Dalton Rosta Returns

Count money, man.

Money, man.

Stacked riches.

I'm trying to told him I'm a beast, but...

What's up, gang?

Welcome back to another episode of The Grindcast.

Get ready.

It's a new day.

We got my man, Dalton Ross, the Hercules in the house coming off the first ever, his first

ever pro-loss.

And so we're going to talk a little bit about that.

How did you process your first time losing?

It was hard, man, especially right when it happened.

When that final bell rang, I knew I lost the match.

I let it slip away from me in the second round.

I made some mistakes, caused me to get tired.

And then third round, I didn't really have anything left.

And when that final bell rang, I knew what the result was going to be.

I knew I lost.

And it hurt right away.

I was in disbelief, even though I knew how the last eight minutes of the fight were

going.

It was still just like...

It felt like it didn't feel real.

And then, as I'm walking out of the cage to locker room, it starts setting in a little

bit more, sitting in the locker room.

I'm getting down, but at the end of the day, I've been here before.

I've been here with wrestling.

I've been here with football.

And I've been here in the gym.

I take losses in the gym all the time.

So even though it's under the bright lights in front of thousands of fans and in front

of millions on TV, it's no different than what I'm experiencing in the gym, what I

experienced in wrestling.

It's the same feeling.

And this time, it's just more eyes on it.

So, it's tough, regardless, but there's things you could definitely take away from it.

No doubt.

I had to pleasure of being there in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota.

And I haven't seen all of your fights, but I've been in person for a good amount of fights.

And in my personal opinion, I don't think I've seen you lose many rounds, let alone to

fight.

I haven't seen you lose many of the rounds that I've been to your fights.

I think it looks, if I look at three rounds, the first half.

And for those of you that don't know, this is your first time because Dalton's been on

a few times undefeated as an amateur, was 9 and 0, right as a pro or 8-0.

8-0 as a pro.

So now, 8-1 as a pro, all his pro fights have been in the Belator cage, which has extreme

talent in it.

And I think in the three rounds, if I look at almost like a football game, the first half,

I would make a case to say you won the first half.

And then you lost the second half.

What things do you think you've learned if anything?

What do you think you learned from this fight?

There's definitely technical things that I could still work on.

The game plan going into the fight was strike.

He's going to take you to the cage.

We know that as soon as you get your back, he gets a cage, circle him off, disengage, go

back to the middle strike.

Only wrestle if you need to, only wrestle if it's there, only wrestle if it doesn't

expend energy.

And in between the first and second round, my coaches reiterated the game plan because

I was winning the first round handedly, winning the strike in exchanges.

And then winning the clinch, but they told me, when you circle him off of you, you get

his back against the cage, you're back to the open, disengage.

You're winning the clinch, but you're getting tired.

We can tell you're getting tired.

And I sat there and told my coaches, no, I'm good.

I'm good, I'm not tired.

And they knew Dan while I was getting tired.

So even after I said that, they said, don't wrestle.

You got caught in that front headlock at the end of the round.

You got hit with the knee in the head.

It's illegal.

We don't want you there.

You know, we don't want you to end up under him.

We don't want him weighing on you.

We don't want him causing you to use more energy than you have to.

I said, okay, like I understood, like I was going to listen to them second round, went

out, listened to them for 30 seconds.

And then I got right back to doing what I was doing at the end of the first round.

Why do you think that was?

Why do you think that is?

So I said it on my Instagram, you go to my post that I made.

Like I could sit here and give you a million reasons as to why I think I started wrestling.

You know, when you're fighting, there's a difference between instinct and conscious thoughts.

So whatever I was doing was obviously subconscious.

It wasn't like, my coaches told me like, hey, don't wrestle.

And I'm like, I ain't fucking listening to you guys.

So you don't think it was, it was ego.

It could have seen this one.

I'm saying there's some consciousness.

There's some consciousness.

I could, you know, I've told you before when we had a marathon fight.

And he was a three time all American wrestler, national champ wrestler.

And I know you.

So I'm telling people behind the scenes that I know I'm like, I know Dalton just because

he's a three time national champ wrestler, Dalton, going to want to take him down.

He going to want to wrestle.

You know what I mean?

And part of that, I think is what makes you you, is what makes you great is that chip on

your shoulder that I'm going to prove you, you know, a little bit of ego, you know, that

you've got to have in order to win.

It can't be all passive in order to win, you know, especially when it's one on one and

it's a dog fight.

So, but how much of that do you think subconsciously even was like, yeah, I'm going to show them

even I could win this on the cage because you were winning it.

You know, that was his game.

I watched every time he got your back against the cage, you were able to easily reverse it

and overpower him, you know, on the cage.

I wonder if a piece of it wasn't like, yeah, I'm going to show him again.

I'm going to beat him at his own game.

So I know a thought that crossed my mind for sure during the fight was when we were in

the clinch, every time I circled him back against the cage, I literally thought to myself

like, wow, is this all this kid has?

As you watch his fights and he holds everybody there and it's like they can't get away.

And I was thinking, all camp, I'm like, this kid can't really be that strong, you know,

or he can't be that technical in the in the clinch where they can't circle off the cage,

they can't move their feet and get out either way.

So when we were in the clinch and I circled him so easy the first time, I was like, okay,

maybe he wasn't expecting that because I landed some body shots in an upper cut right

before I circled him.

Like boom, boom, and then circle.

So maybe I caught him by surprise.

Second time, circle him again, pretty easy.

And now I start thinking like, like I said, is this all this kid really got?

Third time, I'm like, all right, yeah, this is all he got.

He's weak, you know, this kid isn't very strong.

I'm a lot stronger than he is, which I expected, but I didn't expect the difference to be that

much.

And I wasn't even using all my strength.

I was trying to conserve energy like my coach's plant.

So me using 50% of my strength and being able to circle him like that, I was like, okay,

this is going to be easy.

So that's why I kind of stayed in the clinch.

I was like, I could just stay here.

And then a little bit later on around, I noticed I started getting tired, but one of the

times, and this was completely accidental, I think, although you can make arguments otherwise

based off of other sequences that had happened during the fight, when he's pushing my face

away on the cage when he was trying to like get me off him, he was kind of stuffing his

forearm in my face and pushing my face away.

He dug his fingers in my eye.

So it was technically an eye poke.

And it had the same effect as an eye poke.

I was seeing double in my right eye.

But we're in the middle of the clinch.

It's not like I could say anything to a ref.

You know, like I can't see right now.

He didn't see it.

That's all he's going to say.

And we're going to have to go back to fighting.

And then at that point, once I identify that problem, Aaron Jeffery knows I can't

fucking see.

Right.

And he's going to take advantage of it.

Right.

And I let that go.

And I stayed in the clinch for a little bit longer because of that.

And then I disengaged when I felt like I could see well enough.

And so that was a little bit of it.

And then the wrestling at the end of the round, he kind of like stuffed my head.

So I just went for the shot.

You know, so that was kind of like him pushing my head down.

It was like his reaction or his offense or his defense, I should say, that caused me

to shoot.

And then that's why my coaches told me, don't wrestle.

Yeah.

You know, and then wrestling the second round.

So do you think subconsciously it was it was ego?

It could be.

And like what I was getting into there was kind of that, you know, where I felt a lot stronger

than he was.

I didn't think he had much for me.

I knew that was his game, but I was like, okay, I'm just going to beat him at his own

game.

I think it cost me energy.

And then, but the wrestling and the second and second round, it could have been that.

It could have been, it was just instinctive.

Like I seen the first sequence when I shot in the first round.

I was circling him.

And he was like his leg was like low against the cage.

And I went to like snatch like a like an ankle pick.

And then it didn't work.

But I think the first one I went for was just because I thought it was there.

Yeah.

Like, okay, I want to take him down and have nothing to do with ego.

I just saw it.

And I reacted.

Yep.

Then he stopped that.

He stuffed my head again.

He made me start carrying his weight.

And this is something that like we were having trouble with during camp too.

Like when I would end up in the Thai clinch, like people would control my head easy.

And my coach was like, we need to work on that.

He was kind of pushing my head down too when we were in this clinch, but he was pushing

down between his legs.

So I was like, it looked like I was trying the wrestle, but really I was trying not to

get choke.

Where was he was he trying to 10 finger to it any point?

Yeah, so he tried to he tried to try the 10 finger guillotine when I was in on that that

second double leg after I went for the ankle pick.

He stuffed my head in the middle.

He pushed it in the middle and then he trapped it with his forearm when I went back and

watched the film.

Which is, I mean, it's pretty good touch.

But you got to do.

Yeah, you can't take anything away from it.

And it brings it in.

And it's that's another one that'll that'll wear you out.

You know, it cuts oxygen.

Even if I don't even know how much of it was was a submission attempt versus just trying

to be annoying in that position because those are tough to finish.

Yeah, you know, you can make me carry his weight.

So at the end of the day, I made some mistakes.

But he countered the mistakes and he had a he was smart in there.

We're nine fights in now to your pro career.

How much do you feel like you've grown from fight one to fight nine going into fight 10?

Do you feel like there's been a huge learning?

A curve that you've learned a lot, growth wise or do you feel like you grew more from

any one fight to the next that sticks sticks out to you?

Not one that I feel like I've grown every single fight.

And I've said this to you all the time, you know, a lot of people love to throw around

that saying, you know, you win or you learn for me.

I think that's bullshit because you should be learning in both.

It's winner lose, learning both.

And you should be learning victory and defeat and now that I'm on the losing side of it,

you know, I still feel the same way.

But I think there's more that I can learn from this than I can in my victories.

When I'm winning my fights, I go back and watch the film.

I'm picking the things that I think I need to work on.

You know, I'm like, I made a mistake here.

Right.

But now that I'm on the losing end of it and I'm in bad positions and I'm losing these

positions.

Regardless of what reason they are, I'm like, okay, I need to fix that.

And this fight, I believe it was mostly mental mistakes that ended up causing technical

mistakes.

But no doubt.

And a lot of the game is mental.

You know, I know you've seen, we've seen people that they've went their career undefeated.

But most of the greats in this game, you know, not everybody goes undefeated.

Most people actually, you know, some of the greats don't go undefeated even notice.

And I know that probably was in your mind of like, that's what you want to do is go, you

know, 22 and 0, you know, 30, you know, whatever.

But in this game, it's difficult, you know, for people to run the gauntlet and go the whole

way undefeated.

So I know the version of you coming after this.

I know your mentality.

I know the way to attack things.

I know how much you throw yourself into this game.

I know there's going to be huge growth, you know, coming from this stuff.

And I know you've been a huge believer in people say you learn more from your losses.

You've always said, I'd rather learn from my wins and you can learn, you know, from your

wins, you don't need to learn from losses.

I don't learn from your losses in the game.

I think you're going to learn a lot, you know, I think you've already learned a lot,

you know, from the losses.

Speaking of the learning a lot from the losses, you know, I think you've always, you know,

you've had haters.

I've seen trolls and, you know, and stuff in the past, social media.

I was glad to be there with you, you know, and in my mind and heart, you know, I was hoping,

you know, obviously, I hope you never lose.

But when I look at going to your fights, I was hoping that if there was ever a day, you

know, that you would lose it, I would be there, you know, I would want to be there.

I don't want to be there just for the wins.

I would want to be there for that moment.

You know, we, on the journey of, of increase on the journey of growth and anything, the more

you win, the more, the more haters that somehow attract towards you, you know, and I knew

that there would be an opportunity for people to come out of the woodwork, you know, and hate

whenever, if that day, you know, whatever come.

And there was, there was probably more trolling and negative, you know, people surrounding

after that fight than any other fight, you know, that I've seen.

So is there any, any message, you know, that you have in your mind to the, to the haters?

Man, honestly, it made me smile because they've been waiting, you know, what, what, seven

amateur MMA fights and seven amateur boxing matches and now nine pro fights to finally

have this moment, you know, they hated me for so long, they've been hoping every single

time that I fight, that they were going to have this moment, but they had the wait till

now to get it.

So if I'm living in your head, rent free like that, and I'm having that much of an impact

on your life, you need to look in the mirror, you know, I mean, you need to reevaluate

yourself and they could have their moment now because it's not going to last long.

They think that, you know, I've even seen some people send me screenshots of people from

Newcastle, you know, post.

and they're Facebook posts and their tweets and everything after the fight saying like I should find a new career and shit like that.

Listen, like you said, it's very rare that anybody ends up undefeated in the sport and one loss,

ain't gonna define me, one loss ain't gonna change the fact that I'm gonna become a world champion.

One loss doesn't change anything, man.

And if that's the way they view things, they're never gonna succeed in anything.

Because what has anybody on this planet done, whether it be business or even a normal nine to five sports,

football, fighting, boxing, anything where they haven't taken a loss, whether it be, you know, you have a...

Public or private?

Yeah. And it's like, for example, in business, if you're on your own company and you have a contract with another company to do services for them,

and you get out bid, and then you lose that contract. You don't get the money because you're being a little bit too greedy,

you wanted more money, and then you lose that.

Are you gonna tell yourself like, oh, fuck, I should find a new career?

Right. No.

Right. You're gonna...

Exactly.

Dust it off.

Amen.

You're gonna go try and find a new contract. You're gonna go try and bid with another company.

Amen.

You're gonna still get food on your table, you know what I mean?

I think that's part of the process that I've witnessed for anybody as a professional in anything,

is the more successful that you become, the more eyes that are on you and the more haters that are waiting to see you fail.

You know, it's a shame.

You know, it's like, as you're coming up, you know, people root for you, people root for you more, as an underdog,

and then the more wins that you stack up, the more people start to want to see you fail.

Listen, the crazy thing is, is after I lost, there was a lot of people that reached out to me that never reached out for a win.

You know what I mean?

They were...

I have a lot of people reaching out for a win, so I should say this, like, after I would win all my fights, every fight, it would end up,

I'd get more text message notifications, more Facebook, more Instagram, you know, I'd be blown up after.

It would take me days to catch up on everything.

No doubt.

After my fight, you know, I look at my phone, not that...

Like I said, not that I expect it, not that it really matters to me, you know, I lost, I'll handle it.

I don't need anybody, you know, patting me on the back, telling me it's gonna be okay.

Right.

I've been here before, but I look at my phone, there's 24 text messages, that's it.

And eight of them are from my brother, hating on me, telling me I have no submission game, no ground game.

I need the work of my cardio, I need to stop cutting weight, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, you know.

So, I'm like, I kind of expected this, you know.

Yeah.

And then to my surprise over the next few days, people, not just people that were supporting me already,

people that never even said congratulations whenever I won.

Are reaching out to me, telling me like, you know, you're awesome, you're inspiring, you know, keep your head up.

This isn't gonna affect you, one loss isn't gonna define you.

You should like that, you know, just inspirational messages, just reaching out, you know, making sure everything's okay.

And to my surprise, like I said, it was a lot of people that I didn't even know, supported me, didn't even know that I thought.

There was a lot of people, and you know, I'm super appreciative of it.

It's part of the game, you know what I mean?

That's part of the mental process is coming up, you know, I remember times I've taken losses, or I've had, you know, people criticize me,

and I've had to, you know, tell you like, don't sweat it, don't, you know, you ain't got to defend me, you ain't got to defend me to these people, or I ain't worried about them.

You know, you remember those conversations like, I ain't worried about them, bro.

I've started to get more and more conditioned through the come-up of, this is just part of the game, you know.

I used to refer to, you know, you look at like a LeBron James.

Imagine LeBron every chance he travels to different arenas, you know, you're gonna have people booing you from the stands.

You're gonna have people talking about your mama, and putting holding signs up, you know, talking about you, hoping that you lose.

You can't go running up there and arguing with every certain person in the arena because they're buying tickets to come there and watch you live out your dream.

And most of the people that do things like that, they're not living out their own dream, you know, so they start taking that out, you know, on somebody else.

Usually the critics and the haters aren't the ones that are successful in their own right because they know what it requires, they know what it costs.

And it's usually, you know, it's that old saying of, you know, you usually won't find a hater doing better than the person that they're hating on.

You know what I mean? So it's all part of the process, all part of the journey for anybody listening out there, whether it's publicly, whether it's in fighting in the cage and business and basketball and football, whatever it is.

The more success that you have, the more that you have to get comfortable and embrace the process of having people that want to do that stuff.

I think one of the things that makes you you is the confidence level that you bring, you know, to the game.

I know your confidence level was super high, you know, coming into the fight and it's always super, super high.

Has your confidence level, did you feel your confidence level shake at all through your first loss?

No, if anything, I'm more confident now because in the first round, I not only showed everybody what I'm capable of, I showed myself, you know what I mean?

He's a high level fighter. He's one of the best fighters in the world as well. And, you know, in the first round, I just felt like I made him feel out of place and I felt levels above him.

And the, you know, what happened later in the fight was pretty much, I got tired and the reason I got tired because I got away from the game plan and I didn't listen to my coaches.

So, you know, it is what it is. Cardio, your gas tank, everything else is a part of the fight game. It's part of the fight.

So, at the end of the day, he beat me at that. But whenever it came to skill, speed, power, strength, everything else, I was a better fighter.

And like, you think experience played into it at all? He had double the fights.

No, I don't think that went into it. I think, I think at the end of the day, I was very confident before the fight. I made a lot of bold predictions and I said a lot of bold things, you know what I mean?

I was getting some hate after the fight for it, you know, because this people put in their back pocket, you know, they see me say these things are put in the back pocket and they're like, okay, if he loses, I'm going to, you know, this age well.

You know, you see that type of shit all the time. No, no. But when I say this shit, man, this is MMA, this is sports, anything can happen. You know, people losing sports all the time.

When I say this shit, it's not, I'm not scared to say it for being humiliated. I'm saying it because I believe it. I'm not saying it to talk shit and trying to promote a fight.

Everything I say is what I believe I believe in myself. I'm confident myself. And just because I made a prediction and I was wrong.

It's not the end of the world. It's not going to change my confidence. My confidence is based off of what I do in the gym, what I've done my whole entire life, my belief in myself, my belief in my training partners, my belief in my coaches. It's not artificial.

It's not reinforced by wins and it's not reinforced by yes, man. It's lit. My confidence comes from within. It comes from everything I do. It comes from my work ethic. And I know all that's there at the end of the day. I know I'm not being beat because I got out working in the gym.

No doubt that's at the end of the day. That's what that's what it's about for me. I'm going to go back to the gym. I'm going to keep working. I'm going to get better. And I'm going to fix these mistakes. And I'm going to be just as confident if not more next fight.

Energy level, you know, wise, do you think was there anything that you learned or process with energy level going into the fight, you know, excitement, enthusiasm, how you handled that stuff, whether it was the build up to it, the walkout, anything that you grasp from that.

So this fight, I said before the fight, it was the best I ever felt before fight. And that was the honest got truth. It's the best I ever felt. And you see people say all the time, especially fighters, they say that before the fight and then they go and have a ship performance and then they say they start making excuses.

I injured this, I injured that, you know, the day before the fight, I was having I ate something bad and was having like digestive issues or had a fucking stomach bug, whatever the hell he said, you see so many excuses.

For me, it was the best I ever felt, you know, I mean, you have injuries every single camp, you have bumps and bruises, you're not going to get away with that. This is a brutal sport.

So anybody think they're going to go into a fight 100% is mistaken. They're lying to themselves. But all that aside, this is the best I ever felt. I felt like I was in the best shape I could possibly be in.

And I know that didn't show during the fight, but before the fight, it was the best I felt I was super confident. I was making those predictions because I was confident myself. I felt like I was levels above the guy.

And even though I ended up losing, I still felt still felt great. I just didn't have the best performance that I could have ended up getting tired.

Like I said, because I got away from the game plan. That's what made me tired. If I stuck to our game plan, I could have fought at that pace all day long. That's what I was training for.

And you just didn't work out for me. What's what's the plan on, you know, how are you going to respond to this? Like what's the what's the thought process of, all right, here's my response because life is all response. You know, you have things that go on.

And then you have your response and then you have the outcome, you know, sometimes the things that go on or in your control, sometimes the things that that go on aren't 100% completely in your in your control.

But the response is something that's usually always in your control. What's what's the response like, you know, where do you feel like your response is, is that how are you going to respond?

So like I said, I've dealt with losses before in wrestling, other sports. And this is a little bit different because in the aspect that you're fighting in front of millions of people on TV, thousands of people in person.

So for a lot of people, this can mentally break them. They can be too humiliated. They might quit fighting. I've seen it happen before. They get one loss and they quit fighting. You never see him in the gym again.

Or you see guys that they keep fighting and it takes a mental tool on where they don't believe in themselves. And they don't train as well. They don't fight as well every single time they go in that cage that's on their on their mind. They're like, am I going to lose again? Am I going to get humiliated again?

And that can really ruin people's careers. But I know I'm not not that type of person. So this is if anything, this is just going to fuel me.

And I told you before I have my motivations in place. I don't need any external motivation, but this is this is adding fuel to the fire for sure.

No doubt. Any chances you think for rematch? Yes.

You know down the road. I'm hoping after this next fight, I can call for it. I'll get the rematch. And like I said, I know I can beat this guy.

So you would want to rematch for sure immediately. If they give me the rematch, if the fight went a little bit differently. And I was able to call it for a rematch right now, you know, granted what my popularity in the promotion now.

And everything that I did before this, the win streak. And I've gained some rapport with the matchmakers and everybody. I feel like they would have done it. Maybe immediately have had the end of the fight gone differently.

But you know, the second half of that fight, the last eight minutes, eight and a half minutes, I fought like dog shit. You know what I mean? I did not look good. I did not feel good anymore.

And so an immediate rematch obviously wouldn't be on the table. I have to earn that back. And I'm ready to earn it. You know, I'm going to fight my next fight.

And I'm looking to go out there and talk. You hear anything from when the next fight may be. You think you get one in body end of the year.

I'm hoping November. I've been on my manager about getting November. Actually texted him right before we started this interview. I've texted him out of the it's been 14 days since my fight out of the 14 days. I probably texted him 10 or 11.

I gave him a few days break here and there when I could tell you was getting a little frustrated with me. But I'm like, thinking to myself, this is your job, man. You know, man, I know you got other fighters. But I want to get back in there. I only fought once this year.

And I want to fight again before the end of this year. I want to get the sour taste. This was your own fight this year. I only fight this year.

Okay. So, and I lost. So it's not a good feeling. How many fights are on this contract? That's your own.

I have one more left. And it's my contract's post end by the end of this year. So I'm hoping they honor it and I end up fighting one more time for the end of the year.

You're like, so I want to get the sour taste out of my mouth. I want to fight and go in there and prove that that's not the person that I am proved to myself, proved everybody else because the first seven minutes at fight versus the last eight minutes.

Completely different story. You know, I mean, you saw two different fighters. And I want to go and show that I'm the fighter in the first round every single round. And I mean, you saw that in the fights before this.

And I plan to show that from here on out. So, regardless of who they give me my next fight, I plan on going out there dominating. You know, if I get a finish or not, I want to put on an impressive performance weather.

I get the finish or whether it goes all three rounds. And I just dominate them all three rounds again on the mic after. Call them out again if they want to make it. Let's fucking do it. If they want to make have me fight somebody else or he fights for the title, which I don't believe he's going to win.

So be it. I'll win another one. I'll call him out again. You know, and then if they want to give me the title fight instead of fighting him, I'll take that. I'll win the title. And then I'll call him out. I'll give him a title shot. And then, you know, we'll fight again that way. So either way, I want this fight back. And, you know, it's not that I'm not getting past it. I'm getting past the fight itself. But I want him again. You know, he's not the person I should have taken my. There's people on this planet that are good enough, you know, to do that. I don't think he was.

I just think I had stomach and then listen to my coaches. Yeah. Part of the game. Part of the process. What do you think? You know, for somebody listening, I was listening to a recent interview that I sent you.

And I think it was could be talking about a thousand hours long. I was trying to figure out the part you were trying to get me to see the whole thing.

You know, I went through the whole thing. Break it up. Yeah, I were in four minutes. The whole thing. I started watching it last night. And you were talking about the Florida Gators documentary. And I started watching this. And I started getting a little hyped. So I was like, I got to talk to software. Yeah. Exactly. I was thinking there's no way. I would watch that before going to bed. If you if you watch that before going is going to be

tough to go to bed.

Yeah, right now.

I think you'll pull things from that interview.

Yeah, and I was watching that interview in just like some of the,

some of the editing that they were doing and everything and mixing it with the

interview and like part of his fight career and everything else.

I was getting a little hype.

So I was like, just in the intro.

Yeah, yeah.

So I was like, I need to turn this off and get back to it tomorrow because my ass,

I, right now my, my knees hurt, my lower backs hurt.

I would have been out running, you know, at night because all the gyms were close.

I would have been going for a run.

One of the things on there that, that, that they were talking about on,

on that podcast is his transition from fighting to coaching.

And when he was, he was talking about, you know, as a coach,

one of the questions was, how would you tell if somebody got it, you know,

and, and don't have, and, and somebody that's not going to make it.

And he gave his input on that and I'd like, you know, your input on that.

But one of the, one of the things that came up in that,

where that question evolved to was he was saying, you know,

guys that are working because they want to make money.

And because they want to make money, you know, they got to go work, you know,

eight hours, you know, a day or whatever.

And he's like, if somebody wants to really make it, they got to go all in.

You know, even if it was that five percent or one percent that you're missing

from having your focus on something else, you know, or working energy,

something in your diet that you're missing because of that, it's going to affect you,

you know, and he believes that if somebody truly is set on being a world champion,

they need to cut out, you know, all those things going on in their life and,

in jobs or anything like that and be willing to go broke if they have to to go completely all in.

What is the, what is the preparation that you think it requires to fight at the highest levels

and to ultimately be a champion?

What do you think it, like could you explain the, the sacrifices that go into that

and the preparation that goes into that?

Because I don't think people, you know, that aren't in it.

I don't think they understand.

That's a long answer.

But touching up on what he's doing, you can't, if you're, I told one of my buddies,

and I'm not going to mention his name, he was trying to do real estate and fighting at the same time.

And he was saying he was going to be a world champion, UFC champion,

and he was going to be some great successful real estate agent.

I said, you can only choose one.

I said, you can do them at separate times, said, if you want to fight first and then do the real estate,

you can be great at both.

But if you're doing both of them at the same time, you're not going to be great either.

You'll be good or above average or, you know, really good at both, but you're not going to be the best.

And that, that applies for everything, you know, it's not just a job.

If you're, if you're fighting and you're only training once a day, you're not going to be the greatest.

If you're fighting and you're training twice a day, but you're still going out to drink at night and you're getting

six hours to sleep, five hours to sleep, you're not going to be a champ.

If you're fighting and you're training two times a day and in between practice, you're not arresting

and you're doing shit.

You shouldn't be doing.

You're eating the wrong foods.

You're not going to feel your greatest at practice.

You're not going to be able to perform to your full potential.

You're not going to be as good as you could possibly be.

You're not going to be a world champion.

I can keep giving these examples over and over and over again, but end of day, everything needs to be dialed in.

You need to have your complete focus on fighting.

You have to train at least twice a day, sometimes three, but same time you have to be smart enough to know when not to overtrain.

Because if you're overtrain, you overdo it, you're going to have counterintuitive results.

No doubt.

And you don't want that either.

So you need to have a good coach in place to tell you when you need to take time off.

You need somebody to design your schedule with a little bit of your help too.

You know, you know yourself, you know your own body, but you need somebody else to guide you.

You need to be all in.

Your diet needs to be all in.

Your supplementation needs to be all in.

Your sleep needs to be all in.

What you're doing, your rest in between practice, what you're doing in between practices needs to be all in.

Your focus at practice needs to be all in.

You know, and there's a lot of people that will goof around or slack off or go through the motions at practice.

You go to practice and you go through the motions.

You're not giving it a hundred percent or you know, you're like, okay, I know this move already.

I'm just going to go through the motions.

You might get worse at that move.

You know, because now you're starting to slow practice, it doesn't make perfect.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

So if you're really good at a move already, but then you start doing it sloppy because you're already good at it, you're going to regress.

That's that that'll happen with anything.

You know, I mean, you you have a really good basketball player who makes three pointers all day long, but knows his technique.

You know, and you took time to perfect that technique shot after shot, shot made sure every time he was taking that shot on the basketball court in the gym, whatever.

When he was by himself sometimes when he's with his coach, whatever made sure he got every detail right.

That all of a sudden one day comes by where he's like, I'm already good enough at that.

And he kind of like he's focused on other things in his game, which you need to do.

But then when he does take that shot that he works so much time on, he forgets about the details.

He just, you know, throws up the shot.

It's going to regress.

The shot's going to get worse.

Everybody's going to wonder what happened.

And are you up?

Are you up?

Are you up?

You know, would you define yourself?

Do you think somebody from the outside looking in if they watch your training and your regimen?

Would you think they would describe you as obsessed?

Absolutely.

And I think the second part of that fight, you wouldn't think the same thing.

You know what I mean?

My training and my dedication and my commitment to what I do did not show in the second half of that fight.

And like I said, it kind of all mental for me.

And you have those mental lapses.

Sometimes you just hope they're not on fight night.

And for me, it was on fight night.

So I got, I got some shit.

I need to work on.

No doubt you will.

The obsessed part of it.

Have you had people from the outside, friends, family, others, you know, try to tell you like, you know, there's more to life than fighting.

You know, you shouldn't put all your time and energy.

You got to go enjoy yourself.

You should go do this.

You should go do that.

Have you ever heard that all the time?

No.

How do you process that?

That they don't know, you know, some of whom actually might mean the best when they say it.

But they don't know.

They don't understand not everybody is passionate about what you are.

Or as passionate about something as you are.

So at the end of the day, you can't always take it as an insult.

I feel like no doubt because some people get some people.

People that care about you.

Yeah.

So sometimes it doesn't come from a good place.

A lot of time.

I say most of the time, but sometimes it really does.

And they just don't understand.

They don't understand your commitment to it.

They don't see what you do in the gym.

They just see what you do on fight night.

They see what you do on TV or at the fight shows.

But they don't see everything that goes into it.

They don't see the sacrifice.

They don't see the blood tears.

There's a book out, an old book out that called Be Obsessed or Be Average.

And this is one of the things that I said, you know, I'm passionate about to where I'm open to taking criticism on if I have to.

Of I don't think you can be the greatest at something if you're not obsessed.

I think you got to I think if you show me an Olympic gold medalist, if you show me a champion,

you show me the greatest at anything, I'm going to show you somebody that's obsessed.

And I think the where I've seen, you know, as a coach, people struggle is from here in the outside noise of,

oh, you shouldn't do that.

You shouldn't do this because you know, you're obsessed.

You only live once.

You shouldn't put that much time in.

But if you want to be the greatest and you want to play at the greatest levels,

it's a 24, 7, 365 thing.

It got to be on your mind all the time.

You know, it's it's an obsession.

What what things in your experience, you know, if you had to pinpoint somebody,

even if their skill set isn't there yet, because the skill set comes from reps over time and putting a time into the gym.

What things do you think you would be able to spot as a person if you said, you know,

to say this person has a chance to be great.

You know, what what things have you learned in the gym from training or watching people?

What things would stick out to you where you're like, yeah, I know quickly, you know,

I think that person could be somebody that has a chance to be special.

Well, first thing is talent athleticism.

That's the first thing that sticks out when you see somebody like, potentially, okay, this, yeah,

potentially, this guy, this guy can be good.

But then after that, you know, when you're when he's training, it's like, how much tenacity does he have?

You know, is he relentless in the gym?

When you're seeing him train, does he have like that aggressiveness or the will to do whatever it takes, you know,

to be great?

And you learn a lot about a lot about people in training, especially in the sport because this sport isn't for the faint of heart, you know?

So when she gets tough, this this is the hardest thing to fucking do.

When you're fucking tired and when nobody else can fucking help you and you're in the gym sparring,

it's your fucking tenth training session of the week and you're dead tired.

And you got two rounds left and you're halfway into the second, the last round and there's three minutes left and you're dead,

fucking tired.

You know, I mean, you find out who's going to be great and who's not, you know, at the end of the day in training,

because you don't have to be there.

You know, on fight night, everybody gets paid, you know, everybody's fighting in front of millions of people.

Everybody's fighting in front of their fans, their friends or family.

You know, that's where you get your bragging rights.

You win.

You get to brag a little bit, you know, you get to be happy, you lose, you know, you're down,

you're obviously upset or maybe you don't care.

Maybe you just do it for money.

But in the gym, when you don't have to be there and no one's forcing you to be there,

especially in MMA, this is like a club sport, essentially.

It's not the NFL.

There's not organized practices.

You find out who shows up and when they show up, how they're training when they show up.

Somebody shows up in the girls in a motion.

It's not just showing up.

Yeah, because you show up three times a day.

Right.

And you could train.

You could slack off, you know, you could just go through the motion.

Same as business.

Yeah.

I see people they come to the office, you know, the girlfriend or mother, this one says,

oh man, Johnny's in the, you know, they worked so much, you know, they're there five days a week or six days a week.

But if you see them in the office and you see what they're doing, it's like they're not focused.

The duration and effort are two different things.

You could be there for as long as you want.

But if you're not putting in the effort, it doesn't matter, you know, there's a difference between working long and working hard.

And I see people in the gym two, three times a day, but they go in there and they don't put the effort forward.

You know, they're going 80%.

That can be great.

Checking the box.

Yep.

I came.

And then you got guys that go in once a day and put all their effort in the one practice, but they got more energy.

They come back at night time.

They know they should come back at night time.

And they don't.

They're not going to be great.

You have guys that come in there in their work hard at both practices.

You're like, okay, this guy can be good.

But then he's going to get in trouble, going and getting in trouble outside of practice.

He's drinking at night time.

He's partying.

He's not coming in on any sleep.

So you think that plays a role too?

Bro, everything.

Party and going out on a weekend.

You have to have everything fucking dialed in with this man.

If one thing's wrong, you know, it can.

Everything can shatter before your eyes.

You know, when I'm hearing this and when I'm having this conversation with you, this mirrors business.

Same thing.

Same thing.

I try to tell young people that I'm mentoring, you know, in this game and in this process.

You know, it's like, what's the big deal?

You know, I'm out Saturday night all night, you know, drinking because I work hard all week long.

What's the problem?

You know, I'm going out until two, three o'clock in the morning, drinking and sleeping in the next day.

And it's a people will be like, have a little bit of fun, you know, there's more to life than work.

It's like, okay, have that attitude if you want to that's up to you.

That's not the attitude I want to have.

You know, I want to be the best.

Like you know, like when do we, when did you tell me you're going to have a cigar with me?

Whenever I'm fucking retire, whenever I win a world championship, I can solidify myself.

Solidify my legacy is one of the best ever to it.

Right? So we, we, we've been at places and you're a true honest cigar with me.

Yeah.

And you're like, man, it looks cool to smoke these things.

I can't wait to smoke when he said I'm going to smoke one.

I'm going to smoke one with you when I retire.

That's when that's when I'm going to smoke.

Not just when I retire after I win world championship, defend the belt, become one of the best ever to it.

And I still believe that I can be one of the best ever to do it.

No doubt.

I know, I know I'm going to win a world championship.

What are you now? 27 27 27 just yesterday.

You couldn't rent a car.

27 27 years old in that, in that interview that you're going to dig into that hour long interview.

I send you he was talking about he thinks like prime time from what he's experienced.

It's like 30 31 32, you know, in the fight game.

That was just his personal thing.

I still have a lot of fucking time so much time.

Yeah.

And that's what I'm saying.

Look at you at 22 and look at you at 27.

Look at the difference in everything in your life.

Imagine 27.

I have one last night, but I'm a much better fighter.

No doubt.

And in life, you're just better all the way around.

You know what I mean?

Beautiful.

I think the, I think the thing that I'm trying to get at for the listeners because we have

a diverse group of people that that listen to this is I want people to understand

what it requires in order to play at that level, in order to, in order to fight at that level, in order to be in business at that level.

I think the thing that's tougher, you know, in your business is that like you said, it's, it's

millions of people, you know,

you and you, you and your loss, you know, viewing you at that moment like an animal.

Yeah, you know, nobody gets to, nobody gets a TV channel to watch people, you know, build their businesses or what they're doing

day in and day out.

They just see if they're successful or not.

No doubt.

You know, people will see the same thing on TV when they're watching fighters, but they actually have a front row seat or a TV to watch.

That happened that moment.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

But they still don't see everything that goes in behind the scenes.

And we've talked about this before somebody rolled up next to you when you were in your Bentley and their scream,

fuck you and all this other shit like they hate you for no reason.

You know,

They hate you because you're successful.

They see you driving that car and they obviously,

they automatically think all these bad things.

Kinda goes the same with fighting,

where I just had my first loss

and everybody, I see the people on Facebook,

sending people send me screenshots.

I've had the same thing.

People sending me screenshots of people behind it.

And it blew some blew my mind

when I went through my low adversity of blew my mind

of the people that I've been nice to,

that would say something so crazy.

But on both ends, they see you win

and then they see you lose.

And especially with the stuff you went through,

there's a lot of people that were seeing you lose too.

And you see how they react.

And it's like, it doesn't bother us obviously at all.

We get through it.

We know we're gonna be good regardless.

No matter what happens, we're gonna be good.

But these people, they see you get down

and they're like, oh, see, I knew I was right

about that person the entire time.

Look what happened.

Yeah, he's your figure, something new out.

This isn't gonna work out for him.

It's like, that's how you view it.

You know what I mean?

You get a front row seat to watch my entire life.

And I lose once.

And you think that I should get a new career.

Do I get a front row seat to your life?

No, I don't get a, you know,

cameras in a TV screen or front row seats

that I get to pay to come watch you in your office.

Try to take a nail.

Yeah, try to get these contracts

or try to get your workers do this

or have when your people don't show up

and you have a bad day of work

or you don't meet a certain quota or whatever.

I don't get a front row seat to that.

I don't get a television screen to see that.

I don't get to pay tickets to see that happen.

You guys are paying money for the showtime subscription

or paying money to come watch me fight

and hoping that I lose.

That's a miserable way to live life.

It is a miserable way to live life.

And then when I finally do lose

and I have a hiccup or a little bump in the road

and you are so happy that that happened.

That tells me you were so miserable up until that point.

That was a long time coming.

That was a long time to sit there and wait for me to lose.

Like you know what I mean?

Finally. Yeah, it's like, it's like, I could party.

Fuck, I really feel bad for you if you waited that long.

It's like, I've been fighting for what, six years now.

You waited fucking six years and every single fight

you get your hopes up and you get so happy.

Like I can't wait to watch this motherfucker lose the night.

Seriously.

And then I don't lose.

Come on, be the one for me, don't.

And then I don't fucking lose.

I don't fucking lose and then they're like, fuck.

He isn't fighting anybody good.

You know?

And then I fight, I mean all my opponents

were good in Bellator.

But then I fight somebody like Aaron Jeffrey

and he's good enough at certain spots

to give me my first loss.

Regardless of whether I made mistakes or not,

he capitalized on them.

I can't take anything away from him.

But the end of the day, I have one loss

and then they're like, I told you he wasn't that good.

You know, it's like, come on man.

Like if I had a front row seat, like we said to your life,

how many times would I've been able to say this to you?

I would've been able to say it a lot.

But guess what, even though I am able to say

I can guarantee, I can say it, not gonna.

No, I don't care that much.

I'm not letting you control my life.

Even if you hate me, I don't hate you.

This is gonna make you better.

You know what I mean?

So I know we've had our conversations.

And my nickname for Dalton is Dr. Rosta, right?

Cause he's smarter than he looks.

He don't look that smart, but he's smart.

He could have been a doctor, he could have been an attorney.

You could have definitely been a good attorney.

You like to argue in debate, loves to argue in debate.

One of our hundred debates that we had was-

So what I'm talking about, people only get to see me fight.

They don't know how I like to do this shit.

Right.

No doubt.

Smart as hell, like a doctor.

Right?

So one of our debates, or one of our things you've said to me,

you know, because I told you I process haters differently

than you've processed haters.

Is I've told you haters do what to me.

They fuel you.

They motivate the shit out of me.

And you're like, man, I'm indifferent.

You know, I don't they don't fuel me or unfuile me or whatever.

I think some haters are motivating you right now, bro.

You think so?

I've had fun with it, man.

You are, but I think they're motive.

You, but you're stubborn.

So you'll never admit it to me.

Listen, if anybody here, you're admitted to me.

No, listen, it's not you.

But I know if anybody, if anybody watching, they're motivating you.

Listen, if anybody watching, like is watching and listening to me talk, and they think that.

All right, if they're able to say it and there's multiple people say, okay, fine.

I'll admit to it, you know what I mean?

But that's not the way that I feel like when I'm expressing this,

that it's it should be taken.

You know what I mean?

I'm getting a laugh out of it.

I'm, you know, this I'm saying it doesn't affect me.

It means like you waited that long for me to have a loss.

You know what I mean?

Imagine how miserable you were.

Yep.

And it's not going to last long.

You know what I mean?

You're going to go back to being miserable right after this.

So it's like, I'm fun with it.

For me.

For me.

The digestion for me is, is it doesn't affect me negatively.

And that's honest, 100% at all.

None of the hate ever affects me negatively, but it does affect me positively.

It does me personally.

It lights me up.

Like, thank you so much because of you.

Now we're going to double up after this because without that little extra burn, when I,

when I get a little bit of tired or if I get a little bit of, now I can't retire.

I can't until we until we do this because I got a dunk on you.

You know what I mean?

Well, for me, listen, you, you probably seen a lot of the comments on my, my posts after

the fight.

A lot of these people I don't even know that I'll never know a day in my life.

I have to fight myself back from not giving in the mud.

I deleted a couple.

Listen, there's a few, I went and I'm like, can't do that.

Yeah, I can't said that.

Listen, but there's a lot of rabbit hole right now.

There was a lot of people on there defending me, like commenting back to these other people.

They, I thought I wouldn't even have expected.

You know what I mean?

People that I don't really talk to, people that I only know from social media, people

that were just fans of me, and they're still a fan, you know, fighting with other, other

people that were fans and now they're haters because I got to see those comments too.

Like, oh, I was a fan, but now I'm not.

People were trolling Gina.

Really?

Yeah.

How so?

Making comments, smart comments on her stuff on her page.

I had to pull her to the side to talk about it.

And I said, just call Natalie if you want to know how to handle this stuff.

But welcome to congratulations on being pretty and your husband having a butter, I mean,

being a handsome, your man being handsome and being a champion and being a professional.

This is what you, this is what you get too.

So call Natalie if you want to know how to handle it because Natalie handles it all with

style and grace too.

You know, doesn't see I didn't know that, but I was 100% prepared for it to happen to

me, you know, and I'm reading these comments and like I said, I'm getting kicks out of

them because it's like at the end of the day, none of these people will do what I do.

And it's easy to criticize me.

No doubt.

It's easy to criticize me from the couch.

It's not like I said, it's not going to motivate me because a lot of these people like

they have fake profile pictures.

They're profiles are private.

They have 100 followers and follow a thousand people.

It's like, come on.

Let's be realistic here.

Why would your opinion?

The shit they're saying.

Wow.

Yeah.

I'd like to see them get in the cage which, yeah.

But then to the day, let's say they got so much advice.

Let them say what they fucking want.

I don't care.

Like I really did not have any desire to comment back to mostly shit.

That's good.

Like I don't care.

I tell you this man, I didn't know after and I got I got to I want to ask you about like

even right now in between, you know, getting ready for the next fight here being here

in Pittsburgh when you're going back to Fort Lauderdale.

Right?

That's where it's at Lauderdale, Lauderdale, Dottie, right?

So the like when you're going back, but I would just I want to ask you, when you wrap up

a fight camp and a fight, you know, after you have you didn't have a gazillion blueberry

red bulls or not the energy drinks and stuff.

I didn't think you were going to go out after.

I didn't think you were going to go we were going to go eat, you know, after I'm like,

I don't know how you were going to process this, you know, seeking to like fuck it.

I don't want to go out.

I don't want to go eat with everybody, be around all these people, you know, I mean, and

all that stuff.

I thought you handled it pretty well, you know, to just say I'm down to I'm going to

get cleaned up.

I'm going to go eat with everybody.

I'm going to go hang out, you know, still with everybody and realize what do I get by

surfing on dog like.

Like this.

I'll be honest with you, this is my fucking life.

It fucking hurt.

It's done.

No doubt.

But what do I get from sulking in my fucking hotel room away from everybody?

All those people came out to see me fight, you know, and I mean they came to support

me.

They love me.

And, you know, what if anything, I should be around those people I feel like, you

know what I mean?

If I, not that they would have been upset, if I didn't go out to eat with them, you

know, not that they expected it.

I'm sure it made them all happy to know that even whenever I lose, I'll still go out

to eat with them, I'll still hang out with them.

It's, you know, it's not that of the world fighting is my life, you know, in the mean and

winning does mean everything to me.

You know, I'm the type of person like I want to win it all cost.

You know, I had an argument with junior dos Santos in the song of the one day where he

was like, oh, winning isn't everything like it doesn't mean anything.

Like it's okay to lose them.

Like, no, it's not okay to lose.

You know, I mean, sometimes you know how happy you were to get in a debate.

You're like, yes, I finally got somebody.

I got somebody.

I wrote to me too.

But I'm like, listen, man, it's not fucking okay to lose.

I don't care what you say.

I understand your order.

You have kids now.

It's not okay to lose.

I would never tell my kids it's okay to lose.

I would never tell myself it's okay to lose.

It's not.

It's not.

That was not okay.

What fucking happened, you know, but it does fucking happen.

You need to learn to brush yourself off and move the fuck on.

And I knew if that day ever fucking came, I'd be able to fucking handle it.

And I did.

I didn't expect the day to come.

I knew there was a fucking chance, you know, and I didn't expect it to be that fucking

dude.

That dude was not, he shouldn't have fucking beat me.

He wasn't good enough to beat me, but he fucking beat me.

It should happen in the fucking fight game.

Right.

And it was a combination of my mistakes and his fucking skill, you know what I mean?

His fucking gas tank.

He had a good gas tank.

I knew that.

We knew that.

We knew that.

I knew that I struggle with my gas tank whenever I grapple, whenever I'm heavily

grapple and I could fucking strike all day long.

My lungs are good.

My muscles fatigue, you know what I mean?

So I knew that was going to be a problem.

I played right in two's fucking game plan.

First round I didn't.

I did in the clinch a little bit, but I was still falling my game plan to the most part.

And I could have won doing that all fight long.

Got into his game plan, you know what I mean?

Ended up fucking losing because I played right into fucking what he wanted to do and

congrats to him, you know, he stuck to his game plan.

He executed it well.

I fought dumb and he got four losses.

Oh yeah, he's been there before.

But what I mean, it's all good.

Yeah, it is.

And you know, I'm sure he had the people say he should have it himself.

He said too.

Yeah, he didn't talk a bunch of shit.

No, he's a pretty stand up guy.

It's throwing in your face for nothing.

No, he's pretty stand up guy.

But he was definitely, I mean, he has every right to brag and say what he wants, but I think

if he's being honest with himself, he knows who the better fighter was first round.

It's like there's a difference between being in better shape and being a better fighter.

You know, the best fighter on the planet when they get tired, they don't mean fucking

much.

You know, you could have John Jones if he's dead tired.

No, I know.

So, you know, that third round, you know, being trapped, you know, like that underneath

and he was trying to cut the corner, you know, to your back, take your back and you weren't

let.

I mean, I know what that requires.

You know, I told you after I'm like, man, if anything, my level of respect for you

went up because I know what it's like to be like you got nothing left and somehow mentally

you're able to do that.

I have no idea.

And you're just doing practice, everybody's like, okay, I'll just pull guard, let him pass

my guard.

If I get submitted, we start again, you know, I mean, it's practice.

Right.

And in a fight, it's winter loose in there, you know what I mean?

There's no in between.

It's winter loose.

I mean, there's a draw, but fucking, obviously, you don't want to get a fucking draw, either.

So it's winter loose in my head, you know, do or die.

And I was dead fucking tired, you know, and it's like I still, at the end of the day, did

not want to get finished, did not want to give up the fucking take down.

You know, I mean, he was trying to spin and take my back.

I did not want to give it up.

You know, I used every bit of fucking energy I had, every time I started circling the

fucking grab that option, fucking leg.

I know it wasn't fucking.

I know what that takes.

I know it wasn't fucking fun at the end of that fight that I just sat there and hung on

his fucking leg, but that's all I fucking had.

You know, I was trying to get the take down.

You see me try to circle a few times.

I'm hanging onto it like hope and like I don't have any energy.

Like I'm literally completely gas completely exhausted, nothing.

And I'm waiting for him to just like, hopefully ease up and make a mistake.

Like he's like, okay, this guy's tired.

And then he's like, he gets lazy, makes a mistake and then I could capitalize on it,

end up in a good position, rest, and then when I'm not under him and get back at it,

you know what I mean?

But it happened the way it happened and I can't take it back, you know what I mean?

But I'm not gonna go dead ass tired.

I'm not gonna fucking struggle to get back to my feet and not have any reaction fucking

time and fucking get knocked out just for the sake of fans having a fucking fun fight.

I gave you guys a fucking fun fight for the first fucking seven minutes.

You know what I mean?

And that's because of shit that happened in the fight because of me fighting stupid.

That's all I could fucking give you.

You know what I mean?

But I gave it to my fucking all for that seven fucking minutes and after that, I had

nothing left.

You know what I mean?

At that point, I don't want to say it was trying to survive, but it was trying to wait

for an opening to take.

And if he gave me the opening, you know, without doing something stupid just so.

Yeah, or without you know, I had nothing left in the gas tank.

So it's like if I do something stupid now, it could be the fucking end, you know what I mean?

So it's like, do I let the fight fucking end now by doing something stupid or do I try

to wait it out to let him make a mistake from being frustrated from me just hanging on

his leg?

And then next thing you know, I could take over the fucking fight.

If the fight goes the whole 15 minutes, I'd give myself an opportunity for every single

second that goes to that fight, you know, I'm stuck under him, you know, but if I fucking

get knocked out just for sake of pleasing fans, I lost either way, you know what I mean?

So it's like, do I give myself a chance or not?

So I try to give myself.

a chance at me for like I said for me, it's winter loose in the gym. If that

fucking happens, you get tired, you could fall to your back, fucking pull guard.

You can just let them submit you and you start over again. You could slack off.

But in a fight when this dude's trying to take your head off, I'm trying to take

his head off. He's trying to take mine. We're both fighting for money. We're both

fucking fighting for the wins on our record fight for our legacy. You know, there's

not like I'm not so many people. He he locked in that dors a couple of times.

It was trying to spin to my side. I heard him say after in an interview saying like he felt

me like I like I broke. I didn't break. I was tired. I had nothing left them. If I broke,

you would have got that choke. He tried choking me with a 10 finger. He tried,

tried choking me with a dors. He tried going with an anacondled the one time it rolled

under. He didn't get me when any of the shit. I didn't let him take my back. I could

have let him take my back. How many times is Conor McGregor? But got tired in a fight.

And he let Nate Diaz take his back and choke him out. He let fucking Habib take his back

and choke him out. That's quittin. That's broken. I wouldn't let him take my back. I wouldn't

let him finish me. I would not let I wouldn't let him get that choke. He tried choking me

three different ways. I could have let him take my back and choke me. I could have let

him take me back and just covered up and let the ref stop it for a TKO. I didn't do any

of that. I'm not a fucking quitter. It might have looked sloppy. It might have looked

a little humiliating the third round because I had nothing left. But at the end of the

day, I did not fucking quit and I will never fucking quit. No, no. Speaking of not quitting,

what I think the last one I got for you is in between fights. So you get done with one

fight. You rest a little bit. You eat some things. You know, all that. You enjoy yourself

a little bit. How long before you you get back to training, you know, typically of like,

all right, you know, I'm I'm I'm getting back at it. Like already, you're it ain't like

you're back in Florida and you're going three times a day. But right now, you just said

you're already training. You just went 15 rounds or whatever. You know, boxing. How long

typically before you start back at it, like not full blown, like I'm in fight camp. But

like how long after the fight, typically before I'm back at it, you're in a gym somewhere,

you're wrestling, you're grappling, you're boxing, you're doing something at this point,

I would have been doing everything. It wouldn't have been fight camp intensity. It would

have been more technique and skill work and stuff. But it still would have been I probably

would have been sparring by this point. I would have been going live rounds, but a little

bit of a back injury, a little bit of an injury. It's causing that to be delayed. So taking

a little bit longer. Like you said, I've been boxing the past couple of days. I tried training

on Monday. I did, but was, you know, handicapped a little bit by the injuries. And when a little

bit lighter took Tuesday off because of it Wednesday, how long has it been since the two weeks

today?

Two weeks. So is it typically a week, a week off and then you're back at it?

Yeah. So I usually get back to lifting, which is new. The past couple fights, you know what

I mean? But I passed couple fights. I would get back to lifting like three, four days after

the fight, but I wouldn't get back to like actual like Jiu-Jitsu or striking or sparring

or anything until at least a week after the fight. I'd let my body heal. There was a fight

where I fought in Phoenix. You came to that one too against the Wayne Johnson. And my shins

were all fucked up from like all the kicking I was doing because you South Paul. And we worked

a lot of kicking during that fight camp and I was doing it during the fight. My shins were

fucked. And I couldn't like even put my shin on the mat. I couldn't even put it on a bed,

you know, it hurt so bad. So I took a little bit longer for that one too. So it was probably

the same time frame as this. But those were self inflicted injuries versus this one.

I took any legal elbow and hamburger fist to my spine. My knee was a little compromised

in the camp, but it ended up coming fight time being what I believed to be 100%. And then

I got kicked in a few times and I've been having issues with it since the fight. But it didn't

affect me during the fight. I don't think. So letting that heal a little bit too. But it's

coming along. My knee is pretty close to 100% my back is getting there. You know, I want

to put the percentage on it, but it's getting there. So hopefully next week I can start

training like full go. You know, get back to grappling at the mat factor before I leave

and head back down to Florida because I definitely want to get in there with Isaac.

But to wrap up, you know, to anybody listening, going through a transition, you know, where they

in business and life, you know, feel like they took a loss mentally. What would you say

to those people to give them any wisdom or any inspiration, anything like that as we

close out? I would just say it happens. You know, I mean, don't let it get you down. Don't

let it upset you. It's a part of life. Everybody goes through it whether they say they do

or not, you know, whether it's in practice behind closed doors in front of people. Everybody

experiences it differently. But don't let it drag you down because it can be the end of

you if you do. And but if you don't let it, like you said, it could be a motivator. It

could make you better. And at the end of the day, it's not the end of the world. And for

me, you know, I believe, I truly believe this is only going to make me better. And, you

know, I'm just going to leave the broken pieces on the floor and move on.

I love it. Amen. Well, got you back on your journey, brother. Proud of you, Hercules, Dr.

Rosta in the house in the grindcast room again, to be continued on the journey to your world

title, man. Thanks for taking some time out to come, come bang with us and hang with us

in the grindcast room, bro. We appreciate you. No problem. Love coming all the time, bro.

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the grindcast. Get ready. It's a new day.