JRE MMA Show #167 with Cory Sandhagen

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. CSCory Sandhagen0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays)

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      Good to see you, brother. What's happening?

   4. CSCory Sandhagen0:16

      Yeah, good to see you too.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      I'm good.

   6. CSCory Sandhagen0:16

      We were talking about golf and, uh, Jamie, who's a full-blown addict-

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      Yeah. What's up?

   8. CSCory Sandhagen0:21

      (laughs) What's up?

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:22

      What do you wanna know?

   10. CSCory Sandhagen0:23

       What's up? (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       What do you wanna know? What do you wanna hear about?

   12. CSCory Sandhagen0:24

       I don't know, dude. I feel like everyone is now. So you're saying Gaethje's fully hooked?

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:27

       Oh, fully hooked. It's crazy.

   14. CSCory Sandhagen0:29

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       He, uh... Yeah, I don't know. Do you know what Fanatics Fest is?

   16. CSCory Sandhagen0:33

       No.

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:34

       So Fanatics Fest is... I was just at it on Sunday, but it's just like a, it's like com- kind of like Comic-Con but for athletes. And Gaethje got to do, like, the Fanatics game, which is, like, a celebrity thing, where it's, like, 50 pro athletes do it, 50 normal people, and they compete in a bunch of sports or whatever. He said he won because he was good at golf, so the fucking guy won a Ferrari 'cause he got second place. Tom Brady got first, he got a million dollars. And then, like, a normal, like, non-professional athlete got third place, he got, like, 200K.

   18. CSCory Sandhagen1:03

       Whoa.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:04

       So it's fucking-

   20. CSCory Sandhagen1:04

       He got a Ferrari?

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:05

       Yeah, dude, golf got him-

   22. CSCory Sandhagen1:06

       Holy shit.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       Golf got him for this (laughs) fucking Ferrari. I think he took-

   24. CSCory Sandhagen1:09

       Holy shit.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Yeah. So he's... So that kinda just enforced his addiction more than...

   26. CSCory Sandhagen1:16

       But damn, he's that good?

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Yeah, he's pretty good. I- you know, I mean, for... I don't know shit about golf, but from what I know-

   28. CSCory Sandhagen1:20

       Daniel told me, DC told me that he started off and he was just kinda okay. But over the time, between the Holloway fight and his-

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:28

       Yeah.

   30. CSCory Sandhagen1:28

       ... fight with Fiziev, he didn't do anything but play golf for a year.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. CSCory Sandhagen15:00

      that it's gonna take away time from other stuff-

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:02

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CSCory Sandhagen15:02

      ... no matter what you do. And when you look at a guy ... Like, I always point to Merab because the day after he beat Sean the first fight, DC went to his house to, to go talk to him and he was out running.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:14

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CSCory Sandhagen15:14

      The day after.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CSCory Sandhagen15:15

      Like, that's a guy who does not stop.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CSCory Sandhagen15:18

      And that extreme physicality and that extreme endurance, because he is just constantly working, that means something.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:25

       Yeah.

   11. CSCory Sandhagen15:25

       It counts. If you take months off, you take s- you know, like ... Like, this was the thing that I was thinking about with Jon Jones. Jon Jones said he need- needed six months-

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:34

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CSCory Sandhagen15:35

       ... to prepare for Aspinall, if he was gonna fight Aspinall. So they were trying to make a deal and then he decided to retire. But it's six months because he's not training.

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:41

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CSCory Sandhagen15:42

       Like, at all.

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:42

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CSCory Sandhagen15:43

       Like, he just doesn't train. Like, in between fights, just doesn't train.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:46

       Yeah.

   19. CSCory Sandhagen15:47

       Which to m- He used to do that-

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:48

       That's crazy.

   21. CSCory Sandhagen15:48

       ... a lot when he was younger too, which is- I always thought it was crazy.

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:51

       That is crazy to me. I always saw guys do that, like when I was in my 20s and, like, I would watch these really big fighters just not train unless it was a training camp time and I'd be like, "Fuck that. I'm never being that way." Um, I don't know, man. That's, that's, like, a really weird one to me, but I don't wanna bash it too bad 'cause I do know a lot of guys that do do that, but-

   23. CSCory Sandhagen16:11

       But look at Jon.

   24. JRJoe Rogan16:12

       Yeah.

   25. CSCory Sandhagen16:12

       Greatest of all time.

   26. JRJoe Rogan16:13

       Yeah. Yeah.

   27. CSCory Sandhagen16:13

       It's like, how did he do that? He's that talented.

   28. JRJoe Rogan16:15

       I really don't know. I don't know how that works. Like, I want it to make sense in my head that, like, the harder you work, the more shit you'll get from it, you know?

   29. CSCory Sandhagen16:22

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:22

       Which is, like, true to an extent, but then you have, like, these weird outlier guys that maybe have something more figured out than me that I don't have figured out or whatever, but I mean, that to me is, like, completely unacceptable in my head. Like I, I, I think that, um, I really hate when people say that they wanna be something and then they don't do any of the actions to, like, actually do that thing that they're saying that they wanna be.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Mm. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      50/50. Um, and so it's kind of like what... It feels like 50/50 the position and just kind of leg locks in general if you really know how to do 'em in MMA, um, are a spot that you can pull people into and have them be completely lost.

   2. CSCory Sandhagen30:16

      Mm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:16

      Um, be-

   4. CSCory Sandhagen30:16

      'Cause they have to think, "What do I do now?" And you're already moving.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:19

      It's super niche too.

   6. CSCory Sandhagen30:21

      Yes.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:21

      Like understanding the position is super niche.

   8. CSCory Sandhagen30:23

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:23

      It's like judo almost a little bit in wrestling where it's like...... okay, cool, if this guy's gonna just wrestle with me, great. But if this guy has good throws, that changes a lot of the way that I have to do things. I can pull people into these really niche spots, um, where I, where I know that I'm gonna win them. Um, so 50/50 is one of those. It's kinda like what jujitsu used to be a little bit, before people started to understand jujitsu.

   10. CSCory Sandhagen30:44

       Mm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:45

       But now people fully understand jujitsu, so you don't really get to, like, catch people in guillotines or whatever. But 50/50 and a lot of the leg locks and a lot of stuff that Ryan teaches me and does is so niche that, like, you would need an absolute expert to understand it. And I, like, get the fortune of having that.

   12. CSCory Sandhagen31:05

       Yeah, that's awesome.

   13. JRJoe Rogan31:06

       Mm-hmm.

   14. CSCory Sandhagen31:06

       He's so fucking smart too. That dude is just ... Like, his analysis of jujitsu and the way he's broken down different positions, it's, it's real exciting to watch. Is he fighting ... I know he's had, like, nine surgeries or something crazy, right?

   15. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       Yeah, he's had ... Yeah, it's, like, closer to 1,000, but, uh-

   16. CSCory Sandhagen31:20

       (laughs)

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:21

       (laughs) But, uh, but yeah. He ... I mean, he's doing good. He says he wants to fight again. I ho- I hope that he does.

   18. CSCory Sandhagen31:26

       Why is he having all these surgeries? Like, what's going on?

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:28

       I think it's um- uh, just one of those things where, like, you let one thing go, and then another thing breaks, and then another thing breaks, and you kinda, like, are taping yourself back together. And then one day you wake up and you're like, "Shit, I gotta, like, take care of this." It's kinda-

   20. CSCory Sandhagen31:41

       How many ... What other surgeries did he have?

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:44

       Um, I'm not sure specifically. The ... (laughs) You name it, he's probably had it. Um, like, there-

   22. CSCory Sandhagen31:49

       I've never heard of anybody having that many surgeries.

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:51

       There's a couple of knee ones, a couple of shoulder ones. Um, honestly, I quit asking after a certain point. Um, but yeah, I think that he's kinda coming back. Ryan, more than anything ... I'm, like, a super conceptual thinker. Like, I don't really like details. Like, I don't remember names of stuff that ... Yeah.

   24. CSCory Sandhagen32:09

       19 general anesthesia s- ... First of all, that is so bad for your future.

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:13

       I know. That is really. I know.

   26. CSCory Sandhagen32:14

       So bad for you to go under general 19 ... Can you go back up there, what it says there?

   27. JRJoe Rogan32:18

       (laughs)

   28. CSCory Sandhagen32:18

       It says, "Tearing his ACL the following year is the many surgeries. Jujitsu specialist wasn't out of the woods just yet." That is so crazy.

   29. JRJoe Rogan32:26

       Yeah.

   30. CSCory Sandhagen32:27

       Okay. So he had to fix a planter plate. So that's his foot. Uh, got, got fallen on again, had to have a tight rope surgery, the one that Pat Mahomes got and a lot of other people have had. I don't know what that one is. Do you know what that is, tight rope surgery?
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Yeah. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      relationship with food now, where that shit is just fuel to me, kind of.

   2. CSCory Sandhagen45:03

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      When I'm, like, low in weight, I get cravings. But right now, when I'm, like, just kinda good, not hungry, not, like, overdoing it and stuff, I don't really feel like I get too many cravings for shitty stuff.

   4. CSCory Sandhagen45:12

      Do you have a nutritionist or anything like that?

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:14

      Uh, I use a nutritionist inside my camps. Yeah. She's great. Uh, her the-

   6. CSCory Sandhagen45:17

      Like, what's, uh, an average meal for you?

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:19

      Um, I wish that I, like, actually gave a shit, so that I could follow and actually be more helpful. There's two things I really don't care about: strength and conditioning and nutrition.

   8. CSCory Sandhagen45:29

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:29

      I'm like, "Just, like, tell me." I, like, "Don't explain it to me."

   10. CSCory Sandhagen45:31

       "Just make me do it."

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:32

       Yeah, "Just tell me what to do, and I'll just do that thing." Um, but it's actually a lot more food than what you'd think, and I can lose a lot of weight when, when she has me do it, uh, she do it. Um, I'm trying to think what it is. It's more so a lotta carbs more towards the end of the day. Um, like before, 'cause I really don't sleep good usually when I'm really training a lot. My nervous system is, like, not ever down. So at night, I usually won't sleep well, so I'll eat, like, a d- big bowl of oatmeal at night. Everyone is kinda different. What I will say, though, that I would big time recommend to fighters and stuff is, after hard workouts, drinking dextrose or Gatorade with, like, some electrolytes. If you have multiple workouts in a day, that's a giant game changer.

   12. CSCory Sandhagen46:16

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan46:17

       Um, like, 'cause there's a little bit of a window, from my understanding, I don't really know how this shit works, but there's a little bit of a window where it's, like, 45, like, 20 to 45 minutes after you're done working where your body will just take sugar and put it back into your muscles.

   14. CSCory Sandhagen46:31

       Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan46:32

       And so I'll drink a shitload of sugar after, like, really hard workouts, like, really hard sparring sessions, like 50, 60 grams of sugar, which is insane. But-

   16. CSCory Sandhagen46:41

       But not when you're training that hard.

   17. JRJoe Rogan46:42

       Yeah, not when you're training that hard, and with a note and all.

   18. CSCory Sandhagen46:44

       Floyd Mayweather drinks soda.

   19. JRJoe Rogan46:45

       Yeah. Yeah.

   20. CSCory Sandhagen46:45

       He drinks, like, he'll drink a Coca-Cola after training.

   21. JRJoe Rogan46:48

       And it's probably good for...

   22. CSCory Sandhagen46:50

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:50

       It's probably good for you. Yeah.

   24. CSCory Sandhagen46:51

       Yeah, when you're training that hard, like, it's not like, you know, people are like, "Oh, soda's bad for you." Well, sure, if you're just drinking soda.

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:59

       Mm-hmm.

   26. CSCory Sandhagen46:59

       But if you're fucking running marathons or something crazy like that, or you're doing something, like, really exhausting, it's really good for you right after a workout.

   27. JRJoe Rogan47:06

       Yeah, definitely.

   28. CSCory Sandhagen47:07

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan47:07

       Especially if you have multiple workouts. Like, that's, that's one big thing that she does that I added in. Um, in the morning, it's st- it's, like, a pretty balanced thing, though. It's, like, not like no fat, no carb. It's, like, nothing like that. It's, like, a pretty balanced... It's a lot of protein, um-

   30. CSCory Sandhagen47:24

       What, what's the sources of protein?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:06:31

   Yeah. …

   1. CSCory Sandhagen1:00:00

      Yeah.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:01

      But I don't think that there would be a problem with doing multiple weight classes because then you would just have like what you do in boxing-

   3. CSCory Sandhagen1:00:05

      Yes.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:05

      ... where you just have like a ton of ... You have like one dude with like eight belts.

   5. CSCory Sandhagen1:00:09

      Right. Right.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

      That would be cool.

   7. CSCory Sandhagen1:00:11

      Like Logan Pacquiao.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:12

      Yeah.

   9. CSCory Sandhagen1:00:12

      He just keeps going up in weight classes and ... Yeah, I think that it'd just be better for the athletes and I think it'd be better for the sport in general. You're still gonna have like incredible fights because the level of competition, particularly at the lowest weight classes, is so high right now. Like y- I think your weight class, featherweight, and lightweight are the most competitive weight classes in the sport. And there's almost too many top contenders.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:37

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CSCory Sandhagen1:00:37

       Where guys are forced to take fights that maybe you really shouldn't take that fight because you're kind of in title contention-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:44

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CSCory Sandhagen1:00:44

       ... and then, oh, you lose a close decision. Fuck, now you're back to the drawing board, now you gotta fight this guy. Oh, you got injured in camp. Fuck, you lose to that guy too. Now you're set back when you could've been a champion.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:53

       Yeah.

   15. CSCory Sandhagen1:00:54

       You know? It's ... There's a lot of like weirdness going on with possibilities and, you know, just luck, bad luck, and good luck.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:01

       E- bad luck and good luck, timing I think is a big thing.

   17. CSCory Sandhagen1:01:04

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:04

       Um, like I think that I'm pretty ... I was even saying this before the Figueiredo fight, I was like, "Watch like ..."... if I go out and finish Figi, which not a lot of people are able to do, the timing of everything is gonna be perfect for me because there will be no one else.

   19. CSCory Sandhagen1:01:19

       Right.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:19

       And that's, and that's me, also, you know, coming off of a loss from Umar just a year ago, which a- anytime you lose is kind of devastating. You're like, "Oh, it'll never happen for me." You know? But then it's like, "Oh, wait. No. If I just... If this thing gets timed out right," you know, like, it could work out. So a lot of the shit is timing-

   21. CSCory Sandhagen1:01:35

       You lost though, but it was a competitive close fight.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:37

       Yeah, yeah. I know, I fucked that one up.

   23. CSCory Sandhagen1:01:39

       Super c- what did you think went wrong? Like, when you say you fucked it up.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:42

       Uh, more than anything... Okay, it was, it was like a... It's never just one thing. It's always like things get compiled and then they exponentially get worse. One big thing was I knew I was fighting in the Middle East and I wasn't gonna get, like, a nod, um, if it was a close fight. And Umar's a defensive guy and I'm a defensive guy, and I knew that it would be... there was potential for rounds to be really close. My game plan wasn't gonna be to take him down. So anytime you're gonna be like, "Hey," like, "I'm committing to striking," there is a little bit of a level of rolling the dice because, one, striking matches in a five-minute round are really hard to, like, hammer down and be like, "I won this round," against really high-level guys. Um, that's my opinion. I thought that I would be able to stuff most of the shots. I was like, "Okay, most of this thing is gonna be done striking. I need to have, like, big moments in order for me to feel like I'm really winning these rounds so that there can be no argument that I'm losing." And if we just are point scoring each other, which Umar's good at and I'm good at, I'm kind of rolling the dice a little bit and kind of leaving it into the hands of who... God knows who the judges are, you know? So a piece of it was I didn't want to lose another close split decision. Like, a lot of my losses, or a couple of my losses, are just close split decisions and I'm like, "Fucking man, I'm not..." I'd rather just go for it than lose, you know? But that pulled me out of my game plan, um, and just the way that I typically fight. Like, I'm not the guy that hunts for knockouts, you know? I'm just not that guy. And so I just got pulled out of my strategy. I got really frustrated in the fight, um, by it not working, like me not being able to have really big moments. And now looking back, I'm just like, "Man, what were you thinking?" Like, just go out and fight like how you do and you'll do awesome.

   25. CSCory Sandhagen1:03:25

       What do you think specifically, like you would, would have done different in exchanges?

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:03:29

       Um, I would have fought him the exact same way that I would have fought the first ro... Like, that entire fight, I was being really defensive and just looking for one big shot. In the first round, I didn't fight like that. The first round, I was cool with point scoring. I was like, "Okay, this guy's gonna wrestle me. Let's see how good he is at wrestling and if I can hang." Once I was like, "Oh, okay, cool," like, "I can hang," then I just started going for big shots, which is just like not a good way-

   27. CSCory Sandhagen1:03:53

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:03:53

       ... to beat a really high-level guy. It's kind of a lazy game plan, honestly. Like, um-

   29. CSCory Sandhagen1:03:58

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:03:58

       ... if the plan isn't to completely outclass the person and win in every area and be good enough to do so, in my opinion, that's just like not an expression of the highest level of martial arts. That's a little bit lazy, you know? And I was, I was a little bit lazy in maybe my approach to that. Which maybe lazy isn't the right word, but, um, I could have done a lot better at just trusting myself more, being more confident in my ability to just be like, "No," like, "I'll, I'll beat him everywhere." You know?

Episode duration: 2:33:57