Belal Muhammad
Appearances
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
In England area. So... Like... A lot of the... Even before the fight... I was getting a lot of messages from people like... You're not in any territory. This is your home. And... We were blessed out there. Because people took care of us the whole time. That's awesome. My team had food. Everything. Every single day. Like... Even the gym. When I was first looking for myself...
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
A lot of the gyms I was messing out there were like, no, you can't. You're fighting Leon. We can't open the doors for you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. But then we met some guys that opened up their gym for us. And there were lawyers driving us around at 4 a.m. They had other jobs. But they were driving us around, staying up with us at 4 a.m. and then having to go to work at 9 a.m.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
wow yeah well they're probably excited to be a part of it yeah that's what they a lot of them said like you know we're just happy to be here we don't want nothing from you and it was just yeah it was such a cool thing that's amazing you meet just like new friends right new new people and it was for my team for my family like to have that journey all that all of us together my dad went my mom didn't go what did it feel like when they put that belt around your waist
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But when they go to Abu Dhabi, we still fight Abu Dhabi time, nighttime. Yeah. And then over here, it's daytime. Yeah. But I wonder if they see like a change in numbers with that and that made them adjust.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It was wild because I got to try to think back to it. And for me, at first, it was like, I told you so. I told you I could beat Leon. That was my mindset the whole time. I didn't want to even think about the belt. It was more so to be like, I beat Leon. You guys thought I was going to lose to him. I had to live with it for three years of everybody telling me I'm going to lose to this guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He would have beat you the last four rounds. He would have killed you. And for myself... For that, it was just like, I told you I could do it. I told you I was better than him. And his coach and his team were all talking trash to me before the fight. So just to rub it in their face.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But then for me to be able to wear the title and to be able to carry my flag with the title and to show people what's possible. Because obviously you know what's going on right now in the world. For Palestine, for them to have a champion right now, for them to have a win from that fight, That meant more than anything. Because I was getting so many messages from them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
We had people in Gaza that were watching video of it. And it was kids at a refugee camp. They were watching videos of the fight. And it was such an amazing thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And even from my coach right there, Mike Valley. He's a small gem. He doesn't talk big. And for me to stick with him and for us to do it together from the start. now he has another world champion. We're literally a tiny gym in there and he does so much for a lot of his fighters.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He brings a lot of guys in from Chile, Mexico, and he puts them in like apartments, doesn't charge them rent, just like helps them grow from their start.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. So, yeah, a lot of it just comes back down for my people in general. Me, it was just to prove everybody that I could beat them. I could beat Leon. I told you so. But, now we got a real title and Just attention. So for me, it's like using that now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It's a blessing, man. I'm blessed to be here to talk to you. I'm blessed to be able to, like, for people now to know my story, hear my story. And in general, if I get to have a conversation like this and carry this belt around, people will look at me and look at themselves with a dream.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It's so perfect. They literally had smoke and everything. It was wild. That's amazing. Yeah, I was so surprised by the whole thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
My brother, I appreciate it. Hopefully it's in the U.S. so you can become a commentator. Yeah, hopefully.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
For me, I was like, I hope they are exhausted because they're probably going to be booing me anyway, so I'm like... Let them get drunk starting at midnight. Let them be dead tired once it gets to that level. How many people were asleep in the audience? People started leaving early. It was like the fourth round. And I think I got the last takedown and I was like finishing on top of them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
They said people were leaving. Wow. And I was like.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
that's a good sign that just tells me that they know that there's nothing else he could really do he had one big moment in the last round yeah I still got it right here and it's just like I just keep shaking my head every time I think of it but it just tells me that I still have stuff to fix still have stuff to work on and you can never get like too comfortable especially with him
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But, yeah, my coach is the type that'll, like, tell me everything I did wrong after a fight instead of the stuff I did right. So right away, he said, now look at your face. Now look at your, like, you did that because you took your foot off the gas for one second. And something could happen. Who knows if there's a minute left what could have happened or blah, blah, blah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I'm like, I won, coach. I'm the world champion. You chill out. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I think every fighter's fear is to get tired in the cage. Every fighter's fear is to be in there and not be able to lift up your arms. And you've seen it happen with a lot of guys, big-name guys, where you'll see them give up a choke, and it'll be like... He just lifted up his neck and maybe he was too tired. No, he just wanted to get out of there. For me, I had no fear.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I know that I could go harder than any of these guys. And if I'm tired, I know he's going to be twice as tired. But I think a lot of it, like you said, is just... The team I have around me, I do strength and conditioning with my boy Matt Murphy, but it's not anything outrageous. We're not doing the crazy new stuff that's coming out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
We do heavy weights, and we do the big muscles like chest, lower back, and squats. But we put all this other stuff around it, like the cosmetic stuff too. And we're lifting three days a week. What do you mean by cosmetic stuff? Like say if I go heavy on my squat. And then we'll still end up doing like lower back, chest and like dumbbells, chest and everything on that day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But like on a heavy chest day, we're going like legs, lunges, like lesser weight. So we go heavy with like squats, chest and deadlifts one day a week for each of those. And then we still do full body stuff that same day, but just like lower the weights and higher reps.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I mean, I do a lot of swimming for my, for like cardio wise. And then people make in front of me a lot. Swimming is so hard.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
People don't know how to, people when they, when I take them to the pool, like when I take a brand new fighter to the pool and if they never swam before, they get so tired. And I tell them, bro, it's a full body workout. It's everything you need, especially for fighting. It's like one of the hardest things you could do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Especially if you're like built like you, because you probably sink like a rock.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Dense dudes just go right under. You got to struggle to stay above water. And I don't have like the best technique to doing it. So I still like go there and I'm like, I'm going to go a mile. And then I'll go and I'll take a little break. Go take a little break. And like you said, you see like that fat person just going nonstop. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And you're looking at them like, bro, I just want to like slap them.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
The headbutt days. I did an interview yesterday with the Chicago News. And then the lady's like, she had no idea who I was. I'm like, you didn't do no research. Because she's like, you're the champion of street fighting, right? Oh, boy. And I'm just like. Imagine that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I'm looking at the teleprompter, I'm like, I feel like that's all they do is just read the teleprompter.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
There's so many people who could have interviewed you. I was like, yeah, don't you guys have a sportscaster or somebody that's going to interview me?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
They did. And that's what I was like, why am I getting with these two? And she was like, so you do boxing then too? And I'm like, well, boxing is a part of it. It's mixed martial arts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. That's a real important part of my game. I added. We do power slap. Yeah. I'm the champion of that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, it's going to be up there bigger than, I think, all the other sports. It'll be bigger than everything but football in America. You're never going to beat football. You can't beat football. You're seeing this next younger generation. It's just wild how they're coming up. Kids are starting. My boy Ignacio, his brother's 15 years old, and he's already 5-0 pro. Crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, and you're a pro? I'm like, that's wild.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, his next fight is for a title against a 30-year-old, and I'm just like, bro. Where's this happening? It's in Colombia. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But imagine when he gets to his 20s, the experience he's going to have. Oh, yeah. And then if one of these younger guys now that only fought locally in Chicago or something, they see him, he's going to look at them like, okay, let me show you what I do.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, 100%. I think Darren Till is probably the biggest one I think of when I think of that, when he rushed into the title fight.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I think there's a lot of guys that don't know how to take a loss. I think that once he was undefeated, then you get your first loss. And then you go back to the gym, your confidence deflated. You look at... People look at you differently. You don't have that same mentality. I'm the biggest one in the room.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Usman said it yesterday. He said, like, people are so quick to forget, right, of the stuff you did when you were great and when you were at the top. And especially guys like Woodley where he was one of the best to ever do it. One of the best. Then later you start losing a couple. Exactly. And then it just tarnishes everything. I'm like, bro, go back to the knockout of Robbie Allard.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That was crazy. Yeah. Like the way he did it. And Robbie was the man at that time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. When I fought Wonderboy, that was like one of the fights I watched. And that was one of the fights I was most afraid of because you're looking at him against Woodley, him against Johnny Hendricks, and none of these guys could take him down. And then Anthony Pettis told me, like, bro. I was like, should I bring in somebody for him? And he's like, nah, because nobody moves like him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And his kicks hurt harder than anybody else I brought in because he brought in like Sage Northcutt and those guys to be like him and Mike Biggie Rhodes. And he's like, bro, Wonderboy is just different. So he said, I would just try to wrestle. And I was like, all right, let's go. And then I was like, let me just get ahead of him right away and grab a hold of him and not – Pull back at all.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, and he disguises his stuff so beautifully. He disguises it with his personality because before the fight, he's like, hey, what's up, bro? How you doing? And then I'm like, bro, I know you're going to try to kill me tomorrow, man.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, and everything just slows down. Your reflexes, even your mindset, right? Because you don't want to – it's the hardest thing to train for. You have to fight every day in the practice room to train for a fight. So these guys who have been doing it for so long, you're burnt out. So it's like you get to your 40s and you've got a family and stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
You're like, do I want to train two to three times a day? Do I want to go to the gym right now and wrestle? I think that's one of the keys that my coach is very good at. He tells all of his guys, like – We're wrestling three times a week. If you're not at wrestling practice, then you're not going to be at sparring practice. Because a lot of our guys are really great strikers.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Nacho's been striking with him since he was 16 years old. He told him, like, I don't care if you hate this right now. You don't know how to wrestle. You're going to lose. You could be the best striker in the world. But all the champions know how to wrestle.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I see that a lot with guys, like I said, that don't want to get beat up. They go to practice and they don't want to get in bed. That's when the ego comes in, right? Like, I'm a UFC fighter. I shouldn't be losing to Joe Schmoe at a jiu-jitsu class. So there's like, avoid those guys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Mike Brown was trying to kill you. I would wish that I would never get that call to like, hey, do you want to fight Mike Brown? And I was like, bro, no. My brother's like, call him out. And I'm like, bro, I'm not going to call him Matt Brown. My brother's always the type to be like, you can be anybody. And I was like, nah, I'll call him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
If they call me for Matt Brown, I'll do it, but I'm not going to call him out, though.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I live with Jared Gordon for three years together. He's like my best friend. Same situation. He would say, I'm going to go for a jog. And I'm like, all right, cool. And he'll be like, come back like three hours later. I'm like, I just ran 20 miles. And I'm just like, you said you're going for a jog. That's not a jog. It's like a marathon. Yeah. And he would just do that out of nowhere.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Like you said, they just had that crazy cardio endurance. And they'll just go nonstop. Yeah. And I think it's that type of mindset, right? I think so. It just gets your mind off all their stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I was able to go down to AKA and get some work in with the guys down there. And Kane was there. Oh, wow. Yeah. It was just, I was so intimidated. I'm like, this is Kane Velasquez. He's a killer. Yeah. And he's like the nicest guy in the world. Super nice guy. But seeing how athletic he was, he was like doing cartwheels in the gym.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And just like seeing how he moves, I'm like, now I could understand why he was such a great heavyweight and such a killer. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I'm interested to see how Aspinall is past the first round, right? Because we've seen him. He looks so fast. You're like, nobody moves like him. He looks like a younger Kane. Right. But he just keeps knocking these guys out so quick. So I'm like, let me see him past the first round to see if he has that cardio as well.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I wonder if it's going to get him to that point, all this talking from Aspinall, is it going to get him motivated, right? Or is it going to be at a point like, let me be done with Stipe and be done with it. But I don't want a heavyweight motivated Jon Jones if I'm on the other side.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
The way he just pulled Gon down so easily and choked him out, I was like, bro. And then Gon looks good his last two fights.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And he hurt Bam Bam with that, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
No one ever, right? And I thought Pavlovich was going to be the one that was like, it's going to be a banger. And he just puts him to sleep.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
The best. Nobody comes close. A lot of that, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I've had three. Wow. Yeah. Holy shit. They're literally the hardest thing in the world. The most depressing thing in the world. Yeah. I don't think... Did you have one after the Leon fight or before? I had one after that as well. Wow. Even in my fight when I fought Luque... After the third round, I went back to my corner. I was like, there's something in my eye.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And, like, I couldn't see out of my eye. And I'm, like, trying to blink it out. And then the cut man, Tate, he's like, bro, ain't nothing wrong with your eye. Stop touching your eye. So then I was like, all right, well, whatever. So I go back in there the fourth and fifth round. And I just can't manage distance. I'm, like, just shooting in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That's the best part right now, is now I can just talk as much as possible, and they can't say nothing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then I was like, man, there's still something wrong with my eye. And then I ended up going to the doctor like two days later because I thought it was just a scratched cornea or something. But it ended up being like a detached lens. Oh, Jesus Christ. So the whole lens they had to like take out and then like sew back in. Yeah. And my eye was like super bloodshot red for like two weeks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then I ended up doing like a weigh-in show with the UFC. I have a pay-per-view. And everybody's like posting pictures of me like, oh, look, somebody farted on his pillow because he had like a red eye. And they're like making fun of me. And I was just like, I'm like crying myself in my room. I don't got pink eye. It's surgery. How long did it take to recover from that? That one wasn't as long.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That one was, the blood was still in there for like a month. The test run was the hardest one. That one is like eight weeks of not doing absolutely nothing. And I have to be like this, my head sideways for a full eight weeks. Really? Yeah. And have like a bubble in your eye the whole time. And then even when I'm watching TV, I have to like put my head in a massage chair. Oh, wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And there's like a mirror at the top. So I aim the mirror at the TV and I can't do nothing. Wow. But like keep my head down or sideways.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. I had to sleep. I had to sleep with my face down in that massage chair the whole time.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. It was, that was the hardest thing. How hard is it to sleep like that? And I'm a back sleeper too. So I hate sleeping on my front, on my stomach. So it was like the worst two months of my life. And then you're like, you don't know if you're going to be able to train after that and fight after that. Cause the doctor's looking at me like I'm stupid. I'm telling him I'm going back to the gym.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. How'd you hurt your shoulder? Jiu-jitsu. Oh, you need to quit that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. Or you need surgery. And I'm just like, there's no form of rehab or, like, exercises I could do. They love to give you surgery. Right away. But even with the eye, I'm so afraid to even go to the doctor in general. So I was avoiding it at all costs. So I would see a little black dot inside of my eye. And I'm still training. I'm like, whatever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then I was supposed to go with Jared to Brazil when he fought Charles Oliveira. And I had my ticket booked and everything. And then the week before, I'm sparring with him. And then all of a sudden, that black dot turned into a black sheet. And it just went full black. And I'm just like, I think I should go to a doctor now. And then they were like, you got to go under the knife right away.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So it was like I had to get surgery right there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Wow. Yeah. That's the hard part because you always think about Michael Bisping. You're looking at him like, I don't want to be that guy. Exactly.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I literally had moments where I'm looking at myself like, am I going to have to do that? Am I going to have to figure out something to do to do this?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Shot a bullet? Yeah, shot a bullet. Yeah. That's crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But it's wild, right? Because, I mean, he still looks like he sees everything when he's fighting, right? Oh, yeah. Distance management's incredible. Yeah. It makes you think, how good was that motherfucker with two eyes? They can fight that good with one eye? I fought in Abu Dhabi my first time there when Khabib fought Dustin Poirier.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then he was just like a fan, and he came up to me, and he said, I'm going to be in the UFC. And I remember the picture with him because he tagged me, and obviously you can't forget that face. Right. But then when I saw him, Like undefeated killer. I'm like, bro, dang, he wasn't lying. He is a beast. Oh, he's a beast. Yeah, he's a monster.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I train with Yair and like even just like light sparring, I don't even want to like play with him. because he just comes from all different angles. But he's so good at, like, he'll get so close. It'll be, like, right here, and he'll just pull it. Yeah. I think that's where I learned a lot from him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then just, like, when you're going with somebody who flows like that and knows how to move like that, it makes you more creative, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. I think that makes up the best. Yeah, that's the best kind of sparring.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
People don't know how good he is. And even his wrestling is really good. Yeah. But when he puts it all together. But I think even when he gets in there, it's just like so much, right? He puts so much energy into everything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That sometimes it leaves openings for guys to take him down and hold him down. And if I'm a guy fighting him, I'm like, bro, I'm... I don't want to give this guy any distance or any room to do anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. I, we literally like do this in the gym where it's like, all right, let's do 20 pushups and then just hand fight for, for three minutes. And then we start sparring. It's like little stuff like that. Cause that's when you get lactic acid in your arms. You're tired. Now let's see you throw punches right now. And it'll stop people from actually like throwing hard at practice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And all of them, they've been different, right? Like with Deshaun Brady, all I did was stand up. I didn't shoot one takedown on him. Gilbert Burns, I didn't shoot one takedown. Wonderboy, I took him down. Obviously, I'm not going to strike with a kickboxer. So I've showed you guys all forms of martial arts. And people still hate it. They're still hating. So crazy. Even with the Leon fight.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It'll make you want to conserve your energy and stuff. But yeah, that feeling when you're in there and you can't lift up your arms, like, Damian Maia shot on me like 30 times. And it's the third round. I was like, bro, my arms are like dead right now. So if he does take me down, I'm going to be in a bad spot because my arms are so heavy. Damian Maia. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
People keep forgetting, man. They do keep forgetting.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He got totally fucked. But that's crazy, right? Because a lot of the fights could change off of one ref or one judge could change the whole thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
They'd be like a top ten. I mean, even Leon against Kamaru, too, when Kamaru was on top of him and the ref stood him up because the crowd was booing, right? And then he got head kicked.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It's like, bro, he's on top of him the whole five rounds, but now you want him to stand him up because the crowd's booing right now.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, and it's the hardest thing to get somebody down and figure it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It's crazy because it's the first round. Even if the crowd's booing, it's like, bro, he just got to this spot this early.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I mean, when we saw him against Kobe and him against Usman, the third fight, we saw that he's an expert at distance. He manages the distance. He puts it at his own pace. So we were like, bro, we got to make this the dirtiest fight, the hardest fight for him. So we got to step right away.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, you want him to make the mistake. Travesty. Yeah, now that I look at that, I'm like, that's wild.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
yeah just thinking back to like all your ups and downs yeah just looking at the journey in general and you're like why did this happen or why did that happen especially after a lot i'm a terrible loser so you're like why is this happening to me but then now that i look back at it thinking about the stuff that i changed and then i started doing this more i started fixing this and now it just like made me the fighter i am today and it's like i'm glad those downs happen because now the ups feel so good and
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Nobody could take that away, right? The mountain I climbed was way higher than anybody else climbed. It was a lot harder than anybody else climbed.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So even when the ref was looking to me, telling me to back up, when he looked at Leon and said, you ready, you ready? I'm walking forward right away. So I'm right in his face before he even looks up. So I was like, I got to get him on his back foot right away, make him uncomfortable. And I knew he's not good uncomfortable. No striker's really good moving backwards. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. And like you said, people forget how good he was. These new age fans, they've never seen him before. They never saw him fight. They forget. They're like, oh, he's going to fight for a losing streak.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It's not possible. Habib said it from the beginning, right? He said, you're always going to lose. There's a time for your thing. He said it about Kamaru. He said it about Tony Ferguson. He said, these guys, they're going to learn the hard way. And for me, he said, if I stayed in, I'd probably end up losing sometime. I don't think he would lose, but yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He said, you're thinking, I could still go with him. And I'm looking at this guy like, bro, you could be the heavyweight champion right now. It's like nuts. What does he weigh now? I think he's probably like 200 because he rolls –
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
consistently with everybody and he always says i have to jog 30 minutes a day he always on a treadmill at least 30 minutes but just like him and grappling it's wild because i just be like it was when i first got the fight uh announced from dana white i was over there in new jersey training with islam for for his fight when he was uh fighting poirier and then like they announced it and i'm like habib's like oh come with me over here train and then he just
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
killing me like literally like throwing me around and i'm just like getting murdered then my coach tells me i hey you see dana way to announce you got the title fight and i'm looking at myself like really all right all right what's crazy is he's still in his prime yeah that's what's crazy like he get out 29 and oh in his prime it's like i'm done i made a promise to my mom and do it on top no injuries nobody does that nobody does that
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Only the greats, right? I mean, GSP did it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
You know? Yeah. I think a lot of these fighters, they need the time off, but they don't take it. And they try to rush back in after losses. And it just adds up. You see it with Tony Ferguson. Prime example. I think after that Gaethje fight, that should have been time off. That should have been like... All right, let me take a year off, not do nothing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But you want to rush back in there, and then all of a sudden the losses start adding up. Your body's taking damage.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But I knew Leon specifically, I don't want to be in his kick range. I don't want him at his slow pace like he did against Kobe and these guys where he kicks, moves, kicks, moves. I'm like, I'm going to be in his face nonstop, punching him in his mouth, and taking him down whenever I see an opening.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
You're looking for that one point where at least a coach, family, or somebody tells them, you're done. Maybe you want to end on a winning note.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I'm done. Yeah. But Ward, I think. Even, like I said, in the commentary, the way he breaks stuff down. His new book was so good. Just him, it's like hearing his stories. Wow. Yes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I can see them just offering it. Let me just go on my bank account. I'll just give you that check real quick. Saudi Arabia guy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I mean, I think Kobe sucks, but... For me, I think that Kobe wasn't... He's just not a good striker. Even with the fights that we see that he was really good at, it was just because he put a good pace on all these guys. And he dictated the pace with RDA and Robbie Lawler, all these guys. But none of those guys really had that type of cardio. When we saw him against Usman...
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
step up you know like that there's very few guys that keep that power as they keep going up and up and up in weight it's just and there's so many weight classes in boxing right yeah you could be like i said if for canelo and him it's the fight that makes sense so for him he's like i need to find the biggest fight and it's all right let me move up a couple more pounds here yeah and then you think it's not a big jump but those pounds make a difference
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Very dangerous. There's always somebody coming, right? Right behind you. And these guys who've been at the top so long, you're like, all right, let me get somebody that's on my level. Canelo. Yeah. He's been in the game just as long as me. And all right, let's just do this for his paycheck and then move on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I mean, that's the Jon Jones effect with Stipe, right? Not a lot of people know where Aspinall is yet. I mean, the real fans know him, but everybody knows Stipe, right? Everybody knows he was one of the greatest heavyweights to ever do it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Usman showed you, all right, he could keep up that pace with Kobe, and then Kobe can't take him down. So it ended up being like a kickboxing match. For Leon, he knew if he dictated the pace with Kobe, Kobe wasn't going to be able to do anything to him. And I don't think the time off, I think, hurt Kobe's distance management because his shot takedowns were terrible in that fight. Like, he didn't...
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
You don't know if he comes as a different version himself. What if he's been working on some stuff and he – Yes. I mean, if he knows he's fighting Jon Jones, and he probably knew probably for the last year and a half, I'm just studying one guy for a year and a half just focused on him. Exactly. It changes a lot of stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I think that was his biggest mistake, right?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
When you're just getting put out cold like that. And especially, he probably cut a lot of weight to get to that point. Because he looked kind of flabby in that Islam fight. So you're taking a fight on a 10 days notice. There's not a lot of guys that are around their weight class anyway. So they're cutting a lot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Then you have to go, all right, now I'm going to fight Islam, who's number one pound for pound. And then that head kick.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I would say at least minimum like 185, 190. Get the fuck out of here. He's 210 pounds. That guy's 250 pounds. His strength feels like 250 pounds. That's what I hear. But that's the thing with them. They're always training. No matter what they're doing, they always at least run once a day or grapple.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, and he's tall. He's lengthy, and he has power. He could go up to 70 easily, I think.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I think people just assume that all he's going to do is wrestle. But then when you see him go in there and outstrike somebody, he even boxed with Poirier. He had some really good hands in there with him. And people are like, oh, wait, he can strike too. But his grappling is just as good.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I was just bringing that up when I talk about Dan Hooker. He just went to war with Gamrot. Exactly. And Islam just took him down and tapped him out within the first two or three minutes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Because it looked like he was going to break his fucking arm apart. It's so funny because Habib will get guys in there and he's the type that will grapple and just have a conversation as he's grappling. But he had Ali and Kimora and he's laughing and Ali's tapping. And he's just like, brother, give me coffee. And he's just like, I'm like, bro, I think you're going to break his arm at some point.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That's a terrible break too, that spiral break. It's the worst. And I'm like, they're so strong and it's like effortless with them. Their bodies move crazy.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, especially because Leon's so good at his lateral movement. And his kicks hurt so hard. So for me, I was like, I can't be in kicking range at all. I think I felt like one body kick early, and I was like, alright, let me step forward on it. So even with my mindset the whole camp, I probably took...
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That's the scary part about the whole thing. It's so scary.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then you have guys that are crazy enough to keep fighting after that. Yeah, they don't give a fuck. With a broken arm.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I hate leg locks in general. Even at practice, I'll tell you guys, if you're going to put leg locks on, I'm just going to tap. I'm not even going to play.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
two to three thousand body kicks and then move forward on each of them and if i backed up at all my coach is yelling at me look what you did here you did this wrong move forward move forward we can't take one step back so i was like i was writing it down i was putting in my head do not take a step back do not take a step back and then it just came out in the fight it came out perfect it was a master plan it really was watching you execute it i was i was just so i was so shocked first of all's inability to deal with you on the feet
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Killer. Killer. Did you watch that million-dollar tournament with Craig Jones? I did. Yeah, I did. That one match was really good in the semifinals with them two kids.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I'm just imagining guys like MVP and Wonderboy. To be able to catch those guys in a basketball court would be wild. Hard. Sean O'Malley. Yeah, hard.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I think people just underestimate me when they look at me because they say, oh, he doesn't have a bunch of knockouts. But when you look at my fights and you see the way I pieced up a lot of these big names like Gilbert and Sean Brady, I beat them both on the feet. And for the Leon fight, My gym is small, but we have... I work with, I think, who's the best striker in the UFC right now?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
You got to wait till the round's over. Bro, when we grapple, the round will be over with and he'll still be going. And he's like, no, brother, you have to get up. And I'm just like, bro, I can't. The bell rang, bro. You got to get up. That's what I mean. It'll just stay on top of you. It'll be like a 15-minute round. It'll be just like nonstop. It's wild.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I think he still only has less than five fights in the UFC. He's still... Yeah, he's incredible. Starting.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, 100%. Like, the way he did – like, Sanhagen's one of my favorite fighters. He's so good. To see how good Umar did against them and didn't have really any moments of difficulty in there. And I was like, he's elite.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Just put him and Chad Mendes in a room and just have him duke it out. Do a best body contest. The votes are like takes.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He's a 55er, Ignacio Balmondes. Like, this kid is a monster. He probably has, like... Monster. You saw, yeah, his spinning heel kick knockout. I'm like... Dangerous dude. I'm sparring with this dude every single day. So I'm like, nothing that Leon was going to throw at me was going to surprise me. Nothing was going to make me uncomfortable. Mm-hmm.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then when you're thinking about, was the EPO just because of the weight cut? That's what he said. Right. But then you think if he was using it beforehand, how good Cody Nolove was before he fought him. And after him beating Dominic Cruz, that was like the best performance I've ever seen in my life. And then he goes and gets knocked out by him. And if he says... Because he was on EPO.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And it's like, that changed your whole career. It does.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And for me, if you're beating me up, I want to keep going to you. So for Nacho, I'm like, bro, throw the kitchen sink at me. I want you to throw everything you have in your tool bag at me. So whatever Leon throws, I'm just going to be comfortable in that fire. So for me, it was just nonstop, nonstop sparring, sparring, sparring.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
We were just – I was talking to a guy yesterday about weight cutting. We were at the sushi spot, Sushi by Scratch. And then the sushi guy who was rolling it, he was like, I used to be a weight cutter in high school when I was a wrestler. And I had to have heart surgery because I was cutting weight since I was six years old. My dad would make me cut weight. And I was like –
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
that'll change your whole life because you started cutting yet that young and he's like bro i had so many issues problems from there and it was just wrestling he said i wasn't even grappling or anything i was just wrestling since a kid my dad just made me cut weight since i was a kid it was like 109 pounds like 90 pounds and i was like why are you cutting weight that young it's so bad for you yeah it stunts your growth does a lot of wild shit to your body make your kidneys fail
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And it just burns you out in general if you go to fighting after that. Exactly. And you've been cutting weight since that long. Now you're a fighter. Now you have to cut weight. Right. Every single fighter, I think, has like an eating disorder or two now after. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Me, like, I get around to, like, 190, and then when I'm in fight camp and I'm training, I'm walking around at 185. Oh, that's not bad at all. Yeah, but I keep a chef with me for, like, this last five weeks. Ian Larios, he's been with, like, DC, Kane, and all them guys, and he lives in my house for five weeks, and I tell people... It changes your life.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Like you, you train so much better off it because he's giving you the right food to eat. Right. Before I would sit there when I'm cutting my own myself, I was like, I'm not going to have breakfast. I'm just going to go to the gym and train. Now I'm waking up and he's giving me like potatoes and eggs. And I'm like, bro, I can't have carbs. What are you giving me these for?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Bro, you're not going to train. You're not going to have a good workout unless you had this stuff. So there's no thought process with me. He just gives me everything, my shakes, my food, and then I come home from practice and then he has lunch on the table. Then I come home after another session and he has dinner on the table.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Even if it's not hard sparring, light sparring, just enough to see everything and have my reaction time. And I think that helps a lot with the way I've been fighting lately.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. I hate looking at the scale. So like he'll make me stop on the scale and it'd be five weeks. I was like, bro, no, we're not. We still have like five more weeks. Get on the scale so I won't look at it. So he'll look at it right in his phone and then he'll just keep tracking it the whole time. That's an eating disorder. It is. Yeah, man. You wouldn't even look at it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I was like, bro, I don't even want to look at it because then it just – It tells me, like, oh, man, I got to do this or I got to do that more. But it'll make me push that much harder at practice. But I'm like, I'm going to push hard anyway for the fight. But I think mentally I just hate scales. I won't step on a scale until I have a fight. Yo, nobody's got an eating disorder like Patty.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And he's tough in general. Yep. Those guys... When you hit a guy and he's still standing in front of you, it makes you want to shoot on him. Because I'm looking at Bobby like, why would you shoot a takedown on Petty? I feel like this is the only way of beating you is to catch you in a submission.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. Yeah. But it just makes you uncomfortable. So he shot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
The crowd in Manchester, when Petty walks out, it's like nuts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, over there, it's crazy. When I was sitting in the back, we were sitting in the back warming up, and then we just hear the people going nuts. And my family texted me like, man, I wish we were fighting so I could just enjoy this right now and watch Petty walk out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That was the hardest part, right? The lead up because it was after beating Gilbert, they were like, you're guaranteed next. And then you're like, when is it happening? They're like, well, Colby has to fight first. So then I'm sitting there and playing the waiting game. And then they offered me Usman. They're like, well, you know, if you don't want to wait, we can give you Usman.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He's at the point where I think one more, especially because of his name, if he gets like a hooker or a Chandler and he gets past one of them guys, I see them giving him a toe shot.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I would, but for money-wise, and I think he's about the big name, especially if the UFC, when you're thinking of lightweight, Oliveira just lost, Gaethje just lost, Hooker already lost to Islam. If Islam gets past Armond, there's... I mean, if McGregor comes back and he beats Chandler, he's there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But, like, there's not a lot of names right now for Islam because Gamrot was supposed to be the backup, and he just lost to Hooker. But Islam walked through Hooker. So you're like, who is Islam going to fight after Armand?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Even in this fight, his face was bleeding in between rounds, and he's like, I love this stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, and that's the hardest part too because you get caught and you don't really feel anything afterward. It's not like you went through a war or injury. So you want to hop right back into it. You're like, let me get that up, taste it in my mouth. Let me fight again. But you need the coaches around you to tell you, you still got a concussion. Chill out. Don't fight. Take a couple months off.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Gaethje's taking a year off. And it's like you need those guys to hold you back because I've been knocked out before and it's like – I'm all right. I feel good. My body feels good. I don't have no scratches or anything. I didn't go through a 15-minute war. So I'm like, let me get another fight. Let me get another fight. But you don't know what's going on in your brain.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So we were at talks with Usman. And then Usman ended up fighting Hamza on short notice. So then I was like, all right, well, there's nothing else they can put in front of me. It's going to be me against the winner of Kobe and Leon. Then that fight happens. And then Leon's trying to brush it off like crazy. Nah, there's still other guys I could look at and see who's next.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
You don't know what your brain is dealing with. And that's going to be your future right there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And even taking the Paquita fight. He had a torn Achilles. And I think he just got cleared to come back from that Achilles. And it's like, right now you've got to fight Alex in six weeks. Yeah. And I'm like, bro, that's a short camp. And you're switching up right away. But he's like, 300 is such a big opportunity. You can't say no to that. Yeah. And then, yeah, you get knocked out by Paquita.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And you're like... I want to get right back in there. But your right back in there is going to be against a monster like Roundtree. I know. I know. It's not an easy fight. It's funny because he was on your show and I'm like listening to him and he's like, I may do a jiu-jitsu tournament. And then I'm like, a week later he gets a title fight. Yeah, I know. You're telling him no.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And he even brought up Gilbert Burns. And I'm like, bro, I just beat Gilbert Burns. So I'm sitting there in limbo. Like, what's happening? I'm calling my manager every day. And Ali's my manager. And he's like, bro, trust me. Dana's not going to go against his word. He's going to give you the shot. He's going to give you the shot. And then all of a sudden, 300 comes up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I'm like, this guy is nuts. And I'm like, so I went to my coach and I'm like, what kind of low kick was he doing? He was like, I think he was just going shin to shin. He was. It's like, I'm not going to teach that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But if I'm ahead, I like, I'm going to pick all the strikers. Like, him and Rountree is going to be a crazy one.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I remember he was in Abu Dhabi and... He got kneed while he was down and then the doctor came in and he said, who are you? And he said, desert. And the doctor stopped it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And he has a knockout, a huge knockout against Johnny Walker last.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yuri is like the new age Tony Ferguson where you hit me, I'm going to hit you with five other punches. And it's going to make you tired of just hitting me. And I'm going to catch you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I want to feel his low kick just because I'm like, bro, what does he do? Like he just touches, it feels like he just like touches you with his foot and it's just like, you can't walk afterward.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I'm like, oh, so we're probably going to be 300. And then they say, oh, they offered to fight to three other guys. And I was one of those guys. So then, like... I'm sitting there like, bro, wait. No way am I about to get screwed right now. Are they going to give it to somebody else?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I feel like he's on every pay-per-view now. Yeah, man. Hey, we need somebody to put the bat symbol out there. And he's like, all right, I'm ready.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And he just, like, touches it, though. It feels like, bro, what is that?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That left hook is the sleeper. It'd be like 5,000. Bro.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And when you're starting to see his personality come out now more, it's so fun. Because Glover's like the nicest guy in the world. And at first, Alex was like so quiet. And now you're starting to see Glover pull it out of him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I'd be thinking to myself, I've got to come up with some sort of shtick like that. I've got to figure out something. I can't think of anything. It would just look fake.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But that's the coolest thing in the world. Whenever I'm in one of his fights, to see that walk out.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Bro, I hate seeing that one just because Jamal's my boy. Obviously, I'm a fan of Peta, but man, to see him just catch my boy, I'm like, come on, Jamal. Give one back just to get that taste out of our mouth.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
For me, it was just – I put it out there. I said if they really wanted Leon to fight there, they would have put me on there because I said yes. They said they asked Islam. They said they asked Shavka. They said they asked Hamza. And they all said no because of Ramadan. But I fought multiple times during Ramadan. So for me, I'm like if they really wanted Leon – They could have had him with me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He does everything for a reason. And then when you see somebody break it down like that, like you said, everything changes. Imagine if he didn't. Imagine if the ref said, all right, you back up, you back up. Yep. Yep, everything changes. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I think it opened up a lot of fighters' eyes, too, right? Because you're starting to see these little things. For me now, I'm like, no, if the ref tells me something, I'm either taking one step back myself or I'm going to take that step forward and catch that Perreira distance myself. You just can't relax ever.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. The Korean zombie, Yair. Oh, my God. Uppercut elbow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
What was this? Running away, uppercut elbow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
yeah that's my mindset i like i always tell myself i'm behind because i got started late so i'm like i didn't do martial arts since i was a kid so like i always got to tell myself oh we got to do everything there's not like one thing that i'm like amazing at right but people see the fight and they're like oh all you are is a wrestler all you are is this and that i was like bro i do everything and i train everything more than everybody else and i i like i don't take any days off how old were you when you first started training
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I did like two years of high school wrestling.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I mean, yeah, I always played sports in general. I love basketball.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
No, I mean, I would always get in, like, street fights in, like, Chicago just because I'm a trash talker when I play basketball. So, like, we would always sit there and go to the park, and then people would see, like, who are these A-Raps coming to play basketball? And then we'll be winning, and I'm talking trash. And then, like, they want to start a fight afterward. So it was always the best.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But I think they just wanted to have that shock factor with 300, where it's like, oh, double champ status for Islam. Or Hamzat's obviously a huge star. He comes back down. So I think they just wanted that. And Leon's not a promoter. He doesn't really promote his fights in general. Obviously, he's a great fighter. But for 300, I think they want somebody that's going to try to push the event.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
What made you start training? My high school wrestling coach, Lewis Taylor, he was, like, the PFL middleweight champion. He was in my high school wrestling coach for two years. And then he like left. And so I'm like, whatever happened to him? He was like that cool coach, that young coach. And he was like gone. So I stopped wrestling. And then I was at school. I was trying to be like a lawyer.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I ended up seeing him in a newspaper. He was fighting in Strikeforce. So then I just, like, messaged him on Facebook. And I was like, bro, you're a fighter? And he's like, yeah. I was like, whatever happened to you? He's like, oh, I was still young. I still had something left in me. So I wanted to start training. Wow. And he used to be, like, Rampage's roommate in college.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So he already had, like, that mindset of, like, oh, these guys are fighting. I can fight, too. Right, right, right. So then his gym ended up being probably, like, 10 minutes away from my mom's house. So when I come home from school on the weekends, I'll just start training with him. And then it was just like a snowball effect. I started like falling in love with it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And after my first amateur fight, after like two months, I was like, could I get a fight? It was like two months. Yeah. Because I was just like excited about the whole thing. And for us two, it was like we were only training partners. So I'm training with him. Like, I'm learning the hard way. Like, we're just going straight sparring or straight wrestling. And he was, like, a Division I wrestler.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He had crazy power, crazy jiu-jitsu. So, like, I'm getting good just because he's beating me up the whole time. So then I'm like, oh, I can fight amateur. And he's like, yeah, let's go. Get you one. Wow. Yeah. So then I got it. It was, like, the biggest street fight in the world, the amateur fight. There was, like, nothing good about it, my technique or anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But it's funny because Mark Coleman was a commentator for it. Oh, wow. Yeah. It was like the whole scenario was crazy. And it was like I had a bar and it was just like, cool. So then after that, I was like, bro, I transferred to like a closer school near the gym. I started training more with them. And then, you know, my parents are telling me, like, stay in school, stay in school.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So then once I started just like getting more wins, more wins, and I decided to go pro, I said, I'll go back to school after I lose. And then we just kept going until we got to the UFC. Wow. Yeah, it was wild. He's still with me now to this day. But even with him, he was 41 years old, and they never gave him a UFC shot. But he ended up going to PFL, and he was like a 1,200 underdog.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And he won the million dollars in 30 seconds with a knockout.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, he was fighting Abus, the one that's in the UFC now. They were in the finals. He beat Abus? He beat Abus, 30-second knockout. Wow.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
yeah and he was 41 years old never got a shot and it's crazy how his career ended like that middleweight champion retired on top now million dollars and there's a lot of guys that go to the UFC that don't hit a million dollars that's true so he's like my path was that way so even with me when I was doing all this waiting for this title fight he's like patience it's gonna come like you saw what I had to go through your title fight's gonna come it's gonna come at the right moment so just enjoy the journey can you find that fight see if you can find that fight Jamie Lewis Taylor
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. And it's crazy because they got rid of the middleweight division after this. So now they don't have middleweight there anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Because they wanted to put the women's division, the 55ers. So they got rid of the middleweight guys.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And it's like a boost was even blocking it, too. Like, he just has crazy power.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. I mean, for me, I'm like, what else do I got to do?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
When people go back and look at his record, he had like 10 first-round finishes on his come-up. But like the UFC just said, he was too old. They never gave him a shot. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. And I was like, bro, if people just saw him. And even when he started his career, like I said, I was like one of his main training partners from the beginning.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
If he was like an American top team or like a real gym because he had kids early. So he didn't want to like leave them. So he always trained in Chicago. And he's like, I'm going to build up my own guys. So we had like a small gym, like three or four guys that he just used as the main training partners.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But that's the age we live in, right? I know. The troll age. Nobody has a profile picture. They just say the dumbest stuff.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. I tell people that, like, bro, mitts doesn't show anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
God kissed his physique. Imagine you're at a smoke, you're a 13-year-old, and you see that guy. What the fuck? Oh, you got to fight him. You're like, wait, what?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
At 19 years old on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That sounds, coming out of his voice would be like.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And he's actually training. He's getting better. People are just sleeping on him just because he's a YouTuber. But I'm like, he just beat Mike Perry, who was killing it in bare-knuckle boxing. He was on top, but they don't want to give credit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And just the scarring on your knuckles and your faces after that. Yeah. Your face is getting sliced open. But they're starting to pay these guys. When you see guys like Eddie Alvarez and Chad Mendes go over there, you're like... Yeah. Mike McGregor, like, an owner part of it now, too.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But... McGregor's grinding though after Mike Perry lost and he said, yeah, I'm cutting it out. Like, bro, who just tweeted? I wonder if this guy tweeted for himself.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Like, I wouldn't even be watching it if Mike Perry wasn't on there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It's wild, the differences. Even when we're sparring with big gloves or sparring with smaller gloves that we have, it's like it changes everything. Changes everything. Yeah. But even no patting on your knuckles, you don't even want to throw as hard. Right. Yeah. Right. And your wrist will break easily, so you have to punch a specific way.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I think they all have a different format of the way they punch. They just hold their wrist in a... A different way like this or something like that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And it's two guys that are on 10 fight winning streaks.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. When we were younger, we would do that. Like we're going to punch somebody in the knee or something like that. We'd put that knuckle out there. I just think how stupid it was. But, I mean, you could use a bare knuckle. You could definitely use an eyeball.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Has there been eye pokes in a lot of eye pokes in their fighting? That's a good question. I don't remember any. Yeah, like I haven't really even thought about that, but I don't feel like there has.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It should be trained. Like even at our practice, if somebody's putting their fingers out, I tell them, like, yo, close your fist. That should be like a natural. It shouldn't be even thought. It shouldn't even be a habit.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And that's one of those, too, where you're like... Same thing. Bro. Right. But then I'm, like, annoyed by Weidman because I'm like, bro, you did poke him in the eye, but he's saying, like, oh, he shouldn't have felt like that. I'm like, bro, when you get poked in the eye that bad... Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I mean, I understand how hard it is for a ref. Even with stopping fights. Sure. Looking at somebody... Who was this weekend? Gerald Mearshard, where he was getting...
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
beat up and then all of a sudden he caught up with the submission after that you're like some refs would have stopped the fight in that round so it's like the good refs that give you a longer leash and then the shorter refs that Dominic Cruz you and Dominic Cruz hates you for the rest of your life because you stop a fight too early who did Jared Cannoneer get stopped by who was his Jared not the last fight but the fight before that that was a bad stoppage
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And if you beat Imalov, you're in title contention again because he was on a streak, but now you're on a two-fight losing streak.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And there's some fighters that just look bad. And they make it look, just because the body movement's weird. Right. I mean, Driscus always looks like he's dead tired and dead in there, and all of a sudden he comes back and wins a fight. But there's just guys that just don't have that good look all the time, even when they're taking punches.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It's just awkward. He just moved so awkwardly. Awkward.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He has so much heart. Even when he started taking those bad shots, when he was shooting, he was on his knees, and I was like, oh, he's about to break. And then all of a sudden, you see him still have a lot left in the tank.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. For me, I thought, does he look like he got a lot tired faster than he normally does? And I was like, he looked like he put a lot more muscle on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So that could have been a key in it where his body wasn't used to moving like that. Maybe. With the extra muscle. But I was like, bro, he's moving a lot slower than usual in this third round.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, my mindset. Is this going around?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
In general, camps, you get so injured in camps. It's like the hardest thing. Even if a fight's quick, people don't realize that I just had an eight-week camp of nonstop training. You get more injuries in training camp than you do in the fight.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Um, it's funny. I was, uh, I was in Australia and I was fighting Tim Beans and then me and my coach were in the back warming up. And then, uh, we ended up going like knee to knee in the back during the warmup. And, like, I couldn't put my knee down to the ground after that. And it was, like, before the fight. So I was like, what the heck? I thought we just clashed knees. So it was, like, sore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So, like, even in the fight, it just felt weird. So then after the fight, we went. And I still couldn't put my knee down to the floor for, like, two or three weeks. And then I ended up tearing my – it was a torn meniscus. Oh, wow. Yeah. But, like – Right before the fight. Right before the fight. We just, like, clashed knee to knee.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And it's – like you said, it's so much random stuff that could happen to you. Yeah. Because I like to spar in the back before my fights. Really? I like to feel it. So I'll have them put the shin guards on, headgear, and I'm throwing a lot harder than them. But I want to feel that so I can feel the distance. So I want to go out to the fight like it's my third or fourth round. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Because I usually start slow when I'm at practice. But in the fight, I want it to be going right away. And I have cardio for it. So I want to feel like it's the third round already when I go out there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. Some guys like to hit mitts. But for me, I like to spar. So I have my training partner come down there with me. And then you got to have a controlled guy that's not going to hurt you. But, yeah, we just go in the back. We throw. Wow. Yeah, we're throwing. So he'll have big gloves on. And, like, I get to the point where I hit me because I want to feel it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, it was wild. Like we got down there the week before on Saturday and, you know, we're trying, we found a gym. So we're like, let's start trying to work out at 4 a.m. Because being the main event, they said it'll probably be on around like 5, 5.30. So the hardest part was just trying to stay up from midnight to 4 a.m. to go drive to this gym. And, you know, we had like a big house.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So even in this fight with Leon, he threw, like – 50 kicks at me hard at the back. So I wanted to go out there like, all right, my arms feel it, my legs feel it. And my body's already gonna adjust to it. Yeah. That's so risky. It's risky. But I'm like, I'm about to go in a fight anyway. And once you get that adrenaline,
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
like you don't really feel nothing and I'll feel it afterward but like the biggest risk is just a headbutt or like catching your blood or something like that so that's why I make him wear a headgear and you know like I said you have to have the perfect training partner for it where he's gonna throw the right stuff at you he's there for you yeah he's not really sparring he's there for you yeah if I tell you hit me right here hard he'll hit me here hard but it's not like we're not gonna just sit there and bang in the back right wow who else does it that way
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I don't know. For us, we caught ourselves doing it. I feel like I'm one of the first guys to start doing it that I know. And then I'll start telling my other teammates when I go corner them, like, let's do the same thing. And they'll like it, too. But, yeah, there's not a lot of guys that just – I know a lot of guys that just like hitting mitts.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then you go out there, and then you start a lot slower. But for me, I'm like, bro, we're going to fight. I don't need to hit miss right now. I'd rather feel you throwing punches at me so I catch distance. So I look at the punches coming at me, and then I know where I'm backing up, where I'm not backing up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, because even when I spar, I'm sparring like five or six rounds regardless. So I know I can go five rounds easy in the cage, especially with that extra adrenaline. So if I do those extra two rounds in the back, it's not going to affect me.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. The mindset is the hardest thing, right? To get locked in. Because when I first started fighting, I was like, I'm another guy. I don't like to curse. But then I was like, I was telling myself, I got to listen to rap music. I got to curse as I'm in the back. And I'm like trying to hit myself to hide myself up. But because I feel like I'm too calm.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But my coach is like, bro, that's that's a good thing. Like you being calm is good for you. You don't have to sit there and be something you're not. So then I was like, all right, well, let's stay calm. But then let's start adding inspiring. So now I feel that. So I'll just get it. So it was your idea. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Because you try different things at practices and I'd be like, all right, when did I feel good at sparring? I'll take notes of everything. I felt good on this bar day. And I did this type of drilling beforehand. And where I did this type of warmup beforehand. Cause my coach, he's like, he tries to mimic the fight with everything. So he'll tell us, I warm up on your own, do your own thing.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Then we're going to get your five sparring rounds in a cage. So for me, I'm trying to adjust to make my style. This helped me better today. What did I eat today? Let me write that down. This is when I felt the best. I had the most energy doing this. I had the most energy eating this. So now I got it down to a system that I like more than anything.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Before I train? Yeah, what's the stuff that makes you feel the best? Like white rice. Usually my guy will make me white rice, eggs, and turkey bacon. So it's protein with good carbs. Not heavy. Not heavy, yeah. Something that's easy to digest. Something that I digest fast, yeah. Like I said before, I would just think I have to starve myself.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then he came in and he was like, oh, like, what are you doing? Like, you're not going to have good practices with this way. But my mind said, I don't really care because I was just like, I know how to push myself no matter what.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So we had a bunch of people with us. But one person yawns and it's like addictive. And it's like, bro, it's midnight. We're all just like watching Netflix. And then we didn't have no games or anything, so we were just trying to watch movies. Wow. And then one guy yawns, and you're like, I'm going to go upstairs by myself for a second.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I've had multiple times, multiple camps during it where I would still stick to my normal schedule of training where I'll train at 10.30 a.m. And I can't eat or drink in the morning. So I wake up at 5 a.m. for our morning prayer. You get your last sip of water before the sun rises.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then I'll have like a protein shake, a date or something like that that will give me some energy for the morning. And then at 10 a.m. I have my morning practice. And then I have another practice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
No water or food. Yeah. So after the first three or four days, your body just adjusts. It feels good, honestly, because it makes you feel... Mentally, you're in a different place. Spiritually, you're in a different place in general because it's Ramadan. That's where, for any Muslim, that's the best time because you're not stressing out about other things. And you know that you're doing it for God.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And God's going to give you the strength to push through no matter what. So for myself... For the reasons I'm doing it, I know I can push through. And I know that whoever I'm training for is not doing what I'm doing. So I can push myself harder than them when it gets into the cage, when I can't drink, when I can't eat. So I think mentally it just puts me in a different place.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But for fight camps, like after it's time to break my fast, when the sun sets, that's when I have to be the smartest. That's where I got to put the carbs in, a lot of protein in, and then I got to make sure I'm getting my electrolytes, my salts, and just getting all the fluids back in like I just finished cutting weight. Right.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Because if I don't do it the right way, then the next morning I'll be screwed. Right. Because I'll feel super drained.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. So like every night I'm treating it like a weight cut. I have my shakes, have my protein that I'm getting in the right way. And I try to hit a certain, at least a gallon and a half of water before bedtime. Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, and then I said after first your body honestly just figures it out like but you would you wouldn't want to defend the title that way No, no Like I've before I was trying to chase everything right I was trying to chase that the next ranked guy I was trying to chase this and I felt like I couldn't say no to anything right because I was always looking for These guys say yes, and I can't waste an opportunity but now
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I am the opportunity. Now I am the champion. So now I feel like it gives me more leeway to be like, no, I want to wait a little bit longer. This one feels better for me. My body's healthy now because it took me so long to get here. So now I don't have to go through a camp during Ramadan for it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And then just like, the PI is really good because they gave us some jet lag glasses that shine light in your eyes that you're supposed to turn on right when the sun sets. Because when the sun sets, you start getting melatonin in your body, and it makes you want to go to sleep. So they put this on when the sun sets, so it shocks your body, making you think it's about to be sunlight.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That's the hard part right now is because, like you said, for me, I hate saying no in general just because I have the fighter mentality. I ain't scared. I'll say yes to anything. The Gilbert Burns fight, it was three weeks notice. It was during Ramadan, and they were like, you win. Do it for the fans that just bought their ticket to their first event.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I was like, yeah, I do want to do it for those fans. I'm not afraid of Gilbert. And Gilbert started chirping on Twitter like, oh, he's afraid. He doesn't want to fight. So then I'm like, I do want to fight. I'm not afraid of you. So then I say, yeah, no matter what. Then it's like, I'm thinking to myself, bro, I'm on a nine fight winning streak. I'm taking this fight on three weeks notice.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Why did I do this? I'm stupid. Like if I lose, I'm back in the line again. I was one fight away. Now if I lose this fight, I'm done. But yeah, it changes like your mindset. But like fighters are dumb. Like we just want the glory no matter what. I want to prove – for me, I want to prove everybody wrong.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, afterward, right? Yeah, what? And those are the guys that, like, for me as a fighter, if I lose, I lost. That's it. I hate guys who come up with a million excuses afterward because then, like, for the guy that won, it's like people are not going to give him credit for that win. And then for me, like, when I lost my fight, it was like, all right, I got to change this. I lost. That's it.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Like, that was always my mindset. Don't give excuses. If we're going into a fight injured, we accepted it injured. That's it. That's it. Put it out of your head. Because if you go in there overthinking about it, like, oh, I got an injured ankle or I got an injured rib. No, I should never took this fight in between rounds. You never want to second guess yourself in the fight.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And for me, I just try to clear my head of anything. Once we said yes, our name's on the contract. That's it. We're all in.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Those are the ones that I hear mostly. I think, like you said, for legacy-wise, Usman is obviously the bigger name. And he was the guy that Dana said was the best welterweight behind GSP or in front of GSP. But for boogeyman-wise and to shut up the naysayers, I think it's Shavkat. Because he is undefeated. He is the guy that everybody thinks is this killer. And then for myself, it's like...
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Either one of them does a lot for me. Usman, obviously, would probably be bigger pay-per-view numbers. And then beating him, my resume is up there with GSP. Because then I have Usman on my resume, Leon, Maya, Wonderboy, all these big-name guys, Gilbert Burns, Brady. And it's like, look at that resume. It's neck-and-neck with his. But Shotgun's also that.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So I'm walking around the house with like these glasses that are like shining light in my eyes. And it still was hard. We would jump to the gym.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
this young guy is going to come out here and beat you. Right after being Leon. Everybody comments, oh, you can't do the shotgun, though. Shotgun will kill you. And my chip on my shoulder is like, all right, let's go. I'm going to prove you guys wrong. Now I'm going to show you guys what I can do. Because for me, I...
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Like you said with BJ Penn where it was like the strength conditioning was his whole camp that one. For us, we strategize everything. My coach is so good at breaking down stuff. We're so good at breaking down fighters that I have a game plan for everybody and a strategy for every single one of these fighters. And I already have a strategy for Shavkat.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I already have a strategy for Usman because I was chasing him so long. And I've been watching tape on these guys for so long. So I don't see anything from either one of them to where I'm looking at him like, I'm afraid of this guy because of this. I'm afraid of this guy because of that. I think Usman's a tougher fight than Shotgun, if I'm being honest.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But I do see many ways where I could beat them both. Because there's a lot of guys in the division that have to fight a certain way. They're specialists. Whether they're grapplers or strikers. I could strike with you. I could grab with you. I could wrestle with you. I could move laterally. I could move forward. Every time you see me in the cage, it's something different.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I think that that comes from my team and the strategy that we bring to fighting. We look at it like a real sport instead of, all right, I'm in shape. Let's go fight. We look at it as like, what's this guy's weakest point? Oh, Leon can't move backwards? Let's move him backwards. Gilbert Burns, he can't take you down. He's going to gas out. He's not going to take me down.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Let's beat him up on the feet a little bit. Brady, he's only good on the ground. All right, let's strike with him. It's like I look at guys and I look at fights in a different way than a lot of these other fighters where some of these guys... Let's go in there. I see red. I don't care what happens.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
It's three in the morning. We went to go work out. So I'm trying to get everybody to work out with me. So like we had... maybe us five or six guys with us. And then the gym was at 30 minutes away. So by the time we finished working out at night, it was starting, the sun was rising because it was like 7 a.m. And I'm like, how am I about to fall asleep right now?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. Especially Charles, who's been in there for so long, was the champion. And he's like a different type of champion, right? He comes balls to the wall no matter what. So even if it's five rounds, you're not expecting it to go five rounds. But in general, I felt like it should have been there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, and now he's two-fight losing streak himself.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I mean, for me, I would never fight Islam, but, I mean, if I get two more... So how do you do that, though?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I feel if there's anybody that can and be willing, who deserves it, it would be me because I had to fight five top five guys to get to where I am now. So I think at least two more, then I can start talking about one middleweight. So that's what you would do?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Would you pack on size to go to 85? Yeah, I mean, I would put on muscle, but in general, I've trained with a lot of 85ers, and I think I have good size for 85.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But I feel like there's so many guys at 85 for him still to fight. Oh, yeah. He's fought Izzy. He's fought Strickland.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, you got Whitaker. But now you still got the young guns, right? Brendan Allen, who's a dog, came against Imalvov. The winner, I feel like, should be there. Hamzat's still there that people aren't even really talking about anymore.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But that weight cut's crazy for him, though. Is it? Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I've seen him out, and he looks like over, like, 215. Michael Morales, he just fought. He just beat Neil Magny. Yes. He came to train with us. I brought him in for Leon fight. And he was like, I was like, bro, you're huge. He's like, no, yeah, I'm like 190. And then my coach put him on a scale. He's like 218. I was like, bro. I was like, bro, what do you mean? What are you talking about?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
So I would like take melatonin, fight week, And then it would wake me up at, like, 2 p.m., and I would still be at Groggy the rest of the day. And then you have to do, like, interviews and stuff like that. It was hard.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He said, oh, no, I just had bad breakfast. And I was like, bro.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But he's young and he's huge. And I'm like, bro, this is not going to last long, bro. You can't cut this much weight. No, he's big. He's good, too. He's a dog.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He's real good. Just training with him. He was like another one of those guys we brought in. And it was like... He was a perfect training partner where he didn't have ego where I'm fighting somebody in my weight class. He's undefeated. He'd come in and say, oh, he's fighting for the belt. Let me go crazy with him. No, he was such a good kid.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, he fought, trained really well with us. And then to see him get out there and finish Neil Magny, who he thinks is the perfect gatekeeper for any up-and-comer, right? Yeah. He's that test where you go past them. It's like, you're a real deal.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
and yeah people forget man like even gary uh jdm like all these guys people forget about jeff neal you know yeah jeff neal's a fucking killer he's going against rda now yeah that's funny that's funny that's a wild fight yeah i want to rda was another guy trained with nick curse on oh yeah yeah he was using that sort of uh that when rda was in his prime
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Him and his cardio days where he could just go nonstop, punching, striking, wrestling.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That's wild. Does he still train people?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And he spars stupidly. Stupidly? Yeah. Stupidly? Yeah. There's guys that will spar light and spar for distance and managing and stuff, and there's guys that just want to throw it on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I tried, but it was still hard just because, like I said, that time in between where – that board time. Right. Where we're like, all right, we got to work out at 4 a.m., And then during the day, we had interviews and stuff starting at 3 p.m. They adjusted those times. So then when we would finish everything, it would be like 7 p.m.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. It's a weird style. It's, like, agitating, especially if you're a guy like Adesanya who wants that distance and wants it to look pretty. To have somebody who's, like, striking and looks so ugly just in front of you just nonstop. Yeah. Or, like, against, what's his, Bocinia, where he just threw, like, 55 teeps at him every round.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah. I think it's the undefeated thing. He was undefeated in that fight. Then you get your first loss and you don't have that same mindset anymore. Because... You were killing everybody. Then all of a sudden you lose, and you lose by finish. You're like, was I not as good as I thought I was?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
To be thinking about that beforehand is just wild. And then to put it out there, it was so beautiful.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I don't think there's a better, there can't be a better celebration than that one. No, it's the best. Nothing's going to come close.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
That was really good. Yeah. Do you think we ever see the third one?
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But if you're fighting him, if your first move is not shooting a single leg, I don't know what kind of coaching you have. Right. Because that should be your first goal. At least in the first round, try to grapple him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
I never want to sit there and go toe-to-toe with him.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Oh, yeah. And I feel like he's always sparring to himself. He's always posting videos of sparring with the normal classes. It's not like he's even had crazy training partners.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
He'll spar light. He even sparred light with Strickland.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, I don't even want to feel him with big gloves on.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
They've done it once with – I think it was Bisping against Hendo twice. Hendo 2. The second one? Yeah, the second one. But other than that, they would just do it in – American time zone would be like daytime here. That's so crazy. But I think pay-per-view wise, they expect more people to buy pay-per-views in primetime, like night, 9 p.m. Probably. Yeah. Yeah, I guess.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But would his ego want him to take him down? Or like, all right, let me show you how I can strike with you.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
And I think he's a black belt as well, right? Yeah.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, it's crazy, right? I can tell people that so many random things could happen in a fight. That could happen. And then you look at guys that are undefeated for so long and people don't respect how hard that is to get there.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
learn a little martial arts what the hell next thing you know you're the champion of the world it's wild man yeah it's it's it's a blessing right like just thinking about the whole journey man like spiritually it puts you into a different mindset too because you just thank god for everything no matter what and for myself thinking of what like i said i was going to school to try to be a lawyer and i always tell my mom yeah i'll quit when i lose and it's like
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Now I could have went from that to being able to do something like this every single day. And being able to train every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
But it's wild because the fans out there were crazy. There were still so many fans. We ended up having a parade. That same night, because we got out of the fight, it was like at 7 a.m., and then we had people out there that set up like a parade for us in Manchester. Oh, wow. Yeah, and the streets were like crazy packed. It was full. Wow. Yeah. So you just stayed up.
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
Yeah, because it was like 7 a.m., so I went back to the house, and everybody wants to come see you now, so we're just chilling, and then all of a sudden it gets to like—
The Joe Rogan Experience
JRE MMA Show #162 with Belal Muhammad
noon and you take your try to say everybody's taking a power nap now because we were up from the night before at midnight so it came up to like two three o'clock and then everybody started falling asleep so for myself i'm still wide awake i mean we watched the fight and then they were like let's go get some food and they like surprised me with like a huge parade at like one of their busiest streets in manchester oh wow and they said like they said the streets got like shut down but they have like a huge muslim population over there