#116 Coach Marc Montoya - UFC Coach / Factory X - Muay Thai - MMA – BJJ
Marc Montoya - UFC Coach, Head Coach and Owner of Factory X, avid bow hunter, fly fisherman, father, and mentor to professional athletes. Nominated for 2018 Coach of the year by the World MMA Awards and winner of the 2012 and 2014 Coach of the Year by the Colorado MMA Awards, Marc Montoya is a world-renowned MMA coach and owner of Factory X. An accomplished fighter and instructor, Marc has been training, fighting, and teaching around the Denver area for over 20 years training some of the world best Mixed Martial Artist. Tune in as Coach Marc Montoya joins Bobby Marshall virtually and discuss conservation, bow hunting, UFC, MMA, outdoor edict, mentorship, winning, losing, reading, books, cancer, family, friends, outdoor life, beer, and so much more. Please subscribe or like us on social media platforms for updates on shows, events, and episode drops.
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Coach Marc Montoya - UFC Coach / Factory X - Muay Thai - MMA – BJJ
Our returning guest for this episode is Marc Montoya. He's one of the most prominent coaches in the UFC. This is his third time being on the show. He was one of our very first guests here. Every time that I've sat down with him, I walk away a better person. I truly enjoy Marc's company. This was a great episode, and I hope that you enjoy our conversation.
Marc Montoya is back in the house. It’s your third time.
I feel privileged. I get three appearances on this ever-growing show. I'm happy for you. It continues to grow. Your guests are continuing to be amazing. You're in a bigger spot, even. It's all cool stuff. I'm happy for you.
It's always a privilege to have you in here, first off, and I got to attribute some of that to you. Over half the guests that we've had on that are badasses and we crush on downloads are all connections I've made through. Thank you.
It's my pleasure. You've had some good people on here, like Derek Wolfe and coach Eric, Dustin, Vinc, and Josh. You've had some good people on here.
It's been awesome. I’ve had Jordan, too. I can't forget Jordan.
JK is awesome. You have had some good other guests that I don't know, too. With the guys that I know, it’s that old saying. The people you hang out with is who you become. They're of the same cloth. It's important to me that I hang around good people. It's cool to see them come on here and explain their stories. You get to chit-chat a little bit, have fun, and learn more in-depth about all those guys. Those guys are amazing people. I've heard their stories before, but I still tune in because there is stuff that I'm like, “I forgot about that. That's cool.” It's my pleasure. I'm happy that that has helped you and they continue to get to tell their story because that's what this is about.
I'm grateful for it all. I've forged so many relationships in here, including mine and yours. It took me a while to realize it. At first, it was like, “It'd be cool to have this guy on because I want to talk to him.” I then started realizing, “How often do we get to sit down in this world no matter who it is, grandparents, family members, or whatever, and have an uninterrupted conversation?” It is few and far between to the point where I've started bringing my kids in here. It's something that I will never publish, but to have my five-year-old sit in your seat and tell me what she's got going on in her world with no distractions or anything, they love it. It's a real moment.
You don't need a booth to do that. The problem is people allow that to not happen. It's important that you get out and find ways to experience some one-on-one stuff. That's one of the reasons why I love hunting, fishing, golfing, and stuff like that. It's a way to connect with people and get off of your phone. You get to be who you are, have fun, and have conversations about nothing sometimes, and sometimes, about a lot of stuff. It's cool that you found a pathway to do that in this little box. It’s cool.
Whether it's here, in a tree stand, walking a trail, fishing a river, on a golf course, or wherever it is, people can find ways. We do a great job of not finding ways to do that. We allow distractions to give us an excuse for why we don't connect and why we don't do that. I've done it. Everybody's done it. It's our job to realize we're doing it and to find ways to not do that.
We weren't built to be on a phone. We were built to communicate. When I was at church, they said, “It’s hard not to like someone when you move in.” From afar, sometimes, you look at people. You see them and make assumptions. You make your own decisions. You don't know until you move in. Any time I've ever moved in and discussed anything with people, I start to realize, “I like that person,” or sometimes, you're like, “I don't like that person.” That's okay because that's what it's about. It is figuring that out. The communication piece is massive. The lack of communication will be our demise one day.
We weren't built to be on a phone. We were built to communicate.
I'm old-school when it comes to this. We don't have a whole lot of family time at home where we're all in the house at the same time because of sports, dance, gymnastics, or whatever else is going on. When we are on the weekend, it’s that old-school sit down at the dinner table and have dinner with no cell phones or anything like that. I call it the Fed bucket. Everybody has to put their device in the bucket, sit down, and eat dinner.
That should be the norm. It’s not that hard to get that accomplished. We've done that forever with our kids. We don't have our phones at the table. We're discussing. Sometimes, it's not a crazy discussion either. It's what's up. You're filling the presence of each other. Being in the presence of people a lot of times is all that you need.
You need to have a focused presence, whether it's saying something or not. That's the whole point of what you're saying. It’s to have a focused presence, and that's cool. That's where I've developed the relationships with the people, for example, that you brought up that have come in here and lent their story. You've gotten to know them and vice versa. It’s having an uninterrupted conversation with them and making time to do that, and then forging relationships past where had an introduction of an initial handshake. That stuff's cool.
It's cool to watch you grow and see all the guests that you have on. Your sponsors are growing. It's cool to see everything continue to grow and flourish. You have to pat yourself on the back and know that through consistency and hard work, good things happen. The slow build sometimes is what it is. You got to walk through mud to see the high mountain views. That's the thing.
It hasn't been easy. I went off the wrong path there for a minute. We had so much success right out of the gate. That was awesome, but then, I started looking at it like, “I got to keep up. I got to get these big guys in. I got to have these big comics or Rogan.” I instantly went into that mode. It’s not that I wouldn't want to have those guys on, but it took maybe a good 10 or 12 episodes where I was chasing it. It was stressful and a bunch of bullshit. I was like, “I should be doing this for myself.” It’s a selfish thing. It's who I want to talk to, and those are the best interactions that we have.
That's awesome.
It hasn't been easy either, but I encourage anybody that's thinking about doing this to do it. It’s well worth it. Whether you're making money or not, having a platform to voice your opinion is pretty awesome, too.
That is part of the definition of grit. Sometimes, when you think of grit, you think of toughness. You think of that thing, but grit is withstanding all the obstacles to stay focused on the goal at hand. You're having the grit to do that. A lot of times, you're eating a shit sandwich as you go through it. Does that derail you, or does that motivate you to keep going? That's the thing. You have shown some grit to get to where you're at and grow into a different spot, a bigger spot, that’s more conducive to what you wanted. All that stuff has to start from ground zero. It's cool to see. Thanks again for having me on. It's always a privilege and pleasure being here.
Sometimes, when people think of grit, they think of toughness or that kind of thing, but grit really is withstanding all the obstacles to stay focused on the goal at hand.
I'm always inspired when you're here. That's why you keep coming back. I'd have you once a week if I could, but you're a busy guy. You've been dealing with a lot of personal stuff. The gym's cranking bigger than it's ever been. You probably find a lot of that relationship-building in the gym. I know I do when I'm at jiu-jitsu. It's like you have a common bond with somebody when you're trying to choke them or maybe you're getting choked.
The purity of mixed martial arts is hard to describe unless you go do it because it's humbling. I feel like people need to be humbled. We all need to be humbled so that we can figure out pathways. It's the purity of getting on the mat and still leaving slightly delusional even after you got choked 22 times that day that you're still a bad MF. The purity of that is hard to explain unless you go do that.
Life's about submission, obedience, and consistency. Ultimately, that's what jiu-jitsu is, for example, or mixed martial arts, or having a great podcast, relationship, or what have you. Those are things that you learn on the mat. A lot of times, you leave with a sore elbow because you were unwilling to submit. The purity of jiu-jitsu, for example, is that if they don't tap, you could kill them or break a limb. It's forcing you to humble yourself to learn how to defend against that and/or attack that.
You leave the mat being humbled, but also not being derailed to come back. There are so many parallels between the mat to life. We've talked about this many times. It's interesting. Whether it's life, training, work, relationships, faith, or whatever it is, it's, that stuff is a great teaching tool to learn who you are. Character is built, but ultimately, it's revealed. That’s one of the things that I love about it.
That's the biggest reason why I keep going back. It was humbling to go back because I took about a year and some change off between the pandemic and I was busy with this. My schedule wouldn't allow me to go in to take some classes, which is a poor excuse. I finally talked to one of the jiu-jitsu gyms up here like, “How about a lunch break?” I could leave for a lunch break. That's been great.
That’s good for you.
How's life been for you? Have you been all right?
Life's been a little interesting. I had a lot of life stuff going on here last September 2022. I was getting ready to go archery hunting in Alaska. I was going to hunt black bears and grizzly bears with my brother and my dad. It was a trip of a lifetime that my dad set up for my brother, me, and himself. It was something my dad wanted to do forever. We were gung-ho about that. I was out at his place in Boulder. He has about 15 acres in Boulder there with his wife. He's got a cool 3D archery set up there. I went out there. We took the family out there in September 2022, and I was getting ready for that hunt.
I got stung by a bee on my right thigh. While I was shooting archery, they were hanging out in some of those archery targets and being assholes. One smoked me, which was no biggie. I finished getting my bow sided in and what have you. That was a Sunday. I went back to the gym on Monday and trained on Monday. On Tuesday, my leg was swelling up. In all the twenty-plus years of training on the mat, I've never had an infection from training.
No staph or anything?
No. Sometimes, staph can happen to guys, but I've never ever had any of that. I've only had ring worms three times in my life. There was never anything major. If you're going to go rub elbows with someone constantly like that, that stuff unfortunately will happen. We have staph on our body, so it's part of it. The thing is I never had an infection like that.
I went in a couple of days later to the urgent care. I said, “I don't know what's going on with my leg, but this doesn't look good.” They were like, “It looks like you have some type of infection.” I told them, “I got stung by a bee.” They were like, “That bee sting potentially was a pathway for an infection to get in. We'll put you on some antibiotics. I said, “All right.”
She made a big circle around where the bee sting originally was and said, “If this redness gets past the circle that I highlighted with a marker, you need to come back in.” I was like, “All right.” Two days later, that thing was way past the circle she had made. I was like, “I'm going to have to go back in.” I went back in and they said, “That infection is continuing to grow and spread.” It was creating inflammation all the way from mid-thigh to my foot. It was getting super red. I was like, “This is crazy.” They said, “Let’s put you on a different antibiotic.”
I said, “I'm getting ready to go to Alaska in the middle of nowhere to hunt bear with my bow. Am I going to be able to go on this trip? I'm not missing this thing.” They were like, “We hope so. Let's put you on these antibiotics. Hopefully, it gets better.” Luckily, it started to get better. I got new antibiotics. That night, I never once in my life have left a weapon in my truck ever. I have my concealed carry permit and I take weapons, but I never leave them in my truck overnight ever.
What a lot of people do is throw it on the seat or in the console. Good luck.
I've never done that. I was shooting my bow to continue to stay ready. I left my bow case in the back of my truck only because I was in the middle of this infection thing and I lost sight of the fact that I had my bow case in the back of my truck. In the bow case, I had my spotting scope, binoculars, rangefinder, bows, all my arrows, all my releases, and all the stuff that I would carry.
That morning, I woke up and have a message from my neighbor. He says, “Your back window is shattered on your truck. It looks like someone might have broken into your truck.” Immediately, I was like, “No.” I didn't remember up until then, but at that point, I was like, “I left my freaking bow in my truck here last night.” I went out there and they stole all that stuff. I was leaving to go to Alaska in three days.
This happened in?
September 2022. I was like, “Man.”
That's the worst month, though.
I was like, “How am I going to replace my bow, binoculars, spotting scope, rangefinder release, and skid arrows?”
It’s not even a money thing at that point. You have so much time set up tuning in a bow, shooting it, and then shooting it with broadheads. For people that don't understand archery, you want all that shit done in six months before you even start drawing on an animal.
To go get a new bow and a new release was the other thing. The release is one of the harder parts. The release I had is the same brand, but they came out with a new model, so it's not the same. All these things are new. The binoculars function differently. The rangefinder is the same brand, but it's different. It was all the stuff. I was like, “Man.”
I was panicking. I was like, “Not only do I need to go get my window fixed on my truck, but how am I going to find all the stuff I need?” My bow was a few years old. It wasn't brand new, but it wasn't old either. With the help of family and friends, I said, “We're going to have to divide and conquer here. The one thing you can't do is go shoot some bows. If you can help me research and find this equipment, I'll go ahead. If you can go all over the Denver Metro area and pick this stuff up, that'd be amazing.”
My friends and family helped me out a ton. I went and shot a bow. I found one, but it was not the same one I had. I found some releases, built some arrows, and the whole thing. In the middle of all this, I'm battling a staph infection and thinking, “Is this an omen that I shouldn't go do this trip? What's going on?” I'm like, “This is part of what it is.”
You can't miss out on that.
I'm not missing this. I go to Alaska and we have an amazing time. I'm on antibiotics. I didn't feel great. I didn't feel 100%, but we went there and had an amazing time. I was able to shoot a nice black bear with my bow. My dad and brother were out there and shot two nice grizzly bears. It was fun. We went and had a blast. It was the coldest hunt I've ever done. It was the hardest hunt I've ever done.
I saw some of your posts. It looked pretty epic.
It was gnarly. It was not an easy hunt between the number of flights that you take, all the things that you're doing, and the weather. We never once had a day where I saw the sun. I never saw the sun in two weeks when we were there. It was cold. It was brutal. It was fun. We had a blast. With the staph infection at the time, I didn't realize how cold it was making me feel. My immune system was down a little bit.
It was probably from slamming all those antibiotics, too. That always wrecks it.
That was it. Your endurance is always smoked with antibiotics. I pushed through it. It wasn't a big deal, but it was hard. If you've never been to Alaska, the floor that we were on was on a riverbed. We were tense and near a riverbed. The river was only maybe 7, 8, or 10 feet away from where we were camping. That was the only flat spot and dry spot there was.
You're next to the river. It's cold. The ground's super cold. The grizzly bears, at that time, were getting ready to hibernate. They're all eating berries at the berry line. The berry line is above the alders. To get there, you got to go through all those alders. If you've never hunted in Alaska, the alders grow downhill. It's this vine of alders growing downhill.
You're fighting in the opposite direction.
It’s unbelievable. Once you get to the berry line, which is where most of the grizzlies are, then you hit that snow line. That's where the high mountain peaks are. You'll find Dall sheep and moose. You'll find animals in a mixture of the floor of the valleys and then around that berry line. The Dall sheep are up there on the peaks and so are the mountain goats. It's crazy to see and experience all that. I was doing all that with brand-new equipment. For example, I pulled out my spotting scope. I had my spotting scope for years. It's the same brand and same everything. It’s a Vortex. It's a great model.
They make badass stuff.
I go and I'm trying to set this thing up. I'm like, “This does not fit on this tripod the same way the other one did.” The adjustments were similar, but they weren't. I was so frustrated. I was like, “This is unbelievable right now.” Nothing felt familiar was the problem. Imagine me trying to set up my bow with two days to go. I was in straight panic mode. I usually go, shoot my bow, and have a blast, and it's a Zen feeling. Even if it's off a little bit, who cares? You go back, grab an Allen wrench, and fix some stuff. You go back and do it again. It's no biggie.
It’s hard when you're hunting, too, because it's not like you're going to the 3D range and shooting 40 targets. You're out hiking around with your bow. It's not like, “I'm going to throw a few arrows to loosen up before I shoot this elk.” You might not have shot your bow in six days if you're backpack hunting or something, right?
Sure. The familiarity of it is crazy. The release didn't carry the same. It was all kinds of stuff. We went out there and had a blast. It was a hell of a time. We got a great experience together. The weather was shitty, but it was still fun. When you look back at it, it's always the suck that you remember, but you endured it. You're like, “I got through that.”
UFC Coach: When you go backpack hunting, the weather can be rough, but it’s still going to be fun. When you look back on it, it's always the suck that you remember, but you endured it, and you're like, "I got through that."
We all were successful with the animals. That was awesome. It was fun to go out there, do that, and have a blast with that. We get back. With the staph infection, I went through the cycle of my antibiotics. Everything looks good. A couple of weeks later, my knee is swollen on the same side where I had the infection. Sometimes, I have bursitis in my right knee from training and accumulation of getting old.
Is bursitis like arthritis?
It’s your bursa sac in your knee. It swells up and gets inflamed. In the past, I've had them drain that out. It chills out and you're fine. It's nothing major. It's a bursa sac in your elbow. It’s very similar to your knee. It's from overuse. I got some miles on me.
I'm starting to figure that out myself, too. I went to the doctor because the AC joint was killing me. He's like, “That’s arthritis. There's nothing wrong with it. You got to live with it.” I was like “Okay.”
I get this inflammation in my knee and it's bursitis. I go back to the ER. They say, “We’re not sure.” They pulled the history and were like, “You had an infection here. Let's give you some antibiotics in case the infection is resurfacing.” I was like, “Fine.” They were like, “If this doesn't get better in a couple of days, come back.” I was like, “Fine.” A couple of days go by and it’s getting way worse. I'm like, “This is not good again.” I went in on a Wednesday and they said, “Let's change your antibiotics. If this isn't good by Friday, you need to go to the ER and not come back to urgent care.” I'm like, “Really?” They were like, “Yeah.” I said, “All right.”
Friday comes and I'm in terrible shape. My foot is so swollen I can't put my shoe on. My leg is swollen and my pants are crazy tight. It's turning red. I'm like, “This is not good.” I go to the gym. I go in and the team's sparring on Friday morning. I went in. I'd never done this before, but I sat down in the cage the whole time in a chair. I sat there and coached rather than being up and moving around, talking to the guys, and doing what we normally do during sparring.
That must have been so hard on you.
It was rough. All the guys are like, “Are you all right?” I'm like, “I don't know.” They look at my leg and be like, “Get out of here.” I go to the ER. We sat in the ER for almost eight hours. It was so busy that night, that day, and that afternoon. One of the nurses came by about six hours in. She saw my foot and was like, “Oh my goodness.” She goes, “That's so bad that we need to put you on an IV drip in the waiting room. You're not going home.” I was like, “What are you talking about that I'm not going home?”
I haven't spent the night in the hospital ever, so I was like, “Really?” She's like, “You're not going home.” They eventually admit me into a room. Doc comes in the next day on Saturday. He looks at it and is like, “Let’s give this one more day. We're going to need to do surgery on that, lance that open, and flush that thing out.” I'm like, “Really?” He's like, “Yeah.”
What I didn't know is when I came into the ER room, because I'd been battling an infection for a month, my kidneys were at the beginning stages of going into failure. They noticed that. They recognized that from the blood they had taken and all the stuff they were doing when I was there overnight. They recommended that I get an ultrasound done on my stomach and on my kidneys. I was like, “Whatever.”
They do this ultrasound on Saturday. On Sunday, I go in. They lance my knee open, flush it out with nine liters of solution, and hook this vacuum thing up to my knee. It was so that it keeps the moisture out of there and the skin can heal. I got this machine hooked to me that you can't go anywhere with. It's a ball and chain. The funny part is one of my coaches is an awesome dude, but I talk major shit to him. His name's Randy Caruso. I said, “This thing's like a pain in the ass like Caruso.” I named that thing Caruso.
I'd go to the bathroom and be like, “Come on, Caruso.” We'll go to the bathroom. I'd have to pick this stupid thing up. It was a wound vac thing. That was Sunday. On Monday, this doctor I'd never seen came in. My two kids and wife were in the room. The doctor says to me, “I want to talk to you. Are you sure it's okay if they're here?” I'm thinking to myself, “Why would it matter if they're here? It's a staph infection. Who cares? I don't mind.”
She says to me, “We did an ultrasound on your kidneys on Saturday and found a mass in your right kidney.” I was like, “A mass? What kind of mass?” She's like, “We think it's a cancerous mass. We never know for sure, but I've done this for a long time. Based on what we're seeing, it’s appearing to be cancer.” I was like, “What?”
Right then and there, I'm thinking, “Cancer?” She's like, “I can't guarantee it.” It’s because of the liability that they're not going to say 100%, but I could see it in her face. She’s like, “This is cancer.” I said, “Don’t bullshit me. Is this cancer? What's the deal?” She's like, “I can't promise you,” but she's also like, “I've done this a long time. When we see a mass like that that has blood flow to it, a high percentage of the time, that's cancer.” I'm sitting there dumbfounded, like, “I have cancer in my kidney?” She's like, “Yeah.” My family is scared, upset, and looking at me.
The crazy part is they told my wife on Sunday about it when I was having surgery. She knew for a little less than 24 hours, but she already knew that there was a potential mass in my kidney. She's having to sit on all that info because I was in surgery, and then I'm out of it. You’re coming out of anesthesia and all the stuff. She's pretty beaten up about it. My kids are sitting there going, “Our dad has cancer?” It was a surreal feeling. I sat there and was like, “Cancer. That’s cool.” I was like, “All right,” but then I'm thinking, “I got two kidneys. I don't need both kidneys, right?” She's like, “You don't need both kidneys.” I said, “That’s cool. Take it out.”
I love it. You go straight into an action plan already in the first conversation.
With Caruso hooked up to my knee and all the bullshit, I was like, “Take it out.” She's like, “That's the plan, but we can't do surgery until this infection's gone.” I was like, “How long do we need to wait for that?” She's like, “Probably about a month.” I said, “Okay.” She said, “A cancerous mass like this in a kidney doesn't react to chemo or radiation, so you can't even do that. We don't want to biopsy it because of the risk of it spreading to any other organs like your lungs, bone, lymph nodes, or whatever. Since it’s the kidney and it can be removed, you don't need to. Our recommendation is to remove the entire kidney. If that's 100% cancer, we’ll get all the cancer out and not disrupt any of it.” I was like, “What do I do?” She's like, “Get better, come back in, and let's do this.”
It's a lot to take in in one week, especially. This all happened in the span of a week or a week and a half.
It happened quickly. The infection was going on for about a month, but when I heard the news, it was about 48 hours of being in the hospital. A lot of stuff goes through your mind when stuff like that happens. Even when I speak about it, it doesn't seem real. It seems like that didn't happen. It’s weird.
It seems like it's happened all so fast. This is super personal, but what was going through your mind? From an outside perspective, when I heard about it, I was in shock. I was like, “This guy's in phenomenal shape. He does everything right. He eats healthy. This is somebody that's not supposed to get cancer,” but cancer doesn't fucking care.
I've seen so many people firsthand that I know, whether it’s loved ones, family members, and friends, that have gone down this road. It's strange to me. The moment that you hear the diagnosis, and I'm not saying to judge a book by its cover, and this isn't a knock on anybody that didn't make it through cancer, but it's almost like you can see how a person's going to go through it from the initial reaction if you know them personally. It's like, “This is not going to be good,” or, “They’re going to be fine.” I had that automatic feeling with you. It was like, “He's going to crush this.” I know it's still not over yet and you still are on the road to recovery. I know for a fact a lot of it is the mindset.
I was fortunate because I went in and got the cancerous kidney removed right before Christmas. It was the 21st or 22nd, something like that. I had it done right before Christmas. Think about that. A whole year has gone by. The doctor said to me on the morning of surgery, “You're the healthiest person we've seen in a year.” That's a testament to me, but it's also made me sad. I was like, “Really?” I'll be 48 in April 2023. I'm not a spring chicken.
Good job.
That's the thing. It’s staying in shape, eating well, and taking care of my body. It's given me the ability to come back, for sure, but you never know at the time. When you're going through it, it’s interesting. Not a lot of people, but people that are close to me, I've shared with them this. I'll share it with everyone because it's worth putting out there.
I had a lot of people reach out to me that I knew and a lot of people I don't know because of my presence on social media and the amazing job I get to do, which is coaching MMA fighters and a bunch of successful UFC fighters. I have a social media presence. There were people that I don't personally know that follow me and reached out to me. There was such a huge overwhelming sense of people reaching out and saying, “You’re in my prayers. You got this,” and all those things.
A lot of those people that reached out to me, whether I knew them or didn't, one of the things that they said, “When I had this,” or, “My brother had this,” or, “My mom had this,” or whoever it was, they said, “They made a transformation in life and decided that after this happened they were going to do X, Y, and Z better.” I can appreciate that because that is a perspective that you can't explain unless you're sitting there in a bed yourself going, “I got cancer.” When I heard that though, my first thought was, "I'm not perfect. I'm not saying I'm perfect, but I don't feel like I have to go reinvent who I am moving forward and I can do things better." I felt a lot of peace with where I sat.
That's very unusual. I could see that from knowing you and being your friend and knowing the Factory X mindset and your fighter's mindset. I love your legacy and legend. Are those the quotes that you've been making? I'm going to butcher this so I'm going to let you finish it. One of them was, "Judge yourself by the people around you that look at you for the same judgment." I'm screwing it up.
The quote is you look at yourself through another lens when you're around people and that's your comparison of who you're becoming. That’s what it is. I don't want that to sound like I am perfect and I don't need to change anything because that's not true, but I didn't have this enduring, like, “I need to change my diet. I need to lose 30 pounds. I need to connect better with my family and friends.” I didn't have that. I felt like, “I'm going to stay on the same path but do a better job of it. I have overwhelming peace. If I die, I'm okay.” I never was afraid of that.
I can truly say that because you're sitting there and there's a lot of unknown. We know a lot about what it looks like now, but at the time, we don't know. I remember having a conversation with my wife. I remember thinking about this before in general terms, but I was like, “If I ever had cancer, I wouldn't want to go through chemo.” This is before I knew that kidney cancer wasn't going to respond to radiation or chemo.
I had this hard conversation with her between the infection subsiding and I was going in to have surgery, and before I got all the info from the doctors. I said, “I don't know if this is selfish, but I'm not going to go through chemo. I’m not doing that. If I have to find alternative ways, I'll do that. I'm not going to kill my body to then potentially live another year or two years.”
We had some hard heartfelt conversations about that. I'm blessed to the fact that I didn't have to make that decision. In the past, I've had the ability to connect with a ton of people. I try to give everything I got all day. I had peace from that. I was like, “God, if this is my time to go, it's my time to go. I have peace with this. If it isn't, then You have bigger plans for me. I have a lot of people to still impact.” I'm going to do things better, for sure, but I don't feel this overwhelming sense of needing to overhaul my life. It’s hard for me to articulate that because I don't want it to sound like I'm perfect. I'm not.
You got a full heart.
I feel like the things I'm doing are purposeful. What I do on a daily basis personally and professionally has intent and purpose. I give 100%. If you know me, you know that if we're going to do something, we're going to do it hard. We're going to do it balls out. If it works, that’s great. If it doesn’t, we'll figure out a way around this thing.
I feel like the things I'm doing are purposeful, and what I do on a daily basis, personally and professionally, has intent and purpose.
I love it. You've truly inspired me to do some stuff. You've inspired me to change my life and my life habits. Some of that is through the show. Being able to sit down with you, listen to your mindset, and then get to know you as a person has been truly inspirational to me. I want to say that publicly.
Thank you.
That’s to the point where I had to reevaluate my life at one point. I was slipping. It was part of being a dad and being busy. I was almost going through life with blinders on. I've had an amazing career. I've got to go all over the world, travel with amazing musicians, and see some amazing stuff. I always had those blinders on. This was the day-to-day of what I did. Becoming a father changed all that for me. I had to dial it back. That was the first major reset. From then on, I was so much about pleasing other people and taking care of them that I let myself slip. It wasn't drastic, but every year, I'd gain 10 pounds because my diet wasn’t that good.
You look good.
Some of that, I attribute to you.
Thank you.
One thing I've had to learn the hard way is you got to focus on yourself a little bit to share the love around you. If you're not in a completely good space, you're not going to share that with somebody else. It sounds selfish, but it’s not.
I'm a massive giver, almost to a fault sometimes. I’ve put myself last before. I still do sometimes, but I've gotten better at that. Who I am is who I am. I'm not going to change who I am. I'm a giver. That's the heart God gave me. Let's roll with that, but I do need to remind myself to take a break and go do something for you to refresh my soul so I can keep giving.
That's a hard thing to balance.
It’s not easy. You have to have an amazing support staff to do that. My wife, my kids, my team, my friends, and my family is the support staff that has allowed me to keep being who I am. You said, “What was going through?” I had a lot of peace, to be honest with you. I didn't have fear. The only thing that I was upset about is the road to coming back to recover because I've done such a diligent job of staying in the mix and staying in shape. I know how hard it is to have to make the comeback. That's the thing that was not scary to me, but more like pissed me off. I was like, “I'm going to have to do this comeback thing.”
You got to put it on pause.
I don't want to do that stupid thing. I hate anesthesia. I hate being on those drugs. I don't do well on drugs. If you’re like, “Let's smoke weed.” I'm like, “I don't do great on weed.” If you’re like, “Let's get on Oxy,” I don't do well on Oxy. I know myself. I don't do well on that. We could have a glass of whiskey.
It’s that native blood. I have the same issue. I have a minuscule amount, but it doesn't do it for me.
It puts me in a different state. I hate it. To conclude that story, I went in and they removed the kidney and cancer. I was laid up pretty well. It was the most pain I've ever been in in my life. I had never felt that kind of pain personally. I was like, “Don't be a pussy. You got this,” type of thing. I remember having to tell myself that many times, like, “You got this.”
I couldn't sleep was the problem. One of the things at least that helped me a ton is if I can get 6 to 8 hours of sleep, I could go crush the world with you tomorrow. I feel like because I go so hard all day that I need a little reset. If you give me a good reset, I'm good. That’s what's hard about my job sometimes. Every weekend, I don't get great sleep. I can't catch it up, but I got to figure out how to recover from that and then do it again next weekend.
The thing is I couldn't sleep in my bed for almost six weeks because of the pain. I was sleeping in a recliner and getting two hours of sleep. I was on Oxy for two days and I couldn't do it anymore. I was like, “I can't do this anymore.” I remember them saying to me, “You can't have ibuprofen anymore because you have one kidney, but you can have Tylenol.”
Is that still the case?
Yeah. They were like, “You can have Tylenol or Oxy.” I was like, “Is there nothing in the middle here? What's the middle ground?” The day I had the kidney removed, it was such a wild deal. It all happened pretty quickly. It's harder to download all of it. I remember I had the surgery. I came back finally to my room. I remember seeing my wife and my kids. I was in major pain. I said, “Can I have something for pain?” The nurse said, “You can have Oxy or Tylenol.” I was like, “Is there anything in the middle?” She's like, “You can have Dilaudid.” I never had that before.
I don't know that either.
I could be wrong, but it's the equivalent of fentanyl. They gave that to me through an IV, and in 40 seconds, I was melted into the bed. Right then and there, after that happened, they let my family come in, meaning my brother and my dad.
You're fucking out of it.
I was smoked. I remember them coming in and I got so emotional. I'm not a big crier at all, but when they came in, being on those drugs and then realizing what happened, it put me in the spirit world. That’s a Young Guns reference. I was in the spirit world. I was like, “Wow.” They walked in and I broke down. I couldn't control anything. I was in another state of mind, but I was also feeling everything. I felt a presence there, but those drugs put me into a different dimension.
I remember the relief that only lasted for a short time period. I want to say it was an hour. I remember saying, “I'm in pain again.” They said, “You can have Oxy or Tylenol.” I was like, “What's the middle ground?” I wasn't remembering shit. They said, “Dilaudid.” I said to my wife, “Is that the same thing they gave me?” She goes, “Yeah.” I said, “No.” I did not want that ever again. I was like, “Don't give that to me again.”
You were like, “Roll a nitrous tank in or something. I need a hit for quick relief.”
It was a crazy deal. I'll tell you what's cool about it. I've had such an outpouring of support from people I don't know and people I do know. I didn't mean to do that, but I scared a lot of people. Internally, I was never scared. I was never worried. I felt like my family was in a good position. I felt like my team was in a good position. I felt like my business was in a good position. I felt like my relationships are in good positions. I had a full heart. I was never scared, but I was in some major pain. That's one thing. To say that I'm a cancer survivor doesn't seem real. It almost feels made up, but I got the scars to prove it.
I scared a lot of people, but internally, I was never scared. I was never worried. I felt like my family, my team, my business, and my relationships were in good positions, and I had a full heart.
You are, and I'm glad that you're here, truthfully.
It’s cool. Life is a cool thing, and I never took it for granted. I'm not taking it for granted. I feel like making every ounce count. I feel like I did a good job of that, but I'm doing a better job of that.
I've been seeing it in your deadlifts and the treadmill. Was that the sprint machine? What do they call those? It's not even a treadmill. Anybody that's ever tried to run on one of those things, you're either running or you're not.
You're propelling it. It's not self-propelled. The comeback is real and hard. It's not easy. The doctors have said that I'm ahead of schedule by leaps and bounds. They said I probably wouldn't be back 6 to 8 weeks doing what I was doing. I was at home for about a week and I couldn't do it anymore. I said, “I’m out of here.” I went back to the gym and started coaching. I couldn't train as I normally do, but I've been training. I grappled full-on, which is awesome. It feels good to be “normal.” It's been good. It’s been cool. When I had the staph infection and the surgery, Chris Gutierrez was fighting Frankie Edgar in Madison Square Garden.
I was going to ask you about that next. He turned it up.
It’s a fight I'll never forget. I don't forget any of them, but it's one that will always be etched deep in my memory. My team was scared. They'd never seen me down ever, and I was down. They’d seen me bedridden for six days. I have never been in the hospital in my whole life that long. They came by. I had such an outpouring of them. There's a picture somewhere on social media where they all came by. They paid their visits. There was a big group at one point there.
I remember seeing that. It was awesome.
My wife didn't want me to fly and I'd been on antibiotics and in the hospital for six days. They were telling me I had major staph effects, found out I had cancer, and all these things. Everyone was telling me, “I don't think you should fly to New York,” and this, that, and the other. I was like, “I'm not going to stop living. What’s the problem with me getting on the plane?”
They said, “The problem is you can die. From all the stuff you're dealing with right now, if you don't move around, you can form a clot. There can be problems there.” I said, “I'm not going to be scared to live. I'm going to go get on a plane. If I die on the plane, then I die on the plane. What do I need to do to prevent this?”
They said, “We need to get you on a dose of aspirin and make sure we're doing that regularly. You got to do it after you're done with your trip. You got to get up every 30 minutes on the plane.” The caveat to all this is that I can't walk because my knee had surgery done.” They said, “You got three options. You can get a walker, crutches, or a cane.” I was like, “You're not putting me in a fucking walker. I'm not getting crutches.” I looked at my wife and said, “Find a dope ass cane.” She was like, “Okay.” She found me a cool cane.
That's dope. Canes are cool.
I felt like such a pussy with that cane. I was walking in Madison Square Garden limping with a cane. I couldn't believe it. I was like, “This is unbelievable.” I'll never forget that night. My wife doesn't love traveling. I said, “If you want to go, I'd love to have you, but I'm going.” Bless her heart, she came with me and helped take care of me.
Madison Square Garden, New York is Frankie's hometown. To fight in Madison Square Garden again is such a cool deal. I remember telling Chris this. This is before he went out and fought. I said, “I've been in the enemy territory a lot as a coach, whether it's been overseas or here domestically. When you walk out, they're going to hate us. They're going to boo us or they're going to be super quiet.”
Especially against Frankie’s last fight.
It was his last fight or retirement fight. I have nothing but respect for him. He has been such a trailblazer and an icon in our sport. To walk out, I said to Chris, “When you beat Frankie, the silence will be deafening in this place. It'll be silent.” He's like, “Are you kidding me?” I said, “I promise you.” I remember when he finished him with the knee. He knocked him out with the knee in the first round.
Chris didn't look like he had a flaw in that fight.
He’s so good. He's developed into such an amazing young man and fighter and it's crazy to see. I remember I jumped on the cage and everyone was like, “You jumped on the cage. You have the cane.” I'll tell you about some of the hate I got from that. I jumped into the cage. I'm a freaking athlete, number 1) you assholes that were talking shit. Number 2) I pushed off the cane and jumped on top of the cage.
When we were hugging on top of the cage, I said, “I told you it'd be deafening.” He was like, “If you speak any louder, they'll hear you at the top.” It was such a cool time. Everyone around me was scared. There were a lot of unknowns at the time because I found out I had cancer, and then I'd been hospitalized for six days.
This was pre that surgery.
It was pre getting it out. They rallied behind me. Everybody did.
I was shocked to see you there, honestly. When I heard you were there, I was like, “Marc’s such a G, and he's got a cane.”
Thursday afternoon, I got out and told my wife, “I don't have enough strength or energy to shave my head or my beard. Take me to Jay.” Jay is the barber that we have in our gym. I had never met Jay at the time because he wasn't in our gym yet, but I said, “Take me to Jay where all the guys go. Tell him I'm coming. I'm highly sedated and I got a cane. I need him to make me right because we're going to be on ESPN on Saturday. I don't have the energy to do this shit.” We went and he hooked me up. We got on a plane on Friday morning.
You went straight to the Garden pretty much from getting off the plane.
I went straight off, and then we fought on Saturday. It was cool. It was such an iconic moment for me as a person and for my friends, family, team, and Chris. The amount of time that Chris and I have spent together, the boy he came in as from Texas and the man he's become is such a cool deal. I'll never forget that. It was a very surreal moment. You could feel in the air we weren't losing. There was no way. There was too much shit going on. We were not losing.
I was so happy for you. It was incredible to watch.
It was cool. It's been an interesting time. I've dealt with a lot of stuff in my life. It’s up there. It's not the hardest thing I've ever dealt with, but it’s been interesting. It's been something that has given a lot of people perspective, not just me. I'm not gone, so I truly believe that God's got a bigger plan for me. There are going to be a lot of things that come out of this for the good.
I've had a lot of conversations with God and said, “You used me in some hard ways.” Some of the lessons I've learned in life have come through some tough ass things I've had to deal with. I’m like, “You used me in some tough ways. Does it always has to be like this?” I believe he's going to use me through this, and I believe that people have been inspired. I know I've personally grown and people around me have grown. If that's all it is, then that’s cool. If it's bigger than that, that’s awesome.
I know that when you get presented with something like a debilitating, potential, life-changing, or finishing-type disease, it's hard not to inwardly look in and be like, “Have you done what you're supposed to do? Are you going to go out and do even better if you get to stay here?” That's not an easy conversation to have with yourself. It's an honest one, for sure.
When you get presented with a debilitating potential life-changing or finishing-type disease, it's very hard not to inwardly look in and think, "Have you done what you're supposed to do? Are you going to go out and do even better if you get to stay here?"
It's a humbling deal to sit there and think, “I might not be around, and I'm not even 50 yet.” That's not easy to internalize, but it's worth internalizing because it gives you depth and faith. It gives you a lot of things that sometimes you don't take the time to think about. To see that and go through that has been interesting. I apologize to everybody I scared.
Thanks for sharing those hard moments in your life. That's why I've opened up and shed some light on my past, some of the crazy shit that I went through as a kid, and some of the struggles that I'm having on a day-to-day basis, or even with this weight loss journey or anything like that. It does help people. It’s good for you to share it, too, because it also helps put some more perspective on it.
Diving back to when you were talking about having that internal conversation with, “Do I have a good relationship?” and all that stuff, in hindsight, sometimes, it takes a life-changing thing for you to realize that. Do you think it's good to have one of those conversations with yourself before something like this comes up so that you know?
You went into it with a full heart. You felt pretty balanced in having that peace. If you're a piece of shit and you're yelling at your kid, maybe you're stressed out in life. Maybe you're living that corporate lifestyle and your boss is always on you, or whatever it is, it's hard to find balance unless you're truly doing something that you love. A majority of your day is sucked up by shit that you don't want to do.
It’s a reorganization of what your consistent habits are to be able to have a real conversation with who you are. Unless you're willing to chip away at habits and form new ones, just because you have this internal conversation doesn't mean that anything's going to be better. Could it be the first step to do that? Yeah, it could be, but I truly believe that the consistency of what you decide to do or not to do will help you build your perspective and your future.
I was telling the guys at practice this. I was telling them when we were training, “The consistency of your habits is massive because if you don't have consistency in your habits, then you always feel unorganized.” When you feel unorganized, it's hard to be somewhere on time, for example, or it's hard to make a change, or it's hard to feel growth.
The consistency of your habits is massive because if you don't have consistency in your habits, then you always feel unorganized.
The example I used with them was, “If your habit when you get out of bed is to brush your teeth and then shower, if tomorrow you get up, shower, and then brush your teeth, you did the same thing. They're the same things, but you changed the order of your habit. Is your time management the same when you do that? How do you feel about that when you’re like, “The consistency of what I did is being thrown off,” and your day starts to feel wonky, potentially? Some consistency in habit is one of the pathways to get there.
Submission is another thing. Submitting to our faults is big. If anyone knows me, they know that I have faith. I say this only because this is my belief. I'm not projecting this on anybody. We are born sinners, and that's hard to internalize. A good example of this is I watched a video of an ex-gang member speaking about this. He was in LA and gave this analogy. I thought it was a great analogy.
He was talking about his son. He said his son loves gummy bears. He would eat gummy bears for every meal if you let him. At every meal, he would eat those gummy bears if he didn't force him to eat something else. He told his young son who's three years old, “You can't eat gummy bears for every meal.” He put the gummy bears up out of reach. His son was finding ways to find the gummy bears, sneak them, and do that stuff.
His point was that we're born with sin. How does a three-year-old learn that behavior? How does he have that in there? It's not like you gave that to him. We're born with that. To have acceptance of that will help you find peace. At Red Rocks Church, they always say, “We’re imperfect people searching for a perfect God.” The acceptance of some of that is massive because there is some submission there. It gives you perspective. Also, you have to have blind faith when it comes to that. Blind faith is a tough deal. I struggle with that. It's important if you have a conversation about that, but the depth of it is way beyond that conversation.
We're imperfect people searching for a perfect God. The acceptance of that is massive because there's some submission there. You have to have blind faith when it comes to that.
That makes sense.
The depth of what you're doing is huge. If you want to quit smoking, let's say, you're probably not going to quit smoking a pack of cigarettes by quitting smoking a whole pack of cigarettes. You're probably going to have to learn how to eliminate that stuff. What happens when the guy wants to quit smoking and you hear the stories where he is like, “I threw them in the trash and I never smoked again,” he made a decision and submitted to his weakness. He said, “I submit to the weakness, but I'm going to overcome it because my strength is bigger than my weakness.”
He had to do it for a day. He had to do it for an hour. He had to do it for a week. He had to do it for a month. Eventually, he's ten years in and he has never smoked. It doesn't mean he wasn't tempted though. The temptation of that is constantly out there like the smells, weather changes, or whatever sparks the habits that we have.
If you don't change it, you choose it.
That's the thing. That stuff is important, but that takes consistency, submission, and all those things that are tough.
It takes action. You got to start doing stuff. You can think it all you want. I don't know where one of my favorite quotes came from, honestly, so I can't give credit to it. It's something that's stuck in my mind. Hope is not a strategy, like, “I hope I quit smoking. I hope I can get in shape.” It's the worst strategy you can have.
It’s a good thing to also realize how much joy you can find out there. Joy comes from giving back. You can find happiness internally. Happiness is fleeting, though. What I've learned over the years is joy comes from giving back. When you find eternal joy, that's usually because you gave to someone else other than yourself, whether it's your wife, your kids, your friends, your team, your work, or strangers. Happiness and joy are not the same. Sometimes, we get that mixed up. The real search is finding joy and not happiness.
Happiness is fleeting, but joy comes from giving back. When you find eternal joy, it's usually because you gave to someone other than yourself.
With happiness, you and I hear a funny joke and we laugh. That's happiness, but that's gone in a second. Joy is eternal if you can find it. A lot of joy comes from giving, whether it's your time, which is our most valuable asset, finances, food, or whatever it is. That's where you find joy. If anybody that's reading thinks about times that they felt a full heart, it was when they did stuff for someone else.
Don't expect anything in return either. Give it for the sake of giving. Don't tell your wife you love her and expect her to say it back immediately. You should do it unconditionally. That’s a gift.
There's a quote that says, “Consistency is the gift you give for free,” and that’s the only thing you give back. If you want to give back, then give consistency in a good way. Do it not in a shitty way, but in a good way. We can do shitty, consistent things, too. Give good consistency back, and then you find that balance. I don't know everything at all, but I’ve lived long enough and lived a hard life at times. We've talked about my past before. I've lived enough trials, tribulations, and fun to know that there's so much fun behind all that. Sometimes, we focus a lot on the negative stuff.
I always say this. You got to walk through a bunch of mud to get the high mountain view. If you're unwilling to walk through the mud, how are you going to get the cool view? The high mountain view is what we're all after, but it doesn't always stay. That's the thing. A storm only comes and goes. It doesn't stay forever. That's why when I gave you that coin, we put that buffalo on there. The buffalo's running into the storm, and that's what we have to keep doing.
Life's an interesting deal. I feel blessed to be able to do what I get to do and to be around the people I get to be around. It gives me purpose. I've had to submit though to a lot of things to get to this point. I still have a lot of high mountain views I want to see and I'm still walking in the mud with a lot of them. There's a lot of purposes there, and purpose creates a full heart.
When you get diagnosed with cancer, it's not the end-all-be-all because there's a purpose and drive. First, it has come from yourself, but then show the resiliency of, “This isn't going to stop me. I'm going to get back and I'm going to be even better.” I remember when I got diagnosed with cancer before I even got it out. People would hug me longer and hold me longer. I could tell it, and I'd be like, “That’s interesting.” You give a quick dab.
Purpose creates a full heart.
It's more genuine.
Yeah because people are like, “I could see visions of you not being here.” The appreciation of that is really heartfelt. I’d say, “What's up?” and whatever. People would hug me longer and I'd be like, “Wow.” That's a cool thing. That's not a bad thing. Did it take some scare to get there? Yeah, but it is okay. It’s a lesson for me to learn.
If I learn the lesson and others learn the lesson, and then we keep passing it on, it's a cool deal. That's the cool part of life. You get some trailblazing and then you get to share it. People get to trailblaze their selves and they get to share that. That's why you have all these cool guests that come in here because they've done all that.
We're fortunate in that regard. I appreciate you sharing this. It's crazy. This is the second episode that we've done on cancer in three weeks. I don't know if you had a chance to catch anything that we put out, but I had a conversation with Lisa Thompson. She published a book that came out in January 2023. She's a cancer survivor. She had breast cancer, but before she had breast cancer, she was in Corporate America working at IBM.
She grew up in the Midwest or something, but she decided, “I want to be into mountaineering.” She's like, “I want to climb Rainier.” She said she had lived there for three months, and then all of a sudden, it popped out of the clouds and she was taken back by it. A bunch of her colleagues was doing it. They were men. She was too scared to ask.
She decides, “I'm going to get into mountaineering and I'm going to do this on my own.” She made a bunch of bad mistakes because she was too nervous to ask for help. They were almost some life-threatening mistakes. She decided that she wanted to climb Everest. It was one of her personal goals, but then she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had to go through all that. She still kept that goal in her mind and in front of her. She is the second woman in the US to summit K2 after having cancer.
Good for her.
It's an incredible book. The book is Finding Elevation. It’s really good. That was an inspirational story. It's a weird coincidence that all this happened to you at the same time that we're having this conversation.
It's interesting.
I know that I'm getting something out of it.
Hopefully, no one has to go through that, but you pull something from it and make yourself better. That's all that matters to me. I had such an outpouring of support. I'm very humbled and honored when I hear that stuff because I'm a regular dude. It's cool to be able to hear that stuff. I get humbled and honored when I hear that stuff. The story you mentioned is cool.
I watch my kids. My kids are different breeds. They've grown up around the gym their whole life. They've seen what hard work develops. They’ve seen a lot of trials even though you're working hard still. That’s what happens sometimes in life. You work hard and then you feel like you deserve a result back, praise, or whatever. They've seen that you don't deserve anything. You earn everything.
I hate the word deserve. I always tell my kids that impossible and deserve should be cut out of the dictionary. I don't think we deserve shit. We have to earn everything. They’ve seen it. It's not me saying that to them. They've seen it from all the kids and all the fighters that they've seen. They don't have to be UFC fighters to be inspirational. These guys have amazing stories. They come through and fight demons. They leave amazing husbands, wives, dads, and moms and go on to grow businesses. They do cool stuff. Some of them remain UFC fighters and do stuff still in MMA.
The point is that the impact this has had on my family, my wife, and my kids is immeasurable. It's crazy. I watch my kids and the way they talk and their mindset. A lot of people say my kids feel like older souls. They have friends and they do that. It's not like they're misfit kids and they don't have friends. They also have a lot of older friends. They've grown up in that world. Watching their development has been such a blessing. They're not perfect, but to watch that, their mindset, their habits, their consistency, the stuff they earn, and all those things is cool.
It forged in the fires.
I look around and I'm like, “That's a cool deal.” I've said this many times. I grew up in the hood, but I didn't want my kids to grow up there. My kids have had the luxury of growing up in the suburbs and living in the hood at the gym, which is cool. They get to go back to the suburbs and then go back. They carry that as well. It's been cool to see what my kids have developed into and what they're doing. When life knocked them down, they haven't given up. That's the true measure of who my wife and I are.
You’re leading by example.
We do it for what they become. They're not perfect kids.
In everybody's lifetime, we’re going to have hurdles. Nobody lives a perfect life. I don't care how much money you have, how many good friends you have, or how much abundance of one thing you have. You're going to have struggles. That is life. It's how you take those struggles. When Lisa and I were talking, 1 in 6 people in their lifetime will hear the words, “You have cancer.” That's crazy.
I don't know at some point what the survival rate is. It’s sharing your story, the mindset that you have, the mindset that Lisa has going into that, and not losing focus on what you want to do in life and how you want to proceed, whether it was you with your faith or Lisa with her goals. She made some life-changing decisions. She got a divorce. She was in a bad relationship where she was sacrificing herself to live with this alcoholic and take care of him.
That's good because I don't want to overshadow that in the sense of when people have made those decisions to make some life-changing things.
I don't think you were, though. In the conversation, you were clear about that.
That's important because you're learning from trial to then grow. Maybe you needed that trial to grow. Otherwise, you wouldn't have done that. That's massive. That's massive and cool, too. It's not cool to get divorced. I'm not saying that.
If you're not in a healthy spot or a healthy relationship, it's a two-way street.
It's tough.
You have to help. It's a team. You have to like that person, not love them. You have to like them. That's why I always think, “What am I going to say to the kid that walks up to me and tells me that he wants my daughter's hand?”
I'm with you. You don't have to be told you have cancer to change stuff. That's the whole point. Don't wait. With my team, I tell them all the time, “Why are you going to wait until you're 48 years old to learn what I learned in all the trials and all the things I've done wrong? If you'll listen for 15 minutes at 23, think about how far ahead you are. You're 25 years ahead of everybody else if you'll hear what's being told.”
That's hard to understand as a kid. I never understood it until I was in my 30s and had kids. I was a dumb ass. I wish somebody would've slapped me around a little bit more.
I was telling James, “Look at me. I've got the cheat codes. I'll tell you exactly what not to do.”
I can attribute that to my hunting success and all kinds of stuff. It’s the family members that I grew up around and the wealth of knowledge that I have learned through them in all of that. That’s with manhood and everything. If it wasn't for those men and women in my life, I’d probably be in prison.
Celebrating people's success is a big deal. I've done this before where you look across the street or on the internet, or your buddy, or whomever it is and you get envious or jealous of what has happened or what's happening in their life. Maybe it takes some time. Maybe it takes wisdom. Maybe it takes that stuff, but I feel like it's such a cool deal celebrating people's success.
As I was telling you earlier, I'm so happy for you. I'm not saying that because we're on your show. I'm happy for you. It's cool to see you flourishing. Celebrating people's success is cool. That's what this is about. We can tear each other down, be turds if we want, or we can celebrate. That's one thing, too. Don't celebrate your successes. Go celebrate other people's successes because it'll help you with yours.
Don't just celebrate your successes. Go celebrate other people's successes because it will help you with yours.
That's why I constantly post about you. No matter what fight you're going to, I'm always trying to share that to show some love and reciprocate love. I feel like I get way more from you than I am in giving back to you.
It's not true.
I got to tell you personally. I got jealous, and I haven't had that feeling in a long time. I put so much into this show with time and everything. You introduced us to Cameron Hanes. I knew Cameron Hanes before, but on a personal level where we were messaging back and forth a little bit. Have you checked out his new podcast?
I haven't. Is it good?
Yeah. It is fucking amazing.
He had one, but then he wasn't doing it. He restarted it?
From what I've gathered, and I don't know this for a fact, he retired from his full-time job. You're talking about a guy that runs a marathon a day or whatever his stick is, whether it is lift, run, or shoot. This is what he's doing. He is only bringing people in that are inspiring or making change. You'd be a great fucking guest for this show.
The next time I see him, I’d be like, “Do you want me to go on the podcast?”
You get a new bow out of it. I don't want to spoil it. Go check it out. It’s called Keep Hammering Collective. Michael Chandler was his first guest.
I did see this. I thought it was a YouTube thing.
He hit the ground running. Production-wise, the video is unbelievable. He does a whole thing before and after the podcast where they do a lift, run, or shoot with whoever he is going to have on. He has them on the podcast afterward.
He's a good dude. I like Cameron. He reached out when he found out I had cancer. He's a good dude overall. I don't know him like I know some of my friends, but I know him well enough to know that he's a good dude. Talk about inspiration and celebrating success, good for him.
In any interaction I've had with him, he's been nothing but gracious with time. He’s a humble and good person.
He's a good dude. Joe Rogan's a good dude. I don't know Joe well either, but I know him enough to know he is not a shitbox. He's a good dude. There's a reason why Cam and Joe hang out together. They're good dudes. They both have had massive success, and it's cool to see. That stuff's cool. I root for those guys. I want to see good people getting rewarded for hard-earned work, so that stuff's fun. It's fun to see. I'll check it out. I saw it on YouTube and thought it was a YouTube thing. I saw it a couple and I haven't watched it yet, but I’ll do it.
He’s only got 4 or 5 episodes out, but it's Keep Hammering Collective. He's so good at it. He should have been doing it a long time ago. Cam, if you're reading this, and you’re probably not, but if you are, you're doing great. Back to my story, that was the first time I was like, “All this time I put in. I wish I could do it like this. I wish I could do it camp style,” and I can.
He has patiently waited to get to that point where he had the time to do it right. That's the type of person he is. Instantly, I was like, “I suck so bad at this.” All those internal voices started running through my head. The first thing was instead of shit-talking it like the normal person would, I put it on a platform. I posted it right away. I was like, “If you haven't heard about this, now you know. If you don't know, now you know.” I tried to shed a light on it.
The thing, too, is that you can. Whether it's now, 1 year from now, or 5 years from now, you can. If you can, you can. Everyone's timing's different. If this is your journey, this is it. We all do it. I do it. I say this all the time. Comparison is the thief of joy. We all do it. It's inherently part of it.
Those things make you level up, too, because you’re like, “I could do it better.”
You can do it. All of our journeys are different. That's the crazy part. Sometimes, you look at your competitors or at anything and you're like, “I wish I had that.” Sometimes, it's not your time yet. You're not ready for that yet. All the time, it makes no sense and you’re like, “I put the hard work in.”
Our journeys are different. You look at your competitors, and you're like, "I wish I had that." Sometimes it's not your time, and you’re not ready for that yet.
If you think the grind’s not going to stop, it's not true.
It gets harder.
Look at all the success that you've had in your career. Does the grind ever stop?
No. It's harder.
It's not like, “I've made it to the UFC. I have X amount of fighters that I'm cornering. I'm set.”
It’s harder because they're all doing better. You can pile up all these things. You could say the level of fighters that we're fighting is a higher level. We got guys in the top ten all over the place.
It’s awesome. I love seeing it.
It's dope, but it's harder. All those kids that are fighting are way better than the ones we fought before. No disrespect to them, but I'm saying it's true.
The sport has evolved. It’s insane.
You got to run the business. You got the staff. It's harder. You got to travel.
The spotlight's bigger, right?
Yeah. I don't care. Who cares? It gets harder. Here's the other thing. Don't do this stuff for other people. You're doing this for you. You’re changing your perspective.
It took me a minute to figure that out. At one point, I was doing it for other people, and then I was like, “I'm going to be selfish here. This is my thing. This is my creativity.” I’m genuinely grateful for everything that I've had, but this is my own greed right here sitting with you and hearing that story. It happens to be public.
You needed that to get started sometimes, though. That's the other thing. It's not even a bad thing.
It's a hurdle. It’s a speed bump.
It was your start. If your start was you were going to do this for other people or for whatever the thoughts you had to start it were, that’s cool. That was your start. It doesn't mean you can't course correct, change things, and perspective change. It doesn't mean how you started it was wrong. You started it. How many people have been talking for years about how they want to do a podcast and they won't ever do it? Think about where they'd be two years later if they would've done it two years ago.
I have so many people.
It doesn't have to be a podcast. It can be anything. That happens constantly. Go do it. The only reason you're worried about it is that you're scared of what might not happen. What if it does happen? That's the thing.
You're not going to know unless you try.
If you fail at it, so what? Who cares?
You learn. If you go back and check out episode four, I was so bad at this. I've grown so much. I feel like I could walk anywhere and have a conversation with anybody. I felt like I could do that before, but it's different when there are mics on and you know that there may be going to be 20 or 30 people tuning in to it.
I nail a big fish like Marc Montoya and I'm like, “At least 500 people are going to tune in to this now.” The next thing I know, it's thousands. I stumbled all over myself. I interrupted people, but this has made me such a better person being able to sit down, genuinely listen to somebody, have a conversation, and not worry about what anybody else thinks.
Do you know why I know I was number four? My son tunes in to all your episodes.
That's awesome.
He was like, “What are you doing?” I said, “I got training, and then I'm going to go do The Mountainside show.” He's like, “You are?” He's like, “I love that thing.” He was like, “You are number four on there.” That’s what Wyatt said.
I've been following Wyatt. He's a badass kid. I've watched him grow up a little bit on Instagram and then crush on football and all the cool stuff that he does.
My daughter is like, “I'm going to go on that show.” I said, “You are?”
Brooklyn reached out to me. I don't know that I should be saying this on the mic, but she was a little bit timid to reach out. She was like, “I'm not sure that you would want me on this.” I was like, “You're Marc’s daughter. Abs- fucking-lutely. Let's do it.” Her story is even more incredible. Tell me a little bit about her. We spoke a little bit on the phone because I wanted to talk to her.
I was trying to time it around to where it works out well for her schedule and her running a race. She told me that she was one of the youngest females to get invited to run the Leadville 100. That's awesome. For people that don't know, the Leadville 100 is an ultramarathon. It’s 100 miles in elevation. You're running over the Continental Divide twice.
It's one of the harder ones.
One of our guests, Jay Steinberg, has been on a couple of times. He was my second guest. He's an ultra-runner. He's told us some incredible stuff, so I know what they go through.
It’s going to be a monster, but she's a monster so she can go do it. It's all my fault. During COVID, at the very beginning, we were home. I was like, “I'm not shutting my gym down,” and all these things. I was home. Brooklyn said to me, “Do you think I could run a 5K?” I was like, “Yeah. You could run a 10K.” She was like, “Do you think I could do that?” She, up to this point, hated going running. I would take her out to go run and she would bitch the whole time and be like, “I don't want to do it.” She would do it, but she hated it. We used to always joke about it. It's with the family, like, “We're going to go run.” She'd be like, “Oh, my God.”
That sounds like me. I hate running.
This is a funny story. She asked me whether I think she could do it. I said, “You could do anything you want. Wyatt, go get your shoes on. We're going to go run a half marathon right now.” She's like, “A half marathon?” I said, “Yeah. You can run a half marathon off the couch right now. It’s no problem.” She was like, “No way. I said, “You can.” Wyatt’s like, “Why do I have to go?” I’m like, “It’s because we're doing it. Go put your shoes on. We're doing this thing. We're going to do this.”
My wife's a big runner, too. I said, “Go put your shoes on. We're doing this.” He's like, “What?” Brooklyn was like, “A half marathon?” I was like, “You can do a half marathon off the couch. I promise you.” We went out and ran a half marathon.” My son was like, “I ran a half marathon on the couch, too.” I was like, “I know.” That's her. She's a savage.
That's awesome.
She goes, “Dad, do you think I could do a marathon?” I said, “Are we going to have this conversation? You can do a marathon. Sign up for one and do it.” I've run four marathons in my life. I was training to run the Leadville 100 and I broke my femur. It was not from running. It was mainly from the accumulation of fighting and all this stuff. From the running, it didn't help it. I broke my femur and I wasn't able to go do it.
It's fucking dangerous though, isn't it, if you have a compound fracture?
If I compound fractured it, that would've been a problem, but I broke an inch-by-inch piece of my femur. It happened running up Waterton on the Colorado trail. I was 18 miles into a run, and then I turned around running 18 miles back. The next day, that thing, I heard it snap. I had to have emergency surgery. I was training to do the Leadville 100. When Brooklyn started running and started getting into, “Can I go do a marathon?” type thing, she asked me, “You've run some marathons. Can you help me with the program you're running?” I'm like, “Of course.”
I put some programs together for her. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it’s how many miles you're going to run now versus tomorrow in total this week, and then we put a schedule together to create consistency in her training. It’s a peak and a taper, and then you go run the marathon. It’s what we do for fighting. It’s very similar. I put a program together for her. The first marathon she ever ran was the Boulder Reservoir Marathon, which is a tough one to do because it's a constant loop. You loop around the reservoir. You're going around the reservoir a bunch of times.
That’s so boring.
That's why I was like, “Are you sure that's the one you want to do? Why not do one where you start and then finish line, or maybe an out and back or something like that?” She was like, “No.” Ignorance is bliss. She went out and did that. When we showed up to the Boulder Reservoir Marathon for her, I showed up in shorts, a t-shirt, flip-flops, and a fold-out chair. I was chilling, but I wasn't dumb. I put my running shoes in my truck in case, and so did my wife. I told Wyatt, “Put your shoes in the truck.” He was like, “What?" I'm like, “Do it.”
Halfway through the marathon, she calls us on the phone and she's in tears. She's like, “I don't know if I can finish this.” I'm like, “You can finish this. You're going to do this. How far are you from the start line?” They kept wrapping around. She said, “I'm a mile and a half.” I said, “That’s cool.” I told my wife, Jarah, and Wyatt, “We should get our shoes. Let's finish this with her. We'll go do it with her. She's not leaving here until this is done, even if we have to push her across the finish line.” She mentally needs to know that she can do this thing.
I was sipping coffee, chilling. Some of the fighters came and we were talking. I didn't have any intention of running other than maybe this might happen. We went and ran 13 miles with her to finish. I remember how smoked she was at the last mile. She was dragging her feet. You could walk faster than she was running, but it didn't matter because she was finishing something that she didn't believe was possible. She went and did that, and then she finished.
You may not be the best or the fastest, but that doesn’t matter as long as you’re finishing something that you never believed was possible.
The confidence she gained from that finish was amazing. She’s run a bunch of marathons since then. She's never the fastest. That's the thing. She's not the fastest, but her want and willingness to go do ultramarathons are impeccable because she would always talk about them. Even prior to finishing her first marathon, she would go talk about them and be like, “I want to go run an ultramarathon.” I'm like, “That's further than 26.2 miles, correct?” She was like, “I know.” She's like, “One day, I want to do the Leadville 100, the one you were going to do and you couldn't do it.” I was like, “Do it.”
I don't know where she found this out. Maybe it was from the organizers at the Leadville 100. They said that as a female when she finishes this, she would be the youngest female to finish the Leadville 100. She is pumped. She's been training her butt off for it. It took a lot of little stuff to get there. Running was not her favorite thing. Part of what she identifies herself is a runner. It's cool because it took a little, “You can do this. we can go do a half marathon right now.” She didn't believe she could do it, and then she did it. She's going to go run 100 miles. I'm going to help pace her. Some of the fighters are going to help pace her as well as my wife and my son.
That's awesome. I should connect you with Jay, too, because he's done multiple.
That would be a great resource.
He's awesome. I have a personal record that I'm trying to do. There's nothing driven behind it. It's for me to get in shape. I feel like I can do the body armor workout in under an hour with body armor. This might be five years from now. I don't fucking know. I'm struggling to get even get there. When Jay was in, I was hitting him up.
I was like, “How do I run a mile faster? How do I get my miles down to eight minutes if I'm coming in at 9:30 or whatever?” He's like, “Don't ask me. That's why I run to ultras because I can run for a long ass time, but not very fast.” Brooklyn, if you're reading this, I'm looking forward to having you in. We'll get you in shortly here. I’m excited to talk to her.
It’ll be cool for her to continue to grow to what she wants to grow in running and doing what she's doing. She's nineteen. She's super young. She's got the world by the tail.
To start to have something that you're that passionate about at that age, I wish I would've had that focus. Mine was doing a bunch of dumb stuff.
It’s cool and fun. It’s fun to brag about your kids. It's fun to say my son had only played golf for less than a year and made the varsity team as a freshman. The kid is dedicated. The thing is, the lessons my kids have learned at the gym are that you're not going to get anything for free. You're going to have to go work your ass off for it. Even when you work your ass off for it, your result isn't going to always be what you expect. I love that they're taking chances, putting themselves out there, failing, and learning a bunch of stuff. It's cool.
It's so huge.
My wife should be credited most for this because she's the one that has done a phenomenal job raising those kids, helping them, pushing them, and taking them to all these crazy spots that they have to go to.
It takes an army.
Those are cool things. Who doesn't want to brag about that stuff? In order to brag, you got to go do it. You got to decide you want to become something even though it's going to suck for a while.
Don't be that helicopter parent. It's okay for them to get their heads knocked off. There are some life lessons in that. I don't know if I told you my Derek Wolfe story, but you set him up to come on the show, which was super awesome. I appreciate you making that connection. Derek and I are buddies.
He’s awesome, isn't he?
He's a great dude.
I love Derek.
Tyler was playing D End for the first time. It’s his first-time full-contact football. My son is ten years old. I pulled him out of school early because Derek was coming up in the afternoon. He's the biggest Broncos fan. Football was something I was never going to push on him, but he came to me and was like, “Dad, I want to play.” I was like, “Shit.” I put him through it.
It was July 2022 when he came to me. We went and got a helmet and pads. It was the full nine. I made him suit up and was like, “Now, catch the football.” He went through some struggles. At one point, I was doing the Oklahoma drill with him and giving him a little preview, like, “This is what it's going to feel like.” In his first scrimmage, he gets his clock cleaned. It was a big learning experience.
He is not a super-aggressive kid. He is a nice kid. He always wants to help people. He is always afraid to hurt them. He's strong, but in all the years that he spent in wrestling, jiu-jitsu, and stuff, he was the kid that always did enough to get by until football came around. That's his thing. That's his calling. His position had already been established. He was 2 or 3 games in. He is understanding the sport a little bit. Derek comes in and I pull him out of school early. We went and ate lunch with Derek. Derek was so cool to him. Is Derek 300 pounds easily or 280?
Since he's not playing, he's probably down a little bit, but he's an athlete, too.
He is a monster. Derek gave him some good words of wisdom. He told him to punish everybody.
That sounds like something he'd say.
He was like, “Punish everybody. If you're going to play that position, punish everybody.” I take Tyler to practice after we record the episode. The coach had to pull him aside because he had seven sacks in practice. He was like, “We need our quarterback on Saturday.” The coach comes up to me after practice and was like, “What happened?” I showed him a picture of Derek Wolfe. That's all it took. The fact of meeting somebody like that with that stature is pretty cool.
Derek is such a genuine dude. I love that guy. He's a definition of working your butt off. He was blessed with his size, but how many people are his size and never played in the NFL a lot?
A ton.
He works his butt off. In the off-season, he hit me up. He was the one that reached out to me and said, “Can you help me with some footwork and some hand speed stuff and have it translate and relate to my sport?” I was like, “Yeah.” I've worked with Bronco players before, so it wasn't like he was the first one I ever worked with, but he’s consistent.
He would do it in his off-season. He's not doing it during his season. He’s not doing that stuff in his season, but in his off-season, it was helping him become better. This is not Derek Wolfe's first year in. This is Derek Wolfe already Super Bowl champ and Pro Bowler. Even after all that stuff, he's spending extra time to go develop new pathways and skills, earn his way to stay in the league, and do his thing.
You have to be at that level. That's one thing I've learned by talking to all of your fighters and some of the other professional athletes that we've talked to. That fear must suck of somebody's always coming for your job. There's always somebody that's going to fill your spot. It doesn't matter who you are or how many Super Bowls you've won.
The fear can fuel you. It can also shut you down. It’s cool to watch because they turn fear into success. They go create discipline and do it and it doesn't become fear anymore. It becomes their job. The fear is what got them motivated to do it potentially. Whether it's in the NFL, fighting, MMA, UFC, or baseball, I've been around a lot of pro athletes, and there's a good majority of them that are douchebags. They think that because they do what they do that they're different.
Fear can fuel you and also shut you down.
Derek's never been that way. He is different. Let's be honest. That dude is different. He's a phenomenal world-class athlete. He has been one of the best at his position. He's a Super Bowl champion. He's a Pro Bowler. He's got all the accolades that when you're a kid, you dream of having. He's still a dude. He’s still a guy. You’re like, “What's up?”
I saw him at the gas station a couple of months ago. We chopped it up and held the whole line up for a half hour. We were present at the moment, present where our feet were, and chatting like, “What's up? It's great to see you.” I don't get to see him as much as I used to because he is not playing anymore. We talk a little bit, especially about hunting because we love hunting, both of us. He is such a good dude. Anyone that's ever met him in my gym, my family, or anybody, they always say the same thing.
In the short time that I've known him, we go back and forth on a regular basis like you and I do. All my interactions with him have been nothing but positive and good. He's another person that’s gracious with his time and a good human. He did take some heat. It's so stupid.
Go fuck off. I mean that. The thing is, "Why do you give a shit?" It's not like he did anything wrong. Why is he taking the heat? Is it because it's a mountain lion? Why? I don't understand.
Our last episode was Colorado Parks and Wildlife. We had a game warden in here. This was off the record, but he said, “Here are the facts. Derek Wolfe’s mountain lion was one between 500 and 600 that were taken legally within the state. Mountain lions need to be managed.” I'm not saying it wasn't a nice cat. His cat is no more special than any of those other ones that needed to be managed. It's solely because of his platform.
Hunting gets such a bad rap, and I could see why. If you're going to post some of those photos, you got to expect to take a little bit of heat. I have. I take a little bit of heat talking about it, but you're right. Fuck all those people because they don't understand it. It's not a trophy-hunting thing. Another thing that we brought up that was pretty important in that episode is what a lot of people don't understand. You are required by law in the state of Colorado that if you shoot anything, you have to eat it. If you're caught throwing the meat out or letting the meat spoil, you will get ticketed. Your hunting privileges will be taken away for life. It’s no joke. It's not a trophy-hunting thing.
It goes back to what you and I were talking about. People don't want to celebrate people. That's the evil part about social media. I feel like there is a lot of good in social media. There can be a lot of good if you can find it. When you find it, cherish that and stick with it. The thing is the trolling of it and all the nonsense that comes with it. Let's say you don't agree with Derek hunting regardless of what it is. What is the point of you going on there and going so far on the other side of being hateful? What is the point of that? Is it to get attention? Otherwise, I can tell you that Derek's a mammoth of a man.
There’s a lot of evil on social media, but there’s also a lot of good if you can find it. When you find it, cherish it and stick with it.
I guarantee you nobody would say that to his face.
That's my point. You don't need to be a mammoth of a man like Derek. The point is that nobody is going to go up to him and say those shitty things that they said on the internet to him to his face. They're going to go up to him, ask him for a picture and an autograph, and then go talk shit later. It could be they're going to meet him and be like, “That's a genuine dude.” Everyone I've ever introduced to Derek or anyone that's ever had an interaction with him has never come back to me and been like, “That dude's an asshole.” That's not true about all the athletes that I've been around before.
They’re few and far between, honestly, at that level.
It's too bad because you're not different. You're human. The thing is, at the end of the day, he did nothing wrong. He posted something that he's passionate about. He's feeding his family. He shot a nice cat. He said, “I want to enjoy this moment.” He took a picture of it and posted it. Whether you like it or not, why would you go that far of the spectrum of hate when you wouldn't do that to his face? I could see if everyone was knocking on his door and saying it to his face, that would be a whole different deal. That would be a way different deal because then, I would respect you.
I hope he’s got a ring camera if that starts happening.
Good luck. The point is they’re not going to do that.
It’s like the motherfuckers that have sent me death threats. There's no email signature with a phone number, address, or return email address on there. It's like, “Come on.”
The only way we got here is because our forefathers did exactly what we are doing. They didn't have a platform where we have to show what we do. The thing is how do you think we got here? What did we do? We didn't get here without eating protein and animals. I'm sorry, but you can be delusional and lie all you want to yourself. That's not how we got here.
You can tell me and have your argument about why you think we should or shouldn't do that, and that's fine. It's okay to have a debate that way. It's not okay to be so hateful to say something behind your computer that you wouldn't go say to his face. That's not okay. It's okay to have a different point of view. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. If you have a different point of view than him, me, you, or whatever, who cares? Let's debate that.
Don't do it in your basement behind closed doors or behind your keyboard.
With fame, there's a price to pay. That’s fair enough, but that doesn't sit well with me. I know Derek as a man and as a person. I don't give a shit about him as an athlete.
I love the fact that he's standing up for himself and on the side of conservation. He hasn't taken it down and has taken it to the next level. I feel like the hunting world needs more of that to shed a light on it. For all the hate that he's getting, if he's inspiring 200 young kids to get out and hunt, we need him to keep the tradition alive for a lot of families. It's something that is dying out, for sure. You can see it in the sheer numbers that have been tracked over the last couple of years. I commend Derek for that.
There is Joe Rogan and Cameron. There are all those guys. There's more than that. The point is that those guys have a platform that they can use to continue to at least support what you and I love and what other people love to go do. You don't love to go kill. I'm sorry. That's not what you'd love.
I don't feel like Derek's post was distasteful. That's one thing I want to commend you on, too. I love the fact that you tell a story behind something rather than the gripping-and-grin like, “Here it is.” That's a lesson that most hunters could take. Maybe they don't have the time to explain, but I love the fact that you shot this incredible bull. Congratulations.
Thank you.
I know we talked about it on the last episode, but the whole story leading up to it and then the way that you shared it on here, it was a ten-photo thing. There's a whole story behind it.
We ate every ounce.
It's gone, isn't it?
Yeah. It’s been long gone. Here's the thing that I've learned about myself. This was when I was in Alaska hunting black bears and grizzly bears. I was miserable. It was the weather, the cold, the terrain, and the gear. There were days when I was like, “I feel miserable.” I told this story already.
You can tell it again.
Our Native American history comes from this area.
That's so dope.
We've researched that. To go back to this place is phenomenal. When you get there, it is like you're home. It's a crazy feeling. I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like home.
To explain this to people that aren't watching the show, that’s incredible, the way that the fog rolled in. Those moments, you can't replace. I know it's probably even more surreal than what we're watching.
You're on horseback. You're 13 miles in from your truck. There's fog. You're loaded with gear, hope, and all these things to go and enjoy a journey and an adventure. Anytime I've ever killed an animal, there's always some sadness. My family tradition has always been to go up to that animal, pay respect, and put a sign of the cross on their forehead. We then bone them out, get the meat, eat the meat, and all the things that we do. We share the meat. That's the other thing. My fighters love that. They're like, “Do you have any of that elk?” I’ll be like, “I'll give you some.” They’re like, “That was the best stuff I've ever had.”
If you don't agree with that, it's okay, but to give hate on that to that magnitude makes me sick. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that you're going to do that for attention. That makes me sick because Derek's like you. He's a guy. He's a person. He's a father. He’s a husband. He's like you. To know Derek, the guy's a phenomenal dude. With all that said, I'm glad he's doing that because we do need people like that. We need guys of a high profile like he is to go out there and continue to shed light on the conservational part.
When I think about my hunting trips, I don't even think we talked about killing a bear. It was all about the adventure, the cold, the planes, and the joy I had with spending time with my dad and my brother. It was the adventure that we were on and enduring the thing. What I was going to say earlier is what I've learned about myself is a part of me likes to suffer. I don't know why this is because every time I go hunting, I'm like, “What am I doing?” There's a void in my heart that has to be filled with some suffering.
It makes life a little bit sweeter for me.
The suffering is why it's sweeter. You don't have a toilet or a shower. You don't have a warm bed. You don't have your wife next to you. You don't have heat in your home. It's all self-survival, perseverance, preservation, and all the things that you do out there. There's a lot of suffering. I'm sorry. There's a ton of suffering out there.
It's a ton of adversity.
It’s okay. That's good. How is that not good? That's what I don't understand about the hate. You've not done it. If you've done it, you missed it.
It goes back to that old cliché saying, "Don't knock on something unless you've tried it."
I agree. If some people have done it and been like, “That wasn't for me,” that's fine. That's fair.
You don't get to choose for everybody else.
You missed the journey, too, of it. That one trip helped forge who you are. I’m sorry, but that's true. You don't have to admit it to your buddies that don't like that because you don't want to look bad. It helped forge who you were. I'm sorry, but it did. There's no way your perspective's the same if you went and spent a week in the wilderness solely on your preservation of getting yourself out of there. There's no way that you didn't change.
If you went and spent a week in the wilderness solely on your preservation of giving yourself out of there, there's no way that you didn't change.
It changes me every season. This 2023 was the first year that I did a solo hunt.
That’s wild. It's a different deal. I don't know if we talked about this, but this is a great example of this. Forever, I've talked about taking my team on a backpacking trip. Did we talk about this?
We touched on it in the last episode, but I don't know. That was a few years ago. You had done one already, so I'm pretty sure that we talked about it. I'd have to go back and check it out, but let's talk about it. It doesn't matter. Let's talk about it if you got time.
Here's the thing. Forever, I've talked about taking my team on a backpacking trip. Some of them have grown up here but have never even gone into the wilderness at all even though it's right here. I was like, “I want to do this this year.” This was in 2022. I was like, “I'm going to take my team. I'm going to take as many of them that want to go and we're going to get a head start on this thing."
"We're going to go in the summer when it's the best weather even though it's going to be shitty weather. We're going to go and have some fun. We're going to get off the grid. Your phone won't work and you got to be present where your feet are. You have to depend on Burton and Ernie, your two feet. We're going to have to do this thing.” I proposed it to the team, and eighteen of them went. I was like, “This is a good turnout.”
Dustin and Caruso are the only two that have ever gone and done that. Sixteen of them had no idea. My brother lives in Buena Vista. My brother helped me with a route that's near Buena Vista there that would work out well where we were able to camp every night on a lake. We'd hike and then camp on a lake. That's what we did for four days.
Are these all high-alpine stuff?
Yeah. We're going to have to go over passes, like 13,000-plus feet passes, to cross over into another drainage on the other side and then get on the valley floor into a lake. I prepped a team for it and gave them a list of gear that they were going to need. I broke their balls multiple times about, “You got to make sure this is no joke. We're not going to the doctor if you get an owie. Manage the expectations.” I told them about the gear. There were emails that I sent.
They were like, “Don't skimp. Buy the right shit. Make sure you got the right stuff."
That’s correct. It was a comprehensive list. I went over their gear, brought them in, and showed them how to pack a backpack. This is how novice the people we're dealing with are.
That's so dope that you did that though.
It was so fun. Eighteen of us went into the woods. My son went with us as well. We went in and got on the trail. We were near Buena Vista. My brother helped us a little bit because where we started was not going to be the endpoint. We shuttled our trucks over to the other side. My brother lives in Buena Vista, so he was able to help us. He was going to go with us. We shuttled over, and then we came back over and then got on the trail. The first day was going to be the east day because it was going to be the latest start. I knew every afternoon, we were going to get smoked with some type of rain, thunderstorm, or both. It's what it does in the mountains.
That's what happens.
I prefaced all of them and gave them all the warnings and the management of expectations. I was like, “You're going to be wet and miserable. It's going to suck. When you're done, you're going to be like, 'I can't believe I did that.'” They're going to look back and be like, “That was the best time ever.” I prefaced it all that way. I never painted this rosy picture like, “It's going to be amazing.” We go up on the first day to find the lake. We walked 7 or 8 miles the first day and walked in. That was going to be the east day. The weather, unfortunately, if you remember through the summer in the mountains, for a minute, it was raining everywhere. Any mountain range I looked at for a month leading up to the trip was going to rain.
It can all change in 2,000 feet.
I told the guys, “It looks like this entire trip, but a day, is going to rain pretty much the whole trip. It's going to suck. We're going to have some fun, but it's going to be a different experience.” On the second day, we had to go over Brown's Pass.
How many people dropped out then?
None because they were 8 miles in.
They're scared of you probably.
They're city kids and they’re not getting back. They're like, “I don't know how I'm getting back. I'm stuck.” Their phones didn't work, which was amazing. One of the things they said to me after the trip was, “I learned about some of these guys. I've been training with them for years and I didn't know that story,” which was cool. They got to sit there where all you can do is speak to each other and be present. The next day, we have to go over Brown's Pass. It's about a 13,000-ish foot pass to get over the next one. The weather was terrible when we woke up and it got even worse as we got higher.
When you go on a backpacking trip and you’re eight miles in with no signal on your phones, all you can do is speak to each other and be present.
The guys were looking at me. It's probably on my Instagram if you want to find it. There's a line of guys standing behind me and they're all looking at me like, “You son of a bitch. I can't believe you brought us up here to do this.” It's up there. You'll find it. The thing is we go up there and got to go over Brown's Pass. When we go over Brown's Pass, we have to cross over. When you get higher, the weather's even worse.
Chances are you're dealing with twice as bad and twice as cold.
It was cold, raining, sleeting, and snowing. There was thunder, fog, and the whole thing. It was bad. We got up there and it was bad. They were all looking at me like, “I can't believe you brought us up here.” I told them, “When we get to the top, we're not stopping. It's going to be so cold on top. We need to drop down and the temp will change by at least fifteen degrees. We don't hang on top though. We get up top and come down. It's raining and all these things, but we're not stopping. If you're tired, too bad. Go.”
We get up top and do all that. We come down and then find the next lake where we're going to stay. Some of the guys didn't set their rain flies upright and their tents got flooded inside. You're dealing with some novice stuff here. They go and we endure these four days of this huge loop that we did and stayed at the lake. Some guys that had never fished before caught fish.
I was going to ask.
They ate fish on the spot.
That's so awesome. My favorite fishing is those high alpine lakes. There are cutthroats, wild trout, and native trout.
They had all of them. The cool part is they got to do this. They have never eaten fresh fish like that before that you caught. We cooked it over the fire with a stick. We legit cooked it over the fire and/or they found ways to prop them up and cook them. They ate them. Some guys had never done that before ever. The other thing is they'd never seen stars like that in their lives at night. For the first few nights, it was so stormy though. You couldn't see the stars. I was like, “I hope we get one night that it opens up so you can see these stars without the lights from the city.”
That's life-changing.
Those guys got to see the last day we were there. It was crazy. The last day we were there was a phenomenal day. There was the sun the whole day. That night, you had the black sky with all the stars gleaming.
That's what I love about being on the Western slope outside the city. You don't get that light pollution either. It puts life in perspective. That's cool.
They’ve never seen that before. To see the scope of that through a beginner's eyes, it was so cool to share that. It’s to see their joy from catching a fish and be like, “I did it,” and then to eat that same fish right there. They didn’t know how to set up a tent. They didn't know how to pack a backpack.
Was this the trip where one of the guys brought two pairs of pants or something?
That’s a trip I took with my buddies years ago.
Maybe that's what we talked about. That's funny.
We went and did that. After when we got back to the truck, one of the things I wanted to do was do a video testimony on what the guys had taken from the trip, what they would do differently, and what they enjoyed. Almost a resounding yes of what they enjoyed was Brown's Pass. It was the suck of the whole thing. There was the highlight of every single one of them. There were other highlights, but the highlight from almost every single one of them was enduring Brown's Pass, getting through it, getting to the truck, and being like, “I did that.”
In their video testimony when we did it, it was two minutes for each guy. I was like, “Get up and tell me what you enjoyed and what you would change next year if you did it.” They did that and the whole group was like, “Brown's Pass is the highlight.” They said it sucked, but it would always be like, “It sucked, but it was a highlight.” I told them, “If you never go do this again, you'll never forget that.” Those guys still talk about that. We did that in July 2022. It might have been August 2022, but it was somewhere around there. That piece was so cool. It was such a fun time.
You never forget enduring moments. Those are the biggest moments that stuck out to me as a kid. I grew up here. I did some backpacking trips here, but to go do a backpacking trip 7 or 8 miles in as a kid in Northern Montana over glaciated peaks is a whole other animal. I was crying for my mom at one point. My uncles were like, “You get your little fat ass up and let's get fucking hiking. We got to try to get to camp.”
No one's going to help you.
I'll never forget that. After I did that, I was like, “Okay.”
You were like, “I can do a lot of things now.”
That was the cool part. It’s getting to share that knowledge with them, but also watching their beginner eyes to get to see a lot of stuff that they'd never done before. Some of those kids have asked me, “If I went and got my hunter’s safety, I would like to pursue hunting maybe because that's like hunting, right?” I'm like, “Yeah. It's similar. It's a little different, but it's similar.” To have fifteen kids who've never done that before and get to see that, they never do anything again. At least they got the joy of doing that. They got rid of the fear of a bear going to eat you every step of the way through the trail. What if it's not there? They never saw a bear. They never saw shit.
The best part about mentoring is getting to share that knowledge with them while also watching their beginner eyes see a lot of stuff that they've never done before.
Did anybody scare themselves?
A few times, they scare themselves, for sure. To see their team bonding, the bonding that they had was not just with them, but with me. You get to get off the mat, get out of work, and see a different scope of people.
There's a different type of bonding that goes on out there, especially when you've gone through something like that. It’s like getting onto the mat but from a different perspective.
We take it for granted because getting on the mat feels normal, but it's very intimidating and different for new people. My whole point in saying that though is that's not bad. If you threw hate out there about what Derek, any other hunter, or whatever, you've not endured something like that. You've not enjoyed a journey of something like that. If you did, you forgot. If you forgot, you should go re-entrench yourself with something like that and go find some peace and joy so that you don't spit so much hate from that.
The story I described was not made up. That's a fact. It happened. Those kids’ lives will forever be changed. It’s a memory etched in their head that they'll never lose. The story you brought up about my buddies years ago, they still talk about that when I see them. They’ve never done another one. That's my point. That's not bad. You can't convince me ever in my life that that's bad because I shared that moment with those people and I saw what they were able to go through. I saw the suck they went through and the joy on their faces.
There’s some of the comedy that you get out of it, too.
It's hilarious.
I'm thinking back in my mind of some of the stupid shit that's happened to my and my buddies’ life. I'm not laughing at you. I've been going through those moments. I'll tell you a story once we get off a mic here. It's pretty funny.
Watching the guys ring their clothes out from their tent, I was like, “What happened?” A lot of them in their video testimony said, “One of the things I would change for next year is to listen to coach and bring better gear and warmer clothes.” When we left, it was 80 degrees or 90 degrees in Denver. I told them, “It’s not going to be that way when we get there.”
A lot of people die that way honestly. Photography's one of my favorite pastimes. Getting out and shooting wildlife is awesome. It's my favorite thing to do, capturing that moment. One of my favorite things to do in the summer is get up at first light or before first light. It's 45 minutes from here. I can be at the summit of Evans with the truck.
It's easy. I get out and hike down to where the goats are. It’s so awesome because hardly anybody's out there. There are a few crazy dudes out there on bicycles or running, or doing whatever at that altitude. You'll leave here and it'll be 75. I'll get up there and it's 32 degrees as the sun's coming up. It is crazy. It might be snowing.
It was cool. That's the thing. Stop talking shit. Go do something. Go celebrate what others are doing and then go celebrate your stuff.
I wonder how many of those people are doing anything at all other than watching other people. That's the problem.
It’s whack.
Jeremy, if you got a second, pull up Derek's Instagram quickly. Did you see the video he posted at that line hunt? I thought that was pretty cool. Going back to it, this tells the story. If you go to his reels maybe.
Look at him right here.
He's dying.
He's tired and cold. That was some stuff.
That's a pro athlete right there, too. He's still in phenomenal shape. Go to the reels. Maybe it's that one of them holding the cat. Click on that and give us some volume. The music they put with it, too, is super dope. I don’t know if you've seen this yet. It’s super tasteful though. This is him dying and falling down a mountain.
Look how steep that is. He's tired.
The dogs are barely running up it, and those are hounds. It’s pretty tasteful. It’s not showing the shot. There is none of that.
Jeremy, did you see the one of that trip on my page or no?
Go back to Marc’s page.
Hold on a second. I wanted to see that, but I couldn't find it.
Go to the top of it.
It's you standing at a national forest sign or something.
Keep going. It's down a little bit.
While were on this, I love the fact that you're posting daily quotes. I read them every day. I'm a big fan of quotes if they're good, and I love yours.
The story behind those quotes is this. Every year, I give my team a gift. We have a party every year to celebrate the accomplishments that we had throughout the year. It’s hard in MMA to celebrate as a team because we don't fight as a team. That means we don't all go out there like a football team and play the game, and then in or lose, you're all together. That doesn't happen. You and I fight on one weekend. The other guy fights this weekend. It’s sporadic like that constantly. We get moments of celebration and we cheer each other when we see each other. That's cool, but we never get to celebrate as a team.
UFC Coach: It's hard in MMA to celebrate as a team because we don't fight as a team. We don't all go out there like a football team and play the game, and then, win or lose, we're all together. You and I fight one weekend; the other guy fights this weekend. It's constantly sporadic.
I had an idea years ago that why don't we put together a party to celebrate each other and have some food? I took it way past that. I said, “I want to make this a day event. I want to bring in guest speakers. I want to bring in financial advisors and talk to these guys about what they're doing with their money. I want to bring in inspirational people and athletes. I want to bring regular Joes in. I want to bring people.” They come and speak to the team. They give them 30 minutes of their time. They run with a theme or whatever that we talk about. They do that, and then that's the day session.
In the evening session, we always pick what we're going to wear. This 2023, they wanted to do a mobster-type look. We went out. They come in and bring their significant other, their mom, their dad, or whatever. They bring them to dinner. In the dinner portion, we have food for them. Jordan Kurtz and I go over this highlight reel for 1 month or 2 before it ever happens. He highlight reels the whole team. We vote prior to this on accomplishments through the year, like Best Knockout, Best Submission, Fighter of The Year, and all these things.
It's like an award, but it's much more than that. It's because it's coming from your peers.
There is Coach of the Year and all these things. We do that, and then we get up there and have an amateur talent show for our own entertainment. It's hilarious.
It’s everything from people dancing. You can do whatever you want, but you got to do something.
Don't make it shitty. The one that won was Alex Hernandez’s girlfriend, Alexis. Her dad is a drummer. Alexis won the amateur talent show. She had Home Depot buckets, pans, and the concrete floor. They did this drum thing that they did together, her and her dad, and they killed it.
It’s like a street performer-type thing.
It was super dope. It’s stuff like that or they do dumb stuff, but it's hilarious. If they suck, the guys have socks and stuff and they throw it at them. It's pretty funny.
Bronco bricks?
Yeah, exactly.
They were going to come back.
They were pretty bad.
I almost made some myself to make some money. Here you go. You found it.
I haven't seen these yet. This is the trip. This is me chatting. You can go back and watch this later. These are the video testimonies that I was talking about that the guys did.
That's cool. There's Dustin, Wyatt, and Youssef. That's cool.
That's the first fish he ever caught in his life. He has never eaten one before. He was like, “Okay.” It was cool.
That's awesome. He's such a savage. I'm a fan of his.
He's awesome. He's a great kid. I love him. There are all these kids. Here's what I was talking about. Getting close to Brown's Pass was shitty. It was cold.
There were a lot of down heads right there, isn't it?
There was fog. They were looking at me like, “Dude.” I had to take a video. I was like, “I got to take a video of these guys looking at me like, “You son of a bitch.” It’s a cool representation of what we did, but it only encapsulates a small portion of what happened. We have what we call a Legend and Legacy day. I came up with this and said, “What do you call this award thing or whatever?” We call it Legend and Legacy. We're creating legend and legacy, like what we do in life and all these things.
In fighting, we're creating these things and they parallel. When the evening section comes in and we have an awards thing, Jordan Kurtz puts this phenomenal video together. We highlight all these awards. They come up and we give them awards. I make dog tag awards. One of the things you'll see when the guys go fight is they wear dog tags to the ring or the cage. They transfer the dog tags over to the coaching staff. In the dog tag awards, these guys started adding to their dog tags being like, “Look at my bling.” It's pretty cool. I didn't have that intention, but that's what they did.
The gift I gave to the guys this 2023 was a journal. I said, “This is such a powerful tool if you use it. I've journaled forever. It's another daily habit that I constantly do. For those of you reading, if you've never journaled, I encourage you to do it. You can steal this whole format if you want. When I set my journal up, I first have what I'm grateful for, and then I have what I want to pray for. I have my big three tasks that I'm going to do for the day. I find a verse in the Bible that I've read that day and put it down, and then I have a quote. That's how I organize my day. I then go back and check off my big three tasks for the day. One of my tasks was to be here. That was one of my big threes.
A journal is such a powerful tool if you use it.
What I would do personally before I gave the guys the journal is I would find a quote. When I read good things or see good quotes, I write them down in a note folder on my phone called Great Quotes. I put them in there. I got a decade of these quotes that I've compiled. Since I'm a competitive bastard, what I did is I hand-wrote in every single one of these journals. It was over 50 plus journals. Have you ever read the book The Four Agreements?
It's in my queue, but I started it. I need to finish it. I haven't been all the way through it.
I stole it from The Four Agreements book. They have their four agreements. Be impeccable with your word. Don't make assumptions. There were all those things. They have that. I took ours and I put in our four agreements. We have our four agreements for the team. Be on time, be coachable, be a good teammate, and have fun. Those are our four agreements.
I hand-wrote all this stuff in the journal, and then I took my own personal journal that I was going to use for 2023 and hand-wrote all these quotes on every page. Uniquely and conveniently for the crew I deal with, I timed how long that was going to take. It took me 4 hours and 20 minutes. I was like, “It took 4:20 for you stoners.” I said, “I challenge you. I'm going to give you the list of quotes in our WhatsApp group that we have as a team. I challenge you to beat my time and handwrite them all consecutively. Can you beat my time at 4:20?"
"I don't want you to write one a day. I want you to see some that you might see in November or July. I want you to see them, and then when you go right into your journal daily, it's already there for you. You got to put the grateful prayer, big threes, and all that stuff. You got to do that on your own. You got to write all that stuff down.” That's where that came from.
That's awesome.
Social media annoys me. I don't love being on social media. They're always breaking my balls about, “You need to have more presence on social media.” I'm like, “Okay.” I said, “I will make a commitment to post our Legend and Legacy quotes throughout the year on my story daily. That's one of my con commitments that I'll make to you that I hate doing.” It’s not because I don't want to share the quotes.
It’s a pain in the ass lining it up.
I've been doing it.
I love it. I love seeing it.
The Legend and Legacy thing is the phrase we give for our party. Do you see how I keep tagging the bee? The bee comes from cancer. The bee that I got stung with, the story I told earlier, in my head, that's the messenger. That was the messenger to say, “You got cancer. I'm going to be the messenger even though you're not going to find this out for a month after staph.” What's cool is with my daughter Brooklyn, I was like, “Maybe we should make some bracelets for cancer awareness-type thing.” She said, “I want to make them.” She's crafty. The color orange signifies a kidney cancer survivor. I love the color black. The bee is the messenger.
There's a little bee on there. We're looking at a black beaded bracelet with two orange beads. Is it glass?
It’s a metal charm.
That's cool.
She made one for you and Jeremy to have.
No way.
That’s so rad.
That's awesome.
It's nothing crazy, but it's a reminder of survival. It's a reminder of a messenger. It's a reminder of my story. It’s a reminder of cancer awareness.
That's so dope. Thank you.
You'll have to thank her. She made it. The point is that's the stuff that we give. This 2023, we gave journals. To tie it all back together, I've been doing that stuff on there because it all stemmed back from my commitment to the journals that I gave, the quotes that I've compiled over the years, and then the team camaraderie of what we've got going on for 2023. The theme we've got going on is those journals and those quotes.
That's awesome. I appreciate it. I'm not on the team, but I feel like I can enjoy a little part right there. That's dope. We've been at it for close to three hours. We went way deep on this one, but I love it. Cheers. I'm glad that you're here.
Cheers to you. Thank you.
I'm glad that you’re sitting here.
Congratulations to you, and thanks to your fans. Your audience and the fans of this show reach out to me every time I do this. It's always cool to hear from you. You don't always have to agree with everything I say, and that's fine. It’s great to hear from them. It's always usually good stuff. I'm always humbled and honored to come on here and get a chance to share my story. I'm a regular dude. I'm getting an opportunity to live a full life. I appreciate the platform to get to come on and do that again.
I've told you this multiple times. I don't care who's in that chair. Whenever you want it, it's yours.
Thank you.
I'll fire him right out of there.
I appreciate it.
Before we jump off, what do you got coming up? We didn't even talk about any fighting. This is why I love this. There's nothing scripted here. It goes where it goes. Some big fight news came out. April 2023 is going to be super busy for you. What do you have coming up in some of the fights and that whole thing? Shed some light on that for a minute.
We've been so blessed to consistently have success and grow through our team and our coaching staff. It takes a village to do what we do. I have the best staff around. I have such a phenomenal coaching staff and my support staff with my family. My team is the best team I've ever had. They're such great kids. They're a young team. I have some vets sprinkled in there, but they're a young team. They've come up through the ranks and done some cool stuff.
We have eight people fighting in four different states. It’s the weekend of February 17th, 2023. We found out that Alex Hernandez is going to fight Jim Miller in the UFC on ESPN. That was an additional fight that got added to an already crazy busy weekend that we're going to have. You can imagine what the logistics look like and feel like when you've got 8 guys fighting and 4 different states we're going to be in. You can imagine what those logistics look like. They're all looking at me like, “How are we going to do this?” I'm like, “Very carefully.” We got a lot of cool stuff going on there. On April 15th, 2023, we've got four guys on an ESPN UFC card. Dustin Jacoby is fighting in the top fifteen in that fight.
Is that Kansas City?
It is. It announced it was going to be Kansas City. Chris Gutierrez is fighting Pedro Munhoz for the top ten in the world. Brandon Royval is fighting for the opportunity to go fight for the world title after this fight. Brandon's number 2 or 3 in the world and he's fighting number 4 or something like that. Brandon has an opportunity to go win this fight and then next go fight for the world title, which is our Super Bowl.
Zak Cummings is someone I've trained for a long time. He has been injured for years. He is going to make his retirement fight in Kansas City. He's from Kansas City, so his retirement fight's going to be that night. There are so many options and opportunities. Anthony Smith is fighting again soon in late April or May 2023.
Are you still cornering him?
Yeah. I didn't coach Anthony for his last fight, but he's back. We're getting back to work and getting busy. We'll be ready to fight here in late April or May 2023. Rob Wilkinson won the PFL world title in 2022. He is the 205 world champion in PFL. He made $1 million in the final fight doing that. He's back to go defend his title.
That’s super rad. I saw that post.
He's fighting on April 1st, 2023. Some of these young regional kids that are coming up are doing amazing things.
There are so many. There's so much to watch many outside of the UFC, and I encourage people to do it, too.
Guys like Jonathan Martinez who's done some incredible stuff is fighting number thirteen in the world. I remember Jonathan and Chris Gutierrez being babies in this thing and being boys, too, when I first met them. They're grown-ass men and doing big stuff. It's cool to see our young crop coming up. The regional kids are coming up. Seven of them are all regional kids. Only one is fighting the UFC. It’s to watch the growth of that and all that happens. We've had some new additions in some UFC fighters like Vanessa Demopolous, David Onama, and Julian Marquez. Some of those kids have come back over. Anthony Smith is back.
I’m glad to see Anthony back with you.
Anthony and I have shared a long time together. We had a little break for a second, but the band's back together. It's cool to see him back in the room and see him and Rob getting a chance to work together, which is super cool. I always invite you, but you're always welcome to come down on a Friday morning and watch some spar.
I'm there.
Come down.
I'll be there for sure.
You are always invited.
Do I have to bring anything, like coffee or shorts?
Bring whatever you want to drink and popcorn because they're throwing down. Come every Friday morning. Those guys are going at it. You get to see some free UFC fights.
I'm there.
The way I do sparring feels very much like a fight. The music's loud. They do the walkout. You have corners. There's a winner and a loser in those rounds. It's pretty cool. There's a lot of cool stuff coming up. There are a lot of young regional guys that are going to be in the UFC soon coming up like Jacobi Jones and Marquel Mederos. Those two kids are coming up. Luis Gurule is another one. There are so many. Youssef Zalal has been killing it.
What's up with him? Did he take a step back from the UFC for a minute?
The UFC released him.
Why?
I don't know. He has gone outside of the UFC. He's had two first-round finishes.
He'll be back soon.
You'll see him back soon. He'll be back soon. He's talented. That kid legitimately will be a world champion. You watch.
His finishes, too. He has the attitude and everything.
He is such a great kid. Brandon Royval, I've been training since he was a teenager. Youssef, I've been training since he was a teenager. Marquel, I've been training since he was a teenager. You get a lot of these guys that are there. Turnover is very rare unless they’re not a good fit. There is a lot of cool stuff. I appreciate you asking.
It's such a fun thing that I get to do. I'm blessed to be a part of their journeys. I'm thankful that they keep me on that journey. They've forged the way to get to where they're at, whether they're on the local regional scene or at the highest level in the UFC-type thing. It's cool to see the growth that they've had. It's a cool deal.
For everybody reading, you do offer for the everyday people that work 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. You offer classes for them and for kids. It's much more than a fight gym.
That's the mass of what we have there. It’s regular adults that have a regular old life. They're not fighters. With kids, we train a lot of kids. We have phenomenal programs for mornings, afternoons, and evenings. We have such a phenomenal program. It has a great turnout and they’re cool people. We get to meet a lot of cool people. If you come in and say you read it here, we'll give you 20% off. Come in. We would love to do that and have you come in. if you are not from here but you train, for example, you roll jiu-jitsu and you're in Denver one day, come in and drop in. Come train for the day. You are always welcome.
That’s the hardest thing when I'm traveling. It’s trying to find a gym that will let you drop in. That's awesome.
I don't mind ever. On Saturdays, we always have an open roll at 10:00 AM. Any gym person's invited to come to do that. You are always invited to come to try that stuff or your audience. MMA has changed and saved my life and a ton of people's lives. If that's something you've always wanted to do, stop thinking about it and go do it.
I encourage it, too. It’s a mindset-changing thing for me, maybe not necessarily life-changing. I grew up wrestling. I started way later in my life. I’m still trying to earn some stripes even to get there. For example, I started back. I'm going to this lunch crunch, midday madness, or whatever they're calling this jiu-jitsu roll up here at BTT. They’re awesome people. Dave Roberts was teaching that.
I was pulling out of here and two young kids in a jacked-up Land Rover. They started laying on the horn on me because I pulled out in front of them, but they were doing 60 miles an hour coming down. They were pulling up next to me and flipping me off, but since I went and rolled that day, I wasn't too agro. I didn't even do anything. I didn't even look at it. I was like, “I'm going to let this go.” It makes me a bit calmer in life.
It’s great. Thank you again. You are killing it. Keep it up. I'm happy for you. However I can help, continue to let me know. I'll be back. We'll have some more stuff to talk about, for sure, at some point.
The feeling is mutual. I’m happy that you're sitting here. You're always welcome. I'm glad that you're on the other side of everything that you've been facing the last couple of months. I’m excited about the season coming up. I love the fact that I can turn on the TV every weekend and see Marc. It makes it that much more exciting to watch when you follow it a little bit and follow some of these people, and then have a personal relationship. It's brought my fan to a new level.
Thank you again. To your audience, I appreciate you for tuning in. It seems like it's a long one, but hopefully, it's a good one.
We didn't miss a beat on it. We're setting records here.
Thank you. I appreciate you.
Thanks.
Cheers. We’ll see you.
Thanks, everybody, for tuning in.
Important Links
Derek Wolfe - past episode
Eric Telly - past episode
Dustin Jacoby - past episode
Vinc Pichel - past episode
Josh Fremd - past episode
Jordan Krutz - past episode
Lisa Thompson - past episode
Episode Four - past episode
Jay Steinberg - past episode
Colorado Parks and Wildlife - past episode
Last Episode - past episode
Instagram – Marc Montoya