# JRE MMA Show #187 with Robert Whittaker

- **Show:** The Joe Rogan Experience
- **Published:** 22 Oct 2026
- **Source:** https://traffic.megaphone.fm/GLT1470402625.mp3
- **Transcript:** https://podcasts.opennash.com/shows/joe-rogan-experience/jre-mma-show-187-with-robert-whittaker-2ee80a/
- **Provider:** OpenNash Podcasts (machine-generated)

## In brief

Joe Rogan and UFC fighter Robert Whittaker argue that fighting is decided by a mix of born talent, skill and mental state. Power, speed and a relaxed mind can matter as much as science-heavy training. They say promotions should not punish careful, technical fighters just because those fighters are not exciting to watch.

The conversation keeps returning to a tension between discipline and enjoyment. Whittaker describes how brutal weight cuts and long camps wore him down at middleweight, and how moving up to light heavyweight and training more freely brought the joy back. The same tension runs through their talk of aging, injuries, cardio versus skill work, and rest and balance in a long career.

## Key insights

1. **Older fighters lose wrestling defense through joint caution** Rogan says that after knee surgeries a fighter stops exploding into positions and starts protecting himself, which lets younger wrestlers hold him down. Whittaker adds that older fighters have less mat time and less of the constant scrambling that keeps younger ones out of trouble.
2. **Skill work should happen when you are fresh** Rogan argues that technique learned while exhausted turns sloppy and erodes confidence in the movement. Whittaker agrees that mental focus runs out, though both accept that some training under fatigue is useful.
3. **Weight cutting drained Whittaker's enjoyment of fighting** He describes starving camps, fatigue around his six kids and a wardrobe that no longer fit his normal weight. Moving up to light heavyweight let him eat and train properly, and he says it brought the fun back.
4. **Switching stances is a major striking advantage** Rogan explains that a fighter stuck in one stance is exposed if his front leg is compromised. Whittaker notes that a switch forces the opponent to change strategy instantly and also disrupts takedown setups.
5. **Cutting skilled but boring fighters is unfair** Rogan objects to fighters not getting UFC contracts because of their style, even when they are undefeated or winning. He says fighters are paid to win and avoid damage, and that the answer to a point-fighting style is for opponents to find a way to beat it.

## Questions this episode answers

### Why did Robert Whittaker move up to light heavyweight?

He says he stopped enjoying middleweight camps because of the diet, the weight cut and the fatigue. At light heavyweight he could eat and train properly, and he wanted to bring the love of fighting back.

### Is it better to train skills when tired or when fresh?

Rogan argues that skill work should be done fresh because exhaustion makes technique sloppy and shakes your confidence. Whittaker largely agrees, though he says you still need to learn to wrestle and grapple while fatigued.

### Why do so many UFC fighters get cut for being boring?

Rogan says the UFC dropped undefeated fighters and others who won because it did not like their cautious or point-fighting style. He thinks this is wrong, because fighters are paid to win and fighting is about avoiding damage and playing it smart.

### What is a crucifix position and why does it matter in the Chimaev fight?

The crucifix is a control position in which a fighter pins an opponent's arms so he cannot defend himself. Rogan notes that Khamzat Chimaev put champion Dricus du Plessis in it three times in their title fight, which he says is almost unheard of.

### How does Whittaker cut weight now?

He says he starts a camp around 103 kilos and does his final cut of about 15 pounds in a warm bath, which takes roughly an hour and a half. He prefers it to a sauna because he can rest instead of wearing himself out.

## Facts

- **Joe Rogan** [0:02:17]: "still shredded, you know, like, still works out like a fucking demon, still has insane cardio and drive, still wins fights in the trenches."
- **Joe Rogan** [0:06:59]: "had over the course of, like, something like six years, he had a hundred Muay Thai fights and kickboxing fights, which is crazy."
- **Joe Rogan** [0:31:59]: "So his thing was he would jump up in the air and drop down on his ass, he would land on his ass and elbow you."
- **Joe Rogan** [0:37:19]: "When was the last time you saw someone in a championship fight defending their world title? Get put in the crucifix three fucking times"
- **Joe Rogan** [0:47:20]: "Sheroff just knocked out Gable Stevenson, like in the 1st round with the 1st punch, like 2,400 to one underdog,"
- **Joe Rogan** [0:51:52]: "Nick Diaz has swam back from Alcatraz, I think, seven times, it might be more now."
- **Joe Rogan** [1:15:34]: "So when Eddie Bravo branched off and started 10th Planet, which was 2003, it was very controversial."
- **Joe Rogan** [1:17:07]: "John Jock was born with, uh, only a thumb on his left hand, so he has a a right hand that's a full hand,"
- **Joe Rogan** [1:23:39]: "Hixon was a true pioneer, too, with physical training. So Hixon was like the 1st jiu-jitsu guy to adopt extreme flexibility, yoga, cold plunges."
- **Robert Whittaker** [1:26:34]: "I was super lucky to meet my wife as early as I did, cause her background is elite gymnastics"
- **Robert Whittaker** [1:31:55]: "And then I got the call up for Ultimate Fighter and I said, I'm gonna take some annual leave. And I went on the Ultimate Fighter."
- **Robert Whittaker** [1:45:15]: "I've been in the UFC for 15 years, end of my career, I'm gonna have no clothes."
- **Joe Rogan** [1:49:40]: "When he did the podcast, he told me very specifically that in the contract, it said, in capital letters, we do not test for steroids."
- **Joe Rogan** [1:52:39]: "It looks like the fight is over. But Herb Dean did not stop the fight. I think it was Herb Dean."
- **Joe Rogan** [1:54:15]: "He fought eleven fights with one eye and didn't tell anybody."
- **Joe Rogan** [2:05:28]: "Before he even got to the UFC for six years, Glover to Shera was the boogeyman. He was the guy that everyone was terrified of, but he couldn't get out of Brazil"
- **Joe Rogan** [2:28:11]: "he blew his leg apart in a motorcycle accident, like he's missing a big piece of his quad."
- **Robert Whittaker** [2:35:43]: "I wanna move into, like, health, fitness with my wife. I've always wanted to do it with my wife, cause she's the one that got me into everything."

## Transcript

**[0:00:01] Speaker 6:** Joe Rogan podcast check it out The Joe Rogan experience train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night all day.

**[0:00:09] Joe Rogan:** All right, what's up, Robert? Good to see you, Robert. What's happening?

**[0:00:15] Robert Whittaker:** thank you. S. Thank you so much for having me. And I wanna thank you for last night, you know? Oh, my pleasure. Glad Yes, seeing

**[0:00:21] Joe Rogan:** you had a good time.

**[0:00:21] Robert Whittaker:** seeing the show was just unbelievable. It was my 1st time at a comedy club Ever? Oh ever. And um, yeah, it blew my mind. It's there's some good just,

**[0:00:29] Joe Rogan:** comedy clubs in Australia, in Sydney, they have the comedy lounge, that's a great spot.

**[0:00:33] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, no, I've. I've heard of him. I've just never found the time to

**[0:00:35] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, oh, I get it.

**[0:00:37] Robert Whittaker:** try and juggle it to I don't know to fit it how the fuck in.

**[0:00:38] Joe Rogan:** you guys have time for anything, you know? And you have a bunch of kids married, like a a an actual life outside of fighting, like, I don't know how you have any time. Like,

**[0:00:48] Robert Whittaker:** That's kind of the balancing act, isn't it? That's like, that's why you see. So I have nothing but respect for the guys that that hang in there and and fight for any long amount of years. Is because life goes on around it. And from when I started, like twenty, I had no kids to when I'm now married with six kids and mortgages and life. You know, you kinda juggle it around, just balancing act.

**[0:01:11] Joe Rogan:** wow, what a big shift. 20 single wild man just out there fighting, and now here you are, 6 kids, mortgage businesses. Like you got this supplement thing you're doing now with Musashi, you got your own supplement line. So it's a lot of work, man, it's a lot, a lot of activity, a lot of things going on, a lot of balls juggling.

**[0:01:32] Robert Whittaker:** you gotta gotta stay busy though, right? There's like idle hands, especially with some I. And and you'd get this like when I guess like with performing performance sports and like the the gear, Tins kinda always over your head, right? So you just kinda always gotta stay busy, keep moving. It's like a shark, otherwise you just kinda drown.

**[0:01:52] Joe Rogan:** oh, for sure, especially in combat sports, especially when you consider the fact that even in the the the outlier end, you only have a certain amount of time. Like the true outliers in the sport, I think one of the true outliers in the sport right now is Jared Cannonier. He's one of the outliers because that dude is, how old is he now? I think Forty one, forty two forty one, forty somewhere. How one, old is Jared Cannonier?

**[0:02:17] Joe Rogan:** Young Jamie forty two, still shredded, like, s like anybody's business, still shredded, you know, like, still works out like a fucking demon, still has insane cardio and drive, still wins fights in the trenches. Like that fight with Gregory Rodriguez, he was getting blasted in that 1st round. He looked bad, comes on, wins it in the trenches and stops him.

**[0:02:41] Robert Whittaker:** Even when he loses, it's not like Not it's not.

**[0:02:44] Joe Rogan:** by much.

**[0:02:44] Robert Whittaker:** It's, yeah, it's not by much at all. Like the when he lost to to Robo, Ro- Robo Cop, um, it it was like

**[0:02:52] Joe Rogan:** when did he lose to him? Did he lose to him? Cause he it was, just beat him

**[0:02:54] Robert Whittaker:** it was, it was, uh, did

**[0:02:55] Joe Rogan:** recently?

**[0:02:55] Robert Whittaker:** he? was it? was I? Who did he lose to? Then

**[0:02:57] Joe Rogan:** cause Ro- Gregory Rodriguez is Robocop, so he just stopped him recently. He was getting beaten up in the 1st round, and Robocop is one of those guys it? Wa- that cuts.

**[0:03:06] Robert Whittaker:** It was like a kinda kinda controversial stoppage. I forget who it was.

**[0:03:10] Joe Rogan:** Hm, oh, I know who you're talking about. It wasn't him, it was God. What was the what was the one that I think it was? Immovov, Uh, May maybe, maybe, I think Immov but was the co. Go back to that, please.

**[0:03:26] Robert Whittaker:** look at the amount of fights he's had since then and that's the one that's in my head. Fresh.

**[0:03:30] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, I don't remember the one that was a controversial stoppage. I'm pretty sure it was Immovov 90% sure.

**[0:03:39] Robert Whittaker:** Michael Page is a bad fight for him. It's like,

**[0:03:42] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, that was a bad fight for him. Michael Page just Yes, that's it. It's seems like the the Immovov the most annoying fight.

**[0:03:48] Robert Whittaker:** guy to fight ever.

**[0:03:49] Joe Rogan:** Oh, dude, uh, well, first of all, when he was at one, I think 170 is really his weight class, and he's also another guy that's like, he's, uh, 40 now or thirty nine. You know, when he was at 170, fucking good luck, good luck, even touching that camp too fast, but too fast, too he kept his speed much movement.

**[0:04:07] Robert Whittaker:** at 185, too.

**[0:04:09] Joe Rogan:** He did well, it the I think the thing about 185, though, is the grapplers if they get a hold of him, it's just a different world, you know? Cause that's the only guy that ever beat him in the UFC was Ian Gary, and the way he did it was by grappling. You know,

**[0:04:24] Robert Whittaker:** And just counter striking, setting up his shots a little bit.

**[0:04:27] Joe Rogan:** he's just I've always said, I said it from early on that I think that that's a missing link in MMA is point fighting. These guys who really n- know how to do that style and then learn the other things because that style is so it it. It's you cover so much distance so quickly, and they're so good at avoiding shots and then leaping in, and they're so good at timing and scoring. And if you could score with one shot like those guys do, they leap in and score with one.

**[0:04:55] Joe Rogan:** If you're a good combination fighter, once you connect once, then the other shots can flow from that. If you develop that style on top of that original point fighting style.

**[0:05:06] Robert Whittaker:** 100%. And like the the the huge factor in all this is like, they're such small gloves. A touch can stop you, like, that's all you need. And that's kinda been my approach with how I my fight style is just to be be fast, be fast, just get, just land my hands, well, you just get my have a very hands in.

**[0:05:23] Joe Rogan:** similar style in a lotta ways, like you're very wide stance, you have a lot of you blitz a lot, you leap in and leap out very fast and agile. I feel like that's a great style also to, like, avoid the like. Some of these fight, some guys like you see these fights where they just like, fucking stand right in front of each other and and just some guys thrive on

**[0:05:43] Robert Whittaker:** slug it out.

**[0:05:43] Joe Rogan:** it. You know, it's like, that's, that's their thing. They like to just stand in the pocket and blast it out. but for how long, I know,

**[0:05:50] Robert Whittaker:** you know? And tell me if you think this is an out, he's an outlier as well. Is that King Green? oh God, Because I

**[0:05:56] Joe Rogan:** super outlier.

**[0:05:56] Robert Whittaker:** because, like, I wasn't on his wagon. But then then he changed his name. It's like he started going downhill and like everyone was just like, Okay, he's gonna just fade into obscurity, you know, let's leave it as that. Changes his name, starts piecing people up, starts winning by TKOs, and you're like, he's back, I'm so back. at forty, Yeah,

**[0:06:14] Joe Rogan:** I know he's well, he just has a real love of the game, he really does love fighting, again, he loves an an evasion it.

**[0:06:20] Robert Whittaker:** evasion fighter, right?

**[0:06:22] Joe Rogan:** Hm, and weird style, hands down, and you think he's there, and the punches are coming at weird angles. He's popping you from all sorts of and talking shit the entire time, like, I can't believe this guy's talking shit to me.

**[0:06:32] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, I've never understood guys that that can do that. Like Holland,

**[0:06:37] Joe Rogan:** You know, he's one of the like, best.

**[0:06:38] Robert Whittaker:** I remember I was watching he was doing some research for the for the next card. And he was setting up a basketball game with with one of the guys, one of the guys he was fighting. Like, it was, it was. It just blows my mind. I don't know how you can get in that headspace, cause when I'm in there, I'm on the rollercoaster of pain, like, I'm just angry, like,

**[0:06:59] Joe Rogan:** well, he's having fun. And you know, you said something interesting last night. You said, like, a happy Robert is fucking dangerous, Robert. We were we were talking about Carlos Prates, and, uh, Carlos Prates looks like he's always having fun in there, he's so relaxed. And we were talking about his time in Thailand when he moved there. And he he essentially had over the course of, like, something like six years, he had a hundred Muay Thai fights and kickboxing fights, which is crazy.

**[0:07:26] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, that's that's wild, because Muay Thai is so damaging on the body. Like, is hell, yeah, but Yeah,

**[0:07:32] Joe Rogan:** he. But because of that, he developed this very loose, like, relaxed style, like, very aggressive, but also just very comfortable inside of the Octagon,

**[0:07:43] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, he like, he doesn't, he doesn't get that kind of fight or flight response anymore. He just he just turns up and he's just accustomed to it, you know, and lives in that, in that space. But cause everyone's waiting, I guess not everyone. It's like everybody that I don't know how to phrase it. It's like everybody, everybody that doesn't drink and smoke before a fight is waiting for it to catch up with him so they can justify why they don't drink and smoke, right?

**[0:08:10] Robert Whittaker:** Cause I guarantee if I started drinking and smoking before a fight, I'm gone like within seconds, within seconds, I'm gassing on the walk out and then and then, like, I'll wake up in the ER. Like, that's just,

**[0:08:22] Joe Rogan:** yeah, that guy parties. I mean, he smoked cigarettes the day of the fight. the locker room and Yeah,

**[0:08:27] Robert Whittaker:** people are like, you can't smoke back here. That's crazy, that's a crazy like this. UFC stuff must be bewildered, like, just to see, to see. And he's like, I think he said in one of his interviews, I trained really hard for this fight. I haven't drank for two weeks or something like that. I was like, Yeah, good effort, man, commitment.

**[0:08:48] Joe Rogan:** I wonder how much of an edge that takes off of you physically versus what it gives you psychologically to just be able to chill out every night.

**[0:08:57] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, and I guess that's the what we were discussing last night. What's the balance, the tipping point for that? Because it's like, whilst he's happy and he's loose and limber, and, you know, he feels invincible, like there are detrimental effects to all this stuff he's he's doing. I don't, but but then fighting is a funny sport, isn't it? Though? Because it's like it's not like sprinting, where you build up this machine to to run at your maximum.

**[0:09:25] Robert Whittaker:** There is there's so many variables working against you. And like, how many times have we seen just nobodies out of shape dudes just come in? But know how to throw a punch and just win by starching people. It's like, there's, yeah, it's just a funny sport.

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**[0:11:57] Joe Rogan:** Try it for free today at ziprecruiter dot com slash Rogan. That's ziprecruiter dot com slash Rogan. ZipRecruiter. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. It's a crazy sport, and sometimes if you're not worried, even though you should be worried, that's a good thing. Like, there's guys that are, it's like ignorance is bliss. They come in just fucking wild haymakers that shouldn't land, and they do land, and all of a sudden the guy's out and they got their arms up in the air, and everybody's like, What the fuck just happened?

**[0:12:28] Joe Rogan:** That's crazy.

**[0:12:29] Robert Whittaker:** it happens, it happens too, too often, like, too often. And well, especially then it's like,

**[0:12:34] Joe Rogan:** with the little gloves.

**[0:12:35] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, and I'm like, then I'm sweating and grinding away, trying to trying to get better. And you get these guys that can just turn up and just just touch of death people.

**[0:12:44] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, well, there's that, too. That's that's interesting, cause you're a power puncher, you're a power kicker. But there's like, there's people that have a weird power, right? It's like it doesn't even like

**[0:12:54] Robert Whittaker:** Nigano power.

**[0:12:55] Joe Rogan:** Pereira, yeah, and Ngannou, or, um, you know, uh, there's, uh, uh, Damian Pena's, you know, that dude, Jesus Christ, that guy, that's Olberg yeah, Olberg's with that left hook, got crazy power,

**[0:13:07] Robert Whittaker:** he just switched that glove. crazy power. Yeah, That Yuri fight, that yu- that last Yuri fight.

**[0:13:11] Joe Rogan:** blown out leg.

**[0:13:13] Robert Whittaker:** Oh my goodness, and Yuri like, Oh my goodness.

**[0:13:17] Joe Rogan:** Yuri needs a psychologist, he needs someone to talk to him and say, we have to have strategies. Okay, you, you're a seek and kill fighter. When a guy's hurt, you can't be upset that he's hurt and then try to give him some concessions.

**[0:13:30] Robert Whittaker:** It was like he was part of an anime. I don't like he was he was in his own show of like. And there was rain in the background in his head, there was like rain in the background and his mud and his sweat.

**[0:13:41] Joe Rogan:** thunder and lightning.

**[0:13:42] Robert Whittaker:** He wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't there. And then he and then he like, Olberg hit him with that touch of death that he's got on that left hook, man. And

**[0:13:49] Joe Rogan:** that left hook is a whip, it's, it's such a whip, man. And what's really crazy is that is the only punch that's available if your other leg is blown out, it's the only punch. Cause you could pivot off that leg. I mean, it's kind of crazy if you really think about he's got it. one option, left, Yeah,

**[0:14:06] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, he's got, he's got one option, and he just

**[0:14:10] Joe Rogan:** so he's still moving around pretty decent, even with a fucked up leg. But then you see it, like, as he gets leg kicked, he stumbles back. He just can't move when he want, like when he wants to move and he can control it, he's fine. But it's like chaotic defensive movements back and forth, where you're, you know, you're shifting oddly on your legs. That's where a blown out ACL really fucks you. Was it his right leg or his left leg that was fucked up in that I.

**[0:14:36] Joe Rogan:** I wanna fight? say he's left I think it's his right, because that would make sense why he could throw the left hook because he could still pivot off that leg. Yeah, you see, you see, it's his right leg.

**[0:14:50] Robert Whittaker:** you see it ping. Yeah, yeah, it's But then, like,

**[0:14:52] Joe Rogan:** his right leg.

**[0:14:52] Robert Whittaker:** even when Yuri backs him to the fence, like Carlos has one punch there, Yeah, that's it, one punch,

**[0:14:58] Joe Rogan:** just the left hook. one one punch, You like it right here, you could see like, Yuri's,

**[0:15:03] Robert Whittaker:** and you're still in that space.

**[0:15:05] Joe Rogan:** Oh, there it is. Well, Yuri in that. Like, maybe I'm thinking about it differently. Because in that moment, so that's post the injury, when Yuri realized he had the injury. But in that moment, it did look like Yuri was moving in for the kill. But you just you can't throw caution to the wind with a guy like Carlos, because Carlos Alberg could just start you I th- with one punch. Yeah, that's where he blew his leg out.

**[0:15:29] Joe Rogan:** you see, y- This is his right one.

**[0:15:30] Robert Whittaker:** you see it go like wobble, like it go you see it like off. Yeah,

**[0:15:33] Joe Rogan:** vibration through it. but That's horrible,

**[0:15:35] Robert Whittaker:** that's especially, I think, h very like. It's super vital as a light heavyweight as well, like the power of light heavyweights, and that's that was my headspace moving in from middleweight. It's like everyone's got touch of death. It's one of the fights, like a lotta light heavyweight fights are out, cause they're still fast, still fast enough to land, but they're just heavier guys with bigger punches, and you just can't play games like that.

**[0:16:02] Joe Rogan:** There's only a few guys Play a stupid that are, like, smaller game. like Mirzakhanov's a good example of a guy who's been real successful as a light heavyweight as a smaller guy. Azamat, Yeah, Azamat, Azamat Yeah,

**[0:16:12] Robert Whittaker:** yes yes, the guy that lost to Costa, he's fighting this weekend. he is. Yeah, Yes, yes, yes, against Reyes. Is he

**[0:16:19] Joe Rogan:** small guy.

**[0:16:19] Robert Whittaker:** really five, ten?

**[0:16:20] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, he's small for a light heavyweight and and doesn't look ripped like he carries a lot, a lot of, but so skillful, he's so slick, man, and aggressive with he's, yeah,

**[0:16:30] Robert Whittaker:** his shots.

**[0:16:31] Joe Rogan:** whe- when when you see Paul Costa fight him at light heavyweight, you're like, Jesus, how come Paul Costa wasn't a light heavyweight the whole time? That's a guy where it just completely made sense, where he went up to light heavyweight and I'm like, you look like a light heavyweight. especially Man,

**[0:16:43] Robert Whittaker:** with his like the few times he lost, he missed weight and was struggling for weight cuts and and stuff. I feel like for a long period there, he was kind of finding his feet and then then he then he found his feet just in time to to fight me. And he came out like with super cardio and like, super quick.

**[0:17:02] Joe Rogan:** yeah, that was a great fight.

**[0:17:03] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, that was a lot of fun. I got spinning heel kicked.

**[0:17:05] Joe Rogan:** That was great, but you, you were one of the few dudes that I've ever seen get spinning heel kicked and survive it. You know, like, that's a crazy kick to get cracked with,

**[0:17:13] Robert Whittaker:** Oh, yeah, I'll take it, I'll take that, cause, uh, yeah, that's a that's a funny kick, too. Cause, like, it's so hard to prepare for, cause it's not a kick you can. For one, it's not a it's not a kick you throw very often, you know, and and it's not one you can really train in in the workout, you know, it's like,

**[0:17:33] Joe Rogan:** cause you can't train it full clip Yeah, well, how cause you can't pull it

**[0:17:36] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, and how you gonna, you can't pad it up or anything like that or move it, right? But um, yeah, it's. And e. Even I remember, I remember being in there and seeing him start to do that, that turn. And there's that one split second, cause I've never seen it before. Where I'm like, what's going on? And then my legs are gone, or doing funny, funny things. So

**[0:17:58] Joe Rogan:** There's a moment where Michael Venom Page was talking about this crazy training partner that he has. This guy who was like elite in the gym, but never quite could put it together in the cage. And he's in, he's sparring with him, and there's this weird moment where he's like, What is he doing? And he realized he's doing a front flip to an axe kick, and as he's realizing it, he just instinctively does that and blocks it.

**[0:18:27] Joe Rogan:** But it just completely on instinct, it's like, how, why would you be expecting a guy to do a front flip to it's like an axe

**[0:18:33] Robert Whittaker:** a it's like a rolling kick, thunder, isn't it?

**[0:18:35] Joe Rogan:** dude? But it's it's cra- now that's like a wheel kick, but it's similar. But with this guy, does it, he does it to a heavy bag. Do you remember that guy's name? Jamie? There's a video of him doing it. Well, that's that's similar. That's Miguel Torres early in his UFC. D. That's who that is, right? I I guarantee you, Yeah,

**[0:18:56] Robert Whittaker:** if someone does this kick to me, I'm taking it straight between the eyes.

**[0:19:00] Joe Rogan:** but this guy did it and do it with a roll, he did it, that's it. Michael Venum Page was talking about that guy that this guy did he. The way he could do it, he could do it on the bag and, like, hit the bag Train. with a front flip axe kick. And I mean, who who the fuck can do that, man?

**[0:19:20] Robert Whittaker:** Like, I'm I'm blowing out both ham both hamstrings trying to do this.

**[0:19:24] Joe Rogan:** Is this not available? Yeah, it does. There's a video that he sh- there it is, there's the guy He lands on his that's it. Yes, feet. dude, watch that.

**[0:19:36] Robert Whittaker:** It's like a street fighter move.

**[0:19:38] Joe Rogan:** It's it doesn't seem like it's a real move. It doesn't seem like anybody could and it's do it fast fast, as fuck, dude, dude. fast as fuck. And the dude lands it, look at that, it lands it as an axe kick, and he he practices it on the bag.

**[0:19:53] Robert Whittaker:** I'm taking that straight between the eyes. Like there is, there is no way. Luckily for me, I don't think anyone in the light heavyweight division is gonna be doing that stuff.

**[0:20:02] Joe Rogan:** There's there's a dude's name Glor Bofando. Well, watch this guy, he's so fucking athletic, man. This is literally crazy.

**[0:20:10] Robert Whittaker:** Wow, he actually, he, he,

**[0:20:12] Joe Rogan:** Oh God, these fucking pop-ups, he, fuck off with your pop-ups. Yeah, I mean, I, I. There's levels, right? Like, I've always said that if you can get someone who's a gymnast and teach them, there he is right there. You can see it again. Watch watch how he does this, man, this is fucking crazy. That is so crazy.

**[0:20:33] Robert Whittaker:** but it what? What's crazy is like he lands and still lands on his feet.

**[0:20:38] Joe Rogan:** Oh yeah, like a cat lands perfectly and then slides back into a perfect stance. It's nuts,

**[0:20:43] Robert Whittaker:** my my knees are hurting watching him right I now.

**[0:20:46] Joe Rogan:** know, dude, I hurt my back in the shower today. I worked out, I worked out, I hit the bag, I punched the bag, kicked the bag. Had this great workout in, got in a sauna for 20 minutes, stretched out, feeling great, got in the shower, taking a shower before the podcast. I went, Ah,

**[0:21:05] Robert Whittaker:** it happens.

**[0:21:05] Joe Rogan:** doing something like in between my shoulder blades, doing nothing, just fucking It's w- washing myself.

**[0:21:12] Robert Whittaker:** age, age, drinks. I'm picking I'm, and I, I'm still a professional athlete. Like, I'm still wait, I'm still, I'm gunning for that title, like, I'm gunning for the title. So and I picked up, I picked up one of my kids and I felt like a twinge in my lat. And I'm like, Ooh, ooh, that's you just age, age creeps up on you.

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**[0:22:46] Joe Rogan:** Well, it's also this. I think there's these little micro injuries that you're not totally aware of, and then you do something and they just give. Which makes sense, cause I was throwing a lot of left hooks today and a lot of left switch kicks. So it was, uh, like, I I think I was just a lot on that side, it was a lot of that side. And so just washing, I went, eh? It was just like, it was this draw, this draw that.

**[0:23:08] Joe Rogan:** It's just so embarrassing to have a great, hard workout, feel real good about yourself, he's strong go, got it as hell, in today.

**[0:23:14] Robert Whittaker:** strong as hell.

**[0:23:15] Joe Rogan:** I remember self-washing, I remember self-washing It's usually the way, myself,

**[0:23:19] Robert Whittaker:** though, like I, I pick up so many silly injuries, just trying to either play with the kids for one. Cause I think once you're over that thirty five, you can't go into a dead sprint from from like a from a standing, from a stopped position without a thirty minute warmup. Like, like, I need to warm up my hamstrings and everything before I'm doing this, cause a day's when when I'm. And if your kids rate, uh, challenge you to a race, especially if you've got boys, you gotta you gotta beat em.

**[0:23:47] Robert Whittaker:** You can't let your boys beat you in a

**[0:23:48] Joe Rogan:** I have to. race, cause Last time I blew out my hamstring was racing with my fifteen-year-old daughter in Italy, I blew my hamstring.

**[0:23:55] Robert Whittaker:** fif- fifteen's getting a bit old, too. Like they're getting fast at that, I know, they're getting faster especially the girls, at that point. who's light, faster Yeah, my boy,

**[0:24:02] Joe Rogan:** than her feet.

**[0:24:02] Robert Whittaker:** my boys are all under eleven still, so I I can hobble along. I don't need the full warmup, you know, but it's, yeah, I that that's, you know, I need a full hamstring warmup, stretch out before I remember I

**[0:24:15] Joe Rogan:** reading that Muhammad Ali would. He would warm up for a full hour before his workouts. He had a whole system that he did. And one time I did this thing with Daniel Tosh for his TV show where, uh, I like, trained him to take a punch from Manny Pacquiao. Manny was being nice, he didn't really hit him, he kinda, like, just gave him a little thump. But anyway, we're in the in the boxing gym, and I got to see Manny work out, and he spends a crazy amount of time warming up.

**[0:24:42] Joe Rogan:** There's all these like band workouts that he does, everything is like very systematic. They're stretching him and moving him. He doesn't just get out there and he starts real slow, gets everything warmed up. And

**[0:24:55] Robert Whittaker:** I think I've seen it. Like you can get mem mesmerized watching his warmup. And then I think also his his ab program, have you seen seen

**[0:25:02] Joe Rogan:** it's bananas.

**[0:25:02] Robert Whittaker:** through his APRO? It never stops. Like, I'm like a ten crunches and I'm alright, cause cause if I'm getting body shot and I'm not wearing it, it doesn't matter how strong your abs are, you're going down.

**[0:25:13] Joe Rogan:** bro, he's a very unusual guy.

**[0:25:15] Robert Whittaker:** He's an outlier as well.

**[0:25:16] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, in a lot of ways, you know, he's a really good pool player.

**[0:25:19] Robert Whittaker:** is he?

**[0:25:20] Joe Rogan:** Oh yeah, like a professional I love hearing level pool player.

**[0:25:22] Robert Whittaker:** like, quirky, like, secret super talents that people have that you'd never, you'd well, you know, never think of.

**[0:25:27] Joe Rogan:** pool is gigantic in the Philippines, and, you know, I mean, it is way bigger than it is in America, it's everywhere. And he has his own pool hall in his compound, so he has a compound in his home. I mean, a full pool hall with like fifteen tables and all these people running around and everyone's playing and they're gambling all over the place, everyone's gambling, they're all gambling. And while he's playing, this is so crazy. So he's playing pool, and while he's playing, while his opponent's shooting, he's signing autographs.

**[0:25:56] Joe Rogan:** He has people just bring him shit to sign so they can sell it. It's like boxing gloves, pool pool cues, posters, he's signing things. It's your shot, man. Oh, he goes over and plays, and then he's playing a game of chess, so he's got a game of chess going on. He's sitting down playing chess, he makes his move, his opponent makes his move, runs over, runs a few balls, runs over in between that, signing things down.

**[0:26:18] Joe Rogan:** This is exactly his room, so look, he's got his chess board that's right by the pool table, then he's making shots, and then he goes and sits down, and then in the middle of that, he's signing things. It, it, though, it's fucking insane to I'm getting anxiety watch, man, watching. Like, he's just constantly moving and the pool room is just filled with people, they're all moving around. But he plays real good, yeah, when he, like, real good, like,

**[0:26:44] Robert Whittaker:** you know, if he's turning up with a glove, you're like, don't bet on that table.

**[0:26:48] Joe Rogan:** but it's like he knows how to play. It's not just like pocketing balls, like he gets excellent position. But like I said, pool in the Philippines is gigantic, it's like it's a huge sport. And he's, you know, deeply involved in it. Like, he has his own pool hall that's in, uh, the Philippines, like a huge place. And, you know, they they do a big pool tournament with him every year. And, uh,

**[0:27:11] Robert Whittaker:** where does he get the time? And then, and then good question, he still works out full time, yeah, well, he still like, works out like he's cause

**[0:27:16] Joe Rogan:** still trying to fight.

**[0:27:17] Robert Whittaker:** I think he boxed this year, didn't he?

**[0:27:19] Joe Rogan:** He did, yeah, and he's trying to fight someone like world class right now, he's trying to get like a real like world class fight instead of like fighting. You know, you think when a guy gets into his late forties, probably, you know,

**[0:27:30] Robert Whittaker:** money fights.

**[0:27:30] Joe Rogan:** have some like, like Mayweather's doing. Yeah, he fights influencers, MMA fighters, shit like that. Not Manny, man. Manny's looking to get another world title fight. How? Like,

**[0:27:43] Robert Whittaker:** why not?

**[0:27:44] Joe Rogan:** I guess, yeah, I mean, I guess he just never lost whatever it is.

**[0:27:48] Robert Whittaker:** If you're playing pool and chess at the same time? Like, Yes, that is that is that guy's brain not, it's not a stretch, like

**[0:27:55] Joe Rogan:** and, uh, is super accommodating. Like signing all these autographs for people, like everybody's running over to him with boxes of shit for him to sign so they can go sell it.

**[0:28:03] Robert Whittaker:** I'm so I was. I'm surprised at how many fighters in general like chess. I know it's a tactical, it's a strategy game, but it's just it surprises me. Like the the guys like, I'll I'll go, like, I'll go to the gym and I'll train with some of the boys. And they are just they, they are ogres with gloves on, like, like, they're just, you know what I mean. But then, but then in then in their in their downtime, they're just playing online chess and they're they're ranked like high.

**[0:28:28] Robert Whittaker:** And I'm like, Dude, you're, you're a knucklehead, what are you doing? I, I saw you open a can of spam for lunch. Like, what are you doing? And it just it just surprises me. You can't always tell like, judge a book by its cover, right? And it's like, I've thought about getting you, do you play chess? no, I don't Okay, yeah, I thought about getting into it. And then I went on, like, a deep rabbit hole of, like, the game of chess and the art of strategy and all of that.

**[0:28:54] Robert Whittaker:** And then I realized, like, there's just too much to learn. It's like the first 20 moves or something like that are already, like, in motion, like everyone knows, at a decent le- decent clip, everyone knows the first 20 moves, cause that's what you're supposed to do. And then everyone starts going off in different things. And I'm just like, Oh, it's too much for me,

**[0:29:10] Joe Rogan:** It's a long road. And, uh, if you get addicted to it, that's gonna suck up all your time. Cause you could just hop online and play people your phone, at any on your phone

**[0:29:20] Robert Whittaker:** what you're doing?

**[0:29:21] Joe Rogan:** any time of the day. You could play the computer, you could play real people, so it's just too nuts. Yeah, yeah, but It's just but I get it, I really do get it, I understand it. And you could, like, really underestimate someone's intelligence just based on what they look like. They just look like a giant brute. Like you ever talk to Josh Barnett,

**[0:29:41] Robert Whittaker:** no, I haven't.

**[0:29:41] Joe Rogan:** former heavyweight champion, one of the smartest people I've ever met, super smart. Quotes Dostoevsky. Co- like, he's like, O- off the top of his head, he's he's he's quoting these, uh, great works of literature and studies warriors, way. and, yeah, studies history. Knows a lot about whiskey, makes his own whiskey, like, brilliant guy. And, you know, you look at him and you say, Oh, is this fucking brute who's really into pro wrestling? oh, really well, Yeah,

**[0:30:09] Robert Whittaker:** the the athletic side of that sport is just oh, nuts, nuts, unbelievable. Like these these guys are elite athletes. Like, cause you have to be, otherwise you'd kill yourself.

**[0:30:19] Joe Rogan:** And those guys are taking a pounding that people don't recognize. Because they're on the road, you know, s hundreds of days a year, doing these shows in these local stadiums. So these people come out to see them and they're doing these big pro wrestling shows. But you don't. No one thinks about the fact, like, that's real damage, you're getting body slammed, you're getting a concussion, probably, you're definitely getting some CTE, a hundred fucking percent.

**[0:30:44] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. And then they hop on the bus and they go to the next state and do it again, and right over, do it again.

**[0:30:49] Joe Rogan:** right over the fucking bridge Like, back at it. It's crazy, it's so hard on the body. All the old school progressors that I've brought in here to talk to, they're all fucked up.

**[0:31:00] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, and just working with Everyone's just them. Since, uh,

**[0:31:01] Joe Rogan:** bro. Yeah, well, before he died, Hulk Hogan, I met him once years ago, like I didn't meet him, but I said hi to him out outside of a cigar bar in Beverly Hills. It was fucking gigantic, he was huge. I met him again when he did my po- well, I met him another time when I interviewed him for Spike TV. He was only slightly smaller then, and then I met him again when he did my podcast, and he was significantly smaller.

**[0:31:23] Joe Rogan:** Cause he keeps getting these fusions on his back, right? So he's had I shouldn't, like, eight or nine. I shouldn't laugh It's not funny, but, but it's sad, it's fucked but the image up.

**[0:31:32] Robert Whittaker:** of him, like every time you meet him, he's just like, Well, it's cause, because you you think think about the at his space, that's why back,

**[0:31:37] Joe Rogan:** old men shrink, you know, the one of the reasons why you shrink is you're losing disc space. That's uh, your why I've I've gotten spine, your spine's like shorter over the years. Yeah, com, your spine's you're d, yeah, you're you compressing. get disc d decompre- or compression, you know, it's called, uh, the disc degeneration disease, but what it really is is just pressure. It's just all that weight, especially gravity, for weightlifters, they all have disc compression.

**[0:31:59] Joe Rogan:** So his thing was he would jump up in the air and drop down on his ass, he would land on his ass and elbow you. So all that weight, 300 plus pounds, boom through on his ass

**[0:32:11] Robert Whittaker:** your, through your spine.

**[0:32:11] Joe Rogan:** every night, boom, his whole spine. Just going, eek, eek, eek. like, So he had to get his whole back, his whole back was one rod.

**[0:32:20] Robert Whittaker:** in in recent years, have you fallen to your ass at any point, like unprepared? And like, I like, I lay there for a while. My I. I feel it all the way up to the top of my base, of my skull.

**[0:32:31] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, it's not good.

**[0:32:32] Robert Whittaker:** Like I, I can't imagine what sort of damage. Well, I can imagine you can see it.

**[0:32:36] Joe Rogan:** Those guys all get fused up. Yeah, they all do. It's just there's, there's no getting around. Kurt Angle was here. His whole neck is just one. Joel Romero, Joel Romero's neck is fused to his

**[0:32:49] Robert Whittaker:** another outlier.

**[0:32:49] Joe Rogan:** skull, another outlier, dude. You told me that when you fought him, that you said it was like kicking metal.

**[0:32:54] Robert Whittaker:** It's I've never felt that way. I've never thrown a calf kick and come off 2nd best. Like, like I, I calf kicked him, and that was the last calf kick I did. He didn't check it, like it just hurt, it just hurt. He's just he's built different, he's just built different, his body is just built different. That's why he's, how old is he? Four Forty-nine forty nine? He just had a bare knuckle fight with Darren Till.

**[0:33:19] Joe Rogan:** and he should have won. Props to Darren Till Props for being to Darren Till for taking that fight

**[0:33:23] Robert Whittaker:** a bare knuckle. Yo Romero.

**[0:33:25] Joe Rogan:** and he got dropped, too. Yeah, it's just Yeah,

**[0:33:29] Robert Whittaker:** big fan of Till, big fan of Till. I think oh, he's doing he's, I think

**[0:33:32] Joe Rogan:** great in boxing. he's found his niche, I think like, he's had knee issues, like significant knee issues over the year, so to really fuck with him when it comes to grappling. And, uh, I think, you know, what we s got to see in his best in the UFC, like the Cowboy Cerrone fight, is his striking. His striking is, uh, very elite. oh, it's, He moves really well, and I think because of the knee issues, boxing is just a way better choice.

**[0:33:56] Joe Rogan:** You don't have to take into account the grappling, you're not getting kicked in the knees, you know, it's just I. I just think his knees are pretty fucked up.

**[0:34:02] Robert Whittaker:** I think that's why you see a lot of, like the older guys that that weren't really taken advantage of wrestling wise earlier in their career. But as they get older, they start like, they start getting taken down, held down, beaten by decision, or take taken, uh, put on their back and kind of submitted there or kept there. And I think that's because, and I, I, I know this firsthand, I, I can still do it because I've just been lucky, really.

**[0:34:28] Robert Whittaker:** But and genetically like that, that's a thing people don't realize. Like, 100%, the hard work, hard work is will get you very, very far. But there is like talent and genetics are a factor, hundred like a huge percent. factor.

**[0:34:40] Joe Rogan:** John Jones is the ultimate merging of talent and genetics. Like, Y, yeah, exactly Yeah,

**[0:34:44] Robert Whittaker:** like you can't. If you were gonna build someone in a lab, like, he'd come out like John Jones, man, cause guys, talent, e- intelligence yeah, and genes, it's like yeah,

**[0:34:53] Joe Rogan:** all those together.

**[0:34:54] Robert Whittaker:** he, he's, he's the perfect fighter, like the perfect fighter. But um, but yeah, I think as like, as you get older, you your knees, your joints start hurting. Injuries are more prevalent. You can't wrestle on the mats anymore as much as you used to, you don't have that mat time. So that when you get in there with these younger guys and they take you down or they start pushing on the wrestling, you just you're, you're just not there for it.

**[0:35:15] Robert Whittaker:** You know what I mean? And I think I also think that a big part of wrestling is what you do in the first second of the engagement of the takedown. It's like how that fighting, like that, that, that fight. That's why you see a lot of young fighters that aren't don't have a huge pedigree in wrestling. But they get out of position, they keep fighting, they work their way back up because they're fighting and fighting and fighting, which is another thing that kind of dims a little bit as you get older.

**[0:35:41] Robert Whittaker:** You know what I mean?

**[0:35:41] Joe Rogan:** I think there's also the protecting of your joints, right? Whereas you're young, you just explode into things. When you're older, if you've had a few meniscus surgeries or an ACL reconstruction, you don't explode into things haphazardly anymore. You think you think you about it. Yeah, you think can't. about it, and you p- position yourself before you push off. Even just instinctively, you don't trust your knee. Whereas subconsciously, you're young, you're just fucking moving, yeah, you're you're just you're not even thinking invincible.

**[0:36:07] Joe Rogan:** about your knees, you're scrambling, you're trying to get up, you're you're fucking. You're not thinking of ever protecting yourself, whereas you get a few surgeries, you get a few blown out joints, you start protecting yourself. And then there's these certain moments where you're like, Look, I could explode, but I might not get the best out of it. Let me take a break here, let me go to my back, try to work myself back in a position to stand up again.

**[0:36:27] Joe Rogan:** yeah. And that's where Yeah,

**[0:36:28] Robert Whittaker:** the problems come, like, that's that's how you get held down for the rest of the round and lose that round or whatever.

**[0:36:32] Joe Rogan:** well, Drikus, Drikus and Hamzat. Uh, like, that was one of the crazy examples of the gap in wrestling. Like, was gigantic, and Hamzat was the the absolute like worst case scenario opponent for him.

**[0:36:47] Robert Whittaker:** I, I, people don't give it that fight. And what, ha, what, what, what Chimaev did to Drikas, enough, like, thought or space, because that was unbelievable. In a championship level fight to hold down someone like Drikas, who who couldn't do anything, Anything he couldn't do anything, and he's a big, strong guy. At the worst case, you just flop around and push someone, you know? But he just get kept getting put in that crucifix and held crazy.

**[0:37:16] Robert Whittaker:** down, like taken advantage of. It was wild.

**[0:37:19] Joe Rogan:** When was the last time you saw someone in a championship fight defending their world title? Get put in the crucifix three fucking times, Never, never. It's a it's such a hard move to get a guy in in the first place, to get a guy in three times. And a guy who's a fucking bulldog like Trickus, that guy's huge.

**[0:37:36] Robert Whittaker:** and and it's not even it wasn't like it was just in the 1st round.

**[0:37:39] Joe Rogan:** I just kept doing it.

**[0:37:40] Robert Whittaker:** Like, throughout the whole fight, the things are getting sweaty, people are getting tired, and he still just kept getting put in. I can, I can barely hold people in a crucifix and a gi, it's like, and to do it at that, like there, then, that's

**[0:37:55] Joe Rogan:** I know it's like people want everything to be chaos and blood. Like, you know, that dude who just got cut, Fareed Basharat, undefeated, undefeated, got cut. And last time I talked to him was inside the Octagon. It was the last fight of his career. He's like, Uh, you know, I, when I was like, I'm sure you're gonna get another contract. I like, I think I said that to him in the Octagon, cause he was saying, it's his last fight, he's undefeated.

**[0:38:19] Joe Rogan:** ten days. Well, I I don't like that, I don't like that thinking that you have to be uber exciting.

**[0:38:26] Robert Whittaker:** he, he's got a brother as well, right?

**[0:38:28] Joe Rogan:** I believe, and I'm not sure Is that the Fareed Basharat, see if he has he's a brother.

**[0:38:33] Robert Whittaker:** got a brother as well? If that's the The guy's very skillful, yeah,

**[0:38:38] Joe Rogan:** obviously, he's undefeated, and they just decided that they didn't like his style. That,

**[0:38:43] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, yeah, JV.

**[0:38:46] Joe Rogan:** oh, he's a PFL fighter, okay, that's why, um, they just decided, I don't I okay, I'm talking out of school. I didn't talk to Dana or Sean Shelby or Mick Maynard. I don't know what happened, I, I don't know, um, but I didn't like it. I don't like when a guy gets cut that wants to keep fighting in the UFC, he's undefeated just because you think he's boring. Well, put him in with someone who's fucking exciting, put him in with someone who pushes him and makes it a crazy fight.

**[0:39:13] Joe Rogan:** Like, if a guy's fighting and winning, you keep fighting and you keep winning. Like, are we saying that Hamzat can't fight in the UFC anymore because of the Drikus fight? Where he won the title, which a lot of people thought was boring? I didn't think it was boring, but a lot of people thought it was boring

**[0:39:27] Jamie Vernon:** His brother had the. He wasn't undefeated, I don't think, but had the same issue in February, won in controversial.

**[0:39:32] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, yeah, yeah, it was

**[0:39:33] Joe Rogan:** with the UFC.

**[0:39:33] Robert Whittaker:** coming as well.

**[0:39:34] Jamie Vernon:** Yeah, with the UFC. Maybe

**[0:39:35] Joe Rogan:** So he had one fight

**[0:39:36] Jamie Vernon:** I don't know how many fights

**[0:39:37] Robert Whittaker:** I think he had a

**[0:39:37] Jamie Vernon:** he's had, but he had a few. in the UFC, few. Yeah, he won through Dana White's Contender Series and had a few fights.

**[0:39:42] Joe Rogan:** man, I don't like that. I don't like guys not getting offered contracts because they don't like their style. You're e- everyone's trying to win, you're trying to win a fight. Fights are fucking complicated. And this idea that you're supposed to just be entertaining and put your brain on the line and, uh, ignore your skill set, ignore your skill set, which is to avoid damage and to fight intelligently. Know when to engage, know when your gas tank is on E, and you gotta play it off a little bit and move around a little bit.

**[0:40:14] Joe Rogan:** And l- let your body recover. Like, this is what the game is, Especially it's winning,

**[0:40:20] Robert Whittaker:** if you're looking at your contracts as well. It's like that to show and to win bonus, like you, you get more money winning. Like, like, Great example, like, that's, good point, very that's, that's the good point, whole thing. If I could toast my way to victory, I would, I would like, like, if I could, if I could do what Chimaev does, like, I'm sometimes I'm jealous of these guys that just can just wrestle and just cause they take no damage, no damage.

**[0:40:44] Robert Whittaker:** And they just take people down and destroy them there. And then, and the the longevity of that is much longer. Until, like that, that curse hits them where they can't get a takedown and then they never get a takedown again.

**[0:40:57] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, I think that curse is probably what we're talking about, too, like a build up of injuries and all these different things over time, yeah, like Usman, right?

**[0:41:05] Robert Whittaker:** he is a guy that that stopped takedowns. A He is good example a of injuries as well.

**[0:41:08] Joe Rogan:** very exa- good example of injuries. However, he did beat Joaquin Buckley,

**[0:41:12] Robert Whittaker:** he did.

**[0:41:14] Joe Rogan:** and Joaquin Buckley fucking dangerous as hell, man. And especially then, and Joaquin was on the rise. Did you see the Mike Malotte victory this past week? Holy yeah, that was cold, shit, man, holy that was cold, shit.

**[0:41:26] Robert Whittaker:** that was cold.

**[0:41:27] Joe Rogan:** Mallette looks good, dude, he looks. It's crazy that that dude started his career at featherweight. Really. Yeah, yeah, he was a featherweight. I cause he looked think lean

**[0:41:37] Robert Whittaker:** he looked bigger than Joaquin.

**[0:41:38] Joe Rogan:** Akeem, I think Akeem Dawodu stopped him.

**[0:41:40] Robert Whittaker:** He looked bigger than Joaquin.

**[0:41:42] Joe Rogan:** He did. Yeah, he did. He's like, big, and, you know, he looks like a real welter. Well, until you look at guys like Michael Morales, and you're like, Okay, like, what's Malice Malice that? What is this is, he's not, size?

**[0:41:53] Robert Whittaker:** he's not the meanest, he's like a special case. He's just like he is the perfect example of weaponized physique. Like, he's just he's young, he's hungry, he's he's a genetic freak. You can see it. He makes the sacrifices to get to the weight division. He likes to fight, he can bang, he can wrestle, he can, you know what I mean, he just he's just there to scrap. It's a it's an ugly fight.

**[0:42:18] Joe Rogan:** and he's the biggest outlier in terms of weight in terms of size. Well, another one was, uh, ateba, Gautier, he's another one that weighs 230. 231 was what he weighed before he started his weight cut, and he got down to 185. But he fought Roman Kopylov, and Kopylov stopped him in the 1st round. And oh, he's got it's good hands, fucking good dude,

**[0:42:39] Robert Whittaker:** good hands.

**[0:42:40] Joe Rogan:** he's he's slick. Jack Slack, who's a a great MMA analyst on, uh, Instagram and YouTube and all that shit. He did a great breakdown of, uh, the the positioning and you know how, um, Roman Kopylov was leading him into it and setting up shots and set up that left hook. There's a few guys who've done some great breakdowns, but it's so skillful, man. And that was like a good example of, like, a super powerhouse, enormous guy who's gigantic for the weight class, just gets pieced up by a guy who's just slicker,

**[0:43:09] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. And then Kopylov's not like a physically intimidating dude. Like he kinda looks like a desk jockey.

**[0:43:16] Joe Rogan:** I know, except for his nose, his nose looks like he had a fight with a bear.

**[0:43:20] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, a desk jockey that visits the bar every night.

**[0:43:24] Joe Rogan:** Probably his nose is destroyed, but, I mean, that's just that's

**[0:43:27] Robert Whittaker:** It was, it was that skill. it was that fight with, um, with, uh, Costa, that s. I saw Costa, and I was like, Costa's found his feet. Like, like, he's just working that body and pieced, pieced him up. Such a good

**[0:43:40] Joe Rogan:** when Costa is on, he's a motherfucker. I think he went through a dark time after the Izzy fight. I think the pressure of fighting for the title, I'm just speculating, overwhelmed him. Obviously, he had some injuries too, because he had red suction marks all over his calf, which is a real bad thing to go into the octagon with. I mean, put some makeup on that shit, cause i Izzy sees that, he's gonna immediately kick that because he's he's spot.

**[0:44:05] Robert Whittaker:** a smart guy.

**[0:44:06] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, he's gonna go, Oh, you got a problem with your calf, like nobody gets the suction marks on the calf. And he just got pieced up so bad in that fight and stopped, and then Izzy dry humped him, which was hilarious. And after that, I think he was mind-fucked for a while.

**[0:44:22] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, it was hilarious, but it was also, oh, dude, that's so dirty, So dirty, so dirty. It's like, this, this, it's. It was cold, man. cold-blooded. Like, yeah, but like, too cold. I can't, I can't be bad, I can't be am that bad, that much like I know, that's crazy. And like, he's just had a couple good ones, like the the Pereira when he knocked out Pereira that 2nd time. oh, yeah, man, And then the ara, I think that's gotta be one of the coolest

**[0:44:47] Joe Rogan:** one of the I think sendoffs. the greatest fight celebration of all time, especially when you consider what just happened. That that dude had knocked him out two fights in a row, two fights in a row, and then he finally got him in a fight where he was getting fucked up, his leg was getting fucked up,

**[0:45:03] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, yeah, yeah, he was not winning.

**[0:45:05] Joe Rogan:** his calf was getting destroyed. He's like, This motherfucker already got me, he's, I was thinking to myself, Damn, this motherfucker already got my He did, leg.

**[0:45:11] Robert Whittaker:** he did that thing where he was wearing that leash for the for the for the whole camp. Remember? For for the interviews, he had that leash on him.

**[0:45:19] Joe Rogan:** Did he really?

**[0:45:19] Robert Whittaker:** He, he had, dude. And then and then, and then he took it off just before he fought. Like, Oh, that's when I know, he's off the yeah, he's such leash. a weeab sometimes. I love the guy now, like, we're good friends, but he's a weeab sometimes.

**[0:45:31] Joe Rogan:** What was it like losing to him by knockout and then coming back and taking him to the limit? Cause we were talking about this last night. Your 2nd fight, was it a split decision?

**[0:45:44] Robert Whittaker:** I'm not sure, I'm not too It was a sure. very close fight, Yeah, it was very close.

**[0:45:48] Joe Rogan:** it was a very close fight.

**[0:45:49] Robert Whittaker:** I feel like if they scored takedowns like they used to back back in the day, I might have got my hand raised. But Yeah, takedowns like,

**[0:45:57] Joe Rogan:** don't mean as much anymore no way, unless you do something

**[0:45:59] Robert Whittaker:** not at all.

**[0:46:00] Joe Rogan:** with them.

**[0:46:00] Robert Whittaker:** You can win off your back if you, if the guy on top doesn't do anything.

**[0:46:03] Joe Rogan:** That's how Baus Rutten won the world title when he beat Kevin Randleman. Kevin Randleman took him down, but Baus was fucking him up from his back, just elbowing him, blasting him from his back. It was very controversial because everybody's like, No, the guy on top, he's winning, but Baus Rutten was doing mad damage from the bottom.

**[0:46:20] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, like it's. And you also see, like, some guys can generate, like, what about when Holland knocked out Jacare off the back? That was wild,

**[0:46:29] Joe Rogan:** reached up and hit him with a fucking right hook.

**[0:46:31] Robert Whittaker:** like, how, how do you generate enough power? Like, like, I know, every time I'm on my back and I'm trying to fight up, I get fed, like

**[0:46:40] Joe Rogan:** I think so.

**[0:46:41] Robert Whittaker:** I get fed, and then I gas, and then then that's where I'm staying for the next 4 minutes or whatever.

**[0:46:46] Joe Rogan:** I've seen someone else knock someone out from their back, too, with a hook. God, I forget who it was, but he was in, he was on top of someone, or, or, uh, someone was on top of him. Uh, I don't remember if it's his guard or if he was mounted. And he throws a right hook and the guy just like sinks and falls on top of him. Like, it is possible, Yeah, I've I mean, seen, I've seen weird things are possible.

**[0:47:08] Robert Whittaker:** y- yeah, that. That's why everyone loves this sport is because crazy stuff happens. Like, it is just it is just a melting pot of ath- athletes and like when Sean wild.

**[0:47:20] Joe Rogan:** Sheroff just knocked out Gable Stevenson, like in the 1st round with the 1st punch, like 2,400 to one underdog, a t minus two that's crazy, 1,400 underdog. Yeah, that's crazy. Like crazy,

**[0:47:31] Robert Whittaker:** the odds. And you know, there were puners that put ten bucks on, like, just threw ten bucks on.

**[0:47:36] Joe Rogan:** 100%.

**[0:47:37] Robert Whittaker:** Like, and they're just laughing. Absolutely like, he made a lot of people's days, but minus like

**[0:47:41] Joe Rogan:** 2,400 is crazy, and then he loses in eleven seconds.

**[0:47:45] Robert Whittaker:** I was, I was thinking after I saw him fight the fight before, like he was a bit reckless with his ability to go in. Like in, and especially in such, like the big boys division, like everyone's got touch of death there.

**[0:47:58] Joe Rogan:** well, he is also a guy who I know he is a heavyweight, he I know he weighs like 240 or whatever he weighs. But you look at him and you're like, that guy can make 205, like, 100%, 205 is not outside of his wheelhouse.

**[0:48:11] Robert Whittaker:** You don't think, cause he's, he's, he's legs, Yeah, this is Kevin This was a Ol-

**[0:48:15] Jamie Vernon:** this was also a hook. It's the only one I can find. He's talking to him while it's happening.

**[0:48:18] Joe Rogan:** Always, he's always talking to people. He's, you know,

**[0:48:20] Jamie Vernon:** saying, I had this dream when I was seventeen, and then throws a hook and knocks him out.

**[0:48:24] Joe Rogan:** Is that what he said? I had a dream when I was seventeen?

**[0:48:26] Jamie Vernon:** Austin can hear it. Is it on right Yeah, you can hear it

**[0:48:29] Joe Rogan:** now? Yeah, let me hear it. Put anyway. the put the headphones on. He said. That was nice, it's nice. ooh, Right there.

**[0:48:53] Speaker 8:** Talk like that in a

**[0:48:55] Joe Rogan:** Jack Rory's har- he was already badly hurt. fight, That that It, that's the only that's crazy, that

**[0:49:01] Jamie Vernon:** one I could find when I was that that looking it up. Yeah, finish was

**[0:49:03] Joe Rogan:** takes crazy. cold. It was the 1st punch, had him fucked up,

**[0:49:06] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, he and he didn't recover, cause he was he was there for for a minute, so Just he must have hurt kinda hanging him bad.

**[0:49:10] Joe Rogan:** out, got hurt in bad. Yeah,

**[0:49:12] Robert Whittaker:** But then then the the rest of it was terrible to watch.

**[0:49:14] Joe Rogan:** well, he said to Joaquin Buckley, he goes, You got a booger on your nose, and then he knocked him out. He's like, Hey man, you got a booger on your nose, and then blap, he hit someone straight right He's, and knocked him out.

**[0:49:24] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, I, I don't know what I'd do if someone was talking that much to me in a fight.

**[0:49:28] Joe Rogan:** Well, Frank Shamrock had a fight with Nick Diaz in Strikeforce, and he said after the fight, he goes, It's so fucked up because this guy is talking shit to you. And you're like, I can't believe he's doing this, I can't believe he's talking shit to me, cause he's he, he's Frank Shamrock. He's a legend, he was former UFC champion, like a real pioneer in terms of, like, a complete martial artist. He was like one of the very first, yeah, start like, complete.

**[0:49:51] Robert Whittaker:** with the boots.

**[0:49:52] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, man, I mean, he did the pancrase style when you're open slaps. I mean, he was a real pioneer. So for him and Nick Diaz, like, what, bitch, what, bitch, what you gonna do, bitch? He's just popping him and talking to him. There, you don't get to breathe cause he's not hitting you full blast. He, like, here, put some, put some vodka And he on it or something.

**[0:50:09] Robert Whittaker:** and I love how he used to put hi put his hands down by his by his hips.

**[0:50:15] Joe Rogan:** he's just talking to him constantly.

**[0:50:20] Robert Whittaker:** I I've always been the biggest fan of his style.

**[0:50:23] Joe Rogan:** Oh, Nick has a crazy It just it just style,

**[0:50:25] Robert Whittaker:** looks s so much fun.

**[0:50:28] Joe Rogan:** it looks fun. He's relaxed, like even while he's doing this, he's never straining, like all his punches are like 50%, everything's 50%. But because of that, he can throw them for days,

**[0:50:38] Robert Whittaker:** forever, forever.

**[0:50:39] Joe Rogan:** for days.

**[0:50:41] Robert Whittaker:** And then and then he gets to that point where he's not even breathing, and he's just he's just beating on a gassed guy. Yes, you know what Like, that my favorite, pilot's gone.

**[0:50:49] Joe Rogan:** my favorite fight of him ever is Paul Semtex Daily. Yeah, in Strikeforce, Semtex had maybe the craziest power in the history of the division. Semtex would just put people into orbit. He had, like, crazy knockouts, and these dudes just went to war. And he dropped Nick a couple of times. But Nick brought him into a pace where he was gonna have to sprint for the entire 5 minutes. And by the end of, like, 3 minutes in, you see, he's like, Sta- he's like, I can't do this anymore.

**[0:51:18] Joe Rogan:** And then Nick just overwhelms him and stops just lactic him. Yeah, see overload. if you can find that. He, his fights, It is a

**[0:51:23] Robert Whittaker:** he had some, he had

**[0:51:24] Joe Rogan:** crazy fight. some wars Here it is, and strikforce, so bring us up,

**[0:51:27] Robert Whittaker:** he's strikforce, right?

**[0:51:27] Joe Rogan:** bring us up earlier in the fight. I. Bec-

**[0:51:28] Jamie Vernon:** They were wrestling a little bit. It was yeah, but in actually

**[0:51:30] Joe Rogan:** the beginning, it's like you see the power of Semtex, like crazy left hook, left hook and a left uppercut, which just put people into orbit. Just terrifying power. And

**[0:51:41] Robert Whittaker:** He's just one of those guys with power. That's what we were saying. But like, you're like, you're born with it, I, I swear, you're born with it. hundred It's like it's not like percent, he's doing a gym workout, like, like, explosive is his routine you can certainly to get power like that.

**[0:51:52] Joe Rogan:** enhance your power, but I think the type of power that, like Paul Daley has, or, you know, like a Thomas, Hitman's Hern type power, or Deontay Wilder, he's the best example. You're just born with that, that's you. You got a gift from God God gave you a gift to put people in the orbit. And this fight just is just this crazy example of his cardio, you know, Nick Diaz has swam back from Alcatraz, I think, seven times, it might be more now.

**[0:52:22] Robert Whittaker:** I I remember seeing that, like, he's really big, even during camp, he's like, really big into triathlons, like, like, that's why how he stays fit. Like, cause you, you can't, you can't get this or sustain this level of cardio unless cardio's your lifestyle. Like this is this, this. At this point, cardio is your hobby,

**[0:52:38] Joe Rogan:** yeah, it's a different thing, right?

**[0:52:39] Robert Whittaker:** just like Murab.

**[0:52:40] Joe Rogan:** So he's not trying to blitz people ever, he's not trying to hit you with one big bomb and trying to. He's just cooking you and he's he's bringing you up to a pace that he knows that you can't sustain, but he does every day.

**[0:52:52] Robert Whittaker:** do you reckon? That's what burnt him out? Cause, I swear it's gotta be like, if if every fight you turn up and you're like, All right, four rounds to go before before I gotcha. Like, you know, you got 20 minutes of cooking a guy, you know what I mean?

**[0:53:05] Joe Rogan:** Well, it could be that, but it's also you gotta take into consideration all the years that he's been fighting. So I've called Nick's first fight in the UFC in nineteen nine, no 2001. I think 2001, I'm pretty sure it was 2001. I'm pretty sure. That was the 1st time I worked for the UFC in the new era, you know, in ninety seven, I worked for the old era before Zufa, and then it was him versus Robbie Lawler, and he was like, twenty years old.

**[0:53:36] Joe Rogan:** yeah, that was so So

**[0:53:38] Robert Whittaker:** good, such a he had, he had some wars. He just got dropped 2003, there so bad.

**[0:53:41] Jamie Vernon:** man, that was his first fight.

**[0:53:42] Joe Rogan:** was 2003. Okay, that's twenty three years ago, that's crazy. That is a long time to be getting punched in the head, and I think that is a giant especially with factor.

**[0:53:55] Robert Whittaker:** his style. His style was very much in your face. He's gonna eat a couple, but he's gonna give you four for every, every one you land. yeah, and It's like,

**[0:54:02] Joe Rogan:** he did a lot of sparring with, what's that I take that gym?

**[0:54:05] Jamie Vernon:** back. That was just the UFC. He did, uh, his 1st fight was August thirty first, 2001, uh, for IFC Warriors.

**[0:54:13] Joe Rogan:** And was 2003? What event was that? Uh, Jeremy Jackson, No, what was the number? UFC? weird, that's, oh, Does it say it? I would have he's, uh, swore it was

**[0:54:26] Jamie Vernon:** UFC forty four.

**[0:54:27] Joe Rogan:** UFC forty-four and w- w-

**[0:54:29] Jamie Vernon:** July 19th, 2000, or, sorry, September 26th, 2003.

**[0:54:33] Joe Rogan:** Okay, so that's his, and that's Robbie Lawler,

**[0:54:36] Jamie Vernon:** No, Jeremy Jackson. that was his 1st Robbie Lawler was one. his next one, 2004.

**[0:54:39] Joe Rogan:** Oh, interesting. So Jeremy Jackson was a guy who stopped him earlier in his career, who was a really good boxer. Yeah, th- this is the end of it. Paul, just he just couldn't take it anymore, and the pace is just fucking insane.

**[0:54:53] Robert Whittaker:** because it doesn't stop, it doesn't slow down.

**[0:54:55] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, but I think, you know, at a certain point in time, everybody's time is up. And if you've been sparring with pro boxers for years and sparring hard for years and training hard and fighting and getting in these crazy wars.

**[0:55:08] Robert Whittaker:** the type of fights, yeah, the type of fights that you're in,

**[0:55:11] Joe Rogan:** remember when he fought Anderson Silva and he was getting bored? So he just lay down and put his hands on his head like this.

**[0:55:17] Robert Whittaker:** like, only only he could do that, It was awesome, only he could do

**[0:55:21] Joe Rogan:** it was amazing. that. I mean, it was like, even though he lost the fight, I was, I felt I was like, that was fucking great. It was so entertaining.

**[0:55:28] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, yeah, it's like, cause he he knew Anderson just wanted to counter strike and just walk back on the fence, so he just didn't engage and then nothing was happening.

**[0:55:37] Joe Rogan:** I know there was a few guys who figured that out with Anderson that if you don't do anything, he doesn't do anything. Yeah, which is crazy.

**[0:55:45] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. And cause cause he during his prime, he was running through people before people worked it out, before there was like a ton of tape on him, before they they found that. And before also Anderson's age and the amount of fights he had caught up with him, he was untouchable, untouchable. he was unstoppable.

**[0:55:59] Joe Rogan:** Anderson in his prime was in the matrix, he was doing things to people where you're like, this is how is he doing it? And it was like they. He'd pull these spectacular techniques out of nowhere, like Vitor, that front kick to the face. It was just like, my Lord, he was in the matrix, he just saw things that other people couldn't see. He there was a time, and I've always say that you have to look at elite fighters in their absolute prime.

**[0:56:24] Joe Rogan:** You can't look at them like BJ Penn later, and he's my best example of that. You can't look at the BJ Penn, Frankie Edgar fight and say, that's BJ Penn. No, you gotta look at, I mean, later in his career, you know, you gotta look at BJ Penn when he fought Sean Sherk, you know, J. Jay's great J. Stevenson, you BJ Penn when he was in his prime, you gotta look at that. And I feel like that's the same thing with Anderson.

**[0:56:45] Joe Rogan:** Don't look at him past the broken leg, look at him before that, when he was just starching everybody, look at him before that when no one could even touch him.

**[0:56:52] Robert Whittaker:** and making it look easy, Easy, like championship fights, like finishing people easily. yeah, and having fun, Yeah,

**[0:57:00] Joe Rogan:** like having the Forrest Griffin fight, like he was having a good time.

**[0:57:03] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, it's like, Hey, that was almost dirty, too. That was dirty, Like that was, that was another dirty moment. Some some guys are just cold blooded,

**[0:57:10] Joe Rogan:** cold blooded. man. He just stepped back and popped him with the right hand.

**[0:57:14] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, and just like, like, kinda kinda mockingly, like dancing around. Did he get told off once? Cause he was he was mucking around that much?

**[0:57:23] Joe Rogan:** that was the Damian Maya fight, and the Damian Maya fight. Well, I think there's another factor in that fight, so that fight was outside in, uh, Abu Dhabi, and it was hot. And there was fucking bugs that were flying around the size of a horse.

**[0:57:38] Robert Whittaker:** was it? I didn't know that, cause I can't imagine how annoying that would be.

**[0:57:42] Joe Rogan:** It was weird, you guys, you get these weird, uh, Middle Eastern bugs like that you never saw before flying around, like, whoa, look at the size of that thing. I was like, this is crazy. And it was outside. So, uh, Anderson comes out hot in the 1st round, like putting it to Maya, trying to put Maya away, but he doesn't wind up putting him away. And so I think he got really fucking tired, and I think he just decided to coast.

**[0:58:06] Joe Rogan:** And then Maya was like, kinda chasing after him, and he was just getting out of the way and just doing enough to win a decision. And Dana White was pissed. They They got real because this is like a big showcase fight. They're fight 1st of all. Even though the White House card was awesome, it was a lot of fun, it was a great night. Don't have fights outside. A world championship fight should be fought in a controlled environment, it should be an air-conditioned building, it should be EV all, it should be a controlled environment that everyone fights in a world championship fight.

**[0:58:38] Joe Rogan:** The same way. it's a control. Yeah, Yes, yeah,

**[0:58:40] Robert Whittaker:** what, what, what were some variables? I wasn't there, you were, you were. What are some variables we didn't see?

**[0:58:47] Joe Rogan:** well, one of them was humidity, and Gaethje talked about that, so there was thunderstorms all around us. Yes, that The fight got

**[0:58:53] Robert Whittaker:** has delay, the shit.

**[0:58:53] Joe Rogan:** delayed, yes, the the the fights got delayed, and they thought they were gonna get delayed way later to like 10:30 PM. But it wound up passing over us, like, literally, like, miraculously, like, literally circled around. Like they might have done something, like, start the engine, get the thing in the sky. He, he might have done something, but it's a good time to do something. Yeah, if If you, if you are, you really can manipulate the weather, that would be a good time.

**[0:59:19] Joe Rogan:** So, um, there was that, and Justin said that I in the 1st round, he felt it, he's like, you could feel the air was heavy. That's a factor. It wasn't that hot, like when they're fighting is in the 70s, I believe, but 70s with humidity when you're going at it, that's not how it's supposed to be. Air-conditioned environment should be the same way for every fight. And that Abu Dhabi fight, it was not, it was hot.

**[0:59:43] Joe Rogan:** I remember sweating in my shirt and we were outside, and I was like, these boys must be fucking tired. This episode is brought to you by RAF Real American Freestyle Wrestling, exclusively on Fox Nation. Every month, you get every feud, every match, every belt. If you love UFC, wrestling is where it all began, and now RAF heads to Sin City for another massive night of action. RAF 14, and this one is all attitude. RAF's Bad Boys Armand Saroukian and Dylan Danis step onto the mat to find out who's the baddest.

**[1:00:22] Joe Rogan:** Plus, a loaded card featuring the world's best wrestlers and some of the biggest names in combat sports. No cages, no gloves, no excuses, just wrestling at its best. RAF 14 Live from Las Vegas, Friday, October 23rd, streaming exclusively on Fox Nation. Go to Fox Nation dot com and sign up today,

**[1:00:45] Robert Whittaker:** I'm like, I'm like a I'm like a heavy sweater, like heavy, heavy sweater, like. So whenever I do like a hard session, like if if I have a big sparring day and do some rounds, and it's hot, cause in Australia humidity's we live in it, right? Um, if it's like a hot day and it's humid, by the 2nd round, I'll be dehydrated. Like, That's crazy, I'll I'll be cooked, like cooked. you know? Gaethje It's

**[1:01:11] Joe Rogan:** doesn't drink water when he trains. really Yeah, he won't drink any water until after his training session's over.

**[1:01:17] Robert Whittaker:** why?

**[1:01:19] Joe Rogan:** He thinks it toughens him up. That's He just how he's always done it.

**[1:01:22] Robert Whittaker:** he, he is super tough.

**[1:01:24] Joe Rogan:** He's tough as yeah, that's a adorable motherfucker.

**[1:01:28] Robert Whittaker:** I don't. I don't know if that'll work for me. Like, if I stop drinking water, will it make me tougher? Or will I just die?

**[1:01:37] Joe Rogan:** I don't know if. But it's like what we were talking about earlier, that this is balance between, like, drinking and smoking and having fun and being like, fucking a Marine. I don't know, man.

**[1:01:48] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, fighters. Why does a special bee say, like special animals? Like,

**[1:01:53] Joe Rogan:** It's almost like I wish there was a Marvin Hagler in MMA at the same time. There's a Carlos Prates. So let's see which way works best. You know, you got two guys that are special athletes, but one of them gets up at 05:00 in the morning and screaming war and running up sand dunes with combat boots on in the middle of the winter at Cape Cod. That's Marvin Hagler, and he has Carlos Prates, he's fucking dancing, drinking, he's got a Marlboro, and he's just going in there and fucking tuning people up.

**[1:02:22] Joe Rogan:** I and just don't know

**[1:02:23] Robert Whittaker:** like, and easily, easily. easily. That last fight was rough to watch. The Jack Dylan Yes, yes, Alana fight. Yeah, as a as a pageant patriarch, Australian sitting there and watching that fight was rough.

**[1:02:34] Joe Rogan:** well, as a fan of Jax, it's hard to watch. He, he's a great guy and he's an elite fighter, but my goodness, what Prates did to him, like you said it best, it was dirty, it was just dirty.

**[1:02:46] Robert Whittaker:** it was cold. He was just it was like an executioner at that point.

**[1:02:50] Joe Rogan:** He's got that step-in knee to the left side, or from his left side into the liver. God, that's so nasty, he does that so well. He's He gets so much giving you all these range on it different reads.

**[1:03:01] Robert Whittaker:** and he gets so much range on it. Like, it's it, he, he's like, he fights almost in your face, but he's not there, he's not there. And he's like,

**[1:03:10] Joe Rogan:** you go to come to him and he just leans back and he's gone.

**[1:03:13] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, and pops you from across the cage, like, and then calf kicks you on the way out. DC said Like,

**[1:03:18] Joe Rogan:** it best. We were talking about this last night. DC said he's built like a mosquito, just all legs, like an elite killer mosquito,

**[1:03:27] Robert Whittaker:** all legs.

**[1:03:27] Joe Rogan:** just all limbs, long limbs. But the power, the Leon Edwards left hand, my goodness,

**[1:03:33] Robert Whittaker:** oh, that left him cold, ooh, and that left him the way he covered cold.

**[1:03:36] Joe Rogan:** distance with that shot, too, Oh, and he's so good man.

**[1:03:40] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, he is, and he's so, so exciting to watch, just like, just like Hooey, Hooey. Just like I know he lost to Armand, but did you see the one shot he threw from across the cage? Like he covered like 2 meters, hit him in the eye, his eye blew up straight away. It was so, like,

**[1:03:56] Joe Rogan:** no, Hooey's dangerous, he's da dangerous and long. It's just like Armand had the perfect strategy, the perfect strategy. Just get him up against the cage, land elbows Yeah, make it and and the way he,

**[1:04:06] Robert Whittaker:** make him uncomfortable.

**[1:04:06] Joe Rogan:** like, went for the single, you know, and then, you know, he's like, defending his head straight up in the air. Boom catches him with, caught him with one, and he was like, out cold, and only held him up to hit him with the 2nd one.

**[1:04:17] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, Armand's, Armand's a beast. And rich, I I hate that. no sense. Grew I, I, up really I don't rich know why, like, he's just he's, he's. My my life, my life, sport, my lifeblood on this earth, with my family is his hobby. And then and then it annoys me. It's like it just turns up at the highest level to play, and it and he doesn't have kills, it, kills to. me.

**[1:04:47] Joe Rogan:** And you, there's just always this, this narrative that we were told that, like, rich people can't fight, you're the rich guy's son is never gonna be the toughest guy. It's always the poor guys. yeah, we, yeah, He fights like he's poor, that's what's CRA. He fights like he grew up in the ghetto,

**[1:05:02] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. Or he he fights like he grew up a super soldier, you know, maybe maybe he's on the other side of the spectrum, well, maybe.

**[1:05:10] Joe Rogan:** maybe. W- Yeah, he got really good training very early on. And but also the thing is, it's like in him, he loves it. There's no way you could have the kind of money that that guy has and fight that way unless you really love and it,

**[1:05:26] Robert Whittaker:** get through a camp. Like, there are too many moments during camp. I'm like, f this, I need this app to go well. Like, you know, like, I'm like, halfway there. It's just, Well, it's yeah,

**[1:05:41] Joe Rogan:** also it's like he does those Sam Calavita workouts. Do you know those? Do you know what I'm talking about? Okay, so this is this guy who, uh, TJ Dillashaw credits with a a lot of his strength and conditioning. And the the reason why he had such a crazy gas tank. And Aaron Pico, he trains with him, Hamzat trains with him, he started Hamzat started training with him fairly recently. But Sam Calavita, eh? He comes from a cycling background and, you know, like, real scientific approach to cardio, and these guys do these fucking insane cardio strength and conditioning workouts in a garage in California.

**[1:06:16] Joe Rogan:** So you got all these elite fighters in this, you know, middle class residential neighborhood. Guy fucking lifts up his garage door and you got these assassins on your fucking driveway, doing doing like whipping chains and shit and doing all these crazy medicine ball workouts. And see if you can find some of that. They call it the garage, that's just what it's called, the garage, and this garage is just filled with strength and cardio equipment, so they're all talking about it here.

**[1:06:44] Joe Rogan:** Let me see if you can show some of the workouts. Is these he gonna show guys are all, these it?

**[1:06:48] Robert Whittaker:** guys are all cardio machines.

**[1:06:49] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, and it's all in his okay, they're not, that's not good, but I know, uh, from Armand's YouTube channel, he had a bunch of it where he was training with Hamzat at, uh, at Calavita's place. Along with a bunch of, uh, Juan Archuleta was there, one bunch, a bunch of like elite MMA fighters are there training. And it looks like hell, it looks like just complete holy hell. Cub Swanson had an an interesting take on it, though, cause Cub worked out there too.

**[1:07:19] Joe Rogan:** And he said he feels like he had some of his worst performances when he did his cardio sessions there. And he thinks because it just takes too much out of you, he goes, the guy just breaks you down too much. He goes, there's like a fine line, and I think he he passes that line.

**[1:07:36] Robert Whittaker:** so these things just just in the street.

**[1:07:39] Joe Rogan:** I think the thing is, though, if you're just doing a cardio-based sport like cycling, you know, obviously it's power and there's some technique to it, but it's not the same sort of give and take, completely open-ended, you know, uh, improv- improvising thing that MMA is. So you can't just have cardio, you also have the you have to have the ability to have all of those movements, s just razor sharp, honed all your skills, razor sharp. And sometimes when you're broken down from strength and conditioning, when you go to do your skills, your skills feel sloppier, they don't feel the same way.

**[1:08:21] Joe Rogan:** You know, like, I, I know, like when I used to work out at a Carlson Gracie's place. One of the things that I didn't like, no disrespect, but one of the things that I didn't like is they put you through this grueling strength and conditioning thing before you would do your skills. And I was like, Hm, why would you wanna be exhausted when you're learning something? I get, I think it's a good thing if you're. TR- just trying to get in shape and have a real hard workout.

**[1:08:44] Joe Rogan:** And yeah, you should know what it feels like to wrestle tired, but also, shouldn't you learn all this stuff when you're fresh?

**[1:08:50] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, cause the idea is not to gas, right? And that comes from efficiency.

**[1:08:54] Joe Rogan:** yes, I think if you're gonna do strength and conditioning like that, it should be after your skill work. This is my personal opinion. I think skill work h should be done when you're not tired. It definitely You should learn all those sharp movements, all the counters, all the things, it should be sharp. If you're exhausted and your abs are fucking killing you, and your neck is stiff, and you're like, it's like you're a little more labored with stuff.

**[1:09:20] Joe Rogan:** You, you, you don't, you don't have the confidence, and you don't have the like, the the neural pathways of the sharpness. You know how sometimes you learn a move and then you get it, and you finally get it, and then you're hitting pads or something, your sense, go, you just get it. It's like it's there, and now you, it's in your head, like, Oh, I know that path, I know that path. If all of a sudden, that path gets sloppy, then you start thinking, Do I know it?

**[1:09:44] Joe Rogan:** Do I know it the way I think I know it? Can I land this at will? I if I see the opening, can I go? Or will be I? Will be a fraction of a second slow, will I be a little off,

**[1:09:54] Robert Whittaker:** And you don't want like, if you go into these sessions tired, you don't want to get used to being tired. Oh, no, I know, I know they they say you gotta train for when you're tired, but you don't wanna get used to being tired. So I feel like that starts you off at, like, a funny level, you know? And and like, another thing is,

**[1:10:11] Joe Rogan:** What did you just pull up there, Jamie?

**[1:10:13] Jamie Vernon:** I, I just asked her. If there's any benefits to hard or athletic training, hard cardio before skill work, and

**[1:10:19] Joe Rogan:** And it says, Yes, let me see that, potentially it's let me see, what does that like, scroll? Yes, there can be benefits, but it depends on whether you're trying to learn a skill or execute an established one under fatigue. Yeah, that's true, hard, but the thing is, you're always learning. That's the thing about, like, technique. In terms of MMA, it's like so comprehensive. Hard cardio isn't automatically better preparation for skill work. Fatigue commonly reduces the quality of a sports-specific technique.

**[1:10:41] Joe Rogan:** That's exactly what we're talking about,

**[1:10:42] Robert Whittaker:** and your mental focus, though, that's that's not limitless. Like it's if I, if I, there. Everyone who's done a cardio session where it's so hard, you start to like your br, your own brain starts to try to escape on you. And you know, you, you find it hard to be in the moment where you are because you, you just you're, you're tired, you're tired. If you, you take, you take that into a skills session, you're not gonna.

**[1:11:07] Robert Whittaker:** I, I personally, I can't, I can't work under like that, because,

**[1:11:11] Joe Rogan:** yeah, you. I think skill is for fresh people. And and I think there's a there's a real benefit to like flow rolling, there's a real benefit to like, like shadow sparring, where you're just touching and moving. And it's just you're just building pathways in your mind. But then there's also like a giant benefit to just breaking down the machine and pushing the fucking machine to its red line and forcing it to recover and build a stronger base.

**[1:11:36] Joe Rogan:** but And it's a balance, though,

**[1:11:39] Robert Whittaker:** I don't think like whilst it has a place, and I do it as well, I use the assault bikes and and and treadmills and everything else. I I think, though, if you want to break yourself doing something, it needs to be in the craft you're doing. Like, if you wanna get fitter wrestling, you have to wrestle, you have to be put in those positions. If you wanna see where your skills take you under fatigue, you have to wrestle to fatigue, you have to grapple to fatigue.

**[1:12:02] Robert Whittaker:** You know, like, Well, that's you gotta, GSP's approach yeah,

**[1:12:05] Joe Rogan:** later in his career, later in his career. He essentially abandoned all the strength and conditioning and just did sports specific training, just did hard rounds on the bag, hard rounds sparring, hard rounds drilling,

**[1:12:16] Robert Whittaker:** cause that that's also what makes your body hard. Like, you need to, you need to be used to contact and stuff. There's been heaps of camps where I've, like, torn a calf muscle, so I've done like the back end of it. Just on like treadmills and assault, like treadmills, concept 2s, that sort of stuff, not treadmills, sorry, concept 2s, assault bikes. Too many skiers, too many camps have ended this way. And it just takes a mental toll on you having to push yourself to redline in those sessions.

**[1:12:46] Robert Whittaker:** It's just,

**[1:12:46] Joe Rogan:** Well, you know, that brings me to BJ Penn's prime, cause one of the things that I've talked about a bunch of times was he didn't really do much sports-specific training in his prime for for camps. He would do the camps with Mar Barinovich, and Mar Barinovich, who was a, he's. His philosophy was you already know how to fight. What we're gonna do is give you the most insane gas tank, and then you're gonna go in there free as a bird because you're never gonna think about cardio, you're just gonna be able to perform.

**[1:13:15] Joe Rogan:** And so it was all plyometrics, like crazy plyometrics and all these weird box jumps and all this different shit. And every day, just getting broken down, broken down every day. But he would show up shredded and just just looking like an absolute demon. And he had been doing very little in terms of like sparring, very little mitt training, and the the philosophy was you already know how to fight. Like, take that thought and just throw it into this six, eight week camp of insane cardio and plyometrics.

**[1:13:48] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. And I think that's where I've kinda pushed my own training in this in in in like heavyweight. And in the later end of my career, it's just it's like being happy, enjoying the process. Cause I, I, by this stage, I know how to fight, or I'm in trouble. Like e- either I got it by now or I'm not gonna get it. So it's, it's, it's like, we don't need to work skills as much as review, revise and just practice.

**[1:14:16] Robert Whittaker:** So I was like, I do a lot of mitt work, I do a lot of like light sparring, movement shadow sparring sort of work. I do a lot of, do a lot of rounds on in in the GI and and and different positional In the GI, really, work. Yeah,

**[1:14:28] Joe Rogan:** what? What is the benefit you think in the GI for MMA training?

**[1:14:34] Robert Whittaker:** uh, it's if you wanna learn jujitsu, it's I'm a big believer in in in gi. I'm a big believer in gi. It's, uh, obviously it's different, but you can trans. A lot of gi guys can transi- can transition from gi to no gi. It's very hard the other way around, you know? So it's, and I think Daniel Miller was a big believer in in in GI work.

**[1:14:54] Joe Rogan:** well, a lot of the Brazilians are, it's a religion. The the the gi, for good it's a Jiu-jitsu's reason. all about the gi, my friend. You need the gi, don't abandon the gi. Like people got real mad. I don't know you weren't around back then. The the early days of gi no gi, right? The early days. Like, when, when did you start training?

**[1:15:13] Robert Whittaker:** well, would it would have been 2000, like for MMA, it would have been like 2015.

**[1:15:20] Joe Rogan:** right, so in like 2001, 2002, 2000-ish was when people started doing no gi, and a lot of the Brazilians did not like the. There's there's a lot of a little

**[1:15:33] Robert Whittaker:** still don't like it.

**[1:15:34] Joe Rogan:** loyalty to the gi that was crazy. So when Eddie Bravo branched off and started 10th Planet, which was 2003, it was very controversial. Like, what is this guy? This guy abandoned the gi. It was like it was a real problem, man. That sounds crazy now because there's so many elite Brazilians that are in no gi. They've kind of, uh, just like they abandoned the idea that leg locks are bad. If you did a leg lock back then in a tournament, even though it was legal, everybody would boo,

**[1:16:01] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, and you'll get beat up afterwards, probably.

**[1:16:03] Joe Rogan:** right? Heel hooks, people would be furious at you.

**[1:16:06] Robert Whittaker:** You know what's great about the GI in terms of, I in terms of, like a jujitsu side of things, espe- especially like in trend, like for MMA as well, is that you can't make as many mistakes in the GI. You can't. It makes your positioning and your decision-making so much more vital. Because, let's be honest, if you're an athletic guy, you can, you can get pretty far in no gi. you can explode out You can explode of things, out of a lot of things.

**[1:16:32] Robert Whittaker:** I've, I've, I've jumped into beginner classes and a really strong guy will still like, shove me from from mount, or from the half guard. Cause I'm just not ready for him to just bench press me, you know what I mean? It's just like these crazy beginner sort of

**[1:16:47] Joe Rogan:** right. But if you're grabbing hold of his gi, he's not doing any of that.

**[1:16:50] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, well, yeah, and you can, you can't make mistakes, cause if you make, if you make a mistake, you that get gets capitalized on, and you get get into a bad position, then you're working from that bad position. Like, you're actually punished for errors, I feel like a lot more so, uh, obviously in no gi, there's there's plenty of that as well, especially at the highest level.

**[1:17:07] Joe Rogan:** I think there's definitely something to it. Um, John Jock Machado's approach was very interesting because, you know, John Jock was born with, uh, only a thumb on his left hand, so he has a a right hand that's a full hand, but he was born with just a thumb. So John Jock never relied on collar chokes and and grabbing cuffs. His technique was overhooks and underhooks. So when he went to Abu Dhabi, his technique right into no gi immediately translated because he was using wrestling-based sh- holds.

**[1:17:38] Joe Rogan:** He was a lot of it was overhooks and underhooks.

**[1:17:39] Robert Whittaker:** same systems.

**[1:17:40] Joe Rogan:** Yes, same system. So when I learned from him, I did that, I, I did his style, and that was like, cause I'm still gonna do no gi with Eddie. So I was doing no gi at 10th Planet and I was doing gi at John Jock's. So I just decided to do it John Jock style, and John Jock's style was like, the gi is great defensively because you have to have excellent position and you have to have good defense.

**[1:18:01] Joe Rogan:** You have to make sure that you're doing the right thing, cause you're not gonna just yank yourself out of an armbar. It's not like when you're sweaty and you can just kind of explode out of things and squirm and move real quick, you can't do any of that shit, you're trapped. So defensively, I, I felt like it was very, but I also felt like offensively, I should just do all the things that I do. No gi and ignore the gi and just, uh, except a clock choke, I can't pass up on a clock choke.

**[1:18:25] Joe Rogan:** If they're I can get

**[1:18:26] Robert Whittaker:** the best.

**[1:18:26] Joe Rogan:** that, if I can get that grip inside and I get that hand on the underarm, I can spin under. Ooh, I love that. That's, that's a ninja move, man. I love me a clock choke. But other than that, I felt like offensively, in terms of like, controlling people, I was gonna ignore the gi. I was just gonna only only use grips that were wrestling-based grips, and so that's how I I, I'm very I approached it.

**[1:18:48] Robert Whittaker:** much the same, and then my coach gives, Ge, like, kinda teaches that way as well. Like all my chokes in the gi are even still just head and arm, rear naked chokes, like just like real, the real simple ones.

**[1:18:59] Joe Rogan:** the basics. Like, yeah, Well, look at Marcelo Garcia, he's like my favorite example, like Marcelo. Almost all of his victories by submission came from chokes, almost all of them. He beat Rico Rodriguez in, uh, absolute in Abu Dhabi with a heel hook, which was crazy. But in e- all the other fights that he had, every one of those submissions, I think, was a choke. I don't think I ever seen him get anybody in an armbar. I'm sure he has, but I I've never seen it

**[1:19:28] Robert Whittaker:** well, chokes can't be defended, right? Like in in a lot of, a lot of high level guys, you'll see let their knees go, let their arms go, like, especially in fighting, especially in MMA. How many times have you seen, like an arm, like, bust out, or like heel hooking the knees, oh, Corey Sandhagen or? And and they blew his knee just, apart in his and then it's, last fight, and that doesn't stop the fight, though. If you, if you're good, like, you're good Yeah, until and it's over, but choking, like, you're not, You go out, yeah, you're gone, that's it, it's over.

**[1:19:57] Joe Rogan:** that was Marcelo's approach. No. Comoris, he said. Comor was a strong man move, get people strong to pull it off.

**[1:20:03] Robert Whittaker:** yes, you do.

**[1:20:03] Joe Rogan:** Okay, so his just whole thing was just get a hold of the necks, high, high elbow, guillotine, rear naked choke, anything you can do, head and arm choke, you know, whatever he could do is just get a hold of the neck. You know, um, he had a a crazy north-south choke, his north-south choke is excellent. Just he just figured out how to be like a master neck squeezer.

**[1:20:22] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, and just find those right positions. Some guys are just good at it, though, like, say, say, just just like MMA. There are guys that are that that are born gifted and talented for for the craft, like, oh, Craig Jones, a freak. Oh, yeah, he's a Like that guy, freak, he's a like,

**[1:20:35] Joe Rogan:** freak. But he's also a guy who loves jiu-jitsu, he loves the game and being skillful and setting traps he's a and catching people.

**[1:20:44] Robert Whittaker:** nerd for it, he just he loves seeing the different things, what works, what doesn't work. Like he has, he has. His approach to it is so intellectual, but he's good enough to be able to implement it.

**[1:20:55] Joe Rogan:** and he's always having a good time, Mate, he he's, that's the thing, right? he always looks like He's

**[1:21:01] Robert Whittaker:** he's having a good time.

**[1:21:02] Joe Rogan:** having a blast. He is the funniest fucking guy in jiu-jitsu by a long shot. Like, there's no one even. He's like a professional comedian, like he easily, if he retired from competing, could become a professional comic. I really believe that. The dude's hilarious when he had that intergender fight with Gabby Garcia and he kissed her and she got mad at him. He's so silly, he's so silly, but that silliness is like a mask that covers up this assassin.

**[1:21:34] Joe Rogan:** Like when you start training with him and and and do, and like, you watch him train with like elite guys and he catches them and stuff. You're like, Oh, fuck, man, that's slick.

**[1:21:42] Robert Whittaker:** it's, it's, it's like, I've. So I've rolled with him, and it's like you're drowning. It's just you. You're just wondering how this ends, like, what, what, what? He's gonna finish you with?

**[1:21:52] Joe Rogan:** now, what's crazy is imagine Gordon can do that to him, That's that's what's crazy. Well, Gordon like, could do that to everybody. I've, I've That's what's crazy.

**[1:22:00] Robert Whittaker:** I've thought about this, I've thought like, like, how would I go about fighting those dudes? And I'd I'd be like, I'm doing everything in my power to not get like, grabbed at all, cause it's over once, once, once you get sucked into it, you can't play safe with these guys.

**[1:22:14] Joe Rogan:** well, especially with Gordon. He's so good at controlling people because he doesn't have an athletic based style at all. Like he talks about it, he says, I'm not an athletic guy, I don't move fast, so all my jiu-jitsu is control Pressure, based. And it's also when he gets a hold of you, that's it. it's over. Yeah, HIXON GrACIE SAID This to me once. It was like the the the dopest fucking conversation I ever had with him.

**[1:22:36] Joe Rogan:** I've had a few with him that are pretty cool, but we're over his house and we're watching some fight tapes. It was me and him and his son, Crome, and we're sitting there and we're watching these, uh, these fight tapes. And he's explaining what these guys are doing wrong. He was watching this, like Mario Sperry fight, that'd be so cool, it was the dopest shit ever. that'd be so And and he said, and he was talking about how these guys are losing position, and he goes, We all start at a neutral position, we all start at zero.

**[1:23:03] Joe Rogan:** And he goes, And once I go to one, I'm not going back to zero. I'm going to two, I'm going to three, I'm going to. And it was like, so intense when he was saying it, it was like, but it was like, this is a fact. If I get you in a position, you're not getting out of it. And I'm advancing to the next spot, and I'm advancing to the next spot, and then, checkmate. And when he was saying, I was like, Oh, shit, it was the dopest conversation.

**[1:23:31] Robert Whittaker:** these these guys are like samurais of today, Oh, yeah, man, like that, that that mentality they have, that is, that is the the way of the warrior.

**[1:23:39] Joe Rogan:** well, Hixon was a true pioneer, too, with physical training. So Hixon was like the 1st jiu-jitsu guy to adopt extreme flexibility, yoga, cold plunges. He was doing these cold plunges in the Riv glacial rivers in Japan before he fought in Japan. Valley, Todo. It's in the video, you Before can see, like, it was cool, there's fucking freezing cold water, and he's in there just fucking, ah, ah, it's amazing. He was doing neck exercises with like bands, where he was like going upstairs or pulling against a tree with a fucking a thing to control his neck muscles to strengthen his neck muscles.

**[1:24:17] Joe Rogan:** He was doing shit that nobody was, nobody had figured out

**[1:24:19] Robert Whittaker:** SNC years ahead of the game.

**[1:24:20] Joe Rogan:** way ahead of the game. Balance work, balance beam stuff, where he's doing a standing split on a balance beam,

**[1:24:27] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, well, you, you know, and that that sort of stuff is so vital for MMA because you just there is no controlled position. Like, cause you're constantly moving with, uh, like, the obviously the outs. External variable is the opponent who's trying to do things to you. And you're kinda working with that whilst trying to do your own things. And you're never in a position where your body's controlled, like, it's very imbalanced. So doing a lot of these imbalanced sort of exercises and balance exercises, where you're strengthening one one muscle, or flexing one muscle, or turning one on, it's just they're so important.

**[1:25:02] Robert Whittaker:** That's why I think, I think you mentioned it, we started to just beforehand. Gymnastics as a baseline for anything, anything is just the best. yeah. Gymnasts The absolute best.

**[1:25:15] Joe Rogan:** are so physically strong, to be able to throw yourself in the air and land on your feet and move around like that, like that, dude, to do the front flip to the back. We found out with breakdancing, so one one of the things that happened with, uh, the uh, with Tenth Planet was, um, they they started bringing in breakdancers. And Eddie Bravo realized, like, Oh my god, Gio Martinez and Richie Martinez, these two guys were excellent breakdancers.

**[1:25:42] Joe Rogan:** They do all this crazy shit, like hop on one hand and do like a handstand and do a lotus with your legs without even touching your feet. Crazy stuff. But that ability to control your body, we realized translates directly to jiu-jitsu.

**[1:25:56] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, it does.

**[1:25:57] Joe Rogan:** So Eddie started, like, learning breakdancing to, like, help jiu-jitsu. Eddie's super open-minded, he'll try anything, and he sees someone that's really good. He's like, What are you doing? How do you do that? Like, if someone does something in a class, he'll stop the whole class. Is that, Did you make that up? Did you invent that? Shows how you do it, and he'll have everybody go through why do this? But I find that they counter that. So I'm holding it like this now, and everybody's like, Oh, and then they'll study it and break it down.

**[1:26:21] Joe Rogan:** So we saw these guys break dance. He's like, Wait, what? Why the fuck are you so strong? Like, what's going So it's on here?

**[1:26:26] Robert Whittaker:** like, an Eddie break dance.

**[1:26:27] Joe Rogan:** I don't know if he really got good at it, but I know he was definitely learning some of the stuff just as a strength and conditioning routine.

**[1:26:34] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. Well, I was, I was super lucky. So early on in my career, like most MMA, was still very new. So I, uh, the the information wasn't out there today, like today, you can get a full information plan of AI, like, and just and just find out anything you want. But I was super lucky to meet my wife as early as I did, cause her background is elite gymnastics, and elite gymnastics like they're animals. They, they their whole life is one long camp, cause they can't stop, cause they can't put on weight, they can't do it.

**[1:27:04] Robert Whittaker:** Like, it's just it, they're just in it forever until they're not. It is wild, like every day is performance based, it's like long hours. So her mentality really kinda led me in in in into my my craft and me in my early days. When

**[1:27:22] Joe Rogan:** did she teach you gymnastics?

**[1:27:24] Robert Whittaker:** she tried, she tried, she tried, like, and there's a lot like. She was the one that made me realize how important a a strong core is, like a strong core, the core is everything. Like as a person, like just being able to move and walk around, and especially with the dynamic movements of MMA and fighting. It's like so. But she was actually the one that, like, she was my nutritionist, she was like my strength and conditioning coach at one point.

**[1:27:48] Robert Whittaker:** She was just cause she had, like, the health science background and sports science background, and

**[1:27:54] Joe Rogan:** oh, how convenient.

**[1:27:55] Robert Whittaker:** and I was just a poor kid that could fight.

**[1:27:59] Joe Rogan:** That's awesome, though. What a great combination.

**[1:28:01] Robert Whittaker:** Lucky, super lucky.

**[1:28:03] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, I I think a lot of people neglect core work, like real core, like rotational core work. I know I did for a long time, and I just started doing it a few years ago, like really getting into rotational work, like a lot of, like heavy cable rotational work and kettlebell rotational work. Man, it just I was doing it out of necessity, cause I kept getting injured. I was getting certain, uh, certain lower back injuries that were like a repetitive use injury.

**[1:28:28] Joe Rogan:** And, uh, I said, I think there's an imbalance, you know, cause a lot of it I was getting from archery. So I was getting this tendonitis on my lower right side. And what it is is because I'm pulling back with one arm, like 100 times a day, and I'm not doing anything on the other side. So all my stability is on this side. I'm like pulling back on that side and I'm locking myself in place, and it started to fuck with me.

**[1:28:51] Joe Rogan:** And so I went to a physical therapist and he started recommending some, and one of them was rotational shit. And then as soon as I started doing it, I was like, why wasn't I doing this my whole life? This is so stupid, I'm such a moron.

**[1:29:02] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, yeah, it's. It's like, it's so vital. It's like it's like all your other physical capabilities get capped at like 80, and that that having that strong core just unlocks that and it just makes your whole body stronger. And just like living, living is better. P pick up your kids without pulling a like, popping a hernia.

**[1:29:21] Joe Rogan:** yeah, it improves everything, it really does. They say that, like, if you do those, uh, you know, those hanging foot to bar moves, the just the hanging foot to bar. That improves your deadlift, that improves your clean and and and press, that improves the strength of your chin-ups, and it improves everything. Just that one move, that's Donaher's number one move, he said. The one move that he says is a must, a mandatory for all athletes, you have to be able to do that.

**[1:29:50] Robert Whittaker:** what, what, what? What move is this? This, the So you're hanging hang? chin-up bar, You know, like, you're hanging, and yes,

**[1:29:54] Joe Rogan:** then you lift your feet up and touch the bar with no momentum. So you have to be, you have to stabilize jiggy. it at the bottom and then pull it all up and stabilize it at the bottom, pull it off. That one movement, because it's so core intensive, that movement right there, so that right there.

**[1:30:10] Robert Whittaker:** it's like, it's, it's like, what? That's why I have so much respect. You see those guys that like barkings,

**[1:30:16] Joe Rogan:** Oh yeah, those guys are crazy, they're like holding crazy out full extension, walking flagpoles, on air. Man, and just jacked,

**[1:30:24] Robert Whittaker:** he, Jacked like they, they must only eat salad, like, like, like. It doesn't look like you could burn a s stupid amount of calories just on.

**[1:30:37] Joe Rogan:** but you are right, because you're building muscle, and the muscle requires more calories, and you're you're essentially like lifting your own body weight all day. Those guys do it for hours and hours at a time.

**[1:30:48] Robert Whittaker:** and I guess, like it, I guess, like, having any extra weight would affect this, the performance of all this stuff by a great degree.

**[1:30:56] Joe Rogan:** What is this guy doing?

**[1:30:57] Jamie Vernon:** I don't know, I just went to their most recent video they put up. He's just go, Oh, this is Barstoars, he's, he's you know,

**[1:31:01] Robert Whittaker:** just using his fingers, but

**[1:31:03] Joe Rogan:** that's great.

**[1:31:03] Robert Whittaker:** to keep balance.

**[1:31:03] Joe Rogan:** He must be some kind of a rock climber. That's freakish. Yeah, some of these. D What is this dude doing? I know, Hey, bro, that's He's you trying to die? Are you trying to die? Do you understand electricity? this, this video, Don't do

**[1:31:19] Jamie Vernon:** not on that one. that,

**[1:31:21] Joe Rogan:** kids at home, don't do that.

**[1:31:22] Robert Whittaker:** no, that is terrible.

**[1:31:23] Joe Rogan:** How can you do that and not die? Are those not power lines? Maybe the power's out, he took a chance. Now's my time.

**[1:31:29] Robert Whittaker:** May maybe he did, probably grounded himself and then went up there for the video.

**[1:31:33] Joe Rogan:** Oh, fuck, do you ground yourself when you're holding onto those? Just the you ever heard, like, what it sounds like for those guys that have to work on those power lines?

**[1:31:41] Robert Whittaker:** You can just hear the zzz, yeah,

**[1:31:43] Joe Rogan:** And you just imagine the kind of power that's going through those fucking things.

**[1:31:48] Robert Whittaker:** electricity, scary, isn't it? Terrifying. Like, I was an electrician for a little bit.

**[1:31:52] Joe Rogan:** Were you really?

**[1:31:52] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, yeah, that's how, that's how I started. I was an

**[1:31:55] Joe Rogan:** No shit?

**[1:31:55] Robert Whittaker:** electrician, I was electrician as I was like, kind of fighting on the local scenes, professional still, but on the local scenes. And then I got the call up for Ultimate Fighter and I said, I'm gonna take some annual leave. And I went on the Ultimate Fighter.

**[1:32:06] Joe Rogan:** So did you go through an apprenticeship?

**[1:32:07] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, yeah, I was a fourth-year apprentice, so I was, I was supposed to, uh, I was doing my capstone, which is the end test, and I was gonna do that. And then the Ultimate Fighter said, All right, come in, let's go, try you out. I went on the show, I applied for annual leave, never, Never went never went.

**[1:32:22] Joe Rogan:** back?

**[1:32:23] Robert Whittaker:** Never went back. Maybe I wonder if they have my job still there.

**[1:32:26] Joe Rogan:** I have a buddy of mine, my friend. Shout out to Jimmy Ditillo back home in, uh, Boston. He he worked with this guy who lost his face. He just had just some crazy power thing. It just scorched his skin all over his whole face, just got zapped, just got electrocuted. Yeah, that's, Something went wrong.

**[1:32:44] Robert Whittaker:** that's crazy, like, yeah, electricity is just, and it cause it's not like the damage you get. Like, there are heaps of people that can get electrocuted and be fine, and then there's heaps that just die straight away. Yeah, my Like,

**[1:32:55] Joe Rogan:** buddy Remy got hit by lightning.

**[1:32:57] Robert Whittaker:** No, really.

**[1:32:57] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, yeah, when he was young, he was, I think he was in high school. Yeah, he lived, but, uh, he got fucked up and he woke up on the ground and realized eventually what happened. Yeah,

**[1:33:10] Robert Whittaker:** that's good.

**[1:33:10] Joe Rogan:** that's fucking terrifying.

**[1:33:11] Robert Whittaker:** Drinking that's a good omen or a bad omen. Neither. Maybe you had to look at it.

**[1:33:17] Joe Rogan:** It's not good cause you got hit by lightning, that's not good luck.

**[1:33:20] Robert Whittaker:** but you lived.

**[1:33:21] Joe Rogan:** Good luck would be the lightning lands 5 feet away from you and you're like, Fuck, let's get off this mountain. Bad luck is you get hit by lightning, but but worse luck is you die.

**[1:33:31] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, I think bad luck would be turning into some charcoal, like, I think, I wonder, I think, so,

**[1:33:36] Joe Rogan:** like, is it just like sometimes you live, because, like, sometimes you go and get a full blast, like one of them blast that, like, cuts a tree in half? You've seen those

**[1:33:43] Robert Whittaker:** yeah yeah, brown? Like, yeah,

**[1:33:45] Joe Rogan:** I guess that kills you. well, That seems like that would kill I think, you.

**[1:33:48] Robert Whittaker:** I think, I think, I think the lightning has a lot of voltage, not a lot of current, if we can, and Oh, as it's the car, an electrician, it's the car, you can it's the current, it's illuminate us on the current that this. kills you. Oh, interesting, what's I

**[1:34:04] Joe Rogan:** the difference? think, I What's the difference?

**[1:34:05] Robert Whittaker:** think, um, oh, I can't, I can't tell you right now.

**[1:34:11] Joe Rogan:** Well, you're looking pretty smart I've been 5 minutes ago.

**[1:34:14] Robert Whittaker:** been out of the game for a little bit I, I just for a hot minute.

**[1:34:19] Joe Rogan:** I think, uh, it's probably you have a heart attack, that's probably what it does to a lot of yes, and it burns people,

**[1:34:24] Robert Whittaker:** you, obviously.

**[1:34:24] Joe Rogan:** obviously. Yeah, and I think it probably just short-circuits your entire system. Just

**[1:34:29] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, well, that's what a defib is, right? It's like, literally trying to short-circuit your heart back.

**[1:34:34] Joe Rogan:** have you ever seen the video? There's this one guy, he's, W- I think he's in his driveway, he's walking down the driveway, he gets hit by lightning, falls to the ground, goes out, wakes up, starts walking again, I don't wanna gets hit again,

**[1:34:45] Robert Whittaker:** watch that.

**[1:34:47] Joe Rogan:** 2 gets hit twice. Like, what are the fucking odds? I hope it's real. I think, is it?

**[1:34:53] Jamie Vernon:** Once you say, what are the odds? The odds are very low, Joe, I think it's not real, but

**[1:34:57] Joe Rogan:** Well, it's an old video. The only reason why I don't think hey, it's AI, it could be fake.

**[1:35:01] Robert Whittaker:** you piss someone off to get hit Yeah, he by lightning did something, he did twice, like something bad, man, you, you,

**[1:35:05] Joe Rogan:** you cheated on your taxes, maybe, you did something.

**[1:35:07] Robert Whittaker:** maybe you're not. You did some You're not going fraud. straight to confession Yeah, yeah, you afterwards, like

**[1:35:12] Joe Rogan:** stole something, you did something, you, you kicked man.

**[1:35:15] Robert Whittaker:** a cat when no one was watching, like,

**[1:35:18] Jamie Vernon:** the 2 strikes and catching it on video are like, impossible.

**[1:35:21] Joe Rogan:** But I thought it was a security camera. I thought it was in his no, it's people fake driveway.

**[1:35:24] Jamie Vernon:** that all the time. There's No, no, no, those no, no, no,

**[1:35:25] Joe Rogan:** were all real. No, those are all real. Jamie shut the fuck up, Jamie.

**[1:35:29] Jamie Vernon:** See, look, he got back up and I was about to get hit again.

**[1:35:30] Joe Rogan:** I don't think that's the guy,

**[1:35:31] Jamie Vernon:** No, this, uh, people fake this all the time. bro, This guy's you can kill that going

**[1:35:34] Joe Rogan:** guy with a balloon. That guy is not getting hit by lightning and living.

**[1:35:38] Robert Whittaker:** I guess he's got scorch marks. Oh, fuck off, Look at the homemade, fuck off look at the homemade scorch

**[1:35:42] Joe Rogan:** with your scorch marks.

**[1:35:42] Robert Whittaker:** marks, look at the homemade scorch marks.

**[1:35:45] Joe Rogan:** I was gonna say he falls down, too, bitch ass this one actually fake fall.

**[1:35:48] Jamie Vernon:** is not getting hit twice. This is a more recent one, but

**[1:35:50] Joe Rogan:** That probably is real. I'm just when I, kidding,

**[1:35:52] Robert Whittaker:** I get sucked into these videos I'm sorry, all the time.

**[1:35:54] Joe Rogan:** sir. If you got hit by lightning and I'm mocking you, we're just having fun, it's all love. I'm sorry, So we're just but joking around, sir. But

**[1:36:00] Robert Whittaker:** it is good. that really Funny, man.

**[1:36:01] Joe Rogan:** was, I I hope he really didn't get hit by lightning. I hope he faked it, cause it's not funny. Getting hit by lightning is not funny. If It's fucked you live, it's up a bit,

**[1:36:08] Robert Whittaker:** all right.

**[1:36:08] Joe Rogan:** I guess.

**[1:36:11] Robert Whittaker:** If he, if he died, it would have been bad.

**[1:36:13] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, this is the guy,

**[1:36:14] Jamie Vernon:** yeah, that's.

**[1:36:15] Joe Rogan:** shut up, Jamie. This is real, you don't know shit, Jamie, this is real. So the guy gets up and he starts walking. Now, watch this, he gets hit again. I'm pretty sure this is real, Jamie,

**[1:36:28] Speaker 7:** Is having the unluckiest day of his life.

**[1:36:32] Joe Rogan:** bro, that's real. Anywhere That's as real as the but baby Jesus. He's been struck twice, It's real Jamie,

**[1:36:39] Jamie Vernon:** Watch, he'll get struck a 3rd time. Come on, Jamie, Tune in next week.

**[1:36:43] Joe Rogan:** shut up. Why are you ruining everything? Dude, I think that one's real.

**[1:36:50] Jamie Vernon:** Yeah, that one's real. Personal. Oh, you got going on the only time. oh my goodness,

**[1:36:59] Joe Rogan:** It's a fucked up way to go. it's a fucked up way to go. yeah, just It's just

**[1:37:04] Robert Whittaker:** pair of smoking shoes.

**[1:37:05] Joe Rogan:** that's why tasers are wild. Like, you ever see like a dude who's like, methed up, gets tased, and he just starts screaming and pulls the things out of his body? Yeah, and You're like, I'm like, how come?

**[1:37:12] Robert Whittaker:** there's like six, six cops, and they're just like, like, he's in like, pain, he's in, Ah, fuck, he's in that Hulk rage moment, like,

**[1:37:22] Joe Rogan:** yeah, but some people, they just they just sh- shut off and go straight down to the ground.

**[1:37:27] Robert Whittaker:** I wanna in in in my head cannon, I'm that like, I'll just rip it off, I'll take it, uh, I'm probably just like,

**[1:37:33] Joe Rogan:** I'm pretty sure I'd fall down, I'm sure I'd fall down stairs you never as a board, I'd fall down immediately.

**[1:37:36] Robert Whittaker:** like. It's, you know, it's not even getting that far. I'm putting my hands up, I'm just like, No, I Bro, like, what am I doing?

**[1:37:44] Joe Rogan:** yeah, don't tase me, I'm b- happy to comply. Fuck, yeah, it's just like some people, like Dana White on his show, uh, Dana White's looking for a fight. They all got tased once. Yeah, it was him.

**[1:37:56] Robert Whittaker:** I was gonna ask if you've ever done it, cause seems like no, I haven't a crazy thing.

**[1:37:58] Joe Rogan:** done it. No, I'm not interested, I'm not interested in getting fucking tased. That seems ridiculous, that doesn't seem fun at all. It's just like, I don't wanna have a heart attack either. Like, what, if, what if you get a Cause, cause heart attack?

**[1:38:08] Robert Whittaker:** it can happen. That's actually You can. Ted.

**[1:38:10] Jamie Vernon:** This is a tough situation. This guy is not complying.

**[1:38:13] Joe Rogan:** he's pretty jacked, too.

**[1:38:15] Robert Whittaker:** dude, look at the size of oh, no, he's, he's ex-army, I think I've seen this, he's like ex-navy seals And he's or something

**[1:38:19] Jamie Vernon:** about to try to tase him, though, too.

**[1:38:20] Robert Whittaker:** like, and he's got like, PTSD.

**[1:38:22] Joe Rogan:** yeah, he's having a problem and he's barefoot.

**[1:38:25] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, he's earthing.

**[1:38:28] Jamie Vernon:** It doesn't work. You better run.

**[1:38:30] Robert Whittaker:** And, and you know what's crazy? Like, he's a big unit too,

**[1:38:33] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, he's a big fucker.

**[1:38:34] Robert Whittaker:** and why? Why did they send 4 women cops to deal with I like you?

**[1:38:38] Joe Rogan:** how he's still holding his phone, too.

**[1:38:39] Jamie Vernon:** Did you see what he just said, though?

**[1:38:41] Joe Rogan:** What'd you say?

**[1:38:41] Jamie Vernon:** Tase me all day, I love pain. Oh, fun,

**[1:38:44] Robert Whittaker:** Some people are just built yeah, I don't understand different.

**[1:38:47] Joe Rogan:** that. So is it some people's bod? Because I thought it didn't. UN. until I saw a few of these guys online. My, uh, uh, original ignorant thought was once they tase you, you get zapped, no matter how the muscles tough you are, contract and you go, everything, you just fall down. That's it. No, apparently not. Apparently, not. Not in that I saw people guy. like, fuck this, that guy didn't even seem bothered by it. no, didn't, didn't flinch, Th- That's crazy.

**[1:39:11] Joe Rogan:** Let me

**[1:39:11] Robert Whittaker:** didn't flinch.

**[1:39:11] Joe Rogan:** see that again, let me see him get tased. You sure that's He's trying to, real? I he's trying to, think the lightning

**[1:39:16] Robert Whittaker:** he's trying to get his drunk is real, and in as well.

**[1:39:17] Joe Rogan:** that one's fake. Jamie, I think you're right. How about that?

**[1:39:20] Robert Whittaker:** Honestly, this guy gets struck by lightning. So I don't, It's called pain I don't.

**[1:39:25] Jamie Vernon:** tolerance, he said.

**[1:39:25] Speaker 9:** get down on the ground.

**[1:39:27] Robert Whittaker:** I don't reckon he takes a knee if he gets But they haven't struck by lightning.

**[1:39:29] Joe Rogan:** tased him yet.

**[1:39:30] Jamie Vernon:** At that point, they did. I Where'd they tase got a raise, my him? Let uh,

**[1:39:33] Joe Rogan:** me see.

**[1:39:34] Jamie Vernon:** you could hear it.

**[1:39:34] Joe Rogan:** Oh, yeah, oh, you could see him spaz out and react.

**[1:39:37] Robert Whittaker:** You You know. What is funny when, when?

**[1:39:39] Jamie Vernon:** They might not have gone in until. And that was also the thing. It's like, you pull it out that easy.

**[1:39:43] Robert Whittaker:** When the guys like, try to make a leg for it, they try to try to make a bolt for it and they get hit mid-stride, they do

**[1:39:49] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, that's fun, those are fun. It says, Uh, he said, Get down on the ground, he goes negative, that's not good, that's not good. like, He's be, he's being I'm calling, I'm calling salty.

**[1:39:59] Robert Whittaker:** this in, I'm like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna need backup.

**[1:40:02] Joe Rogan:** Well, he's just depending upon them not shooting him, that's the problem. It's like,

**[1:40:06] Robert Whittaker:** I don't think he cares either.

**[1:40:08] Joe Rogan:** well, he should definitely care about that, because I don't care how tough you are, guy unloads his magazine into you, you're gonna be dead. Yeah, I mean, I don't, he's depending on them. Well, who knows what the fucking scenario was? I don't know, maybe he's right, who fucking knows? Sometimes people get pulled over for bullshit reasons, and they're they're right to get pissed off. I don't know what happened there, but from my own observation, looks like the the man's a tad unhinged.

**[1:40:36] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. And he's he's too big to be unhinged. Like, like, he's wow, that's, a monster of a man. He looks, he, I was getting real screw vibes, Stefan, screw, real, screw vibes from that guy.

**[1:40:48] Joe Rogan:** Stefan Struve. I forgot about him. Yeah, there's a few of those guys that fought in the UFC that are just so fucking tall. You remember Semi-schult? Semi-schult Elite kickboxer, K-1 champion from Holland. Nasty front kick, 7 feet tall. He was so big, he was just ridiculously tall, and he just would step forward and and throw these front kicks and fuck you up with them.

**[1:41:11] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, that's. I feel like I would have been such a good tall fighter. It's just, you know what I mean, if I just had like an extra foot, or it just give me an extra inch, I reckon I coulda, coulda did How hard some really cool was it for you things.

**[1:41:24] Joe Rogan:** to stay at 170? Like, what was your 170 cut like?

**[1:41:28] Robert Whittaker:** Oh, it was nightmarish, it was, it What? What did it's a sort

**[1:41:30] Joe Rogan:** you start off at?

**[1:41:31] Robert Whittaker:** of, it's the sort of thing. Obviously, when I started, when I was at 170, I was I started when I was a teenager, so I started at 18. And then I went, Oh, see, I was 170 until about 23, and it was just getting harder and harder. You know, as as you age, you just get bigger and bigger. And I've I've always been like a naturally he heavy guy, heavy set guy. I think it's my molly genes, the and the last weight cut I did was seven, 4 kilos on the day.

**[1:42:02] Robert Whittaker:** So that's how many pounds is that?

**[1:42:04] Joe Rogan:** pounds, 17 pounds? What is that? That's a lot in one a lot, day. yeah, like morning of Yeah, so it was that was what year was this?

**[1:42:12] Robert Whittaker:** it. WA- I would have been twenty four, twenty four, so what, 2000, So you had, like, 2004?

**[1:42:20] Joe Rogan:** great performances at welterweight, like really promising performances. But for sure, when you went up to 85, that's when you became Robert Whittaker, that's when you really became for certain, the Yeah, it's like

**[1:42:33] Robert Whittaker:** for certain.

**[1:42:33] Joe Rogan:** you had found the sweet spot. And some people, there's that. The the gaps are so enormous between weight classes, which I think is a real problem. 15 pounds is a lot of weight in boxing, that would be 3 or 4 weight classes, whereas in MMA it's one. And the 70 to 85 gap is big, but the 85 to 205 gap is bananas.

**[1:42:53] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it is, it is. But I was, I was always kinda cutting down from a 205er to 285, and it just get it just got harder and harder. You know what I mean, and especially with cause I've been, I've been fortunate and blessed enough to fight for a long career, and I've had, I have been able to have a ton of fights. So to you just kinda get sick of cutting weight constantly, you Of course, get sick of and and and the camps themselves are tricky.

**[1:43:19] Robert Whittaker:** Because, like, you're, you're trying to fuel yourself for the sessions, but you can't eat too much. And food is a direct link to, like, performance. recovery and performance. So that that was a one of the biggest things I noticed moving up to to like heavyweight was that the camps are just so much better. So I can just eat, I can eat carbs, I can eat carbs, I can just fuel my body, you know? And, uh, like, my body was stronger during the camp, I had more energy during the camps, like I didn't really I.

**[1:43:48] Robert Whittaker:** The weight cuts were kinda the same, cause I still wanted to have some size and have some weight behind me. So I still, I still made the weight cut. It's not like I just walked into,

**[1:43:56] Joe Rogan:** but your body's more or less filling into its natural state rather than staying in this constantly depleted state. Like, especially at once, like at 170, what did you walk around at?

**[1:44:06] Robert Whittaker:** I wanna say it would have been like 94-ish kilos, 92-ish kilos,

**[1:44:14] Joe Rogan:** What is that, Jamie?

**[1:44:16] Robert Whittaker:** oh, 90, what? what? 90 One f- We're about 198, something 198, so close, like that, something close to like that.

**[1:44:21] Joe Rogan:** 200 pounds, so close to 30 pounds of cutting, that's a lot.

**[1:44:26] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. And and then as well, it's because I've been in the game for so long. And you want to see in better than most, like there's life going on around you. I don't know what it was because the the last, the last few middleweight camps I had did not enjoy the the cut, the diet, the the, the training, fatigue. I've got a bunch of kids at home, like trying to hang out with 6 kids when I'm this Starving fatigued, is starving.

**[1:44:52] Robert Whittaker:** It was just you kinda get sick of it, you get burnt out a little bit from from from that style thing. And one one, one of the big things that I don't know why. It seems like a small thing, but one of the big things that made me like, sad was that I went. I went to my cupboard and nothing fits because, like, I get, I get fitted for suits when I'm like, trim, when I'm lean, when I my shorts are in.

**[1:45:15] Robert Whittaker:** So like, if I'm walking around my normal weight, I don't have clothes. And I know how stupid that sounds, how little that is, but it made me sad. It's like, at the end of this career that I've had, like, I've been in the UFC for 15 years, end of my career, I'm gonna have no clothes. And it made me I was like, I was upset. I was

**[1:45:38] Joe Rogan:** that's hilarious.

**[1:45:39] Robert Whittaker:** like, man, it's just it doesn't really make sense, but it it, it made sense to me, it made me upset. That's why that was another thing where I was like, I gotta, I wanna go. I wanna walk around and have clothes, I wanna, I wanna, I want, I wanted something to show for this.

**[1:45:52] Joe Rogan:** Would it don't you think that MMA would be better in general if there was a way to stop weight cutting? Just avoid it, and then you fight at what you actually weigh when you're at your healthiest. You'd have to have way more options for weight classes, for sure, and there would have to be some way to monitor to make sure the people aren't dehydrating themselves. Almost like, you know, how we're talking about how drug-free sport or USADA could just randomly drug test you, they show up and drug test, they should be able to, ran randomly weigh you to show up.

**[1:46:21] Joe Rogan:** Just here, get down in your underwear, get on the scale. Oh, you're fighting at 170, but you weigh 208, that's not right. but then, You should be fighting at 205.

**[1:46:31] Robert Whittaker:** but then that takes away a lot of free agency from the athlete. Like, Does it, you could, you though? Because can go,

**[1:46:37] Joe Rogan:** you could change your body weight if you so choose, right? Like, you see a lot of these, like, um, you know, day like Dave Bautista, the the wrestler, who's enormous at one point in time, now he's slimming down shredded, and getting shredded. So he could take on more roles, more complex acting roles. That could be done like you could do that as a professional fighter as

**[1:46:57] Robert Whittaker:** you can.

**[1:46:57] Joe Rogan:** well. You could do a lot more cardio and get your body down to a healthy level of whatever it is, whatever, whatever weight class you're but at your best.

**[1:47:04] Robert Whittaker:** but when, then when you jump on that family holiday, that family cruise, and you're at the salad bar the entire time, that doesn't sound super fun.

**[1:47:12] Joe Rogan:** That doesn't sound super fun, but I mean, I don't think I don't wanna advocate that. I'm saying, be healthy and eat food, but be at a weight. That's a real like. If everybody just fought at the weight they are when they're in shape and eating the adequate amount of food to to fuel you, like a real full meal, like full meals. Every session, eating fruit, getting in your carbs, drinking tons of water, never being dehydrated. But this is what you weigh with, you know, 10 body fat, na- natural, healthy fit.

**[1:47:42] Joe Rogan:** What is that? That should be how everybody fights.

**[1:47:44] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, I guess in a perfect world, I like, I have zero idea on how you would implement something I don't either, like that. Like, like, no answers, and I've thought of thought about. Obviously, this has been a question in the MMA world for the longest time, and, uh, in all sports with weight divisions, really. of course, But it's just it's just. You also then look at human nature, and it's just our tendency to push the envelope.

**[1:48:05] Joe Rogan:** well, especially in a sport that has been predicated on that. Yeah, it's, I mean, people it's just, have been doing that forever, they've been cutting massive amounts of weight forever.

**[1:48:13] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, well, we, I guess maybe because the the sport, um, sprouted here, right? It's just it's taken a lot of the wrestling mentality and weight cuts and weight divisions and and all that into into the sport itself. But I, I definitely feel like you see more of that, like that dichotomy of of that, that kind of scenario of more natural weight classes. The higher up you go in the weight divisions, so you see more in, like, heavyweights, where guys are, they're more normal weight class, or especially in in heavyweight, they're all, they're all just big boys.

**[1:48:47] Robert Whittaker:** You know what I mean? And some look like ooverem, and some look like I don't know, Pat Barry, he's the best. Yeah, Exactly.

**[1:48:56] Joe Rogan:** o ooverem, the ooverem days Ooverem. is the the best argument for keeping steroids in sports. It's like, come on, don't you wanna see that again? Like, what are we doing? Like the PRI? We were talking about this last night at the club, the pride days, the Pride heavyweight days was the greatest heavyweight lineup in the history of the fucking sport.

**[1:49:15] Robert Whittaker:** it doesn't seem like everyone was a heavyweight.

**[1:49:17] Joe Rogan:** There's so many heavyweights, man. Well, first of all, they would encourage you to gain weight. Like, Uh, one of the guys from Eddie's gym, Jason Chambers, fought over there. And when he fought over there, they're like, you should be 185, and he's like, Uh, I don't, I'm not 185. And they're like, you should get on steroids, like, tell him, just get on steroids.

**[1:49:37] Robert Whittaker:** it's like, we can make you, we can, we can Henson make you 185.

**[1:49:40] Joe Rogan:** anyway, Henson anyway. When he did the podcast, he told me very specifically that in the contract, it said, in capital letters, we do not test for steroids. And it's like, in capital letters, like, Yeah, we're all Yeah, good. Yeah, yeah, rock and roll.

**[1:49:56] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. And you saw those fights, they were Amazing, mental. They, amazing yeah,

**[1:50:00] Joe Rogan:** mental and the greatest heavyweight division that has ever been assembled. Mirko Cro Cop in his prime, Fedor in his prime, Nogueira in his prime. Vandalay Van. Well, Vandalay was really shouldn't have been fighting at heavyweight, but he did. He fought Mark Hunt, remember that fight? Oh, Jesus, when he fought Mark Hunt, I was like, Oh my god, getting hit by Mark Mark Hunt Hunt when you're

**[1:50:21] Robert Whittaker:** in the fight. a 185-pounder, Oh my goodness,

**[1:50:23] Joe Rogan:** that is crazy. Fedor. Bro, Fedor Jesus. Oh my goodness, like When he got those, knocked out by Cro Cop, when he got head kicked, when Vandalay got head kicked, it's like, Good Lord,

**[1:50:31] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, it got folded. It was, uh, Cro Cop's head kicks was just insane, brutal. But what a insane what a twist of fate, the way that he got head kicked.

**[1:50:40] Joe Rogan:** by Gonzaga. Yeah, like Yeah,

**[1:50:42] Robert Whittaker:** it was such a, it was such a thing because it's his thing. he got Cro Cop, You can't, you can't. Cro cop, cro cop.

**[1:50:48] Joe Rogan:** I know, and by a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, with nobody expected him to win that way.

**[1:50:54] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, it was, it was wild.

**[1:50:55] Joe Rogan:** A lot of people forget about Gonzaga. Gonzaga was a fucking beast, man. animal, He was a beast,

**[1:51:00] Robert Whittaker:** that's that's the answer to weight divisions. Absolute right? But just everyone.

**[1:51:05] Joe Rogan:** some guys can't do it, you know? Oh, definitely Tj Dillashaw can't fight absolute, but he not. could be one of the elite of all time at bantamweight, you know? Yeah, here's Mark Hunt and Vandalay, bro. Mark Hunt is so big. Oh, dude, He was 265, and Vandele was fighting 185 at thet, or 205.

**[1:51:21] Robert Whittaker:** and it's Mark Hunt, like, he just, he's not a fun fight ever.

**[1:51:26] Joe Rogan:** Well, first of all, almost impossible to hurt, cause that guy got head kicked by Cro Cop and just went, Oh, good shot, got back up, good one, good one, got back up and was fine.

**[1:51:35] Robert Whittaker:** good one.

**[1:51:36] Joe Rogan:** And I think he got head kicked with shoes on. It's back when they, when they were wearing wrestling shoes, you know, and still was fine, bro. He was a tank, he could eat them, he could eat those shots,

**[1:51:46] Robert Whittaker:** and he had touch of death,

**[1:51:48] Joe Rogan:** touch of death and the one of the greatest walk-offs in the history of sport. he, he, He would KO you and just go, Oh, you're gone, and just turn around and just Even if you, walk away.

**[1:51:55] Robert Whittaker:** even if you weren't gone, he'd still just walk away.

**[1:51:58] Joe Rogan:** And the referee would stop it, cause he'd be on your back, going, Where's he going? and the referee be like, that's it. Like,

**[1:52:03] Robert Whittaker:** No, you're, you're dead. It's he called over, it's over.

**[1:52:05] Joe Rogan:** the f, he called the fight. So, in some of those walk-offs, you're like, I don't know if that's a real KO. You're like, maybe that guy could've. If he got on top and kept going and just covering up, it might have, he might have lasted to the end of the round.

**[1:52:18] Robert Whittaker:** There are plenty of times I see a walk-off K O. And you're exactly that, like, they come. You know how sometimes guys come back after getting hit a couple more times, so they come back and then then you've gassed yourself and then you're in for another four you know, the best rounds.

**[1:52:32] Joe Rogan:** example that is Anderson Silva, Michael Bisping. He hits him with a flying knee. at the bell, It looks

**[1:52:38] Robert Whittaker:** doesn't it?

**[1:52:39] Joe Rogan:** like he's k o'd. It looks like the fight is over. But Herb Dean did not stop the fight. I think it was Herb Dean. And then Anderson hops up on top of the cage

**[1:52:48] Robert Whittaker:** how?

**[1:52:48] Joe Rogan:** and is celebrating.

**[1:52:49] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, he's like, Yeah, he's ready to hit the showers. Bisping comes Like,

**[1:52:52] Joe Rogan:** back in the next round and wins it and wins the decision with one fucking eyeball.

**[1:52:57] Robert Whittaker:** how, how? Animal How does that mess you up mentally? If cause I know the f the the feeling of winning,

**[1:53:05] Joe Rogan:** here. It is. See, he lost his mouthpiece, boom, he gets K. O'd, and Anderson walks off like, that's it. And Herb Dean said, No, it's not over. So Anderson takes his mouthpiece out.

**[1:53:16] Robert Whittaker:** oh, he's doing his thing.

**[1:53:18] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, he's doing his thing, he thinks it's like, over. Not over. Michael Bisping,

**[1:53:22] Robert Whittaker:** how does that? I, I hate how does?

**[1:53:23] Speaker 5:** to say that, but he needs to protect himself How does at all times. that affect And he was literally you? If, like, just waiting for you're, Oh, it's a mind if you're, the. f.

**[1:53:29] Robert Whittaker:** if you're there? Because the feeling you get,

**[1:53:31] Joe Rogan:** So look at this. He hops up on the cage, he thinks it's over, he thinks it's over,

**[1:53:36] Robert Whittaker:** the feeling you get, the high you get when you win a fight is ridiculous. So if he's, if he's feeling that now, well, he obviously is, he's sitting on the cage.

**[1:53:46] Joe Rogan:** right? They're telling him, and he's saying, it's not over. Look, he goes, fuck, he realizes it right now, it's not over, which is crazy. Cause if he just followed up with one or two shots, 100 it would've been over.

**[1:53:56] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, but didn't, didn't the bell buzzer go when he landed that knee? Maybe, I like,

**[1:54:00] Joe Rogan:** yeah, I think you're right. I think it's like, right there, I think he landed the knee and then the the buzzer went off, like, right afterwards.

**[1:54:07] Robert Whittaker:** Mark Hunt's walk-offs were like, I've had enough of this, Yeah, like uppercuts, like it's like boom, it's like he's called it over. It's like, Yes, like, this is over,

**[1:54:15] Joe Rogan:** crazy man, crazy. Bisping, what a fucking animal. Maybe the like most mentally tough guy that's ever fought in sport to just to be able to do that with one eye. He fought eleven fights with one eye and didn't tell anybody. Memorize the eye chart, really, Yeah,

**[1:54:33] Robert Whittaker:** I guess you have.

**[1:54:34] Joe Rogan:** memorize the eye chart so he could do it I guess with his eye closed.

**[1:54:36] Robert Whittaker:** you, I guess you have to, but no, Crazy, like, don't they? don't they randomize what kind of? I don't know, Or maybe just like, Eeeh,

**[1:54:43] Joe Rogan:** maybe they don't. I mean, I don't know. Do they randomize eye charts? Who? The what kind of an asshole is gonna memorize It really depends the eye chart?

**[1:54:51] Jamie Vernon:** on where you're, you're doing I bet they it, which floor.

**[1:54:52] Joe Rogan:** don't, I bet they don't think anyone's gonna try to cheat it. I bet they just have an eye chart and he fucking memorized

**[1:54:57] Jamie Vernon:** We're, we're doctors. They're probably like, Ah, they can change it from last time. Yeah, yeah, I guess Yeah, mate,

**[1:55:03] Joe Rogan:** maybe, I mean, but I think he memorized. But just the will to do that. When you've already lost sight in one of your eyes and to continue to fight, and know potentially you could lose sight in the other eye, you know, that's So did he what lose his vision from is gone from

**[1:55:16] Robert Whittaker:** no, like from from from a shot? Anderson. Yes, Was it an eye poke or a punch?

**[1:55:19] Joe Rogan:** Vitor Vitor, he got head kicked,

**[1:55:22] Robert Whittaker:** Yes, that'll do it.

**[1:55:22] Joe Rogan:** yeah, he got head kicked, and that was the first of many eye surgeries. So, uh, I remember he was, uh, I, I'm. I met him, uh, backstage after one of those fights when he had, like, one of his first surgeries. And he had, like, oil in his eye, they had injected something in his eye to protect his eyeball. It was crazy, like his eye looked really strange. I was like, what's going on with your eye? And he was explaining to me he had this surgery.

**[1:55:48] Joe Rogan:** And to protect his eye, but I think by that time, he had already gotten, uh, lost a lot of his vision.

**[1:55:55] Jamie Vernon:** it's according to a comment I read.

**[1:55:58] Joe Rogan:** He said. The doctor was out of the office. Bisping went right up to it and memorized the eye chart. Yeah, I think that's what he did.

**[1:56:04] Robert Whittaker:** if it's on, if it's on Reddit, Yeah, it's got the you can take that to name. Well, how about Reddit. Shara? Bullet, Shara Yes,

**[1:56:09] Joe Rogan:** Bullet, who's fighting Izzy? He's only got one eye too.

**[1:56:12] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, when, when's that? is that Doha?

**[1:56:14] Joe Rogan:** I think so. Well, he has to fight over there. Cause, oh, I don't think he's allowed to fight over here. I think if you fight over here, you're blind in one eye. They won't let you fight. He's beaten like top-level guys with one fucking eyeball. He's another guy who got tuned up by Michael Venom Page.

**[1:56:31] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, yeah, he's, yeah, Michael Venum Page just looks so annoying to fight. Cause, like, obviously, I, I, I'd say it's a point of pride that I'll fight everyone and anyone. But then people are like, like, what about Michael Page? I'm like, Yeah, there's this other guys, I'm going, this, I only wanna fight guys. Who are into me, MVP's another guy I say,

**[1:56:51] Joe Rogan:** that they didn't offer a contract to. Same thing, he won his last fight.

**[1:56:55] Robert Whittaker:** Oh, no, really.

**[1:56:56] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, he, he, I mean, he only lost once in the UFC, and that was to Ian Gary. And they didn't offer him a contract. He's gone.

**[1:57:05] Robert Whittaker:** is he?

**[1:57:06] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, he's gone.

**[1:57:07] Robert Whittaker:** I didn't know that.

**[1:57:07] Joe Rogan:** Same kind of deal. Yeah, just point sparring, They just decided that they don't wanna see that,

**[1:57:12] Robert Whittaker:** point fighting.

**[1:57:13] Joe Rogan:** you know? But my take is

**[1:57:14] Robert Whittaker:** What do you do?

**[1:57:15] Joe Rogan:** my take is that, like, we have to be purists about this. Fighting is fighting, and if someone has a style like that, it's up to someone else to figure out how to beat it. Douglas Lima figured out how to beat it in Bellator. He leg kicked him and KO'd him, and then he beat him in a rematch as yes, that's well.

**[1:57:30] Robert Whittaker:** that's always been my take. Like, if if I had to look to dissect him, cause when I was a middleweight, obviously I'm doing that with most of them. It's it's this leg kicks. Agile guys, agile guys, good footwork, you gotta chop the tree down at the like

**[1:57:43] Joe Rogan:** Have to.

**[1:57:43] Robert Whittaker:** you, you, you've got to. It's the only way you gotta slow those feet.

**[1:57:46] Joe Rogan:** And most people don't realize when you're watching it, cause the guys are moving around, they look normal. They're so compromised, like one or two hard calf kicks, and you're so compromised.

**[1:57:57] Robert Whittaker:** calf kicks are the worst, aren't they? Like, one good calf kick. Not not only do you run the risk of, like, breaking that, what is it, fibia? I don't know what it is, but Tibia that bone,

**[1:58:06] Joe Rogan:** and fibula. one of them, you Yeah,

**[1:58:08] Robert Whittaker:** are like you, cause that's like, breaking, that's real, like, breaking, that's real. But it hurts and it just it just stuffs you up.

**[1:58:17] Joe Rogan:** and your your leg doesn't work, right? You see that all the time where guys just their leg doesn't work right right now. And They're trying to move around and it's just not responding correctly. So that most of their weight is on their other leg and they're faking it, they're like faking their movement.

**[1:58:29] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, and once once that leg's compromised, it opens you up to more leg kicks. Like it's it's harder to defend the next calf kick,

**[1:58:37] Joe Rogan:** what protest did the Jack? My god, when when Jack went back to the corner and he yelled at the end of the round, they're like, Hey, don't fucking yell. Like, no, ah, don't say Yeah, there's no ah when he kicks eyes. you, don't do that. But it was so much pain that I was he couldn't handle saying, Ah, it,

**[1:58:52] Robert Whittaker:** I was watching it and saying, Ah, like, that, it, he was just punishing punishing that leg.

**[1:58:57] Joe Rogan:** him, punishing him.

**[1:58:58] Robert Whittaker:** And, uh, that was always like a hole Jack had to fill in Well, he was very his game. boxing style, Yes, yes,

**[1:59:04] Joe Rogan:** boxing heavy, heavy on the front leg. and he just, yeah, The thing, too, is like those guys who are really good at switching stances have a giant advantage. If you're one of those guys that must stand orthodox or must stand southpaw, and you get that front leg compromised, and now all of a sudden you're in a bad position. You're 50 of what you really are. And guys like TJ Dillashaw, they're constantly switching, guys like Corey Sandhagen, constantly switching, so they're comfortable from any stance.

**[1:59:31] Joe Rogan:** That is such an advantage,

**[1:59:32] Robert Whittaker:** it. It's it's such a huge part of the game, you know, in that for second fight with Izzy, that's he. He got me with a a switched, switched left, left straight down the pipe, oh, left straight down the pipe, and the switching put me off. I think Drikus did a few times as well, he switches pretty well. Um, just it, it, you're exactly right. It is such a powerful maneuver, an ability to do. Cause for that split second, when you see them switch, you have to, you have to, like, take your strategy and then move over to your southpaw strategy, right?

**[2:00:02] Robert Whittaker:** Instantaneously, you know? Yeah,

**[2:00:04] Joe Rogan:** and then take it into consideration that all these punches are coming at totally different angles now, and all your attacks coming co totally different angles now, too, because you're dealing with a completely different defensive position.

**[2:00:14] Robert Whittaker:** exactly. And and then how fast you make that adjustment is obviously where fight iQ and everything else comes into it. It's just it's make or break, and it's like it, and it it seems to be really popular right now. I feel like guys coming into MMA are like really big switch hitters, like they're starting in. Cause it takes a while, it takes years of practice to get comfortable in both sides. So I can, I can, I can fight southpaw, but my defensive game isn't any anywhere near as good as my orthodox side, you know?

**[2:00:43] Robert Whittaker:** And and that's kind of where what you need when, when you're, when you're standing in a different stance.

**[2:00:48] Joe Rogan:** well, that's one of the reasons why Terence Crawford is so great is that you, you know, his coaches told him, Hey, man, stop fucking around with southpaw, just stick to one side. He's like, What, fuck you, figure it out. And so he got to a point where he's like, he's the best switch hitter since Marvin Hagler, like he could switch up with. And so you don't know what's coming. Like, he'll start off a fight southpaw and you're like, Oh, he's, he's fighting southpaw.

**[2:01:12] Joe Rogan:** And then all of a sudden he's orthodox and he stuns you. And now it's southpaw again, now he's orthodox again, he's just switching back and forth, and combinations are coming freely from both sides. Like, it's such an advantage.

**[2:01:20] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, like, cause it's like fighting southpaws and fighting orthodox fighters, they're they're like two different strategy sets, like a southpaw game and an orthodox game. They they're very different, very different shots, very different openings, like very different opportunities. And especially in MMA, where wrestling is obviously prevalent, so having that lead leg not there. Like, if, if, if you're a, if you're an orthodox guy and you're used to shooting on that orthodox side, that lead leg, that lead left leg.

**[2:01:51] Robert Whittaker:** And they switch it, your takedown games are off, and if you're a wrestler, that's a that's tough.

**[2:01:58] Joe Rogan:** yeah, I would feel like, if you, if you're a young fighter and you're just learning right now, my God, start switching. There's no reason to not do it.

**[2:02:06] Robert Whittaker:** I think that that's what they're all doing.

**[2:02:08] Joe Rogan:** I think they have to.

**[2:02:08] Robert Whittaker:** There's there's a lot of, like, orthodox, like right-handed kids that are just learning starting in Southpaw now.

**[2:02:14] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, but then part of me says, but what if he just developed such an elite style with one stance like that? There's something to that, too. Just getting so good at checking kicks and so rock solid in one stance. yeah, like Pereira, he Pereira doesn't, he doesn't switch, No, very rarely, very rarely. If he does, it's just like while he's throwing combinations, he'll switch a little bit. But it's generally that left hook is coming out of nowhere and that right hand and that that calf kick, that's so weird.

**[2:02:43] Joe Rogan:** He's hitting you with, like his big toe, the yeah,

**[2:02:45] Robert Whittaker:** cause his big toe's like this big. It's like, it's, it's the same size as your feet, man.

**[2:02:51] Joe Rogan:** he's like digging the side of his foot into your calf.

**[2:02:54] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, and that that protrusion of, like, where his toe

**[2:02:57] Joe Rogan:** Hammer toe. connects, oh man, Yeah, yeah, he's got a hard as a rock,

**[2:03:01] Robert Whittaker:** he's got like a foot built for that kick.

**[2:03:03] Joe Rogan:** he's got like a little hammer, he's like tagging your, your yeah. And calf muscle with his posture it.

**[2:03:07] Robert Whittaker:** doesn't break at all, cause he's got long, long legs, he's tall, obviously, and he can, he can just chip away at it like a jab. He doesn't need, he doesn't need close distance, doesn't need to back away. Body posture, body positioning doesn't change.

**[2:03:18] Joe Rogan:** for striking, the tall, long stance is such an advantage, it's a giant advantage. And you could speak to that because, like, you've been in situations where you've had a spar. And and when you're or fight people that are much taller than you, it's such a weird thing. They're so far away from you and they can hit you and you can't hit them. So you have to do all these things to try to get in and and get reads mate, out of them.

**[2:03:40] Robert Whittaker:** I've never lost to someone shorter than me. Can you look that up? But It's such that's

**[2:03:48] Joe Rogan:** an advantage, man.

**[2:03:50] Robert Whittaker:** that's one of the things why I moved up to, like, heavyweight, is cause in middleweight, I was fighting everyone was taller than me anyway. Like Dorito, Izzy, Drikus, Jameer, they're all taller than me, they're all six, two, six, four. So there wasn't much change, there wasn't much difference. These guys are just bigger, obviously heavier and slower.

**[2:04:09] Joe Rogan:** well, the freak of the division is Bulgari, you ever seen Bulgars? You know, that really tall dude Fr is a kickboxer? Yeah,

**[2:04:19] Robert Whittaker:** yes, come over.

**[2:04:19] Joe Rogan:** how do I am I pronouncing his name incorrectly? There's so many names in the UFC that I fuck all of them up. I combine them all together, even ones that I know, just so my my brain doesn't recognize it.

**[2:04:32] Robert Whittaker:** it's cause there's also like a ton of the same names in there, like there's that many silvas and oliveiras, and

**[2:04:38] Joe Rogan:** there's a lot of Silvas, a lot of oliveiras, there's a lot of Nurmagomedovs now, oh, a lot which is a mouthful.

**[2:04:43] Robert Whittaker:** of Nurmagomedovs. Oh my goodness,

**[2:04:47] Joe Rogan:** You'll see, Bo, you'll see Bulgari, that's how you say his name, I'm pretty sure. He is the the really tall, uh, kickboxer that's Alex Pereira's training partner. Yep, so he's like, six, six, and he's fighting at one eighty-five,

**[2:05:03] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, just like Pereira was, yes, just fucking but taller.

**[2:05:07] Joe Rogan:** gigantic. He's so fucking tall for that weight class, and he's elite, elite kickboxer, just so smooth.

**[2:05:15] Robert Whittaker:** you, how do you do you think he'll? He'll be able to? Cause Pereira is an anomaly for this, like it, what? How do you think his transition will be?

**[2:05:28] Joe Rogan:** Well, fortunately, he's training with Pereira, right? And they both were training with Glover, which I think was a big thing, big part of it. Cause Glover to Shera for like, six years, people don't realize this. Before he even got to the UFC for six years, Glover to Shera was the boogeyman. He was the guy that everyone was terrified of, but he couldn't get out of Brazil, so he couldn't get a visa to come to America for whatever reason.

**[2:05:50] Joe Rogan:** So he couldn't fight in America, so he was just training and fighting in Brazil. And everybody would talk about when you would talk to the high-level guys like, Who's the scariest guy that's not in the UFC? It's, oh, Glover, Glover's a fucking monster. By the time he got to the UFC, he was already in his mid to late 30s, so he had already and he won the title in his 40s, right? So he w he had already past his prime, probably, you know, and he is so knowledgeable.

**[2:06:16] Joe Rogan:** He obviously elite Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, phenomenal wrestling, and then great striking as well, and knows how to combine the two of them together. And so with him working with Alex, I think it really sharpened his striking skills, and that's when he won the title. And then on top of that, like when he beat Jan Blachowicz, and then on top of that, him working with Alex really tightened up Alex's takedown defense, really tightened up his They kind of filled grappling game.

**[2:06:42] Robert Whittaker:** each other's holes.

**[2:06:42] Joe Rogan:** Yes, and they're both like super elite at what they do, and both Gloves, wrestling very smart,

**[2:06:47] Robert Whittaker:** and Jiu-jitsu top game was crazy. insane, insane, Like he'd take you down and he's, and he's not like a lay and pray sort of guy,

**[2:06:54] Joe Rogan:** maul you.

**[2:06:54] Robert Whittaker:** he, he gets you down and he's gonna beat you up Yeah, he was mauling like bad, like people, that, that Anthony Smith fight.

**[2:07:01] Joe Rogan:** oh God, yeah. Oof, And again, he was a guy that was, uh, Chuck Liddell's training partner way back in the day. Yeah, yeah, he's, That's why I first he's an old head, heard about him. Old

**[2:07:09] Robert Whittaker:** he's an old head.

**[2:07:10] Joe Rogan:** head from the pit days with John Hackleman way back in the day. So I'd heard about Glover way back then, and they were like, Dude, this guy's a motherfucker, man. And it took forever for him to get to the UFC. And so him training was so you. Bulgari's training with Pereira and Glover, I think, is a giant. Am I? I'm saying his name, right? But pull, pull up, uh, pull up his last fight, cause he, um, I'm trying to, I can't remember the dude's name.

**[2:07:40] Joe Rogan:** He, uh, here, yeah, that's it, Mansoor Abdul Malik and Abdul, you're see Bulgari, and, uh, Abdul Malik is super talented and massive potential, and Bulgari just tuned him up, man, just tuned him up. It's just the difference in striking was so different. I mean, he has a victory over Pereira in kickboxing, Pereira stopped him in one of the fights, knocked him out cold, but, uh, they fought three times. But he's that good, so he's is that elite on his feet, and he's super tall.

**[2:08:13] Joe Rogan:** And because of all the training that he's had with Glover, like, look at this takedown defense, phenomenal. Get back up to his feet quickly separates,

**[2:08:21] Robert Whittaker:** he's fighting well.

**[2:08:22] Joe Rogan:** and Malik is an excellent wrestler. He's really good and really strong and super athletic. And and had up until this point been undefeated, was mauling people inside the UFC. But the UFC just put it to him, man, and the and it was a bad one, too. Cause, uh, Abdul Malik is so tough that he endured maybe more punishment than he should have and really got badly beaten up in this fight.

**[2:08:47] Robert Whittaker:** when when you're that tall as well, you can get such power.

**[2:08:50] Joe Rogan:** Look at these fucking knees,

**[2:08:51] Robert Whittaker:** Like you got, you got such big levers.

**[2:08:53] Joe Rogan:** yes, like Tommy Hearns, you know that that like, you're getting all that leverage behind those shots. The s, the wide shoulders and the length of the arms, and it's all like accelerating to the target and all your weights. Look at that left hook. Oh my goodness. So it's just a matter of time. He just keeps getting touched over and over and over again, and Bulgari's just doing it so slick. And it was a. It was just a brutal, brutal beat down.

**[2:09:20] Joe Rogan:** And then he came back. Uh, Abdul Malik came back, I think, a little too soon in his next fight and lost again. Just didn't seem like the same guy. He was just get and survived too many of these man, too many of these moments where he was getting just destroyed. And now he's screaming at him while he's down. Which? Which I think Oh, Jesus,

**[2:09:39] Jamie Vernon:** was saying he was out.

**[2:09:41] Joe Rogan:** I think that might have been the end of the round.

**[2:09:43] Jamie Vernon:** No, it was, but I think he was also saying he was out. As well. The ref I, well, I wasn't calling think it.

**[2:09:47] Joe Rogan:** I think he was.

**[2:09:48] Jamie Vernon:** Was he in the other round?

**[2:09:48] Joe Rogan:** He certainly was close to it, and then he got beat up again just do that in the next round. tight kickboxing hook, Exactly. like, It's just when, you know, and you could speak to this. When you're fighting a guy who's not a s, that's on his base, you can get so good. If you're a wrestler and you start striking when you're twenty eight, you can get pretty good. But there's stuff that happens in a long, prolonged fight where there's series of exchanges, where there's openings that you're gonna leave that you're not aware of.

**[2:10:14] Joe Rogan:** And then a striker, a seasoned striker, is gonna be able to capitalize well, and you, on those,

**[2:10:17] Robert Whittaker:** you throw, you throw in fatigue as well. When when you start relying on instincts and things like, you start like sleepwalking, almost, you know, you get that tired, like, yeah, if you, if you, you're gonna, you're gonna go back to the roots to what got you to where you are.

**[2:10:33] Joe Rogan:** right, right, right. Especially when you're tired, and when a guy's tired, but he's very efficient at striking, you could still throw tight combinations. You still, you don't get wild and loose, which is one of the craziest things about Strickland. Like, when he's tired, he gets wild and loose. Just like, literally, like windmill punches yeah, and at an elite it. It looks like level.

**[2:10:55] Robert Whittaker:** from all the like, from the clips in his his Instagram, he s he spares like that, too. Like, he just, he's just like gassed and throwing bombs, like, like, and he's always sparring, I know, always, this always is, sparring.

**[2:11:08] Joe Rogan:** that's a main part of his training, But I is sparring.

**[2:11:10] Robert Whittaker:** guess, like, if you have his style, you can spar more than others, right? You're not taking the head trauma that his partners are.

**[2:11:16] Joe Rogan:** that's true. That's one of the things that he spoke to. He said. He spars more than anybody and he gets hit less than anybody.

**[2:11:22] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, yeah, and I, yeah, that's.

**[2:11:25] Joe Rogan:** There's something beneficial.

**[2:11:26] Robert Whittaker:** I think his sparring partners probably shouldn't be sparring as much.

**[2:11:32] Joe Rogan:** But I mean, look, if you could train with that guy, you're gonna learn some stuff. I mean, that guy, that's like battle tested. He's been in so many fucking wars. He's going through something with the UFC right now, where, like he says, his heart isn't in MMA anymore. He wants to get out, he wants to be able to box. Jake Paul

**[2:11:48] Robert Whittaker:** I don't know, I don't know. He's like, he's the one guy that he's, he says some wild crap, but some. A lot of it happens, like he gets away with it. Like, like, like when he said, I'm gonna just gonna sit out until I get my title shot. And I was like, Ah, you're an idiot, what are you doing? what are you doing? Lo and behold, two years later, he's fighting for the belt, like, straight, straight up, I don't know.

**[2:12:12] Joe Rogan:** at the end of the day, he's a fan favorite and that's a big factor. If you're trying to sell a fight and the UFC needs to sell fights. And if you've got a world champion, you know, like Hamzat, and you need someone to fight him. Who better to sell the damn fight than Sean Strickland? He's gonna talk mad amounts of shit.

**[2:12:28] Robert Whittaker:** And it's gonna be racist, it's gonna be racist, and, you know, that gets people watching for, just cause of the controversy of it all. well, he And

**[2:12:40] Joe Rogan:** knows how to stir up the pot, oh, my goodness, that's for sure. doesn't he? doesn't he Were you surprised by the Hamza fight?

**[2:12:47] Robert Whittaker:** as everyone else was? Like, I, I don't know what to take from it, like

**[2:12:53] Joe Rogan:** I think Hamzat lost too much weight. That's what I had heard. I had heard he had given up on 185 and he wanted to go up to 205 and challenge for the belt and was training and preparing for that. And then they offered him a big money fight with Strickland, and he decided to take the fight with Strickland. But I don't think they gave him a lot of time. I don't, I don't think they gave. I think for that guy, he gets so fucking big that I think he needs a lot of time to get down to 185.

**[2:13:17] Robert Whittaker:** that makes more sense to me than Strickland having the perfect anti-Ta-Tamayev game.

**[2:13:24] Joe Rogan:** Well, do you remember when Chimaev missed weight with Nate Diaz by like eight pounds? Yeah, it's that kind of thing. It's like what he what he was doing was kind of bananas.

**[2:13:35] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, which is crazy, cause he started at welterweight, same thing he went, he did that, that fight, Island welterweight, middleweight back to back, which kind of put him on the map and then he disappeared for a little bit.

**[2:13:46] Joe Rogan:** yeah, well, you know, I mean, he's a controversial character, to put it lightly. yeah, very, But but god damn, when he's on, like when he picked up the leash and he carried him over to Dana White and he and he's just talking shit while he's mauling him.

**[2:13:59] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, yeah, when you have that level of control. And and I'm gonna jump back to that. Drikus fight, it's just Nuts, it that to do that to to Drikus, to the champion. I know, Like it wasn't, it was crazy. And even the closest round, which was round five, a lot of those positions were given to him, uh, taken away from him by the ref anyway. Like the the the ref was like, all right, here you go, like, here, have, here's a shot for you, old Drikus.

**[2:14:30] Joe Rogan:** Well, it was almost like it was enough, like, enough control, like, come on, we wanna see something happen. Get up, yeah,

**[2:14:36] Robert Whittaker:** I got. I wanna get your opinion on what do you? What do you think about that pressure hold game? Like, cause I like, I. If someone walks into your house and holds you down for fifteen minutes, you're in trouble, like, regardless, like you, but but what, like, where does it stop? Of, like, where it's not fighting anymore?

**[2:14:55] Joe Rogan:** right, it's just control.

**[2:14:56] Robert Whittaker:** Where? Yeah, where's that?

**[2:14:58] Joe Rogan:** It's a good question. I am a purist, and I believe if someone could hold you down like Ben Askren used to do in Bellator and just give you by the rules, noies for five rounds, that's it. Like, and if you wanna get up, figure out a way to get up. And if you can't get up, well, you're definitely losing. You know, you might not be losing the way Gonzaga beat Cro cop, but you're losing, you're losing the fight.

**[2:15:19] Joe Rogan:** And I think you have to be a purist, you can't do it in TI. And they go, Oh, no, people stop tuning in. No, they won't, because most people aren't gonna fight like that. People might boo, Okay, let em boo. The this is what fighting people are gonna is.

**[2:15:32] Robert Whittaker:** boo anyway. I mean, people

**[2:15:34] Joe Rogan:** They're animals.

**[2:15:35] Robert Whittaker:** always find something to boo about.

**[2:15:37] Joe Rogan:** Well, it's like, if you had a fight like that after, like, did you see the Salt Lake City card?

**[2:15:42] Robert Whittaker:** Uh, when was that?

**[2:15:43] Joe Rogan:** That was recently, like a couple weeks ago, and it was

**[2:15:45] Robert Whittaker:** Allen?

**[2:15:45] Joe Rogan:** like, it was, uh, no, the uh, main event was, uh, Joshua Van and uh, Pantoja, was that? LA. No, that was LA. Am I wrong? Yeah, I'm wrong. What was the no? The main event was, um, uh, it was the women's flyweight title. Yeah, Natalia Silva and, uh, Wang Tong, that was the main event. But all the fights up to that were fucking chaos, it was all first-round chaos.

**[2:16:14] Robert Whittaker:** I think the most knockouts on the card, wasn't it?

**[2:16:16] Joe Rogan:** Yes, so Davison Peguero got knocked out by Peyton Talbot. Uh, Rebovick's knocked out King Green, Soldic, and Chaos Williams was a crazy fight, went to NA unanimous decision, and that was when Roman Kopylov knocked out. A teabag. Gauthier. So so, it was all these crazy, chaotic fights, and the main event was fucking fantastic. It was a great main event, even though a lot of people were talking shit about it. It was a great fight, a lot of fun.

**[2:16:40] Joe Rogan:** But if you had a fight like that on that card, so every FI, I think it was like ten first round stoppages. If you had a fight where it was just a boring hold him down and give him. Noogies, the crowd's gonna go nuts, they're gonna fuck you. This is gay. People yeah. I are going

**[2:16:57] Robert Whittaker:** mean, the fans of this sport are funny, aren't they? They are funny, they are like the best and worst of them, like they jump ship so quickly. It's like you have one hard fight, like, and you've been fighting for any amount of time and you're washed. it's eleven I hate, knockouts, broke the I hate.

**[2:17:14] Joe Rogan:** record for the UFC record for the most knockouts in a single UFC event, surpassing, uh, Imavov versus Bahaliyev.

**[2:17:21] Robert Whittaker:** That was, that was when Jo, that was Johnny Walker's, uh, um, the heavyweight debut, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was, you know what's funny is cause I, I tuned in and I was watching it, and I was like, man, I don't like this light heavyweight stuff. Like, cause I remember, I just remember Johnny Walker from being a light heavyweight. And when I first saw him, I was like, man, maybe I should go back to middleweight, cause I still thought he was there.

**[2:17:44] Robert Whittaker:** And then I saw the heavyweight thing. I was like, Ah,

**[2:17:45] Joe Rogan:** Well, I think he was the point of diminishing returns, where he lost so much weight to make light

**[2:17:50] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, definitely.

**[2:17:50] Joe Rogan:** heavyweight, he couldn't take a shot.

**[2:17:52] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, no, at at all, like it, it, it, yeah. when Jamal Hill And

**[2:17:56] Joe Rogan:** knocked him out and he hit him with a straight right to the forehead, and he just went, Yeah, I just don't think he could take a shot with that. He was so dehydrated, his brain was dehydrated.

**[2:18:04] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. And he did it for so Clearly, long, though, like it, it took so long for him, cause he got hit in that fight too by heavyweights. But also his power carried over.

**[2:18:14] Joe Rogan:** 100. Well, he was always powerful, like real. And when you're 205, the difference between a guy who can knock you out at 205 and a guy who can knock you out above that is not much, no, not not much.

**[2:18:25] Robert Whittaker:** much at all.

**[2:18:25] Joe Rogan:** The those big guys like that, yeah,

**[2:18:29] Robert Whittaker:** they're, they're, once. Once you're above 205, everyone's got that touch of death. Almost like you, that's how I treat training right now. It's just like, just so do you go

**[2:18:38] Joe Rogan:** do you approach, like, fighting differently now? Like, are you thinking differently as you're fighting because you can't make any mistakes?

**[2:18:46] Robert Whittaker:** definitely, definitely, definitely. And it can I. Can I quickly run to the bathroom before answering stay with that, we'll that?

**[2:18:51] Joe Rogan:** be right back, folks, we gotta pee and we're back. Where we? Oh so, we're talking about you training differently and fighting differently with bigger guys, and that you have a very distinctly different mindset.

**[2:19:05] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, definitely, uh, it's well. It all started like when I was at my last fight at middleweight with Derrida. Did not enjoy that camp, I did not enjoy that fight, like something was missing. I was like, I d the the the flame, the flair, the fire kind of fizzled out a little bit. And, uh, at that point, I was like, man, what am I doing? Gotta something has to change. I'm not enjoying it as I should be.

**[2:19:30] Robert Whittaker:** And obvious, obviously, the twelve week camp, or whatever you do before the before the fight, leads itself a lot to that, like it, it, it Where lends itself.

**[2:19:40] Joe Rogan:** you at?

**[2:19:40] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, it, well, it. It makes the whole thing a drag, you know? But then the change, I was like, well, let's go to light heavyweight. People have been saying for years, like, you should go to light heavyweight. Cause I I've always been a heavier set guy and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do this, and then. But more than that needed to change. I wanted to enjoy fighting, I wanted to bring the love back for it, so I just started a bit being a bit freer.

**[2:20:01] Robert Whittaker:** You know how we were talking about a happy? Rob is Dan, if I'm trying, being a bit freer. I stopped, like, whilst fighting is like, I'm hyper-focused on fighting, and that is like something OB that is the objective, that is the goal. It. I s took a little bit off, uh, stepped away a little bit from it so that I could go to my kids soccer games, you know, instead of running sandhills and things like that.

**[2:20:28] Robert Whittaker:** I started enjoying kind of the moments between fighting, which is, uh, there's a lot, right? So just just enjoying that made such a big mental difference. And then I took that into the workroom, and in the workroom, a big thing was just like, let's not get hit, let's try not to get hit at all. These guys are big guys, they have every one of them has the touch of death. Let's, let's not, let's not play around with that, let's not roll the dice.

**[2:20:55] Robert Whittaker:** Try to be as evasive and as technical as I can, cause that's where I see me having then. M like everyone else in the division, I think my skill set is higher holistically across the board. And yeah, that, that that took me into that fight, and I like, I, I felt really comfortable. Obviously, I was fighting a lot of nervous demons and and nerves, like coming off two losses, making the move up, everyone's seen that story.

**[2:21:21] Robert Whittaker:** But but yeah, no, it was for the it was for the better.

**[2:21:25] Joe Rogan:** for the better mentally, like the way you felt.

**[2:21:28] Robert Whittaker:** definitely, definitely, I felt I felt way better. The camp was much more enjoyable. The tricky part is now the after camp, kind of the after the fight period block. Because I'm a bigger guy and I can eat more, I'm gonna like eating is a slippery slope.

**[2:21:44] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, tell me about it. I'm a glutton. I think I know what you're talking I think everyone about, man. can relate. It's Yeah,

**[2:21:51] Robert Whittaker:** just it's it. So I'm trying to work on that still, because whereas like, oh, when middleweight, I could, you know you, I'd get bigger, but you can't go too crazy, cause, you know, you gotta get back down 85 at one point, whereas at light heavyweight, I can eat everything.

**[2:22:08] Joe Rogan:** what are you walking around at before you start your cut?

**[2:22:11] Robert Whittaker:** Uh, I'm 106 kilos now, so what's that? 232? Not too bad, Yeah, it's a but still twenty yeah, five pounds, yeah, I can, like, I'm, I can train now, I train like, but not great. I wanna I like, I don't wanna start a camp at this weight, put it that way, it's I. I think it's too heavy to start a camp.

**[2:22:30] Joe Rogan:** And when do you? What do you get down to when you start your camp?

**[2:22:32] Robert Whittaker:** Probably 103, so that's, I don't know, 220, no

**[2:22:38] Jamie Vernon:** Even 10 pounds less, it's two, two, zero, five per pound, or per kilo per to transfer to pounds.

**[2:22:46] Joe Rogan:** So what is the total?

**[2:22:47] Jamie Vernon:** So three would be like seven, it's like six point, six pounds.

**[2:22:50] Joe Rogan:** So what's the total?

**[2:22:52] Jamie Vernon:** What?

**[2:22:52] Robert Whittaker:** it'd be like 225-ish.

**[2:22:55] Jamie Vernon:** From? Yeah, from 232, yeah, just dropping down six. Yeah, come on, So just enough? Do

**[2:23:02] Joe Rogan:** you get close?

**[2:23:03] Robert Whittaker:** well, you just just, uh, lose a little bit, a little bit of that beer gut.

**[2:23:06] Joe Rogan:** When you get down to, like, the week of the fight,

**[2:23:10] Robert Whittaker:** I, I do my cut in the bath at 220.

**[2:23:13] Joe Rogan:** ooh, okay, so you're still cutting 15?

**[2:23:15] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, the all, yeah, yep, yeah, cause it's I like, I, I mentioned, I'm a good sweater, so I can, I can do that in about an hour and a half.

**[2:23:25] Joe Rogan:** 15 pounds? Yeah, in a bath, Wow,

**[2:23:27] Robert Whittaker:** just hop in a bath, hour and a half.

**[2:23:29] Joe Rogan:** the bath is the move,

**[2:23:31] Robert Whittaker:** I've done, cause I've been fighting so long. And when I started, like, you couldn't just Google how to cut weight, you just get these wrestling sort of camps, and it's very different. Like they'd be like, go for a 15 mile run wrapped up in sweats, which I did. I s. That's how I started. That's how everyone cut weight in the beginning, right? You put on your sweats, you go for a run. But but I did, I did sauna.

**[2:23:53] Robert Whittaker:** The the problem with the sauna is if I stay too long in there, my esophagus dries out sometimes and like I, it like, burns if, if, if it's hot enough.

**[2:24:02] Joe Rogan:** How hot are you getting in there?

**[2:24:03] Robert Whittaker:** I'm not sure, like, I wanna sweat, cause cause, like when you start sweating, maybe it was too hot for too long. But um,

**[2:24:10] Joe Rogan:** I talked to Ethan Ewing about that and one of the things that he was saying is he he doesn't do it at like, a really high temperature, he does it at like 165. I think he was saying,

**[2:24:18] Robert Whittaker:** well, I know the science is supports that is you just need to be hot enough to sweat. So, but that's kind of and not how

**[2:24:27] Joe Rogan:** not really weaken yourself. That was his take, that in really high temperatures, you're actually breaking your body down too much, and you could sweat as much at a lower temperature, but you're not. You're not gonna be like, tortured,

**[2:24:39] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, yeah, yeah. The the. That's kind of why I do bath, because you, you just put it, you put it warm, you hop in, lay down, you're resting, you know. It's like training, or like running, or moving, or hitting mitts while I'm dehydrating. Like when I have to fight the day after, you know, I, You're wearing I feel like I

**[2:24:55] Joe Rogan:** yourself out.

**[2:24:56] Robert Whittaker:** feel like I'm wearing myself out. I don't have the water to, like, sustain the muscles, you know, it's just it's just, and it's like you can just chill out, put some music on

**[2:25:05] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, that makes sense.

**[2:25:06] Robert Whittaker:** and just, yeah, I find it like, comfortable, almost

**[2:25:08] Joe Rogan:** Well, people are finding all sorts of different ways to figure it. Do you water load?

**[2:25:13] Robert Whittaker:** hitting miss with that one hitting miss. Because I don't know if it actually works. really, Yeah, because, like, I'll, I'll do it and it'll come off, but I don't know if the water's just if the weight's coming off. Just because the diet changed, or if because it's actually because of the water. And also, like, depending on who you speak to, people waterload differently. Some guys like re restrict it, some guys go backwards, some guys go up to only a certain amount, some guys go as high as they can.

**[2:25:42] Robert Whittaker:** It's just it's all kind of different. I think I do it now more as like superstition.

**[2:25:49] Joe Rogan:** that's funny, just cause you think you're supposed to,

**[2:25:53] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, and cause, like, it'd be worse if it doesn't, if if it did work. And I get in the bath and I have to cut like twenty pounds, you know? So

**[2:26:04] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, what have you ever done it with, like one of those elite weight cutting coaches? Like, there's a few of those guys that people bring in that are like real experts in monitoring. The exact amount of sodium you take, and the exact amount of water you drink at this day and the amount that you drink at that day. And they get you perfectly to that threshold,

**[2:26:22] Robert Whittaker:** n No, no, I haven't, but I gotta ask you, like, how much? Especially in like, if we look at the grassroots of fighting, like we are just two men with sticks and rocks, right? We're just like cavemen, like, how, how much? Sometimes does science dilute what it is? We're doing? We're just Unga Bunging, you know, we are, like, sort of, but Yeah,

**[2:26:50] Joe Rogan:** also super skillful. You. There's like, there's both things that are happening simultaneously. It's like it's skill and technique, but it's also fucking rawr that's in there, too.

**[2:27:00] Robert Whittaker:** and that'll get you so far, like, ha, having that dog, like that guy, that'll go further than you will. And a lot, most, most fighters have it. But I wonder sometimes if the science, if if sometimes we get too caught up in science. Cause you see that a lot with, like today's, like younger guys coming in, like their parents are getting them into it because they've been watching UFC their whole life. So the kids starting mixed martial arts with like an elite program and and they're like doing the best things, eating the best foods, like, and they get too technical.

**[2:27:35] Robert Whittaker:** When when when a lot of the guys that are champions and stuff like that, they they were just punching on in garages. right. Or Like, Strickland, Yeah,

**[2:27:44] Joe Rogan:** look, at Strickland, like, that's not the most scientific approach, just constantly spar and and talk shit to people while you're sparring them,

**[2:27:50] Robert Whittaker:** to to, to be fair, like he's, he's able to constantly spar, cause he's beating people up, right? But like,

**[2:27:59] Joe Rogan:** he's beating good people up.

**[2:28:00] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure it would be different if he was, like, getting brain damage every time he stepped in there.

**[2:28:05] Joe Rogan:** Yes, yeah, well, he's got a very elusive style, it's a it's a weird style.

**[2:28:10] Robert Whittaker:** It's tricky, isn't it?

**[2:28:11] Joe Rogan:** Stand straight up, hard to take down, deep kicks to the body, and a lot of it is predicated on that. LeFt, that right leg being all fucked up. You know, he blew his leg apart in a motorcycle accident, like he's missing a big piece of his quad.

**[2:28:23] Robert Whittaker:** his story is actually, like, really cool, like his comeback story.

**[2:28:27] Joe Rogan:** it's kinda crazy, yeah. He's a very unusual guy and very underestimated in terms of his intelligence, cause he says so many wild things. But he fights intelligently and it's it's a difficult style. Like you see when he fought Fluffy Hernandez, like Hernandez was on a tear up into that fight and and Strickland just beat the brakes off of him. easily, Yeah, like it wasn't, beat the brakes it wasn't off of him.

**[2:28:50] Robert Whittaker:** close, it wasn't close. And the the fans, the fans are brutal, because, like, they just as soon as that happened, everyone was like, fraud, check, fraud check. It's like, That's the worst, they're like, Oh, they're the that fraud check worst. thing. Fuck you. There's Yeah, man,

**[2:29:03] Joe Rogan:** so many casuals, and not just casuals, but cruel people, like they say cruel things for engagement, and they think they're being intelligent when they're saying it, like, fuck off, man, you're a cunt.

**[2:29:13] Robert Whittaker:** well, and and fighting is like, it is the most primal, vulnerable position two men can be in. You know what I mean? Like, these are two guys out there putting their souls on the line, with the consequence of getting knocked out in front of their fans and friends and family and the world. It's like no one takes that risk, except these guys for your entertainment, and and then these guys just backstab us. It's brutal, it's brutal.

**[2:29:39] Joe Rogan:** And it's usually the loudest voices are the biggest pussies, the biggest pussies. And, you know, it's like, I heard a lot of that from Peyton Talbot after after he lost to Howney Barcelos. They were saying fraud check, fraud check. No No. He found an area of his game that he needs to improve. And then look what happened when he came back,

**[2:29:59] Robert Whittaker:** then he did.

**[2:30:00] Joe Rogan:** and he figured it out, he figured it out, bench. And he came back yeah, and he's and fucked up Henry Cejudo, killing people, man, killing people.

**[2:30:06] Robert Whittaker:** he's killing people, he's so good, but,

**[2:30:08] Joe Rogan:** He's so good. I. I really hope that fight with him and Sean O'Malley takes place. I really hope that fight takes place, that is cause I think

**[2:30:16] Robert Whittaker:** such a good fight.

**[2:30:17] Joe Rogan:** that is a gigantic fight and such a good fight on paper, you know,

**[2:30:23] Robert Whittaker:** Do. Do you reckon Peyton wrestles? Cause he can wrestle?

**[2:30:26] Joe Rogan:** he can wrestle. I mean, he, he certainly did with Henry Cejudo. It's possible. I mean, that's like an area of of his game that he just jumped way up after the Howney Barcelos fight.

**[2:30:36] Robert Whittaker:** Oh my god, he just, Yeah, like he, he took the wrestling to Cejudo.

**[2:30:41] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, it's crazy. When he took Cejudo down, I was like, This is madness. It was cheeky, Like, this kid is special, oh, it's cheeky, he's very special, he's very, very unique in his his approach to this.

**[2:30:50] Robert Whittaker:** And you can tell he's feeling himself right now, like he's flowing, he's in that flow state right now.

**[2:30:55] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, man, and he loves it, he loves competing, he loves fighting, he really do, really, really does. I mean, there's a lot of great fights for him, and I understand Sean's position. If I was Sean, I would not take that fight right now either. Because Pyotr Yan and Rob Duvish willer are gonna fight this weekend, and if Pyotr Yan wins again, the big fight is him and Sean O'Malley. straight up, Because the last fight that he lost was to Sean O'Malley, so that is an amazing.

**[2:31:20] Joe Rogan:** and it was It would be, it close. was very close, very good, and also a three-rounder, right? So imagine if that fight goes five, who knows what happens, right? It gets crazy, I think that

**[2:31:30] Robert Whittaker:** and that's where the money is, too.

**[2:31:31] Joe Rogan:** the money's there. Well, and but also it's like, that's the fight you want. Like, yeah, Payton Talbot would be a good fight for the fans, but that's not the right fight to take right now. It's great for Payton. Yeah, I mean, but there's a lot of great fights for Payton. There's so many good yeah, cause he's just, names.

**[2:31:45] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, he's right up there, he's Yeah, my, just dismantling people, there's so many too.

**[2:31:48] Joe Rogan:** good fights in that division, there's so many good fights in that division. That division is just fucking chock full of talent. You know, 135 right now is, uh, like, I think

**[2:31:59] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, it's a melting pot, isn't it?

**[2:32:00] Joe Rogan:** the biggest divisions right now are probably like 50, is in S, 55 is insane, 55 is just fucking insane. There's so much talent at Yeah, it's 55.

**[2:32:09] Robert Whittaker:** fun right now, it's very

**[2:32:10] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, it's fun. fun. 70s fucking insane, you know? It's like there's 45 is insane and 55 is all. Laying on whether or not Justin decides to retire, what he, what does he do? Who does he fight?

**[2:32:24] Robert Whittaker:** who? who do you think he fights?

**[2:32:26] Joe Rogan:** I think Armand's the fight, the big fight is Armand, especially after what Armand did to Hoofy, that's the big fight. And also it's like, that's the most compelling fight, cause Armand looks like indestructible. He, he looks like the guy,

**[2:32:38] Robert Whittaker:** yeah. And and he's like, that hooFy really made a statement, like, really cemented the argument. And arguably, he's already supposed to fight for the title.

**[2:32:48] Joe Rogan:** right? If it wasn't for that one thing where he hurt his back the day before he's fighting Islam, it would have already happened. And look, he fought Islam in his first fight ever in the yeah, what UFC, on short a guy to debut, notice, right? oh my God, And that close, I mean, razor close decision loss to to, uh, Islam.

**[2:33:06] Robert Whittaker:** one of the best ever.

**[2:33:07] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, so he's really fucking good and that's the fight. However, if I was, if I was Justin and I'm looking at the landscape and I'm like, Well, who do I fight? I mean, you could fight. If Oliveira wins in his next fight, and Oliveira retains the BMF title, and then Justin fights him for the in a rematch for the BMF title and for the lightweight title together. I could see that fight too, but it seems like you're denying Armand what he's deserved.

**[2:33:39] Joe Rogan:** Armand deserves a title And he's been fighting fight. Yeah,

**[2:33:41] Robert Whittaker:** like, like, and fighting HooFy, especially I know, after the the performances HooFy's been putting especially on lately.

**[2:33:46] Joe Rogan:** the one in the White House against Chandler, that was an execution, that was that one was crazy,

**[2:33:50] Robert Whittaker:** I saw that coming, but

**[2:33:52] Joe Rogan:** saw it coming. I think everyone Yeah, saw it I was, I was, coming. you know, saying, Chandler, I really hope you figure something out here. But, you know, it's Chandler's style is so difficult to handle. That long, tall elite striker at this stage of his life. I mean, Chandler's 40, you know, at this stage It's like, of his life,

**[2:34:10] Robert Whittaker:** that makes me wonder, it's like, look at, look at Gaethie, look at Chandler, look at, like most of the guys in my division, I think I'm one of the younger ones, you know? Like, what do you? The age of of of these athletes are just going up.

**[2:34:23] Joe Rogan:** Well, I think with proper training and with all the different sport science, uh, modalities today, like particularly people that use hyperbaric chambers, red light therapy, saunas, cold plunges, massage, co, all these different training methods that they're doing to strengthen all their tissues and make sure they don't get injured. And increasing their cardio scientifically and all the nutrition, everybody's got everything dialed in. You can extend your lifespan, um, a lot further than you could a few years back.

**[2:34:52] Robert Whittaker:** well, I, I hold a great belief in longevity. Like, that's why me and my wife actually just created an app that, like, really focuses on sports science, longevity,

**[2:35:03] Joe Rogan:** What's it called?

**[2:35:04] Robert Whittaker:** personal training, ascend fitness by Rob.

**[2:35:06] Joe Rogan:** Ascend Fitness by Rob? Alright, there's something, simple, like, So what's there? It is, Okay, you there is handsome bastard? Um,

**[2:35:13] Robert Whittaker:** smiles for the camera.

**[2:35:14] Joe Rogan:** so what, what is? uh, what's going on in this? what's It's in the app,

**[2:35:17] Robert Whittaker:** it's, it's honestly, it's programs just like built around making, like, what got me to be able to perform for so long? Cause, you know how rare it is to be able to fight at this level for the length of time like that. That's always the hardest thing is the longevity, the turnover rate in the UFC's like, super fast. So, like performance, doing these little things, performance, training, conditioning to make life better, we just wanna make life better.

**[2:35:43] Robert Whittaker:** But what we do differently, and this is kind of an avenue that I started playing with the idea when I wasn't going on a title run before I had my success in my last fight. It's like, I wanna move into, like, health, fitness with my wife. I've always wanted to do it with my wife, cause she's the one that got me into everything. So I wanted to to be able to give back, create an immunity, uh, community, get guys on board, start working up.

**[2:36:08] Robert Whittaker:** Like, we have monthly Q and As where people can talk to me, like, I want to get to know people. I wanna be able to tell them, like, give me questions. We have a bunch of coaches on board that can give like form feedback straight away, but also just to talk to. I think that's so important, especially with training, like you need that human element of what's going on, how you're feeling, where's your head at? Because that, as we spoke earlier, it's like, ha, happy, Rob's a dangerous Rob.

**[2:36:33] Robert Whittaker:** That mental, that mental ability. It's like, when you're, you know, when you're feeling on top of the world and you can do anything. Like, we try and make sure you have that every day, just by check-ins, by talking and things like that.

**[2:36:46] Joe Rogan:** I'm gonna sneeze, I'm gonna hope I don't blow my back out, Flex that cause, then the fucking thing hurts and fully I'm like, Alright, I'm, I'm okay. flex I thought I was gonna sneeze. that, flex that, cool, So have you ever worked with a a sports psychologist?

**[2:37:00] Robert Whittaker:** uh, I've, yeah, through throughout my career, I have. I. I spoke to, um, I spoke to one, but, uh,

**[2:37:06] Joe Rogan:** What do they do for you?

**[2:37:07] Robert Whittaker:** it depends. I I think, I think guys, and this is just my take, okay, cause there's everyone has their own take on on on everything. I think guys sometimes just need to talk, like, just shit talk, you know, like that. I think that's why pub culture was so important for for men, you know, going through the years. Because they they, they lower the guard a little bit and they just start shit talking. It's like, like, what we're doing now?

**[2:37:35] Robert Whittaker:** This is great, we can just start, we're just talking. And and in that, I'm venting, I'm letting out stresses, I'm saying things that make me vulnerable, I'm saying things that, like, I just want another opinion on. Because, like, sometimes you, you just need to say something. And then you need the other guy to be like, Nah, you're a pussy, like, you know what I mean? And sometimes that gets you going, you're like, you know what? Yes, or he goes, Nah, it'll be right.

**[2:37:58] Robert Whittaker:** And you know, you just just talking. I think talking is so important right. So and that,

**[2:38:02] Joe Rogan:** like it, it helps you come to grips with whatever the thing is bouncing around inside your head by yourself,

**[2:38:07] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, because as men, as as fighters, some of our thoughts aren't like, talk to your wife thoughts, you know what I mean, like, like, do you know what I mean? Like, it's it's not necessarily like that. We get it, you get it, like our, our thoughts are sometimes stupid, but we. We just need a place to put them, right. And you know?

**[2:38:30] Joe Rogan:** and put them with another man who's gonna understand, like, dude, I get it. Someone's gonna say, I get it,

**[2:38:36] Robert Whittaker:** I think so, and then and obviously, that's why, like, support circles and friends and family are super important, like having those guys you can turn to and just, and just just talk to man, you know?

**[2:38:48] Joe Rogan:** yeah, well, that's what, what? When when guys run afoul w in their gym and have to leave the gym, that's always like a giant problem. Because that the people that you train with on a daily basis, you spar with you, you grind with, those are like brothers. And people who have gone to competition with people that they've trained with constantly. Like, you have so much invested in them, like you, you, it hurt. It's sometimes I've seen this with training partners where their friends fighting makes them more nervous than when they're fighting.

**[2:39:21] Joe Rogan:** oh yeah, it's Cause the love like, that they have for these guys,

**[2:39:23] Robert Whittaker:** I can't go to any of my teammates fights like it kills me, like I, it just, it just kills me. But you, you're 100 right. Like guys you've bled and sweated with in the in the gym for any amount of time, like you, you build a connection there. Like, even if you don't like him, like, there's heaps of guys in my gym that, like, I don't bond with. Like, I wanna go, I'm not gonna go to him and be like, Hey, let's go grab some food.

**[2:39:44] Joe Rogan:** but you still root for him,

**[2:39:45] Robert Whittaker:** Oh, if he, if he calls me up and says, I need help, I'm getting jumped, I'm there, I'm in the car already, like, we're that close. Or or, or if, like, if he's like, like, Yeah, it's just you build that sort of bond, like it's a brotherhood, you know? And

**[2:39:59] Joe Rogan:** So when you see a guy like, leave a gym, it's like, I've never had, Ooh,

**[2:40:03] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, that's gotta be huge. I've never had that happen.

**[2:40:06] Joe Rogan:** I don't know what happened with Izzy, you know, I don't know what's going on, but I know he left City kickboxing and that was a stunner for me. I was like, I can't believe it, cause Eugene but Bearman has been a a a staple part of his career, he's an and he's an amazing coach. Like, he's so good and he's such a mastermind, he's one of the few real, legitimate masterminds in the sport. So when I saw that, I was like, Oh, no, like, that's a bad place to be, like, psychologically, yes, I, you leave the family,

**[2:40:34] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, that's and, and, and I'm for all I know. I think he's still living in New Zealand, too. And that was that was huge for me because I w I had just trained with him there, like I was just training with him there. And then, you know, I found that out. And obviously I'm still gonna go to C K B and stuff, cause I have a good relationship with them and I did some really good work with them.

**[2:40:53] Robert Whittaker:** And for me, everywhere, everywhere is so far for Australia, it's like Australia's on the arse end of nowhere. I realised that coming flying here, it was like to to get to Austin, I was like, 17 and a half hours of flight time. Oh my god, Like, we're way, we're so far. It's, it's

**[2:41:11] Joe Rogan:** well, that's why people want to build bunkers over there.

**[2:41:14] Robert Whittaker:** exactly, that's like the the selling point.

**[2:41:17] Joe Rogan:** All those fucking billionaire dudes who are like, worried about the end of the world, they all get a bunker in either it's New Zealand or Australia.

**[2:41:24] Robert Whittaker:** true. Yeah, well, that's. That's why I like New Zealand, because obviously, like the the Kiwi's guys, they're big boys. And you've got some good prospects, like Navajo still, in right now, Carl Usopp, obviously, Tyson Pedro, like these big boys that I can work with. But for me, it's only like 3 hours that's not or or two. bad. Yeah, like 3 hour flight. That's great, that's, that's great. I like, Yeah, I can't ask for more.

**[2:41:48] Joe Rogan:** yeah, you guys live in a crazy country. It's so big and there's so few people in it, so it's so everything's so far away,

**[2:41:55] Robert Whittaker:** yeah, but but a lot of, like the non, I don't know, a lot of it's desert.

**[2:41:59] Joe Rogan:** I know, but you have the population of Los Angeles in a country the size of the United States.

**[2:42:04] Robert Whittaker:** Don't say it like that, don't say it like that. You guys always like, It's not a bad you guys always thing. come over here, like, Oh, that's cute,

**[2:42:12] Joe Rogan:** No, listen, I love Australia, like I love it there, I

**[2:42:14] Robert Whittaker:** it's the best.

**[2:42:14] Joe Rogan:** love the people, they're very friendly, it's a fun culture. I, I really do love Australia. But I mean, the the just the the actual geography of Australia is crazy, and it's filled with things that want to kill you. yes, like, Well, you guys gotta start killing crocodiles. No, but, you, like Bring them bring back killing crocodiles, make that fun again.

**[2:42:34] Robert Whittaker:** Make that make that fun.

**[2:42:36] Joe Rogan:** Why are you guys letting the crocodiles live? That's insane. They're protected, and they're eating people.

**[2:42:40] Robert Whittaker:** They're not eating people.

**[2:42:41] Joe Rogan:** They are eating people.

**[2:42:42] Robert Whittaker:** Oh, mate, if you are stupid enough, if you're stupid

**[2:42:45] Joe Rogan:** Get in the water.

**[2:42:46] Robert Whittaker:** Enough, if you're stupid enough to go for a swim in the river that you clearly can't see the bottom Listen, Of

**[2:42:52] Joe Rogan:** This is how I feel. If I live in a place and I'm a human, anything else that lives in the place that wants to kill me should be dead. Dead. Fuck you. This is my ground. I'm the person, I'm I'm the one with the brain, the opposable thumbs, and I have the guns. Fuck off. If you wanna eat my kids, I kill all of you, there's none of you left. I put a few of you in a zoo, and we can stare at you from behind the glass.

**[2:43:19] Joe Rogan:** Fuck you It's it's funny, Forever.

**[2:43:21] Robert Whittaker:** Alligators seem cute by comparison to crocs. Like, They do. They Like, a, alligator's

**[2:43:24] Joe Rogan:** Really do.

**[2:43:24] Robert Whittaker:** Kinda like dopey croc.

**[2:43:26] Joe Rogan:** Have you ever seen what happens when they get the two of them together? Alligators. So, they feed them, so they there's this, uh, place in Florida where they have alligators and crocodiles all intermingling, and Nile crocodiles. Also, big And so, when they when Boys. They feed them, the crocodiles run over the top of the alligators' heads to get the food. They're like, Fuck you. Give me that food, bitch.

**[2:43:46] Robert Whittaker:** It's like, you're just a pretend croc anyway.

**[2:43:49] Joe Rogan:** It's like the difference between a fucking golden retriever and a pit bull.

**[2:43:54] Robert Whittaker:** But the the thing that gets me like, brown snakes are annoying they I I hate that because I got kids, and Well, It's

**[2:43:59] Joe Rogan:** 'Cause they kill you.

**[2:44:00] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, they're they're very poisonous. Only Very venomous.

**[2:44:02] Joe Rogan:** A person in Australia would say they're annoying.

**[2:44:05] Robert Whittaker:** Well, because, well, they don't they don't hang out with you. It's not like they're trying to invade, they just

**[2:44:09] Joe Rogan:** Oh, I understand.

**[2:44:10] Robert Whittaker:** They just don't go into any hot bushes, but the spider

**[2:44:14] Joe Rogan:** So, you have to go Into a hot The the funnel Bush.

**[2:44:16] Robert Whittaker:** Webs as well, they're very venomous, but just don't put your hands in any wet holes. Like Yeah.

**[2:44:23] Joe Rogan:** Yeah. Always good advice anyway.

**[2:44:25] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, good good advice.

**[2:44:26] Joe Rogan:** Solid advice.

**[2:44:26] Robert Whittaker:** It could keep you out of trouble, trust me. Fellas, don't It's just Go into the You have so Bank. But I I

**[2:44:31] Joe Rogan:** Many different bugs and spiders, like my friend Adam Greentree, he lives over there, he just got bit two months ago by some fucking spider when he was camping, and It's like lethal. He almost died. Yes. Yeah, I forget

**[2:44:43] Robert Whittaker:** Really?

**[2:44:43] Joe Rogan:** What it's called, some green something or another. He told me and apparently he it didn't even get him. What happened was, as he slapped it, it was crawling on him, And as he It was like, big Slapped it, its Down. Its stinger went into him a little bit, but not enough to Kill him, because otherwise it would have been lethal.

**[2:44:59] Robert Whittaker:** No, really? You know what, and I thought of this just now, maybe the reason why we let them all live is to keep people out.

**[2:45:07] Joe Rogan:** It's not a bad idea.

**[2:45:08] Robert Whittaker:** That's a great idea. Right, you keep your Oh Population low, it's like Yeah.

**[2:45:11] Joe Rogan:** Less problems.

**[2:45:12] Robert Whittaker:** Because, like, a lot of Americans are like, Australia, everything's trying to kill you. I've never gone to Australia, Eh. I'm just gonna say, it's like

**[2:45:18] Joe Rogan:** It's not that bad. Like, It's not I have I have

**[2:45:20] Robert Whittaker:** Really that bad.

**[2:45:20] Joe Rogan:** Friends that go over there and hunt all the time. But it's, uh, it is a great country in terms of, like, the the spirit of the People, they're fun people. Like, Generally speaking, Australians are fun. It's a great place to do comedy. It's like, they they they have a good time. It's like, it's a great drinking culture, it's a great laughing culture, it's a lot of fun.

**[2:45:38] Robert Whittaker:** The drinking culture's a slippery slope. Well, it's like because we we probably like it a bit too much.

**[2:45:44] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, as it is everywhere where it's fun. Yeah. But it's fucking Ireland Or anywhere.

**[2:45:50] Robert Whittaker:** The the the vibe at the the club last night the was just amazing. The energy was so good, it was my first time, and it that has sparked my ambition to go to ones in in Sydney and and stuff. Well, there's a Comedy clubs.

**[2:46:04] Joe Rogan:** Great comic that, uh, lived in Austin for a while, and he moved to Australia, James McCann, he's one of my favorites. He's one of the best up-and-coming comics in the world right now, and fucking hilarious Australian dude. And he went back, he he his wife just had a new baby, and she wanted to, like, get help with the family, and so they went back to Australia, but he's planning on coming back to America Again. But if he's performing in Australia, I'll send you to him Because he's fucking great.

**[2:46:30] Joe Rogan:** He's so funny. Yeah, I've got I've There he is McCann!

**[2:46:34] Speaker 10:** Performing in November, I know.

**[2:46:35] Joe Rogan:** Oh, there he is. Oh, there So, Perth, Adelaide,

**[2:46:36] Robert Whittaker:** Is. Yeah.

**[2:46:37] Joe Rogan:** Sydney, and Brisbane. Uh, in November. Yeah, I've got Go see that dude. I've got the itch He's Now. Fucking brilliant. Yeah, Yeah, I've I've got He's

**[2:46:45] Robert Whittaker:** The itch. That was that was a great time.

**[2:46:47] Joe Rogan:** It's fun, right? I've, It's fun.

**[2:46:48] Robert Whittaker:** Oh, it was great, it was great. It was just like relaxed, everyone's laughing. Like, laughter is special. It's special, it gives you a special sort of energy. I'm very I'm very big on energy of people and stuff like that. So when you get you you put them all in one place, and it's just With one Yeah.

**[2:47:05] Joe Rogan:** Goal, to have a good

**[2:47:06] Robert Whittaker:** E exactly.

**[2:47:06] Joe Rogan:** Time. Yeah.

**[2:47:07] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, and that's it's one of the few places in the world, really, where everyone comes with, like, no baggage. Like, no one comes with any sort of expectation of everyone has the same goal, same objective. Yeah, good intentions, go Yeah.

**[2:47:21] Joe Rogan:** There to have a good time, and that sort of s burned into the spirit of the building by this point. You know, we've been open for a few Years, it's like just I I have a I've real really believe that. Like, The Comedy Store in L.A. Is a great example of that. When you go there, it's like burned into the walls of the building, The laughter, all the Years of fun and excitement.

**[2:47:39] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, the like, the energy seeped into the the concrete. Yeah, and you can you can feel it, you can feel it's like, got got a culture, it's like a heaviness to it when you walk through it. It was cool, it was cool, can't think of anything else.

**[2:47:50] Joe Rogan:** That's awesome, brother. I'm glad you had a good time, and I'm glad we did this. You know, I've, uh, I've been a fan of yours for a long time, and I I've always loved hearing you talk in interviews. I'm like, That'd be a fun guy to have on the podcast. And you are, you're great, Nah, Man.

**[2:48:02] Robert Whittaker:** This has been so much fun. Oh, my So much fun.

**[2:48:03] Joe Rogan:** Pleasure. You should probably do your own podcast. You'd be great at it.

**[2:48:06] Robert Whittaker:** Uh, yeah. I I I do have one on YouTube.

**[2:48:09] Joe Rogan:** Oh, you do? Yeah, and on Oh.

**[2:48:10] Robert Whittaker:** MMArcade, we but we we just talk about, like, fights and and, like, video games. It's like, just Like, Mighty Yeah, yeah, Mouse. Well, yes, yes, to a degree. Nice. Have you done Yeah.

**[2:48:21] Joe Rogan:** His podcast?

**[2:48:22] Robert Whittaker:** I have plenty of times, he's a great He's Guy to talk to.

**[2:48:23] Joe Rogan:** I fucking love that dude. Another energy, another Yeah.

**[2:48:26] Robert Whittaker:** Piece of energy, like, he just he his vibes when you're talking to him, cause he you know what it is, and it's not rocket science. You just have to be invested in the person you're talking to. That's it. Yeah, for real, That's it. You You have to really Just Yeah,

**[2:48:37] Joe Rogan:** Be there. That's it, and Yeah, yeah.

**[2:48:38] Robert Whittaker:** And he's great at that. You're obviously the maestro of it. Like, talking with you is just so easy, hours just fly by, it's so much

**[2:48:45] Joe Rogan:** Oh, thanks. Fun. I'm glad you had fun, man. Well, it flies by for me too, you know, it's just the the key is only talk to people you actually wanna talk to. That way you never have to fake It, you know? But Yeah, Mighty Mouse is awesome At that, and to me, he's, like, one of the greatest examples ever of mixed martial arts excellence. Like, watching him perform when he was at his best, he was just a master.

**[2:49:07] Joe Rogan:** Just a master, one Of the all-time.

**[2:49:08] Robert Whittaker:** Uncanny, that flying armbar.

**[2:49:10] Joe Rogan:** Oh, my god. Like, to chain that Suplex into an armbar Like, In a fight.

**[2:49:15] Robert Whittaker:** What? Yeah, it's just Yeah, he does things that that it's it's like you're playing the game, you

**[2:49:21] Joe Rogan:** Yeah, dude.

**[2:49:21] Robert Whittaker:** Know what I mean? It's And his speed, there's Just

**[2:49:23] Joe Rogan:** Something about the speed of flyweights, too. One time, uh, I grabbed him at a U F C just to say hi, just fucking around. I grabbed him from behind, and he turned around, he went, and he hit me with two knees to the body, like, didn't hurt me, just Touched me, but they were so fast, my brain didn't It's your Process it. Super. My brain was like, What? What did you just how did you do what the fuck just happened?

**[2:49:44] Joe Rogan:** Cause it's one thing to watch it play out, but it's another thing when those knees just come at your body like that, and you realize, like, that's the speed that they're competing at. Yeah. It's Like, when you Just Watch Joshua Van versus Pantoja, what a chaos.

**[2:49:56] Robert Whittaker:** Fight, what a fight.

**[2:49:57] Joe Rogan:** How good is Joshua Van?

**[2:49:59] Robert Whittaker:** Oh, yeah. And, like, and I'm I'm so happy he, um, like, silenced everyone about That Pantoja fight.

**[2:50:06] Joe Rogan:** Well, he kinda did with the Tyra fight, cause the the Tyra

**[2:50:10] Robert Whittaker:** Poor Tyra.

**[2:50:10] Joe Rogan:** Fight was so good.

**[2:50:11] Robert Whittaker:** Poor Tyra.

**[2:50:11] Joe Rogan:** I know. But dude, Joshua is another level, Yeah, he is, Man.

**[2:50:15] Robert Whittaker:** And he's just evolving every fight. That's just like Talbot, it's like I think that's That's this new generation, their level their ability to adapt and grow so fast between fights. Like, yeah, it's just it's

**[2:50:28] Joe Rogan:** And as a champion, I think He's even more confident than ever. You know, it's just, oh my god, it's such an exciting time for the sport, It's like, Man.

**[2:50:35] Robert Whittaker:** Yeah, those those younger generation is why I'm developing an app. That's why I've brought out a fitness app.

**[2:50:42] Joe Rogan:** Well, listen, man, thank you for being here. Good luck with the app, good luck with everything in your future. It's been a pleasure. Oh, thank you so It's a lot of Much for having Fun. All right.

**[2:50:49] Robert Whittaker:** Me, this was great.

**[2:50:50] Joe Rogan:** Uh, if anybody wanting gets wants to get a hold of you on Instagram, uh, what is your handle? What is it?

**[2:50:54] Robert Whittaker:** Rob Whitaker M M A.

**[2:50:55] Joe Rogan:** Okay, and, uh, Twitter, do you use that?

**[2:50:57] Robert Whittaker:** Yes, yes, yes, it's all the all The same, all the same handle. Website. The website is, uh, send fitness Send By Rob dot com. Fitness by Rob dot 50% Com. Off first month.

**[2:51:06] Joe Rogan:** Yeah. All right, thanks, brother.

**[2:51:08] Robert Whittaker:** Thank you.

**[2:51:08] Joe Rogan:** Thank you. Bye, everybody.