#180 - Joey Diaz, Eddie Bravo, Denny Prokopos

Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Thank God men like Nick Diaz exist this weekend. Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit. Thank God those guys exist. Thank God those guys exist. And thank God those guys have built themselves up to the point where this is one of those matches where five fucking rounds, man, you can't wait. You're going to be palms sweaty, rubbing your hands together before that bitch. I don't know who's going to be the referee for this. I don't know who it is. But before that, one person looks at the blue corner, then looks at the red corner and then says, fight. That shit is going to be crazy.

And poor Carlos Condo, he's been training for eight years for the fucking fight. Yeah, eight years he's been fucking training. Every two months they change opponents.

Perfect.

He's had 19 fucking opponents like Batman in season one.

It's really for him. I think it's perfect because he's so prepared.

No, he's ready. He's ready to rock.

It's a perfect time for him.

One and 160 plus 130. The line is not that bad. It's -160 you would be crazy to.

Pick a favorite in this fight. I think you'd be crazy. I think that this is one of those who the fuck knows what's going to happen fights. This could be. Who knows? It's going to be amazing.

For doom, Roy Nelson, too.

Yeah, for Doom Roy Nelson.

I forgot about that.

Oh, how about Hennan Barrel and Scott Jorgen?

That's right. Holy fucking battle.

That Hennon Burrell, dude, he's the dark horse of the pound for pound division because he's not a champion yet, but he might be one of the top pound for pound guys. He's right up there with Aldo. He's a beast. Did you see his last fight with Brad Pickett? He hit homeboy with a knee to the face with no jump. Just fucking leaped up with this knee instead of that thing where they lift the front leg and then they come up with the right leg. They'll start with the left leg and then they use it as force to kick up with the right leg. Some of these badass Brazilians like Anderson can do it too, where they just fly through the fucking air with one knee. And Burrell just lifted that knee up and crack. Caught Brad Pickett in the chin. I mean, he's a beast, dude. And his jujitsu is fucking know. As soon as Pickett, like, stumbled and he saw position, he jumped on that.

Back so quick, man.

It was a thing of beauty, man.

I saw the UFC special on Nick Diaz. Carlos Condit.

Which one? Episode one.

Shit, I don't know.

Episode two. I don't know if it's aired yet. Is it aired yet?

Well, the one where they have Nick Diaz, like, kindergarten teacher.

Yeah.

Damn, she remembered Nick, right? She remembered Nick. And I learned a lot about Nick. And I come up with a hypothesis. Before, in the early days, if you were a black belt in jiu jitsu, shit, you had a shot at the title. And then it became, if you were an Olympic wrestler, damn, you have a shot at the title now. It's obvious. Now it's becoming more like all other sports. Like, if you didn't wrestle, do jiu jitsu, and worked on your striking since day one as a kid, because there's so many kids doing that. All three don't. It's like you're not going to have a shot in the very near future. And I think there's one more factor, and that's the Nick Diaz Factor. Obviously, he doesn't like cameras. He said it a million times. He doesn't like to talk in front of cameras. He's not into it. And maybe he's shy in front of the camera or whatever. And his teacher was even saying that he wasn't the most vocal guy and he had trouble expressing himself and all that shit. And when he gets in that cage and that door slams shut and the crowd is roaring, there's no more fucking talking. He just comes alive. He looks at his opponent, he's like, nobody could fucking hear you. You could be the most articulate, funny, charismatic guy on the fucking planet. But you know what? I fucking run all day, swim all day, Dubach. I got a crazy chin. I'm going to fucking kill this motherfucker. That's an X Factor right there. You have to look for that. I think in the future, in fighters, do they have that switch where when they fucking get in that cage, it really is like life or death?

His is a very different thing than anybody else's. First of all, his approach to it is so different than anybody else's in that he does endurance training, like long distance marathon type training, and basically forces these guys to try to keep up with them. I mean, he basically puts them into an endurance contest and tries to get them to keep up with them. That's why he does a lot of juking, a lot of getting in their face. All that stuff tenses you up. All that stuff. All those punches that he throws at 50, 60%, all those tighten. You know, one of the things that Frank Shamrock said was that when Nick Diaz was punched him, he hits you so often you can't breathe. You don't know when to breathe. You can't relax because you never get to relax because they just keep coming. Which is just different. He just fights in a different way. I think the way he does it is brilliant. It's so brilliant because no one else did it before him. No one else figured out that way to fight. No one else really would not just have great skills but have ridiculous world class endurance like swim from Alcatraz. Endurance. That's nutty shit, man. They said they went through a countdown. He sparred like some ridiculous amount of rounds. Then he ran 5 miles and then he swam for an hour and a half. That was just one day.

Yeah.

And he just does that all day.

Maybe he has some kind of condition where he's obsessed with exercise.

I don't know. I mean, I think he loves it for mean. When he was a kid he said that. I think he said it was one of the countdown shows. I think it was his uncle or someone was like track coach. Track coach, yeah. And he used to take him, his grandfather, Danny propagos.

But that's the other thing too. Here's the other thing too. With him. You know what? He doesn't like fucking talking. You smoke a joint, what do you feel like doing? Go for a fucking run, see what happens to you.

Feels great.

Feels great. I smoke a joint and I go to Fucking swim fit for an hour. You feel like fucking Hercules when you come out. And that's his world. That's his fucking world.

Smokes weed.

That's what his endurance comes from, from going, I don't want to hang out with these dumb fuckers. I might stab somebody. I'll just smoke a joint and run till the fucking high wears off. And he runs for fucking 2 hours. When I lived in Boulder I used to smoke and run. And the high when you finish fucking running is a complete different dimension.

Yeah. Even when you smoke and lift man, everything, you feel all your muscle tissue. Like when you press in weights, you feel it. You feel your whole body moving. That's why they say, well not just that, yoga, smoking and doing yoga.

Edible.

That's the way you're supposed to do it.

Tremendous.

Edible? Yes.

I used to eat an edible. I used to take a little piece of banana bread or a little hash cookie. I take it at seven in the morning and go to 830 yoga. You know, my head is at 830. And the bitch is smoking. And I would just go into it little by little, and it's amazing. It's fucking amazing. When you walk out of there, you don't know what hits you. You really don't. So that's what my thing is with him, that he just, you know what? He's not the type of guy that's going to go to a club or whatever. What would you do? Smoke a joint?

He's the last guy I'd want to fight. Because think about it. Compare him to GSP and even John Jones and Anderson Silva. What he has that they don't have, maybe they will develop. It, is he will stand right in front of you and exchange with you, and he's down to go to war right in front of mean. GSP ain't going to do that. John Jones probably won't even do that. And if you decide to take him down, he'll fuck you up on the ground, too. His jujitsu is amazing.

Cyborg fight.

What the fuck are you going to do?

Example. Yeah.

What are you going to do with Nick Diaz? What are you going to do with him?

Cyborg? He was killing Cyborg standing up. So Cyborg took him down and WHOOP, armbar. Within 30 seconds, he had him in an armbar.

Yeah, I mean, GSP might be able to take him down. What is he going to do? He's not going to pass his guard. He's not going to pass Nick Diaz's guard.

Well, he doesn't get tired when you're on top of him either. A lot of dudes, man, you put them on their back and they just get exhausted. They get demoralized. They get exhausted.

Unless we see his chin fall apart, man, I can't see him lose.

Well, you know, that can happen to some fighters when they take beatings. That can happen.

We've seen it happen over and over with Vanderley and know so many guys, Chuck, eventually they had iron chins and they would come even if they got.

Well, Vanderly never had an iron chin. Vanderle got dropped a lot. Sakuraba dropped him. A lot of people dropped him. Henderson had him really badly hurt.

His chin is a lot worse now. It's a lot.

Arguably. Arguably. But he was already just this dude who ran face first. One of the things that made Vanderley great was how reckless he was. He didn't give a fuck. He would charge at you literally like a wild dog. He'd been like a pit bull just running at you. But that style gets you hurt that style. It's not a coincidence that he's the only guy of his era that had to have facial reconstruction so he could breathe. His nose was flattened, smashed, flattened. If you go and look at his face from when he first entered into pride and then his face in his first UFC fight with Chuck, he's a completely different person. You wouldn't even recognize him. He was a handsome guy. When he first got into pride, he was a fucking handsome guy. Vanderley. Look at Vanderley. Hot, pretty, sexy. I'dance with him.

He was cute.

He was sexy. He was a completely different looking person. Noguera as well. Noguera's face looks way different too.

How about Nate fucking Diaz? Holy shit. It's like a carbon copy of Nick Diaz. We got two Nick Diaz. We don't just have one. That's fucking incredible. He was just like, maybe a year behind Nick Diaz sort of in development. It seemed like maybe in jiu jitsu is a little behind and in the striking and in the striking power, and now he's, like, caught up to Nick Diaz.

I think he had some weight problems too, where he didn't cut the weight right, and now he cuts it right. And now he has way more energy because when he went up to 170, he had some fights where he looked badass, like the Rory Markham fight. Holy shit. And I thought, man, this kid is draining himself too much to get down to 55. But then he figured out how to do 55 right, and he came in the gome