#821 & Fight Companion - Joey Diaz

Thank you for having me.

Thanks for being here, brother. I'm excited. I'm excited about our show at the cop theater tomorrow night. Yes.

Out of all the fights on the card, Dosanios Alvarez was the fight.

Really? That was my fight for the whole weekend.

The whole weekend. I didn't know when it was. I thought it was on the undercard. I didn't know when it was. Yeah, this one tonight I've been waiting for. This, to me, is a fucking boring burner.

I'm looking forward to it, for sure, because Alvarez is very tough, and he makes every fight tough. He's a tough dude, and I think he's going to have a real good game plan coming in. I think he's going to be as prepared as you've ever going to see him, because you've seen him off some hard fights in the know. He had that war with cowboy Cerrone, got lit up, especially his leg, got his leg kicked. He just got introduced to the next level of MMA, but coming off of a victory like that over Pettis, and he beat Gilbert, too, and he had a fight through adversity. In the Gilbert Melendez fight, he had a seriously fucked up eye. Remember his eye swatch?

Yes, that's right.

He's a tough.

He's a tough.

Know, you got to put him away, man. And that's tough to fucking do. He's as game as they get. But this dude is special. This Dosan Jose is special. He's hit a very high level over the last couple of years, and his skill level is higher than it's ever been. It's like a bunch of different things coming together. One, it's Rafael Cordero. Rafael Cordero is such a good coach. The coach of Kings MMA, the original guys from shoot the box in Kuratiba, Brazil. Those guys were so badass. I mean, he's from such a badass lineage. He's from the early days of ninja and Anderson Silva, and he's the guy who took Fabricio Verdum from a guy who really wasn't a striker at all, just a jiu jitsu artist, and he brought him to the heavyweight title. And now you look at Fabricio's striking. He made a big mistake, obviously, in the stipe Miocic fight, but I think Stipe Miochic is a bad motherfucker. If he catches you, he catches you. He tried to go to war with Stipe, and Stipe just was better at moving away and countering him, and he got careless and left some openings, and it could have been because he was in Brazil. He was real know. Who knows? He fucked up. And Stipe's a bad motherfucker. So those two are bad combination together. But that said, you look at, like, verdum striking against Travis Brown. It's excellent. His striking against Kane, Velasquez, is excellent. Excellent. Long snaps that jab out, keeps you to distance, throws hard kicks, because he wants you to take him down. How about that? He wants you put him on his back. Good luck with that. Good luck with the nastiest guard the heavyweight division has ever seen. Arguably, he's a motherfucker. I mean, Frank Meir snapped arms. If you want to look at effective submissions in the heavyweight division in MMA, it's tough to not give the nod to Frank Meir. Tapped Lesnar with a knee bar, snapped Minotaro's arm. Snapped Tim Sylvia's arm. Just maybe not for his overall career, because he's definitely had ups and downs, but been in some amazing fights, but his submission victories are fucking horrendous. He breaks bones, man. Who the fuck else breaks bones? Frank Meir's breaking bones with armbars. Breaking bones with Kimura. He broke fucking Minotaro's arm. Snapped it in half where he was looking over at it like, holy shit. So it's hard not to give the nod to Frank Meir when it comes to overall MMA guard skill. But that said, man, the technical ability that Verdum has is off the charts. The way he wraps you up is so neat. He just tucks everything tight like that fedor armbar. Oh, my God. I mean, he just slapped that on him where Fador was stuck in that guard, and you could see in his eyes, he was like, oh, shit, this is like, the water's heavier. I can't drink it. I can't get up to get where the air is. Holy shit. It just get crushed into those legs. He's fucking huge, too. He's a giant guy. Legit 240 doesn't really have to lift much to be like 240. He's a huge guy. For doom's no joke man. So for steepe Miochek to take him out like that, fuck, that was a victory. And to do it in Brazil, that must have been nuts, man. That was like 40,000 people or something crazy, right? It was a soccer stadium. Jesus.

Yeah. He didn't give a fuck. There was zero fucks given in Mayo's world. In Mayo, che's world, there was zero fucks. He had no idea he was in Brazil.

Well, that dude is as legit as they get. His mindset is so strong. He's so calm. He's so calm right before he throws down, man. And you know what? More now than ever, because he's been there and done that. That war that he had with Junior Dos Santos, I mean, that was a fucking war.

Experience is a motherfucking in this UFC and an MMA experience. Is it, man?

Yeah, it is it. But he's also got a lot of skill and he's getting better. That's the other thing about Stipe. Stipe's getting better. I mean, he's always been a motherfucker, but he's better now than he's ever been. Better, mentally stronger, more steady. Like, everything about him is better now.

He has what's his name in Cleveland.

When ouster over him in October. Oh, September. September, something like that. September, I think. September in Cleveland.

Oh, you want to go barn burner? Want to come? I don't know what the date is.

Let's do a show on Friday night.

My October is jacked. On September is jacked.

You're too goddamn popular.

No, I do the every other week thing. But the nose, the special, everything is just falling. It's just October 15. I shoot. So everything is wrapped around that. Pretty much beautiful.

But Cleveland, that's going to be fun. And the people that are going to be there to support steepe, because right now they've got basketball and now they've got the UFC heavyweight champion.

Put the show together. I'm open. You're open? I think I'm open.

Saturday, September 10.

I think I'm open.

So the Friday the 9th would be where we do the show. Beautiful. Let's do it. I think I'll find something. That's a crazy fight, too. That's an interesting fight because Alistair has been fighting very smart lately, man. He's just put it together really nicely in these last few fights.

Is he still at Jackson's?

Yes, he's still at Jackson's. I think part time. Pretty sure. I'm pretty sure he's still at Jackson's.

The thing about him was, you know, in pride and all that stuff. He was the heavyweight, the champion in kickboxing. There comes a time in your life when you put the pieces together. We're starting to see it now. From Alistair to Nate Diaz to all these fighters that years ago, they lost. Who did he lose to? He lost to a broken jaw, and look what he's gone on to do. Crazy. So they put it all together. It's like when a comedian gets a show. You know how hard it is for a comedian to get a show? All the stars have to be aligned, right? Everything has to be in order. Everything, just to get it on right. That's a complete. Everybody gets pilots every year, but just to really get to that high level that you're talking about takes you. Maybe Cordero, when he went to Cordero's, Cordero put it all together. The jiu jitsu and the boxing or the kickboxing, put it all together.

It definitely is a big part of it.

It's a big part of it.

You know what else is a big part of it? His strength and conditioning program. He's one of those guys who trains under Nick Kirson. Do you know Nick Kirson? Nick Kirson is. He's one of the students of Marv Marinovich. You know those Marv Marinovich and Tod Marinovich story? Yeah. And Marv Marinovich was a world famous strength and conditioning coach with some seriously unconventional, wild ideas that were very, very effective. And he trained BJ Penn for a couple of camps. And Nick Kirson is one of his disciples. And Nick Kursan handles Dosanjos and quite a few other guys. Rusan Pravidnikov. How do you say his name? Ruslan Pravadnikov. Pravadnikov, right? I'm so high. Definitely shouldn't be doing this podcast right now. Pravadnikov, the siberian rocky, you know the guy I'm talking about? He trains that guy, too. And Joe Schilling. He's done some work with Joe. He's a really good strength and conditioning guy. And Cardero. And the combination of high level mma, high level jiu jitsu, and this radical strength and conditioning program these guys do all these pliometrics. It's all this box jumps. Everything's like exploding and resting. Everything's like very carefully monitored. It's really interesting stuff, man. Do a lot of stuff with your feet. That's one thing that he said that kind of blew my mind. I was like, yeah, I didn't even think of that. I go, what's the most important thing, like, what do you work on a guy the most when you first start training him? And he's like, their feet. He's like. Foot strength is like, one of the biggest weaknesses that a lot of fighters have. Like, their feet will get tired, and so you can't push off as hard. You can't move as well. Your footwork starts to suck. You can't explode in or out. When you see a guy who's got real good footwork and the ability to dive in and out and move very well and fast, you realize what a giant advantage that is. Like, Connor does it so well. Liotto did it so well. Wonder boy does it so well. Oh, shit. Joe Duffy. Joe Duffy banging on Mitch Clark. Joe Duffy very upset