Georges St-Pierre: The Science of Fighting | Lex Fridman Podcast #179

The following is a conversation with Georges St. Pierre, considered by many to be the greatest fighter in the history of UFC and mma. But even more than that, one of the greatest martial artists ever. Quick mention of our sponsors, Allform, ExpressVPN, Blinkist, Theragun and the Information. Check them out in the description to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that getting the chance to hang out with George, to talk to him on the podcast, record a quick self defense video that I'll release soon, all while both of us wearing suits was one of the most memorable days of my life. In setting all this up, I talked to Joe Rogan and originally we couldn't schedule a chat with him and George on the jre, which allowed me to pretend for a brief time that George came down to Austin just to see me. Who the hell am I? In truth, him and Joe probably conspired to make me feel special, but that's the point. It's inspiring to see George and Joe, who are at the top of their field, treat others as equals, as human beings, no matter who they are, even silly Russians in a suit. Meeting George was an honor for me beyond words. This is the Lex Friedman podcast and here's my conversation with with my longtime martial arts hero and now my friend, Mr. Georges St. Pierre. In your fighting career, were you more motivated by the love of winning or the fear and hatred of losing?

I like to win better than I hate to lose because if it would not have been the case, I would never have fought in the first place because I don't like to lose fight at all.

But you talked about the anxiety, the fear that you experience leading up to a fight. So to you, ultimately the reason to go through that difficult process is because it feels damn good to have your hand raised.

There is that. There is also the fact that's what I do best. Also it provides me of freedom, of access of things that most of people do not have. But all that has a price and a lot of money. I made a lot of money. Of course with it I was maybe predisposed with certain abilities. I met incredible mentors throughout my life. I work really hard and of course I had a lot of chances. The stars were all aligned and in order to keep those advantages of freedom, money and glory and access of things that most people don't have and have this dream life that I have, I had to sacrifice myself and fight in order to keep it. It's very hard to understand because I also believe most fighters are not like me. They a lot of Guys, because I corner a lot of guys and it seems to me that they love their job. They enjoyed to, to go fight in a cage. I love to train. I love the science of fighting, the sport, to be in good shape, the confidence that training in mixed martial arts give me. However, I do not like the feeling of uncertainty, the stress that I have, not knowing if I will be badly injured or humiliated or winning the fight. It's to me, unbearable. And that's what takes the most out of me. More than brain damage, more than anything, that's what takes the most out of me.

But the thing you get from it is the freedom that you get because, because of the money, but because of the celebrity, because of everything that comes with it. So you can be the best version of yourself because of fighting, but at the same time you've said that quote, I don't believe there's pleasure in life. I believe there's only a relief from pain. We have to suffer to be on top. So isn't there something to just the suffering in itself, just doing really difficult shit just to get to the top to explain that.

And so people can relate to it because not everybody's a fighter. I think the best example I can give is, let's say you're. You haven't eaten for a long time and you're craving, right? So you're suffering. And then when it's time to eat, finally you're about to eat your favorite dish, it's going to taste so much better. So that's why I believe there is always a. Some sort of sacrifice before the pleasure. And the more sacrifice you do, like they say in fighting, the bigger the risk, bigger is the reward. And I feel that's. That's how it is for me.

Yeah, I feel that with. I've started fasting a little bit in the past couple of years, and there's nothing as amazing as a delicious meal or anything. Actually, anything, any food when you haven't eaten for several days. It's. It's kind of incredible. And it's not, it's not incredible in this simple way of finally I get to eat. It's. You get to truly experience the, the beauty of, of what it is to be alive. Like that little piece of food, you see all the flavors you feel just the experience of it is ultimately of gratitude, of how awesome it is to be alive. But when you eat many times a day and you're pigging out, you don't get to experience that. And it's fascinating. Fasting is one of the most accessible things for people, I think, to experience that kind of pairing of hardship to pleasure.

I agree. And in my case, it changed my life on a good, good way. I cannot recommend it to people because everybody is different. But after my to fight Michael Bisping, my last fight was against the champion in the heavier weight class that I used to compete at. So I thought that if I would gain weight, it would increase my performance. And I struggle a lot to gain weight. I gained about 8 to 10 pounds. Normally I walk around 185 pounds and for that fight I was walking around 195. However, I forced myself to eat like six times a day. I was on a very strict diet and I didn't feel. It didn't feel right to me because I feel like I was carrying a little bit, like I was carrying a bag on my shoulder. And I think it was a bad idea for me because when I did the weigh in and I went on a scale at 185, I couldn't go back to my initial weight that was 195 that I worked so hard for several months to get there. So I was 190 pound, but I couldn't get back. And the morning of the fight I got sick. I had like. We didn't know what it was in the beginning because in order to know, to find out what it was, I needed to do what they call a colonoscopy. They put a camera inside of you and to do that, they give you something that empty you. And I was trying to gain weight, not to lose weight. So I, I told myself I'm gonna wait after the fight, whatever it is, because it was pretty bad. It was blood and I, I didn't know what I was. I was very concerned, concerned. I thought I had maybe cancer. I was freaking out. So I said, I'm gonna do that fight. And then after, right away I'm gonna make a checkup. So I did the fight. Everything went well. I won the fight. I went back home, I did a colonoscopy and I, I got diagnosed with ulcera colitis. Then I got on very severe medication to get better. And I'm not a big fan of medication. I always trying to look for more natural way to, to, to get better. And I found out about fasting and it really changed my Life. I met Dr. Jason Fung, was one of the, one of, one of the world authority of fasting. He treat diabetes patient with fasting. And he gave me a program of fasting and it really changed my life and Right away what I did is I went in a, in a CAT scan to see the difference because it was right after my fight with Michael Bisping and I, I did the CAT scan so I had my muscle mass, bone density, fat percentage, water retention. It's pretty amazing. It can show you which harm has more muscle than the other. It's very precise. And I did it like two, two months after.

Yeah.

So I, I start doing time restricted eating 16, eight. But right. Right away when I started I did three days water fast. And the doctor Jason Fung says because I like to train during those days I, I consume Himalayan salt to make sure. Because when you sweat there's a lot of minerals to, to make sure you don't depleted your mineral. And when I went, when I compared the 2 result in the CAT scan I found out my biggest concern was to lose muscle mass. I found out that I did not lose muscle mass. Instead of losing it, it increased a little bit. Even though my weight on the scale was lighter. I, I kept the same Muscle mass even increases a little bit, my bone density increases a little bit. My water retention is the biggest thing that decrease. So the. My inflammation and my fat percentage. So basically they, by looking at the data I found out that by eating so much trying to gain weight for to fight my cold bespring I only increases my water retention which is not good because it's like dead weight and inflammation on your. You.

So what was the actual process of fasting? She said 16, eight time restricted. So intermittent fasting. But you also mentioned the three hour, the three day water fast. What did that feel like? And you also said training during the three day.

Yes.

How did that feel? Can you give me some details of.

Absolutely.

This is fascinating.

So I do three days water fast four times a year.

Nice.

For me I do it. Everybody is different. But for me I do it after New Year's because during the holidays that's when I eat bad foods and I drink. I see it more like like a cleansing, you know. Like I had like, like a detox so to speak.

Mental too. Like psychological.

Yes. I do it after the New Year's, right before the summer cut for the beach if I have. Yeah, yeah, after the summer. Because of the summer I've been partying a little bit sometime myself go and right before the, the holidays. Yeah, and I've tried the doc Dr. Fungi says to me, said George everybody is different because I'm, I'm a very active person and everybody has a different genetics. So. So for me I, I feel that Three days is the sweet spot because I still train during those three days. The first day, the first two days, I don't change nothing. I train regular on a. On my regular schedule. However, on the, on the third day, I modify a little bit. I do something more, more easy. And that's how I do it. And I have tried before because when I say three days is my sweet spot, I've tried to go up to five days. But the problems is after my third days, I found out that I had a big problem sleeping. I get into a hyperactive mode. Yeah, they call that the hur. Gather mode. You know, like you, you, you, you, your brain. I mean, it's amazing. Your creativity is at its peak, but you cannot sleep very well. And sleeping, for me, I think it's very important. So that's why I do three days. For me, it's my sweet spot.

That's interesting. You're right. It's a four or five days when you start. See, sleep is not important for me. So the creativity is really important. So it's very interesting the places your mind goes after a few days. You're right. But I mean, what does it do to your mind? So you mentioned your body likes it in terms of training, does it. Do you find that it helps you focus and think? I mean, you're one of the great strategic thinkers in terms of martial arts. Does it help with learning? Does it help with thinking? Does it help with strategizing and all that?

Well, unfortunately, I got into fasting after I retired. I wish I would have. I really wish people ask me, would you have done it during the time that you competed? And the answer is yes. I think we live in a society that we're bombarded by publicity. Oh, buy this, eat protein this, that and fasting. Nobody makes money with it because there's nothing to sell. I think that's why it's. A lot of people have not heard about it. And even my. For myself, if someone would have talked to me about fast, the benefits of fasting when I was training, before I got sick, I would probably have ignored. Ignored him because I'm not, you know, it was. It's hard to believe.

Sort of sounds ridiculous.

Don't eat.

Yes, it's gonna help your mind and you're going to gain muscle potentially.

Exactly. And, and perhaps people have talked to me about it, but I kind of. It went in one of my hair and got out from the other side, you know. But it really changed my, my life. And I am dying. I was diagnosed with ulcera Colitis and it helps me get rid of all my symptoms. What I do is I know a lot of people have ulcera colitis and for me I cannot recommend it to other people because everybody is different. But for me I made a lot of research of how people from ulcera colitis got better and I found out that a lot of people that got that condition get better in the natural way through fasting, eating fermented food, collagen and like bone broth and stuff for the gut. And it made a huge difference in my life. I just wish I would have known that before.

So do you have a specific diet wise stuff you like? So like you know I've recently another ridiculous sounding thing but it makes me feel really good. It's very low carbs so you know keto or even carnivore. It sounds ridiculous, it doesn't make any sense but it makes me feel really good even for performance.

Is Rogan has influenced you? He's a carnivore diet.

I was influenced actually by people. Yeah. Well he, there's, I'll tell you where because I was doing it before he was doing it is there's. It was popular in the endurance athlete community where it was fat adapted athletes. It was people who, insane people who run 50 miles, 100 miles. They figured out that they could fuel their body by with fat. They can go to fat as the source of energy as opposed to carbs. So I remember hoping that I'll be able to learn how to run 50 miles and so on. I've never done more than 22 but it, I, I just remember switching away from carbs and feeling really liberated. Like I wasn't thinking about food as much. I'm able to eat once a day and feel really good. I mean I think every, everybody's body is different but I think carbs make me lazy. Maybe it's because yeah it's the crash but also just psychologically something it, it forces me to also think about food too much. Like it starts becoming, you know, art. Just like you said, our society is so much about food. There's so many, so much advertisement and so much of our social life is about food. And so it's very easy to live life like live day to day thinking when is the next meal? Like what am I gonna eat for lunch? What am I gonna eat for dinner? What am I gonna eat for breakfast? And if you're not careful that's going to get in the way of you doing cool shit for like liberating yourself and thinking like what am I actually passionate about in this life? Like creating and forgetting to eat those kinds of things and still being able to fuel your body. I don't know. It's been fascinating to, to figure out like later in life that carbs aren't necessary to function well is it makes me think like we don't know anything about nutrition.

That's right. You know, personally I don't think I could have a diet without carbs. I love chocolate too much for me. Eating it's a, it's a pleasure of life. I love my carbs, I love my sugar. However, if you talk about that, I don't have a specific diet but recently I, what I'm trying to do is the days that I do not work out, I only eat once. That's kind of my rules. Plus I try to respect 16, 8 and do my three day fast four time a year. But the rest of the thing I let myself loose because I don't think I would be happy if I don't give myself the right to eat. For me personally, I love to eat so much. And you talk about diet, carnivore diet. It's very interesting because a few years ago I went to Africa in Maasai Mara and it's a tribe in, in, in East Africa and I went to visit them, I did a safari and I talked to them and these guys, they, their diet is 99% carnivore. They, they, that's crazy. And you should see, they're very beautiful people shredded. Like some people would say, oh it's genetic. I'm like, yeah, maybe it's genetic. But I mean think about the Eskimos also that like most of their diet is on, on fish, right? They, so I believe it can be done, you know, like, I believe it can be done like an exclusive carnivore diet. And I, I think I'm going to try it pretty soon just to have the experience, you know, to see how.

It feels like, well, you're going to hang out. Careful bringing it up because he'll convince you to forever switch to Carnivore. Definitely he loves it. I mean, but just like you, I think he loves food. So he's, he can't ever stay on Carnivore. It was funny because we went to an Italian restaurant together and I still only eat meat. Like I love, I love the constraints of discipline. That's, that's partially why I like Carnivore. I like saying no to food that is delicious. But part of the problem is that I don't know how to moderate. You said chocolate. I don't know how to have one. Chocolate. Is that something you're able to do, have like in moderation?

No, it's when it, When I have an opportunity, I do it. I don't have any. I'm an extremist person, Lex. I, that's the thing. I, When I, when I have a chance, I like, I just eat. I go too much. And that's what I like about my life. You know, that's what I like about fasting. Because probably if, if I would not have discovered fasting, eating chocolate would give me cramps and all sorts of problems. Yeah. Because people on ulcerative colitis, normally they cannot eat chocolate, they cannot drink alcohol. But I believe because I'm fasting, that's the reason why I'm, I'm medication, medicine, medication free. I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, but I have to do that, that fasting, you know, and now it becomes to, it became to a point that it's no longer hard for me. It's. It's like normal. I don't even force myself. Yeah, I don't. It's easy. You know what I mean? Some of my friends think, some think I'm, I'm insane, you know, But I tell them it's like with. When you get used to it, it becomes like an habit. And I'm, and I know that onto our gather like our ancestor did not eat three times a day. It's, it's, it's not true. They, they ate when they, they could and when they eat, they, they, they, they feed themselves as much as they can until that. Because the next time. Because they didn't know when they could eat again. Right. So it's, I think that's our word. We're built, you know, to, to, to have this similar lifestyle.

If we could take a step back to the discussion about fear a little bit. So Mike Tyson talks about this process of him walking to the ring. He sounds similar to you in many ways, of the anxiety and the fear that he experiences. And he has this sort of story that he tells about walking to the ring and being supremely afraid. But as he walks and gets closer and steps in, he finds the confidence and becomes supremely confident. I think he calls himself like a God. I feel like a God in the ring. Is, is. Do you go through a similar process of finding the confidence?

Well, it, yes. And I use, I use a James Lange theory. So what I do is because I'm not afraid to admit that I'm afraid. And in the beginning of my career, I really thought, I asked myself because I was very good in mixed martial art, but I really thought I wasn't made for this because the idea of fighting didn't make me happy. It's something like I was forced to do in order to keep that lifestyle that I have and achieve my goal perhaps one day to make enough money to retire. And you know, that that was my dream. But when I was looking around the gym where I was training most of my training partner, they were happy, they were excited. And sometimes I corner, I corner a lot of guys and they're happy and they are in the locker room, they don't react the same way I do. Some perhaps does. But if you see me in the locker room, like when I get like my last fight with Michael Bisping, just to give you an example, in my last fight with Michael Bisping, because it's fresh, it's the one that is the most recent and, but it's always the same thing. My last fight and my best pain I get in the locker room. I like three guys that I trained with. Mickey Gall, Amen Zahabi and Joseph Duffy. They all lost. It was like, like my, my locker room was basically cursed. You know, the, when you're in the locker room and people from your locker room leave for a fight and then they come back, it's kind of a momentum. You know, you, you, you shake and yeah, good job. Now it's my, you know, it's kind of a team brotherhood sort of thing. So the, the, the, the atmosphere in my locker room was pretty bad. It was like going to a, you know, like a funeral. So I was very scared. And before every fight, I, I, I asked myself, I asked myself always what the hell I'm doing here. Why did I choose to come back? Oh my God. And I'm freaking out. However, I'm putting on a mask. Like I'm acting because if I don't do that, it will reflect on my coaches and if my coach, my, the confidence of my coaches is affected, it will reflect, reflect on me. So I need to feel strong. I need to make them believe that I'm excited to be there and I'm happy to be there. So this sort of play start when I get, when I first step in the locker room, even though I feel completely different, but that's how I play it normally. The day, the fight day, I never felt, feel 100%. I always feel exhausted, tired. My highs are hitching because I don't Sleep enough the few nights before because I'm constantly rehearse, rehearsing scenarios that might happen in the fight. So mentally it's not that I'm not.

On top, but you keep all that to yourself.

I keep it to myself. And I'm lying to everybody around me. But everybody knows, you know, Ferras, John Denaher, they, they know Freddie Rose, they've been with me for a long time, so they know what's going on. But at least I'm lying to them. I'm like, hey, I'm feeling great. So, and seeing all my training partner, like, very disappointed because they lost their fight. Some were, were badly hurt as well. It was hard. So. And I remember I get, I get one, I get, I start to warm up and everything. And as you start to warm up, you become a different person because, you know, sir, we know that certain posture in yoga can affect your men, this mental state, but it's, I would say it's a little bit the same thing in, in fighting, you know, like when you start hitting the pads, your, your muscle memory, your instincts comes back and, and you, you remember that you're good at this, you know, and, and your confidence start to grow. And as seeing your trainers holding the pad and, and repeating your moves, it makes you also remember all the sacrifice you have done through your, your training camp. And confidence come from how you prepared yourself. And even you're afraid, you can be confident. Confident. At the same time, being afraid and being confident is two different things. And before every fight, just right before I walk in, it's when I'm scared. I go in the bathroom and I look at myself in the mirror. I used to have a bandana and a gi, but now I didn't have this for my last fight because of the new Reebok deal they had. But I did the same rehearsal that I always do. I look at myself in the mirror and I start to compliment myself. Like, even if I don't believe it, I'm starting to trying to believe it as I am. I'm finding all the reason why I'm going to win the fight and all. My trainer knows that before every fight, when the guy from the UFC goes Steppen Maroon, says, St. Pierre, you're up next. I always take a few minutes to do that same rehearsal. And I tell myself I'm going to win this fight because I'm better. And I'm very cocky about myself. I'm telling all the reasons that I'm gonna, gonna when I'm, I got a better team. I made more sacrifice, you know, I'm, I'm faster, I'm more powerful, way more athletic. My fighting IQ is better than him. I got a strategy on point that he's never gonna be able to keep up with and this and that. And I'm, and I was telling myself, I'm gonna show these young kids how things should be done. You know, I tried to boost myself. Yeah, try to boost yourself and you start to believe in it. You become a different person. So when you walk out the bathroom now, rock and roll. Now I really believe it for real. You know, like I'm still scared, but I believe it for real. And that's the transformation that happened for me right there. And from that, from now, from, from there to the fight, it's until the fight is over. It's called, I call it cruise control. Because you don't have time to think in a fight. If you're trying to think, you're missing the opportunity. So that's how it for, for myself.

So at that point, you stop thinking and you just go cruise control, autopilot.

Trust yourself, you know, Trust yourself because you, you repeated all the scenarios, you know, so everything that you have done, it's, it's inside the, the, your computer, your computer, your brain is programmed to react accordingly to certain situations. And the, it's not the, the night of the fight that you, you'll, you'll tell yourself, oh, finally, I'm gonna do this. If you do this now, now, if you have not practiced it before, you're screwed. It. The preparation, the repetition that makes it happen.

You know, what about like the really difficult moments in a fight where you are tested to your limits essentially. Usually it's cardio related exhaustion, right? Where you have to ask yourself that same question is like, why the hell am I doing this? Yeah, do you do, do you experience those or are you able to ride through the autopilot? And if you do like, what do you do in those moments?

Never in a fight, when I'm in a fight, when it's the, the, when the fight is, is on, I never change my mind. I go until the end. However, for example, my first fight would be Japan. I had a terrible first round, so I had to switch gear. That happened sometimes, but it's part of my plan. I always have a plan B plan. Plan A, plan B, plan C. You need to have that. If fighters goes into a fight thinking, oh, what I'm gonna do this, this? And they don't have a plan B. If this doesn't Work that means they're not well prepared. If you talk to me before every fight, I can like in 30 seconds give you my old strategy, you know, for, for bjpenn. My first fight would be Japan was I'm gonna keep it standing up, keep the fight from the outside, you know, because I'm faster than him. Then the fight would be Japan start. I found out that I was not faster than him and I found out that his reaction time was better than mine. So I got beat up the first round and I got a bloody nose and everything. So my plan B was now I'm gonna wrestle him. You know, I'm gonna wrestle him and you know, make him tired and trying to put him down. And that's how I beat him because I switch gear, you know. But if you can't do that, if you cannot find a way to become the perfect nemesis to your opponent, you, you. You might win a few fight, but you, you going to find you're going to fight someone sooner or later that will, that will give you a lot of. A lot of trouble.

So that's where the anxiety pays off. You're anticipating all the ways it goes wrong. So you develop the plan B and plan C. Hi. You know, we talked a lot with like John Danaher who you work with. It's interesting. I don't think I've heard him talk about plan B and plan C. He usually has a really clear plan A, entire system of plan A. I don't think I've heard him. We've had, we had a good discussion about it in over some cheeseburgers and he's, he was kind of espousing the value of mastering escapes. So when you find yourself in bad situations being exceptionally good at finding ways out of those bad situations and that's a way of dominance. There's nothing, there's no better way to dominate your opponent according to him than to show that they can't possibly hurt you no matter how bad the position is. It's like, it's a. As opposed to physical dominance, it's a psychological dominance. Very interesting. But I wonder if he has plan B and plan C in his mind too.

You know, in, in mixed martial arts sometime it's like in science, sometime you can make a m. Like a, a mistake. You know, like every human can make a mistakes. You know, there's certain sport or a certain situation that you, if there's a mistake made, you're, you're, you're. That's it exactly. Sometimes it's the case in mma, but Sometimes you able to redeem yourself. And if you look, the fight with BJ Pen one that I had, which was probably one of the most competitive fight I. And it was probably the. It was the fight that I got the most damage and I was messed up. It took me three days, like two, three days to recuperate from that fight. I was really damaged. And my first fight versus my second fight, I made a lot of adjustment because I have learned from my first fight. And also I had a guy. One thing people don't know, like they talk about fighters having secret weapons. See, for me, my secret weapons was not like some is that they use like certain. Like different things. For me it was knowledge. I had a guy in Montreal, he was measuring frames. He's not a scientist, he's a friend of Ferras and I. And what he does, he watch fight and he measure frames. The way he does it is when you watch a fight and one of the guy threw a punch, he cut the picture by frame, the video by frame. So he's able to see which fighter has better reaction time than others. And BJ Pen, he found out that BJ Pen of all the UFC roster at the time when he was in his prime, he had probably the best reaction time of all. According to him, Lyoto Mashida was the second one, but BJ Penn was the first one. So I knew that if I would try to go first because I always been the fastest guy normally when I fight someone, but when I fought Bjpen, I tried to go first. And he was always able to like I never was never able to. To touch him with my jab. And he came back with the counter punch. However, because of what he told me, I knew that Bjpen has a very fast reaction time, but had a very poor reset time. To him, the way he described it to me is like your nervous system is like a muscle. Bjpen was so fast, but he's like more like a sprinter. So what I did the second fight I. When I fought Bjpen, I made him flinch. Like I fake a lot. So I make him react and flinch. So all that, that reaction time that he used to flinch was not used properly to avoid my punches. So I burned. I load up his nervous system with a lot of information and fake and to make him flinch and pretending I was kicking and wrestling. So he got overwhelmed and he got tired very, very fast. So that's how I beat him. People sometimes, they don't know really what's the strategy behind the thing. They only see the physical Part, but when you fight someone, if I fight you, I look at you in the eyes. There's a lot of things that going on between you and I. I can look down here, bam, jab you in the face. The, the audience will not see these little detail, but you will see it. And that's what makes the magic during a fight, the relation that you have with the opponent. You know, like, like the mental game, what you, you make him believe those little things. I use a lot of those. If you talk to a lot of my opponent, they'll tell you like I use a lot of these little thing, you know, like I look down a banner, I go up, or I am pretending I want to attack you. So I'm, I'm make you flinch. But in reality, I'm just doing this because I want to rest, I want to recuperate, and I'm tired.

How much is, you know, people talk about that with poker, for example, how much is the value of this? You know? So, like some people argue that poker is more about the betting. You know, it's just the money, it's just how much you bet and so on. So that would be more like the analogy there with, with fighting would be just strictly the physical movement of your body. And then a lot of people argue that there's a lot here in the way you look, in the little movements in the face. So do you, you think there's. Do you think you're communicating with your opponent when you look at them?

There's no way to know for sure. Hundred percent. And I'm by. No, no mean psychic, nothing like that. And I don't believe in that at all. The only thing is I know through looking through the eyes of my opponent when he's afraid and when he gives up on me.

Yeah.

I've been accused very often in my career to not take enough risk to not finish my opponent. But the reason why I didn't finish my opponent is because I saw in his eyes that he gave up. He gave me the fight and I'm winning the fight. So it's not up to me. It's not to me to make it, to try to sacrifice myself trying to finish him. Perhaps if I do that, I will open up from. For him to, to, to, to capitalize on my mistake. It's up to him to make a risk. So people, sometimes they don't understand. That is the art of fighting, my friend. You know, like if I'm winning the fight, like in hockey and ice hockey, if you're winning the game and it's the third period. It's at the end of the third period. You're not going to take out your goaltender trying to score another goal, because winning five to three or five to four is the same thing. Same thing in mma. We make a living out of this. And sometimes, you know, as sad, as bad as it can be, you want to save yourself for another day. You know, you want to minimize the damage. But if he knows he's losing the fight, it's up to you, him to take the risk. It's not up to me. So I'm ever. I'm a good counter fighter. I use a lot of my attack or counter strike or reactive takedown or proactive takedown. That's my specialty. So I'm not gonna. I. I have no desire to sacrifice myself trying to. To. Trying to finish my opponent. If he want to, if, if perhaps I might give him the opportunity to capitalize on me. It's. It's not. It's not smart to do that. And very often when I fight someone, I can read him, I see the fear in his eyes now. I'm like, I got you now. He's very desperate. That doesn't mean I have to put my guard down, because he's gonna. He's gonna be desperate. But I know I'm beating you, and I know I'm beating you. I'm just gonna do what I need, you know, if I have a chance, of course I'll knock him out, but I'm not gonna try to sacrifice myself to knock you out. And if you do that, maybe one day you'll make a mistake and you'll get dropped and you'll. You'll. You'll tell yourself, like, shoot, I just got brain damage. Maybe I'm never gonna come back the same. Maybe, you know, I. I ruined my career or, you know, it's a. It's a very serious game that we're playing.

It's very dangerous in the face of that risk. I mean, Mike Tyson talked about, you know, when the opponent looks away, he knows he's got him, right? That he's broken. For a person like me who has trouble making eye contact with people, there's truth to that. I mean, there's truth to that, that there's. There's an animal nature to us looking away. I mean, you could see that the way the body language, the way the eyes move between two animals going at it. In the wild, when, like, two lions fight or to whatever fight, there's a certain beta move when you've you've been defeated?

Yes. Or. One thing when I know that, that when it happened, one of the signs is when I just like, make a faint and the guy flinch like crazy. That's mean. He's really scared of me. It's a little bit like, you're, you're, you're, you're doing this. That guy flinch a little bit or you're doing this. He's playing like, oh, that's mean. You hurt him, and he doesn't want to get hurt again. So he's, he's really trying to run away and not, not winning the fight anymore, but not losing. So sort of surviving the, the five round, and it's hard to, to finish a guy who does, doesn't want to fight, a guy who's not fighting anymore to win, and he's fighting to not lose. And the proof of that, if you don't believe me, just look. The reign of all the greatest champion in ufc. I don't care who they are, Jon Jones, or like, you could clearly see that in the beginning of their ring, they could, you know, finish a lot of their opponents, same as me. In the beginning, I was finishing a lot of my opponents. But there's a time that the entire UFC roster is studying you, and they found ways to, perhaps not beating you, but they found a way to navigate through the fight in a way that they minimize the damage. You know what I mean? So it's a big difference between fighting to win and fighting to not lose.

You said that there's a difference between a fighter and a martial artist. So now we were talking about fighting. You're considered by many to be one of the greatest fighters of all time. But you've said that there's a difference between a fighter and a martial artist. A fighter is training for a purpose. He has a fight. I'm a martial artist. I don't train for a fight. I train for myself. I'm training all the time. My goal is perfection, but I will never reach perfection. So what to you does it mean to be a martial artist?

Martial artist is because that lifestyle that I have has been introduced to me, and the seed has been planted to my mind a long, long time ago by, by my father. I, I do not train because I have a fight. I will always train. Even now, it. It kind of amused me that to see that a lot of people, because I'm still training, because I love the science of fighting. I do not like to fight, but I love the science of it, and I will always do it as Long as I can do it. People think I'm gonna make a comeback and everything. I'm. I'm about to get to have 40 years old, you know, like, it's. I'm, you know, like.

Well, Mike, I.

Want to fight in a cage at 40 years old. I mean, some people have done it, and they did it very well, but I. I'm not one of them. I'm. I feel a little bit. To me that. And you never say never. I feel like, to me, like, it's a little like a kid that you play with a strain when he's young. Like, then he's five years old, six years old, seven years old, eight years old. And then I'm almost like, what the hell I'm doing here? And I'm too old for this. Like. Like I said, I have done it, you know, and I got out of it on top, and I'm healthy, which is the most important thing right now. I'm touching wood, and I'm wealthy. I beat the game, you know what I mean? In a way, like, that's not to be cocky, but I did it, and I wish more fighters could do the same thing. I wish. It's unfortunate because a lot of them, they stay there and hang out for too long, and they get badly hurt. They get beaten and. And. And broken, you know, and they finish broke as well. Because the lifestyle you have when you're a pro athlete, it's crazy. You know, it's. It's. It's unbelievable. However, everything that goes up in life goes down, and you need to plan your future, you know? So for. For me, what if some guys have the same mentality as me and they're watching us right now? I would say if you do it because you're just good at it, you like the money, the. The advantage, the freedom that it gives you, but you don't necessarily like to fight. When you're done, you finish on top, you know, go, go, cash out and get out of here.

Walk away. This is really hard to do.

However, Alex, it's not everybody that does it for that reason. Some people generally love to fight, love to compete. So they do it because I love it, you know, or they do it because of the money. But if you don't love it, if you don't like to fight because it's very stressful and you don't enjoy. You. You enjoy the training, perhaps, but you don't like to fight, you do it because it's part of what you need to do in order to keep that lifestyle and you know, like, you don't need the money. Get out of here, man. If you're in your, you're in your prime. Get out of here. Because if you don't, you, you, you'll hurt your own legacy. You, you'll damage your, your health. It's, it's very sad and, and it's a, it's a, it's a sad business. You know what I mean? I, I, it's like a lot of, one of the place, where is the, one of the most happiest place for me to go and the most, the saddest place for me to go. It's in the gym. It's a TriStar Montreal because it's one of the happiest place for me to go because I can go train and do what I love to do, but it's also a very sad place for me because after, when I'm about to leave, there's always a bunch of young kids that comes or guys that are around 30, 33 years old, and they come to me and say, hey, George, you have some advice for me? And I look at them and if they're my friend, they're real close friend of mine, I'll tell them the truth in their face. And I've done it many times and it was not well received. But if they're not my friend, I have to, you know, you know, there's always an advice about fighting and I answer their, their question, it's my pleasure. But the truth, if they, they want me to tell the truth, the big majority of them, I would tell them, I said, listen, man, you're in maybe three, like on a, on a losing street of three fight, you're 30, 33 years old. You know, I think you should think about doing something else in your life, you know, have other goals, you know, because you're not gonna make it. And you know, I've seen that movie before and it's a very sad ending. And I'm, I'm sad to tell you the truth, because you're not gonna make the money. Just choose some. But if I tell them that, they're gonna be angry at me because they'll be like, oh, you, you make it. And you think, I cannot make it. So it's kind of, they're gonna think I'm cocky. But I was lucky to make it. You know, the star were all aligned. But at one point, you need to be able to, to have a plan B, you know, like, like some parent, they come to see me with their kids. Hey, this is the future world champion and in ufc. And what advice would you give him? I always tell the same thing and it does not make everybody happy. When I said, I say I go to the. Cassie, are you good at school? Say stay at school. School is very important for you. Stay educated. Yeah, do boxing, martial arts, a great sport. Stay in shape, but don't put your eggs all in the same basket. And the parents sometimes are angry when I not angry, but I can see in their eyes they're like they kind of surprise. And it's not because I made it that I will tell their kid to follow the same path that I did. I went to school too. I. I've studied. I dropped of school when I had my first world championship fight against Matt Hughes. But before that I was school. So I had another, you know, another way to go if things would not have gone the same the way I wanted. But the problem and I'm saying that it's not only about boxing in mma. I'm talking about hockey, basketball, baseball. Same same thing. Maybe is the one on 100,000 that make it. And I'm saying, I'm saying that make it. When I'm saying I make it, that's mean they can retire and have enough money for the rest of his life. Because it's a sad story. The only people only heard about the people that makes it. But a lot of fighter, even a UFC champion in boxing, champion, even in football, basketball. I don't, I don't, I don't care. The big names when they retire, they have zero. They are bankrupt, my friend. And it's a very sad, sad story. In a sad reality that most people are not aware of.

But having other paths in life actually can also increase the chance of you dominating and like reaching the highest peak in your main thing. I mean Jimmy Pedro, I don't know if you know who that is, is a judo coach in, in America. He was. He says that to all of his athletes is to make sure that you go. He has a lot of, you know, Kayla Harrison, two time Olympic gold medalist. He has a lot of Olympic medalists. But basically there's something about going to school like having an. Forget school. Any other avenue in life that gives you the freedom to go all out in your main like that. You know, you're doing it for the right reasons. You're not stuck. It clears the mind to where you're free to be the best in the world.

Yes.

As opposed to kind of, you have to. I mean different people are motivated by different things. So sometimes some people like having their back to the wall and that's the only option they have. But most people, I think, excel when you have other options.

I think it's a distraction, and I think it's important to have a distraction. When you say that, I think about one of my coach, John Danaher. He put his academic background experience into jiu jitsu, and that for me, that's why he's the best teacher I ever had. He's incredible. He start teaching me when I even couldn't speak much English at the time, and I was able to communicate and understand, you know, that's how good he is. But I, I truly believe that most of athletes, especially in, in sport like mixed martial art, train way too much. If I could go back and talk to a young George, I would tell him, say, you do way too much volume, you train way too hard, train smarter. It's more important. And I think sometimes we underestimate the benefit of recuperation because you. I think we assimilate the information that we learn during a training when we recuperate and not during the training itself. And this whole mentality of harder, heavier, you know, like, it's, it's good for someone who's lazy. But if you're an elite athlete, most of the time, you know, like, you're not always, but most of the times because you're not lazy. And a lot of guys, sometimes they're elite athletes, champions. And you hear people say, oh, I can't believe he's very gifted, but he doesn't work. But perhaps it's not really because. Perhaps it's because we don't understand. Perhaps he's doing the right thing and it's us who's working too much and too hard. That's what I think. There's a guy I trained with, he's. He made me think about, about it. His name is Mansour. He's gonna be a future star. He's. He's an incredible fighter. He trained once a day and he asked me sometime advice when he came Montreal. He's from France. You'll hear about him. He's. He's very good. And I, I saw him in the morning at Tristar and I said, okay, I'll see you perhaps later in the other trainings. I know I only train once a day and he kind of wait for me to give him like, like, like, not, not an approval, but like to see how I react or, or, you know, I don't know. It was kind of a strange feeling, but I I told myself at that point I kind of, I had an awakening and I, and I told myself, man, maybe he's doing the right thing. Because a lot, a lot of people would say, for example, oh, that's a lazy way of doing it, but perhaps it's the best way to do it. I'm not saying training once a day is the, the best way to do it. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying that everybody's different, but for him it works beautifully and I wouldn't change anything, you know, like if I would be him, because he's improving like crazy.

Yeah. And ultimately the bigger picture there is to do something that everyone else is says is stupid. It's like the fasting thing that, that a lot of people would say, a lot of nutritional experts would say that that's, that's a dumb way. You know, if you want to be an MMA fighter, you should be eating like many times a day, you should be starting every day with oatmeal, you should be carbing up constantly. But that's not necessarily true for everybody. And it's possible, I'm sure there's actually now a few MMA fighters that are carnivore only. It's possible.

I used to eat right before training and it didn't bother me. However, now my first training that I do normally in average around noon 11am I haven't eaten anything when I do my first training and it feels to me that I'm much it, much more clear. I'm much more clear in my mind. I'm much more creative, I feel better. Yeah, yeah. It's a big difference. I just wish I would have known that before.

Well, it's fascinating the role of the mind in all of this. How important is it for your mind to be clear, to really think deeply? There's a judoka American named Travis Stevens. I remember he said something that.

The.

Right kind of practice is when your mind is exhausted at the end of it, that you were constantly thinking through things like your body shouldn't be exhausted first, your mind should be exhausted first. It's really fascinating. So people think about training hard. You know, a successful practice is where you walk away just overwhelmed how much you had to think. That's fascinating framing of, of a successful practice.

It's true. Travis Steven was one of my main training partner when I got ready for my fight with Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit. He drove every Friday from I believe Boston. It's like a six hour drive, drive to the gym in Montreal, train with Us an hour and a half drive back. He's got such an amazing discipline. I was so happy for him when he won the medal at the Olympic game. Man, what a well deserved, you know, accomplishment. It's unbelievable. It paid off, you know, I was so happy for him. And every time we, we got to the, the gym, it was waiting for me in, in, in the kneeling position like a soldier. I was like, my God, this guy, he's made of, of still, you know, and, and after training I always offer, offer him. I say, hey Travis, I know you, you, you like to train with that because in Montreal they have very good judo team. Nicholas Gill and all that was Guy. And I say, if you want to stay, I'll get you the hotel. You know, like every, anything you want is like, no, no, I gotta go back. I like, not only that he trained with, with us. He had to go back because he had another training. I'm like, this is insane.

And he's gone through a huge number of injuries, so he's also an innovator because, I mean, it's difficult to say, but for American judo, there's not many high level judoka. So if you want to be the, like, fight with the best in the world, you're, you have to be alone. It's a lonely journey, actually. It's kind of sad. It's much easier to be in Japan where everybody's a killer when you're alone at it. It's, it's a difficult journey. And you know, it's, it's funny. We talked about kind of, there's some sports where a mistake is. That's it, you know, you can't recover from a mistake. I think judo oftentimes is one of those sports. And added on top of that is the Olympics only every four years. And Travis's story, he's the reason I, when I saw him in 2008, as I, I started martial arts, I switched from like wrestling and street fighting to doing jiu jitsu and judo. And I just saw so much guts and the. In 2000, I might be messing up the years here, but in the next Olympics, he fought and he lost on just the referee call. Yeah. And just he went to war and he just. So much guts and just everything on the line and to lose and then to still persevere through all their injuries, through all that, through incredibly difficult training sessions, to go another four years and then compete and then win a medal, I mean that guy is just. And like he clearly could have been very successful. He's also an incredible Jiu jitsu competitor, so he could have switched to that, but he's stuck.

In a lot of sport when you're in elite, like for example in Canada, ice hockey is the number one sport of the countries. Kids, when they're in elite, when they're young, they get chosen and they're kind of already known as a superstar. You know, the school with where they go and the program they follow. Like, I'm sure it's the same thing in US and basketball, baseball, perhaps American football, because they already chosen. So they grew up with that, that it, that itsycap, that, that superstar stardom, so to speak. And it's already glass sort of glamorous, you know. However, in mma, there's no mma, judo, wrestling, like in America, because it's not our national sport. Actually, it's not like even when I first started, was not really well received by the media. There's no glamour into it now. I don't know, it seems like it's another era now. And I feel sometimes that some people do it for the wrong reason. You know, some people do it because of the glamour, because of the money. But even if you're an elite and very good, the glamour and the money won't come in the beginning. It's a very long grind before, you know, you start it, start to come in and you need to make those sacrifices. And it's a, it's a journey that, where you will be tested, you will be hurt repetitively, and you're gonna have to reach the down deep and come back up. And then once you finally think you made it, you're gonna go back in the down deep again. It's a very exhausting and decorating adventure sometimes. But if you hold on to your dream and you believe in it, you know, and you have the, the, the stars are, are aligned, you're going to make it. That's why it's only a few people that, that make it, you know, and, and that's why I feel, I feel sometime that that the new, A lot of people in the new generation do it for the wrong reason. In my, in my generation, because of sport, at first it was, there were no rules. I felt it was more pure. The people that did it was really because of the passion that we didn't seek money, fame. We did it because we wanted to be. I did it because I wanted to be the man. You know, I, I like to have the confidence that when I walk somewhere, I'm, you know, I have the confidence that, you know, it's an illusion because nobody is faster than a bullet.

Yes.

But I wanted to achieve it for myself and I. Which today, now, because I don't know if it's social media and all that, that. That the world has changed. The glamour, the, you know, it's. I feel it's a different thing right now.

Yeah, the. If you get in it for the glamour or the money, you may not have the right. The right amount of fuel to persevere through all the ups and downs.

Yeah, for sure.

You know, when you talk about motivation of money and glamour, a guy comes to mind. And I don't know how many wrestlers you know, but in Russia, there's a guy named Bovassi Satya Brothers, one of the greatest freestyle wrestlers of all time. But he also has. It's funny, he doesn't have many interviews. One of my goals is to go out and talk to him in Russian, do an interview with him, because he's exceptionally poetic and a deep thinker. He's the kind of martial artist that you are in the way that it's not just about the different battles he's been through or whatever. It's about the philosophy behind the way he approaches life. And he. He has spoken quite a bit about that. The. The glamour, the fame, the money are all things that get in the way of the purity of the experience. The art that the way to achieve greatness is to just lose yourself in the art of the actual combat. In this case, it's wrestling. And then kind of not to worry and actively make sure that you block out anybody who, you know, feeds you the narrative where you're supposed to be this famous person and all those kinds of things that he basically says, let others write your story. Make sure that you just focus on the art. And another person from that side of the world is of course, Khabib. So he represents that side of the world. And we were talking about walking away and most people not being able to walk away at. At the top as you have. But also now Khabib has. It looks like incredibly so. So, I mean, maybe you can comment about what your thoughts are about Khabib Nurmagomedov being able to just walk away.

You know, we talk about the Goat very often. Khabib is, you know, one of. Isn't the argument because he has the most dominant career of all martial art guy. You know, some guys can be named the Goat for different reasons, but Khabib for that reason. And he's undefeated. He. I don't even know if he lost. He might have lost round, but he dominate all his opponent. It was ridiculous. And such an incredible career that he had. I love to watch him fight. He's incredible. And when you talk about the art, when you say mixed martial art, the idea of a flawless performance. For me, everybody often when we say flawless performance, thinks about a knockout, a brutal knockout. But for me, it's. It's to be able to showcase beautiful technique, like a beautiful takedown, beautiful submission, like something beautiful that, you know, when you. You look at, for example, Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan or like Stephen Curry or even if you don't know nothing about basketball and you watch Michael Jordan, you'll be like, wow, that's beautiful what you just did. Like, we talk about fighting and, and trying to say the, the word beautiful in fighting for certain people, it could sound kind of crazy, you know, but. But I'm talking about the technique, a beautiful technique. You know, for me, that's the goal. You know, when I was fighting, it's no need to. To have a brutal knockout because some people are more gifted than others. And I'm saying gifted, some people are better than others in certain phase of fighting. But for me, it was that. It was to showcase, to win, of course, but to showcase some beautiful technique that, that you can watch the. Watch it and be like, wow, that was incredible. The timing did it that. And when I talk about, when I think about Kabim Normago Manov, I see all the detail that, that of his work, especially when he got. He's got his opponent against defense, that's like, that's his area of expertise where he's. To me, he's the best that ever did it in. In terms of that fighting style, that, that particular expertise that he has.

It's just the, the flawless execution of that particular set of techniques.

Yeah. And Conor McGregor at the. The accuracy. The Spider Anderson Silva was like, was, I would say, the most flamboyant of all. You know, like, he was moving like the Matrix. Jon Jones was incredible in terms of creativity, spinning elbows and that, and he faced incredible adversity. Dimitrios Johnson was so complete. You could, you could bring like, he was slamming a guy to an armbar. It was just unbelievable. Like, like, he was like the complete fighter. BJ Penn was like, so flexible. He. He did stuff with his body that, like, nobody could do his dick. The dexterity of his hips was just unbelievable. Dominic Cruz, to me, was incredible. His footwork, his distance control. So when you talk about, like, the goat, Royce Gracie, another one, he did things that I Think for me is the number one. Because.

Yeah, I gotta. I gotta. And sorry to interrupt. The hoist one is number a fascinating one. I'd love to hear what you think about him. But many people consider you. Most people consider you to be the number one greatest mixed martial arts fighter ever. So it's fascinating to remove you from that list and continue this discussion and asking, like, who do you think is the greatest fighter ever? You listed some amazing ones. Hoist. You somehow skipped Fedor. I'm very. As a Russian, I'm very offended now.

I was going to. There's so many. Fedora is one as well. Fedora, I think in his prime was like, when you say. When you talk about a name, for example, like we talk about him when he was in his prime. Like when I talk, for example, about Anderson Silva, I'm not talking about the Anderson Savo fought, who fought his last fight against Urrea Hall. I'm talking about Anderson Silvo knocked out Victor Belfort. Yes. Bj Pen, same thing. The problem is when fighters hang on for too long in the sport, that's what happened. They. They kind of make. Make people forget how good they were. And it's very sad. We talk about Fedor and just. Just think about Stipe Miocic, me, which is probably the. The greatest heavyweight of all time. With Fedor, I. I would really wonder who would have won this fight. The both guys in their prime. I tend to lean towards Fedor because my heart was with Fedora, but he could have gone the other way. But just because Neo Church lose his last fight, now everybody is like, oh, yeah, they forgot about him. It's crazy, man. It's one fight you zig when you should zag.

Boom.

It's. That's the reality of mixed martial art.

Well, that's why the thing is, the mixed martial arts isn't just the performance, the strictly who won and who lost. It's also the stories we tell ourselves. And so, I mean, there's beautiful stories being weaved. And that also is part of who is the greatest of all time, is what. What were the battles? What. What had to be overcome? What was the. The flavor of the flawless performances? You know, all of that plays into it. And you're right, being able to walk away at the top is also part of that.

A lot of people ask me about Khabib and that fight. I want it to happen. Khabib wanted to happen, but UFC did not want to happen between you and Khabib. Yes. And we tried to make it, like, about Three years ago when I. When I retired. Two. No, three. No, it was after two years ago. And it didn't. Never came to fruition. The UFC were clear. They said they have other plan for Khabib and it makes sense to for the business standpoint because they want to keep the ball rolling now can be retired. And like everybody else after just Justin Gaethje. I was doing the commentator in French for the UFC and I Butterfly. I thought he was going to call me out. And if there's one guy that I would have said yes, it would be him. Because for a fighter the most exciting thing things to do it's often the scariest one. And Kabib was.

Were, you know, worse scariest matchup.

Yes. He was worth the risk because nobody have ever been able to solve them.

How would you solve the Khabib Narmagen amount of puzzle?

Well, Khabib is very good against the fence. I would have to establish a game plan and everything. But I. I think what I would needed to do is take the center of the octagon right away. Use a lot of fake and fate. Keep the fight all the way, all the way out or all the wind. And when I say all the win is when you close the gap. Use my proactive and reactive takedown and perhaps my superior explosivity to put him down. I like to use those proactive and reactive technology because for me I feel it's more economical. Khabib is a much better chain wrestler than me. Chain wrestler is when you get that guys to the fence. It's pure wrestling. What makes my takedown very efficient, it's my karate. It's not my wrestling. It's. I may. I'm very good at timing my opponent and getting in with. With my explosivity. So if you watch at my takedown, it does not demand often it does not demand a lot of work. When I use the. I call it proactive takedown. When he's coming to punch me and I react. So I mean proactive is when. When I'm faking it. So I instigate the takedown by a fake. Then I take him down. And reactive is when he's. I'm baiting him to throw something. Then. Then it's a counter.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

But all my takedown in the center of the octagon.

Yes. My takedowns are more in the center of the octagon. Like for example, another guy that does it well is Gleason Tibau that did it well in his best days. You know, Khabib has more a style of chain wrestling. I would say like Kamaru Usman, so to speak, kind of kind of guy. It's a different style. You cannot compare both style. And that's the kind of takedown I'm good. And I would. If I would have fight Kabir, that's one of the strategy. I would have adapt. I would not have been afraid because everybody that I thought I was able to put them down and, and, and I have the pedigree to, to prove it in my fight resume. So you would have perhaps seen him on his back and I would have perhaps be in my back as well. So it would have been a very interesting fight.

And how hard do you think he is to take down? I mean a lot of people speak about his wrestling being just.

It has nothing to do with it. Like the wrestling because has to do with the crime. If I got that timing and I got my both hand around, around, around. His knees is going down.

Everybody goes down. Yeah.

Yes, yes, he goes down. And, and a lot of that's what I would have adopt. I would not have been afraid of his wrestling. I would have beat the instigator. I would have forced the, the fight forward. And that's what, that's how I would have approached that fight, which I believe most of his opponent were afraid of his wrestling because they didn't have the tools that I have to put him down. I would not have forced the wrestling. I would have in. In the clinch. I would have tried to disengage. I have many ways to disengage a clinch. I would have want to force the fight in. In the, in a, in a fighting distance, you know, like in, in a shoot box distance, not in a, in a wrestling distance.

Is it possible this fight still happens?

I.

You're young, look great in the suit.

Well, there's a lot of problems now. And the thing is now I made peace with it. I no longer don't want to fight. And I don't. It's not gonna happen. UFC was not interested. And I'm bound by contract with the UFC and by exclusivity. There's some people says to me, oh, how about if Russians are a crazy wealthy Russian guy, come with the money. Yeah, I, I said I have the. I'm gonna be in, in court with ufc and, and also I'm older now and when I go home, man, I'm like, I don't want to do this.

You know, like you were always like this.

No, I don't want to do this. But, like, for example, I was training with Freddie Roach a few days ago, and I'm hitting pads, you know, and Freddie's looking me, and he's like, hey, you have the hitch back. I'm like, yeah. If Dana White would walk in the room, in the, in the gym at that precise moment with a, with a UFC contract, I would sign it, sign it in the blink of an eye. But when, after I go home, I'm like, hell, no. My belly is full. I'm healthy. I'm wealthy. Why would I want to fight for? I made peace with it, but the minute I go back in the gym, because I still get it inside me. When I train with the young guys, I still get it. And a lot of guys think, say, tell me the truth, you're preparing a comeback. Because I still get it. I'm a little bit older, but I got more knowledge. I can compensate. I, I, I become a different animal because it, you know, it changed you. But then after you go home and you, you're, you're like, man, no way I'm doing this. It's very hard to explain. You need to be a fighter to understand that. It's very, very hard to explain.

Well, from your perspective, I think Khabib is one of the rare, one of the few fascinating scientific puzzles yet to be solved. So from that aspect, as a martial artist, it's just a fascinating journey to try to solve that puzzle.

There is a thing too. Like, we say, oh, who's the best fighter? People, Lex, they don't like. I understand. I realized that later in my life, and I'm sure a lot of young guys will say, oh, it's not. Don't speak for me. But I'm telling you right now what I'm about to say. You will realize it later. When I was young, I think you can proclaim yourself the more the badass man on the planet. You know, like, nobody can beat you at. It's an illusion, man.

That's the sad thing about, for example, DC Daniel Cormier does probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest of all time. You said miocic. But, like, it's almost because of that little matchup with Jon Jones. It's difficult for people to conceive of him as the greatest of all time.

It's all about matchup. It's all about timing. And also, you make a fight, you make Both guys fight 10 times, the result might be different, like, like every time. You know, I mean, maybe he's gonna win eight out of 10, but that night, he's gonna. He's gonna lose.

Why?

Because we don't know. The. The universe made it like that. You know, maybe he got sick, maybe he had the emotional issues. He didn't sleep well and he makes him lose focus. And he got caught. You don't. We don't know, but it's, it's. That's the thing with. People ask me, would you have done it with Khabib? What would happen? I don't know. Maybe out of 10 times, I don't know. Maybe as a fighter, I hope I would have win more than him. He thinks the opposite is only one way to find out. But that night, if there is a fight, the guy that gonna win doesn't mean he's the best fighter. That means the. The. He's the one that fought the best the night of the fight. Same thing in basketball or hockey. The team that wins the game, it's not necessarily the best team, is the team that play the best the night of the game. And fighting is no different. So being the baddest man on the planet, it's an illusion.

I mean, that's the tragic thing about it is on any one night, anything can happen. And that, that tells a story for all of human history is. It's. It's sad. It's sad to think about, but that's what makes it beautiful. That there's so much at stake. Like entire lives, all the dreams you've had growing up, all the hard work, all of it is decided in a single night. Even though that means nothing in terms of who's actually better. It's. I mean, that's the beauty. That's why people love the Olympics, especially because it happens so rarely and dreams are broken or like triumph is achieved by the unlikely hero. All like right there. I mean, that's, that's why we love it. Right? That's why.

Yeah. If we would know always the result before it would be boring. That's why we do it. You know, you watch the odds, you know, like. Like sometimes I like to watch the odds before a fight, you know, because, you know, there's things, you know, I believe in causality. You know, I believe in everybody. Believe different things, but I believe everything is because there's a. There's a cause to everything. That's personally what I believe. I don't believe that I have like, free will. I think I have the illusion of free will. But I believe there is a cause for everything. And if I'm doing something because of something, because of a cause, by Definition, there's no free will in a way, you know, if there's a cause, by definition there is not.

How does that make you feel, by the way? Like the idea that if we just look outside, even just human psychology and fighting and so on, if you look at like physics, if everything is predetermined, if all of these, these low molecules interacting, it's all already like your story is already written.

I mean, depend it it's written. But I would need to know all the data and it's impossible, right? Like it's, it's. It's kind of weird, I gotta say. But I don't, to me, I don't see any argument to counter that idea. I can, I don't, maybe I'm ignorant, but I haven't seen nobody. And everything that I've read so far, there is nothing that countered that idea that because in a mechanical world, if your car broke or you know, we don't say oh, the car decided to broke or a tree is fall, there's reason why the tree is falling. We don't say the trees decide to fall. Right. So because us human being, I think it's our ego, we decide. And I'm no different than anybody when I make a decision. I decided to this, I choose to do this. But I'm aware that there is causes that make me do certain things. And by definition I think if there is a cause, there is no free will. By definition, right?

Yes. But the thing is, just like you said, we understand so little about human intelligence, the human mind, and especially consciousness. That this giant mystery, this darkness, that we don't understand how it feels like to be something, to be a conscious being, that because of that we're not able to really even reason about free will or not. Because there might be some magic that comes from consciousness. The consciousness might be the thing that makes us different from a car that breaks down. There might be something totally fascinating, totally undiscovered yet that will make us realize that free will is actually real and is somehow fundamental to the human experience.

Experience.

So it's. Sometimes I think we forget when we talk about free will and physics and it all seeming to be predetermined. We forget how little we actually understand about the world. And I think in that mystery that could be totally new ideas that are yet to be discovered and will make us realize that it's not just an illusion. It is something that is like at the core of how the universe works. Some people believe that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe. Like it's a. It's a. One of the forces of physics. Like consciousness permeates everything. It's in everything. Like this table is conscious, but it's not as conscious as us. And we're this little peak of consciousness. And if that's true, and if we get to understand that, maybe there's something, there's an extra bonus we get in terms of free will once you become one of those entities that are super conscious. So I tend to be sort of humbled by the mystery of it.

Do you believe one day with. With the technology that keep improving, we will make robot that will be able to be somehow conscious?

Absolutely. I. That's been my dream. That's been. I hope. I hope to do just that. First of all, I believe that all people are capable and want to be good to each other. And I think love is a really powerful thing that connects us and can create better and better worlds, sort of like create better and better societies that improve both the technology, the quality of life, and just the basics of human experience. And I think creating AI systems that are conscious, that are human, like, can enable us to be better to each other like they can. It's almost like adding more and more kindness to the world through the systems we interact with will inspire us to be better and better to each other in terms of them being conscious. I think that is an absolute requirement that entities we interact with communicate some element of consciousness to us. Like, that's how we connect to each other. The reason you and I connect is that we believe that each of us are conscious. And to me, what consciousness means is the ability to hurt, ability to. To suffer, to struggle in this world. Because just like you said, without the struggle, you don't have the love, you don't have the pleasure. And ultimately, consciousness is an entity's ability to struggle, to suffer. And from that arises the pleasure. And us together being able to appreciate, sort of appreciate the highs and experience together at the lows. That's how we form the deep connections. I personally think we can create that in robots. And I. I personally believe it's a lot easier than. Than we think.

Does it make you afraid sometimes about the fact that one day, hey, high, like intelligence, artificial intelligence could be, you know, could hurt us or, or, you know, like, because we're, you know, because of Hollywood, of course, you know, the movies we watch. But. But it seems like when I hear sometimes Elon Musk talking, you know, like.

Yeah, so Elon talks about with AI we're summoning the demon. He is very concerned and I talked to him about it quite a bit. He's very concerned about all the different ways AI could hurt us humans. I tend to believe that there's a lot more ways in which AI can make our lives better and can make life awesome for humans. I think humans are the ones that can do a lot of evil things. So I'm less worried about AI. I'm more worried about humans.

If I look at what humans have done on the course of history, you know, for example, in regards the planet, to the. The scale of the universe, I think what I'm afraid is that we have more of a destructive force than a beneficial force. So if a high take that in consideration in order to protect us against ourselves, it could hurt us in a way. I don't know if you understand. Like, what do you think about that? Does it make you afraid sometimes? Not because of a high, but because of what humans are doing that Heihai could do to us to prevent us of hurting each ourselves, you know?

Yeah, no, I mean, definitely. It can bring out the worst in human nature and provide tools for evil people to do evil things at a larger scale. But I just think it depends what you think human beings are. I tend to believe that as we get more intelligent, we start to see the value, the evolutionary value, and the value in terms of happiness, of being good to each other. And I think AI if you look at AI as an optimization problem of how to create a civilization that works well and expands throughout the universe, I think love is much more effective. So AI will help us maximize that. I think there's going to be always spikes throughout, as it has been through human history, where charismatic leaders will do evil onto the world in the name of good. You have the Stalin and the Hitlers and all of that. But ultimately, over time, I think technology will give the good people power and the evil people less power. Now, there's a lot of ways that that won't be the case. There's a lot of ways for it to go wrong, and Elon talks about them. But I honestly think in terms of intelligent AI, that's going to bring more love to the world. The thing I'm concerned about is dumb AI. So there's been a lot of discussion between China and the United States recently on autonomous weapons system. This is something people don't. They're afraid to talk about. But there's now a race where the United States has officially said that they're not against adding AI to its weapon systems. So now the US military is adding automation, adding intelligence to its drones, to its anything that can create damage. And so of course, and they did this so in response to China doing that. So you can imagine this is, this is Terminator. You think about Terminator as intel intelligence systems. They're not, they're pretty dumb. The, the point is they're efficient at doing what they do. And in the space of war, efficient at doing what you do means killing. So that I'm really afraid of. But those are dumb AI. Those aren't your loving, deep, fulfilling relationships. That's like efficiently being able to fly, to plan the trajectory of dropping bombs, of missiles, of how to do counter attacks, of how to maximize the destruction of a particular facility instead of individuals. And then that can just escalate. And as opposed to the Cold War with the, with the Soviet Union, this could be a hot war. And then the consequences, once you allow it's kind of terrifying.

Yeah.

Because currently the drones are operated by humans. So you know, you have, say you have information about intelligence gives you information about a particular terrorist located this area. And then you use drones to maybe the automation there is to help you figure out what is the best trajectory to strike at that location. So you still have a human that pulls the trigger at the end, dropping the bomb. Now automation and AI in autonomous weapons systems might be where you say there's a bad guy over here. You figure out how to get rid of the bad guy. Okay. So then of course the systems will be very good at finding the right trajectory and so on. But there's bugs that can happen, unexpected bugs that the system might figure out that there is this bad guy might actually be in these other five locations. So Mike might make sense to cover the entire area. Right. And so you might drop bombs on the entire area and then you know, that's just okay. So that's going to lead to a lot of destruction at a scale of a city. But then you can immediately take that to nuclear weapons. If you add automation to responding to counterattacks to nuclear weapons, somebody, you might get information that somebody's planning a nuclear attack on the United States. And the AI system will immediately respond. And you know, it can respond at a scale of launching nuclear weapons itself. And so there's all of these possibilities that don't require much intelligence. And that's exceptionally, that's exceptionally concerning.

I'm like you, I do not believe there is babies that are born bad. I think people do bad things because of their experience. However, if I look through my experience from what I can see, some very often men's of power, wants more power. That's what makes me afraid.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Listen, I've been, I've come from the Soviet Union. Stalin is arguably one of the most powerful humans in history. He's not talked often enough about by the evils he's done. Hitler gets all the attention, but Stalin has done arguably much more evil than, than Hitler. Yeah, well, this is, this is human nature. It wants power. We see that with institutions, we see that with governments and nations. I think you, you see this with the Internet. People are really hungry for the distribution of power. Like you see that people are very much distrustful of centralized places of power, of institutions and so on. So I think successful organizations, successful companies, successful governments will be run by people who distribute the power. Like I don't trust myself with power at all. Yeah, and I think you have to build into the system that no one person can have power, that you distribute it. That's why you have, in the financial sector, you have cryptocurrency right now with bitcoin and all those kinds of things. People are exploring how can we avoid the central bank to have the control. How do you put the power in the hands of people? Thousands of people, millions of people. And same way with, with military, with any kind of, with technology. I think the future looks very distributed.

What do you think about militarizing space.

The space force? I, I, I don't think about it often because right now I'm filled with excitement about space exploration, which is the positive aspect. So Elon, you know, as I was born in an era where it was exciting. I don't know about you, but for me it's exciting to look up to the stars and dream about us humans, you know, colonizing Mars, colonizing other planets, expanding out to the galaxy into the universe. That's really exciting. So I'm, the possibilities there are endless, I don't think, because also the resources are endless. Us and so I think we get into trouble with militarization, with wars when the resources are very constrained. So I think for a while we're not going to be fighting the, the only wars we'll be fighting in space are the ones that kind of help.

Us under nation to compete who goes to the moon first.

I guess that's those, those are kind, those kinds of things or maybe for satellites and all those kinds of communication and maybe in assistance for like cyber warfare, which is also very dangerous. But in terms of space, the wars out in space, I think, I think everything out in space will be positive and inspiring. It's very hard. But all good things are hard. I think this is where I've been. I've been talking to a bunch of people about extraterrestrial life. I'm really excited by. I don't know, it's the other thing when I look out to the stars, it's exciting to me. I know, I think you've spoken about it being scary, but to me it's exciting that there's intelligent creatures out there far beyond perhaps the intelligence of our own that are just too far away to explore yet, but we might one day come in contact with them. So that, that to me is the ultimate motivator is to meet other intelligence life forms out there and connect with them.

Have you ever meet Jacques Valley?

No, but I've been in communication. I want to. I hope to talk to him. He's an amazing French.

Yeah. I know that there's many theories about, you know, if there's alien, we don't know. Right. But some people think it's from another star systems. And Jacques Val has a. Like to make a long story short, he has a different theory. He thinks it's perhaps beings that could be living in a different dimension than. Than us. And the reason why he says that is when he makes an experiment when there is a sightings very often of a ufo. Let's say I'm. I'm the UFO that you have three guys, they are looking at the UFO very often. One experiment that you can do. And sometimes that. That is the case you ask your two friend to walk on the side and there's a point that it's like a corridor. You see the UFO and then you stop seeing like the corridor. And that's one of the reason why he's saying that it's perhaps dimension. And I found that fascinating. You know, I.

This is what, you know, to the discussion of consciousness and all that, it. It feels like we might be just experiencing a very particular slice of this universe. We might not be understanding what's at the higher dimensions or. Yeah, I mean higher dimensions in whatever form that means. You know, there's all these physical theories now that describe a world with dimensions that's much higher than the four dimensions of the three dimension of space and the one dimension of time. So whatever the hell is going on in those other dimensions, it could be something. Unfortunately this is the sad part. It might be something we can't even comprehend with our human brains that the limitations are just. I mean we're built, we're just descendants of apes. So like it might not be possible to even understand.

Is there alien? Is there another dimension? Are they human from the future? Is there perhaps Chinese or another, you know what I mean? A group of people that are working with a technology far behind. But you know what, Lex? I had a chance to meet, you know, because of the sport I'm doing. I met a lot of people in military and politics. Sometimes that I, I ask them. Every time I met, I met one this week and I asked him as, hey, is it true about the UFOs? There is that. And he says to me, he's like before, even before I ask him, I say, sorry, I have to ask you a question. I was in Los Angeles and I said, sorry, I have to ask you a question. He said, oh, you want to ask me about UFO right away? No. I say, yes.

He saw it in your eyes.

Say yeah, there is things that flies that we don't know, but it does. He didn't tell me. He doesn't know. They don't know if it's alien or whatever. But there's things apparently that are detected and I know you met, you know.

Like flavor is fascinating.

I mean it's crazy.

It makes me sad that we live.

In a different era now that, that it's. It used to be a subject that was ridiculed and now it's so cool that it's, you know, I'm very excited to live in to that, that era, you know.

Yeah, it's really exciting. But still the governments are kind of behind the times on that aspect is they're not transparent and they don't communicate well. You know, it saddens me to think the possibility that, that, you know, like the US government might be in possession of something that they don't tell the world about because they're just scared. It's because they don't know what the hell it is and they don't want the Chinese to gain the technology or all those kinds of things.

Do you think the President of the United States, for example, because a president comes and go every right four or eight years. Do you think he would know all the secret or it would be a guy like for example, Vladimir Putin would know much of. You know what I mean? I don't think the president even know like even can knows all, all the, the secret.

The U.S. president.

Yeah, I don't think so because he goes, they go back and forth, you know, every four years, you know, they have the terms right.

So I, you know, I, I wasn't sure before, but I think I could trust the Previous United States President of Donald Trump that if he knew, he would probably tweet about it.

So perhaps.

So I think from the con, you know, I've worked with darpa, I work with DOD at a clearance. And I think from the perspective if you, if you see the world as fundamentally a dangerous world where secrets are important to have, from a military perspective, I think it's very unsafe to tell the President of the United States that you have this kind of technology. So if you think of the world in that way, I hate that that's how that world is viewed. Because ultimately I think what's more powerful than the military secrets? And I hope that actually is what will happen in the 21st century. What's more powerful is inspire people, inspire the, the young Elon Musk's of the world to, to create cool new things. If we have technology that we've. Have come, have encountered that we don't understand, that should only be inspiration to develop that kind of stuff. It shouldn't be seen as military, as a military threat, as a secret to hold on to. I think secrets. I hope we more and more let go of the idea that there are secrets that give us advantage. You know, like in the tech sector, people are more and more releasing the software, they're making it open source. Like secrets don't make sense.

They share the knowledge.

Right, Share the knowledge. Like share, like being afraid to share the knowledge. I think, I hope is an old idea.

It's more. Yeah. And when you make it things more compartmentalized, you know.

Yes, well, yeah, well, that's the other thing is the bureaucracy of government is like people only know their own little thing and they don't spread the information, it doesn't travel well. I mean there's a lot of just inefficiencies there. It makes me sad. It makes me sad because the, the science, the engineering that happens in governments like Lockheed Martin developing, the different airplanes that they're used for military applications, that's some of the most incredible engineering ever. And it's secret because they're afraid to share it with the Russians and the Chinese and so on. But on that topic, I do think somebody like Vladimir Putin would know, probably knows some stuff.

My God. My God, I would, I would love.

To know what he knows, but then again, you never know because even he is, you know, people think of him as an exceptionally powerful person, but he's also just managing a bunch of tribes. His power is very limited. He's trying to hold together a bunch of greedy, power hungry mad men.

That's right.

Okay. And he's trying to establish a balance. He might not know everything. So I. I hope this changes because I think there's nothing more exciting about.

I don't even know if there is a human that knows. You know what I mean? Like this idea that there's some civilization, alien civilization, that. That land on the White House and say, hi, I come to meet the prison. And, like, why would they do that? You know what I mean? It's kind of absurd, you know?

Well, I. I do think that actually. I mean, that's one possibility. Right? As lar. You know, if an alien civilization really wanted to contact us, I think everybody would know. So I think what we're. If, if there's any kind of interaction between humans and aliens, I think most likely what we're interacting with.