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The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

JRE MMA Show #39 with Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone

Joe sits down with UFC fighter Donald "Cowboy" Cerrone.

Donald "Cowboy" CerroneguestJoe Roganhost
Aug 30, 20182h 54mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 2:58

    Beers, going back to 155, and how the Mike Perry fight got made

    1. DC

      (glass clinking) Yes, sir. (liquid pouring)

    2. JR

      Cheers.

    3. DC

      Cheers. (glasses clanking)

    4. JR

      And we're live.

    5. DC

      And we're live. There's so much to talk about.

    6. JR

      Obviously. So much to talk about.

    7. DC

      It's been years.

    8. JR

      It's been a while. It's been a while.

    9. DC

      It's been a while.

    10. JR

      And, uh, one of the reasons why you're here is because... (smacks lips) I was supposed to have Jackson Win- I mean, we should just get right into this. I was supposed to-

    11. DC

      You think we should get into it or should we-

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. DC

      ... let the-

    14. JR

      Let the Budweiser settle in?

    15. DC

      Let the Budweiser kick. I haven't even eaten breakfast. I specif-

    16. JR

      (laughs)

    17. DC

      ... ially didn't eat breakfast. I'm like, "I'm gonna drink beer with Joe." I already know he's getting me beer, and that way it can hit me a lot faster and I'll loosen up my lips a lot sooner.

    18. JR

      We can do whatever you want, man.

    19. DC

      (laughs)

    20. JR

      It's up to you. You're looking thick, dude. How much do you weigh now?

    21. DC

      (coughs) Man, so I've been, um... So here's a crazy story. (smacks lips) I go to, I go to, um, the PI to... 'Cause Dana tells me I can't go to 55, so I go to talk to the P-

    22. JR

      He told you you can't go? Why?

    23. DC

      Well, 'cause he says I'm, I'm getting old and... Older. Well, I should say he said old. I'm getting old. And it's wor-

    24. JR

      The weight cut's too hard?

    25. DC

      The weight cut, right? So I said, "All right. I'm gonna go to the, to the PI. You guys have this amazing facility with..."

    26. JR

      The PI stands for Performance Institute, for people who know.

    27. DC

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      For certain, there you go. UFC Performance Institute.

    29. DC

      And, uh, they have trainers and dietician, nutrition, right? So I'm, I'm going there to meet with them to get a, a guideline and some kind of plan that we can attack so I can go to Dana like, "Look, I met with your guys. They said it's okay." While I'm there, second day into all this, like, crazy testing you do, right? They have all kinds of tests that they run where you get on these bikes and... You know what I mean? Like, fuck, I was at, like, a Olympic training center testing. Um, uh, I wanted to say Joe Silva walked in, but then that's not right 'cause he's not there anymore. So, uh...

    30. JR

      Nick Maynard?

  2. 2:58 – 5:37

    Jackson-Wink loyalty rupture: why Cowboy says he was pushed out

    1. JR

      Well, what was, what was gonna happen was Jackson and Winkeljohn were supposed to be here today.

    2. DC

      Right.

    3. JR

      Well, you had... I mean, you've been with them for how long?

    4. DC

      (smacks lips) Man, I wanna say (sighs) before my WC days. So I went on the-

    5. JR

      More than 10 years.

    6. DC

      Yeah, easily.

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. DC

      Easily more than 10 years. I, I, I don't think there's another athlete there that's been there longer, besides Diego Sanchez, who's been there since the beginning, but-

    9. JR

      Diego left for a little while.

    10. DC

      Left for a little while, came back, um-

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. DC

      So me, you know, Holly, but she was with Wink before he, they merged. So, but like with actually, Jackson, Jackson, I'm like there. I'm like the one. (laughs)

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. DC

      I'm like it.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. DC

      You know, everyone else kind of either left the gym or is retired.

    17. JR

      (smacks lips) So, what the fuck happened? Like, how, how did they decide that they were gonna corner Mike Perry? Who, by the way, I like a lot. Uh, he's not-

    18. DC

      And I got noth- And I have nothing against this-

    19. JR

      Yeah.

    20. DC

      ... guy, Perry, either. I don't... This, this, this has nothing to do with-

    21. JR

      Yeah.

    22. DC

      ... with Perry. It has nothi-

    23. JR

      He's a fun dude.

    24. DC

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      I like that guy a lot.

    26. DC

      So I, I-

    27. JR

      I have no problem with him.

    28. DC

      I mean, I took him on the boat, took him shooting with me, and when he was down there part of, part of the action, you know, uh, Frank Lester, who's helping him with his pads, friend of mine, you know, so he comes out shooting with me. We go out in the boat and have fun, and, um... So this has nothing to do with them. I had just asked when... I went to go to 55 and then Perry called me out and wants to fight. "Sure, no problem." But I went to talk to Greg and Wink and say, "Hey, this guy's brand new to the gym." Right? "He's only been here one camp, couple of months." I said, "I don't think that it's okay for him to ch- come in and call me out." Like, "That's not, not, not right." So if he is doing that, I don't think we should allow him to, to train here for this fight. And fucking Winkeljohn tells me, "Yeah, you know, I thought you called him out and, oh." He's just a, just a shit ass and lies like to your face. So to me he was like, "Yeah, sure. No problem. I'll, I'll clear it up and we won't have any issues." Um, and then the next day he calls me on the phone and says, "You know what?" (smacks lips) "Uh, I thought about it. If we don't have Perry, then I don't get paid and I need to get paid for this fight, and, uh, uh, 'cause you just pay Greg, I don't make any money through the gym, so we're just gonna go with him." And then basically tells me I'm no longer welcome in the gym (laughs) and he is. He said, "The team had a meeting." Bullshit, the team didn't have a meeting. I talked to everybody. The, the... I mean, there, there was no meeting, there was no hi- So, to me it's like the loyalty of Wink taking over this gym is just, it's just shit, man. Turned into like a puppy mill. It's all, it's all about money now, and not the old Jackson. When, when I used to work out... We're just getting into this, I guess, huh? (smacks lips) All right.

    29. JR

      Start chugging.

  3. 5:37 – 12:33

    How Cowboy came up at Jackson’s—and why the gym feels ‘different’ now

    1. DC

      Start chugging. Shit. Back when I first moved down here and I went to Greg's, when the Tapout guys picked me up and introduced me and all that, right?

    2. JR

      Back when you were on the Tapout show. Remember that?

    3. DC

      On the show, yeah.

    4. JR

      That, uh, reality show.

    5. DC

      Well, Mask called Greg and got me... That's how I, I got involved with them, right? I... (laughs) All right.

    6. JR

      (laughs)

    7. DC

      (mouth clicks) Motherfu-I left... Leonard Garcia was fighting Roger Wartell, one of my best friends. Roger Wartell called-

    8. JR

      What a fight that was, by the way.

    9. DC

      God, damn right.

    10. JR

      Woo!

    11. DC

      Motherfucking Mexicans-

    12. JR

      People forgot.

    13. DC

      ... throwing down.

    14. JR

      (laughs) For- forgot about that fight.

    15. DC

      Dude.

    16. JR

      Go to Fight Pass, check that one out.

    17. DC

      (laughs) Yeah, right. Google, bring that up. Um, Leonard's still wildest dude I've ever met, man. Just-

    18. JR

      I love that guy.

    19. DC

      So do I, man. And, um, so he calls me like, "Cowboy, I need you to come down for a week. Come for one week, help me get ready for Roger." He took the fight on like three weeks notice. Something cr- outlandish, just like me and Leonard do, right? So, I go down there. I literally never left. When I went down, first day I walked into Jackson's and Rashad, Keith, St. Pierre, Joe Daddy Stevenson, uh... I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And I was like, "Wow, this is what a real gym is like? This is what..." And they all accepted me. It was like a, like... I was like, in the family, right? I call... I owned a house in Denver. I called my grandma and said, "I'm never coming home. I'm staying here."

    20. JR

      (laughs)

    21. DC

      Sell the house, right? And I literally never went home. She would just slowly come down to visit me and bring me truckloads of shit.

    22. JR

      (laughs)

    23. DC

      Right? Literally. I lived in a closet, man, f- fuck, a third as big as this room. We had a bunk bed, me and Leonard. And, uh, if one person was standing up, the other person had to be in the bed. That's how small this room was.

    24. JR

      Wow.

    25. DC

      And I lived there for two years, above, above Jackson's, and would train every day with him. Like I said, I never left. And, uh, Greg asked me, he sat me down after about, I don't know, a couple weeks of being there, and he said, "Man, I want you to be my 55er." And at that time, he had a... There was a... The list of 55ers were nuts, that he had. And I was like, "Wow, fuck. Greg Jackson," who at the time was the man, man, right? That... The, the gym was f- like a 90% winning rate and... He just, he's such a knowledgeable, awesome dude, man. And to see where the gym was to where the gym is now is... It's like heartbreaking to me, to be honest. And I... And you wanna talk about loyalty, which is the biggest thing in this conversation that we're having right now, is how they picked someone over me through being loyal, I stuck by Greg, even when the gym started going down. When Winkeljohn merged over, all the big pros left. It turned into like a puppy mill. You know? It wasn't... For, for... Back when Greg had it and it was its own school, you couldn't turn up to a pro class. Like, like some guy couldn't just come here, knock on your door. Like you say, you get weirdos here all the time. Next thing you know, he has shin pads on and he's sparring. There's literally, at the new gym, bums coming off the street, I swear to God, and will fight these... And will come in to put stuff on a fight. That's a true story. Random bums off the street. And, uh, that would never happen back in the day. It was just-

    26. JR

      So, Greg doesn't run it anymore?

    27. DC

      No. He has... He's like, so out of the loop. Winkeljohn runs the entire thing. And that's what-

    28. JR

      What is, what is Greg doing?

    29. DC

      He kind of stepped back for a couple years, man. Like, kind of started doing other things and just kind of got burned out, I guess. Which is why I created the BMF Ranch. I needed somewhere to go and something to do, so I created my own place. Which is Wink's argument with me right now, saying, "You be at your old place. You don't ever come here," blah, blah, blah. I said, "Well, I don't ever come here because you ju- the people you let in here is outlandish." Like, anybody... You pay $150, you can get on the mats and, and spar with Holly Holm. You know what I mean? That's, that's what it, it's come to down there. And back in the day, it was like private and just us and good pros, everyone there for the same mission, trying to, trying to get better, you know? But-

    30. JR

      I've talked to some other people that I, I don't wanna name.

  4. 12:33 – 17:19

    Training control, coaching quality, and building the BMF Ranch as an alternative

    1. JR

      So Perry pays him a percentage and you don't, because you-

    2. DC

      I only pay Greg. I've, for my-

    3. JR

      Okay.

    4. DC

      ... entire career I've ever been there, because I don't like Winkeljohn's style. I don't like his, way he holds his mitts. I don't like the way he trains people.

    5. JR

      What's different about what he does?

    6. DC

      It's the same thing for ev- for you, for me, for John, Sam. They're all the exalt. It's a cookie cutter, everything's exactly the same and it never changes. It's, I don't understand how you could be a coach of the, one of the greatest f- at one time, the greatest gyms on the planet, you know? And then don't ever evolve, don't ever change, and don't run class. And it's, it, to me, it's, he just drove that place into the ground, man. Turned, literally turned it into a puppy mill. It's only about making money. And for you guys who don't know what I'm talking about a puppy mill, when someone has a, a dog and they just fucking breed it and sell the puppies and breed it and sell the puppies, that's-

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. DC

      ... that's what's happening. That's the, the infrastructure of this gym. Now let's talk about training there. Let's talk about coaching, right? Greg's supposed to be the, the, the general, right? I'm just a soldier. How come I have to be now a general and a soldier? That's the mi- that's ri- with the, it's fucking up in my, in my career. I can't, I need someone to tell me what to do, tell me what not to do. And I had to start my own school at the ranch, bring in my own coaches, but then now I'm making all the executive decisions. When we're training, what we're training, what we're doing. And I'm not, I'm no longer just a soldier.

    9. JR

      Right.

    10. DC

      I'm having to fucking run this whole thing. Um, but no, man-

    11. JR

      That's a problem for fighters. Inaudible

    12. DC

      You need inaudible It's a problem for me, too. Like, I like to... I'm a fucking super alpha male and I like to communicate with my coaches and, and get everything done. And the guys I have are fucking standing by me and I love them to death, but I need someone to be like, "You know what? You crazy fucking bastard."

    13. JR

      You're going too hard.

    14. DC

      You're going too hard.

    15. JR

      You need to taper off.

    16. DC

      Just taper off. Just pump the brake. Or let's pick it up.

    17. JR

      Right, right.

    18. DC

      Y- The, the, the fucking fun fuck off part of your life is taking-

    19. JR

      Yeah.

    20. DC

      ... over into your training. Can we step it up a little bit?

    21. JR

      Right.

    22. DC

      I need that. I need, I need fucking direction. I need today we're working on this. Not just me going in there saying, "Ah, let's fucking wrestle today."

    23. JR

      Right.

    24. DC

      You know what I'm saying? (laughs)

    25. JR

      Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

    26. DC

      So, um-

    27. JR

      You know what to do, but it's also nice for someone else who knows what to do who's completely objective-

    28. DC

      Espe-

    29. JR

      ... to stand on the outside.

    30. DC

      Because there's been s- I've, I'm in this so long, there's-

  5. 17:19 – 29:22

    Life on the ranch: acreage, hunting, and the ‘cult leader’ sales pitch

    1. DC

      (laughs) Do you like living out there? I do. I love it. I fucking love it. So I sold my house. I moved here. I fucking planted roots. Now, I could never, ever sell my place. I'm stuck in New Mexico. I'm moving back to Colorado, I'm gonna buy-

    2. JR

      Why could you never sell it?

    3. DC

      Because I, I'd have to sell it to like a crazy cult leader. So if anybody out there listening wants to operate a cult, I have the-

    4. JR

      (laughs) Are you talking to one right now?

    5. DC

      I have the, I have the perfect house.

    6. JR

      Talk to me about what kind of acreage are you talking about?

    7. DC

      Yeah. Well, I got 40 acres.

    8. JR

      What do we got here?

    9. DC

      40 acres. Plenty of rooms, buildings.

    10. JR

      Go ahead, what kind of animals are in your vicinity?

    11. DC

      Um, oh, well.

    12. JR

      (laughs)

    13. DC

      Yeah. You got-

    14. JR

      This might be where we start.

    15. DC

      There's, there's, about an hour drive you can run into some elk. Oh. We have, uh, we got antelope, um, everywhere. Which is crazy thing about antelope, you know they don't jump fences.

    16. JR

      Yeah, they won't jump fences.

    17. DC

      It's crazy, right? You can just literally corner them into a, into a, into a f- you know-

    18. JR

      They occasionally jump a fence. They've been known to jump a fence occasionally, but it's very, very rare.You know, they evolved, um, before the Ice Age, they evolved to get away from cheetahs. ...

    19. DC

      How are you-

    20. JR

      Apparently.

    21. DC

      ... so smart? That's what I wanna know.

    22. JR

      I'm not smart. I just remember things.

    23. DC

      Dude is fucking insane.

    24. JR

      There was a, uh, a mass extinction of, uh, giant land mammals. It was somewhere around 12,000 years ago in North America and before then, there was cheetahs. There was actual North American cheetahs.

    25. DC

      Right.

    26. JR

      There was a North American lion that's bigger than the African lion. How about that shit? Giant-ass fucking lion. And that's where these fucking things evolved.

    27. DC

      Did you want another chew?

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. DC

      This- (laughs)

    30. JR

      I'm gonna try that shit.

  6. 29:22 – 35:28

    Vegas detour: Monster conference, gambling wins, and breakdancing nostalgia

    1. DC

      I was just there last night. I was out there for a big Monster conference, and it's just like ... You, you sit in your room and you're like, "Well, I could just go down and, uh ... gamble, I guess." And then you start gambling. Have you ever played Baccarat?

    2. JR

      I don't play shit.

    3. DC

      I have never either, and I decided ... We, we tried Baccarat. Like 007. I was like, "We'll be like 007, we'll go in there." And I played with, with one of the higher ups in Monster, and he took us down there and we played this game. And, uh ... Fuck, we won a shitload of money. A shitload of money. There was like five-

    4. JR

      That's a trick.

    5. DC

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      You want some of this?

    7. DC

      Yeah, I'll take some of that. I don't really smoke much pot, but I'll do it just 'cause I'm with you.

    8. JR

      Be careful with that.

    9. DC

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      That stuff is ... Th- they grew that on the moon. I saw a video of him breakdancing the other night.

    11. DC

      You breakdance?

    12. JR

      (laughs)

    13. DC

      I do. I used to. I used to really breakdance.

    14. JR

      (laughs)

    15. DC

      So, I'm at the Monster conference ...

    16. JR

      Did we lose the glass tip?

    17. DC

      I'm at the Monster conference and, um ... Monster now has a breakdancing team.

    18. JR

      The what? (laughs)

    19. DC

      Yes.

    20. JR

      Monster got me some badass bags, man.

    21. DC

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      Shout out to Hans.

    23. DC

      Yeah, Hans, yeah, Hans's a good dude, man.

    24. JR

      (coughs) He's a great dude.

    25. DC

      Yeah, he uh, he takes care of ... He takes care of a lot of people. Uh, uh again, the infrastructure of Monster-... great, right?

    26. JR

      Yeah.

    27. DC

      Great infrastructure for Monster.

    28. JR

      Right. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

    29. DC

      So the ambassador, Hans, takes care of it, takes care of his people.

    30. JR

      Loyalty, family, super friendly.

  7. 35:28 – 47:22

    DMT ceremony: Cowboy’s first psychedelic breakthrough

    1. DC

      So you speaking about DMT... I'm... Okay, let- let me- let's back it up one more.

    2. JR

      One more. Beep.

    3. DC

      I've never done any drugs in my entire life, ever.

    4. JR

      But you did a lot of drugs in here already. You did nicotine, you did alcohol.

    5. DC

      And we're back- we're backed up. Remember? We're backed up.

    6. JR

      Scooch.

    7. DC

      I've never done any drug ever. Never ever.

    8. JR

      What year was this?

    9. DC

      Two years ago.

    10. JR

      Oh, you did booze.

    11. DC

      Well, I don't... That's- that's legal.

    12. JR

      Oh, legal. The law.

    13. DC

      Legal drugs. Oh, duh.

    14. JR

      Oh, it's under the law. Uh...

    15. DC

      Um...

    16. JR

      You're a product of drugs.

    17. DC

      I am a product of drugs. Very pharmaceutical drugs, right?

    18. JR

      Which is not a bad drug. Budweiser's a fantastic drug. It's made for great jokes, fun times.

    19. DC

      (laughs)

    20. JR

      Right? How many fucking good times-

    21. DC

      Hey!

    22. JR

      ... have people had because of Budweiser?

    23. DC

      God bless you, Budweiser. Salud. Sounds good, right? It's whatever- it's whatever.

    24. JR

      It's a good drug. Well regulated. You know, you know what one bottle does. That's what I like. There's no surprises.

    25. DC

      Makes you want two.

    26. JR

      Yeah, but-

    27. DC

      You know what one bottle does? Makes you want two.

    28. JR

      Right, but that's- that's on you, man. One bottle. You gotta have some goddamn self-control. One bottle... You know what a bottle of Budweiser does. It's really clear.

    29. DC

      True.

    30. JR

      It's like you eat a fucking pot brownie, who it could be anything, you know? You could be... Y- who knows what the fuck you're getting. They got that limit in Utah, everything is 3.2%. Poor people in Utah. You know they're rebranding?

  8. 47:22 – 57:29

    Mushrooms, ego, and fighting fear: using psychedelics for self-inquiry

    1. JR

      Like, the chaos of your personality and, and how you approach things. I mean, you almost fucking died in a cave for some time, bro.

    2. DC

      Yeah. That-

    3. JR

      I mean, this is what you do, right?

    4. DC

      That's, that's my other drug, adrenaline.

    5. JR

      Yeah, yeah. You gotta-

    6. DC

      Adrenaline, man.

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. DC

      It, uh...

    9. JR

      The things that people are scared of, you flock to.

    10. DC

      Yes.

    11. JR

      It's like you wanna prove that you're not scared of 'em. And you are-

    12. DC

      And I am. I'm just as scared as you are.

    13. JR

      Sure.

    14. DC

      Like skydiving. I love it because it's like, "Woo."

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. DC

      And we go.

    17. JR

      Yeah. Y- there's no, there's no if, ands or buts when you jump out of a fucking plane.

    18. DC

      I'm flying planes now. Getting my pilot's license.

    19. JR

      Really?

    20. DC

      Yeah. I'm, I'm putting... I've, I started a little while back, I quit for a while, but now I'm, I'm back. I'm all in, I'm flying, and, uh, I'm loving it, man. I'm-

    21. JR

      I was just telling you, I watched that Lynyrd Skynyrd documentary last night.

    22. DC

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      Don't, don't fly a shitty plane. That's how we lost Lynyrd Skynyrd.

    24. DC

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      They, they needed to get their fucking plane fixed. Drugs.

    26. DC

      I mean, drugs. Fuck is drugs?

    27. JR

      Fucking pill heads, man. Speed it up.

    28. DC

      The next time I'm on in two years when I come back, I'll be fly- I'll fly out here.

    29. JR

      Yes (laughs)

    30. DC

      I'll fly out here (claps hands) .

  9. 57:29 – 1:07:39

    Why it’s still illegal: propaganda, harm, and the case for freedom

    1. JR

      It's crazy that it's illegal.

    2. DC

      Right.

    3. JR

      Like, why... What are you protecting people from? Like, how is that a law?

    4. DC

      They're protecting them from themselves, 'cause some people don't wanna see what they really are.

    5. JR

      They don't know what it is. I don't, I don't, I don't think there's a grand conspiracy in that way. Like, a lot of people think they're trying to protect us from enlightenment. I don't think that's true, because I don't think they know what it is. I don't think they know that it gives you enlightenment. I think they think somehow or another it's bad for you.

    6. DC

      So I'm sure, uh, during some of your tr- do you end up talking to somebody also?

    7. JR

      Yeah, I've had people talk to me or things talk to me. But you don't hear the words. Like, you know what they're saying and you hear it without actual, like-

    8. DC

      Correct.

    9. JR

      ... you know?

    10. DC

      Fair enough.

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. DC

      That would make... Yeah.

    13. JR

      It's like, te- telepathic.

    14. DC

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      And what... But it's very clear. There's like, there's a, like, a progression of words and-

    16. DC

      'Cause you're talking to yourself-

    17. JR

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    18. DC

      ... at the end of the day.

    19. JR

      There's a narrative. Yeah. Well, I think you are. You know, I don't know what... I- I- I've tried to, like, put a handle on it, and I don't think it's... I don't think I really have the tools to... I don't think I know what's happening.

    20. DC

      Right.

    21. JR

      I think I, I, I could try to, like, "Well, this is what's happening. It's all in the back of your brain. Your visual cortex is actually-"

    22. DC

      (laughs)

    23. JR

      I don't know if that's true. It's so mind-blowing, I feel like I'd be an asshole to, to say-

    24. DC

      Jumping a finger on it.

    25. JR

      ... that I know what it, what it is. I don't know what it is.

    26. DC

      Man.

    27. JR

      I have no idea what it is. But it's definitely beneficial and it makes people nicer. Like, I don't see any bad sides to it.

    28. DC

      No, none. I, I, I've, I, I try and explain to people. Like, I don't, I don't wake up hungover.

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. DC

      So during my extensive reading and arguing with people about this, I've discovered, uh, microdosing mushrooms.

Episode duration: 2:54:02

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