Jake Lowry

Count money, man.

Money that grits is fine.

I told him, 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 my man, my friend Jake Lowry in the house.

Welcome to the grind cast studios.

Jake, thanks for having me, man.

Thanks for coming, man.

It's an honor.

Gonna be gonna be fun.

Gonna be awesome.

So Jake Lowry went to Teal College was a wrestler third in the nation in college wrestling

in 2014, right?

And just correct me if I'm wrong MMA record currently right now six and O as an amateur,

two and O as a pro, eight no total in the scene.

So just get ready for Jake, as Perm likes to call him Jake the snake.

That ain't that ain't the official nickname, but that's Perm's nickname for Jake the snake.

So a lot of the things you'll hear from about Jake to others, kind of quiet spoken in a

sense soft spoken, never would realize that somebody like that would be such an animal

and such a beast in the sport of MMA and wrestling and grappling and just somebody that if you

don't know him and you're gonna get to know him, it's one of those people that you just

can't help but love.

One of those people that would go out of his way and do anything for anybody and if you

got a problem with Jake or don't like Jake, usually something's wrong, something's wrong

with you or your ego's heard a little bit because you got smashed or something on the

mat so you can't get over it.

But one of the greatest people that you'll ever meet.

So let's get to know, let's let people get to know you a little bit, Jake.

What was your upbringing like and where are you from originally?

That's a long question.

I was born in Georgia, Stockbridge, but I was only there for year or two I think and then

we moved to a little town called Sandrock, Alabama.

I know you've never heard of it because...

Sandrock, Alabama.

They get graduated 30 people, something along that like crazy, like the elementary middle

school, high school, all in one place.

Okay.

Shared the same cafeteria, shared the same gym.

Any school, yeah.

You went to high school there?

No, I went to elementary school there and then I started middle school there.

Then we moved back to Georgia.

So the reason we moved back to Georgia was to start wrestling because Alabama didn't have

wrestling at the time.

It specifically our school in our area.

So we moved to Georgia.

Sorry wrestling.

How old were you?

I was in sixth grade.

So sixth grade you moved back to Georgia?

To get some wrestling.

Why Georgia?

Did your parents have a connection at Georgia?

Yeah, so I grew up on a farm and my dad had his best friend lived in Georgia.

He was a farmer.

They used to show horses together.

This was kind of before I was born kind of thing but my dad was always into it.

He was always into it so we kind of moved back there so they could kind of be closer to

each other.

It was his best friend so he just wanted to have a good place for us to come up and learn

hard work, learn how to beat discipline and there was wrestling which we always told

him we wanted to do because he was a state champion from German and we kind of always knew

that we would like to try it.

We used to wrestle a box, all that stuff when we were younger.

Your dad was a state champion wrestler?

Yes sir.

Yep for German high school.

I believe in the 70s.

Where's German high school?

So German is actually one of the three schools that were combined to make Albert Gallatin.

So that's why we need to come back.

No.

Oh, Pennsylvania.

Oh Pennsylvania.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So my dad's from Pennsylvania, moved to Georgia to find better work, to kind of make a better

living for himself.

He wanted to just get away from where he was from, kind of get out on his own, find something

a better life for himself and that's where he ended up meeting my mom.

She's from Georgia.

So that's kind of why it's a wild story.

I got family in Georgia, family in Pennsylvania.

We've kind of moved around a lot but ultimately I ended up in Pennsylvania.

I just never left.

How old were you when you moved to Pennsylvania?

Eighth grade.

Eighth grade.

Yep.

So we started wrestling and loved it.

So everything from that point on was wrestling man, everything.

And we, so the reason we moved to Pennsylvania, my brother was three years older than me.

So he was a junior at the time.

Well, in order to get like in state tuition and everything, he had to be in the state.

And there's no college wrestling in Georgia as far as I know at this point.

So we knew we probably weren't going to go to college in Georgia.

My dad was from Pennsylvania.

He said, this is a wrestling country.

We said, all right, let's go.

That's kind of what we're doing.

Did you notice a level difference from from Georgia to PA wrestling?

Crazy.

Yeah.

I didn't know anything in Georgia and I was pretty much smashing everyone in Georgia.

And then I moved to PA and I was like, man, I'm not good at wrestling.

So I took my lumps for a while, but it's nice because like, it tracks the legs.

So I knew that I should be somewhere better so I could push myself so that I could find

some better competition and everything.

Not that Georgia doesn't have good kids.

But in Georgia, it's such a big, big schools and everything.

So in Pennsylvania, it's a double-way tripway.

In Georgia, it's like 1A all the way through like 5 or 6A.

So you have 6A champs at each weight class.

You know what I mean?

So the competition was just kind of spread out a little bit more.

So you kind of didn't see all of the competition all the time.

Gotcha.

Gotcha, makes sense.

So you got to Pennsylvania and then went on and wrestled in high school and then moved

on to wrestle it at Teal.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

And did well at Teal.

Was that your senior year that you were third?

That was my junior year.

Okay.

And I tore my knee, my senior year.

So I had surgery and then I, I've redshared it that year, came back my senior year.

Tore some cartilage in my ribs, couldn't get healed in time.

So that was kind of the end of wrestling.

Okay.

And then right after college, did you know that MMA was something that you wanted to go

into or out of that whole thing?

I always knew I wanted to go into it.

So when I ended my college wrestling career, I was hurt.

I was hurt pretty bad.

So it kind of took me a couple of years to get through that.

I still had a lot of pain for a couple of years and I started working, started doing

what people tell you normal life is and I kind of fell onto that trap floor a little

while.

And then long story short, I lost my job that I was at.

I don't really want to get into the details, long story, but it's honestly the best thing

that's ever happened to me because after that, I was trying to find what my next step

was and everyone kept telling me like, what do you love?

Like what do you want to do?

You know what I mean?

But I didn't really think of that because then college and in high school, like all your

teachers, all your professors are always telling you like, you got to go to college,

you got to get a job.

You know what I mean?

And that's how you're going to live life.

But I knew that's not what I wanted to do.

So whenever I had to think about that question, I thought about this for months.

I was like, man, I just miss wrestling.

But obviously wrestling was over.

So my friend that I was living with at the time, Gerald Russo, he came home one day and

he was like, hey, I found this jujitsu gem.

Well, I was like, yeah, let's go try it out.

So try it.

It got submitted probably 10 times that night.

I was like, yep, we need to start going here.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Some people, some people you'll have that experience and get submitted 10 times like, oh,

my, I love this.

I got to come back.

Other people are like, no, I don't want no part of that.

I never coming back, right?

The perspective.

How long ago was that?

Oh, man, that was when you first started.

That was jujitsu.

Five years ago.

Five years ago.

Yep.

It was a place called Monarch and Hermitage.

The professor was Robair Henryson.

And I'll never forget the first time I rolled with him.

And it was because I took there in the country and wrestling.

I'm like, man, I can take anyone.

You know what I mean?

Like in my head, like, man, there's no way.

Go in there and get submitted five or six times in a three minute round.

I'm like, yeah, I trust this guy.

This guy knows what he's doing.

And that's the kind of people that I wanted to be around.

You know what I mean?

If he didn't submit me all those times, I probably wouldn't have pursued it.

Yes.

I probably would have just kind of been like, all right, well, I am as tough as I thought

I was and I don't need to know anything else.

But just kind of getting humbled like that.

It made me want to step into it a lot more.

Made me want to learn what all he knew that I didn't know.

You know what I mean?

Speaking of which, we share a coach and friend in Isaac Greeley over at the Matt Factory

represent with the T-shirt.

That's right.

Man is an animal.

You know, just average.

Talk about humbling and getting humbled and wanting to learn.

You know, and then for me, as I age, trying to do so gracefully, you know, I got inspiration

somebody to look up to that's, you know, almost mid 40s and still rolling around smashing

people in their 20s and their prime.

Yeah.

And as I move closer to the 40 year mark, you know, myself, that's been somebody I've

been able to draw a lot of inspiration from and learn so much just in the short, you

know, less than two years, you know, that I've been there.

What have you learned from Isaac, you know, other than special, you know, specific techniques

that people wouldn't understand?

What do you think people can draw from that you've learned from Isaac?

I think if you know Isaac Greeley, you know it's a mindset like that man.

Everything is mindset.

He is you don't quit.

You don't stop.

We're going to take him till they break and then we're going to keep breaking on.

I've seen him drag people back onto the mats when they're trying to run away from him.

You know, I mean, people coming in to lock it and an hour later, Isaac's still mulling

these guys.

They're trying to run off the mat and I've seen him grab their legs, pull them back on

and just continue to take it to him.

Like he just doesn't stop ever, ever the first week I went there when my gym closed down

due to COVID.

I knew the math factor was a place to go because I'd been going there on Sundays with

Dalton and yeah, I went there for the first week and he was trying to break me.

After I got through that first week as I, all right, I get it.

You know what I mean?

But that first week is tough.

That first week you got to be ready.

Like don't come to the math factory if you're not ready to be broken for the first week.

Because you can take a lot but he'll break you eventually.

Well, he's really, really good at it.

And I think now that I've been around it, I've been there for almost two years now.

That's what I've adopted from it.

Now that's my mindset.

I've been in my last fight.

I got off to a rough start.

But just because I've been with Isaac so much with the wrestling and the grappling and

just the way that he goes about everything, I felt like I came back stronger in the second

round almost after almost being knocked out in the first round.

Yeah, why don't we just talk about that?

You know, what was the last fight?

Like probably not what you expected.

The great experience for you and it really showed that you can persevere and overcome some

adversity.

How did that last fight go?

Yeah, don't really remember the first 10 seconds.

I think I got clipped pretty early.

So I was behind the April from that point on in the first round, kind of just trying to

recover.

It took me about half the round to start kind of get my mind back and everything kind of

back in order, starting to think my way through things.

Takes you a little while when you're in there.

You're adrenaline so high.

You just almost got put out.

You're kind of wondering where you're at a little bit and then you start getting it back

together and then things start coming back.

But I attribute all of that to Isaac and to wrestling, man, because without that I think

it's easy to crumble.

But when you're in that situation every day and he's pushing you to that limit every

day, it almost felt like home to me.

You know, I mean, it felt like this is what I do every day that I'm not in a position

that I'm not used to because I do this every day.

You know, I mean, and that's kind of what helped me come back through it and then second

round.

Like I said, I came out and I felt like I was in better shape than the first round.

I was like, man, now I'm warmed up.

Let's go.

You know, I mean, and I have to say my first couple of amateur fights, I kind of struggled

with my conditioning a little bit.

And it's because I wasn't wrestling.

And like that's the big piece.

If you're going to fight, you got to wrestle in my opinion, you have to.

It's just not as much for the technique or anything like that.

It's more for just that mindset.

It just pushes you through it.

It pushes you past your limit.

And if you can go past your limit, I almost guarantee you the other guy you're with cannot

keep up.

And I think that's kind of more or less what I think.

So you won that last fight in the third round or second round?

Third round.

Second round.

I got to take down kind of did a lot of damage from top.

I felt just kind of controlled him, kind of wore him down a little bit, kind of got my revenge

a little bit.

And then the third round I was kind of doing the same thing, took him down, got to take

down, controlled the position, doing some damage, doing some damage, got the wrist locked

in.

And then he turned right into the arm triangle.

But man, that kid was tough.

I'll give a shout out to him.

And Marco Hutch was a tough guy.

Thank you for the fight, man.

It takes the right dance partner.

And I needed that.

That was a good one for me.

Pushed me and it was great for both of us, I think.

The worst he from.

Oh man.

I'm not sure.

I'm sure honestly.

I kind of try not to look up my opponent so much.

I usually leave that up to like Isaac and Evan.

Just going there and get it.

I just do what they tell me to do.

I love it.

I love it.

I think you can overthink it a little bit.

Speaking of speaking about your opponent, maybe one of your toughest opponents and training

partners is as your current girlfriend, my girl Willow.

And man, I got to leave this to the imagination.

I don't know if I'm ready yet to announce her nickname, her fight name on air just yet.

But you got it.

You got to look it up yourself.

I don't know.

I mean, this is intriguing.

I don't know if you've ever had a person or a female.

I mean, this is what you want.

I mean, you want to sell tickets.

You want people to remember you.

I promise you.

You look up her nickname.

You're going to remember that one.

And so my girl Miss Willow, you guys have been dating.

She came down.

I remember when they came down from Canada to train with us as so many people do.

Come from all over the place, all over the country, different countries to come training.

and prepare at the mat factory.

What's it like to be dating somebody

that is in the same sport?

I'm assuming that you've never dated really somebody

that was fighting at the same time as you.

And all honesty, I told myself for the longest time

I would never date a fighter.

My dad used to tell me all the time,

you need to get you a fighter.

That way you guys have so much in common,

all this other stuff.

I'm like, no, dad, girl fighters are crazy.

I had a wanting part of that.

And then along comes Willow.

It's great, man.

She really pushes me.

And I feel like I push her as well.

And I think that's kind of one of the biggest things

is it's easy to slack off when you don't have someone

in your Air 247.

But like, we live together.

So I mean, if I want to take a night off,

she's going to let me hear about it.

You know what I mean?

I'm going to have to deal with her all night,

same with her.

We don't.

And it makes it nice because I feel like if our today

someone that wasn't a fighter, it would be like,

oh, what do you want to do tonight?

Let's go get dinner.

But with Willow, it's not a question.

It's like, oh, what are we going to do?

No, it's wrestling night.

You know what I mean?

Like, oh, no, it's jujitsu night.

That's not a question.

A lot of people would just complain because you

got to be obsessed.

You got to put a lot of time.

And you know, currently, you're still working at a tad.

Moving out of where you were working so much full time

and had to adjust your schedule around all that stuff.

I mean, you figure you got a full time job.

And then after that, you got another full time job.

You know, most people that don't understand, you know,

the game and what it takes probably

would be nagging, you know, complaining, not getting enough time

and trying to distract you from that.

I would assume that helps a little bit also.

So much.

And I think even beyond that, it's a,

I think fighting is a lot of a mindset.

And it's a lot of studying.

And it's a lot of things like that.

So just having someone to run your ideas by and like,

run what you're struggling by and like, run what is going good.

Like what's going bad and like trying to figure it out together.

I think two minds is always better than one.

You know what I mean?

So it's almost like having another coach at home

or like having another training partner

just with you all the time.

So it's super nice.

We watch all the fights together and everything.

And we always kind of do our own little breakdowns of them.

Evan, our striking coach will actually send us videos

and we'll have to break them down

and we'll kind of help each other out a little bit.

And it's super nice because I feel like her attention

to detail, my attention to detail, they're a lot different

because she is predominantly a striker.

I'm predominantly a wrestler.

So they were coming from two different sides of it,

which is perfect because I obviously need more striking.

She needs more wrestling.

So together we kind of make the perfect combination in my opinion.

I think it, I think it's did nothing

but elevated both of us to another level.

Love it.

Love it.

What do you think elevates people in general to another level

in the fight game from what you've seen?

What separates the people that elevate

in the ones that don't other than natural ability?

My opinion it all comes down to relationships

which is going to sound weird to a lot of people.

But I think if you have the right people in your corner,

if you have the right people that you're dealing with,

if you have the right mentors, if you have someone like Isaac

Greeley kind of showing you, he doesn't really just tell you

things.

He's on the map with you, showing you.

He's so easy to follow because he doesn't just sit and watch.

He's in there with you, going through a with you.

So it's so easy to follow someone like that.

I think having that kind of relationship,

having a relationship like I have with Evan

where we're good friends too.

I mean, we watch the fights together on the weekend

and we do it because we love to do it.

It's not that we have to do it.

We love doing stuff like that.

And I think having those kind of relationships

makes you want it that much more.

I mean, when you go out to a fight,

when you're looking across at some of your best friends

and some of the people you have the best relationship with,

the last thing you want to do is let those guys down.

And that's nothing but motivation for me specifically.

I mean, it might be different for a lot of other people,

but I don't know.

For me specifically, I think it comes down

to more of the people that I'm surrounded by.

Having the right people around you,

right people in your corner makes a lot of sense.

What's the hardest part of your quote job fighting?

What would you say is the hardest part?

Oh man, I would say the hardest part's just time management

in my opinion, that's kind of why I just took this new job

and got away from the old job.

Because I mean, when you're sitting at work for eight hours

for 12 hours, whatever, all you're thinking about

is all these things you need to be doing.

But you can't do them because you're sitting at work.

So then it kind of drives you crazy.

So then you're trying to make your schedule work,

but then you gotta work your schedule with your coaches

and make sure they can get off at the same time you're off.

So it's just kind of a revolving loop

of just trying to figure out when we can train

like how we train properly,

like how we incorporate this that we need to do

and this that we need to do and do it all

in this amount of time.

You know what I mean?

That's kind of the hardest part to me, I believe.

That's what people don't see.

I think a lot of times you'll see somebody

in the game and they finally make it

and they're making 100,000 of fight

or a couple hundred thousand of fight

or millions of dollars at a certain level

of fighting people say, oh man, I'd go in there and do that

for two million.

I'd go in there and let them knock me out for a million dollars

or for a hundred thousand dollars or whatever,

but what people don't realize is the amount of time

for years that goes into that that you have to have

a full time job in order to then go to your next full time job

so you're really working two full time jobs

because it's a full time job.

When you put in the study in recovery, injuries,

you know, reps, all of that stuff,

you look at work and then you look at the work

you're doing after that.

There's just not a lot of time left in that

and so it's the process of getting out of where,

all right, I don't even need to have a job anymore.

This really truly is my only full time job,

which is what everybody, you know,

really is the ultimate is the goal is what everybody wants.

But in the process, most people don't have that

and that's what people don't end up seeing.

What do you do outside of mixed martial arts

with any interest, anything you like to do outside of?

Oh, man, I get made fun of this one so much,

but I don't even care because it's my favorite thing.

I'm the biggest nerd when it comes to like super cross

motor cross dirt bikes.

I used to ride when I was a kid.

I have a bike still.

I don't really ride right now.

I think Isaac would kill me if I got hurt so whatever.

But I still have it and I can't wait.

They once I retire from fighting,

I'll definitely be back on it.

It's just something about it, man.

I think the most important things in life to me

are more of the things that you can't really describe

to someone, it's more of a feel, you know what I mean?

Like you can't describe what it's like to step into the octagon.

You just have to do it, it's a feel you get.

Same thing with the dirt bike.

I can tell you how I feel whenever I'm jumping 60 feet

on a triple, you know what I mean?

But until you do it yourself, you just don't understand it.

So I think that's kind of why a lot of people make fun of me.

They just don't really get like the same emotions

and same feelings I get from that.

When you're jumping 60 feet, what do you land in on?

Well, it's 60 feet from takeoff to landing.

You know what I mean?

So you're dirt takeoff, dirt landing.

Okay.

So I just went to, I took my son this past week to monster trucks.

And they were doing, they had bikes going up a ramp.

They were up in the air.

It seemed like they might have been 20, 30 feet up in the air.

Yeah.

And stuff like that.

And then the trucks they were doing back flips

with monster trucks up a ramp and crazy.

And crazy.

Yeah.

And you just don't understand until you do it, man.

I'm telling you.

And then it's like, just like wrestling, you don't realize how tired

you can get in wrestling.

And until you go out and start spinning laps on a dirt bike

and trying to go as fast as you can

and trying to avoid all the obstacles, land all the obstacles

not go down.

There's some serious consequences in racing and dirt bike.

You know what I mean?

So you're adrenaline through the roof

and you get tired super quick.

So to see these guys kind of push like they are, I think

they're some of the best athletes in the world.

And that's kind of, one of the reasons I've always kind of followed them

because I, I'm a big time studdyer of like athletes in general.

And I truly think that they have something special, man.

I think they're able to push to a different level

between getting over the adrenaline,

getting like their heart rates are like, I think 180 plus

for the whole race, which is like 30 minutes and two laps.

Wow.

You would never think that.

Crazy.

You would never think that.

Crazy.

They wear heart monitors.

And that's one of the things that I've kind of seen on there

was that I said their heart rates before the gate drops just spike.

And then they kind of stay and they plateau

there throughout the whole race.

And then you will see that if one of them has like a near record

or something, their heart monitor will show it.

And it will actually raise up again.

So then that's why you see them kind of fall back a little bit.

And then I think it's a super cool thing

to be able to do that and then get your heart rate.

You'll see it come back and then level it back out again,

which I think is pretty important for like fighting as well.

So I kind of see a lot of similarities in it, too, I think.

And that's another one of the things that attracts me to it.

What do people not see do you think about the fight game

or just yourself?

What sacrifices have you had to make to get to this point?

I think one of the biggest sacrifices would probably

be not getting to spend as much time with like your friends

and your family and things like that as you why they.

I know I haven't been home to see my parents for Christmas

and probably since I started fighting on it.

Wow.

And I think nobody would ever imagine that or think that.

So these are the sacrifices has not been home for Christmas.

And I could tell you, yeah, family person, you love your family.

Have not seen your family for Christmas for four or five years.

Because of the dedication and commitment.

Right.

And then your friends are always texting like, oh,

we want to do this.

We want to do that.

And I'm like, yeah, so do I.

But I also have practice today.

You know, I mean, and I've worked all week.

So I have to make up for that this weekend.

So I just don't really have time.

I think more or less, that's kind of the biggest thing.

You don't really have as much time for vacations and fun.

And you can't really eat all this bad stuff

that other people are eating.

You got to kind of watch your diet.

I have everyone wants to go drink on the weekends or whatever.

And you got to kind of be like, well, no, I'm going to suffer for a week

if I do that.

So I got to kind of stay away from that.

You know, I mean, I think those are more or less

kind of the more difficult challenges to me

because I'm a, I'm not really the most outspoken guy,

but I am a people guy.

Like I like my people, like my inner circle.

I'm super close with.

And it's super hard to tell them that I can't do stuff with them.

You know, I mean, so to me, that's kind of what I think

of when you, when you mentioned stuff like that.

Not being able to see your friends as much and hang out

and do what they want to do and do what you to ultimately

would like to do, not seeing the families as much as often.

It's crazy.

It just has the same similarities in anything.

Right.

You know what I mean?

You know, these are things that people, even in our business,

are as I was building this business,

I've had the same experience.

Even what going out, you know, couldn't go out as much,

couldn't take as many chances, had to get up early,

had to work weekends, you know, holidays.

I couldn't be around as much and stuff like that.

And those are the things that people don't see

to give up in order to go up.

Right.

And I just add on to that, though,

that's what makes fighting nice so special to me.

You know what I mean?

Because then it's like all these people that,

all that stuff I've given up, all this time,

I haven't been able to spend with these people,

but these people are all here supporting me.

You know what I mean?

And then you just hear them chant your name at the end.

You're like, yeah, these are all my people still.

Like I still love these guys.

Like they're here supporting me.

Like this is our night.

You know what I mean?

Like I put in all this sacrifice with this is our night.

Then I get to go out and hang out with them for the rest

of the night and spend some time.

And it's honestly my favorite time to be alive

is like right after a fight is the best.

We had a ball in Illinois.

Yeah, after you mold everybody in the tournament,

me and you got to take a picture with both of us

brought home some belts to the mat factory.

And eight like pigs and I showed out for a night, man.

That was a lot of fun, man.

I think it's just so rewarding.

You know what I mean?

You go through all that stuff.

And then it's like, you can finally breathe again.

You can finally relax.

And it's just your time.

Just four minutes.

And you know the other side's coming back.

Which is also why it's so good though.

Because then you're like, well, I'm going to enjoy it now

because in two days it's back to work.

Back to the ground for months.

Yeah, exactly.

Before you get any little bit of fresh air to breathe

and have some fun and some normalcy.

Yep.

What is your vision?

You know, where do you see yourself?

What do you see and where you're at three years,

five years from today?

I think I could be competing with the best in the world.

Honestly, I think I tried to be as humble as I can.

But inside I'm pretty confident in person.

Honestly, I think I do have something special.

I think once I get my striking figured out all the way,

I really like it.

So that's big for me.

If I like something, I usually get pretty good at it

pretty quick.

So I think my striking is going to come along.

I think wrestling I've done it since sixth grade.

So I think I have a pretty good fill for that.

I think mixing it all together, getting my striking ready,

getting all those things settled out,

I think at the end of the day,

I think I'm going to be a contender.

I think I'm going to be up there.

And I think that's what I look forward to is that sold out crowd

and everyone, all my people there.

You know what I mean?

Let's say we're in Vegas or Florida or wherever.

I want just sold out.

I want all my people there.

I want to perform for them.

And then I want to go hang out with them after.

That's the vision for me.

And then beyond that, I want to have my own gem.

Let's bend my goal, especially now,

being around Isaac like I have.

It's just so crazy seeing how much one person can change.

So many people.

It impacts so many people.

So crazy.

And I think I tell people this all the time,

Isaac really makes me want to be a better person.

And that's hard to find.

You know what I'm saying?

And that's something I really admire.

And even before I met him, I wanted my own gem.

But now just kind of seeing how he runs his and everything.

It's given me like a whole new life to like what I want it to be.

You know what I mean?

No doubt.

You could tell he's just walking in his calling man. Yeah, you know, it's just it's almost like a

person that that you know you you hear people that they have a

Non-profit, you know, or they do something or they go on mission trips or their pastors

You know or something like that and you say oh man

What a great person gave his life up for that and impact so many people and you would never never realize

that somebody could

Run a gym and have that type of same type of missionary

Impact that that same type of impact on people mentally physically some spiritually

Right and what that does for generations of people man and and he's a loyal

You know do just such a such a loyal person which you and I you know talked about you know before we came up here to the studio of like man

What are a couple things that you think or like man if you had to pick one or two words that you're most passionate about?

You know talking about what would it be and you know first words out of your mouth was you know loyalty was one of the first words

You know loyalty so why don't you talk a little bit about what loyalty means to you?

I think loyalty to me means

Never forgetting the people that helped you get to where you wanted to go

Mm-hmm

Because they're easy to forget like I said all the sacrifices that we mentioned earlier

I mean I wasn't the only one going through those you know

I mean my parents are suffering for that my friends are suffering for that like my family suffering for that

I so I think

Them being able to do that to support me. I think that means a lot and I think at the end of the day

Like I want nothing but the best for them

And that's one of the things that drives me to do this is so that one day I can support them

I can say like grab my two best friends and be like hey, we're going to Hawaii whatever

You know, I mean and I'm buying so just give pack your stuff. We're going you know

I mean same with my parents. I want to buy my house one day

You know, I mean, I just want to be like hey like thank you guys so much for everything you did for me

Like here's your nice new house, you know, I mean that's the kind of stuff I dream about and that's kind of

What drives me whenever eyes?

Extrined up break me at the end of the day, you know name yeah

Loyalty, you know, I got shirts. I haven't rocked it in a while

But I got you ever see the t-shirts that I would wear it says loyalty is rare. Yep. Loyalty is such a rare

Yeah, quality, you know in a sense. You don't get it that deep deep deep right loyalty

You know, I think loyalty is tested under you know turmoil

Right. A loyalty is tested when there's maybe I don't 100% agree or there's some adversity or you know

easy to

To not take a certain path and you stick stick with somebody

Why do you think or you know, I don't want to put words in your mouth that you think loyalty is is more of a rare thing and

and

If so why and and how do you find loyalty in people? I think loyalty is pretty rare these days honestly. I think

Lot of the people in the world now have that it's me kind of mindset, you know, I mean

It's all about them. It's all about them, but I think I

Think one of the ways to find it is to go into battle with people, you know, I mean like

When you step in the cage if you don't trust the guy to your right and the guy to your left that are walking you out there

It's gonna be a bad night, you know, I mean most likely and I think that's kind of

Where a lot of that comes from me is

When Isaac Greeley's texting me each nice and I say and I hey like we're doing this tomorrow

Like we're getting you ready for this fight when Evan Boris is in Canada messaging me every day saying like hey

Dude, this is what you need to do and I know he's not doing it because he wants to do it because like he just wants to text me

He's doing it because he cares about me, you know, I mean he's doing it because he wants to see me do well

Same with Isaac same with Willow all these people they just

They go out of their way to help you and to protect you, you know, I mean what we're doing is

Some pretty bad consequences if you're not prepared so I think

Just them being loyal to like my health and like me makes me want to be loyal back to them. I think that's kind of

Why we're such a close-knit group at the math actors because you go through war together every night and it

Only brings you closer, you know, I mean yep no doubt and and the other word you said was relentless

Relentlessness and being relentless talk to us about

Why that's important what that means to you. I think

It's not easy for anyone and I think everyone goes through their trials and

All that kind of thing and I I never made it to states in high school

You know, I mean so like according to like most people I probably should have given up, you know

I mean but that relentless mentality just tells you like no, there's still some hunger in here like there's still something

I got approved to me, you know, I mean to me that's kind of relentless and then you go to college and you all American

But you go 40 and one and then you lose in the semi-finals and nationals

So then you're like oh, you went 40 and one was me. Yeah, I was 40 and one on the year lost in the semi-finals and I was winning

But I think looking back at it

That's one of the best things that happened to me because it made me hungry, you know, I mean so then

After that then all the injuries like I'm down a little bit because I lost and then I've gotten all these injuries

I didn't accomplish my goal and now I can't accomplish my goal

But you just got to move on to the next thing so then I'm like all right now. I'm gonna fight

I might not have got my national title

But now let's go get our world title, you know

I mean I think to me that's relentless always moving forward even when stuff's trying to keep you down

You've had that stuff happens you got to make the good out of it

You got to take the good out of it and you got to turn it into something positive and I think that's kind of

The best thing about martial arts is that you can always take that loss and make it into something like beautiful and something better

No doubt no doubt man. That's why it's easy to

Easy to believe in you man. You got that you got that perfect combination of confidence

That I think you need in the job that you chose

You know and really you need that in life period you got to have that balance of of humility

And and also confidence, you know, that's why people that come in contact with you, you know

They they would be surprised to cease a lot of times you see people and you know you think if this is what I think a person's

Attitude or personality needs to be or this is what they need to look like in order to be a good fighter

You know the world thinks they got to have real big muscles

They got to have tattoos on their neck to their ears and their face and mean and and you know not nice

You know to people and and you're the like the opposite, you know of that

I mean not you got some muscles and stuff

You don't know how many just the opposite that they've said there's no way you're a fighter

I remember when I was working and the iron workers union

All these guys are like you don't fight like what are you talking about there?

You're just too nicely. There's no way you fight

But whenever you get into the cage you have to have that switch you got to be able to flip it on and

I almost look forward to it. You know, I mean I look forward to being able to let that go you know, I mean because

I'm sure you can attribute to it as well that you're a super nice guy as well

So I'm sure it's stuff kind of builds up builds up builds up and then you need that release

Well for me fighting is kind of that release

So yeah, I'm a nice guy, but it all kind of builds up at a certain point and you need

Somewhere to put it into no doubt no doubt amen

So if if somebody wanted to follow you or or keep track of your journey

What would be the best way of going about following you?

I'm on Instagram at Jake Lowry underscore 185. I'm on Facebook Jake Lowry

So Facebook's Jacob Lowry yes LA LOW

RY RY and then Instagram is at Jake underscore Lowry 185 at Jake underscore Lowry LOW

RY 185 which is where you're fighting that currently right now 185 pounds

Coming to you real soon. So keep keep keep following and rooting for our man Jake Lowry Jake

Thanks for coming and and sharing some wisdom and some love at the grind cast studio

And we're all supportive of you man and looking forward to the future man. Thank you. I appreciate it. Let's get it