior to it. Um, but Jay Hieron was good. He was also a division one college wrestler, so he, he knew what he was doing also. Um, but I think that if I, if I had to pinpoint one thing, that, that would be it.

Joe Rogan 31:47 Isn't it fascinating that a guy with as much wrestling experience as you have, all you have to do is take some time off and everything degrades?

Ben Askren 31:54 Well, it's timing. It's all timing, right?

Joe Rogan 31:56 Yeah.

Ben Askren 31:56 So you, you take three months off, your timing's gonna go to shit. I mean, literally I-

Joe Rogan 31:59 It's amazing.

Ben Askren 32:00 ... tell you, I wasn't doing one practice, and so it's like ... But that was also what helped me get the striking thing down, is I was doing ... And this is what I think, uh, you actually made this point, uh, who the hell were you talking to? About wrestlers are willing to go into the environment. I was striking six to seven times a week. How many strikers go and wrestle six to seven times a week?

Joe Rogan 32:19 It's a real problem.

Ben Askren 32:20 None of them do. They don't-

Joe Rogan 32:21 It's a real problem. They don't like it.

Ben Askren 32:21 They literally, they refuse to.

Joe Rogan 32:23 Well, there was Francis Ngannou-

Ben Askren 32:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:24 ... in his training camp. When I talked to people outside, uh, afterwards, it's crazy, before everyone was saying, "Oh my God, he's in tremendous shape. Everything's amazing." And then afterwards it was like, "Ugh, he doesn't train on the ground."

Ben Askren 32:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:35 And I went, "What?"

Ben Askren 32:36 Crazy.

Joe Rogan 32:36 "He doesn't train on the ground."

Ben Askren 32:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:38 Like all he wants to do is strike.

Ben Askren 32:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:40 Well, you can't let him do that. You can't just-

Ben Askren 32:42 Absolutely not.

Joe Rogan 32:42 ... you can't let him... Oh, he's gonna fight an, uh, division one wrestler.

Ben Askren 32:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:46 Like, how is he gonna do this? How, how is he gonna, how is he gonna stand up? He's gonna j- somehow or another magically stuff all the take downs?

Ben Askren 32:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:53 You have to train that. You have to train it.

Ben Askren 32:55 Yeah, and well, and th- but you gotta train it, but then even when people train it, these strikers, you have the strikers, they don't wanna do it right.

Joe Rogan 33:03 Right.

Ben Askren 33:03 Like I said, when I go to Duke's, when I started at Duke's, and it, it, it went down to four times a week where we were striking, right? But in the beginning it was six or seven times a w- sessions a week I'm striking, right? And so I'm immersed in that culture. I have to learn. You can't not learn when you're doing it six or seven times a week.

Joe Rogan 33:19 Right.

Ben Askren 33:19 And, but these strikers, they wanna do one wrestling practice a week, two wrestling practices a week. Well, if you're here and they're here, how are you gonna catch them by doing one practice a week? It's freaking impossible.

Joe Rogan 33:31 Right.

Ben Askren 33:32 You need to... I mean, if I, uh, if I got to like, be in charge of an MMA guys camp, and I don't know, I, I coach wrestling, I love coaching the kids. I don't know if I ever wanna coach MMA people. I would consider for someone like high level, but you gotta immerse yourself. You literally have to take three months and freaking wrestle every single day.

Joe Rogan 33:47 Just wrestle.

Ben Askren 33:48 Because you gotta build, you have to build those skills. You're not gonna lear- you're not gonna learn something well doing it one time a week. You aren't gonna do it, period.

Joe Rogan 33:55 No, I cr- no, I completely agree, and I think that it, it all depends on what the athlete brings to the table. Like some guys have like a little bit of wrestling and then maybe they need to work more on submissions.

Ben Askren 34:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:05 Maybe some guys need to work more on their striking. They get hit too much.

Ben Askren 34:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:08 I mean, it's, it's every single fighter ha- is a, there's a different recipe.

Ben Askren 34:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:13 And you have to figure out what that recipe is. And it's hard because it's like the only way you find out is how well they perform in competition. And how many times do you even get the chance to do that? Three a year?

Ben Askren 34:23 Three a year. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:23 Yeah. Maybe.

Ben Askren 34:24 Mm-hmm. Yeah, and so that, that, you know, that's, that's that... And listen, y- so I'm not saying, I'm not saying a striker has to do six sessions a week for three years straight. But I'm saying take three months, take six months, immerse yourself in that.

Joe Rogan 34:36 Yeah. Be obsessed.

Ben Askren 34:38 Be obsessed.

Joe Rogan 34:38 Yeah.

Ben Askren 34:38 Learn those skills, figure it out, and then after that it might be once a week, twice a week, three times a week. But then when, when we start considering the, the CTE factors, which I'm not totally sold on, on CTE yet, um-

Joe Rogan 34:50 'Cause you don't get hit. (laughs)

Ben Askren 34:52 (laughs) No, you know, the study-

Joe Rogan 34:53 You're the poster boy for wrestling-

Ben Askren 34:55 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:55 ... as a martial art if you really think about it.

Ben Askren 34:57 Yeah, no, for sure. But so I watched, I watched Concussion-

Joe Rogan 34:59 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 35:00 ... when I, I was actually flying to my fight in April of 2016. I watched it and I said, "Shit, that's scary." I did, I sparred two more times the rest of my career. So my, my career was 19 more months I sparred twice. I just didn't, I didn't do it.

Joe Rogan 35:13 Just 'cause you didn't wanna get hit?

Ben Askren 35:14 Uh, yeah, I felt it was an- a- a- an- a- an unnecessary risk.

Joe Rogan 35:18 Well, there was a, a recent study that came out, uh, uh, just a few days ago that said that it's repeated subconcussive hits-

Ben Askren 35:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 35:25 ... that are causing CTE, not concussions.

Ben Askren 35:27 Yeah. So the, but the study that made me really question the CTE phenomenon was they, they did that study where they studied a whole bunch of professional football players and it was like 100%, it was like 99% have CTE, right?

Joe Rogan 35:40 Yeah.

Ben Askren 35:40 But then they studied people who had played football for any length of time.

Joe Rogan 35:43 Yeah.

Ben Askren 35:43 Any length of time. And it was like, still like 80% of the people.

Joe Rogan 35:47 Yeah.

Ben Askren 35:47 And it's like, well, F, I can't live my life in a bubble.

Joe Rogan 35:50 Right.

Ben Askren 35:51 Like how are, like how can 80% of people who have ever played football... I mean, how many American males, what percentage of American males walking around at 40 years old today played some level of football? It's like gotta be 80%. So you're telling me 70% of America is walking around with CTE-

Joe Rogan 36:04 Yeah.

Ben Askren 36:04 ... are American males? Like that's crazy.

Joe Rogan 36:06 But no, that, but that's real.... that-

Ben Askren 36:08 Come on.

Joe Rogan 36:08 ... that really is what's happening.

Ben Askren 36:09 No, I, but I, you got, you gotta think there's gotta be some kind of low threshold, because otherwise 40 years down the road, if everybody played football and everyone who played football has CTE, everyone's gonna be walking around like durr.

Joe Rogan 36:21 A lot of people are walking around like that.

Ben Askren 36:22 Come on.

Joe Rogan 36:22 I think that's what's going on. No, I real-

Ben Askren 36:23 Or is it the Di- it might be the Diet Coke.

Joe Rogan 36:25 Little bit of, little bit of that.

Ben Askren 36:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:27 (laughs) I think way more people have some form of brain damage than realized.

Ben Askren 36:32 Really?

Joe Rogan 36:32 Yes. Yeah. I do. Well, I think in the world-

Ben Askren 36:35 Jesus.

Joe Rogan 36:35 ... of martial arts, I know so many guys.

Ben Askren 36:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:37 I mean-

Ben Askren 36:37 But let's talk about not martial arts.

Joe Rogan 36:38 Okay.

Ben Askren 36:38 What do you think?

Joe Rogan 36:39 Not martial arts.

Ben Askren 36:39 Just regular people.

Joe Rogan 36:40 Football players, I think football players it's even worse, because you're running.

Ben Askren 36:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:44 You're running at each other.

Ben Askren 36:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:45 Clashing heads. I mean, you watch football. I mean-

Ben Askren 36:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:47 ... the damage those guys take is cra- It's... Once in a UFC, you'll see, like, a wild head kick KO.

Ben Askren 36:54 Sure. Boom.

Joe Rogan 36:55 In football games, these guys are literally running at each other. I mean, it's crazy. One team's running this way, the other team's running that way, and they slam into each other, and these, these guys are 250s, 300 pounds.

Ben Askren 37:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:07 That, that impact, that pong-

Ben Askren 37:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:09 ... the jarring of your brain, plus they have helmets on which allows them to be more confident-

Ben Askren 37:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:13 ... clashing into each other. I think a giant percentage of those guys.

Ben Askren 37:18 So, but you think, but so like I said, so that one study said it was something around 80% of anyone who ever played any level-

Joe Rogan 37:24 Yeah.

Ben Askren 37:24 ... of football for any length-

Joe Rogan 37:25 Even high school.

Ben Askren 37:25 ... of time-

Joe Rogan 37:25 Yep.

Ben Askren 37:25 ... for any length of time-

Joe Rogan 37:27 Yep.

Ben Askren 37:27 ... has CTE.

Joe Rogan 37:27 Yeah.

Ben Askren 37:27 That means, like, I mean, if we take the American population, at least 50% of American men played football at some point in their life.

Joe Rogan 37:34 Probably. Yeah.

Ben Askren 37:34 So-

Joe Rogan 37:34 I think they have CTE.

Ben Askren 37:36 So, we're talking about, like-

Joe Rogan 37:37 Yeah.

Ben Askren 37:37 ... a gigantic population of-

Joe Rogan 37:38 Yeah. I think there's levels of CTE though. I mean-

Ben Askren 37:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:40 ... I think, you know, you get to the point where you're like Joe Frazier, you could barely talk before he died.

Ben Askren 37:44 Sure.

Joe Rogan 37:45 Um, rest in peace. But then you, you also get to guys that are just, like, a little forgetful and don't know why or impulsive and don't know why. You know what I mean?

Ben Askren 37:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:52 There's a lot of that.

Ben Askren 37:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:53 There's a lot of weird stuff that comes with CTE.

Ben Askren 37:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:55 I've studied it pretty extensively.

Ben Askren 37:57 Okay.

Joe Rogan 37:57 And the more studies that I've read on it, the more I've gotten really disturbed, like-

Ben Askren 38:00 So, do you think there's maybe just a low threshold for what they call CTE?

Joe Rogan 38:04 Well, there's also genes that certain people have.

Ben Askren 38:06 Sure.

Joe Rogan 38:07 Um, what was that gene? Um, uh, Rhonda Patrick talked about it. Uh, I don't remember what it was.

Ben Askren 38:11 She's fantastic.

Joe Rogan 38:11 She's amazing, right?

Ben Askren 38:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:12 And she was talking about, uh, some genes make you more susceptible for traumatic brain injury than other ones.

Ben Askren 38:20 Hmm.

Joe Rogan 38:21 Like, if you have it, you are many times more likely-

Ben Askren 38:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:24 ... to develop CTE.

Ben Askren 38:25 But then also, and then so the, the other thing that I w- is out of curiosity to me when they do the CTE studies, especially with they're doing, you know, after death with these football players, right, that were... So, now if they're dying they probably played in their 60s, 70s, 80s.

Joe Rogan 38:38 Right.

Ben Askren 38:39 That time period. Uh, steroid use, very, very high and drug use is also very high in-

Joe Rogan 38:44 Yes.

Ben Askren 38:44 ... that culture. And so... And, and alcohol-

Joe Rogan 38:46 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 38:47 ... uh, which we also, I include in drugs. So, it's like d- did those things...

Joe Rogan 38:51 Contribute.

Ben Askren 38:51 Contribute.

Joe Rogan 38:52 Yeah.

Ben Askren 38:52 Is it, uh, you know, is it like a mitigating factor or is it, like, gonna create this crazy storm of brain damage that-

Joe Rogan 39:00 Right.

Ben Askren 39:00 ... you're, you're going freaking running into people like this, then you're doing steroids, then you're freaking drinking a pack of beer, then you're doing-

Joe Rogan 39:07 Right.

Ben Askren 39:07 ... some cocaine.

Joe Rogan 39:08 (laughs)

Ben Askren 39:08 Like, that, that can't be good for you, right?

Joe Rogan 39:10 (laughs)

Ben Askren 39:10 Can that be good for you? It can't be.

Joe Rogan 39:12 No, it can't be.

Ben Askren 39:13 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:13 Yeah. Especially the pills. A lot of them get caught-

Ben Askren 39:15 Oh, the pain pills?

Joe Rogan 39:16 Yeah.

Ben Askren 39:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:16 They get caught up on pain pills. That's a, that's a big one.

Ben Askren 39:19 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 39:19 Man, we just found out that Tom Petty died from fucking pain pills.

Ben Askren 39:21 Yeah. My wife and I were talking about how sad that was.

Joe Rogan 39:23 Ugh.

Ben Askren 39:23 That, uh...

Joe Rogan 39:24 Man.

Ben Askren 39:25 He couldn't have a sense of, uh, because my wife and I both love Tom Petty music, but how he did, how, how at 66 years old he was still, like, not so okay with himself that he was jamming pills down his throat.

Joe Rogan 39:37 Yeah.

Ben Askren 39:37 You know, that he didn't have a sense of, "I have had great accomplishments. I've had a great life." You know, "I have people around me that love me."

Joe Rogan 39:43 Yeah.

Ben Askren 39:43 That, you know, I mean, it's gotta be a sad, lonely thing when you're overdosing on pills I would have to assume.

Joe Rogan 39:48 I would w- I mean, I don't wanna guess, but I would, I would imagine he's in some kind of pain if he was, if he's taking those opiates.

Ben Askren 39:54 He had a hip fracture he was recovering from.

Joe Rogan 39:56 Oh, okay.

Ben Askren 39:57 Ah, they got hooked on him.

Joe Rogan 39:57 Well, let me tell you something, man. My friend from... Amber from the UFC, she hurt her ankle recently. She blew out her, uh, Achilles and she said the doctor immediately tried to prescribe Oxycontin for her.

Ben Askren 40:07 Oh my gosh.

Joe Rogan 40:07 She's like, "Get the fuck out of here."

Ben Askren 40:08 Seriously?

Joe Rogan 40:09 Yeah. She's like, "I'm not taking that shit."

Ben Askren 40:11 No.

Joe Rogan 40:12 And y- you know, um, it happens, man. Doctors just try to shove pills down your throat.

Ben Askren 40:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:17 You know, it's, it's a real common thing. And if you have any sort of serious injury and they put you on that stuff, one of the things they put Tom Petty on was fentanyl. And fentanyl is that shit that's fucking killing everybody.

Ben Askren 40:29 It's with meth, right?

Joe Rogan 40:30 Well-

Ben Askren 40:30 Fentanyl and meth are very similar.

Joe Rogan 40:31 No.

Ben Askren 40:31 No.

Joe Rogan 40:32 Heroin. It's, it's an extremely-

Ben Askren 40:33 Oh, fentanyl and heroin.

Joe Rogan 40:34 Yeah. It's an- Got it. ... extremely potent opiate.

Ben Askren 40:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:36 It's, it's much more, much more potent than heroin. I think many, many hundreds of times more potent.

Ben Askren 40:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:42 And so they give these people fentanyl patches and then they're taking Oxycontins too and who knows what else-

Ben Askren 40:47 Oh my gosh.

Joe Rogan 40:48 ... they're taking. And I mean, I, I, I feel terrible for someone who has bad pain, like-

Ben Askren 40:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:53 ... you know, from a broken hip or something like that. But Jesus Christ, take the pain rather than death.

Ben Askren 40:59 Seriously.

Joe Rogan 41:00 You know? Like, there's shit you could... Take CBD, you could take CBD.

Ben Askren 41:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:02 It doesn't even have a psychoactive effect and has radical pain reducing properties to it.

Ben Askren 41:06 Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I obvi- I don't do drugs, but the fact that people are so actively prescribing these, these heavy-

Joe Rogan 41:14 Yeah.

Ben Askren 41:14 ... really heavy, hard drugs to patients-

Joe Rogan 41:16 They kill people.

Ben Askren 41:17 Kill people. And weed is still illegal-

Joe Rogan 41:18 Yeah.

Ben Askren 41:18 ... and I don't smoke weed, so I'm not even... Like, for myself but just for other people it's crazy.

Joe Rogan 41:23 Well, I've never found weed to be a pain reliever.

Ben Askren 41:26 Really?

Joe Rogan 41:26 Yeah.

Ben Askren 41:26 I've heard a lot of people say that.

Joe Rogan 41:27 I know. A lot of people do say that.

Ben Askren 41:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:29 It's just maybe... I don't know. (coughs) I mean-... I, I just ... I'm one of those people that you're in pain, if you're in pain, just be in pain.

Ben Askren 41:36 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:37 Just, like, just, just, yeah, it sucks.

Ben Askren 41:38 Yeah, it sucks.

Joe Rogan 41:38 Just relax.

Ben Askren 41:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:40 You know? I mean, I remember one time though, I got my knee operated on, I had a ACL re- reconstruction-

Ben Askren 41:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:45 ... and they gave me one of those buttons in the hospital, where you press it-

Ben Askren 41:47 Oh, shit.

Joe Rogan 41:48 ... and you get morphine.

Ben Askren 41:48 Morphin? Oh, God.

Joe Rogan 41:49 And, uh, it was when, uh, they, they had my leg on this motion machine, right?

Ben Askren 41:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:54 So like right after surgery, they're trying to get your, your blood moving and so there's a couple of screws in there and they'd taken my patella tendon and cut it and put it inside and drilled it all in place and everything. And then I'm sitting there, this thing's just, it's this throbbing pain, and they give me this little button, I'm like clack, clack, clack-

Ben Askren 42:11 Oh, good God.

Joe Rogan 42:12 ... blaaar.

Ben Askren 42:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:13 (laughs) But I'm like, "I'm in the hospital, I'm not gonna overdose." But, uh, I remember thinking, "Wow, this could be really fucking dangerous if you had this in life." Like, if it was like a little button on your hip-

Ben Askren 42:22 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 42:22 ... and you could just press it and you get a, a dose of morphine.

Ben Askren 42:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:25 But it was a wonderful feeling. I've only done it once-

Ben Askren 42:27 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:28 ... while I was in the hospital, but I, I got it for that brief moment, I was like, "Wow, this is an amazing feeling."

Ben Askren 42:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:34 Feel like, like you're floating through a cloud of love and just flying through the air, like, "Aah." I went from being in exacerbating pain to ...

Ben Askren 42:43 So, how, how do you feel then ... So we got in this discussion, we were talking about CTE. So now, like, okay, I think MMA's a terrible career path, and people ask me all the time, I say-

Joe Rogan 42:52 As a professional-

Ben Askren 42:54 Don't do it.

Joe Rogan 42:54 ... undefeated MMA fighter- (laughs)

Ben Askren 42:56 It's, that's terrible. Right? I mean-

Joe Rogan 42:57 ... champion in two different sp- two different, uh, organizations-

Ben Askren 43:00 For, like, a couple people, it's probably the right career path. For a majority of people-

Joe Rogan 43:03 Yeah.

Ben Askren 43:03 ... probably not a great career path. But so, you know, how do you feel about it when you think that y- I mean, you're obviously saying ... And I, I'm on the fence, but you're saying I think a lot of these people are getting CTE, clearly.

Joe Rogan 43:13 They are. (blows nose)

Ben Askren 43:14 Um, how do you feel about, you know, being involved with it? 'Cause that's like, in my future, I could probably coach some MMA, but I struggle with it because it's like, "Well, should I really recommend this person to do MMA or should I not? Because are they gonna end up fucked up and not be able to take care of their kids or what?"

Joe Rogan 43:29 I don't think you should ever recommend MMA to anybody.

Ben Askren 43:31 Okay, good. I, I usually don't. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:33 Yeah.

Ben Askren 43:33 I feel like anybody-

Joe Rogan 43:33 I don't think anybody should recommend MMA, but I think some people, it's their destiny.

Ben Askren 43:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:38 There's a few people out there that they, they want to ... And look, I don't think you should recommend skydiving to anybody either, though.

Ben Askren 43:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:45 You know?

Ben Askren 43:45 Can you make a career out of that?

Joe Rogan 43:46 Yeah. I mean, my friend Andy Stump is a world record holder-

Ben Askren 43:50 Oh, shit.

Joe Rogan 43:50 ... in that squirrel flying suit.

Ben Askren 43:51 Oh, that, that's, that's-

Joe Rogan 43:52 Yeah.

Ben Askren 43:52 ... just death. They don't want that.

Joe Rogan 43:54 He's a maniac.

Ben Askren 43:54 Did you ever read, there was that book called, uh, something, Chasing Superman or do you know what I'm talking about?

Joe Rogan 44:00 Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Askren 44:00 It was about people like him and how-

Joe Rogan 44:03 Uh-huh.

Ben Askren 44:03 ... it almost always ends up very poorly because you need this bigger rush, and this bigger rush, and this bigger rush. And it was talking about big wave surfers-

Joe Rogan 44:11 Yeah.

Ben Askren 44:11 ... and the, the flying suit and all this. And it was talking about the psychology behind it and how, like, it ends up poorly very, very, very often because these people need bigger rushes and more challenges and then, then they end up fucking themselves up.

Joe Rogan 44:23 It only makes sense.

Ben Askren 44:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:24 I would never encourage anyone to do that. But for him, I mean, he's a retired Navy SEAL-

Ben Askren 44:29 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:29 ... and this is just another level of psychotic shit-

Ben Askren 44:32 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:33 ... that he can do to fill his time with.

Ben Askren 44:35 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 44:35 But he's got a bunch of sponsors and he actually makes a living doing that.

Ben Askren 44:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 44:38 I would never recommend that-

Ben Askren 44:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:39 ... to anybody.

Ben Askren 44:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:40 I wouldn't recommend skiing.

Ben Askren 44:41 Sure.

Joe Rogan 44:41 I don't think... You know, my kids-

Ben Askren 44:43 Sure.

Joe Rogan 44:43 ... like skiing. I don't even like skiing. I go skiing with them.

Ben Askren 44:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:46 Every time I ski, I'm like, "This is fu-"

Ben Askren 44:47 Did you ever get hurt skiing?

Joe Rogan 44:48 No, I've never gotten hurt.

Ben Askren 44:49 Okay.

Joe Rogan 44:49 But I'm like, "Fuck the ..." Every time I'm skiing though, I'm like-

Ben Askren 44:51 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:51 ... "Don't get hurt, don't get hurt, don't get hurt."

Ben Askren 44:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:53 Woo, I didn't get hurt. "Don't get hurt, don't get hurt." Oh, I think of Sonny Bono, swah, hit the tree.

Ben Askren 44:58 Oh, geez.

Joe Rogan 44:59 Oh, who else? One of the Kennedys hit a tree, right?

Ben Askren 45:01 Then maybe that was, uh, that could have been a false flag.

Joe Rogan 45:03 No, it was a-

Ben Askren 45:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:05 (laughs) Could have been, right?

Ben Askren 45:06 Someone pushed him into the tree.

Joe Rogan 45:07 Yeah.

Ben Askren 45:07 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:07 They fucking took his ski out with a sniper rifle.

Ben Askren 45:10 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 45:10 Right when he got too close to the woods.

Ben Askren 45:11 Ah.

Joe Rogan 45:11 Yeah, I think that there's a lot of very, very dangerous careers.

Ben Askren 45:15 Sure.

Joe Rogan 45:15 And I think if you feel compelled to do that-

Ben Askren 45:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:19 ... no one, no one should be talking you into that.

Ben Askren 45:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:21 But I don't think anybody should stop you. Like, I like the fact that boxing exists. You know? I would never want to tell, you know, Vasyl Lomachenko, "Don't fight."

Ben Askren 45:30 Sure.

Joe Rogan 45:31 I don't-

Ben Askren 45:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:31 I would never want to tell him, "Don't fight." I want to see him fight.

Ben Askren 45:34 But what if they, what if, uh, it gets proven without a shadow of a doubt that these things cause CTE, do you think the government is going to ban them?

Joe Rogan 45:42 No, I don't think they can.

Ben Askren 45:43 Really?

Joe Rogan 45:44 How could they ban ... Are they gonna ban BMX?

Ben Askren 45:45 The government likes banning everything.

Joe Rogan 45:48 (laughs)

Ben Askren 45:48 They really do.

Joe Rogan 45:48 They like banning things that cost them money or that cost people who donate-

Ben Askren 45:53 Fair enough.

Joe Rogan 45:53 ... to them money.

Ben Askren 45:54 Fair enough.

Joe Rogan 45:54 You know, the, the banning of the drugs is really tied to pharmaceutical drugs-

Ben Askren 45:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:57 ... more than anything.

Ben Askren 45:58 You're, you're right, yeah.

Joe Rogan 45:58 They're not banning it because they're trying to save us.

Ben Askren 46:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:01 They're, they're banning it because someone's putting pressure on them to ban it.

Ben Askren 46:04 Or had put in the past and they're mad now.

Joe Rogan 46:05 Yeah. Nobody's banning, uh, skateboarding. No one's trying to ban BMX riding. Those guys get fucked up.

Ben Askren 46:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 46:11 I mean, I was watching this video the other day of those guys doing the ramp with a skateboard. And the guy got to the top of the ramp and didn't catch it right and fell like 100 feet.

Ben Askren 46:19 Oh, it's awful.

Joe Rogan 46:20 Oh, Jesus Christ. I mean, they get beat the fuck up.

Ben Askren 46:23 But that's a-

Joe Rogan 46:24 Fuck.

Ben Askren 46:24 That's another one where, like, that damn book, what is it? Chasing Superman or Being Superman or something-

Joe Rogan 46:29 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 46:29 ... effing Superman.

Joe Rogan 46:29 Decoding Superman or Decoding Superman?

Ben Askren 46:31 Decoding Superman?

Joe Rogan 46:31 Yeah.

Ben Askren 46:31 Is that what it's called, Decoding Superman?

Joe Rogan 46:33 Yeah.

Ben Askren 46:33 Okay, so, like, if you go back and watch the original-

Joe Rogan 46:35 Yeah.

Ben Askren 46:35 ... X Games, when I, you know, I was a kid, I don't remember-

Joe Rogan 46:38 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 46:38 ... what year it is, 90s at some point, and, uh, oh, the Rise of Superman.

Joe Rogan 46:42 Rise of Superman.

Ben Askren 46:42 Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance.

Joe Rogan 46:44 There it is.

Ben Askren 46:44 This is a, this is a freaking fantastic book.

Joe Rogan 46:46 Yeah.

Ben Askren 46:46 I mean, it's like, it's so awesome. I'm s- I'm obsessed with sports psych, like I said, so.

Joe Rogan 46:51 Oh sure.

Ben Askren 46:51 Uh-

Joe Rogan 46:51 Oh, Steven Kotler. Yeah, that guy's interesting.

Ben Askren 46:54 Yeah, but so if you look at, like, the original X Games stuff and then you go to, like, the X Games today ...

Joe Rogan 46:59 Oh, yeah.

Ben Askren 47:00 It's a different world.

Joe Rogan 47:00 Yeah.

Ben Askren 47:01 It's totally different events. So much more extreme because you, there ... It has to be this advance, advance, advance, advance, but then all of a sudden people are getting effed up.

Joe Rogan 47:09 Yeah, you get to a certain point where you can only do so many flips in the air with your bike.

Ben Askren 47:13 Apparently, they- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:14 They just keep-

Ben Askren 47:14 ... they haven't stopped trying to go more. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:15 They just, they would do one rotation, everybody would go, "This is crazy."

Ben Askren 47:18 Yes.

Joe Rogan 47:18 And then somebody that comes along with two, and then now they're doing three.

Ben Askren 47:21 Wasn't there the movie about, um, Tony Hawk was like the first one to do the 720 or something?

Joe Rogan 47:26 Yes.

Ben Askren 47:26 But now they go way more, don't they?

Joe Rogan 47:27 Yeah, it's, uh, and they're gonna be more every year. And if you watch any of those parkour kids that are jumping from-

Ben Askren 47:34 Oh, my gosh.

Joe Rogan 47:34 ... building to building-

Ben Askren 47:35 Yes.

Joe Rogan 47:35 And we've had one of them, uh, in here. What was his name? Uh, James, uh ... Who the-... find it.

Ben Askren 47:43 I don't remember that one.

Joe Rogan 47:44 There's one.

Ben Askren 47:44 I li- I listen-

Joe Rogan 47:45 We, we had a dude in here-

Ben Askren 47:45 ... to mostly your, uh, political ones. I think some of the people you bring on are highly fascinating.

Joe Rogan 47:49 Yeah. It's a, it's an interesting time. W- well, I get labeled-

Ben Askren 47:53 It varies.

Joe Rogan 47:53 ... alt-right all the time.

Ben Askren 47:53 I know, it's bizarre.

Joe Rogan 47:54 It's ... But everybody's so quick to label people today.

Ben Askren 47:57 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 47:58 (coughs) It's such a strange time. P- finger-pointing and putting people in boxes.

Ben Askren 48:02 It really is.

Joe Rogan 48:02 And they're doing it disingenuously.

Ben Askren 48:03 It's, it's more divisive. Pe- These-

Joe Rogan 48:05 Yeah.

Ben Askren 48:05 ... A lot of these leftists, they want to, uh, you know, they wanna say, "Well, I'm trying to make people less racist," but what they're really doing, they're being very divisive.

Joe Rogan 48:14 Yeah.

Ben Askren 48:14 You know? And, like, I would ... I think you identify as libertarian. I w- I identify more as a libertarian than Republican or Democrat. But, yeah, a lot of people say I'm, you know, alt-right or love Trump so much. And it's, well, I'm more libertarian than anything.

Joe Rogan 48:28 Yeah.

Ben Askren 48:28 You know? I think less government, less inva- invasion into our lives, but people wanna put you into a little box because you don't agree with what they're saying.

Joe Rogan 48:36 Yeah. It's a weird time for that. And th- that's wh- I think what you were saying about shaming. They try to shame you-

Ben Askren 48:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:41 ... into being less racist or shame.

Ben Askren 48:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:42 But you're not doing that if you're pretending someone's racist when you know they're not.

Ben Askren 48:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:46 Or if you're pretending that someone is a sexist or homophobic or whatever, when you know they're ... You're just ... They're ... People are l- They're ignoring nuance-

Ben Askren 48:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:56 ... on purpose.

Ben Askren 48:56 And what, and what they're really doing also is they're making, they're making people afraid to speak their minds, right? And really, how ... If you and I had a disagreement on something, how we would come to a common ground is by discussing it.

Joe Rogan 49:07 Yes.

Ben Askren 49:07 By y- I'd say, "Well, I think you're a reasonable person. What do you believe?"

Joe Rogan 49:11 Yeah.

Ben Askren 49:11 And you'd say, and it's, "Well, I don't agree with that and this is why." And eventually we would talk it out, and maybe we still disagree, but we'd come to a common ground, right?

Joe Rogan 49:18 Yeah.

Ben Askren 49:18 But instead, there's people on the one side, they're not saying that. They're saying, "What'd you say? You're racist, you're sexist, you're homophobic, you're-"

Joe Rogan 49:24 Right.

Ben Askren 49:25 "Na- na- name one." Right? And then-

Joe Rogan 49:26 Right.

Ben Askren 49:26 ... end of discussion. Then there's no discussion at all, right?

Joe Rogan 49:29 Yeah. They're trying to win.

Ben Askren 49:30 Yeah, exactly.

Joe Rogan 49:31 They're just trying to win. They're trying to label you and then get the upper hand and win.

Ben Askren 49:34 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:34 Yeah. I, I think there's a real problem with people not being reasonable. And I think that you should be able to have conversations. Like, I've had ... People have criticized me, uh, like, even in person have talked about it, like, "Why would you have that guy on your show?"

Ben Askren 49:47 Which one?

Joe Rogan 49:48 Any guy. Like, uh, Milo Yiannopoulos.

Ben Askren 49:50 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 49:50 Perfect example. And I'm like, "Well, look what happened." I mean, we gotta see how the guy thinks.

Ben Askren 49:55 Gotta.

Joe Rogan 49:55 I mean, all, all of his weird i- issues that came up and his book deal falling apart.

Ben Askren 49:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 49:59 A lot of that had to do with conversations I had with him.

Ben Askren 50:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:02 It's like, I ... Now you get the chance to see how the guy actually thinks.

Ben Askren 50:05 Yes.

Joe Rogan 50:05 And I don't think there's anything wrong with the way he thinks.

Ben Askren 50:08 Mm-mm.

Joe Rogan 50:08 I think it's, uh ... He's a provocateur.

Ben Askren 50:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:10 I mean, it, it's not how I think-

Ben Askren 50:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:12 ... but I think that everybody has this perspective on who he is that is w- exaggerated because of this public persona-

Ben Askren 50:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:21 ... that he does-

Ben Askren 50:21 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 50:21 ... to be outrageous.

Ben Askren 50:23 So, I thi- I think that's a double-edged sword because I think, I think Alex Jones does it as well, where-

Joe Rogan 50:27 Alex is way crazier, though.

Ben Askren 50:28 (laughs) Well, bu- okay, but s- same idea, right? It's like-

Joe Rogan 50:31 Yes.

Ben Askren 50:32 ... part of their persona-

Joe Rogan 50:33 Is a show.

Ben Askren 50:34 ... is a show. It's making it more extreme-

Joe Rogan 50:36 Yes.

Ben Askren 50:36 ... because they wanna say that one thing that's totally effing crazy-

Joe Rogan 50:40 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 50:40 ... that'll catch a headline somewhere. Right? And so, they have these beliefs, but then they kinda go beyond them because it is a show-

Joe Rogan 50:47 Yeah.

Ben Askren 50:47 ... and because they will make more money if they get more followers or more people clicking on their articles or their videos or whatever.

Joe Rogan 50:53 Right.

Ben Askren 50:53 So, I think it is. But then, you know, you go to someone like the Brett Weinstein guy, I think he's fascinating.

Joe Rogan 50:58 Yes.

Ben Askren 50:58 And people calling him a racist. Uh-

Joe Rogan 50:59 Crazy.

Ben Askren 51:00 ... and, you know, he was strong liberal.

Joe Rogan 51:02 Yeah. Well, he's as progressive as it gets.

Ben Askren 51:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:04 He's as far from a racist as you could ever get.

Ben Askren 51:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:07 Yeah. There's a, there's this need to label people. Well, Alex is ... Alex is a showman in a lot of ways.

Ben Askren 51:13 (laughs) A showman.

Joe Rogan 51:13 Yes. And ... But also, like, he says some things that are pretty fucked up, like the Sandy Hook stuff.

Ben Askren 51:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:18 You know, like saying that Sandy Hook was a ... He's looking for conspiracies everywhere.

Ben Askren 51:23 Everywhere.

Joe Rogan 51:24 He finds them some places.

Ben Askren 51:26 Yes. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:26 So, sometimes he's right.

Ben Askren 51:27 Exactly. Sometimes he's right.

Joe Rogan 51:28 Yeah. But the problem with looking for conspiracies everywhere is you're gonna, you're gonna make people feel terrible-

Ben Askren 51:35 Yes.

Joe Rogan 51:35 ... I mean, if you ... There was this article that I read about a guy who was a conspiracy theorist until his son was killed in Sandy Hook.

Ben Askren 51:43 What?

Joe Rogan 51:43 And then people were telling him that his son wasn't killed, and that-

Ben Askren 51:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:47 ... he's some sort of a government actor. And this guy was devastated.

Ben Askren 51:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:50 You know? Of course, the people that are really the nutty conspiracy theorists, "Oh, he's fucking undercover still!"

Ben Askren 51:56 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:56 "He's still undercover!"

Ben Askren 51:57 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 51:58 You know, there's people out there that look for conspiracies and everything.

Ben Askren 52:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:02 And it becomes a real problem because it muddies up the water and makes-

Ben Askren 52:05 But I, I think, I think at the same time, you ... At least for me, and I, I think we have similar thought processes. You can't just take what mainstream media tells you and say, "Well, I guess that's how it happened." Right? So as an in-

Joe Rogan 52:16 No. You can in some situations, but in Sandy Hook, you have dead kids.

Ben Askren 52:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:20 You have people grieving, you have bodies, autopsy reports.

Ben Askren 52:24 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:24 You have ... It happened.

Ben Askren 52:25 No, I, yeah. Absolutely, I agree on that one.

Joe Rogan 52:26 You have a guy who had guns. You had a mentally ill person who had access to these guns.

Ben Askren 52:30 But then if you take that same thought process on, say, Stephen Paddock in the Las Vegas shooting-

Joe Rogan 52:35 So what do you think-

Ben Askren 52:35 ... well, we still don't know how that turned out. Right. Th- the Las Vegas shooting is complicated-

Joe Rogan 52:39 But-

Ben Askren 52:39 ... because we know one guy did do that. But we think there was other people involved.

Joe Rogan 52:43 Well, no. Now they're coming out with new stuff. Yes.

Ben Askren 52:44 They think there was other people involved. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:45 And he might have gotten help from people-

Ben Askren 52:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:47 ... wh- whether it's willingly or unwillingly, but ... Or wittingly or unwittingly. But I don't think there was other people shooting.

Ben Askren 52:53 I- so-

Joe Rogan 52:54 I don't think they've said that.

Ben Askren 52:55 So, I don't know, right? And that's what a lot of these conspiracies, you have to understand that you're never really gonna know the real truth, right?

Joe Rogan 53:01 Right.

Ben Askren 53:01 You have to keep an open mind and you have to say, "Okay, well, this person says this. What does this person say? What does this person say? Do, do these things check out with each other?" And it's like, how many different times have they changed the Las Vegas shootings timeline, right?

Joe Rogan 53:12 Right.

Ben Askren 53:12 And then it was kinda weird that it went way out of mainstream media. Like, all of a sudden you heard about it for a week, and then you didn't hear about it again for-

Joe Rogan 53:19 I think that's a sign of the times. I think the news cycle today-

Ben Askren 53:22 Really?

Joe Rogan 53:22 ... is about 10 hours. Yeah.

Ben Askren 53:23 ... but you would think that-

Joe Rogan 53:24 ... the other day.

Ben Askren 53:24 ... people would want answers on it. I mean, that's the largest mass shooting in United States history. You think we'd want some more clear answers on, on what really happened and how it happened and why it happened, um, and we never really got those. And I know there's been a few new articles on it recently, and so maybe we're gonna find out more information, but-

Joe Rogan 53:40 Well, it's... And it's an incredibly confusing story-

Ben Askren 53:42 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 53:42 ... because the guy was clearly a psycho-

Ben Askren 53:45 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:45 ... clearly fucked up-

Ben Askren 53:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:46 ... and clearly planned this out for a long time. I mean, he, he got hotel rooms overlooking music festivals in other places.

Ben Askren 53:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:55 And, like, was planning out how to do this for a long time.

Ben Askren 53:58 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 53:58 He had a note, um, in his, uh, in his, uh, hotel room that had all the ballistics calculations, so he knew-

Ben Askren 54:04 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:04 ... like, b- like, bullet drop from X amount of yards, and he was calculating how to kill all these people.

Ben Askren 54:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:10 He was on some weird antidepressants and anti- psyo- uh, not... anti- Mm-hmm. ... anti-anxiety medication, which does all kinds of weird shit to your head. This is a guy, eh, that was, eh, prone to fits of rage. He was a, a calculated professional gambler. There's a lot of weird stuff with this guy.

Ben Askren 54:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:27 The, the fact that he accumulated these weapons over years.

Ben Askren 54:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:31 And maybe did it knowing that he was gonna do this. So you don't... Th- there's a... Whenever there's a mass shooting or anything that's crazy, you have two things happen. One, everybody wants answers-

Ben Askren 54:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:43 ... and two, everybody forgets about it really quick because some new shit happens in the news. And if it wasn't your family that got shot, it wasn't someone-

Ben Askren 54:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 54:49 ... that you were close to that got shot, I know people that got shot there.

Ben Askren 54:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:52 I know people that... I, I met them. I met people in Vegas that, that got shot there.

Ben Askren 54:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 54:56 I talked to them after it was over. (coughs) It was com- complete and total chaos, and when there's complete and total chaos, you get all sorts of conflicting re- re- reports. People are running into other casinos saying that there's a shooter because they ran out of that area, and so then people are calling in police reports.

Ben Askren 55:12 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:12 "There's a shooter in the Monte Carlo. There's a shooter in this." And so those things get reported as fact-

Ben Askren 55:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:18 ... when many times it's part of the confusion of a chaotic mass shooting, like that Vegas event. I don't know what happened other than the fact that this one guy definitely-

Ben Askren 55:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:27 ... killed a bunch of people, but whether or not someone was helping him or whether or not there was other people involved or... I think they're still investigating, I still think about that.

Ben Askren 55:33 Yeah, yeah, and it's... Uh, but... So I guess my, my greater point there would be that, uh, if you're an intelligent individual, you can't just take what CBS tells you to be complete fact, right? You-

Joe Rogan 55:44 Right.

Ben Askren 55:44 ... you go do some investigation yourself. You try to read from different sources, and then, hey, Sandy Hook, I think there's like a 99.999999999% chance that Sandy Hook was real, right? Is there some crazy, i- uh, you know, infinitesimally small chance that it didn't happen? Sure, right? But I think-

Joe Rogan 56:01 I don't think there is.

Ben Askren 56:01 I think it's very unlikely. And then so Vegas, right?

Joe Rogan 56:03 I think there's a 0% chance-

Ben Askren 56:04 Zero.

Joe Rogan 56:05 ... that Sandy, Sandy Hook didn't happen.

Ben Askren 56:06 Okay.

Joe Rogan 56:06 0%.

Ben Askren 56:07 So-

Joe Rogan 56:07 I've looked into it pretty, uh... But, you know, it's just sad to me. And you're a dad, and-

Ben Askren 56:11 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 56:11 ... you, you know, you... The idea of your kid going to school and getting, the school getting shot up by some psychopath.

Ben Askren 56:17 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:17 Imagine if someone was saying that that was fake-

Ben Askren 56:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:20 ... after your kid's dead. You'd, you'd be frustrated, infuriated. You wouldn't even know where to turn. And these... That's actually happening to these people, and they're, they're getting labeled as, as frauds, and-

Ben Askren 56:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:32 ... people are emailing them, and, you know, saying, "How could you do this? You're, you're defrauding the American people. You're a part of the Illuminati," or... (laughs)

Ben Askren 56:39 (laughs) Yeah, so what I thi- uh, so I think there's obviously-

Joe Rogan 56:42 It's sickening.

Ben Askren 56:42 ... those people who are on, right, the way one side of it. There's... So there's... So if, if you go a spectrum for me, right?

Joe Rogan 56:47 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 56:48 There's the American who's drinking Diet Coke and eating frozen pizza and listening to whatever CBS says.

Joe Rogan 56:53 Right.

Ben Askren 56:53 And then on the total opposite end of the spectrum, there's the group that thinks every single thing that ever happens in America is a, is a planned conspiracy by the New World Order.

Joe Rogan 57:00 Right.

Ben Askren 57:01 So those are two ends of the spectrum.

Joe Rogan 57:02 Right.

Ben Askren 57:03 Now, we can fall anywhere in the middle there, but I... So I think as a intelligent individual, we look at situations independently and say, "Well, there's some sketchy things there, not sketchy things there. That's probably true," right?

Joe Rogan 57:13 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 57:13 And kind of independently think about stuff by ourselves, and that's-

Joe Rogan 57:16 Yeah.

Ben Askren 57:16 That's how I do it, and so, you know, I-

Joe Rogan 57:18 That's a wise way to approach it.

Ben Askren 57:20 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:20 And, uh, I think CBS or NBC or, you know, any named news source, they're run by people.

Ben Askren 57:26 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:26 And if they weren't there, they only have access to a certain amount of information, and sometimes they get bad information.

Ben Askren 57:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:31 And sometimes they don't necessarily know. I don't know how much of it is a part of some grand conspiracy rather than how much of it is a part of the chaos of these moments, the, the-

Ben Askren 57:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:41 ... lack of information and people drawing conclusions and... And then also witnesses on the scene. When people are on the scene of something that's crazy, they give all sorts of weird-

Ben Askren 57:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:51 ... uh, recounts.

Ben Askren 57:52 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 57:52 And they're just... They're filled with adrenaline. They don't know how to handle the situation. People, you know... The people don't handle chaotic events very well.

Ben Askren 58:00 Yeah. Agreed.

Joe Rogan 58:01 (coughs) But-

Ben Askren 58:02 I don't think the Earth's flat, if that's fair.

Joe Rogan 58:03 Oh, good for you.

Ben Askren 58:04 (laughs) Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:06 What... (laughs) What do you... What do you possibly believe in that might be crazy?

Ben Askren 58:09 Uh, can I take a piss, and then I'll tell you?

Joe Rogan 58:11 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben Askren 58:11 I gotta piss, so I've been holding it so long.

Joe Rogan 58:12 Yeah, yeah. Go, go, go, go ahead. Go ahead.

Ben Askren 58:14 I'm gonna run fast.

Joe Rogan 58:14 No worries, man. I wonder if there's something wrong with my bladder.

Guest (third person in studio) 58:17 I bet you can hold it.

Joe Rogan 58:18 Yeah. Do you think I've trained it?

Guest (third person in studio) 58:20 Yeah. I mean, sure. At least that guy is gonna try to shoot himself to see the flat Earth in a couple days. He's trying to get-

Joe Rogan 58:25 Oh, the guy's shooting himself up in the-

Guest (third person in studio) 58:27 ... the same crazy... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:27 ... into the space.

Ben Askren 58:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:28 You dumb fuck.

Guest (third person in studio) 58:29 I think March 2nd. James Kingston was that guy, by the way.

Joe Rogan 58:31 James Kingston. Thank you. Sorry, James.

Guest (third person in studio) 58:33 Yeah. Damn.

Joe Rogan 58:34 Yeah, I... It's, uh... Dunbar. There he is. Dunbar's number, brother. Uh, you can only keep 150 people in your brain at any time. Look at that fucking picture. We're looking at a picture, for the audio folks, of James Kingston on the top of this tower, and I don't know how many fucking stories he's up there, but it's insane because below him, and I mean way below him, are skyscrapers. That's probably, like, Dubai or something, right?

Guest (third person in studio) 58:56 Uh, do you think that Dunbar's number could apply to other things besides people, like websites or-

Joe Rogan 59:01 Sure.

Guest (third person in studio) 59:02 ... numbers of instructions, that kind of thing?

Joe Rogan 59:04 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. You know, I think it, uh, it applies to too many things. Uh, it applies... I just think (clears throat) for names, names and people, I'm, I'm struggling m-... I think I'm getting... Uh, like, I have an overflowing pot, like, um...... um, (laughs) Shane Burgos and Calvin Kattar were fighting this weekend, and I called Calvin Kattar "Chris Kattar" after he won, even though I'm a fan of his. Like, he won, and I went, "Chris Kattar!" And then I went, (slaps leg) "His fucking name's Calvin, you dumb cunt." Like, (laughs) -

Ben Askren 59:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 59:33 ... like, I just don't... I think I'm running out of space in my head for names, so my apologies to Calvin Kattar.

Ben Askren 59:40 Calvin Kattar.

Joe Rogan 59:40 I'm running out of names in my... We're talking about, uh, Dunbar's number, how you can only keep so many people-

Ben Askren 59:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:45 ... in your brain?

Ben Askren 59:45 Okay.

Joe Rogan 59:46 Um, my brain's overflowed. I, I don't have any hard drive space left.

Ben Askren 59:49 I didn't know... So I thought it was the... Is that the guy that says you can only, like, keep track of 150 people?

Joe Rogan 59:55 Yeah.

Ben Askren 59:55 Like, what's going on and-

Joe Rogan 59:56 Yeah.

Ben Askren 59:56 ... their relationships and that kind of stuff?

Joe Rogan 59:57 Yeah, you, you only have so much room in your, in your hard drive space.

Ben Askren 1:00:01 (sighs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:02 It's based on, uh, tribal societies. Like, you are y-... Our brains are sort of designed to keep track of 150 people.

Ben Askren 1:00:08 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:08 That's how we evolved. And then over the last, you know, X amount of hundreds of years, now all of a sudden you have to keep track of many, many multiples of that.

Ben Askren 1:00:15 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:16 Especially if you're someone like you or I-

Ben Askren 1:00:17 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:18 ... that runs into so many people who you, you, you meet-

Ben Askren 1:00:21 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:21 ... on a regular basis. You gotta keep those people all in your brain.

Ben Askren 1:00:24 (smacks lips) But is it, is it... So, I guess I haven't read that, read into that too much. Is it that you have to just know their names and faces, or is it that you have to know, like, what's going on in their life?

Joe Rogan 1:00:33 I think you're supposed to b- be able to track them, like have a, some sort of a... whether it's intimate or personal relationship with these people.

Ben Askren 1:00:41 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:00:41 Know them.

Ben Askren 1:00:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:44 You know?

Ben Askren 1:00:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:44 So it's like, there's only so... Like, especially if you think about, uh, commentating on fights. I have to pay attention to these guys and what they're doing and their career.

Ben Askren 1:00:51 Seriously.

Joe Rogan 1:00:51 And there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.

Ben Askren 1:00:53 What is it, 500 fighters now? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:00:54 Yeah, 500 fighters that's active. And then how many of them get r-... New guys come in, old guys go away.

Ben Askren 1:01:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:00 I still keep them all in my head.

Ben Askren 1:01:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:02 "Hey, what's Sean Sherk up to these days?" (snaps fingers) You know?

Ben Askren 1:01:04 I don't know.

Joe Rogan 1:01:04 It's like they're all still in the head.

Ben Askren 1:01:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:06 And it's like, there's not... There's only so much room. And after a while you'll, you'll wonder. You're like, "Wow, where are all these people going?"

Ben Askren 1:01:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:12 Mm-hmm.

Ben Askren 1:01:12 And I have found that obviously with, uh... And it's sad, like, you know, college friends, it's like-

Joe Rogan 1:01:17 Yeah.

Ben Askren 1:01:18 ... you know? And it's good, 'cause you see them and it's like, no time's passed,