Solo /Fitness / Aug 5, 2022 · 1 hr 2 min

Dalton “Hercules” Rosta

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We brought my dawg, Dalton Rosta back on The GRINDcast fresh off of his Bellator TKO win against Romero Cotton. This fight puts Dalton at 7 & 0 in his pro fighting career and, trust me, “Herc” is just getting started!

Transcript

Count money, man, money, man.

I'm fine, fine, fine, I'm trying to tell them I'm a beast, but

what's up gang welcome to another episode of the grind cast get ready.

It's a new day.

We got a special one today.

We got Dalton and Big Perm in the house.

What's up Big Key?

What's happening, y'all?

What up Dalton?

What's up?

My dude.

So we're just coming back fresh off the fresh off the Seattle trip

in the wind big perm.

You came you came with me with the two.

Oh, he was memory when he went with the two.

Went with the second round.

38 seconds.

38 seconds into the third round.

Perm does first thing.

I was thinking like per you was only short 38 seconds.

And you had it so Dalton with the with the finish in the in the third round.

38 seconds into the third round.

Sir, congratulations.

Move it.

I'm going to tell you how in Bellator my dog so proud of you.

But I told so so we got a you know, Julie the massage lady, right?

The massage lady, the week before Dalton's fight before I went out, I told Julie, I'm

like, I'm like, watch this.

I'm going to tell you what's going to happen.

Because do Romero cotton three time division two national champ wrestler.

I'm like, I'm already going to tell you what's going to happen.

Dalton is going to wait for the right time.

He's so stubborn.

You know, he's stubborn.

He likes to argue and stuff.

So he's going to he's going to definitely try to out wrestle the cat on purpose because

everybody's saying how good of a wrestler he was.

And I don't know what the stats were, but I know you was stuffing his takedowns.

And I know for sure I saw you take him down a few a few times dog.

So I know that was one you wanted for a long time.

Tell us about with that whole deal was what that felt like with the wind felt like with

the preparation was like all of that.

I mean, to start off, I mean, you were right.

We you told me this right after my fight because I told you exactly what I did.

I didn't need the rest of the during that fight at all.

You did.

I was taking him apart on my feet.

It wasn't even close on the feet, but I took him down just for the hell of it.

You know what I mean?

After I already staved stuffed five, six of his takedowns at that point, you know, I don't

know, I don't know what the exact stats are either, but I've had people tell me nine.

I've had people tell me 12 total stuff takedowns, whatever.

I mean, regardless, he was he had a goose egg three times in CW champ four time finalists

didn't take me down at all.

I took him down twice, you know, but that was more just an ego thing just going out there

to prove everybody that no matter what.

Credential somebody has I'm going to go out there and beat him.

Don't believe the hype.

Come on.

You got to make him earn it and just go give it to you because you did something 10 years

ago.

I'm from the show me state.

That's right.

You know what I mean?

If you think you could beat me and something you're going to have to show me and it

ain't true until you show me.

And that's what I went out there and did, you know, like you said, I'm stubborn.

I went out there and I took him down twice just to prove that I was a better wrestler.

We were sitting in the parking lot me and Perm that day in Seattle and I'm getting

amped up and I'm, you know, so I'm like, man, let me really see what this cat's about.

I didn't really look at all his fights and all that.

So I started watching Romero's fights and stuff like that.

And I'm like, I'm as I'm watching it.

I'm talking Perm through it.

I'm watching.

I watch the couple.

I'm like, oh, I'm like, he going to tear him up on his feet, Perm.

He going beating him up on his feet.

And then he going, he's definitely going to want to take him down.

I started explaining.

I told Perm exactly what exactly what she was going to do.

But I'll tell you this, what I wasn't prepared for.

Bro, you look so crisp.

I mean, I've been watching you fight now for a long time and training with you for a long

time, brother.

I've just seen what a improvement.

What an improvement from what was already really good.

I mean, and what's crazy is you can anybody that just knows the game a little bit can tell

do this scary because to me, you still look so not raw.

Like you look so crisp and so good right now.

But you could just tell you still have so much room.

Yeah, I though you can grow.

Some people, it's like, man, they're doing great, but I could tell they're like maxed

out with their potential.

I know when I'm watching like dog, you know, and I expected what you did, but not in the

way that you did it.

But the whole time is I, you know, we text back and forth, man.

I'm like, I just knew you had it coming to you, man, because the way that you work, man,

the way that you work, because that's what I represent.

That's what I like proud myself on.

I don't know how to do nothing else but work.

And I've worked grind it, you know, my way from the bottom.

You know, so I just, I just love when somebody really puts in the work, especially when they

got the gift and they matched those two things up and it's rare, dude, and I'm watching

you do it with discipline that cast don't have.

Like other level, I'm a disciplined cat, bro.

I know one when I see one like, dude, your discipline is shit, bro.

What was the training like?

I would you describe the training leading up to the fight and all of that stuff?

Um, you know, so this camp was different in the aspect that, I mean, in my last few fights,

you see me pull out some new tools and stuff like the spinning wheel kicks and, you know,

throwing the head kicks and stuff like this.

This camp, my striking coach Anderson Franca was telling me, you know, if you're going

to throw any of that, if you're going to throw the flying knees, any of that stuff that

you like doing, wait until the end of the round.

So in case he gets the take down, it doesn't really come from the...

You ain't stuck under now for a minute.

Yeah.

And, but I mean, mostly the game plan was just really low leg kicks, you know, to the calf,

and to the to quad, because if you watch his fights, he was grabbed, he was reaching for

those quads.

Yeah.

Yeah, he grabs them, throws a punch at the same time, takes you down.

So we were working very low kicks, not really throwing to the head or to the body much,

you know, when the opportunity presented itself and he wasn't expecting it, we would do

it.

But also, you know, not getting over extended or be too aggressive with my striking.

So I felt like, like you said, I was piecing up, I looked crisp and everything, but

there was a lot of things that I wasn't doing during the fight because of the style I

was fighting, which fight and smart.

Yeah.

So in the preparation for this camp, it was a lot of straight punches, a lot of like falling,

the two up with the uppercut after throwing a hook to the body and stuff like that.

I mean, you see me doing it throughout the whole entire fight, but you know, I had to

be reserved in some aspects because I know the shots coming.

I can't throw a five six punch combination.

Did you plan the Superman punch?

Oh, that's no, it was rep that a lot.

It was that it just came out of nowhere.

I love that one.

At what point did it click in your head?

Like, all right, let's reduce it right now.

All right, so I mean, not too much on horn, but I don't do it much.

Like, it's not something that I practice a lot, but I'm explosive.

And like, I do it at practice sometimes in training.

I've done it in my fights.

I cover a lot of distance very quickly.

I mean, a lot of people were like always talking about like how muscle bound and stuff I

am.

And for like how big I am and how much muscle I carry, I move very well.

And I move very quickly and people don't expect it.

And I cover a lot of distance well.

And I'm explosive.

I explode into that.

And they don't see it coming really.

It gets there faster than they can react.

And that's exactly what happened during the fight.

I'd love to say that I like the George Mazda all need where you see the videos beforehand

and him going and running off the cage and practicing it before he knocked out a bent

ass.

And I'd love to say that I was doing the same thing, but you know, I wasn't, you know,

it's something that I like doing, but I don't practice much.

You felt it.

You just felt it.

I landed a double hook right hand.

He was backing out away from me instead of cutting him off.

I was like he's expecting me to cut him off now.

Like I usually do.

We're a little, he's a little far away, but I know if I can do the super impunching, I'm

obviously this is all going through my head in a split second.

You know, so I'm analyzing this as quick as possible when I just seen the opportunity.

I was going to do it earlier in the fight, but I'm thinking the same thing with the flying

knees and the head kicks.

If I'm off my feet, he could easily just duck down.

And if he gets a hold of my hips, take me, I mean, he's a very good wrestler.

If he's in deep, I mean, it's going to be hard to stop.

So I didn't do it much during the fight.

I only did it once, honestly, but I was waiting for the perfect moment.

And I was it, come on, beautiful.

So got to ask you so, so when you're fighting and doing this, what gets you going, bro?

Like what gets you into that mindset to get on that in that case and do what you do?

But what gets you going?

I can't say there's something specific that gets me going.

You know, I just I love doing this.

I really do.

You play music.

Did you get it?

I did you amp that?

I mean, I like for the day for that day.

What's getting there?

You didn't go on to a price seven, seven, seven, 15 maybe or so.

Or so you're asking what I did on that.

What's the prep like flight day?

Like what's your prep?

How do you get?

Like what do you like when you're going in?

What do you do?

Okay.

I mean, because like the hotel I was standing and it wasn't that nice, didn't really have all

the hotel amenities and it wasn't a smart TV in my room.

I had Wi-Fi, but the Wi-Fi wasn't good.

So I couldn't like watch the stuff on the streaming services that usually I like watching,

like 300, the movie 300 Troy.

Like it doesn't work.

Or movies, you know what I mean?

That get me into that mindset.

The quotes in those movies along with all like the violence and the fighting and everything

really get me like tuned in, you know, zoned in.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to do that this time.

I was watching South Park in the room because that's all that was on.

So I told you guys that, bitter.

So the fight ended the way it did.

So maybe I'll start watching South Park from here on out.

Yeah, besides that, when we got to the fight show, I showed up in my David Allen suit,

you know, showed up me in a business.

Yeah.

Got there immediately, took my speaker, my Bluetooth speaker, threw on some music.

I got a little playlist made up with some DMX, some two-pawks, some ASAP Ferg, M&M, like

a lot of those guys that have like the hardcore, like rough, you know, hype music and just

blast as loud as I can.

You know, start stretching out, get my hands wrapped, playing it while I'm getting my

hands wrapped, just really starting to focus and dial in.

And I feel like the closer I get to the fight, I'm starting to like unchained, you know,

like at practice and training all through camp, there's a lot of stuff you can't do.

You can't need your training partner in the face, you know, you can't elbow them like

I elbowed a little bit in a few times when we were against the cage.

I can't elbow my training partner in herdom and knock them out.

Like, I can't do this stuff purposely.

I'm reserved.

I'm restricted to certain things.

And all fight week long, it's like I'm being like teased.

Yeah, being held back because like the fights this week, I'm ready to fight now, but I got

there making me wait till Friday.

So the closer I get to the fight, I feel like I'm like, they're, I'm in shackles and

they're taking the shackles off.

They're taking the change and the closer closer I get to the fight, the more confident

I get, you know, a lot of people talk about nerves and then there's a lot of people out

there that say there's if there's fighters out there that say they don't get nervous

that they're lying while I'm here to tell you that they're lying because I don't get nervous.

Like come fight time.

There might be some nerves in fight week, but like I said, the closer I get to the fight,

the nerves just disappear and I go like cold, you know, no emotions, just confidence.

And like I'm ready to get in there and I stared across the cage at a Mara call and whenever

I was in the cage and he was not looking.

I mean, he would not make eye contact with me.

I knew right away, right away, I was going to finish him.

You know, I knew he didn't want to be there with me.

He was scared.

He felt my presence.

He felt my aura.

He didn't want to be there.

I was in his head all week.

hilarious.

The one of the best parts for me was after the finish, Perm's explanation of it as we're

sitting there playing it back.

And you know, so why don't you give me that off the cuff off the cuff, brother?

Which one?

Let's say you were the announcer.

Let's say you was watching it and you were the commentator.

Commentate what would happen was going through Romero cotton's head as this is going

on.

He was on the wall.

Wait a minute.

What's going down here?

Mr. Hercules coming back.

You were just chilling, bro.

You were just deflying punch.

Bro, I was waiting for that the whole time.

I love when you did that, right?

I told him I said finally you did it.

But you knocked him down like super fast, bro.

Now in the corner, the dude was lost, bro.

He was like, you stood up over him and what did you say to him?

Right.

Like after the fact that after I knocked him out, I didn't say anything.

I just stood over him.

I just screamed, woo.

You know,

Yeah.

I got pushed out of the way by Jason Herzog.

And I mean, I seen that.

Yeah, he pushed me pretty hard.

He apologized to me after that.

I'm like, man, you're doing your job.

And I was just super excited.

That was a, you know, that was an awesome moment.

Awesome finish, man.

I think the good thing is how smart you fight.

But I think, I don't know if it just was happenstance or the moment

or you just, you starting to realize that the moment to go in for the kill,

because I think other fights,

you fought smart and you probably had an opening, you could look back,

like, all right, I could have finished him right there.

But I was playing smart because you don't want to take ill.

You know what I mean?

Every time that I've had that.

But I watched you like, just go for the throat.

Yeah.

I'm saying like, no, perfect timing.

Like, all right, this is, this is when I got to go, this one I got to go for the throat, man.

Yeah.

And several of my last fights I did that where I all look back on the fight.

And I'm like, man, like against a weight, Johnson, I heard him twice.

One, he spun around and fell against the cage.

The other one, he was wobbly on wobbly legs.

And I'm like, looking back on the fight.

And I'm like, man, instead of talking shit, I should have been knocking this cat out,

you know what I mean?

But there was a couple of times in this fight, too, where like, I had him hurt and I hit him

with some clean shots and I probably could have followed up with it.

But at the same time, he's a very good wrestler.

So I didn't want to get carried away and taken down.

No, no, no, no, no.

And then also if I hit him a few more times with power and he doesn't go out, I'm using

all my, yeah, all my energy, all my, like, yeah, I can't.

Speaking of talking shit.

I didn't even tell him about this one.

And then while this is going down in between rounds, a couple of the cats behind me was

talking shit saying he's on Roy.

He's rooted up, how's the Roy's, you know what I mean?

First round, cool, second round, I'm like, I had to say something.

I had to say something.

I had to start talking shit.

So we were getting into it a little bit with the people behind me in front.

And over, over, that's just how you built him, bro.

He just, he built up like that.

You know what I mean?

That's just how it is.

And I'll tell you, you know, when it comes from a strength and conditioning standpoint,

you know, on your end, what do you do strength and condition and wise?

You know, I know a lot of it is just work in general and genetics.

You know, you, I looked at the baby pictures.

You know, you got six year old guns.

You got six years old.

Yeah, big old biceps.

But what are you doing in the strength and condition and regimen, you know, right now,

any sports specific stuff that you're doing in there that you think translates over into

into the game that you're in?

So when I do strength condition now, I just started lifting again eight months ago.

You know, I took the longest time off of lifting.

I wasn't lifting besides during the pandemic when me and you were like going at it.

Yeah, that was fun.

But besides that, like I didn't lift for like five years.

You know, I had to lose muscle mass.

I was doing two muscle mass.

I wanted to go.

You did not win.

I did win.

I got it.

You said he won't.

I'm bringing your cousin in here.

He was in there.

Bicep, like we were doing the concentration curls.

And we were having little contests who can get more reps with I don't know how much

what we were doing.

It was a 50 pound dumbbell.

Yeah, we worked our way up.

Yeah, we kept going up and waiting.

Then we kept going up and reps.

Like, you know, they were burning after like 25 and then somehow in the next set, we were

getting 35, then 45, then 50.

It was like, it got to the point where it was like pointless.

We're like, all right, we just got to call it true.

We ain't going to stop.

We was up to like 60.

We like, we've been here for an hour doing this.

And then always competing and stuff like that.

Yeah, but I mean, as far as strength conditioning for MMA, it's mostly calm, bound exercises.

And I'll do three to four sets of each.

So I'll do, I'll divide them into a push day and a pool day.

So I only do two days a week.

And that way it doesn't take away from my training, like my jujitsu, my wrestling, my boxing,

like my shoulders are sore.

My boxing is going to suffer.

My legs are sore.

The wrestling is going to suffer.

My lower back sore, my jujitsu is going to suffer.

I mean, so, I mean, there's a point where I need to be working out hard enough that I'm

going to be feeling it where I'm going to be sore.

You know, you need to push yourself at the same time.

It can't be high volume to where it's, yeah, it's a detriment to what you're actually there

to do.

This is supposed to be supplemental to my game, you know.

So I'll do a push day on the push day.

I'll do like bench press or incline bench press.

I'll do five sets of three and I'll do cycles of like five sets of five.

And then I take three to five minutes of break.

And I do this strictly for power.

There's nothing else where I'm not doing endurance.

I get all my endurance stuff work from wrestling and jujitsu and everything else.

So, you don't think you need to do a bunch of high reps.

No, so now everything I would think it would be.

Everything I do now is for power, explosion and power, you know, developing the fast switch,

trying to develop more power in my punches, more speed, everything.

So I'll do the bench press or the incline for like to cover up the chest and shoulder-ish

area for the push day.

Then after that I'll do some military press or some dumbbell shoulder press.

And same thing, three sets of five or five sets of three.

They're interchangeable.

Change back and forth.

I go through cycles of it.

Same thing, three to five minutes of rest.

And then after that, I do a lot of rest in between.

Yes.

And then make sure you fully recover so you're getting everything you can out of the actual

set itself.

And then after that I'll do like an accessory exercise that helps with those like to keep

your elbows and everything.

Especially if you're going very heavy, keep your elbows healthy, like a tricep push

down with the ropes.

Only three to four sets of that.

I'll do high reps on that though.

Maybe some dips.

And then I'll do squats on the push day two.

You're pushing weight on squats.

So on the pull day I'll do pull ups with weight.

Throw like a chain around my waist, two 45 pound plates.

And then like if there's a weighted vessel, throw that around my back too.

Try to give as much weight as on as I can.

And I do five to six reps on that.

I usually never change that because I feel like doing three reps isn't enough for exercise.

So no sports specific stuff.

No, other than this.

We might train and stuff.

Sometimes that substitute like punch stuff for punch-pound.

We have a 360 machine in there that's levers on it for like pushing and pulling like

for punching.

If you had to pick something that would resemble the best type of training for sports-specific

stuff, what would you pick?

Like not that if you were even on the regimen you're doing, I understand what you're saying

clearly of why you're doing what you're doing and all of that.

Let's say somebody's not training as much.

They're training a couple days a week and they want some workout that's going to help

them honor off the mats.

What do you think translates the best or the most?

So if we're getting into strictly sports-specific, take all the power lifting, punch-pound movements

out of it.

I think a good thing to do, like for example, like those cable machines that you would

connect the rope pull down on to connect like a cable that you can wrap around like a medicine

ball maybe.

And you hold the medicine ball on your chest like this as hard as you can and maybe like

I don't know how much weight you would put on.

It would be dependent on what you can do but you want it to be a smooth movement.

You don't want to be jerky or you don't want it to be too heavy where you're developing

more strength and you are power.

And while you're squeezing this ball, you're turning your hips if you're trying to work on

your right hand.

You turn the other way.

You get in a stance like you're throwing a hook, same thing with the hook.

You get to throw a ball against the wall, medicine ball against the wall.

There's landmine presses where the landmine is like the joint on the ground where you put

the bar into.

Yep.

I would start with the bar in my hand like this.

I'm bending over doing a row, pull it up like I'm doing a row and then switch hands

and as I'm switching hands, do a press and turn my hip like I'm throwing a right hand.

And then on top of that for grappling stuff, you can do stuff with heavy bags or dummy

bags or stuff like that connecting them to cables, doing some squeeze and exercises, stuff

like that.

But mostly for wrestling, it's going to be mostly pool exercises that are going to help you

most like to pull up stuff.

I'm describing dead lifts and bend over rows, stuff like that.

And that's usually what I do on my pool days.

Sports specific, like those exercises are doing.

You do anything for injury prevention?

Yeah.

So I'm pretty big into that now because I was always getting injured wrestling in high

school, wrestling in college.

I got injured often and it was always because I pushed myself too hard and didn't listen

to my body whenever I needed rest.

I think that's what I've been doing.

Yeah.

That and the balance of them getting old.

No, but you push yourself.

Your mentality is always like, yeah, go, go, go, go, go, go, no matter what.

Like you're a worker.

And that's the same way I was, but I realize over time, especially now that I'm pro athlete

and this is all that I'm doing is I gotta take care of my body and I gotta listen.

But if you have a tweak in your shoulder, you'll just push through it.

You'll do something else that maybe not focus on that shoulder, but inadvertently.

It's hurting.

Like a second, it might be a secondary muscle to the movement you're doing.

You're still putting strain on it.

You know what I mean?

But I do cryotherapy.

I try to get a massage done once a week or once every other week, especially in camp.

I'll do once a week, but I get cryotherapy done ice, ice baths.

We have ice plums at the gym.

I do sauna, infrared sauna.

I have a hypervote gun that I usually hit on myself.

I get cupping done.

How many rest days?

Two.

So I'll do a mid week one, Wednesday and Sunday.

Nothing at all.

So usually on Wednesday, I'll do some active recovery.

Like yoga?

Or is that too much?

I don't do yoga, but yoga would be good for an active recovery.

It's something that keeps your heart rate.

Get your heart rate up.

So you're getting blood flow to your muscles to help you recover, but not up where it's

taxing your heart.

You know?

So I might go for a walk.

I might go for a short bike ride, stuff like that, just get moving.

It's easy to get you going.

Yeah, but Wednesday and Sunday, the reason the Wednesday is because we spar on Thursday.

And Mondays are usually very hard.

It's our wrestling day to our practice in the morning.

And I have two practice at night.

Kickbox in 536, 30, and 637, 30 MMA drills.

Tuesdays, I have a three day again.

Three a day again.

So that's why you got Wednesday off first.

Perfect.

Yeah, you have sparring in the morning on Tuesday, Tuesday night, jujitsu, five to six, and

six, 30 to like eight.

I do strength conditioning.

Wednesday off, Thursday is the same exact as Tuesday.

Sometimes instead of lifting, I'll do a MMA drilling class again.

Same one I do on Monday.

Then Fridays, a relatively easier day.

We only have one mandatory practice, but I usually try to get pads or a private set.

Sounds like a lot of work.

What sacrifices would you say that you've made?

You know, you've probably now, you know, we both played football, so growing up, played

around.

Like, I played with, I feel like some of the best athletes in the country that no one ever

found out about.

Right.

You know, they didn't even finish high school.

Everybody knows about some that everybody knows about.

Yep.

LeBron played against LeBron in high school.

First, it was our first game, my senior year, we played him at a Youngstown state.

He was a sophomore all statewide out.

We got to, we got to dub, played against and with Maurice, you know, Clarrette, another

world class, you know, athlete, but I got a bunch of names on the list that probably could

have been just like them cats had never, never came to because of certain sacrifices and

decisions that they weren't willing to make.

Now you've probably seen similar thing in the fight game.

You've probably seen some people that were super talented, that you like, man, if this cat

would just do this or not do that, probably had a lot of potential to be something.

And I don't want to say, speak for you, but I don't know, have you.

But what sacrifices have you made that maybe others don't make or what things do you think

that you do when people look at you and think, oh, he just somehow got, you know, lucky,

always been good.

You know, whatever is just, you know, popped up that way.

What things do people not see that you got to do that most people ain't willing to do?

There's a lot, man.

I mean, most of the time, most MMA fighters, and this is what a lot of sports, people are

just training once a day.

Right.

You know, they don't do two or three times.

Most of them don't even do two, but people aren't doing threes, you know, only the world

champions and potential world champions are.

I mean, there's several guys that's jammed that do or two or three days.

I shouldn't say several.

There's a few.

But there's some workers there.

And then there's guys that you could tell that are there just off-road talent or they

worked, maybe they worked hard previously and are no longer working hard.

They're kind of just, you know, they're going to go through the motions of that guy.

I made it.

I'm cool with where I'm at.

And I'm just going to stay in shape, you know.

On top of that, you know, my diet whenever people are out eating all the time during like

fight camp and eating whatever they want and anytime they crave something, you know, I'm

just sticking to my diet because I noticed that it's, you know, had a, and it's made a

difference in my training with my cardio, the way I feel, everything.

It helps with my sleep.

On top of that, my sleep schedule, you know, getting very, being very dedicated to my sleep

schedule, you're skating rhythm matters.

Time you go to sleep, time you wake up, getting eight to nine hours sleep sometimes more, because

the more strain you accumulate on your body, the more rest you need, you know.

And there's people out there that are out there that are only doing five, six hours of

sleep.

And a lot of time you hear that they're proud of it.

They'll be talking about like, oh, I'm good on five out six hours sleep.

That's perfect for me.

I don't need any more than that.

I feel great.

Well, but it's like, thank you, you're used to it.

Now your body's used to it, but you're not recovering.

Recovering.

Yeah, you're not recovering or functioning at the level that you could be.

You know, your reaction time might be off.

You don't think it is just because you're used to it.

Don't top of that.

I don't drink.

Don't smoke.

Never have.

Never did either.

And there's a lot of professional athletes not just fighting that, you know, they're making

all this money.

First thing they want to do is go go party.

Yeah, I don't go out on the weekends.

I don't go to bars.

Nothing.

I'm in at 11 p.m.

I'm about to go to sleep if I'm not watching fights on the weekends, you know, and

I'm not watching.

So there's one big, I mean mid 20s.

And girl don't live with you right now.

Gina moved to Orlando, shout out to Gina.

WWE got to shout out over there.

Got to move and pursue that.

That's super cool to watch man.

Talk about a power couple.

That's cool.

Y'all had a baby to quad.

Baby, a come out with quad like this.

Both of them got some big old quads.

Nice built quads.

I was saying I can see your cash from the front.

Big of cash ones.

Perm was like, we were looking at the way.

And he's been.

Fernt like, man, I can see his cash from the front.

Big as legs.

I think you set me that already or you texted me.

I started recording.

Yeah, when he gets started, man, that's how this whole Starbucks thing came along.

Because I just, I'm like, man, we just, I'm going to just record you because this would

be doing all the time.

So I'm going to capture somebody else got to see this and enjoy this with me.

But I think, you know, most people mid 20s.

Yeah.

Living by yourself.

By yourself.

Looking good.

Six.

You know, average.

You know, average, a little bit above average.

You know what I mean?

Looks.

Would be walling out.

All the way.

Party and stand out.

Weekends.

You know, stuff like that.

And you going a bit.

Waking up early to train.

Not getting too crazy.

Not getting too wild.

Those are some sacrifices.

How about moving from your family and friends.

Yeah.

I didn't even think about that.

To a gym in Florida.

Yeah.

And I'm going to win with no guarantee, you know, no nothing.

After you fight, I sent the email, you know, when we were talking through it with

the guy and the guy was like, you know, don't better not be a sissy.

You know, I mean, that ain't the word to use.

Right.

You know, to me, and I'm like, nah, he ain't.

You know, I promise you that.

And people were telling me, you know, going down there, man, you got to watch because you'll

get thrown to the wolves.

There's a lot of fighters down there.

They don't pay everybody attention or whatever.

And just no fear, just picks up and moves.

At first, you started outstanding the dorms there.

I remember, you know, in the main and had the lunch room and you know, you know, in all

of that stuff.

And so not many people are willing to do those types of things to pursue their dreams.

That's one of those when people say it must be nice or you're lucky or they start like

man, you didn't see when I had to move from here to here.

And didn't have a brand new whip, didn't have, you know, a bunch of people, you know,

I just left everybody had no friends down here, no family down here.

This is what I'm about to do, you know, and stuff like that.

Those are some sacrifices people don't see.

Yeah, I mean, I guess I didn't think about that.

I wasn't thinking in sacrifices in that term.

I mean, moving across the country when you don't know anybody, that's one.

On top of that, you want to talk about like all the stuff I did in college, like when I'm

going to college full time and working security on the weekends, working during the week.

still maintaining above a 3.5 GPA,

and it'll graduate with 3.7 or 3.8.

And doing all this, working just enough

just to get by on my bills, a lot of time

overdrafted on my count and everything.

We've talked about this before.

Going to school, working, and training

two to three times a day.

And the main focus was the training.

And everybody was telling me I was crazy,

because I ended up graduating.

When I was at the degree, I was working

at Northwestern Mutual for a little bit left to jog.

I got my professional contract that, you know,

I was sacrificing a lot financially, too, where I couldn't have been dry.

I didn't have to drive around all these gyms and use all this gas money.

And I could have been working more and just focused on school and work,

you know, and still been going on vacations with all my friends in college

and enjoying time on the weekends and doing whatever and going hang out with girls

and all this other stuff.

But yeah, I mean, there's a lot of sacrifices

on top of the physical ones that I did to help my performance.

I mean, financially and like time wise and, you know,

given time to friends and family and everything, it's like,

I sacrificed a lot.

You seen the truck I was driving, the SUV, the trailblazer.

Oh, yeah, I love that trailblazer.

Yeah, I did.

It's when you were humble.

Yeah.

Right.

When you knew my birthday.

He got a new car, Perm.

I told you he got the new car, everything in turn for the worst for me.

Right.

Oh, that's when all the short jumps came out.

Call me on two days.

No, I can't see you.

Like, you could see me when you was in that rusty trailblazer, no.

But yeah, man, I wasn't thinking about sacrifices in that way,

but I made plenty, you know, those were probably the bigger ones, of course, you know.

How many people told you you were crazy to stupid to be so-

Everybody, everybody, everybody.

Why would you do that?

Everybody, and I want to be petty or anything.

I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna throw out names, but even family members were telling me.

And the crazy thing is they all send you the text now.

They all tell me in person now.

They always believed you in you.

They're always your biggest fan, all this other stuff.

But I still remember a lot of the things that were said to me, word for word, where I was

at, where they said them.

And it wasn't I wasn't too, you know, I wasn't keeping it.

Those were the ones that you carry, right, the fire to take you to the next level.

It was, and it's not that I'm keeping a tab on them.

It's just that you remember those moments, you know what I mean?

And it's not like, and I always say this, like, I don't use external factors for motivation.

But people say, doesn't affect me either bad or good, because if it does, if I use that

for motivation, external factors for motivation, I'm insinuating that what people say has an

effect on whether I'm gonna achieve my goal or not.

You know what I mean?

So at the end of the day, I don't let it affect me whether it's good or bad.

You know, and so I don't use that as motivation.

My motivation comes from within.

I already have my goals and everything set in place.

And those are my motivation.

At the end of the day, what people say about me, whether they believe in me or not, it's

gonna not gonna change how hard I'm working and what I'm doing to achieve my goal.

How much of the confidence that you feel like you have leading up to the fight, walking

into the fight stems from the amount of work that you know you put in and the sacrifices

that you make.

All of it.

All the confidence.

Is that where it comes from?

Yeah.

That's not potential at the end of the day, but at the end of the day, it's just potential.

You know, so potential can only get you so far.

Skill can only get you so far, but at the end of the day, whenever you have the skill and

then you have the potential and then you have to work ethic on top of that, you know at

the end of the day that if you lose or something goes wrong or shit hits the fan, you encounter

some adversity during the fight and you have to fight through it, that it wasn't because

of your work ethic.

You know, damn well, you put everything that you possibly could put into your camp, into

your practice, into your technique, into the sport and hold away from like I said, from

sleep, diet, training, recovery, everything.

I do everything right.

So I know at the end of the day shit goes wrong.

It's not because of that.

I gave myself every opportunity possible to be successful and you're not guaranteed success

from that at all, but if you don't do it, you're getting it.

No way to do it.

You're getting it.

No way to do it.

You're getting it.

Yeah.

Yeah I think cent of what you can be putting in, there's no way you walk into same confidence.

Yeah.

There's a great saying, that doesn't all that work doesn't guarantee you success.

No doubt, but without that work your guaranteed failure.

Correct.

Speaking of failure, can you think of something that you've failed at in life or a moment

where you failed at something and what you got out of it, what you learned from it?

I mean I feel all the time, everything, I've never just done something.

you know, and then grade it at it from the very start.

Especially wrestling, wrestling.

I mean, it's a big part of what I do with fighting.

You know, even if I don't use it during my fight,

it helps with all my training, the work ethic,

and everything that I gain from wrestling,

the insight that I gain from drilling,

and everything, and actually putting the time in

and how it affects your growth and your potential

and your skill and talent and everything else at the end of the day.

I carried that with me to other sports, but wrestling.

You know, whenever I first started wrestling,

I started wrestling six or seven years old,

and I remember I lost to a girl.

And that's serious.

That's serious.

I lost to a girl.

I was winning the match.

I still remember it like it was yesterday.

And this girl was fighting dirty.

And the thing is, I remember her dad being on the sideline,

telling her to fight dirty.

I could hear him.

She was like pinching my balls and shit.

Like, I'm a low, low boy.

Right on the main.

She's, I'm being that serious.

I'm a little boy in this girl.

So I don't know.

She might be a little bit older to me,

but I'm like, this is, she's really fighting this dirty

yet.

This is young ass.

Yeah, like, think it back on a knot.

I probably wasn't thinking at that time.

But yeah, so she was fighting dirty.

I ended up losing the match by a point or two.

And then I was just so embarrassed

and so humiliated from losing to a girl that I stopped wrestling.

Oh, wow.

And over time, the urge to wrestle

and compete in combat sports like Jiu-Jitsu and boxing,

everything came back.

So I started wrestling again.

Whenever I started wrestling again, I was out of so long.

I wasn't good when I started back.

And after training all year long,

when most wrestlers are just training during wrestling season,

I was going to two wrestling camps a year,

training after, staying after practice,

doing extra training in the off season,

going to different schools, wrestling with better people than me.

And I got better, you know what I mean?

But I still, even after getting better

and not seeing all the growth and the progress that I was making,

I was still losing matches, you know what I mean?

So I didn't win my first tournament until my junior year.

That was my first gold medal ever.

So you figure from the age of six or seven,

all the way up until 16 years old,

how many times did I fail over and over again before?

I won that first gold medal.

And then after that, I was like,

just gold medal, gold medal, gold medal.

It's like I was getting gold medals every single time

that I stepped on the mat.

You know what I mean?

And I think my junior and senior year combined,

I had 10 gold medals and it ended up getting hurt

both seasons and not being able to compete.

And that was part of what we were talking about earlier,

where I pushed myself too hard,

and that's something I learned since then.

But...

So what did you learn from that failure the whole way

that you carry with you today,

just to just how to digest it, how to not let it discourage you?

No, I would say...

What mental battles?

I would just say at the end of the day

that is just staying consistent.

And, you know...

In the process.

Yeah, yeah, just keep continuing your work.

Regardless of the result.

Yeah, continue working on your craft.

If you truly love something,

you truly want to be the best at it.

Yeah, you're gonna fail.

You know what I mean?

You're not gonna be the best.

You're gonna have to work through that.

You're gonna lose,

but you have to learn to deal with loss.

And you have to get better.

And one thing that you do,

whether you win or you lose, you know,

you should be learning in both.

But when you lose,

at least you learn one way, not to win.

Correct.

So...

I got you.

You take that feedback,

if you would call it that, from each match.

And use it to become better.

And eventually become successful.

Mr. Dalton Hercules Rasta.

Where did you get Hercules from?

Where's that middle name coming from?

So it actually from Youngstown.

I was training at Larry Filer's Gym.

In downtown Youngstown, downtown boxing club.

And Ron, I don't know if you know Ron.

Ron's an older guy down there.

He used to spar with Muhammad Ali,

an old sparring partner from Muhammad Ali's.

And first day I was down there.

I remember I was hitting Mitz.

Crackin' Mitz with Sam Caldrone.

And it was just me and Sam in the ring.

Everybody was doing their own thing.

And hitting the bag, you know.

Not really any schedule,

or like organization to the practice.

So people were on different bags just doing whatever,

you know, a lot of them like weren't even really

working out their Lucius.

You and the Yo, bro.

Isn't that organized?

I have a point to tell you what they found in the thing.

Are we allowed to tell them what to find out yet?

Yeah, we found it.

Off the mic, or can we tell them?

I don't think I can tell them yet.

I'm young, Sam.

I mean everybody knows the young.

But we gotta find out what about Hercules first.

First, yeah, sorry.

And then you gotta tell them what story.

Two stories from Perne's.

Go ahead.

I'll make this quick then.

So I hit a round of Mitz, you know.

And I'm Crackin' Mitz.

I hit pretty hard, but this for some reason today,

it sounds like fireworks.

And everybody next thing you know,

the end of the round, beginning the next round,

look around the ring.

Nobody's working out anymore.

Everybody's just set around the ring, you know what I mean?

Like it's an actual boxing match.

And we start hitting the Mitz and Moore.

And like people are starting to make comments

during the round whenever I'm hit Mitz

about how hard I'm hitting.

And people are saying like, oh, those are the hits

that give you the wobbly legs.

And like just saying stupid comments here and there.

All right, just get to it.

And then Ron, mom and I'll leave the old Spartan part.

I don't know his last name, but we used to bullshit all the time.

He was a great dude, you know, funny to be around.

He started calling.

He's like, that's Herc.

We're gonna call him Herc.

He's built like Hercules.

And he hits like Hercules.

We're gonna start calling him Herc.

And that day from that day forward, it stuck.

Everybody started calling me Herc.

And I was kind of like taking it as a joke at first.

But like people like they wouldn't call me Dalton.

You know, there's people down there

that didn't even really know my name.

They were just calling me Herc.

So Herc.

So that's how I got it.

That's how it stuck.

You know, it wasn't one of the stories

where I gave myself my own nickname.

You see a lot of Nafiders do that shit all the time.

And that's just Cornies hell.

But you know, it worked out.

And it helps that, you know, I have the physique that I do.

And I'm brother.

And I'm huge in the Greek and Roman mythology.

You brought that body for an hour.

I'm sorry.

If I could let you borrow it, I would.

Yeah.

You probably get yourself in trouble.

What would you do if you had that body?

No shirt.

I'll be right in your area.

It's dry.

Just walking everywhere.

And Emma, no shirt.

No, it's walking around.

It's going on.

How you doing?

All right?

Oh yeah.

For sure.

All the time.

You experienced so much shit all the time.

All the time.

So today you need somebody falling you mother for I'm sorry you need you need somebody falling you guys around yeah

Yeah, let's just come to Chicago with us to follow us around. Yes. Yes. Something good will happen. Yes

So today so today tell them what they tried to do to me. They try to get it. They try to get him out man

You know, he's got his new car. You know, I'm saying shout out to the new car to fandom. So

We just pulled up

Back then everything cool today

today

Was showing Katie something so we went outside and go look at the car

Where as I go outside look at the car there's a frisbee and a cherry sitting on top of the car

Well, the the frisbee they threw it and a cherry was on the car who has a cherry

So where they put a cherry on the Rolls Royce somebody put a cherry on the roof

I mean on the hood so Katie's looking at the cameras. We found these little kids next door

Through a frisbee at his car and a chair. So me and Katie was like let's go

So we walked over there next I got a little aggressive. Sorry, so we went over there

And I just want to talk to the kid when we go inside the kids running he ran

Oh my god, so him and Katie are coming in the kid ran in the music school gone next door

So we're trying to talk to the teachers and explain to them

You know what's going on the car got ahead. You know these kids came over there. We have a month

Eight and so forth

So we finally got the kid we running the kid the kids already ball and starting to cry

What's going on? It was like what what what what did you what what was it you threw up a frisbee and a cherry at this

Half-man dollar car like what made you do this?

I was dared he dared me so his kid

He's playing his flute

So I walk in I'm like who was it him he's still playing it like he ain't seen me

I said come here you come here

He gets out of the chair

Like so what's going on you you you made him you dared him to throw this thing at this guy's car

Yeah, why did you do that?

I said so you know this car is right you know you can go to jail for something like this right

I said well you know what I

So the teachers to make sure that they tell their parents and they started ball and crying don't tell my parents

It's crazy bro in a second. We just we just pulled up we worried about people

25 and older mess in this car right you got 10 year olds coming after the serious car

You know you probably would do the same shit when you're the oh

You know what I was just talking to Jimmy about what I used to do when I was that age don't I

Would when it snowed I would get snow and throw that cars on the street and the cars would go down

And I would leave it and then bang and hit it and then people would get out and chase me

You know what I mean my friends me my friends the same shit new guys will say real we we build a fort

On Highland Avenue on like the one of the main roads. We built a fort high by the

Boxer. Oh, yeah, yeah, we were like eight years old

Yeah, we were thinking about finding stuff and like how much these cars actually cost and everything I'm gonna do it this winter

I'm gonna do it this winter with Perm

We should yeah, like he still didn't learn his lessons speaking of speaking of lessons any lessons that

What lesson have you learned right now if any?

That took you the longest to learn, you know over over time that you was like man

I got this down now

But maybe five years ago I didn't or two years ago. I didn't anything that took you the longest to learn

I would say it's probably what we were talking about

With like running your body in the ground like you have a little injury and it's like all right

I'm gonna train through this you know

I'm I'm gonna tough it out a lot of the time

It's not about like you're you're being like a wimp or a sissy or anything like kids like the or coaches whenever you're

Kid like to call you, you know at the end of the day

It's like that that minor injury if you keep pushing through it can turn in something major where if you only took like two or three days off

This is where I look at it now if you take two or three days

off that injury could be healed but if you train through it now that two or three days

turns into two or three weeks sometimes two or three months and how many times that's

happened to me from wrestling or football or whatever it took me forever to learn my lesson

from that because I was constantly getting surgeries on my knees. I've had four surgeries

on my knees. I was out with rotator cuff injuries missed several post seasons during

wrestling and it's like I was always beat my body into ground always thinking like I

needed to do more. I needed to work harder and yeah you need to work harder but you also

need to be smart about it. Work as hard as you possibly can exhaust everything in the

tank while you're at practice but recover when you're not there and when your body

needs a break. No one to listen. Yeah quality is better than quantity.

Whenever it comes to especially whenever it comes to sport like MMA you want quality

rounds you're not just doing stuff to stay in shape and doing more work to stay in shape

yeah that's different but you want to develop technique you want to develop skill so

you need quality over quantity and beat your body into the ground.

It's not the way to go about that.

What about what common piece of advice that people give, do you disagree with the most?

You love disagreeing with common piece of advice.

I tell him he could be an attorney.

He'll argue with you.

And he's smart too.

He's smarter than he looks.

What piece of advice that people typically give, do you disagree with?

There's a lot.

It would take me a while to think of it.

Nothing's really coming to mind right now except for something I mentioned earlier

as well where it's like people will say it's not a loss.

It's a lesson.

Well, I don't agree with that aspect that you should be learning a lesson in both when

you're winning and when you're losing.

Victory and defeat, there's a lesson in both.

If you're just not that you learn more in your losses than you do in your victories.

A lot of time you can learn more in a victory than you can in loss.

It goes both ways.

When people say that it's not a loss, it's a lesson.

They don't acknowledge that you should be learning in victory as well.

That's, I disagree with that a lot because a lot of time you really can't learn a lot

Dalton “Hercules” Rosta

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