JRE MMA Show #48 with Henry Cejudo & Eric Albarracin

Henry Cejudo 0:00 (Russian)

Joe Rogan 0:01 Three-

Henry Cejudo 0:03 (Spanish) .

Joe Rogan 0:07 Boom, and we're live. Henry "motherfucking" Cejudo-

Henry Cejudo 0:11 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:12 ... world champ, and sir, introduce yourself to everybody, Captain America.

Eric Albarracin 0:16 That's right, Captain Erick Albarracin.

Joe Rogan 0:18 Uh, Henry's coach. You, uh, what, what, what do you do with him specifically?

Eric Albarracin 0:23 Well, I've been with him since 2004, and recently became his coach right before the first Demetrious Johnson fight, and I'm his head coach for MMA.

Joe Rogan 0:32 And you're in disguise in case some, uh, other athletes try to swipe you.

Henry Cejudo 0:35 (laughs)

Eric Albarracin 0:35 And it's Halloween.

Joe Rogan 0:36 Bring you over.

Eric Albarracin 0:36 Happy Halloween, everybody.

Henry Cejudo 0:37 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:37 Happy Halloween, folks. So, uh, first of all, man, congratulations on your victory. Um, it, what does it feel like?

Henry Cejudo 0:45 Oh, man, it's, uh, it, uh, it feels good. It feels good.

Joe Rogan 0:48 Try to keep this, like, uh, fist away from your face.

Henry Cejudo 0:50 Yeah, uh, it feels good because it's, um, God, it's, I, I think as a competitor, you, you live for these moments. You live for, you, you live for these fulfillments, you know?

Joe Rogan 0:59 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 1:00 And I think somebody like... And then I told people since the beginning, it wasn't so much, you know, the UFC belt, but it was because it was, it, I made it about Demetrious, and it was about Demetrious, you know? 'Cause he's, he's-

Joe Rogan 1:10 Well, I mean, he is widely considered to be the best pound-for-pound fighter ever, and you're the first guy not only to beat him, but the first guy who, not just to beat him, but, I mean, you beat him in, like, 11 years, but the first guy to win an Olympic gold medal in wrestling and a UFC championship. I mean, those are two gigantic accomplishments.

Henry Cejudo 1:30 Yeah, no, for sure. It's almost like, uh, God, it's, it's, I beat the greatest of, to me, the greatest of all time, and then on top of that, I beat, you know, I, I can, I can make the run for, you know, who's the greatest combat athlete of all time.

Joe Rogan 1:42 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 1:43 Like, it's, uh, I'm a two-sport world champion. (laughs) I'm just like-

Joe Rogan 1:46 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 1:46 ... "Damn, that's crazy."

Joe Rogan 1:47 I mean, you're absolutely in the running now. I mean, if, if he's not the greatest of all time, I think he is, but, you know, the argument is that he didn't face people as good as Jon Jones faced, and then Fedor is the other, uh, Fedor and Anderson Silva are the other people that are in consideration for the greatest of all time. I mean, it's, uh, it's just a subjective argument. I mean, who, who knows who's right? But obviously, you beat, without a doubt, one of the best ever.

Henry Cejudo 2:14 Yeah, yeah. And, and, and like I would, I would tell people, there's, there's a bit of, uh, of admiration that I had for Demetrious Johnson. Like, I was, uh, it was, it was like, you know, you're fighting the dude that's, that's, that almost seems untouchable, that you couldn't... Uh, uh, uh, a guy that makes you question yourself, like, "Whoa, this is, this is, this, this guy is that good."

Joe Rogan 2:34 Well, what's crazy is you beat him after he had stopped you just, how long, how long, was it two years?

Henry Cejudo 2:39 Uh, about t- close to about two and a half years ago now. Yeah, about, uh, it was like, uh, I think two years and, like, four months.

Joe Rogan 2:46 That's-

Eric Albarracin 2:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 2:47 ... that's an amazing turnaround.

Henry Cejudo 2:48 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 2:49 Between getting stopped in the first round, and then coming back and, and beating him, and then beating him in the championship rounds is really where you pulled it off.

Henry Cejudo 2:57 Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, uh, uh, and, and I, absolutely. I, I had studied Demetrious Johnson. Like, as soon as I lost to him the first time, what I pretty much did is, I got, I got rid of a lot of people, including my, my MMA head coach. I just, my whole philosophy was if I can't be the best, then there's something wrong. You know, emotionally, physically, everything. I was just invested.

Joe Rogan 3:18 Mm-hmm.

Henry Cejudo 3:19 And when I lost, I'm just like, "Man, I, I, I need a, I'm looking for a better leader." You know? And, and that's kind of what I did. I ended up, you know, letting go a lot of my corner men, and I started traveling the world. Uh, went out to Singapore, went out to, uh, to Thailand, went out to, uh, to the Netherlands, spent months and months at a time, uh, uh, out in Brazil. Like, I, uh, I was on a quest. It was like the... Or, uh, I, I kind of remind myself literally, like, Ash Ketchum from Pokemon.

Joe Rogan 3:47 (laughs)

Henry Cejudo 3:47 Like, I was just on a venture due to-

Joe Rogan 3:48 I have no idea who that is, but...

Henry Cejudo 3:50 (laughs)

Eric Albarracin 3:50 (laughs)

Henry Cejudo 3:50 It's-

Eric Albarracin 3:50 Vision Quest.

Joe Rogan 3:51 Vision Quest.

Henry Cejudo 3:52 It was a, yeah.

Joe Rogan 3:52 The Matthew Modine movie.

Henry Cejudo 3:54 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 3:55 That's every wrestler.

Henry Cejudo 3:56 Louder you swing. Louder you swing.

Joe Rogan 3:56 Every wrestler has to watch that movie.

Henry Cejudo 3:58 And that's, and, and, and, and it be- and I'm, like I said, it became an obsession. I, I, I knew that if anybody could do it, it'd be, it'd be Henry Cejudo. Like, I really did. And e- e- even after the first time, Joe, when he beat me, I still, when they asked me, it was like, "Henry, you know?" Like, I, I would, I was like, "Guys, I don't know, but I still know that I could beat him." Even being knocked out, like, 2 minutes and 36 seconds, like, I still knew in my heart at UFC 1, I said at their press conference, I says, "I know I'm still the one to beat him." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:26 What was it about him that made you think that you could beat him? What was it about you specifically in relation to him and his skill set?

Henry Cejudo 4:35 It was, uh, um, I, I, I, if you, if you're asking me what the difference was-

Joe Rogan 4:40 Yeah, well, what was it that made you think, even after he stopped you in the first round?

Henry Cejudo 4:44 Oh, God, uh, I think it was more so just believing in my, in my abilities. I think me just believing more, "Okay, Henry, you need time." Like, I was only doing MMA for three years when I fought him the first time.

Joe Rogan 4:56 Yeah, a lot of people don't know that.

Henry Cejudo 4:57 Yeah, three years.

Joe Rogan 4:58 They assume, see you fighting for the title, not once but twice, that you've probably been doing MMA for a long-ass time. But when you fought him for the first time, it's a very, that's a very short amount of time to be fighting in MMA.

Henry Cejudo 5:10 Es- especially against a caliber athlete like Demetrious.

Joe Rogan 5:13 What year did you win, uh, the Olympics?

Henry Cejudo 5:15 In '08.

Joe Rogan 5:16 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 5:16 2008.

Joe Rogan 5:16 See, that is, I mean, when you're doing that, you're 100% dedicated to wrestling.

Henry Cejudo 5:22 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:22 You have to be, right?

Henry Cejudo 5:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 5:23 So were you doing any striking training at all back then?

Henry Cejudo 5:27 Um, I did, I did. What happened was, uh, once I won the Olympics, I almost kind of, I fell out of love with the sport. I fell, I fell out of love with wrestling. I remember being at the Olympics and being like, "Man, I just, I, I don't know if I have it in me no more."

Joe Rogan 5:41 Just 'cause you were burnt out?

Henry Cejudo 5:42 I was, yeah, actually, my whole childhood was gone because of the sport, you know? Like-

Joe Rogan 5:46 Take that crazy mask off, brother. What are you doing?

Henry Cejudo 5:48 (laughs)

Eric Albarracin 5:49 (laughs)

Henry Cejudo 5:49 Anyway, I've been waiting for you to say that. (laughs) Put that on there.

Joe Rogan 5:56 We'll do it in stages. (laughs)

Henry Cejudo 5:58 Uh... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:00 So you, you, you fell out of love with it?

Henry Cejudo 6:03 I fell out of love with it and-

Joe Rogan 6:04 But just, but just, but just because your whole life had been dedicated to wrestling?

Henry Cejudo 6:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:07 And you'd finally achieved the greatest of great goals.

Henry Cejudo 6:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:10 Olympic gold medal is just the top of the mountain.

Henry Cejudo 6:12 No, but check this out, Joe, and it was like, in, in, in the year 2007, I...Um, man, I went through the worst year ever. Like, I was ready to become a world champion, and, and I went out to the world championships in 2007 and, and I didn't even score a point, like in the first round. Like, I, I got put out by, by Iran. And, uh, for some reason that whole year, man, I was just going through the freaking struggles, like left and right. You're talking about just the adversity. I couldn't win a tournament to save my life.

Joe Rogan 6:38 What was it?

Henry Cejudo 6:40 Um, I don't know. I don't know. I, I, I truly, truly don't know. I think I was, uh ... I think I probably began kind of falling out of love with it. And I remember there was, to me, there was only two tournaments that I really wanted to win, and that was, that was the Olympic trials and eventually the Olympic games. And, and somehow like ... 'Cause I'm correlating this with the, with the fight with Demetrious Johnson. And, uh, I remember, you know, just, just almost being in, in tears, like, "I just don't know if, uh, if this is for me." And, uh, but I just stuck with it. I stuck with it. I ended up winning the Olympic trials. I ended up going to the, you know, the Olympic games and ended up pretty much falling behind in every single match, uh, that I was wrestling in. So these, these are kind of the adversities that I was going through, like, leading up to become an Olympic champion.

Joe Rogan 7:25 You know, it's interesting, when you were fighting, um, Demetrious for the second time, Daniel Cormier s- said something very interesting. He said, "Most guys ..." He goes, "I would never give a chance." You, you get stopped by DJ, and then a couple years later you're fighting him again. Like, he's, he's gonna have your number. He's gonna be better in the rematch. And he goes, "But Henry Cejudo's a different kind of athlete." He ... And he talked about you competing and then coming back a year later-

Henry Cejudo 7:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 7:53 ... and, and being ... He goes, "He was many times better." He goes, "The, the amount of improvement that he got in just one year was just unbelievable."

Henry Cejudo 8:03 Yeah, and I think, you know, I guess you can owe that to genetics, and I, I think you can talk a lot about desire too, just having the, the-

Joe Rogan 8:08 Genetics only get you so far.

Henry Cejudo 8:10 Yeah, but, but, but it's also-

Joe Rogan 8:11 I mean, everybody at the Olympics has, has g- great genetics.

Henry Cejudo 8:15 Y- for sure, but it's almost, it almost becomes a, a, a, a mentality, um, because of, uh, philosophies. Like, you almost start doing things almost like to, to not feel the h- to not em- to not feel the, the pain of losing.

Joe Rogan 8:28 Hmm.

Henry Cejudo 8:29 Like that's a motivator. To not feel the pain of losing.

Joe Rogan 8:32 Right.

Henry Cejudo 8:32 And I remember when Demetrious Johnson hit me, hit me in the, hit me in the leg and I literally, I, I don't think people knew how severe it was. Like, I literally sprained like a, a, a, a, a, a severe low ankle sprain those first 30 seconds.

Joe Rogan 8:43 In the second fight, yeah.

Henry Cejudo 8:45 So I fought Demetrious Johnson like that. But it was, it was, to me, the motivator was like, "Man, I don't wanna feel that pain of losing no more."

Joe Rogan 8:52 Mm-hmm.

Henry Cejudo 8:52 I hate it, man. I hate feeling second place. I hate feeling kind of, kind of somebody's looking over me, someone's an- almost like a manhood challenge. (laughs) And I hate that.

Joe Rogan 9:01 Was it a low leg kick that, uh, that made your, your ankle go? Like, what was it?

Henry Cejudo 9:06 Yeah, it was, uh, there's a nerve that you have behind the, like, like the bone. It's, uh, per- uh, I think it's the-

Joe Rogan 9:11 Peroneal.

Henry Cejudo 9:12 ... perineal. Per- perip- perineal nerve.

Joe Rogan 9:14 Peroneal nerve. P-E-R.

Henry Cejudo 9:16 Yeah. And, uh, I got hit there, so it, it put my foot to sleep.

Joe Rogan 9:20 Just like when Michael Chandler, it happened to him in Bellator, same thing?

Henry Cejudo 9:23 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 9:23 Where you're stepping on it and it's just not working.

Henry Cejudo 9:26 And the pro- th- th- and the, and, and, and the reason, uh, the, the reason why everybody kind of got scared ... I mean, 'cause I wa- I was hurt, but I remember before the fight, I remem- I, I remember I saw all my cornermen, like kind of ... Before I fought Demetrious, I remember I saw them all, uh, I saw them all nervous. And I remem- I remember grabbing my cornermen and st- putting them right in front of me, and I remember telling them. I was like, "Hey, guys. I've been here before." Like, "I was ranked 31st in the world." I be- "I, I know I, I, I became a world champion in wrestling." Like, "Guys, like, yeah, I want you guys to have a little faith in me. But I'm gonna ask you guys one thing, and, uh, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask you guys, I'm gonna ask you guys to be composed." I said, "The key to winning this fight is for me to be composed." And then pretty much, there's ... Six hours later, they, uh ... Right before, you know, we walk on, they start playing my song, I look back at my corner, and I said, uh, and I said, "Guys," I said, "The key to this fight, remember," I said, "it'd be composure." So when Demetrious Johnson kicked me, like, I, I, I believed in my own philosophy. I went back to, "All right, my composure." Because I was hurt, yo. Like, he could've stopped me that, that, that first round. I was forced to switch s- southpaw, which I never fight in southpaw. You know? So now I'm kind of, uh, uh, well, me and Demetrious Johnson are playing poker. My whole philosophy and the key to this victory was the composure part. And, uh, when he hit me, I, uh, I, I really did, I was like, "Oh my God, not again, dude. Not again."

Joe Rogan 10:48 Mm-hmm.

Henry Cejudo 10:48 "I'm not gonna last two minutes and 36 seconds. Not again." But, uh, again, the motivator was not to feel the pain to lose again.

Joe Rogan 10:55 Right.

Henry Cejudo 10:56 Like, it wasn't desire to win. I was like, "I just don't wanna feel that pain anymore."

Joe Rogan 11:00 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 11:00 As a competitor, as somebody that, that, that, that's on a mission, dude, that sacrificed his life.

Joe Rogan 11:05 Explain to someone who's never experienced that before. What is that pain like? Like, you train for how many weeks, and then you fight Mighty Mouse for the title, you get stopped in the first round. What is that pain like?

Henry Cejudo 11:16 Oh, man. It's ... Uh, I think every fighter has a spirit. Like, what is a spirit? The spirit is your, your spirit is your dream. The spirit is that, that, you know, you've watched somebody become a world champion, you wanna be, "Hey, I wanna be just like that guy." Your confidence, your self-esteem, that's th- that's your spirit and it's ... You also, we also have a spirit of a warrior that's, like, the, the manhood side of it. And what happens when I got stopped with Demetrious Johnson, it's ... I almost felt like ... And I've never g- gone through this, not even in wrestling, in my life. Like, I was ... Like, my spirit was shot, and I had to kind of pick up my pieces and kind of start he- healing myself, like mentally. And I feel like ... A- a- and if you see ... And if you look at it, Joe, with somebody like Roy Jones Jr., he got knocked out one time and it became a domino effect.

Joe Rogan 12:00 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 12:01 Because he never, he never picked up those pieces. He never started healing that spirit.

Joe Rogan 12:05 Well, he got knocked down again real bad right afterwards by Glen Johnson too, remember? There's two-

Henry Cejudo 12:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:09 ... two knockouts in a row.

Henry Cejudo 12:11 Southpaw.

Joe Rogan 12:11 Mm-hmm.... you know?

Henry Cejudo 12:12 Tarver?

Joe Rogan 12:13 Yeah, Tarver KO'd him, and then right... And, and... But the thing is, there's a lot of factors involved in that loss, because I think Roy was also coming off of, uh, the John Ruiz fight where he gained a lot of weight to get up to heavyweight, and then he had to lose that weight to get down to light heavyweight again.

Henry Cejudo 12:28 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:28 So he, he was lean at heavyweight, and then all of a sudden he's dropping down to 175 pounds again. And he just looked like shit. He looked smooth. It looked like his body was all sucked in. And I just think it was a bad, bad weight cut. And, you know, and I think whatever he took to get himself up to 200 pounds too was probably out of his system. And now his body was... You know, his hormones were probably all fucked up.

Henry Cejudo 12:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 12:53 It just wasn't the same guy.

Henry Cejudo 12:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 12:54 I mean, it's... Let's be real, right? You don't-

Henry Cejudo 12:56 The weight cuts important.

Joe Rogan 12:57 You don't just grow to 200 pounds without some Mexican supplements.

Henry Cejudo 13:02 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 13:03 You know what I mean?

Henry Cejudo 13:04 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 13:04 This... Like, you know what I'm saying? I mean, it'll take a long fucking time for a 168-pound fighter to get up to 200 pounds. It takes a long time. If you wanna l- really get up to 200 pounds, like an actual 200-pound body, not just like fill yourself up with water and fat. No, to, to actually be 200 pounds the way he was-

Henry Cejudo 13:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:23 ... your body's gotta g- your body's gotta say, "Hey, man, we need to fucking grow. We got resources that need to be allocated towards muscle. We gotta, we gotta gain all this weight because we- we're, we're lifting weights all the time. We're doing things." You have to do something to get your body that heavy. So then, and all of a sudden they shut that shit off and say, "All right, now we're getting down to 175," and you got to do it in a few months. I think his body was just wrecked.

Henry Cejudo 13:46 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 13:47 Boxers don't always cut weight the right way either.

Henry Cejudo 13:50 Neither do, uh, MMA fighters.

Joe Rogan 13:52 Terribly.

Henry Cejudo 13:52 Well, particularly back in the day. There's... Which is really interesting about the approach that you guys took to this camp that you wanted to talk about, which is a very, very scientific approach towards your recovery, towards your training methods, towards everything. I mean, you, you r- you really had it dialed in as opposed to just tr- trying to wing it, which for many, many years was how almost every fighter did it. Yeah. And, and, and I think it's, uh-

Joe Rogan 14:15 Oh, we got a video. Look at this.

Henry Cejudo 14:16 I found that part where he got kicked. You can see his leg.

Joe Rogan 14:18 Oh, okay.

Henry Cejudo 14:19 Okay.

Joe Rogan 14:19 Let me see it.

Henry Cejudo 14:20 That's, uh... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:21 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 14:22 Look, um, l- look I'm trying-

Joe Rogan 14:24 Almost had a heart attack.

Henry Cejudo 14:24 Ugh. Ugh.

Joe Rogan 14:25 So it was right there, just the back of the leg like that?

Henry Cejudo 14:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:28 That is so crazy.

Henry Cejudo 14:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:30 Just one shin to the back of your leg.

Henry Cejudo 14:31 Look, look, look, I'm still flopping.

Joe Rogan 14:32 Oh, yep.

Henry Cejudo 14:32 I'm still flopping.

Joe Rogan 14:33 Yep.

Henry Cejudo 14:34 So I'm going back to that philosophy, composure. Look, I'm still flopping.

Joe Rogan 14:37 But it doesn't seem like he understands what's happened to you yet.

Henry Cejudo 14:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:40 You know, you, you, you played poker so well.

Henry Cejudo 14:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 14:45 Really interesting.

Henry Cejudo 14:46 Look, I'm still... Oh, that was horrible.

Joe Rogan 14:48 I remember, uh, soon as that happened, I did remember the Michael Chandler fight, and I remember he went on a show and said exactly what happened.

Henry Cejudo 14:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 14:55 So I told, uh, our other corner, Santino Defranco, when we get in, put ice on his knee, not his ankle, because it was the knee where it happened.

Henry Cejudo 15:04 Right.

Joe Rogan 15:04 'Cause I watched that show and I remember watching it for that reason, to wonder why... What happened to him.

Henry Cejudo 15:10 It's crazy when you watch it because it's just the foot hit the back of your knee.

Joe Rogan 15:15 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 15:16 You know? Yeah. Yeah. But-

Joe Rogan 15:16 You can see it again. I mean, it wasn't even the hardest kick in the world. He kind of caught you at the very end with his foot and immediately that nerve just went boioioioioing right there.

Henry Cejudo 15:26 Right here.

Joe Rogan 15:26 Swap, li- right there.

Henry Cejudo 15:27 Right. Barely clipped, barely clipped it.

Joe Rogan 15:28 Right, look, look, look. Ah, ah, ah.

Henry Cejudo 15:30 That shit is just boioioioing.

Joe Rogan 15:32 You know who it also happened to was, uh, Scott Jorgenson.

Henry Cejudo 15:36 Did it?

Joe Rogan 15:36 Yes.

Henry Cejudo 15:36 What fight was that?

Joe Rogan 15:37 Man, you know what? I can't remember.

Henry Cejudo 15:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 15:39 But he, he didn't win the fight, I can tell you that.

Henry Cejudo 15:41 Yeah. Anyways, it was a, a terrible feeling. Terrible, terrible feeling.

Joe Rogan 15:46 Well, you poker faced your way through it.

Henry Cejudo 15:48 B- but, but again, Joe, like, it goes back to philosophy. Like, you gotta believe in your... You got, you got to be up here. There has to be a philosophy up here. Against a guy like Demetrious, like, there's the... It's, it's beyond the physical and the, the technical stuff.

Joe Rogan 16:01 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 16:01 Like, you gotta be, you gotta be just kind of hypnotized up here.

Joe Rogan 16:05 You have to have everything, right? You have to have the physical skills, but you also have to have this, an unstoppable mindset.

Henry Cejudo 16:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:11 Now, what do... What kind of mind training do you do? Do you, do you do any visualization training or do you work with a sports psychologist or?

Henry Cejudo 16:21 Um, you know what? I, uh, I, I, I like, I like reading up on a lot of people's stories. I think people's stories are the ones that, uh, that intrigue me. You know, how, you know, how Michael Jordan rose to the top, or, uh, athletes like that. I think, I think that's the stuff that I, uh... I got like a human interest. Uh, that's kind of my motivation.

Joe Rogan 16:39 Like reading biographies and things like that?

Henry Cejudo 16:40 Yeah, reading biographies or watching, uh, watching stuff on YouTube, like, uh, you know, watching... Like even watching, even watching other sports. Like I'll, I'll watch Michael Johnson at, at times, you know, wa- watching him win the '96 Olympics.

Joe Rogan 16:52 Mm-hmm.

Henry Cejudo 16:52 Like, things like that. And, and, and watching people's celebrations and, and, uh, and trying to embrace the feeling of, of what they're feeling, you know, 'cause it becomes like an addiction, like a drug, like going through these feelings of like, "Dude, I accomplished what I, what I, what I set out to do."

Joe Rogan 17:08 Right. So you... Like seeing them accomplish these fantastic goals and visualizing yourself experiencing that exact same thing?

Henry Cejudo 17:16 Yeah, yeah. A- as corny as that sounds, yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:19 Doesn't sound corny at all.

Henry Cejudo 17:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:20 Especially not coming from the champ. You know, once you're the champ, all that corny shit's out the window. Obviously it works.

Henry Cejudo 17:26 (laughs) People start believing it. Uh, all, all of a sudden I became a 10. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:28 They believed the fuck out of it. Especially now they're coming from the champ. You know, once you're the champ, all that corny shit's out the window. Obviously it works.

Henry Cejudo 17:28 (laughs) People start believing it. Uh, all of a sudden I became a 10. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:30 Yeah, they believed the fuck out of it. Now they're talking about you possibly fighting TJ Dillashaw for the bantamweight title.

Henry Cejudo 17:37 Uh, yeah. Yeah, that's, uh-

Joe Rogan 17:38 I mean, there's talk. There's talk. You know, you just hesitated and you're like, "Hmm, yeah, yeah."

Henry Cejudo 17:43 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:43 There's negotiations? I don't know.

Henry Cejudo 17:44 Yeah, there's-

Joe Rogan 17:45 There's beef behind that. It's not just talk. He wants it. We want it. Yeah, no, I'm sure. For sure. Um, where's that at right now? Because, uh, there's a... There's gonna be a card in January out here. It was just announced.

Henry Cejudo 17:57 Oh, when did... What, what date was that?

Joe Rogan 18:00 It's the same night as the Fedor-Ryan Bader fight, which pisses me off because I wanted to go see that fight.

Henry Cejudo 18:05 Yeah. January 26th.

Joe Rogan 18:07 Yeah, that fight's going to be at the Forum, and the, uh, UFC fight, I think, is at the Staples Center.Or maybe Anaheim.

Henry Cejudo 18:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 18:15 Anaheim?

Henry Cejudo 18:16 Yep, yep.

Joe Rogan 18:16 Anaheim.

Henry Cejudo 18:17 Yep.

Joe Rogan 18:17 Anaheim in the pond.

Henry Cejudo 18:18 Oh, okay.

18:19 Both here.

Joe Rogan 18:20 Both here in California. Well, there's 20 million motherfuckers in California.

Henry Cejudo 18:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:24 Plenty of people to go around-

Henry Cejudo 18:26 Yeah, there's-

Joe Rogan 18:26 ... in terms of audience.

Henry Cejudo 18:27 Yeah. There, we've, we've, uh, I think, uh, there's been talks but it's been, you know, you know, uh, we, I don't think Ali, my manager, has really truly, like, actually sat down and talked with the UFC. I, I, I think, I think everybody wants to do it, though.

Joe Rogan 18:40 Well, it's one of two things that's gonna happen there, right? It's either, um, I mean, now that DJ has gone to ONE, um, Demetrious Johnson just left the UFC and went over to ONE FC, and, uh, ONE FC, for people who have no idea what we're talking about, is a gigantic organization in Asia. They are literally the equivalent to the UFC in Asia. And although many people in America are not aware of them, they don't know who they are, they're a huge organization overseas. Absolutely gigantic. And they do a fantastic job. They have real high-level fighters. Uh, Ben Askren was their champion. He was undefeated over there. And he had, I, I think at least one fight, maybe two fights left in his contract. I forget how many. And they made a deal, and the deal was they take Mighty Mouse and we get Ben Askren. And so that's where it's at right now. I love the deal. I love it. I love the idea of it.

Henry Cejudo 19:31 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 19:31 I mean, um, I feel like Mighty Mouse, you know, he, um, he loves the idea of starting new in a new organization and, you know, they're gonna pay that motherfucker.

Henry Cejudo 19:44 (laughs)

19:45 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:45 Pay.

Henry Cejudo 19:46 Nice.

Joe Rogan 19:47 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 19:47 All these flyweights need to get paid.

Joe Rogan 19:49 Exactly. And he also likes the mentality that that organization is operated with, which is, um, respect for the martial arts. They're not into this ... You know, what we saw with the Conor McGregor-Khabib Nurmagomedov fight, all the trash talking and all the, all the stuff that you're seeing that was becoming more and more prevalent in the UFC, you, uh, you don't see that at all at ONE FC. And that's something that, uh, Mighty Mouse is very happy with.

Henry Cejudo 20:15 Yeah, I think first, I think congratulations to the Ben Askren. I think he's, uh-

Joe Rogan 20:20 Everybody's in trouble.

Henry Cejudo 20:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:22 There's a lot of motherfuckers are in trouble-

Henry Cejudo 20:24 Yeah.

20:24 Yes.

Joe Rogan 20:24 ... when Ben Askren gets a hold of you. You're like, "Why can't I get up?" (laughs)

Henry Cejudo 20:27 Yeah, but Ben Askren's one of those guys that he's very, uh, he's a very confident, he's a very dangerous human being because he knows that. He's gonna be very confident about it.

Joe Rogan 20:37 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 20:38 And, um, I've always told people, I said, "Hey, dude, uh, maybe the best in the world is on the UFC, man."

Joe Rogan 20:44 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 20:44 "There's this, there's some dude by the name of Ben Askren-"

Joe Rogan 20:46 We've been saying his praises for years.

Henry Cejudo 20:49 "... that will take you down." (laughs) "That will take ..." People think Khabib's, uh, control's good up top. You wait till you get a, you know, four-time NCA finalist, two-time NCA champ on top of you. That's what that is.

20:59 And the 2008 Olympian, his teammate.

21:01 Yeah, and, and, and Olympian. I mean, the dude is, the dude is ... He's a bad matchup for anybody, Joe, anybody.

Joe Rogan 21:08 No, Ben Askren in ... I mean, there's a reason why he's undefeated, and he hasn't been hit in several fights.

Henry Cejudo 21:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:13 He was detailing when the last time he got hit.

Henry Cejudo 21:15 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:16 You know, I had him on the podcast 'cause I, I wanted to let people know about him. I mean, I've been a big fan of Be- fan of Ben Askren's from back when he was a Bellator champion. And if you watch his fights in Bellator against Koreshkov and-

Henry Cejudo 21:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:28 ... and Lima-

Henry Cejudo 21:29 Lima.

Joe Rogan 21:29 Lima's a beast, man.

Henry Cejudo 21:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:31 And he just dominated him, just contro- I mean, Lima fucks people up, man. Lima's a dangerous, dangerous cat.

Henry Cejudo 21:38 Very.

Joe Rogan 21:38 And Ben Askren just whoop, oh, you're on your back again. Look at that.

Henry Cejudo 21:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:42 You can't get up and you're taking punches.

Henry Cejudo 21:44 Yes.

Joe Rogan 21:44 You know, and he's, uh, it's, uh, just a different caliber of wrestling. And I've said it many, many times, and I be- I'm sure you believe it as well, it's the most important skill for MMA, is wrestling. It's a, dictates where the fight takes place. If you wanna stand up, you, you get, the guy can't take you down Chuck Liddell style. And if you wanna go to the ground, you're the one who gets to dictate where the fight takes place. That's, if you're the superior wrestler, I mean, it's the b- the best base for MMA. I really believe that.

Henry Cejudo 22:12 (clears throat) And especially a guy like Ben, 'cause I think Ben knows that his, his striking's not that good.

Joe Rogan 22:17 Right.

Henry Cejudo 22:18 So he just relies on, "This is how ... This is what I know. I do it better than anybody, and I'm gonna control you. This is ... And, and you're gonna know how I'm gonna do it." You know? So that's what, that's what makes Ben Askren dangerous.

Joe Rogan 22:28 He's so dangerous. I mean, uh, a real bad fight for him would be someone that can figure out how to keep it standing. Like, Jay Hieron gave him a real tough fight in Bellator 'cause Jay Hieron is a good wrestler and kept the fight standing.

Henry Cejudo 22:42 High school.

Joe Rogan 22:43 I forget what his, what his take on that fight was. We talked about it-

Henry Cejudo 22:46 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 22:46 ... on the podcast, but I don't think he was too happy with his training for that fight. But, you know, someone like Tyron Woodley, who's also a very good wrestler, who's a very dangerous striker, would be a tough matchup for him. But they're really frien- close friends and training partners.

Henry Cejudo 23:02 Yeah, well, this is another thing too, on, on the flip side is, uh, like, uh, Tyron's been wrestling him since for years, I think.

Joe Rogan 23:08 Mm-hmm.

Henry Cejudo 23:09 So he knows what the Ben Askren experience is, you know.

Joe Rogan 23:11 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 23:11 And that's scary.

Joe Rogan 23:12 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 23:13 I mean, people would be lucky to, you know, kinda take him down. If he really wanna give a, uh, no take downs, he wouldn't, he just wouldn't let people take him down.

Joe Rogan 23:20 Yeah. Pettis was talking about it, you know, he's saying, "Listen," this was back when Pettis was a champ, he said, "If I was forced to fight Ben Askren," he goes, "It would be a fucking terrible fight for me."

Henry Cejudo 23:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:30 He's like, "That guy would just take me down and beat the shit out of me."

Henry Cejudo 23:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:33 He's like, "That's what he does."

Henry Cejudo 23:34 If you think about it, if Ben was to win a belt, the 2008 Olympic team would have five belts. Henry gets two, DC has two, and, and, uh, Ben Askren would have one. That's five UFC belts if, if he came into the UFC and won a belt with his teammates.

Joe Rogan 23:49 Well, they are gonna open up eventually that 165-pound division, which is what Ben is shooting for. Ben would like that division. Um, you know, and if ... He said that if, you know, he had 165 and Tyron kept the welterweight title, that would be great for him. I just don't see the UFC doing a five-pound weight difference when all the other weight differences are so huge. I feel like the smart move would be 10 pounds every, every spot. 35, 45, 55, 65, 75. Like, move 70 to 75. Like, when the UFC had a light heavyweight division initially, that, that division was a 200-pound division. When Tito Ortiz first won it, I believe, it was 200-pound division and then they raised it up to 205. And I think just, uh, and they needed a 195 too, I really believe, and then probably a 225. You know, I think that would, that would round it all out, which probably will all happen eventually.

Henry Cejudo 24:42 Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting to see how that, uh, how that unfolds. But as of now, it's... Man, Askren-

Joe Rogan 24:48 She's a beast.

Henry Cejudo 24:48 Ash- Ashren's gonna be fighting for the belt pretty soon.

Joe Rogan 24:50 Well, he's calling out Darren Till. He wants to fight Darren Till-

Henry Cejudo 24:54 (laughs)

24:54 (laughs) Of course.

Joe Rogan 24:54 ... which I love. I love that fight.

Henry Cejudo 24:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:56 That is, that is a classic-

Henry Cejudo 24:57 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:57 ... striker versus grappler matchup, especially after Tyron just smashed him.

Henry Cejudo 25:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:02 I mean, uh, Tyron in the hype train-

Henry Cejudo 25:05 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:05 For Darren Till, we, we learned a lot about Darren. Darren is a sensational striker, v- very, very dangerous striker, but keeps his hands low, keeps his chin up high. And, you know, Tyron has proved himself to be really dangerous, even against elite strikers. You know, you look at the Wonderboy fights, I've said this time and time again, you look at those two fights, Wonderboy is known as being one of the best strikers to ever compete in the UFC. He's got a cra- I think it was 57 and O as a kickboxer, something fucking-

Henry Cejudo 25:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:32 ... spectacular like that.

Henry Cejudo 25:33 Crazy.

Joe Rogan 25:34 Amazing striking skills. But yet Tyron hurt him in both fights. Both fights, Tyron was the one who landed big shots and had Wonderboy badly hurt. And then you look at the, the same thing with Darren Till. Darren Till is known as being this unbelievable striker. Tyron clips him, drops him, and then strangles him.

Henry Cejudo 25:53 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 25:53 So, you know.

Henry Cejudo 25:55 It, it, it, it all changes with MMA. These guys can be-

Joe Rogan 25:57 You know.

Henry Cejudo 25:58 These guys can be, uh, the best... Even the best wrestlers, like, sometimes it d- it d- it doesn't translate to the sport. Like, it takes a, a special somebody to adapt to the sport of MMA, not just a wrestler.

Joe Rogan 26:09 Yep.

Henry Cejudo 26:09 And I think Tyron has, has adapted to his time into his right hand. Uh, you know, man, if you're able to take out two strikers like that, man, you're the real deal.

Joe Rogan 26:17 He's un-

Henry Cejudo 26:18 Then you're scary.

Joe Rogan 26:18 ... unquestionably the real deal. I'm fascinated to see, um, whether or not Nurmagomedov and, um, Ben Askren go at it.

Henry Cejudo 26:26 Oh.

26:26 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:27 That, that (laughs) , that to me-

Henry Cejudo 26:29 I think Floyd Mayweather's their next.

Joe Rogan 26:29 If I had a fight that I really... What he saying? Floyd Mayweather what?

Henry Cejudo 26:33 I heard Floyd Mayweather's (laughs) next for

26:35 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:35 Stop, stop with all that nonsense.

Henry Cejudo 26:37 I guess-

26:37 It's just what we were talking about.

Joe Rogan 26:38 That is not gonna happen.

Henry Cejudo 26:39 He has the same agent.

Joe Rogan 26:40 Listen, that ain't gonna happen.

Henry Cejudo 26:42 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:42 But that's it... But Khabib is much more of a grappler than he is a str- or, uh, than he is a striker. I mean, Conor is a striker. That, that-

Henry Cejudo 26:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:49 ... sort of made sense.

Henry Cejudo 26:50 If, if you want to talk about levels, I think, uh, Ben's, I th- I think Ben's probably the better, the better grappler.

Joe Rogan 26:58 T- who in the fuck knows? That's what I wanna see.

Henry Cejudo 27:01 No, it's-

Joe Rogan 27:01 I wanna see that fight.

Henry Cejudo 27:02 But there's, there's levels. Like, even though, like, they don't give black belts in wrestling, there's, there's, there's levels to that.

Joe Rogan 27:06 Yeah, there is levels.

Henry Cejudo 27:07 And, uh, and I think, uh, Ben Askren was one of the greatest, uh, folk style riders of all time. Like, that's how (laughs) dangerous he is.

Joe Rogan 27:13 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 27:14 He's funny too.

27:14 He's putting the best k- the best kids in the world in pretzels and submissions. They just wouldn't get out of his-

Joe Rogan 27:19 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 27:20 His... He's, he's like a boa constrictor.

Joe Rogan 27:21 But he's s- he's stunning in his ability to control guys. Like, you're like, "What the fuck, man?" Like, Koreshkov, I mean, and Lima are two great examples 'cause you look at those guys in Bellator and they just smash people. But Koreshkov has one of the craziest spinning back kick knockouts I've ever seen in my life.

Henry Cejudo 27:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:38 He sent this dude flying through the air. Did you see that? Like a couple of fights ago?

Henry Cejudo 27:43 In the Grand Prix.

27:44 Yeah, it was-

Joe Rogan 27:44 You see it?

Henry Cejudo 27:44 Yeah.

27:44 Before the Grand Prix.

Joe Rogan 27:45 Fucking nasty.

Henry Cejudo 27:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:47 He hits this dude with a spinning back kick and literally, like, launches him into space-

Henry Cejudo 27:51 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 27:51 ... and then smashes him when he goes down to the ground. I mean, you look at what Lima has been able to do to people. When the L- the Roy MacDonald fight was a very close fight. Look at this. Watch this. Look at this. Boom.

Henry Cejudo 28:01 Oh, man.

28:01 Yeah.

28:01 I forgot it was after that fight.

Joe Rogan 28:02 I mean, he launched that dude. (laughs) Is that a-

Henry Cejudo 28:05 At, uh, Boise?

28:07 Same, same.

Joe Rogan 28:07 I don't know where that was, but d- so Koreshkov, you know, if you watch the Koreshkov fight with, with Ben Askren, and it's a mauling. It's, it's, it's just a guy-

Henry Cejudo 28:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:18 ... just getting fucked up.

Henry Cejudo 28:19 (laughs)

28:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:20 That's what that fight is.

Henry Cejudo 28:21 Can I jump in here? Oh, God.

Joe Rogan 28:23 Ben Askren just dominated him, like absolutely dominated him. See, the dude tried to jump back and landed... It landed right as he was in the air. (laughs) Ouch.

Henry Cejudo 28:32 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:33 Chihuahua.

Henry Cejudo 28:34 Yeah. Uh, no, and Ben-

28:35 Oh, yeah.

28:36 And, and, and this-

28:36 Oh, yeah, and it was in Italy.

28:36 And this guy never got a punch off of Ben Askren. You know, I just, uh-

Joe Rogan 28:39 It was, it was a total domination.

Henry Cejudo 28:40 I just-

Joe Rogan 28:40 Same as the Lima fight.

Henry Cejudo 28:42 It was-

Joe Rogan 28:42 Lima crushes people, man.

Henry Cejudo 28:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:44 Lima is one of the scariest strikers. I mean, and he knocked out, uh, Koreshkov. I mean, Lima smashes people.

Henry Cejudo 28:50 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:50 But when you see Lima against Ben Askren, I mean, obviously it was a younger Lima.

Henry Cejudo 28:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 28:55 I mean, he's got more experience now, but the difference was so stunning.

Henry Cejudo 28:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:59 What do you... What is this?

Henry Cejudo 29:01 This is, uh, this is Askren Lima.

Joe Rogan 29:02 No, it's not.

Henry Cejudo 29:03 No.

29:04 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:04 No, this is two Chinese guys, bro.

Henry Cejudo 29:06 (laughs)

29:06 But it says on top.

29:06 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:06 This is not Askren and Lima. You gotta trust me.

Henry Cejudo 29:11 (laughs)

29:11 All right.

Joe Rogan 29:11 This is not Askren Lima either.

Henry Cejudo 29:13 But it's the... (laughs)

29:15 It's literally what the video says.

29:16 The video title. Yeah. Yeah.

29:17 I'm sure the video says that.

29:18 I said, Jo... But I said, "Is Joe being a bully?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:20 You gotta trust me. Those dudes are not the same guy.

Henry Cejudo 29:26 Joe, you're losing your patience, man. There it is.

Joe Rogan 29:29 There it is. There it is.

Henry Cejudo 29:30 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:31 Man.

Henry Cejudo 29:32 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:33 I mean, the, the, just the way he manhandled him, like, his wrestling is just... You see guys that are used to defending takedowns and then they find themselves on their back and you say, "Holy shit, man."

Henry Cejudo 29:44 I think he did get up-kicked here and his nose got broken.

Joe Rogan 29:47 Oh, yeah. He got cracked.

Henry Cejudo 29:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:49 I mean, he... Lima is a fucking monster, man.

Henry Cejudo 29:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:52 He's a v-

Henry Cejudo 29:53 Got to be.

Joe Rogan 29:53 ... super dangerous striker and he's huge for the weight class. You stand next to Lima, you're like, "Jesus, how do you make 170?"

Henry Cejudo 30:00 He's str- uh, he does it in the b- in the jacuzzi at the hotel. I've seen him.

Joe Rogan 30:05 Yeah. No, he's-

Henry Cejudo 30:06 It's tough.

Joe Rogan 30:06 He's struggling to make that weight. He's a big guy. But anyway, point being Ben Askren, uh, at 170. Super, super interesting fight.

Henry Cejudo 30:15 I would like to... Uh, the... Personally, the fight that I would like to see, I'd like to see him and, uh, him and, uh, Colby, Colby Covington.

Joe Rogan 30:23 Ben and Colby?

Henry Cejudo 30:23 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:24 Yeah, that would be really interesting. Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 30:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:25 I think, but isn't Colby next in line for the title? I mean, I think he's got the interim belt. If he has the interim belt-

Henry Cejudo 30:32 I'm surpri- I'm surprised they still have an interim belt.

30:33 On his way to the White House.

30:34 Though, huh.

30:35 Um-

Joe Rogan 30:35 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 30:36 Yeah, maybe it's gonna suck.

Joe Rogan 30:37 ... notice that it's in the White House. (laughs)

Henry Cejudo 30:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 30:39 He doesn't have it anymore.

Henry Cejudo 30:40 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 30:41 It's sit- in the White House. But I mean, did... They didn't strip him, did they? 'Cause d- there was some talk of stripping him because he was supposed to...

Henry Cejudo 30:48 Yeah, not that I know of. I don't think there was ever a strip, so I think they're, I think they're trying to market it. 'Cause I think as soon as you s- you get the champ-

Joe Rogan 30:53 Wikipedia here says he was the interim from June 9th to September 8th.

30:58 Oh, so they did strip him?

30:59 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 30:59 Oh, so they did strip him.

Joe Rogan 31:00 So the, the stripping was because they wanted him to fight on the Darren Till card. When Darren Till fought Tyron, they wanted him to fight Tyron. And apparently, he had gone through, you know, hard training camp. He was all busted up. He needed time to recover.

Henry Cejudo 31:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:15 So I guess they stripped him.

Henry Cejudo 31:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:17 That whole... (sighs) Man, (clicks tongue) interim titles. Interim titles are like attached with Velcro.

Henry Cejudo 31:23 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:23 They just disappear. They get yanked off you. (laughs)

Henry Cejudo 31:26 Yeah, seriously, man. It's-

Joe Rogan 31:27 They're not, they're not really, they're not really like-

Henry Cejudo 31:30 Especially that UFC 229. I mean, they all had belts. Uh, Tony Ferguson had a belt, Conor had a belt, you know. Obviously, Khabib had his belt. So you had three people walking around with belts. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 31:40 The Tony Ferguson one, to me, is a, is a shame. It's a shame that a guy gets injured and then they strip him like that. That doesn't make any sense to me. I didn't like that one.

Henry Cejudo 31:50 (smacks lips) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:50 That one bothered me. Uh, I feel like Tony should still have the interim title. I really do.

Henry Cejudo 31:55 Yeah, but that was like the third time that fight have- had fallen, right?

Joe Rogan 31:57 I know it sucks.

Henry Cejudo 31:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 31:59 But the other one wasn't his fault. The other one was Khabib. Khabib, right? Khabib was supposed to make the weight and, you know, he got-

Henry Cejudo 32:05 So it's two to, two to one. Two to one.

Joe Rogan 32:06 ... medically pulled out.

Henry Cejudo 32:06 That's a good argument. (laughs) Two to one?

Joe Rogan 32:08 Vi- how many times did Khabib pull out and how many times did Tony pull out?

Henry Cejudo 32:12 Uh.

Joe Rogan 32:12 Tony pulled out once for sure because he was injured, the last one-

Henry Cejudo 32:15 Uh-huh.

Joe Rogan 32:15 ... when th- his knee blew apart. And then Khabib definitely got yanked off the card once-

Henry Cejudo 32:19 Oh, and Khabib twice.

Joe Rogan 32:19 ... becau- the weight, the weight cut, remember?

Henry Cejudo 32:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:22 The weight cut was so bad that his kidneys were failing.

Henry Cejudo 32:24 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:25 Yeah.

32:26 Either way.

32:27 We've been there.

Joe Rogan 32:28 Yeah. Tha- that's the fight. Now, do you, do you like fighting at 35? 'Cause I know you fought at 35 for a while when you were struggling to make flyweight.

Henry Cejudo 32:36 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 32:37 You had, you had some issues early on-

Henry Cejudo 32:39 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 32:39 ... in your career where you really didn't make the weight very well.

Henry Cejudo 32:42 Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was, uh... God, I was, I was getting older, I think, in my career. I think the reason why I started having weight problems was because of, uh, I was just getting older and I was doing some crazy stuff. Like I used to cut, like my-

Joe Rogan 32:57 Keep this microphone up.

Henry Cejudo 32:57 Like I used to, I used to, uh, I used to, to cut about 16 pounds, like in, in, uh, two, two-hour sessions.

Joe Rogan 33:06 What?

Henry Cejudo 33:06 Yeah, as a, as, as a flyweight or supposed to be flyweight.

Joe Rogan 33:10 Why were you doing that?

Henry Cejudo 33:11 (laughs) Because I, I felt like, because I'm a wrestler. I think, uh, uh, my f- my whole philosophy at first when I, when I got into MMA, um, was kinda like... I, I... In wrestling, we, we would never get to see recovery. I know it's stupid. It's stupid as heck. But we wouldn't, we would, we would never get to recovery that a fighter gets. So to, to me, it was like, "Dude, I, I can, I can stretch this as, uh, as long as I can and, and, and I can suffer the day of wins, but I'm gonna recover within 24, 20, 28 hours sometimes." You know? So to me, I, I was looking at it a very... uh, uh, just at an odd way.

Joe Rogan 33:45 So did you just had-

Henry Cejudo 33:45 And it finally started catching up to me.

Joe Rogan 33:47 So you just had confidence in your body's ability to bounce back, even though you were putting it through an extraordinary amount of stress and losing massive amounts of weight really quickly?

Henry Cejudo 33:56 Yes.

Joe Rogan 33:56 But you just felt like your body could handle it.

Henry Cejudo 33:58 Yes.

Joe Rogan 33:58 You're tough.

Henry Cejudo 33:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:59 You're used to it.

Henry Cejudo 34:01 Yeah, it was, it was the whole... 'cause, you know, in wrestling, we would make weight like every, uh, every, every week sometimes. We would wrestle so much that we're, we're used to kinda like that whole, that whole struggle side of things. And then, okay, we wrestle again, we do it again.

Joe Rogan 34:14 What kind of weight cut were you talking about when you were wrestling? How much were you cutting?

Henry Cejudo 34:17 Um, uh, uh, um... and I was a lot more disciplined then, but I was probably doing about 12 pounds, but I had no fat. Like at that, at that time, I was eating just as healthy and as clean as possible, because I w- I would make weight every, every, every, you know, every three weeks I had a tournament.

Joe Rogan 34:33 You know, I had George Lockhart on, and he was explaining to me that a lot of people think that when you cut weight that, you know, like you're cutting out fat. He's like, "You're not cutting out fat. You're cutting out water, and it actually helps to, to have more muscle." Because muscle is-

Henry Cejudo 34:48 Water.

Joe Rogan 34:48 ... mostly water.

Henry Cejudo 34:49 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 34:49 So you, you're just draining out your muscles, then replenishing them, you know? When he was explaining that to me, I was like, "Ah, I never really thought about it that way."

Henry Cejudo 34:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:57 That like a guy like a Yoel Romero, who's very muscular-

Henry Cejudo 34:59 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:59 ... can actually cut more weight.

Henry Cejudo 35:02 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:03 Now, you're a pretty muscular guy for a flyweight, so you were walking around how many pounds over?

Henry Cejudo 35:08 Oh, man. I was, I was probably cutting for like maybe 20, 25.

Joe Rogan 35:12 Wow, so you're walking around like 150-

Henry Cejudo 35:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:15 ... and getting down to 25.

Henry Cejudo 35:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:16 Holy shit.

Henry Cejudo 35:17 I just, I just had loss. I just... You know, a lot of it, too, you, um, (laughs) because you fight three times a year, like you're not always, you're not always honest with your diet either, you know? Come from, coming from Mexican descent, man, we like to, we love to eat, man.

Joe Rogan 35:31 (laughs)

Henry Cejudo 35:31 You can go to my mom's house and it's, it's gonna be laid down. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 35:36 (laughs) But when you're in camp, um, how do you organize your nutrition?

Henry Cejudo 35:40 Oh, th- I'm, I'm disciplined. I have a, I have a meal prep company. They deliver my food like every three, like every three days.

Joe Rogan 35:46 And is your meal prep based on-

Henry Cejudo 35:48 Uh-

Joe Rogan 35:48 ... your suggestions to them or your recommendations and directions to them?

Henry Cejudo 35:52 Yeah, no, a, a lot of it is based on kind of... Well, uh, uh, uh, my diet's just according to kinda like my training schedule. So my, my training is very, very organized. Like now, Joe, I'm like a, uh, uh, pretty much I'm a, I'm a, I'm a professional now, I guess you could say. Like I, I, I do things, you know, the right way. I use the whole scientific route, the nutrition route, just, uh, uh, uh, almost like how Bernard Haw- Hopkins kinda... As he got older, man, he kinda changed his whole philosophy, started using science more.

Joe Rogan 36:21 Mm-hmm.

Henry Cejudo 36:21 So I think everything now in my life when I get ready for fights is all based on, it's all based on science.

Joe Rogan 36:26 How did Bernard change his training? Do you know?

Henry Cejudo 36:29 Um, a- he s- he, he just started recovering more, I think. Uh, he started using a lot of those neural stems, um, uh, hyperbaric chambers, thi- things of that matt- uh, things of that matter, and just more scientific base. Like just his whole training al- like all around.

Joe Rogan 36:43 And did you incorporate any of those methods?

Henry Cejudo 36:46 I did, I did. Actually, I ended up, uh, you know, connecting with this, uh, c- connecting with this company called, uh, Neuro Force One, you know, a science-based company. And I actually wanted to bring them in to kinda, to kinda talk about it, Joe. Because this right here, man, just changed my wh- my whole philosophy with talking about the whole weight co- how, how, the whole wei- uh, weight, 'cause how I struggle to, to how my t- whole training has changed because of, because of, because of science.

Joe Rogan 37:09 Hmm.

Henry Cejudo 37:10 And a, a science that's very, uh, that (laughs) a science that's very, uh, I guess, complex, you could say. You gotta have, like, the right people, man, like, dictating your schedule.

Joe Rogan 37:20 So, when you set up a training camp like this, how far in advance do you sit down and work out all the details?

Henry Cejudo 37:28 It's almost like the, the morning that we wake up is what we know we're gonna do.

Joe Rogan 37:32 Right. But how, like, say if you know you have a fight in July, when would you start preparing for that and when do you sit down and map everything out?

Henry Cejudo 37:39 Well, we try to map things out maybe about three months in advance, kinda like a preparation in, uh, to leading to the camp. And that's kinda like the phase that we're on now. Like, now we're on, like, you know, if I fight, if it is that I fight in January, it's almost like our, our schedule is like, there, there's, there's, there's a pre-test to the big test.

Joe Rogan 37:56 So tomorrow's November 1st, so if you were getting ready for a fight in January, you would start ramping up somewhere around now?

Henry Cejudo 38:03 Yeah, but it would, it would, it would be more of a ... yeah. It, it would, I think the first, the first month leading up to the next eight weeks would be, a lot of it would be, uh, technical and tactical, just working on those p- particular areas that we're b- that we believe we're gonna be in.

Joe Rogan 38:18 So you're not doing anything crazy, strength and conditioning-wise, you're not trying to break your body down?

Henry Cejudo 38:23 No, no. Because it's all, it's all a learning phase at that point, you know? Working the body, get- preparing the body with a lot of body motion, movements and things of that matter. Kinda just bringing more circulation to certain parts of my body than, rather than, you know, uh, somebody picking up a kettlebell and throwing it and, and, and crazy things like that. Like, like, i- i- i- it's all, it's all sports, uh, specific.

Joe Rogan 38:44 Right, right.

Eric Albarracin 38:45 Range of motion.

Joe Rogan 38:47 So how do you organize this? Like, how d- what- who are y- what is the team of people that you use, and, like, who's responsible for what?

Henry Cejudo 38:54 Yeah, well, well like I said, I think, uh-

Joe Rogan 38:55 'Cause you got a whole crew in the back people don't know.

Henry Cejudo 38:58 (laughs) The m- the men-

Joe Rogan 38:59 Captain America's with you, but you g- you get the rest of the Avengers are all waiting in the waiting room.

Henry Cejudo 39:03 Yeah, the, the, the-

Eric Albarracin 39:04 You know, we fir- I was gonna say, we first found him when, uh, he hurt his hand and he had to rehab it. Hold on, let me get this off.

Henry Cejudo 39:10 Oh, see, it's going in layers. It's going in layers, Joe.

Eric Albarracin 39:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 39:13 I told you, layers.

Eric Albarracin 39:13 So he had hurt his hand before, uh, um, he- his first fight with Sergio Pettis, and I was trying to find any way for him to still compete, and we found somebody using this machine which led us to actually Neuro Force One and Kareem and all these guys. And we tried to force it for him to get back in time, and y- I have video of him just screaming in pain, trying to get there. And we thought, we stayed off it for a couple weeks, and then the w- the day of, uh, the face-off, he went to cut weight and he said his wrist kept slipping out and we had to pull him from the fight. He went to see the doctor, doc- doctor said it's n- no way, shouldn't fight. So then-

Joe Rogan 39:52 What was the injury?

Eric Albarracin 39:53 Uh, I think it was a b- it ended up being something with-

Henry Cejudo 39:57 Henrik?

Eric Albarracin 39:57 ... a sprained ligament.

Henry Cejudo 39:58 Yeah, I think it was, uh, I had sprained, like, uh, one of my ligaments in my hand, so there was just, there was nothing I could do. Like, I would, I would, I would open the cap bottle for the, for, uh, you know, to kinda, to brush my teeth and, uh, like, it, when it hurt to that point I'm just like, "Man, I, I, I can't do anything." So then I, th- you know, I ended up, uh, they ended up at- Eric here ended up connecting me with, with Neuro Force and found out that they had, like, these certain machines that help you heal faster.

Joe Rogan 40:26 And what do the machines do?

Eric Albarracin 40:28 Accelerated recovery. So it was like neuro stim and they have about a thousand programs on it, and it just forced him to, to recover a lot faster. The, the best example was UFC fighter, Pantoja. He was on The Ultimate Fighter 24 with us, our number one seed that we picked, Alexandre Pantoja. I saw him blow f- three ligaments out of his elbow and he started crying 'cause he had a fight in eight weeks in Ireland, no Scotland. And, um, I said, "No, no, no. Don't go home tomorrow." He was supposed to be going back home to Brazil and I said, "No, no, no. Let's try this. You gotta try it." And they did it twice, two sessions a day for 10 days, and he went back and he f- and he fought. He fought that guy and beat him. He rear naked choking that guy, Neil Seery-

Joe Rogan 41:13 Wow.

Eric Albarracin 41:13 ... and put that guy in retirement. So after that, I was like, "We're g- we need these guys." Henry, whatever these guys did to Pantoja, whatever they're- we need to do it for you.

Henry Cejudo 41:23 So when a guy-

Eric Albarracin 41:23 And that's how it started.

Joe Rogan 41:24 When a guy gets injured like that and you're, you're still going through camp, how do you work around that injury? You just say, "Okay, there's nothing squeezing, nothing where you're putting any strain on those ten- tendons, nothing where you're doing anything with that hand that's gonna reinjure it?"

Henry Cejudo 41:37 I think you just have to hope for somebody to wrap it very well. That they're y- like, you're screwed.

Joe Rogan 41:42 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 41:42 And having, like, a hand injury is, like, the, probably the worst injury you could have. I mean, we, we eat with these hands, you know?

Joe Rogan 41:47 Right.

Henry Cejudo 41:48 This is our ... this is how we survive.

Joe Rogan 41:51 Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 41:52 And when you have an injury like that, there's ... you're gonna be fighting with the other. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:56 Do you remember, uh, when Urijah Faber fought Mike Brown?

Henry Cejudo 41:59 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 41:59 And broke both hands?

Henry Cejudo 42:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:01 And just started throwing elbows?

Henry Cejudo 42:02 Just was slapping them. Pow, pow.

Joe Rogan 42:04 He just didn't give in for a second.

Henry Cejudo 42:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:06 That's how tough that motherfucker is.

Henry Cejudo 42:08 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:08 Two broken hands, he's trying to find a way to win.

Henry Cejudo 42:10 Yeah, it's miserable.

Eric Albarracin 42:11 That's a, you know, it was a title fight too.

Joe Rogan 42:14 Yep, yep.

Eric Albarracin 42:15 They do amazing things for title fights.

Joe Rogan 42:17 In a rematch. Yeah.

Henry Cejudo 42:18 No, but I, I, I want, I wanted to bring in, uh, Joe, if you'll allow me. I'm, uh, 'c- because I'm honored, man, and I think, uh, I think, uh, I'd li- I, I brought them in, Joe, 'cause I want them to kinda share, uh, you know, kinda like the new age stuff. Like, something that's just taking over the top.

Joe Rogan 42:32 Mm-hmm.

Henry Cejudo 42:33 So Ke- k- uh, Kevin or, if you can hear me, come on-

Joe Rogan 42:35 Oh, he can't. There's a bit long delay. There's like a 30 second delay. You can go grab him if you want to.

Eric Albarracin 42:40 Okay, I'll grab him.

Henry Cejudo 42:41 Yeah, go grab him, Captain.

Joe Rogan 42:43 He's gonna come back with a new layer removed.

Eric Albarracin 42:46 (laughs)

Henry Cejudo 42:46 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:46 He's gonna come back with a cape.

Henry Cejudo 42:47 He's gonna come back naked. (laughs)

Eric Albarracin 42:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:49 Uh, we don't have another microphone, no, unfortunately, so he's gonna have to take your spot-

Henry Cejudo 42:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:52 ... 'cause there's not, not another microphone.

Henry Cejudo 42:54 ... (laughs) what do you think of Captain America, man?

Joe Rogan 42:56 When we use a fourth microphone, we actually have to set it up and it's not up right now.

Henry Cejudo 43:00 Hey, Joe, what do you think of Captain America here? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:01 He's hilarious. I think that weed got to him.

Henry Cejudo 43:06 (laughs) Oh, man. You know how you are with, uh, uh, um, with Eddie? That's kinda how, how he, uh, how I am with him, you know?

Joe Rogan 43:15 With Captain America?

Henry Cejudo 43:16 It's that- it's that- no, it's that certain relationship. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 43:18 Yep, yep. Hey, man. That helps. How are you, sir? Welcome.

Kevin Longoria 43:21 Good. How're you doing, Joe?

Joe Rogan 43:22 Push up, tell everybody who you are.

Kevin Longoria 43:23 I mean, I'm Kevin Longoria. I am the Chief Science Officer for NeuroForce1.

Joe Rogan 43:27 There you go.

Kevin Longoria 43:27 And then I'm a neurophysiologist as well, so-

Joe Rogan 43:30 Keep this about, like, a fist from your face.

Kevin Longoria 43:31 Okay.

Joe Rogan 43:32 So, um, tell us what your role was in camp and, uh, what- what you did to- to help him get ready.

Kevin Longoria 43:39 Cool. Yeah, so, uh, NeuroForce1 is a neuroscience-based training company and a medical-grade diagnostic testing company as well.

Joe Rogan 43:46 Where you guys out of?

Kevin Longoria 43:47 Uh, we're out of Scottsdale, Arizona. So, what we really, uh, focus on, which a lotta companies aren't talking about, is the role of the gut and the mind in conjunction with your physical training. So, essentially what we do is we start off with a really comprehensive baseline assessment. We wanna run them through everything. So, the traditional functional threshold powers, autonomic nervous system, DC brain potentials. And really what you wanna do is you wanna put somebody on a- on a normal curve.

Joe Rogan 44:08 What is a DC brain potential?

Kevin Longoria 44:10 DC brain potential is a- a- (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:11 It's like, you wanna be like Daniel Cormier.

Kevin Longoria 44:13 Yeah, sounds like. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:13 You gotta get that DC brain potential. (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 44:15 We all wanna be a little bit like DC, but, uh, basically it's a- an objective measurement of your central nervous system. So you can actually- your central nervous system is basically the data aggregator, if you will, so it has to take information from your metabolic systems, your autonomics, kinda coordinate things like neuromuscular and the me- metabolic efficiency. That's kind of the- the data center, if you will. So this is a measurement of- of potential, basically how much energy you have in the- in the central nervous system to go coordinate neuromuscular and metabolic efficiencies, which is really what we focus on. So-

Joe Rogan 44:43 And so is this on, like, a chart? Are you getting it- like, i- is there a number reading that you're getting? Like, what is it that-

Kevin Longoria 44:50 Correct. Specifically for DCs, it's going to be in millivolts, and then you just compare that to normative ranges. But most importantly what it is is trending data over time. This is an assessment that we would do on Henry every single morning. It's a home test kit. We really believe in just collecting as much data as possible and trending data. That way when you see a ch- a change, essentially you get predictability in terms of, you know, today's a no-go day because central nervous system is diminished. We're just gonna be going through the motions. We're not gonna make physiological adaptations, uh, and your inflammation is really high, no-go because we're not gonna go risk injury when we can't make adaptations. So this is a measurement we would do every single morning where we can look at autonomic nervous system, which is basically things like recovery, sympathetic, parasympathetic balance, DC brain potentials, and metabolic systems.

Joe Rogan 45:32 And what is- what is measuring all these things? Is there a device? Is it a...

Kevin Longoria 45:36 Yeah, yeah. This is a pretty amazing device. We actually, uh, got it from the UFC Performance Institute, you know, shout out to those guys, Clint, Bo, and Roman over there. Um, set us up with this technology. It's a- basically a chest strap that does heart rate variability, so time and frequency domain analysis, and then it does DC brain potentials. So a little sticker right here on your forehead, uh, basically four minutes you just kinda relax and we collect pretty amazing data and it breaks it down into four different categories, what's called windows of trainability. So it says today we should focus on strength and power or skill acquisition based on metabolic readiness, autonomic readiness, and DC brain potentials. So what is our body primed to go do today? 'Cause if you're not primed, your n- nervous system doesn't have the energy, you're just gonna be going through the motions.

Joe Rogan 46:18 So you are sort of there to dictate when it's gonna be a hard day, when it's gonna be an easy day?

Kevin Longoria 46:23 Correct, yeah. And that's something as you- I'm sure you guys know, in wrestling it's- it's always hard, always let's go. Um, so this was, uh, a little bit of an issue in the camp at the very beginning, if you could imagine. Henry wakes up, it's a sparring day, we're maybe even supposed to do two a days. He wakes up feeling really good and nervous system is outta whack. It's like, "Sorry, man, I know you feel good, but you're not, you know, not le-"

Joe Rogan 46:43 Wow.

Kevin Longoria 46:44 Yeah, so we would go a no-go that day and, you know, a- as you could see i- it all worked out in the long run, so-

Joe Rogan 46:49 Well, it worked out fantastic, but was that weird for you to feel good and then to be told you gotta chill out?

Henry Cejudo 46:55 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was, uh... and it almost takes a while to kinda adapt, but I started- as I started recognizing, like, my body change and how I felt in sparring and how d- and how kinda I- I just felt recovered, I was like, "God, this is- this is crazy." Like, I- I didn't run at all this whole camp.

Joe Rogan 47:12 So do you get a baseline off of this? Eric, you gotta stop moving around. You're freaking me out.

Henry Cejudo 47:16 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:17 He's doing hand signals back there, like he's-

Kevin Longoria 47:18 He's freaking me out as well. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:18 ... translating for the deaf people.

Henry Cejudo 47:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 47:20 So, uh, do you do a- a baseline on this before you get started, and then you, as before camp gets started, and then when camp starts ramping up, then you start measuring all the various details?

Kevin Longoria 47:31 Correct, yeah. So we do a comprehensive baseline assessment including the omega wave as well as, you know, six or eight hours of other testing, everything that you could think of under the sun. Then we put together, uh, basically columns of this is what you're suboptimal at, this is what you're average at, this is what you're really damn good at. So basically what we wanna do is exploit your functional strengths, it's what you're good at, but then we also want to focus on your functional deficiencies. In a sport like MMA, we also sometimes have the advantage of looking at your opponent and making certain assumptions in terms of their weaknesses, their strengths. Going against somebody like DJ, you don't- you don't really have that advantage. So what we really needed to focus on is what Henry's really good at, his ground game. You look, you know, we're doing nervous system assessments while he's on the ground. His sparring partners, their stress systems are going like crazy, he's calming down 'cause this guy likes to be on the floor rolling around. So we pinpoint these little strategic def- uh, def- uh, strengths and deficiencies and then we target all of his, uh, nutrition supplementation. A big thing that we focus on is nutrient timing, something that's not really talked about as well. But when you're talking about gut health and, you know, recovery, managing the- the hormones associated with exercise, you gotta be getting in the right nutrients in your- your energy, anabolic, and growth phases. So-

Joe Rogan 48:39 So for nutrient timing, you're talking about, like, when you're actually eating and what you're eating? So you're planning that out as well?

Kevin Longoria 48:44 100%, yes. We put together a nutrition program and because training varies every morning, we're deciding what we're gonna do for the day. It's completely dynamic. So we're kinda reinventing the game of periodization and programming because you can't give somebody an eight-week plan. You have to check every single day. This is how you stay very dynamic and you avoid plateaus and just the issues, you know, 'cause it's always gonna lead to suboptimal performance if you're programming out. So every day we adjust, you know, we're doing this intensity of training, we did a VO2 max assessment so we know exactly how much glycogen you're burning at various, uh, levels of intensity. We do heart rate tracking during your training. All right, this is exactly what you have to replace following. So I'm standing on the sidelines, you know, after every practice mixing up-... custom supplements for him as well. So this is something-

Joe Rogan 49:27 Like, what, what kind of stuff?

Kevin Longoria 49:28 Um, you know, we have our own supplement line right now. Um, frankly, not because the world needed another supplement line. It's, it's not really what our goal was. Um, in, in sports like this, you have to be so careful what you put in these guys' body. Uh, so we just went the route of going GMP certified, WADA-USADA approved on everything we do. Um, eventually, we wanna, you know, try and work with a badass company 'cause we're not... We don't wanna be in the supplement game. For us, it was just quality control. Um, so, uh, being a nervous system based company, obviously we're doing things like Omega-3 DHA's, BCAA's, you know, to, to maintain, put on a little bit of muscle. Um, we do a lot of... Big one that I believe in is, is the generation you can, the super starch. Very good without a big glycemic, you know, big insulin response, but very good at replenishing your glycogen stores following to minimize cortisol and inflammatory responses and things like that. So, um, every day it's a little bit different, but, uh, yeah, we ended up going with our own line. And one of the biggest things that we, we never really talk about in the fight as well is the, the role that gut health plays. So, that's something Henry does year round, regardless of when we're fighting is, take our line which is called Freedom Cleanse Restore. And this is world renown, um, you know, u- utilized by university researchers all, all around the world right now. And basically it's all just about restoring good gut bacteria, prebiotics, probiotics, and lymphatic cleansing. And this is gonna be something, um, that really played a big role in his weight cut as well. I- it's kind of a missing link that athletes aren't talking about. But good gut health is gonna help with serotonin production, so recovery, relaxation, mood. You know, production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, so our, our nervous system can make these adaptations and learn new skills and things along these lines. So this is something, you know, in my opinion, a, a big reason why, uh, you know, he had the issue with DJ the first time around. Henry, Henry will tell a story like, he, he had gut inflammation so bad that people would say, "Good luck," before the fight, tap his gut and, and that hurt him. You know, that's not normal and that all goes back to the issues associated with weight cutting, as we were talking about a little bit.

Joe Rogan 51:18 Mm-hmm.

Kevin Longoria 51:19 But, uh, getting that gut health right, no inflammation, and, and that goes a long way.

Joe Rogan 51:23 Now, h- how long have you guys been in business for?

Kevin Longoria 51:25 Uh, we've only been in business for about eight months. We're, we're still very new. Um, been working with Henry a little bit longer than that. Um, but yeah, thi- this company's just getting off the ground. We, we kind of rebranded a few months ago. Just opened our first facility as well out in Scottsdale.

Joe Rogan 51:37 What, what is your background in?

Kevin Longoria 51:39 Um, I'm a, I'm a physiologist. I op- opened the first mobile medical grade diagnostic testing company in Arizona. So basically, I, I would have these diagnostics, and largely it was trying to, trying to fix the healthcare system a little bit, you know. Uh, we, we want individualized solutions. We want data-driven outcomes, right? You want quantifiable progress, so people wanna feel good about what they're doing. But maybe a doctor can't afford a... This big ass metabolic cart or they don't know how to use it. So what I did is, I purchased this equipment, hired technicians, and we would bring it mobile. You know, technology's getting smaller and more mobile, so this was my idea of, of how I would go make my little dent in the healthcare system. Um, you know, there were issues with scalability in terms of finding good technicians. But the goal is just to go out there and provide data-driven solutions, right? We, we live in a world of, of subjectivity, guesswork, a very punishment-oriented fitness system where it sucks to start working out. You, you typically gain weight if you're doing the right stuff 'cause you're getting hydrated. You go get injured, you know. The goal is to redefine how we assess people so that we can find these little, little tweaks for positive reinforcement, and that's, uh, goes a long way with healthcare as well as fitness.

Joe Rogan 52:42 So are you guys mostly working with civilians? Are you working with pro athletes or...

Kevin Longoria 52:47 Uh, right now we're in the research and development phase so we're really only working with guys like, uh, Henry, Victoria, Anthony, uh, a very badass wrestler we're working with right now as well. Um, just some amazing people, uh, largely for research and development. We, we trade them the training for the data. You know, he, he-

Joe Rogan 53:01 And how'd you guys get together?

Kevin Longoria 53:03 Uh, we've been working with Henry about a year. He... I... He knew our CEO, Karim Amin, uh, a great guy. We've kind of all circle around Karim. He brought us all together. Um, but uh, you know, he came in probably about eight months ago, for a little bit before the first camp and we met, talked, and, you know, Henry was straight up. He's like, "Man, y- you know your stuff but y- you don't know MMA." So I took that, you know, personally. We, you know, spent a lot of time together. I had to learn the sport. I'm a physiologist not an MMA physiologist. So we really took the time to get to know each other, you know, hang out a lot now. I, I got to go to his house and wake him up every day for eight weeks, so that was-

Joe Rogan 53:37 (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 53:37 ... we got to know each other pretty well. You know, I'd do his meal preps and stuff.

Joe Rogan 53:39 Too, too much. (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 53:41 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:41 Yeah. That's a fantastic combination though, a guy like you who knows so much about the body and recovery and a, a real super high level Olympic gold medalist athlete. I mean, when you get that combination, I mean, that is, that's really a dream for a guy like you and for a guy like you, like, for both of you guys to come together like this-

Kevin Longoria 54:00 Yeah, man.

Joe Rogan 54:01 ... I understand why you wanted to bring him on as well. (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 54:04 Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, I, I-

Joe Rogan 54:05 If you understand half, if you understand half of it... (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 54:08 I don't.

Joe Rogan 54:09 (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 54:09 I can pretend. I'll go, "Yeah, yeah. The DC Mind thing."

Joe Rogan 54:12 Mm-hmm.

Kevin Longoria 54:12 That, yeah-

Joe Rogan 54:12 (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 54:13 ... that shit's important.

Joe Rogan 54:14 (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 54:14 But no, I mean, I, I, I do feel, uh, honored and blessed to be able to work with somebody like Henry. He, he's the hardest working guy out there, and, and of course the hard work goes a long ways, but man, this guy's a genetic freak as well. I've, I've had the ability to test Olympic athletes, um, uh, many other sports as well. This guy makes adaptations faster than anybody. He came off a, you know, 12 weeks, 8, 16 weeks maybe of not training. VO2's already in the high 60s. Functional threshold powers that would go compete with the, you know, world class Ironmen that I'm training and things as well.

Kevin Longoria 54:44 And then, I mean, we, we did some amazing stuff. If you looked at the body composition changes that we did in seven weeks, it wasn't even a full eight-week camp, um, he put on 4.2 pounds of skeletal muscle mass, like good mass, which as a physiologist, I would call bullshit on if I didn't see it with my own two eyes. Um, but-

Joe Rogan 55:00 That's pretty incredible.

Kevin Longoria 55:01 Yeah, incredible. And, and, you know, Henry will tell you, he maybe picked up weights like three or four times. We don't really do traditional strength training because, you know, a lot of people just... It, it's called vector based training so a lot of people do things like squats and dead lifts. This is an axial plane, like, we don't live in this up and down plane, so we break it down by vector. What angles does he need to exert and absorb force in very effectively? And very rarely does that come down to actually utilizing weights.... we do things like positional isometrics and eccentric training and things along these lines. Number one, they integrate with the nervous system very effectively.

Joe Rogan 55:33 Isometrics?

Kevin Longoria 55:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:34 Like-

Kevin Longoria 55:34 Positional isometrics.

Joe Rogan 55:35 Like, what kind of, uh, like planks?

Kevin Longoria 55:37 Um, I mean, that's, that's kind of a low-level of it. Yeah. Largely what you would wanna do is like a biomechanical assessment and look at overactive and underactive muscles. Then you put them in very specific positions and you leverage what's called recip- reciprocal inhibition. So basically, in, uh, the most basic term, like, when I'm flexing my bicep, my tricep is relaxing. So you'd hold certain positions so that you wanna turn on certain muscles and kinda turn off other ones. It's kind of a, a high level of, of PNF stretching, proprioreceptive neuromuscular facilitation. So this is what would be done in, like, a PT office.

Joe Rogan 56:07 So, uh, in, in, like, uh, for wrestling, like, what kind of exercises would you do that would inco- incorporate those methods?

Kevin Longoria 56:15 I mean, wrestling is, you know, largely a torsional sport.

Joe Rogan 56:17 Mm-hmm.

Kevin Longoria 56:18 So when it comes to wrestling, we do things like, like Kaiser, like pneumatic compressions and things like that. So instead of using weights, we use air pressure, basically. It's very smooth, very low risk of injury, and they live in this, um, this torsional plane. So you do a lot of transverse plane and we do a lot of velocity-based training as well. Actually, really interesting, uh, study that was published recently, uh, they had a lot of guys working out for a full year. Some only did velocity, never actually picked up a weight. The other ones did traditional strength training. The people who did velocity-based training, no, no actual weight training, got stronger with less muscular hypertrophy. I mean, they didn't get as big, but they were stronger at the end of the day. So when you look at something like wrestling and MMA where you gotta make a low weight, but you wanna be as strong as possible, you know, velocity-based training is kinda the way of the future. So this is kinda our general gym concept that we're building right now is, is, you know, the gym of the future may not need weights. You know, we're gonna be next door to these CrossFit gyms where they're throwin' all these weights over their head, gettin' injured. We're next door, empty gym and people are getting stronger. That's, that's kinda the, the gym of, of the future the way we see it.

Joe Rogan 57:18 How would you define velocity-based training?

Kevin Longoria 57:21 Um, so basically what you wanna do is it's kinda like the new one rep max. We all know one rep maxes aren't the safest thing to perform, right? Um, so you would, uh, there's different assessments. Actually, what I'm wearing here on my wrist right now, this is the wearable tech of the future. This is something we're testing right now. This does velocity. So I could stand in any position. I could do a, a push press or I could do a punch, and this is gonna measure my velocity. Your max velocity at no weight would be your one rep max velocity, basically. And then you're going and you're doing your training. So max velocity every single rep. When you hit 20% damping, so say I was at 10 meters per second. As soon as I hit eight meters, eight meters per second, I stop. So this is kinda what they call fatigue. So you stop that. So instead of doing, you know, you're gonna do eight reps, you do as many reps as you can until you reach a certain damping of velocity.

Joe Rogan 58:04 And what are you doing them with? Like-

Kevin Longoria 58:06 Um, largely things like the Kaiser, the functional trainer-

Joe Rogan 58:09 Mm-hmm.

Kevin Longoria 58:09 ... if you're familiar with that.

Joe Rogan 58:10 So you're just blasting?

Kevin Longoria 58:11 Band work. Yeah, things like that. I mean, very rarely we'll throw, like, you know, Indian clubs and things like that in there as well. So it all depends on the sport and what we're focusing on that day, you know, metabolic readiness, things along those lines. But it's all just about training in the right vectors and, and being able to not only put out force, but absorb force as well, which nobody really talks about. Now, if you look at largely other professional sports, all these injuries are happening in the deceleration phase. So when people are trying to slow down, this is absorbing force. This is kinda similar to some of the, the pieces that just aren't trained in MMA as well. You guys gotta be able to absorb force just like you put it out.

Joe Rogan 58:45 Now, when you me- this wrist thing that you're wearing, it measures velocity. So how is it doing that?

Kevin Longoria 58:51 Um, so basically I have one here and then I have one on my shoe as well. So it can do... By using two sensors, it can measure relative velocity. So it's reading one relative to the other. This is also doing, uh, everything that a, a badass traditional wearable would do as well. So it's doing my heart rate, heart rate variability, which is actually clinical grade. Everything we do has gotta be clinical grade 'cause what's the point of collecting data if it's shit, right?

Joe Rogan 59:12 Right.

Kevin Longoria 59:12 Um, and then it does pulse oximetry, so I'm looking at my oxygen saturation. Uh, the next version is gonna be able to do hydration, all kinds of badass stuff. What's really cool about it as well is it can measure form. Any exercise that you're doing, we can compare you essentially to an ideal form. And because we have two, you don't even have to tell it you're doing a power clean. It can read your motions and things like that, and it gives you, like, a, a consistency number as well. So we... One thing we really talk about is, is not building muscle on top of dysfunction. We have to get your biomechanical patterns right first, and then we start putting muscle on. If you just put muscle on top of dysfunction, you're faci- facilitating further dysfunction.

Joe Rogan 59:48 Would you have to wear one of those on each hand?

Kevin Longoria 59:50 Um, I mean, I'd say the, the f- ideally for someone like a fighter, you obviously are throwing with both hands. Um, I, I think it would be ideal. Um, it's, it's really difficult to time sync multiple devices to be on the same timeline.

Joe Rogan 1:00:02 Yeah.

Kevin Longoria 1:00:02 So that's something we're working with this company, a- amazing company actually outta here, outta LA, to develop this thing right now. So that, I would say that would be the goal. It's, it's not something that's gonna be applicable to the, the average guy, though, as well. This- we're, we're trying to bring this type of training to everybody.

Joe Rogan 1:00:15 Would it be possible instead of, uh, time syncing it, you have a left and a right computer, like two different computers that are reading data, both on- one off the left, one off the right, so you don't have to coordinate them, you just look at the, the various data?

Kevin Longoria 1:00:27 Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, you still would have to sync them, you know. So the, the thing there, you'd be collecting it in two different sets of hardware, you'd want an API connectivity, put it up in the cloud, and then you'd still at the end of the day have to find the same time axis. So it, it sounds simpler than it really would be. That's why this is the only wearable in the world right now that has even one in the foot. And so this also allows you to track your gait while you're running and things as well, but the more devices, the more complex and, and, you know. That- that's something I, I think would be great, but maybe not a- applicable to everybody.

Joe Rogan 1:00:54 Is it going to be able to track martial arts moves? Like, will it be able to track a double leg takedown or a roundhouse kick or anything like that?

Kevin Longoria 1:01:01 Right now, you can program it to do anything, um. You, you put it into a kind of, like, a learning mode on, on your app. You do a few motions, you name it, and then it can, can basically compare you to yourself in that mode. So you can try and do perfect form and measure your form relative to yourself. But if you have shitty form, you're comparing yourself to-

Joe Rogan 1:01:18 Shitty form.

Kevin Longoria 1:01:18 Exactly. So-

Joe Rogan 1:01:19 Yeah. So it doesn't know any better.

Kevin Longoria 1:01:20 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 1:01:20 Yeah.

Kevin Longoria 1:01:20 So what we're doing right now, um, which, which will be a little bit of a lengthy process, is defining a library of perfect form for everything that you could think of. And then this, you know, this is going to unlock telehealth and teletraining. When you have something like that, we can do remote programming and, and have-... m- b- you know, be monitoring people's neuromuscular function, their biomechanics completely remotely. So that's, that's really what we're going towards.

Joe Rogan 1:01:40 Wow, this is fascinating stuff, man. You know, there's always been a several aspects to getting a fighter ready for camp. There's always been their skillset, what, what they're good at, um, specific training for that one individual opponent that they're gonna face.

Kevin Longoria 1:01:54 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:01:54 And then, all the strength and conditioning. And, uh, you know, it's usually thought of as, you know, weights and sprints and plyos and... a- and all these different things. But I feel like this is probably the next step, the next step measuring all of your... all these variables that you're talking about and, and seeing how your body is at any given time so that you're not just guessing whether you're peaking. You're scientifically peaking.

Kevin Longoria 1:02:18 Exactly, man.

Joe Rogan 1:02:19 (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 1:02:19 I mean, there's, there's just no room for guesswork and subjectivity, you know, at this level. And, and technology doesn't... d- there's no need for it anymore, so we're just trying to let people know shit like this is available, right? So we're developing it, and then the end goal is just to make it extremely user-friendly, right? So you're doing your, your true velocity-based training, and it says stop, and then you rest, and we're using your heart rate variability to tell you when to go again. So like, you know, it's easy to stop and go for your, for your periodization and things like that. So the, the technology is here. Now making it, you know, actionable rec- recommendations for the individual that can understand is, is kinda what we're moving towards.

Joe Rogan 1:02:52 This is awesome stuff, man.

Kevin Longoria 1:02:53 Thank you. Yeah, we're really passionate about what we're doing.

Joe Rogan 1:02:55 It's, it's crazy that you've only been around for such a short amount of time too, and yet you already have a world champion.

Kevin Longoria 1:03:00 Oh, I know, man.

Joe Rogan 1:03:00 (laughs)

Kevin Longoria 1:03:01 I mean, I feel, you know, there, there's times where you feel like you didn't deserve the opportunity because I'm, I'm new to the field, you know. We obviously work our asses off and everything. But the... for Henri to put the faith into us, you know. This was a world champion camp. We're a company... Also, we're not even open yet. We're... this is, you know, probably have one of the best accelerations for a company that's never seen the light of day, ever. Um, you know, we also run a few other sports as well. But yeah, for him to give us this opportunity and... You know, we felt like we, we owed him something, so we, we worked extra hard to essentially put our entire company on hold for eight weeks to, to go help him out, and, you know, it, it's paying dividends, obviously. We're here right now, so yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:03:34 Now, are you guys gonna be open to the general public, say, the, the, the average girl or guy who does, say, jujitsu tournaments and wants to get in the best shape of their life? Is... a- are you gonna have products for them and, and, and a service where they can sign up for something like that?

Kevin Longoria 1:03:49 Certainly. Right now, we are already open in terms of, of diagnostic testing. So you can come in. Uh, based on your sport, your goal, whatever it may be, we do have customized diagnostic packages 'cause some assessments just aren't applicable to some people. So we customize your assessment. We basically tell you what you're good at, what you're bad at. Then, if you want to, you know, develop a program, that's a little bit of an upcharge. The, the real goal there is to be able to do completely remote training, completely in-house training, and then any level of hybrid training as well. So right now, you know, what the world needs is the diagnostic testing, the data. We're already ready to do that. What we're building now is the processes of being able to use data, put it into recommendations, and then scale that. I- it's hard to teach somebody, you know, everything that I do, so we're building the, you know, the, the softwares to essentially replicate ourselves. Like, my, my buddy in the other room, Andre Hicks, one of the best strength and conditioning coaches in the world, these guys will attest to it, um, you, you can't teach people what he knows, so we have to, like, code this into a software, a lot of if-then type stuff. And then this is, uh, able to be scalable to everybody. We wanna provide this training, uh, to, to people, you know, the average joe trying to lose weight, you know, the, the weekend warrior, the, the jujitsu, everything, man. We, we wanna be able to provide this to everybody. Everybody deserves this type of training that's minimal risk of injury, high-yield return, efficient. That, that's what everyone's looking for, and that's, that's why, you know, the people are getting fatter. There's, there's no good positive reinforcement out there, and there's no clear roadmap of how to get to where you wanna be. You know, we, we put together, like, you know, comparing it to Google Maps. Everybody knows their endpoint, they know where they wanna be, but it can't tell you where you're at unless you know exactly where you're starting from. You have to do this baseline assessment. You know, sometimes it sucks to really understand how fat your... you know, your body fat percentage and-

Joe Rogan 1:05:27 Yeah.

Kevin Longoria 1:05:27 ... and your metabolics and your risk of, you know, your insulin resistance and things like that, but you have to figure out where you're starting from, where you wanna be, and that's how we develop a roadmap. So getting people, you know... And, and we believe this is, this is the way of kind of making our way into the healthcare system as well. That's our end goal as a company, to be able to provide, you know...