Michael Chandler | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #305

today's episode is brought to you by magic mind and if you ever wanted to really get the most out of your mind then this will help you do it this is something that really just puts you right into that flow state instead of just shifting gears all day quit living manually do it automatic magic mind dot co it's basically the organic version of five hour energy but it's not trash like that stuff is it's positive stuff you can check it out magicmind.co use promo code theo for 10 off today's guest is a mixed martial artist he's a three-time bellator lightweight world champion he's a fitness and training entrepreneur as well i think it's safe to say and uh he just signed his contract for the ufc entering an insane lightweight division uh happy to have him here today mr michael chandler i'll sit and tell you my stories [Applause] and what are you taking right now this is just obviously this is just my vitamins i freaking completely forgot all the way okay because a lot of rumors about you out there what are you taking right now i just want to know exactly it was uh um fish oil is fish oil turmeric beta-alanine magnesium bcaas and you take that once a day um twice a day there's the formula in the in at night there's like one or two other things that help me sleep i think that's about it okay and how i'll send you my supplement list actually will you i do i just did it for my buddy yesterday i needed a little bit of rest i don't know if i could take your supplement no it's dude it's all just it's all just like the little micronutrients that you're probably not getting from your food that's it and then for me for you for all of us like just anti-inflammatory antioxidants like that's the most important thing did you see a blood specialist or how did you how do you start to get on this regimen i did i did a couple years ago just to just to look at all my stuff like where i was at hormone levels and all that kind of stuff um because that's the idea like how do you how do you legally keep your body in tip-top shape good diet and rest are like the two most important thing but then it's supplementation making sure you're taking care of your body every after every single workout like bcaa's protein those are the two things that i would die on a diet on a freaking mountain for those are the two things that i've been taking over the last 10 years that are just that have always kept me feeling good so you take them right post-workout obviously protein and then you do the bcaas yeah bc i mean pretty much i have a blender bottle with me three times a day like in the morning i get up and i oh creatine so i'd do creatine for the brain yeah the brain who's creating when i would bust boy actually when i bust tables well that's the thing like i kind of steered away from it because i thought i thought creatine was just like you know the freaking dudes who just wanted the big biceps and they freaking lift weights in high school you know explode it was no explode and freaking creatine that's all it was back in the day we didn't even read the whole label we just thought it said knock something nobody knew what the heck it was like it was just like some dumb kids out there before his test getting two hits of it bro you just gotta be an awake idiot i'm pretty sure i got an a man that's pretty good i got a good name for sure i got an a oh you gotta you got a d kevin kevin always got sorry kevin you got a d minus man kevin always got a d kevin was that kid who would sit in class and he would have the hoodie and he would close it completely and then sit there the entire class exactly just draw both strings down and just have it completely shut i'm cool miss davis leave me alone man had a rough night um so what else you say your regimen is sleep what is it because when i watch you man like you know when i watch your fights it's like jesus christ even as a viewer i'm like will this guy stop for a second so i can like it's too many frames per minute it's like how can i visually catch up to what's going on here dude it's i mean that that to me is just that's god's just god's gifts man like some some because you know what it is it's i'm not afraid to freaking lose and i'm not afraid i'm not afraid to not like it becomes cliche i'm not really not afraid to die in there and i'm really not afraid to get tired either trust me i've been tired i've passed out i passed out tired yeah i passed out inside of a fight once from just exhaustion woke up before the fifth round coach carried me to the stool woke up on the stool and then fought the fifth round so once you've been there you're just like well there's really nothing that's gonna stop me you know and and i think it's just it's wrestling like in wrestling it was seven hard minutes in their face push him out of bounds take him down do whatever you got to do like to win the match like shoot more times than he does go harder than he does foot on the gas all gas no brakes like didn't just go so i think that wrestling mindset is just like now it doesn't work as well in fighting because it's 15 minutes it's 25 minutes you got to be a little more you got to negotiate those spaces a little bit more and not go so hard all the time or else you will die you know yeah do you is it a psychological thing for you in that first round because you mean you come out in some first rounds like dude i would even you know if they let me wear a ton of padding i might go against you in like a ninth round but a first round would be somebody wanting to die it seems like yeah do you come out there with a different psychology in the first round kind of like is that part of your mindset like i'm put everything is right here yeah because i think some people some people are slow starters and case in point like i think khabib habib finished justin geichi the way that he did because i think justin gaichi wasn't ready for habib to come out with him come out the way they did come out that hot so you can usually just you can get guys flustered you get get guys nervous get guys scared they immediately become a defensive fighter right away and that's why the only fights i've lost are the ones that people have ran away from me you know and i lose a split decision you know like that's literally the only pretty much the way that i've lost you know when you were watching the khabib and gateshead what were you uh would you think after that first round because i felt like gaechi got a lot of time on his feet against him a lot of it got a lot of guys don't get that it seems like do not get as much time against khabib on their feet yeah no and i think i think that's that i think that was the most surprising thing is is we thought the striking was going to lean towards gaichi's favor yet khabib i think the manner which could be fights is just hectic crazy fast pace it's not that skilled if you go back and watch the fight there really wasn't a ton of strikes that were landed they landed on justin's hands they landed on justin's elbows forearms like it wasn't like he hurt uh gaichi numerous times he just got i think he just got gait she's scared and i hate using the word scary because i don't like to talk about the guys in my division right obviously just like not a guy who gets scared but i know what you're saying that that ner that energy in the beginning or it's even like uh who was i just talking to oh uh well i was talking to brendan about it i think like it it's almost like if you get thrown into a scenario where you're not you're just not ready you can make bad decisions you know and i think justin gaichi also just was making bad decisions on the ground so i don't think necessarily i think justin gaichi is that bad on the ground i think he just got there and he was just like what do i do this guy's nuts you know this guy's a freaking mauler yeah he's like a rare snake kind of yeah exactly they're like why haven't scientists found this dude yet you know it's kind of like it's almost like you would see him more on one of those like david attenborough kind of like yeah you know the david the russian anaconda then you would like it seems like he hasn't been discovered it's like will somebody test this dude yeah he's like never reptilianism yeah or like or like three thousand miles below the sea level yeah yeah bottom of the ocean somewhere he's running on some old water when you're watching that fight did you think um at all and i'm a novice fight watcher you know i'm new into like just even absorbing a lot of what you guys world is like and it's and the biggest reason is just because it's something that so scared me my whole life like any like physical altercation like never learned how to defend myself never learned any of that growing up nobody even in my ear like hey just at least stand there and get hit you know none of that so i definitely come from a place of fascination did you think when you were watching the uh khabib and get you that that khabib kind of let the first round happen do you feel like he could have finished it earlier or do you feel like um it just that the way it played out was the way it played out i think the way it played out was the way it played out because i think i mean i think habib just was going and going and just turned it into a fight real quick fast paces it and i loved it i he just fought with reckless abandon and this is a guy who's undefeated most of the time you see guys who are undefeated protect that record by fighting a little bit more uh you know a little bit more timid or a little bit more diplomatic a little bit smarter you know if you will but he just went he went in there and wanted to get into a fist fight with with you know the craziest striker in the division it kind of goes back a little bit to what you were just saying about uh the f not being afraid to be exhausted you know not being because i've never thought about it like that like i go into any sort of physical if i'm at the gym or if i'm training or something like yeah i'm thinking okay in a little bit i'm going to be exhausted out that fear is a real like a living fear that's in me i think i think that's one of the greatest fears of of anybody across all walks of life when it comes to athletics like nobody likes to get tired you know people are afraid of getting hurt people are afraid of of losing but man getting tired is the worst thing in the world now also getting tired on the football field means you got caught you know means you're running down you got 80 yards and you're running and you get caught by the the d back who's just faster than you because you slowed down that's not that big of a deal but you get you get tired and locked into a cage with another man with four ounce gloves like that's a scary spot to be in because when when when the lactic acid builds up and the heart rate is through the roof and you can't feel your arms and legs and then you got a man coming at you trying to knock your head off that's a scary place to be and that's a place where nobody wants to be so you know that you know that scenario is always right there it's only a couple a couple crazy moves away or a couple scrambles or getting hurt and get your heart rate up like it's always there so you just have to it's like the movie 300 where he always talks about fear is always a constant when he's when he's talking to his young son at the very beginning of the movie fear is always a constant but accepting it that's where we win the battle accepting the fact that you're always going to the fear is always going to be there and then push him through it that's where the rub is that's where the champions go yeah it's interesting yeah because i just accepted it in the beginning i was like oh i'm just afraid as [ __ ] when i was young and i just never unaccepted it you know i just never but yeah that's interesting man i was watching that fight last night with you and eddie alvarez man what a fight can you go back and watch that sort of thing like because i notice at the end it's almost like a you know you were winning the fight i think it was four rounds to maybe you know i mean maybe four three one or something in the in the final round and um but it's still been such an amazing battle like in that last couple of minutes are you is do you start to get into a defensive mindset like okay i have this i probably have this win in the bag like when do you kind of apply like strategic breaks you know what i'm saying like yeah like you know uh d um d accelerate but knowing that you already probably have the win if you can get to the finish line i never do and and that's not a smart thing to do you know if you're a young fighter listing this right now like it's it's made me a great living it's got me a lot of fans because i just i'm all gas no brakes but it's also bit me in the behind numerous times you know and and even you know as we talk about like i passed out at the end of the fourth round of the my first benson henderson fight and then lost the fifth round i won the first four lost the fifth round um oh yeah right huh just because i just kept going and it wasn't because i lost the fifth round because i took my foot off the gas i just i fought so hard the first four rounds and i didn't have anything left in the tank and i freaking peed blood afterwards and had rhabdomyolysis and all kinds of crazy stuff and um what do you do though so when you're heading into that type of a round like when you're heading into that type of that was you end up in those rounds man you end up in those i mean yeah the first fight against benson that round that uh that fight was insane i mean you you know he took a lot of hits in that in that whole fight i mean that thing was crazy yeah the suplex i'm like what i don't even know we had like roman times like i didn't know what was going on right it was intense right yeah but yeah when you're going into that type of a round uh what do you do man so that was you know that you've run out of a lot of your natural gas yeah that was uncharted territory you know i i never would have thought i would lose consciousness inside the fight thank god it happened right at the end of the bell ring and i'm just sitting there on my knees and i'm not thinking about anything because you got to kind of stumbled right and they're like that's what the announcer said i'm not even conscious man like i was and then i sat down on the on the the stool one one coaches in front of me and then this coach behind me yells something and that's when i like did this and then i asked my coach in front of me did i get did i just get knocked out did i get choked out he's like no man this is my my dutch kickboxing coach henry hoofty's no man what are you talking about man we're going to the fifth round man you're doing good you're gonna win this fight yeah you're in spelling class yeah for sure and i can i remember i couldn't i couldn't lift my arm because i don't think the blood quite got to my because remember i was you said i was stumbling because my feet weren't working and my arms weren't working so i couldn't lift my hands up to protect myself for that fifth round but that's just uncharted territory but it's also that that primal animal instinct that you just have inside you where it's like at that point you're a you're a possum backed up into a corner and no matter what you just gotta fight you either just curl your table curl curl your tail between your legs and die but how you how do you adjust your strategy at that point well at that point the strategy was the strategy was somewhat survive you know and and and that's why that's why i would say if i had more in the tank i would have just went forward with reckless abandon but at some point you're like okay well i need to take a little bit of step back try to breathe a little bit you know because i gotten to the point of no return there's a difference between being afraid to get to the point of no return so all the way leading up to it you you're only fighting at 50 60 70 but if you fight at 100 get to the point of no return after that you're 100 is like 40 50 and you're fighting at 50 not being 100 uh you know offensive or or or kind of trying to come forward but essentially you're just you're in survival mode and then once you get your your wits back about your a little bit of gas a little bit of blood back to your brain then you can start throwing offense again which is that's kind of what i did in that round even though i essentially just got into a grappling match with them and you know lost the fifth round pretty bad got a big old cut you know but uh let's go we got a question right here riley can you hear everybody okay yeah you can everything's good okay great hello hello uh chase maldon out of virginia uh for mr chandler if you saw that anderson silva fight this weekend what are your thoughts on it and do you think he should retire because i think most of us do what do you think about just you know guys kind of out of their prime trying to fight anyway good question good question dude a lot of good questions came in for you man um you know anderson silva is you know one of the greatest of all time but when you watch his last couple fights it's hard to remember the anderson silva the greatest of all time i think that's why i think what gsp did so well is he was like i'm done you know i'm i did my thing crushed it i made my money i got a i left a good taste in people's mouths of a who i am as a man as a competitor what i accomplished and then i want to be be out the barry sanders if you will you know um it's always good to retire before people think you should because the fans always want more out of you you know selfishly the fans all of his fans in brazil they want more out of anderson silva keep going keep going keep going but before you know it you know you lose you know in devastating fashion again or you lose that bad again and then people can kind of forget so i would like to see him hang it up even though you know it sounds like he's going to but i i i would have said this two three fights ago as well man you he's he's a he's a icon in brazil you know he's a worldwide you know superstar when it comes to mixed martial arts he's i never want to talk about someone's money or what is enough money or what is enough legacy or whatever but i feel like he should have enough legacy should have enough money should have enough happiness should have enough of what he's built to be able to sail off into the sunset so then what do you think it is that brings someone back at that moment like what is it like if you had to get inside of of his mindset knowing what it's like to be a fighter yeah well and i think that's the difference and i don't want to bring other people up but i think there's definitely been guys that you you're like okay that guy's only fighting because he blew a bunch of money he needs some money right he needs to come he needs to make a paycheck oh if i was in brazil dude with the drugs and women i'd have blown it all dude back into the ring on one foot dude well that well that's that's the thing but i don't think i i right you're not saying that about him no i think anderson silva is the guy who just i bet he's i bet he's set for life i could be wrong you know like i said i don't know the guy personally but there's a lot of guys who you say that guy right there i know why he's stepping on the cage tonight he needs another paycheck he needs to like nick diaz you mean well yeah i just made that up all day you know i mean i don't know i wonder i don't know how those diaz brothers are doing i bet they're doing all right but i mean i know nate nate diaz did all right when that that connor fight made a couple million but you know it's uh it's it's tough because i'm going to get to that point eventually you know where people are like hey it's time to hang it up you know but i'm in my mind in my camp with my coaches it's something you always have to go back to your family and your coaches because you're never going to want to quit you know you're never going to want to stop unless right yeah that's what i'm getting at you're never going to want to quit no even though like a guy like gsp i mean there's there's him on the rec on record saying he hated fighting like he he hated he would show up to the arena and pray to god that the that the comet would come down and hit the arena and just end his misery that freaking that someone would pull the fire alarm that there would be a bomb threat that there would be something where he would just be like thank god i could go home and don't have to do this you know he he talked about in and documented kind of like the anxiety that the guy went through and this is one of the greatest of all time a guy who looked unbeatable at times you know still does still yeah i mean still he i think he could come into the cage right now at 155 170 and win the freaking title 185 possibly you know so you never know what's motivating a guy but you got to go back to your coaches you know your your closest of kin your mentors your family and and then the people around you that that know no matter how much how much more that you accomplish how much more money you make they don't benefit from it they just want to see you happy you know those are the people that's those that's those are people you got to listen to you know it's interesting because even in every in every form of entertainment or survival uh anything i guess maybe i mean i can relate it a little bit in my own life but yeah you there's these voices that push you to succeed and like even these invisible voices of people that naysayers you know haters that say you can't you know um but then at a certain point those voices aren't really helping you anymore it's more the voices that actually can see you as a human yeah and saying like okay you know we care about you there's no you've proven yourself you know what do you do now how do you manage that because there's there's a there's a lot of mismanagement mismanagement at that point as well and sometimes you're so blind you just come up so blindly like just throwing fists especially in you guys's career you know and i see it with porya in a lot of his fights and his old fights you could see he didn't even have a look in his eyes he's just like a you know an animal you have that animal instinct but then you get to a point where you're standing on top of the cage and you're like okay i'm not i'm not in this i'm not fighting for nothing anymore like i'm at a point where i can make some choices for myself well yeah i mean a lot of it comes with maturity and stuff too and and i told you it was cool like right around the time that we met you know i was getting ready to go fight and that was the first time i ever met pourier because pourier was cornering a guy who was on the same card and i just went straight in connecticut he was in connecticut uh something yeah he just he got a couple wins in a row yeah he's he's good emporia was there the whole fight week cornering him and whatnot and i just went straight up to him because i i knew at this point i was probably gonna go i was probably going to leave bellator uh and i was probably gonna hopefully sign with the ufc my goal was i wanted to sign with ufc so i knew i was about to walk up to a guy that was probably gonna i'm gonna be in the same division for sure i'm probably gonna end up fighting them but to me the respect level for a guy like poirier or even anybody in the division i don't i respect you if you step inside the cage you make your living doing what i do doing what we do because this is what was it i understand the perils the trials the tribulations of this this tough sport that we call our our profession but went up to him and we were talking a little bit and i just you know i congratulated on on his last win he had just beaten dan hooker a couple weeks prior congratulating him on the fight of the year candidate that it was it was a phenomenal fight his heart his determination what he does outside the cage the man that he is the competitor that he is the father that he is and then also we kind of talked like about the journey a little bit where it's like man 30 something years old now got a wife got a kid got it you know doing what we're doing is much different than back in the day i kind of brought up about how he was some young shaved head punk kid on that documentary you saw that his documentary and that was dustin poirier from back in the day and he was in this documentary crazy this is an insane thing coming out of the swamp exactly and but it's so cool to see where people start and then where people end up and and watch and watch people's maturation throughout the journey and and he he would probably if he was sitting here today he would probably say man you know his his career i think is a blueprint for a guy who who started at a certain point has ended up where he's at he's at the top of the game top of the division top of the toughest division in the in the entire world about to fight the biggest global superstar of of mixed martial arts and conor mcgregor he's in a phenomenal spot but you don't just fall there by accident you'll fall to the top of the mountain by just by coincidence you know he had to build and climb and plod and and tread towards that and a lot of it comes with good things happen to good people you know and it's not though it's not that people don't do the right things it's that people don't do the right things for long enough and he has put his time in grown into a phenomenal man father husband and yeah he's gonna be rewarded role model so it's cool just just seeing the maturation process of of of us as fighters you know a decade later yeah it's wild and it's also it's interesting to see because you know growing up like a lot of kids in my neighborhood would fight a lot of like you know it was a lot of like you know a lot of poor kids kind of fight you know it's just something to do you don't have cable you [ __ ] throw two [ __ ] you know 48 pounders in the ditch and let them go at it you know what i'm saying like just different dude i used to invite friends over like kind of rich friends and then we would go on a bike ride in the neighborhood and i knew some kids were going to [ __ ] fight oh my god my buddy's like i thought we're just going to rent movies i'm like well dude you got to deal with [ __ ] little thomas hoover first son you know this dude weighs 47 pounds but he's dude that's funny that's a true story that's a true story bro one of my friends still gets mad at me about it man but yeah i used to one of the rich friends one of the rich friends you guys are still friends i'm like you'll be fine he's got a really nice freaking harrow with pegs on it and stuff and you get the kid the kid comes out with a freaking busted up mongoose like hey what's up hey what's up tommy hoover yeah tommy hoover comes out dude he's got that natural shake in him bro you know yeah just the lord's scoliosis bro you're just missing a couple elements you know but yeah i used to do that [ __ ] but so it's interesting to get to a point it seems it seems interesting from an outsider's perspective to get to a point where yeah you to come from a place of fighting for your peace of mind or for your comfort or to feel okay you know like i do stand-up comedy to feel okay i get on a stage i need something from people you know fighters they there's some we're all trying to prove something to ourselves or to others but to come from a place of fighting because that's such a physical and brute thing to then get to a place of having some sort of peace in your life where um where whatever those voices are that probably made you so angry in the first place that's a wild ride you guys are on yeah and it's and it's funny too as the sport has evolved and even even in the very beginning of of the sport you know the sport started with uh you know dana white and these guys they didn't even start the ufc it was it was started by a different group and then the ufc and the fertittas dana white bought it and turned it into what it is today but i'm sure there was guys who fought just for there was no money in it either so it wasn't like they were trying to make a bunch of money it was really who was the toughest who's the baddest dude on the planet from what uh vocation from what background you got you got your boxer there was a boxer wearing one boxing glove where he could throw a jab but he could also grapple he had your karate guys your sumo wrestling guys your street fighters your whatever back flipper some guys get in there just do a backflip and then get their ass kicked yeah exactly you know see that's how it kind of started and then and then and then it evolved into the sport of okay we can make a living out of this or or it's just a really cool hobby so you saw guys who kind of came from a place of anger but then you see a guy like myself i just like hand-to-hand combat and i and i don't i don't really like confrontation the funny thing is i'm very similar to you like if someone walked in right now i wanted to fight i'd get this weird nervous tension and i'm like i'm not trying to fight man i'm not here to fight but you put me inside the cage with you and you and you put a check on the line and it's a competition and i can prove myself in a co in a contest of hand-to-hand combat that's when the real competitor comes out of me because i love the contest but i don't like the conflict you know um so somewhere in between there is is where you so some of your drive comes from the competition aspect of it no all of it does i think i mean at this point i realize that all of my all of my admirers fans or people who who follow me on my platforms or wanna wan want to say man that guy is a guy that i want my kid to be like they don't do it because i can kick people's ass like they don't care about that they do it because they say man that guy is a is a symbol and a a manifestation of a little guy from a little town who was taught to do little things who had a bunch of ups a couple downs never quit pulled himself up by his bootstraps dusted himself off every time he got knocked down and became a champion because of it now isn't is in the best position of his career because of of his stick-to-itiveness and has continued and drive to move forward and yeah it's really cool that he you know it's a bonus that he likes to bite down on his mouthpiece and get into a brawl inside of a a cage inside of an octagon but really we like him for the symbol of what he is the metaphor for what his his career stands for and i think that's what that's what i like because to me fighting is so much deeper than just the 15 minutes inside the cage the 25 minutes inside the cage it's how you live your life the honor the respect the integrity and the the the character that you can build because someday i'm gonna be retired i'm gonna look back and say man that was a really fun ride it was painful at times but man i impacted a lot of people throughout it and we had a really good time and made some made some some coin to be able to take care of my family yeah it's funny and i i hate to keep bringing up dustin but we're dustin poirier fans here and uh i'm a desperate fan yeah i'm gonna fight him someday you know it's gonna happen oh it would be a great fight that's the thing like it would be a great place you don't have to hate each other right so it's yeah 100 it's and it seems like there's a lot of respect especially in that division man there's i mean there's some uh god that's insane that's just bumper to bumper traffic in that division but yeah i remember like about a year ago there was just kind of this thing where you got to start to see who dustin was as a person through his fighting yep and it was even after the khabib loss but i i mean he was bummed i remember talking we talked a little bit and i said but man you don't understand like people are seeing you you're becoming like a hero to people like you're becoming win or loot and it doesn't matter anymore not that that this is just my mindset i mean obviously he wants to win every time but i'm like you're becoming people can see who you are through your art and that's one thing that that's what's really amazing i think about having the ability to be in some sort of performance whether it's fighting stand-up anything if you can or anything i mean if you're just even if you're just somebody that's going you know picking up garbage if you can if people could see your heart through through whatever you're doing man that's pretty powerful dude that's that's what it is because and that's and that's why we have to be careful as a as a human race as a society to be separated from one another six foot distance wearing masks like i don't want to turn it into a the political thing or the or the you know the pandemic thing or any of that kind of stuff but it's like i believe god created us for relationships and not just personal one-on-one relationships but even the the relationship that dustin poirier's fans have with him by watching him via social media by watching him in his fights and truth be told people would care less about him if he was undefeated people would care less about him if he was perfect yeah i love the fact that he gets beaten up battered bruised and then and then picks himself back himself up gets back on the mic and says you know what i'm not perfect i'm not i'm not undefeated i have blemishes on my record look at me you know when you mess up raise your hand and say hey this is me this is this is my baggage this is my loss but this is my loss to deal with and you can and you will say things about me and you will criticize and you will nitpick but trust me this is i may have lost the the battle tonight but the war will be won down the line and that's and that's what is the beauty of mixed martial arts i have five losses on my record but people don't care about my losses whenever i win my next fight or even if i lose my next fight they don't care they just the best fighters in the in the entire on the entire planet right now are the ones with multiple losses the biggest superstores your jar george maswa doll has like 10 11 losses you know like diaz yes more losses than wins conor's got almost five losses now you know khabib phenomenal what he has done jon jones phenomenal what they have done but it's also the ups and the downs the ebbs and the flows the losses and the wins that that really draw people to these fighters yeah and the different types of fighters yeah it's like some people are like yeah they just want the undefeated but i think more people can relate to a guy that has uh like a you know has the ups and downs it's like even like anthony smith is one of my favorites you know and it's not i could care less if he wins or loses it's like every time he comes out of that tunnel it makes me feel like damn bro whatever's going on in my life i can i'll it's gonna be fine you know this guy can do if this guy can come back um you know i can keep it just reminds me that i can keep going dude and that's so cool like even even you just saying that like i even it gives me a different perspective knowing you and then and and him like i don't i don't know him and and i don't watch a ton of his fights either like it's but it's just funny how certain people gravitate towards or are drawn to certain fighters and i think that's what's so beautiful about mixed martial arts and obviously i'm biased because i'm in it but it's it's so much easier to look at a guy like anthony smith or even any any of us fighters compared to like say a baseball player who you know he chances are the only thing the only thing you see inside of his performance is okay can he catch the ball can he run the bases can he hit the ball we we get the luxury of being inside of a cage fighting and there's second to second to second in each second that happens inside each of those five minute rounds is up very very high very very low somewhere in the middle craziness going on uncertainty and it's it's just a beautiful sport it's a really really beautiful sport and man it's just really cool to be a part of it i would argue like wrestling is the same same way amateur wrestling college wrestling i love it because it's it built me into the man that i am but but mixed martial arts on a global platform is just it's such a beautiful sport because even the guy like you who you know anthony smith watching him and it's just like like we said he's in there painting a masterpiece of the physical manifestation of the ups the downs the the your your greatest opportunities and your darkest hour that you personally feel when you watch him fight and maybe he knows you maybe he doesn't like obviously you're a celebrity but like the average person the average person who's like anthony anthony smith is my favorite fighter who anthony may never ever meet but he made that person sitting on his couch in poughkeepsie mississippi watching the ufc paper feel something yeah it's really freaking cool man pretty crazy it's powerful you guys i mean you guys this sport is unlike any other because there's so many moments where it's like okay how does this how does he approach the beginning of the fight uh what is this what is his behavior been like going up to the fight um how does he uh how is he managing himself in this beginning like in this kind of capoeira kind of beginning dance feeling each other out uh win or lose how did they then behave you know it's like there's so many moments for people to show every side of humanity it's it's almost yeah i think that's why i think there's so many new fans coming to it too it's like wow it's not just about the fighting there's there's just so much more to it um yeah it's like kind of what you said too like it's almost it's almost like of course the fight is the most entertaining part but man think about the walk out think about the you know the shaking the hands and the hugging of your your your teammates and your coaches before you go into battle it's literally like roman times where they were back in the back and they were shaking their hands you know like you see gladiator with the strength and honor thing before they went out there and like it's don't not to sound cheesy but that's a lot different than so many other sports this is so much more raw and real and it's and and and ronda rousey said it back in the day on this this documentary it's on netflix called the hurt business that i was in it was pretty really cool documentary about fighting and she said you whether you love it or you hate it you're drawn to it people are drawn to it because even if we're the most peaceful person in the world we are somewhat at some level drawn to to conflict yeah or we're drawn to sport we're drawn to competition we're drawn to the contest and and mixed martial arts is all of that rolled into one and like you said there's so many different aspects of the fight that are that are outside of just the fight the build-up and then afterwards whether or not me and you hated say you know we sold it on tv that we hated each other or it was real that we hated each other are we gonna shake hands afterwards are we gonna are we gonna hug afterwards are we yeah what's the shed tears afterwards like what's gonna happen you knock me out do i swallow my pride and say hi to you know say congratulations or vice versa or there's any one million different scenarios that could manifest himself and happen inside the cage and it's it's the most unpredictable uh sport in the world like being tied into a tornado every single time and that's why people love it and that's why i love it look you want to know about money then you got to know about 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on making it to fight island getting to hang out there making the cut like a professional like you always have been i gotta know though i i can tell you're a guy who likes to stay in shape you're very disciplined but what's your cheat like say you go out friday night or whatever what's your cheat meal or like just cheat activity what do you like to do whenever you give yourself a day off to just unwind i gotta know gang gang good luck buddy okay yeah you ever pull off the side of the interstate and have a [ __ ] five or six doritos dude i could see you having five or six two cool ranch doritos individual triangles and you freaking go only two no man like you know the most and i love this question because i think i am one of the guys that people look at and they're just like man that dude lives it and i do but you also have to realize that you're a human being and not a robot you know i'm not a cyborg sent back in time to freaking you know fighting a cage like okay right then yeah take that question no but uh you know just a normal person so like right now you know you're catching me in between like i just got done making weight what was it pretty much like 14 days ago yeah it was exactly 14 days ago so for the last two weeks i've gotten i've gotten workouts in five six workouts so like a workout on average every other day just to give myself a some time to heal and b some time to almost feel lazy almost feel like a schlub like you know like you eat a little bit of crap you drink some alcoholic beverages be like i love taking my wife out eating some good food having some drinks open up a bottle of wine but i don't feel great afterwards and it reminds me why i go into a 12-week training camp where there's no alcohol there's no bad food i'm eating out of tupperware containers or or my mega-fit meals which is a food prep company that i that i use and it's all just chicken lean ground beef salmon turkey lamb what about a lamb maybe no not not in there but i do i do like lamb lambs not bad lamb my wife makes some good lamb and then i just couple that with like three or four vegetables broccoli cauliflower brussels sprouts sweet potato and that's literally all i eat for 12 weeks straight so you could [ __ ] in a garden and help it out pretty much you know like a human human compost and so so to answer his question i love pizza um i i like a thin crust pizza because man too much bread gets me i'm not a chicago deep dish type of guy i'm actually like a st louis style thin crust pizza guy true food here in town have you eaten truffles yeah i've been over there true food pizza divorcees in there too looking for that next man yeah exactly you know you can go in there somebody ordered me i was like hey i'm right there good looking woman with mullet i'll take him with a side of chardonnay uh and so true food pizza is actually like one of my favorite pizzas but um and then man uh yeah so that's what you cheated some so also getting yourself probably to feel a little bit like it gives you a place to come back from and also rewarding your body probably from what you went through i mean that's very kind of native american of you in a lot of ways is just for sure rewarding your body knowing that it's doing things for you it does and and and of course we got to be careful because the food system that we live in the agricultural system that we live in is not very it's not as good as our grandparents our green peppers now are not as good as our grandparents green peppers unless you get them from the right spot you know and trying to eat good whole organic foods and whatnot so of course you're doing a little bit of damage by eating the crap but you're also a kind of kind of rewarding your body rewarding your mind that okay let me take take the let me take my foot off the gas a little bit let me be a normal person for a second let me let me harvest a little body fat and let my body thicken back up into into a kind of a normal a normal body and then obviously i'll shrink it back down once fight comes but i was in training camp essentially from march all the way through october with my last two fights and and well like the fight october 24th i didn't actually fight but i appreciate our man there saying making 155 like a professional that's why i did it you know i wanted i wanted dana white and the ufc fan base right away to see who michael chandler is i'm going to show up i'm going to be there on time on weight i've never pulled out of a fight never said no to a fight i've never missed weight show up on the dot who were you most excited so say you're there i mean you were there and overall was it a good experience was it pretty crazy going over there had you ever been to the middle east i had not been in the middle east but to me it was just more my first fight week with the ufc and it couldn't have been better man it was so awesome obviously i think fight island fight week is a little bit different than other fight weeks so they rolled out the red carpet for us they you know i was just getting to rub elbows with my new colleagues my new my new co-workers the from dana white all the way down to the person who like checks you in at the very beginning who's kind of new to the ufc all of them are the new heartbeats that are in my life they're it's part of my company who i'm going to you know kind of sail off into the rest of my career with working with so i wanted to make it a good impression on them show them who i am show them did you wear cologne or not be honest cologne no axe really no i'm joking no do people wear axe anymore sorry i don't know great if you did it'd be awesome hey i'm just wondering i gotta go check in yeah totally i'm sure this is guys doing that yeah yeah uh but yeah i just wonder if you put on cologne or something yeah because you're showing up you're kind of the new kind of kid in the candy store you're also kind of the new candy in the candy store i am it and it's great too because i'm not just i'm not the young kid who got a really sweet spinning back kick knockout from dana white contender siri who's 19 years old right i mean you can say sugar shawn o'malley if you want to oh yeah actually actually that is exactly who he is but he came in great but yeah no but i like you know sean's amazing and and but you don't have that young you don't it's not like you have you this youthful hype you have this long trajectory yeah and anybody who the good thing is and i talked about this the other day you you can't outrun your reputation and your reputation takes years to build and seconds to break down and just fall by the wayside you know and i i think i think i have a good reputation in the industry you know when it comes to and it was and it was great it got me in trouble with a lot of the journalists throughout my free agency process because you know the biggest names in in mixed martial arts like journalism were like hey man give me some inside information hey man let me break the story but i'm like listen back off this is gonna i'm gonna let the ufc do their thing whenever whenever it comes out it's gonna come out i don't i didn't get into the position that i'm in without being a phenomenal employee be a good employee and that's what these young kids miss they got to remember man you're still an employee these guys still sign your paycheck don't bite the hand that feeds you and that was me protecting myself protecting bellator from before i left bellator that was me protecting the ufc that was me protecting the other organizations that i was negotiating with even though i knew i was most i was gonna head in the ufc direction if that door opened itself but you know i had a good reputation coming into this fight week and i think i exceeded x people's expectations i hopefully were like hope i had a lot of a lot of the ufc reach out to me and say hey man this is great to work with you you're easy to work with you're eager i also just got done talking yesterday to the one of the ufc pr people and it's like i appreciate you saying that but you have no idea how underutilized i feel like i've been over the last 10 years you know no offense to bellator but they didn't use me enough they didn't build me enough they didn't give me the outside the outside uh opportunities to be on the big stages i i was utilized at about 20 percent i believe 20 percent was me stepping into the cage putting on great performances for them which that's you know one of the most important parts but when it comes to being an athlete man microphones cameras voice word of mouth that's how you build a great platform do you feel like it's uh do you feel like it was any like like it was a shun towards you at all or do you just feel like it's just their company the way it is the size of the company you know like you can only get so big at kmart you know before you walk into walmart you're like damn you know they got everything 100 no i think it was it's their business model they are they are the legitimate number two organization in the world and their business model was hey we're gonna run a skeleton crew we're gonna put on the best fights we can and we're going to we're going to coast and we're going to do our thing that's fine but that's not it's it was against the antithesis against the theos of who i am what i am is is moving forward taking chances investing time energy resources to eventually reap the benefits and i think that's what that's what dana white and the ufc have done man they they you saw it during the pandemic dana white was the first person to get on the microphone and say we will be back we will be the first sport back and you know guys like guys like i mean it was it was uh justin gaichy tony ferguson headlined that that first card and those guys were waiting in the wings and i'm over here in bellator last fight on my contract worldwide pandemic waiting man when am i going to get the fight and that's when fighting is growing fighting in itself like was growing at that point like i started to learn a lot more about bellator like nick davis is our producer back in l.a and he's a huge uh degenerate gambler and mma fan and um but he's always like he knows every fighter from top to bottom of every organization but he started getting me into different bellator he's like you got to watch this um so it's and even then fighting was growing and so it is interesting kind of that maybe were you was bellator missing some opportunities to grab onto some of that market share even if ufc was the one that was kind of leading it 100 percent one one thousand percent because even even though you know they're different organizations and and i think bellator i think bellator it of course they used you know they use the coronavirus a pandemic in which the whole world right now if if you you know order a t-shirt offline it takes an extra two weeks all they got to say is well it's coveted oh it's crazy everything it's like you know it's like like we were saying like you could go freaking rear end somebody be like oh man i'm sorry dude you know covet and yeah it's like coronavirus so it's like everybody can use that and not to downplay you know the disease but people can use coronavirus right now as as a totally an excuse for anything and oh i told a guy you get an erection i was like i got it coronavirus exactly homovirus in my penis she's like it's nervous it's about coronavirus but i had somewhere else but she was a nice girl too actually man she [ __ ] took care for like two weeks hoping it would get better and it didn't oh my god you know maybe it wasn't green she brought you soup yeah it might just be erectile dysfunction yeah um so yeah it is interesting to see how they haven't maybe it maybe haven't picked up a lot of like or just haven't grown their own business and maybe they have i don't know but you didn't feel like they were no they haven't and they have grown and they've they've built and that was the thing about it like i was i was content too and i said this i i knew i was probably going to make a change but i would have been happy as well getting a really great offer from bellator and and retiring there and doing all that and maybe maybe that was true maybe maybe it was just a little bit of negotiation taxes but there was part of me that that that said man like i i cared about those guys i cared i cared about building that organization is not who they are without my fights with eddie alvarez oh man benson henderson me losing to will brooks and then coming who was that pigskin guy you lost what was that guy's name pigskin no what was his nickname punch uh punch dog or something pitbull pitbull pit bump sorry i didn't know i didn't know who it was exactly did you feel bad did you feel were you bummed that you didn't get to fight him again before you left no and that's that's the beautiful thing about it i i've never really i'm not about because to me it's not the person and trust me i there's no more animosity that i've ever had with any of my opponents than him because he's made some baseless claims about me using peds and just this kind of silly stuff that has no there's there's no he has a brother that does it either like a stunt double or something like a twin brother that's a machine for sure and they're both they're both from brazil they if anything they you know probably have dab or and it's like so i'm not really worried [ __ ] papaya yeah exactly so so we've had we had some you know our interactions where we don't really like each other but to me i'm like i don't need to get that one back i don't care the funny thing is i'm in a much better position right now getting ready to fight i'm one i'm one degree of separation away from fighting for ufc title i will be ufc champion by july of 2021 so you think i'm worried about his little self you know yeah disgruntled he is he's not he's not happy about his contract he's not happy about his promotion or where he's at or what he's doing he's just an unhappy person and he wanted to throw shade at me because he has a scarcity mindset where whereas i have an abundance mindset and there's and it's very important to distinguish the two a scarcity mindset says because you are having success that that is going to take away from the success that i could possibly grab because there's a pie there's a pie and there's only so much of it man there's an abundance of of money there's an abundance of success there's an abundance of impact out there for you to grab and your success does nothing to take away from my success that i'm allowed to have or able to have and there's a lot of people that's huge man and i've struggled with that in my own success like getting more successful and then getting scared you know and operating from a place of fear man that's it's very and and it's it's the it's the wounds of our past the the stories that we've told ourselves man i've told myself so many stories inside my head that where i would just sabotage myself and give myself permission to lose instead of permission to to win permission to be successful you know i grew out of it after college luckily but i just under performed so much in college that i said man i got to stop this i got to figure something out i got to take extreme ownership of what's going on in between these ears like you are what you are and where you are because of what has gone into your mind and the stories and the in the the myths and the trends that you tell yourself over you know your 30-year life or 40 your life your 15 year old life whatever it may be and man you got to you got to kick that in the teeth here's a guy right here who has a question right here hey mike and theo it's aaron from oklahoma city well this is a question for both of you i guess theo you already have one but mike would you ever consider growing a nebraska nick warmer you got that work of that bromane maybe hanging off it maybe that's nice and nice and not did he straighten that he may have straightened he also may have dyed it a little which i don't mind what do you call it uh nebraska that's skunk dip i don't know what it is uh what's that you call it the nebraska nebraska or you play the end of that for us again riley yes theo you already have one but mike would you ever consider growing a nebraska nick warmer neck warmer baby good have you ever tried to uh you know to increase your flare by doing something wild like that you ever do a rat tail or something i could see you with a rat tail man i could i could do a rat tail no i i mean i haven't i haven't really i mean the i did have a haircut that was kind of a little edgy you know when that movie the fury came out with brad pitt i don't know brad pitt where he's the tank war he's not taking that pitcher do you mind riley uh he's the tank uh operator and he's got like four other guys three other guys shia labeouf and some young guy and michael uh michael sarah michael sarah michael sarah the skinny little white guy yeah no not him michael pena the like uh the latino guy yeah he's hilarious yeah he's awesome greatest haircut of all time dude and you know he's got freaking you know he's got plugs in in the front or something where he got a hair hair transplant had that hairline yeah i got it did you really yeah i got some of the mullet taken out of the back and put into the front bro did it ever fall out unprecedented i don't know i don't even know if it ever even came in that's the problem they they your hairline's like your hairline's perfect though right they put you to sleep and then they or they don't put you to sleep but they take it out of the back and they put it into the front and so the robot uh no i have it do them hand by hand some [ __ ] robot back there you know what i'm saying that's how i have a [ __ ] mustache don't record this right now cause i are you recording it's fine i have a mustache because i thought about it man like i got a freaking receding hairline you could do it easy man it's real easy process that's cool i thought about trying to find somebody locally that would uh do it pro bono you know just to talk about it i mean everybody's had it done there's there's a pla there's we grow hair dot com oh i've seen the way i've seen that you see the billboards right we grow hair that [ __ ] sounds vague it's [ __ ] up i'm not trying to find a sharecropper i'm trying to find somebody see this is important this is important for for our you know like our like you know 30 40 aged graphic where it's like man you know a lot of people got some got some head like look at the one look at brad pitt right there in his tuxedo man like look at that hairline that is absolutely perfect yeah go click on that uh riley please he's from missouri man you know wow but but anyway so that was probably the most uh that was probably the most kind of statement of a haircut i ever made is i kind of did the fury for a little while till my receding hairline started creeping up too much and i was like i mean it's not working anymore i got to go with this fauxhawk thing yeah it falls good though it's longer now i gotta get a haircut but so yeah so that's about as wild as you would go in the hair world yeah i think so i'm going to ask you let me ask you about um and sorry if riley seems a little off right they just had his first kiss actually the other day kissed a girl for the first time really what's her name man uh where are we maddie yeah okay you like her well let's just say i did you did what something happened oh yeah uh last night i found out yeah that she kissed another guy oh it was way more than that oh gosh oh my god man i'm sorry dude i didn't know that and unfortunately we didn't have you on mike today either riley i'm sorry about that but man well you had a first kiss yeah a long time ago it wasn't bro who was it be honest uh i don't i don't remember okay brandy it was brandi with an eye oh yeah bro brandi with an i always kiss people dude brandi with an eye yeah is the most missouri is that where you're from missouri yeah missouri is the most missouri randy with an eye lifts close to the interstate bro i know that brandi with an eye she used to uh she used to invite all the rich girls into she used to invite the rich girls over and they'd ride bikes out and they'd get in fights with the the other kids yeah the poor kids my kind of girl brand new that i my first one was chrissy with an eye christie hello christy when i would come out of the woodwork and beat up mongoose like what's up girl you're on the wrong side of the tracks [Laughter] christy with a high damn so riley man it fell apart huh yeah it did oh sorry how do you feel about it you all right are you i'm i'm keeping it together keeping it together that's good i am well thanks for being here today man i didn't know that that had happened and we'll discuss it next time um and sorry you had to be here to learn about that news as well mike yeah what the heck man but it's not you man it's her you know it's definitely her it's her loss man um here's a young fella right here he says post malone dude that could be post malone this one's for mike i'm just wondering how long does it take to get that freaking insanely ripped is it something that um it's always been with you or at one point when you started to fight you know and do what you're doing in training did you notice it happening over time and if so how long gang gang gang brother yeah you're the when i envision you being born that's what i envisioned i envision you come out of the womb you turn around and then you start doing the ropes exercise with your own umbilical cord i like that no i think that's pretty much how it happened no i uh who got you into fitness i mean i just it was a it was a it was a byproduct of what i have to do you know and i i just truly believe and i and i get this all the time like people will see me squatting heavy or bench pressing heavy or doing some dynamic stuff and people like oh my god i'm my knees hurt just watching that or my back hurts just watching this and i just i feel for people because i don't know what position they're in or what their background is or how much they have or haven't worked out but i truly believe i've wrestled i wrestled for um 12 years or whatever and now i've been fighting now for 11 and whatever it is 20 last 20 years i've been wrestling and then now fighting and i have very few injuries and i think a lot of it has to do with i think there's a genetic component there's a luck component of course i'm never gonna never gonna act like there isn't but lifting weights heavy external force of adding weights and lifting heavy and bulletproofing your body through strength and conditioning has really made my body you know very very dense i think my bone density is very very high and i get very few injuries because of strength training so i just loved it and i realized if i can put put in the work in the weight room it's going to bulletproof my body inside those wrestling matches inside those wrestling practices and now inside the mixed martial arts world and so i've been doing it since college i mean college we lifted two three days a week heavy hard intense and then we were wrestling six days a week so my body just became a machine but you know to answer his question it takes me about 12 weeks you know to get primed up to get completely primed up you know to go from you know 10 but i never get above 10 body fat and that's one of the things about mixed martial arts people like oh he walks around at 198 and cuts down to 155 or 190 and cuts down to 155 and it's like yeah but how fat is he how how chunky is he you know we can all have a propensity to get chunky and get heavy but for me i keep i keep my weight around 180 two to 187 max usually right around 183 to 185 um and 10 body fat you know because i just don't like to get that far out of shape and then it takes me 12 weeks of discipline to shrink my body a little bit obviously a lot of get rid of a lot of body fat or probably six percent get down to about four or five six percent body fat lose a little bit of muscle and then get down to 155. damn dude i freaking i think i ate 10 body fat last night honestly yeah um when you're in uh when you're in uh dubai right that's where the fight abu dhabi sorry when you're in abuja and and it's getting close to fight time did you have an inkling are you getting word from people there that both guys are making the fight like are you is there a point where it starts to feel like okay i might actually be a real substitute and then it goes from okay this is i'm just gonna be here yeah i mean i it wasn't until the day before wayne's that my man that my manager even kind of asked you know and then even then the ufc was essentially like well i would imagine you know by by the morning after fight fight or the morning after weigh-ins the day at the morning of the fight by the time that we get word that habib and gaichi both pass their coveted tests and they're negative you know you you should be pretty good to go and then they were like well but actually like what if they get hurt on the way to the arena it was one of those deals where i was essentially just the backup all the way until those guys stepped into the cage at that point i you know had pizza for lunch because i mean what was i going to do like just continue to eat chicken and broccoli all the way till 9 pm and no you know at that point you kind of just look foolish you're just hanging out outside of the ring like going like this yeah exactly exactly and it's one of those things too where it's like it would be an even better story i i also like of course we joked like with my manager my manager long time manager randall allman was there who um good friends with but he also handles my stuff so we were there and it was like maybe just you know go like have a celebratory beer or celebratory you know have drink before this and be like well yeah what if i get the call joke and be like well kind of even better story great story even better story got the call while you know they just pour to stella or something you know and i'm eating a pizza chandler beat khabib after two mai tai exactly you know like so i didn't end up having an alcoholic beverage that day until after the fights were over whatever but it would have been we were just joking like it would have been an even better story and who would you let's go sorry guys i would say and in some ways it would probably make me fight even better because i'd be like i got nothing to lose for sure because i just had you know two my ties and uh um who would you was there a rather when you're like if you started to think like who would i rather fight i i my answer to that is i love i would love the idea of fighting both of them but at that point you have to fight khabib just because he's the number one guy oh wow really yeah because if you're gonna fight i mean yeah it would be better to have a 12-week training camp focused just on habib obviously when you have the opportunity of a lifetime to you know beat an undefeated fighter the best fighter in lightweight history and get the world title um but for me you got to take the opportunities when you can they don't just hand out ufc you know title fights like it's nothing so um for me it would have been habib just because i would have had the opportunity to capture the belt that night uh and a fight with me and justin gaiji is going to happen just like i said the fight with me and poya is going to happen these fights are going to happen but so if you had the opportunity and i knew we all knew habib we didn't know he was going to retire that night or at least say he's going to retire we don't know yet but i thought for sure he's going to have one maybe two fights left in him so you want to i want to get that fight before he retires i would not want to get that fight but but that's a different mindsets man now is when you're there and you're in that environment is there a level of royalty that kind of proceeds and surrounds khabib that doesn't surround anybody else in a way no i yeah i'm not i'm not really i'm not that do you feel is there anything like that in the air no i'm just wondering well he wasn't there that much to be honest with you like i saw justin gates a couple times his mom and dad were there his brothers his brother looks just like him they're all from arizona they're kind of doing their thing man me and justin gates are very similar man small town blue collar wrestling families like that's it looked like my family walking around if we were in in abu dhabi at a at a hotel somewhere so he was there he was present and he was seen a lot had a couple conversations with him or his team or whatever habib was nowhere to be found habib had like his own training facility he had his own hotel he had his own everything he showed up in armored cars and motorcades and helicopters and all kinds of stuff so he is like royalty over there because it's middle east it's close to russia he's he's uh muslim you know so he's he's like royalty so there there is but for me as like a red white and blue blood in america i'm like this is silly man right now it's like whatever you know right so but you got to respect it now i don't i don't want to i don't want that to come off like i don't respect him like i respect him a ton as a competitor inside the cage what he's done his accomplishments plus winning his last fight after the loss of his father and all that kind of stuff i respect him respect the heck out of him for that but for the most part he was like that's just like all right bro and i don't know he showed up he looked like a skeleton at weigh-ins he looked like it was it was questionable whether he even made weight wow you know you're just like dude be a professional make the weight show up with your chest puffed out a smile on your face do your job yeah there's a video where it says it looks like they didn't even check his weight kind of did you supposedly they did you know did you i mean does that seem normal to you did it feel i mean i will say i will say daniel cormier brought this up and it is true they at the hotel i had to step on the scale and i weighed 154.9 and uh then they said okay you can get on the bus so if i was 155.2 or whatever there they might have been like no you know you can't get on the bus until you cut the weight then again maybe habib was like i'm right at 155.1 by the time i get over there i can float point one maybe the scale it's a a lot of times your balance scales you know those old-school balance scales are a little bit more lenient than your digital scale because the digital scale will tell you point boom whatever it is right the balance scale all they have to do is have a little bit of daylight and you're technically in there so there's almost like a 0.2 swing yeah um but yeah i mean he stepped on the scale it was going up they swiped it and but it's you know it's conspiracy theory yeah i mean it's it's man they've been doing this for 26 27 years you know there hasn't been many controversies so whatever it wasn't meant to be for me to step inside the cage tonight nor nor would have if khabib didn't make weight at that moment he would have got time to cut weight anyway so i wasn't worried about it um here's a question right here from a young fellow right here what up theo it's your boy brody from spartanburg south carolina calling with a question from michael chandler how you keep your head held high after ass whipping that's something i want to know gang baby love you love you too bro well i know it's for michael but i i'll tell you i remember when i was in school i've told this story before but they some kid beat my ass right which is easy to do if i was somebody else i would beat my ass you know what i'm saying bro so don't take a lot of clout out of it you know like easy dude i was it was easy to beat my ass but uh but afterwards at school they made us stand in the hall me and the kid that beat my ass and hope put our arms on each other's shoulders and we had to stand like that all day in the hole so then like i ended up becoming friends with the guy he's still a friend of mine today this kid brad castleman great guy no way um yeah and it wasn't that good i let him i let him hit me a couple first three or four times i let him hit me and then i fell down bro that was my so you didn't get in trouble you just had to do that we had to do that yeah that's cool dude that's but it was interesting because by the end of the day we were friends dude you're like well we gotta say oh man what so what do you like to do for fun yeah yeah i'm totally proud that was it right like i know i hated you this morning but like dude i really hate brad i really hate joe you know like yeah let's go we should go find joe man bro come over i'll invite you over this weekend i got a rich kid coming over once you come over and help me he's coming over in his real shiny yellow horror with the gyro over on the front pegs yeah and his duck head freaking shirt and shorts um what uh that's a good question though how do you how do you maintain some composure and keep your head up after a loss man i think uh kind of like what we were talking earlier is it's it's all about the process too you know if whenever you realize that the journey is really the process you know like the process is the goal the journey is the goal realizing that you're going to have wins you're going to have losses and i realized over the last couple years and it took me a while to realize this that every single person that i've ever looked up to whether i know them or there's or or there's some sports figures some icon i'm like man that person i respect them they all have losses in their past they've all have ups they all have downs every single person you've ever looked up to who has one has at one point or another been a failure failure of a competition failure or failure of something so when you realize like my next fight i might lose i don't know but don't be afraid of the loss don't be afraid of it but when i have lost for me it's the it's it's the beauty of it being the most embarrassing one of the most embarrassing moments of your life because it's not like you lost a a baseball game it's not like you lost a football game and you just lost a fight you know you just got bested by another individual who is getting their hand raised while you have to hang your head or and and collect half a paycheck and go home and lick your wounds um but i think it's just once again realizing that losses are part of the journey right you know lick your wounds get around the most important people in your life be around the people that love you be around the people that believe in you be around the people that love you whether you win or lose make sure you stay built up and then take notes on how you can get better how you can how you can become a better man competitor woman whatever it may be wow man dude i wish you lived in my head bro that would be helpful i could live well we live in the same city now it's a good point dude it's close man it's pretty clean close pretty close because that's definitely getting closer uh here's a question right here that we have from a young man what up theo gang brother uh what up michael hope you're doing well hope your brain works all right uh mine doesn't you know nine concussions and whatnot but i imagine you feel similar sometimes anyways i was wanting someone who's like just getting into fighting and stuff and like wanting to have that ability of of of true self defense not just swinging and wailing um if if all i'm doing is watching these videos right and not going to any classes or anything like that what would you say is the number one thing to pay attention to some of the takeaways that someone who is overall like a youtube type learner how can what can i do to take away from from actual legitimate professional fights that would help me if i were to get in some sort you know scrap of dapple out here on these streets because it gets tough out here in the central east sometimes amen you know so uh yeah man just wondering what some of that advice might be i love what you guys do keep it up theo you're the man gang gang brother let's keep rolling amen let's keep rolling man that's a good question man because a lot of net bangers out there they call them when food's going wild they call them net bangers and it's just me like people that are learned just doing stuff only on the net not in real time but that's a great question man nine concussions damn bro he's [ __ ] thinking with a rubik's cube at that point that was no offense bud but um but yeah that's a great question michael what do you got yeah i mean uh there's a lot of people you've talked about there's a lot of people learning things through youtube these days but i mean whenever when you're watching fights whether it's you know hopefully it's professional fights you know so you're you're learning from professionals if you will um man defense is underrated you know keep your hands up uh learning watch watch how in a fight people use the distance and the timing a lot of times it's not necessarily the biggest punch that lands the one that they see coming it's the one that they don't see coming because you timed it perfectly so when you watch some of these crazy knockouts where a guy's looking looking at you this way expecting you to throw that jab but the hook comes here and hits him in the in the in the chin from almost a side the side you know the t the distance the timing defense um and then the space between the two the spatial awareness of of the the fighters whether they're uh going in for a takedown and then throwing an uppercut or looking like they're gonna throw a head strike and then go for the takedown you know i mean obviously i don't know if my man's looking to get into mixed martial arts fighting in professional rings or if he's just like he said you know in the streets i guess he was saying in the streets just have a little bit of uh self-defense but can you learn from youtube or do you have to get out there and practice i think fighting you need to be that's something you need to need to be there in the physical like in in person i would say you know like obviously you know you can you can't watch some [ __ ] on your phone and then go fight i mean it's gonna be harder it is i mean i mean obviously there's something to be said for fighters like myself who uh who i watch film and then i can like almost learn through osmosis and say man okay in my next sparring session i'm gonna try this but without that sparring session it was just you know and it's also real time it's fast the craziest thing about fighting is it's just so fast you're constantly reaction time and you only get that reaction time through 10 000 hours of repetition and getting after it so you got to be there there in the physical form i don't know if they're in the central east if his if his mma gyms are open now because of the pandemic but man get somewhere and get some drills in you know in america we have sometimes traditions that you know are half half-handed or haphazard and old-fashioned it's kind of wild to think that a lot of people are still wiping their buttocks instead of washing it after they go to the toilet or do toil it hello tushy cleans your butt with a precise stream of fresh water for just 79 i mean let's be honest with each other for years bidets have been available but hideously expensive costing thousands of dollars you see a bidet maybe uh you know jeff bazis has one or you know richie rich's daddy has a bidet but times have changed because with hello tushy you don't wipe at all wiping is over even the best two-ply just can't cut it when it comes to a hands-free booty cleaning experience ditch paper products and uncomfortable chafing when you switch to the soothing cleansing stream of water from a hello tushy bidet attachment and every hello tushy bidet attachment comes with a 60-day risk-free guarantee and a 12-month warranty join millions of happy hello tushy customers right now and have a clean butt with every flush that's right go to hellotushy.com t-h-e-o to get 10 off this is a special offer for our listeners clean your booty right clean your booty right go to hellotushy.com theo for 10 off hello tushy dot com slash theo so when you see you see like the fight between dustin and connor supposed to happen right um is there a preference and i watched you the other day you were talking about like a top 10 guys and kind of raiding the top ten just just sharing your thoughts on them you know i thought it was really real eloquent about it and shared some nice thoughts about all the guys um um is there like a fight that you really want is there a fight that you does it change day to day week to week like a month ago if i'd asked you was it a different person than today so a month ago if you would ask me i would have said you know it's tony ferguson um but then after habib we saw my retiring and then justin gates he was talking about fighting within six to eight weeks and then also connor and poirier were talking about fighting 170 dana white has made it very clear if those guys are fighting 170 they're not going to be you know they obviously aren't going to be getting a title shot you know anytime soon um as soon as habib retired you know i was like hey man i'll fight justin gaichi next week for the title six weeks from now november december [ __ ] i'll fight him at the breakfast buffet yeah i'll fight him next tomorrow morning before the plane takes off you know like let's just keep keep the octagon set up let's go uh you know so so that was then so at that point you that you're like yeah so khabib's retired they kind of changed things it changed things and i said hey i'll fight i'll fight dustin or i'll fight tony or gaichi for you know whether it's the number one contender spot or whether it's for the title because you had connor and and poirier talking about fighting 170 so they were almost out of the discussion still right now you have connor and poirier it looks like it's almost done it looks like they're going to be fighting 155 so those two are booked you got gateshea who just fought so chances are he might want a little bit of time off so i think tony ferguson i say tony ferguson for two reasons number one he makes the most sense because he's been the guy who set out the longest and secondly if i if i do think habib is coming back i would say he's beaten connor khabib has beaten conor he's beaten pourier he's beating gaichi now and he the only fight left out there for him was the ferguson fight but if i beat ferguson i leap frog ferguson and now you get chandler habib for his 30-0 fight or 29 in one fight instead of tony ferguson so that kind of gives me the best option to to win leapfrog him fight a top five guy and be the most appealing matchup the most challenging match up for habit or magamadoff wow was it disappointing um when and have you talked to tony about it you guys had some exchange about it right we didn't exchange a little bit um and then even he he commented on one of my instagram posts like train hard see you soon you know yeah so he's such a unique guy he's such like a yeah he's such a he is an anomaly kind of he's an anomaly he's a unique guy you don't know you don't know you don't know what he's going to say and then you also don't know what he's going to do inside the cage you know so it's wild and it's just like i think it's a perfect it's a fight that scares me you know so it's a fight that's great you know it's great for me it's great for great introduction for me so he's a top five guy he's a scary guy he was 12-0 before he was on a 12-fight win streak before he lost his last fight we can't forget that like he's still one of the most dangerous guys in the division definitely the most unpredictable guy and how quickly that gets forgotten after the gaechi fight so he's in a crate i mean how quickly suddenly he's like he seems like there's this uh you know yeah he's not the same guy exactly and granted he took a lot of damage in that fight but still man like we all take damage you know we all win or lose we take damage you know uh so it's just it is a very much and that's the hardest thing about it but i think it's also the most beautiful thing about it because the some of the fans do realize what us fighters have to go through like that our head is on the chopping block essentially every single time we fight where it's like man it's it's a what have you done for me lately business but going back to like you were talking about poirier it's like it's cool to see his he he's become a hero win or lose he's been one of those guys who are going to come in if he wins people love him if he loses people are rooting for him wanting to pick himself back up and get back in the wind column and i looked at myself that kind of same way i'm gonna i'm gonna come into the ufc no matter what i might have you know five fights left in me 12 fights left to me but either way there's a bunch of big fights out there for me to just have a blast to be put on this you know awesome platform who knows i could go 500 the next six fights i could go 8-0 my next eight fights i could win the title and hold it for ten years i don't know you know so we'll see it's wild man it's crazy and and it's so it's amazing really that 155 is i mean it's really almost the bet i mean it's is there any division that has that much that many individual guys who have so much just like you're saying they can all fight they could all stay in that in the top 10 for the next five 10 years yeah i i don't think so not not when it comes to divisions you know you got your individual guys and then you've got a guy like israel arasana who's who fights at 185 now he's going up the fight for the title at 205 and jon jones just left 205 went to heavyweight and as adasana is talking about going up to heavyweight so that right there kind of shows you that there's not a ton of depth in some of these and i don't say that like they're still it's sometimes the depth that sometimes it looks like there's a lack of depth because the champion has beaten all the one number one contenders similar to like kind of how khabib has done jones too jonjo was nobody left for him really he was fighting guys two and three times exactly but but you look at all the guys that jones fought and if jones if we take jones out of the picture and he retired tomorrow like khabib did you immediately start looking at dominic reyes and john levojovic and the guy with the thor hammer on his chest he fights this weekend uh santos thiago santos you know um just a ton of big name guys you know so it's big name guys but they looked not that great against a guy like jon jones you know so alexander gustafson if yeah i love him exactly so but man look at the light look at the lightweight division connor is the anchor he's like the biggest name obviously you got me the new guy who came in who came in right at the right time tony ferguson was a household name poor yeah he was a household name justin gaichi who is a household name and i mean you've gotten thrown in i mean you suddenly like does it feel a lot different being michael chandler two months ago who was uh in just you know in the not the xfl because it's certainly a lot bigger than that that's a shitty comparison but it's it's similar i mean it's not it's not the nfl you know right yeah being adjacent right being ufc adjacent to suddenly i mean this is you know it's it's i mean it's definitely like it's like put you in a star spot in a way you know it is it's cool and and it and a lot of it or some of it had to do with the way that i came over and and the i guess even i i did bruce buffer's podcast and he's like he's like michael yeah exactly it's time podcast bruce buffer was like hey you know i've been with the ufc now for 25 years and i'm hard-pressed to rack in my brain trying to think of another free agent that came over and got this much splash and this much you know momentum and part of that is great but part of that also you know uh kind of exposes you to some hate too because people like who's this guy think he is man why is the ufc why are they force-feeding us mike this michael chandler again who's this pretty boy yeah zach well that's part of it too they're like this guy doesn't look like he's just handsome who's this lifeguard i read one comment who's this lifeguard exactly that's i'm like hey man i know but it's like you even know cpr honestly no i don't unbelievable exactly man i can't even swim no it's like you know but the good thing is i will get into the octagon soon and people will realize okay he's not just about the bodyguard lifeguard looking dude whatever and bodybuilder someone called me a fitness model because i you know the ufc took some photos of me on the beach and i'm like what am i supposed to do man i'm out here on fight island i'm probably not gonna fight let me do something you know like yeah uh so it's one of them deals where you know just do a little bit of research look up my fights on youtube yeah i've lost but i've also won i've won in dominant fashion you'll see you'll see the passion that i bring to the cage and being bring to that and i will bring to the octagon so it's uh because it feels much bigger a lot of people this is their first introduction to your name exactly so it does and it does feel much bigger it does you know the the numbers are growing the the notoriety is growing and in a lot of ways it it inspires me and motivates me to to be better to to work even harder to build even more you know because like i said it wasn't enough for me to just put on the ufc gloves and put on the ufc fight kit and take the photos in front of the ufc green screen and get on the ufc broadcast like man i want to get inside that octagon and i want to fight and i want to prove to not prove i want to show the people who i am win lose or draw that's that's going to take care of itself yeah but the passion that i bring to the k to the octagon the preparation and the manner at which i prepare myself is is all going to stay the same if if not be even more increased right now and i'm excited for the opportunity how big is that white chair there now and uh in um abu dhabi the white chair at the yeah that big white chair at the ufc thing and then like a big white chair out there that people were sitting in in the w at the um at the hotel in abu dhabi yeah at the ufc ring at the ring out there didn't they have a i didn't see a white chair he didn't uh i just seen pictures of people sitting in one um did you see the picture was it like a a wooden white chair or a beach on the beach yeah it looks real big it is big it is it is it's really big and it's really deep because i was like trying to lean back and i couldn't i got short legs don't tell anybody i got some shorts i mean i've watched a lot of hours of footage of you i got some freaking short legs you can tell they're not extremely long but yeah me and my i mean we have we have a big couch in my house too and i was like gosh dang i hate these long couches man because if i get my my low back up against the back of the couch my little feet dangling off you know like you're waiting for christmas morning like i'm so excited mom and dad you know um is there a fighter you think that that would that doesn't want to fight you in that in that top group i will say for a lot of guys it's risky because you're that new element it's like and you're coming from a different place where i mean i'm sure all the guys are familiar with you for sure but it's not what they've been looking at it's not their you know when they're looking at their top ten it's not what they've been looking at the problem with mixed martial arts is not the problem it's just the nature of mixed martial arts is everybody's tough to some degree then there's some really then there's some really really tough guys who don't have that big of names and then there's some really really big names who aren't that tough so there's this kind of paradigm shift between the two polar opposites of you know like a guy like conor mcgregor his i would say his name is bigger than his fight skills but his fight skills are way up there but his name is way bigger just because he's such a big superstar right but then he got a guy like myself who my fight skills much much supersede my my my name status in the game because i've been outside the ufc for so long and that's not me comparing my skill against conor i think we match up well together whatever but connor or uh you know poirier and ferguson were both offered me offered to fight me october 24th they both turned it down for their different reasons and you know some you know some they both brought up money or they both brought up don't whether it's timeline or maybe they wanted to fight each other they talked about you know standing up for each other and then and then poirier got the counter fight or whatever so it was all an interesting thing but i think i'm a dark horse of the division because people don't really want to fight me because there's not really not a lot of upside to fighting me you know you could fight it you can fight another guy in the top 10 who's in the ufc who is a household name like i say a charizard charles oliveira he's on a long flight street yeah he's good he's got some wins he's been in the ufc would you fight him i would fight anybody right but when i already have the opportunity to fight a top five guy and i've been told i was going to get a top five guy right away poor yeah or ferguson like why would i ever think about and that was the problem too right the khabib's training partner freaking everybody wanted me to fight him because his because his opponent rafael dossanos got covered and fell off the card so everybody was like oh yeah i'm like why am i gonna fight number 12 right when i already basically have a name on a contract that's in the top five i'm gonna get a top five guy right away i'm sorry if that makes people feel a certain way i'm sorry if the fans think that i'm entitled or i'm sorry if the fans think that i you know don't deserve it maybe i do maybe i don't it's the ufc's decision let me step into the cage let me freaking figure it out butt whipped or let me prove to you guys that i deserve to be in top five either way we'll know pretty soon man a lot of you just gotta wait to get in there every time huh yeah man well that's a problem that's the problem with mixed martial arts man is wrestling was great because if i lost it was 48 hours 72 hours four three four days until i got to get back in the win column and get a win if i wanted you know if i if i had the opportunity mixed martial arts man if i lose it takes me four five six months to get a win and that's why that time between fights and that's why i i went into a hole man i lost i lost three fights in a row 688 days without a win back when i first i've lost my first fight ever to eddie alvarez very close razor thin split decision lost my next two fights because i just wasn't prepared mentally to lose a and then when i did lose it took me so long to get in to get to my next competition that i self-sabotaged or or didn't build myself up enough and told myself the lies that i wasn't as good as i thought i was and my doubters were correct and all that kind of stuff um it's not my journey to come back from because especially when that's your first fight the first fight that first fight that i lost and there was just like man i can't can't i'm not who i thought i was they were they were right the naysayers were right the media who didn't believe in me was right you know and then i just lost through and that you know someday when i write a book it'll be called 688 days talking about you know and eddie alvarez is a gangster is there a guy god he's such a dude when you're watching he remind he reminds me like the greatest guy to like i don't know what he reminds me of is there a guy out there when you're fighting them when they who's the craziest look in the eye person you've ever seen and it doesn't have nothing to do with their fighting skills or anything but who've you ever gotten in the ring with and you're like jesus christ this guy is missing a little bit of something uh for me uh i think there's this guy named dave rickles who uh i fought twice who's uh he he had a he has a really pretty good career he actually went over to bare knuckle bare knuckle fighting so that'll show you wow he's you know you got to have kind of have a screw loose to go to that place and fight freaking bare knuckle right yeah yeah um but man he was just he had this look in his eyes he was a little nuts he was a little crazy he was he's the kind of guy who would carry like he was caveman it was his uh his name so he'd wear a barney rubble flintstones thing to the kids and carry a big old club like barney flips flintstone one time they they wheeled him out in a coffin he opened himself up pulled himself out of the coffin and got out there like he was a true showman but he was also kind of a little bit nuts you know um he was he was probably one of the craziest guys i've ever fought is there more are you noticing over the time more of that wrestling kind of flair get into uh fighting as well or has it gotten less as your career has gotten into bigger fights and you know more higher purse fights and stuff and you you know just more professional is there more of that at a lower level or do you think there's just more that coming into the sport everywhere i think i think there was a i think there was the conor mcgregor conor mcgregor era um that said okay i need a trash talk i need gucci sunglasses i need gucci flip-flops i need a uh real or fake good-looking watch i don't care if it's fake i just want people to think i got money i got to talk i got to wear wear certain things i think connor came in and it worked for connor conor mcgregor is an anomaly he is great on the mic he is well read he's well well rehearsed you're crazy if you don't think that a lot of the stuff connor has said on the on this microphone wasn't rehearsed in the back in you know in in in his room before he's going to bed at night he's just rehearsing different things and so i think when i first got into the sport there was almost none of it then conor came in i think a lot of people started you know trying to look high class nice cars and this that and the other thing which that's also just instagram models there's so many of them out there so we're also in the age of instagram instagram but i also think the tide is now shifting towards the respectful honorable warriors i mean look at our division i mean like poirier is one of the most respectable guys ever conor punched a guy punched an old man in an irish whiskey bar and then like his next fight was like he apologized and he he had his hair slicked back beat up cowboy cerrone but it was a nice he he's trying to play the respectable card realizing like man i don't want to keep carrying around this heaviness it's it's a lot of heaviness to have a lot of animosity in your life you know man like you you can have certain spats with people like if you're not on good terms with people man like you don't need enemies in life yeah it sucks just so for anybody who's listening right now if you've got toxic people in your life now imagine taking that and having a toxic relationship between you and the guy that you're fighting how how would you perform when you have that some people do well with it some people do really bad with it i personally do really bad with it bellator tried to build up this big animosity thing between me and pitbull and i'm not saying i lost because of it but i didn't feel myself going into that fight so to answer your question i think the sport is moving towards the more respectable and i'll tell you right now had a conversation with dana white on fight island he told me hey kid keep doing exactly what you're doing we're getting a ton of great feedback from the ufc staff from the ufc fans from all the social media pages from all the content all the stuff like people are you are resonating with the fan base with the audience and i'm the kind of guy where i'm just going to be respectful i'm i'm gonna hey i have honor in the sport integrity of my life high character high reputation and it's always worked out well for me pretty you know could i have sold some more tickets and made some more money by you know custom spitting fighting a little bit more maybe but i wouldn't have felt better it wouldn't be not doing it yeah exactly exactly maybe not let's get this question right here man we might be about to finish up what do we have here riley what's up theo what's up michael this is quincy coming at you from the great state of texas my question for michael chandler being uh just lay out for me what your dream career in the ufc is when a lot of guys get here they think you know hey i want the money fights you know and do the connor gig or you know i just want to chase glory i just want a legacy i want a name you know i want to know what that championship so just lay out what's your ideal career with the ufc and where do you see it going gang gang bro yeah cause that belt's back in play now man it is that's a good question man because that's it's good because it's it's like what's what's the philosophy of of why i'd made the decision you know just just to give a little context i left i left the relative uh the relative surety of easier fights and good money in bellator good contract and bellator comfortability of being the big fish little pond and being kind of the poster boy for an organization to essentially come over to ufc ask to get thrown to the sharks thrown to the wolves right away and see what happens so to answer that question i think a guy like gaichi or tony ferguson fighting and showing the fans who i am win that fight fight the way exactly the way that i fight prove to the fans okay this guy's here to stay this guy's a legit contender for the lightweight belt and then fight for the belt whether it's habib or whether it's connor poirier whether it's whether i'm the number one contender after beating one of those guys and then connor poirier is the number one contender we fight for the title sometime middle of 2021 and then uh and then after that just defend the belt and get the big fights because i think and a crown they should put a crown on you guys man crown would be cool you know or like a metal you know like like an olympic gold medal you know yeah crown would be crown would be cool but keep going sorry oh no but then you'll get a crown hopefully and then uh and then defend the belt a few times defend the belt a few times and then for me i don't say get the big fights just for the money but you get the big fights because that's how you get the attention you know it's like it's like the gary vee uh approach of capturing as much attention as possible if you don't have people's attention or you can't get people's attention they can't they won't pay attention to you and they won't you know life is all about who knows you who trusts you and then who's going to to buy what you're selling not just money-wise not just buying products but by what you're selling like what kind of motivation are you selling people what kind of character are you selling people what kind of what kind of theos are you are you selling to the people so that you can reach the masses and for me it's all about touching as many people as i possibly can through this platform that i've been given touching every walk of life every corner of the globe hopefully and uh so winning the world title and then getting big fights either defending the belt or you know bmf belt or the big you know the big fights with the big name guys to get as much attention and eyeballs on me not for the you know not for the ego of it but for the platform of it yeah that platform yeah that's a good point you know once people know you then you can do stuff with it yeah i mean that's and that's really what it is because it's it's a catch-22 and it's like he just did that for attention and it's like yeah as long as you don't ever sacrifice your morals or your character it's okay to do things for attention you know like i came over the ufc essentially for attention you know i came over to ufc for competition competition and attention those are two things that i get from the ufc that i'm that i couldn't not that i wasn't getting a bellator but i get more in the ufc so it's okay to want more attention especially if you've done things to earn it you know was there a time previously you were going to come to the ufc and it didn't work out or was there how long did this i mean how long is this whole convo going on is it one of those ongoing conversations for like a decade what is it like so it's one of those it's one of those deals where i never actually became a free agent there was some reports out there that chandler's a free agent he's you know he's gonna you know but i ever actually you know two years ago and four years ago was on the last fight on my contract ended up re-signing with bellator with the one fight left on my contract so i was never a free agent until august of of 2020 and uh it just seemed like the right time this time back then because it's also it also depended on what the ufc lightweight division looked like too you know two years ago the landscape looked a lot different you had habib as the champion you had conor off doing 100 million dollar fights with floyd mayweather he could come back leapfrog me whenever you had poorier coming in you one or one of those guys had an interim title two years ago it was either tony or it wasn't poor yeah because i think point was after that but maybe it was tony i think tony had an interim title habib had the title habib wasn't coming back necessarily so it was just a weird time it was a weird time for me to come in now it exactly what we thought now it's perfect two years later i'm coming in at this time which couldn't have been even more so two years ago and i said this to dana when i spoke to him i said listen two years ago four years ago i wouldn't have been the guy that you needed to be to come in and be the champion and be the superstar of this division and i truly believe that i'm going to be that i don't say that in a cocky i don't say that in a cocky way i just believe like i want you got to believe it i just believe that that's that's what's going to happen and and maybe there's going to be people that laugh at me i fall flat on my face and that's fine but at least i find out you know that's how i feel in my heart right now and you can't you can't knock a man for how he feels in his heart you know a man who hitches his dream to a star that's the only way you can go out and create create impact in your life and do amazing things so that's what i'm doing and man it's been uh it's been cool but i never became a free agent until just this year and it just never seemed like the right time to become a free agent until this year damn so it worked out perfect well i'm inspired how do you feel riley i loved every minute of it come on riley i like that man yeah you're great thanks man did it make you feel better about the girl yeah hey there are so many fish in the sea man i didn't even meet my wife till i was like 27 years old yeah where'd you meet her at dude that's a funny story crazy story actually this tooth right here chipped it like broke it in half in in college my buddy justin cole jumped off the side of the pool jumped on me and i bit it down broke it but i told them that i did it in wrestling so they sent me to this mizzou a casual move there yeah come on dude this sent it to them to send me to the mizzou dentist the guy who did all the dentist stuff his name was kent willett i knew who he was because he was a bible study leader of my bible study leader he had a great great uh reputation in town and i was looking at these pictures of him i'm like man who's this cute little brunette girl and all these family pictures of him it must be his daughter and he's awesome i like him and i don't even know him if she's half as good as she must be by being his daughter he must you know she must be awesome he fixes my tooth i don't say anything but i start looking her up on facebook and just freaking fall in love with her yeah i've been there before yeah right and then a couple a couple weeks later i joined a bible study and they start talking about this brie will it girl and that was her name pre will it i'm like man that's that's that freaking girl man like i love that girl and now i hear them talking i'm just like kind of listening like oh so she goes to school here like what is she cool what path does she take to walk exactly yeah no well she wasn't in the town she was she was out of town you know she was a couple hours away in indiana but luckily through facebook i think i frame requested her she said yes because i had i had some friends that she respected and were like well if he's friends with these guys he must be all right ends up being five years later until i finally freaking send her a facebook message i'm like hey how are things like acted i kind of acted like i knew her and she you know she uh she you know responded we talked for a couple months she said hey i'm i'm doing residencies or i'm applying for residencies i'm getting off here here's my email so we emailed back and forth for almost two years she would she would wait like four five six months to respond to me i would email her and she wait freaking three months to respond to me and i'd email her right away she'd wait two months to respond to me 60 days for two years you know and then finally i wore her down enough she got coffee with me and then we fell in love right there january 24th 2013 and called his coffee in columbia missouri and you met her the other night yeah beautiful lady man we had a nice time i came over for the um just to watch some of the election and yeah it was a nice time man yeah it was fun man and then uh took some to go played i wish i would have taken a bigger one yeah dude you should have man we still got like six pounds of brisket and i was thinking i was like somebody's like i'm gonna take it to go plate i'm like yes they only got three people living here yeah yeah yeah you need all of this four-year-old exactly i was going out of town yeah dude i'm glad you took some that was still awesome if you want something that was fun man um yeah that's like my that must yeah my whole thing is like oh yeah i'll send girls like dms i'd be like hey did i see you at the grocery and then they're like i live in moscow and i'm like oh well yeah i was there yeah but i've seen those i must have been on my friend's face time he was walking through the grocery i saw you but in the background his name was vladimir yeah yeah yeah that's [ __ ] great right over here um that's all i got riley any questions you want me to ask for you all right michael chandler man dude it's it's a pleasure to watch your ride man and thank you so much for coming and joining us today man man thanks for having me it's fun yeah now i'm just floating on the breeze and i feel like these [Music] oh but when i reach that ground i'll share this piece of mind i found i can feel it in my it's gonna take a little time for me to set that parking brake and let myself online that light on me i'll sit and tell you my story [Music]

Channel: Theo Von

Views: 344,904

Keywords: UFC, Michael Chandler, Dana White, Khabib, McGregor, Tom Segura, Bert Kreischer, Bobby Lee, Tim Dillon, Joe Rogan

Id: MCn-s7E6Q-I

Length: 104min 32sec (6272 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 09 2020