Fight Study 159: UFC 304 (Plus Transcript) (Patreon)

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On this episode of Fight Study, Palestinian martial artist and activist Ramy Daoud returns to discuss Palestine and Belal Muhammad's historic victory in the UFC. Please help us spread the word by sharing this episode with other supporters of Palestine. Whether you're into MMA or not, you'll get something out of this episode.

Transcript

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On this Fight Study, I am once again joined by Palestinian martial artist, activist, and coach Ramy Daoud to discuss UFC 304 and its relationship to Palestine. Welcome back, Ramy.

Thank you so much for having me, Sam. I've been wondering when you're going to invite me back. Okay.

This seems like the perfect time. It really does. So first, let's start with a very tricky question to ask any Palestinian person right now, which is, how are you? And take your time with that question.

No, thank you, Sam. As we were chatting before the show, I almost have like a reflex of the fake answer that makes day-to-day life run smoother for me of just saying like, oh yeah, everything is good. But with somebody that I trust like yourself, and we've spoken many times about Palestine, it's a very,

very difficult time in not only my life, but every Palestinian, whether they're in Palestine proper or in the diaspora. We are all suffering greatly. It's a... It's a weird phenomenon. It's a strange existence to witness the death and violence that is occurring to our people and to be expected to function normally because we have to work,

we have to pay bills, we have to continue to function. It's such a strange existence. And the best and most honest answer I could give you is I feel like I'm floating through life, like just disassociating completely. Um, like I'm seeing life happen from above and maybe that's a trauma response because

it's almost impossible to not think about Palestine every single second of every single day and what that's doing to, you know, everything from my sleep to my ability to eat. to my ability to maintain healthy relationships, it's all been greatly affected because of the current genocide in Palestine and specifically in Gaza and, of course,

in the West Bank.

So let's explore that further. Tell us about what life has been like for you as a Palestinian activist, but also as a martial artist, coach, and gym owner.

You know, I almost will use this as a chance to be very vulnerable, pardon me, in the hopes that other Palestinians who may listen to this will do the same. because many of us are putting on a brave face and I don't think it's helping our

cause to be very stoic and to show that we are okay because we are not. So the reality is, Sam, and this will surprise people who know me, my students who are going to listen, there are many times when I am just breaking down, crying on the way to teach classes. I park my car,

I wipe my face, I take a few deep breaths and I go into my gym and I ask everybody about their weekend and I crack jokes and I make small talk and no one knows anything is wrong. And that's kind of how a lot of people I know have been

functioning, secretly grieving and mourning and in pain, but publicly putting on a brave face. And I do want people to know that the Palestinians that they interact with on a day-to-day basis, who may seem jovial or even in good spirits, there's effort to that. It's not genuine. They're not being their most vulnerable self because they're afraid to.

With you and in this environment and with Southpaw, I consider you a good friend, and so I'm happy to be very candid with you. It's very difficult. I'm very thankful I have my... my martial arts studio, I have my students, I have my parents, my sibling, my friends, my family, like I'm very,

very lucky that I have such a great support system. But it is an isolating experience in a sense, in that you feel that only other Palestinians can understand exactly what you're going through. So there's, there's, there's a feeling that you don't want to

Explain what's going on in your mind and in your heart because it might be taken the wrong way or you might be seen as unwell or you know that People might distance themselves from you if they knew how much pain you were actually in and what your

day-to-day life is like It's it's just been it's been a nightmare it's been it's almost it's been almost a year of a nightmare I don't know how our mind and body can take this sort of trauma and Every day and every time I open anything, whether it's my TV at home, Instagram, any social media,

I'm bombarded with the images of dead Palestinians, of suffering Palestinians, of screaming Palestinians, of crying Palestinians, who are all the victims of Zionist violence and Western imperialism. And you feel helpless. You feel extremely helpless. I know many people in my shoes wish we were there to physically defend our people, and we cannot. That's not even an option.

Even if I did everything possible to try, it's not an option. So it's just you feel like whatever you're doing is not enough. That's a very tough thing to deal with. In addition to, of course, the graphic images and videos that we are seeing every single day, it's just a very, very difficult existence.

I'm thankful for things like martial arts, training with my students, sparring, where you have to be very much in the moment and present. Um, just as brief escapes from the reality of what's actually happening. So, um, yeah, I, I hope that was a fitting answer.

I could probably spend the whole show trying to explain how, what it's been like to be a But it's a new experience for me, so maybe I'm having a challenging time explaining it because I've never experienced this before. Now, since childhood, I've always been a Palestinian,

so I've always suffered and know that my people have been suffering since my birth. But this is a new level of violence that even my father, people his age, my father's in his 60s, he has never seen this type of violence done to his people. So this is new for our Palestinians. Even the Nakba,

the catastrophe in 1948, was not as brutal in terms of the sheer violence and killing as what we're seeing now. So for our Palestinians, this is a new experience and it's one that's very difficult difficult to manage, especially on a day-to-day basis.

It's also a different level of weapons, right? If we think about technology, it's painted as improving our lives, but a lot of technology has been to make killing more effective and efficient.

Yes, we are seeing brutal weapons. And, you know, the horrible part, Sam, is that the weapons that the Zionist and the Zionist entity have access to are, as you said, the most advanced weapons on this planet. They're capable of extreme precision, yet instead we constantly see, and I don't want to use civilian because all Palestinians are civilians.

Palestinians do not have an army. So a Hamas fighter, the boogeyman of all of this when you see Western media, is a civilian who is just fighting back against Zionism. So I don't like the idea that, oh, they're not even attacking Hamas. No, those are civilians as well. Palestine has no army.

So what we are seeing, all violence done to Palestinians is being done to civilians. If somebody were to attack your family's home, and which I hope, and I don't even want to put that out there, but just to make an example, and you started defending your family, you would not suddenly be a Marine.

You would not suddenly be a Navy SEAL. You are still Sam protecting his family. Regardless of, you know, if you call you and your neighbors, call yourself a specific name and organize maybe a few training sessions, you know, two, three, four, five times a week. You're still... a family man protecting his family and his community.

And so all Palestinians are civilians, yet we are seeing the Zionist attack churches, mosques, orphanages, schools that are housing refugees, fishermen. people playing, people dragging bodies off the street. We see snipers who must have somebody okay every single shot. They are being given permission to shoot children, to shoot the elderly, to shoot folks,

to shoot ambulances and EMT workers and health workers and food aid workers. So we are seeing the world's most brutal weapons being used to kill completely innocent people. And it's day after day after day And the only positive, or one of the few positives, is I believe that the myth of Western values and the international community,

these phrases we always hear, I think they've been proven to be just facades. They're not real. They never existed. And now it's a fact. It's for all to see because it's these Western values that are killing these Palestinians. So yes, the weaponry that we're seeing now,

it's unlike anything we've ever seen as far as Palestinians who have suffered under Zionist occupation.

And we should mention, not only does Israel have some of the most advanced weapons, weapons and surveillance technology, but they also have access to the world's most powerful and advanced countries' weapons and surveillance, which is the US, but also the UK as well. Yes, yes.

The Western world has joined forces to eliminate the indigenous population of Palestine for this settler colonial project known as Israel. A Zionist entity, which is, as we discussed in the prior time that we spoke, is nothing but a settler colony built on top of an indigenous people's land, cities, towns, homes, schools, and so on.

And I think that's an important point because there's some radicals in the West who might be on the right side of supporting Palestine, but how they get there matters. And they often say indigeneity doesn't matter here. It's just about what's wrong. And they want to use the lens of authoritarianism and Israel as being authoritarian.

And I just want to say, just shut up. Indigeneity and occupation and this lens does matter. And even if you're right about this, using the authoritarian lens as an analysis of power and like all these complicated situations is really clunky. And it's why these people got onto supporting Palestine so late because of this lens.

Right.

So even though they're on the right side now, every other time they'll have to learn that lesson again and they're going to take the longest to get there. And they will also have defectors where along the way, a lot of their compatriots and people within their own space will defect because of their lens.

Exactly.

that is a lens that the West likes to use and it can be sometimes useful. Right. If you're looking at, I don't know, like a martial arts gym or something.

Right.

But it's not the way to analyze the world. It's not a way to analyze like power structures, especially when you're thinking about like, Countries' power over other countries is often used as domestic, like who is a powerful authoritarian individual having domestic power over people within their own community or culture, right?

It's not a great way to look at how one country has power over another country or occupiers coming in. having power over the indigenous population. So I'm not saying throw it away or that it's wrong or it's not useful, but it has specific uses, but often impractical.

Yes, I agree. And we see the topic of Palestine being used almost as an intellectual exercise by the types of people you're referring to. And it's insulting because This is a issue that has tangible consequences to an indigenous population that is now the world's largest refugee population.

So this is not just like a stimulating intellectual exercise or debate. This is a very real issue and it's very timely and understanding that Palestine is The fact that Palestinians are indigenous is important because it shows how Palestine operated not as a nation state, not as what we would consider a country.

Nation states and countries, as you know, or at least nation states, are modern phenomenons. And Palestine has survived as an indigenous community for thousands of years. And it is important that Palestinians are indigenous, that they survive. that they belong to the land, that they love the land, that they care about the land.

You even see the connection to the land. The connection to the land is important. And the land is actually rejecting the Zionists who are trying to make, you know, occupied Palestine, aka Israel, look more like their homes in Europe. So they're bringing plants, trees that are from where they're from in Europe.

And the land is literally rejecting them. uh so the land knows who is indigenous to the land and palestinians are indigenous they use what the land gives them they take care of the land they love the land i mean you've seen and i think folks who have studied palestine or followed closely

will see that when a olive tree is burned down palestinians will cry as if a family member has died because when palestinians grow olive trees it's not to feed themselves it's to feed their grandchildren many times olive trees will not produce fruit routinely for 40 or 60 years.

So when you grow an olive tree, it's not even for you. You might not even live to see the benefit of that labor. It's for the future. You have the future of the people who are the future Palestinians. So it's being indigenous and the fact that Palestinians are indigenous is very

important to this topic and to this issue.

And also it's a difference between what you mentioned, right? I would say very loosely that could be like considered a land-based understanding of not only your land, but of yourself, which is different from an individual understanding of the self or an ideological or race-based understanding of the self or an understanding of the self that is

isolated from the land. Because if you think about Zionists, it's like a way of understanding yourself and your group that is like in a vacuum that can exist outside of everything else. And that is why they have this sense of superiority, which they enact, right? Right. Disconnected.

It is like floating above all else, looking down at everything, right? Right. It can exist without nothing else. It is independent. It is absolute rather than interconnected. Right. So if you're separate and independent from the world, then the world exists as your oyster. The world and its inhabitants exist for you, for you to take from.

And so since you exist independently, and you're not looking to live in community but to rule, and you're not connected to the land, and the land is something for you to command, You can maintain your identity and who you are as an occupier. Indigeneity doesn't matter because all of this is yours to take.

You don't care what the land thinks. You don't care what other people think. You only care about yourself. You don't care about connection to the land. You care about real estate and home prices. You care about the land insofar as it has value and it's an asset and it's capital you can accumulate.

This is why white supremacy, individualism, settler colonialism, and capitalism all go hand in hand. All of you and everything here exists to serve me. So what do I care if you're suffering? What do I care if you think this belonged to you first, when all of this is mine anyway?

Animals existed in a forest before I showed up. Doesn't mean they own it. It was always there for me to claim and take. It was always there to be mine. So like any other animal, you are nothing to me. Your suffering is nothing to me. Absolutely. Very well said. You're absolutely right.

The other thing I want to mention is for people who are just starting into radical politics, especially in the West, because there is so much propaganda, right? Your first radical thoughts, the only thing you have access to is the lens of authoritarianism or even anti-fascism. And it's like a very early, simple thing you can understand.

But here's the other problem, right, is when you understand things from that lens, anti-fascism, anti-authoritarianism, let's say you have occupiers, right? And they were fine with that all the time until they started acting, quote unquote, fascist. So now the problem is this government is fascist or fascistic. Now I care about this thing, right? Or...

Now they're acting authoritarian and having this control over Palestinians. Now there's a problem. So the problem is this lens, right? Right. This lens is basically saying the occupation isn't the problem so long as they're not being fascistic about it. Right. They could be the nicest. It doesn't matter, right? It's about consent.

Nobody consented for you to come here, right? So from a moralistic perspective, whether you're nice or not about it, whether you caress me in a very gentle way or not, if you don't have my permission, you're not allowed to do that.

Exactly.

So that's why indigeneity matters because they're the ones who have to give consent, right? So again, these kind of very popular lenses that the West use, they have their own problems and deficiencies. And I get why indigeneity people are drawn to it because it's not that you're even drawn to it. It's all you have access to.

Anything more radical than that, anything that is more anti-imperialist than that, where you were criticizing Israel from the beginning and supporting Palestine from the beginning, that was tantamount to terrorism. So you didn't have access to that. This is all you had access to. This is what you could even agree with your liberal and conservative friends about

because it's non-threatening and it's safe. And it's like centrism. It's fascism is wrong, but can we all agree, let's say prior to this, that Palestine is on the right side of history. No, then that was too radical, right? So these are some of the limits and problems of these kind of lenses.

And I think people need to move beyond them because Palestine shouldn't be like some intellectual exercise. We're trying to figure out why you're on the side of Palestine. Just forget those lenses.

Absolutely. And this reminds me of, you know, people like Bernie Sanders are very careful to say Netanyahu and his right wing government. meaning that the issue with Israel, the state of Israel, is the current right-wing government. And what I'd like to remind people who parrot those talking points is that the founders of Israel were left-wing Zionists.

So for Palestinians, the left-wing and the right-wing Zionists, we do not care. We do not care how mean they are in terms of public messaging. The bullets still penetrate our bodies the same, right? The The violence was the same from the neoliberal Zionist or the right-wing Zionist. There's no better or worse.

Zionism itself is a dangerous and violent and racist way of thinking, and it's like saying, know someone like barack obama was very polite in his you know day-to-day maybe speeches but he was bombing eight or nine countries simultaneously so to the victims of his violence the fact that he was quote unquote a nice guy or a liberal

did not matter his actions were violent and were the same as anybody else right it doesn't matter so it's so strange to see folks and i think that is a way for them to defend israel as a whole and that the current status of Israel is the issue.

The Netanyahu and the Ben-Gavir and these people who are in power, if we just replace them, everything will be okay. And if you actually study the history of Palestine, you will see that it is not okay. The most liberal and leftist Zionists were some of the most brutal and violent leaders of the state of Israel,

involved in literal terrorism via the Zionist terrorist gangs like the Aragon. Those were liberals and leftists. That's what they consider themselves, at least. Not what I would consider leftists, but they consider themselves, let's say, liberals. Whereas Netanyahu is right-wing, but Again, to a Palestinian, there is no difference.

They're Zionists, they're violent, they are racists, they are white supremacists. And yes, we did not give them consent. We gave them consent to live amongst us, but we did not give them consent to take our homes, to take our land, to take our farms, to take our

money to take everything we have everything we had is is gone everything even my family's uh records historical records now my family's history it's just now oral history what my oldest and most elder uncles share with us that's our family history because all the documents were taken all of our deeds everything that

showed we owned property or owned homes or what have you all of that has been taken away so it's just uh It's really, really interesting to see folks imagine that just if we get a new prime minister in Israel, things will be much better. And I wish I was that naive, Sam.

I really sometimes I wish I do.

Yeah, so there's still big anti-fascist accounts that will not say Israel is... valid, but they will use that language where they always only speak about Netanyahu and right-wing extremism. And it's like Netanyahu and right-wing extremism is not the main problem. The main problem is Israel and the Zionist project and ultimately the settler colonial project, right?

It doesn't matter who's at the helm. The project itself is corrupt. Yes, exactly right. So let's get back into something you were talking about earlier, spending time at your martial arts studio. Sure.

I run a studio called Phoenix Sports Empire. And I opened it in 2016. And it's a passion project. I am the worst businessman of all time. I posted recently my story because it was our eight-year anniversary in January 2024. I kid you not. People who are going to listen, they know me and they can attest to this.

I've never once discussed like sales or any like numbers with any of our coaches or the people who help me run. We never discussed like, oh, we made more this month or less. Not once, Sam, I swear on my life. Not once have we discussed anything like this, even though this is my full time job.

Mind you, it's not just a hobby. I depend on PSE to survive. Um, I just focused on giving people the training and experience that I wish I had because I've been doing martial arts all my life. And I did start, um, kind of mimicking that some of the, the methods that I had seen, you know,

like the very, okay, the coach is like ultimate authority. You never questioned the coach or the instructor. And I started in, uh, Japanese martial arts, specifically Shotokan karate. And they're like questioning the instructor was amazing. You wouldn't even consider it.

I remember I started to watch MMA when I was taking Shotokan and I was influenced by what I'd seen. So I started putting my hands up and I remember one of my instructors was like, no, you put your hands below your shoulders. I was like, okay, you got it. Like there was no wiggle room. There was no,

well, okay, well, if you're more comfortable putting your hands up and here's why this is a good idea as opposed to this, here's what you should look out for. No, none of that was ever explained to me. Everything was very rigid. You mimic what I do and that's it. And when I first started teaching, I did

Unfortunately, I hate to admit it, but I'm going to be honest with you. I did kind of think that that's how you're supposed to teach. And as I saw, you know, Sakuraba is my favorite fighter of all time. And I realized, hey, my favorite fighter does everything, quote unquote, wrong, right? His hands are low.

I mean, he chain smokes cigarettes. He drinks alcohol every day. He doesn't run and he doesn't lift weights. This is about his own admission. And he was my hero, the greatest fighter to me of all time still to this day. So I'm thinking there has to be a different approach. We don't,

I don't think I have to mimic, you know, what my instructors did and my students have to mimic me. So, um, it's just a, it's an Academy. We do striking, we do grappling, we have students who compete students who don't compete. Um, um wherever you know everyone is welcome and especially in the midwest it's hard to

find a gym that's not a bootlicking gym that doesn't worship cops it doesn't worship the military um you know it's a safe environment i operate my studio and it's in a predominantly white suburb and you wouldn't know that by looking at pictures of our training somehow i don't know how A few weeks ago, for example,

one of my young teenage students, he was wearing a hat and I saw the Palestine flag on his beanie in the image of a watermelon. And I've never talked to him once. I didn't even know he was a supporter of Palestine. It just seems that somehow people like this just gravitate to my academy.

And I don't know why people say it's... I don't know why. I really wish I knew why, but we just get good people coming in. We have so much fun training. We never pressure anyone. We never make anyone feel bad for missing practice or not practicing enough. We meet everyone where they're at.

I have students who are in their 40s who competed, who have never competed in martial arts, who now compete in jujitsu tournaments and are winning them and having a blast and just It's just so fun to help people find joy through martial arts and through movement.

And I think that's what's missing in a lot of the MMA gyms that I've visited and trained at all over the country is they're just very intimidating. Even for me, as someone who's been in martial arts my whole life, I'm intimidated when I go to a new gym most.

I feel like they're sizing me up or they're going to beat me up to prove that their gym is better. Still, this is after three decades of training martial arts. It's just not a fun experience sometimes. So I just want to make sure that when folks come to my gym, they have fun. They feel very welcome.

Um, they know they can reach out to me about anything. Uh, I've become great friends with my students, with our coaches. We hang out, we do things socially and we don't do any weird stuff. Like say we're a family or act like a call or, you know, it's, it's just natural. We, we just,

most of us happen to get along and some students just come to practice and they don't hang out with us. So there's no pressure to do anything. It's just such a laid back, nice environment. And I'm just trying to create an environment that I wish I had coming up in martial arts. And, um,

I would be lying if I said I wasn't greatly influenced by a lot of your writing and the stuff you wrote really is just so eye-opening. Even though I think I'm a progressive instructor who's looking out for my students, I realized how many bad habits I still had from reading a lot of your work.

Uh, and I'm not just saying that because I'm on your show, you know, I've texted you questions. I've, I've been, it's just really eyeopening. I still teach. So I saw to, to show you, I remember you showed an example of a question you were answering, which was somebody having problems dealing with leg locks.

And you told them that because they were a wrestler, they should just think of it as somebody denying somebody access to their leg. And I thought that was the most brilliant thing. I was like, that is so simple yet. So brilliant. And I use that principle.

To this day, it's like, hey, just don't give them access to your leg. Think of it like you're defending a single leg takedown. You don't want to even let them grab you. So just when you really break movement and fighting into such simple concepts, it really makes things, one, more fun and more simple to understand.

And I think the danger in that is that it takes away the gatekeeping, which gives the instructor his mystique or his or her mystique, right? Like, hey, I have the access to this information and just keep paying this monthly bill and I'm going to little by little give you little crumbs and after 20 years, you'll be okay.

No, why do we do that other than to maximize our income, right? Right. Of course, I'm going on a tangent as usual, but I really love our academy and I wish there was an academy like PSE when I was growing up because I would have had much more fun in martial arts,

probably competed more and went to practice more and looked forward to it. And I'm just really proud of the environment we've created and all our coaches are people of color. I do that purposely. I'll say it publicly. I want an environment where people like me can come in and feel comfortable and see themselves in the instructor.

I'm not the biggest advocate of just surface level identity politics. That's how we got people like Barack Obama and how we have Kamala Harris right now, but It can mean something to somebody living in a white area who is a brown or black person or a queer person who comes in and sees queer people training,

brown and black people teaching. I think that could make a difference as long as they're not bootlickers, they're not fascists, they're not horrible people. I think it could mean a little something. So I'm just trying. I'm learning as I go. I'm by no means an expert in anything.

And I'm trying to make my gym the best environment possible for my students. And I want it to grow beyond just me. I want my students to become far better than I. I want them to be better instructors. I want them to surpass me.

And I just can't wait till all of my students are beating me up and tapping me out. And that's when I know I've done a good job.

And just to touch upon a point that you mentioned earlier about visiting gyms and feeling intimidated or sometimes scared or nervous. This isn't imagined. Having visited a lot of gyms, and I know you probably know this from experience. No, there are people who will try to beat you up and teach you a lesson or try to prove

something by beating up the visitor. Or they even have a policy within their own school of like fresh meat. Oh, this new guy is just visiting. We got to beat them up.

The gym enforcers, right? We even give them a name in like the jujitsu culture right there. They you know, hey, go get him. This guy came in. He tapped one of our brown belts. You need to teach him a lesson. It's like, how about instead of teaching him a lesson,

ask him how we did that or ask him for, hey, how did you sweep me? How did if we had that kind of environment where it's more collaborative rather than competitive? We'd actually all get better. That's the great tragedy is that our egos are preventing actual progress. Instead,

we have this very us versus them mentality and it's stifling our growth, our education and our ability to make new friendships and build a true community. So, yeah, it's such a such a silly mentality. thing and constantly having to prove that you are tough day in and day out is the

most exhausting thing and I think a lot of people quit martial arts maybe unknowingly but they quit because there's a pressure of always having to perform and you know and do this and do that and have some sort of like some toughness or whatever, some weird concepts that I just don't understand anymore.

They don't make any sense to me. Martial arts should be fun. I don't think that there should be anything else. I think as long as you're having fun and you're moving and you're not hurting your training partners, I think that's it. I think everything's good after that.

You mentioned about how you had quote unquote bad habits or Sakuraba had bad habits or your teacher would try to correct you. You're not supposed to do this. You have to do it that way. I remember I took a sales class for personal training.

So now that you know how to be a personal trainer, how do you get clients? How do you keep clients? How do you retain them? And there's videos like that online too that people teach you. And one of the things they talked about is like, even if somebody is doing everything the quote unquote right way,

you should still correct them. It doesn't matter. Correcting them should be regardless of whether they do something quote unquote right or wrong. You correct them because then they will see the value of what they're paying for. So you correct them to see that, oh, this person knows stuff I can't even perceive or see. They're so detailed.

I have to pay them. Wow. And I mentioned that because I've also seen that exact same technique done in martial arts sales videos and instructions where they do have those too, where they teach you how to be better at business for martial arts training. And they will also tell you the same thing.

It doesn't matter if they do something the right way or wrong, where you just correct them. You just correct for the sake of correcting because you feel like... that person will find more value in it. And unfortunately, we are raised in a culture where we are conditioned to value that type of needless

criticism or just like busy work. Right, right, right. That's all that extra busy work. Just do stuff for the sake of doing stuff. And people feel like, oh, I'm getting a value.

Yeah, that's so strange because didn't we get into this because we enjoy it and we enjoy helping others. And so now involving involving the fact that you have to manipulate people in order to do your job well, You know, for me, I can't go home and shut off and be a different person.

The person I am at the gym is the person I am at home. So if I manipulate and mistreat a student and mentally abuse them in order to keep their business, I'm going to go home and be miserable. I'm not going to be able to enjoy anything I do the rest of the day.

And I just can't shut that part of my brain off. So the way I treat folks at PSE, it has to be a way that I'm proud of when I'm driving, you know, making a 30 minute drive to home. I have to be proud of what I've done.

And if I even mess up or I do something that I later on say, oh, maybe I was a little rude here. I was a little short here. I should have answered this. It bothers me. It bothers me and it sticks with me. So I can't imagine purposely...

being manipulative to somebody who is trusting me with their health, with their bodies, with their, you know, with their progress. That's just, that's so slimy to me. And I would never want to operate that way.

You'd make a terrible plastic surgeon then because people will come to you and you'd be like, you look great. You don't need anything.

You're probably right. You're probably right. That'll make my parents feel better that I didn't go into the medical field. I'll let them know that.

All right. So since we're talking about martial arts and since we're talking about politics, let's talk about the main event for UFC 304 between champion Leon Edwards versus challenger Belal Muhammad. When Muhammad beat Gilbert Burns, they should have announced this fight as the next title fight. But instead, they gave the shot to Colby Covington.

They've done Muhammad dirty so many times, like instituting a no flag policy, which was really a no Palestine policy. That's exactly right. The UFC and Endeavor have done as much as they can, not to mention Palestine. Endeavor is actually run by Trump's agent, Ari Emanuel, who is the brother to crooked ass Rahm Emanuel,

who was Barack Obama's chief of staff. Then their father was an Israeli terrorist who bragged about killing children. And rather than being punished, that family kept being rewarded. And you mentioned about how these Israeli Zionist terrorist groups were liberal or leftist, right? Case in point, these same terrorists and their families moved to the U.S.

and some of them are or maybe were considered leftist at one point or are considered liberals and become very powerful liberals. So you have all that going on in this fight. It exemplifies so much of what you're talking about. Talking specifically about the fight, few analysts thought Muhammad had a shot. He was a sizable underdog.

I was in a place where my heart wanted Muhammad to win, but Edwards looked so sharp lately. Yes. My mindset, Edwards... They fought previously, which ended up a no contest for a really bad eye poke. But up until then, Edwards looked sharp. So it makes sense why the odds were for Edwards. I don't even hate those odds.

But then Muhammad dominated. So before we analyze the technical aspect, tell me about your emotions going into this fight, watching it, and then when Muhammad won the decision.

I kind of have to eat my words because for the past, like, Nine months I've been just venting to anyone who will listen about how stupid identity politics are. Yet here I am with Belal walking out to Demi-Palestini and with the Palestinian flag. And I couldn't have been more emotional and more proud.

And I go, okay, there is something. That's how the liberals get us with this identity politics stuff. It was amazing. You know, my father, I was in Ohio teaching some workshops. And so my dad called me. He said, Ramy, is Belal... Muhammad fighting tonight and him and my mother, again, in their 60s,

stayed up and watched the whole fight because that's how much it meant to us. Going up as Palestinians, I would always challenge folks to name one, forget five, forget 10, name one good example of a palestinian you've seen in either a movie you know anything a tv

show anything a book anything and it's a it's a interesting mental exercise because people just rack their brain like huh and they'll try and they'll oh how about this guy no he's south asian or how about this guy no he's uh lebanese and also you know

white passing people don't he's not even seen as arab so the fact that a man named galal muhammad who looks very palestinian who was proud to be palestinian one and did so not hiding his culture. A lot of the folks from my parents' generation, to be successful in America,

they were taught to hide the fact that they're Palestinian. That's why you see a lot of Palestinian businesses called Mediterranean market or Jerusalem this, or it's not Palestinian, it's a little vague, Mediterranean, something a little more socially acceptable. So when you see somebody... proud of their Palestinian identity and put it at the forefront,

it is something that inspires courage in Palestinians. And I hope that inspires Palestinians to be proud of their culture and proud of who they are and where they come from and never to feel ashamed of being Palestinian. And that Like all people, we are capable of incredible things, just as Belal showed us in the main event.

So it was an amazing moment for Palestinians. I mean, every single Palestinian I knew was talking about the fight. People had never spoken about not only MMA, but martial arts or boxing or anything even related to combat sports were texting me and calling me so excited about the fact that a Palestinian

is a world champion in the UFC. So truly an amazing feeling, especially at this time, especially now. How fitting that it's happening now while the world is demonizing Palestinians and killing Palestinians, that a Palestinian kind of rises to the top of an organization, as you said,

which is literally owned by a Zionist who's the son of the man responsible for the King David Hotel bombing. I mean, you can't write this stuff. This is just too incredible.

The people's reactions to this main event and this UFC also shows how there are two factions to Palestine, right? Because people who are complicit or pro-genocide were like, oh, this is the most boring UFC ever. But people who are for Palestine were like, this is the most exciting and important UFC ever, right? Absolutely. Because the opposition,

the Zionists and their allies just want to downplay anything that makes Palestine shine.

Exactly right. Exactly right. I mean, you posted, I believe, on the Southpaw Instagram account, Dana White's face when he was putting the belt on Belal. And that just says, well, I mean, Dana White can't hide what he's thinking. Whatever he's thinking, it's on his face. And he couldn't have been any more upset that Belal was the champion.

He said it was one of the worst UFCs ever, and he was so upset he lowered the performance bonuses.

I'm sure he had to really twist his arm to lower the performance, but I know he loves paying the fighters well, so I don't know what happened there.

Now let's get into the technical side. How did Muhammad win this fight, and how did Edwards lose this fight?

Great question. So I've been lucky enough. I don't want to say train with Belal because I'm far too small to be like a sparring partner for Belal. But the gym I go to for sparring, which is VFS, which we saw the coach Mike Val in his corner. I've seen Belal spar and work and drill.

In fact, he's the team captain there. So when Mike Val, the head coach, is not there, Belal is actually running practices. And that includes when he's in fight camp. And as jovial and as funny, you know, when you see a social media presence, he he creates memes, he trolls in practice.

He is the most serious and focused athlete. He does not joke. Really? No, at all. Like. He is very serious. This is how serious he is. I've been a victim of his serious coaching. So he'll give the room something to do. Let's say it's a sequence or a combination or, hey, your job is to do this.

And then once we're all done or we've practiced it enough, everyone will get quiet. He'll kind of look around, scan the room, and everyone's thinking, please, not me, not me, not me. And then he'll pick a group, a partner. Let's say he'll pick me and my training partner.

Hey, okay, you two, show me what we just worked on. And in complete quiet with 40 other pro fighters watching, you will have to perform whatever, whether it's a drill or a combination or a movement or a tactic, whatever it is, you have to do it repeatedly until he says stop.

And then if he doesn't like what you did, you do burpees while everyone's just sitting there quietly watching you. I remember one time it was we're working on just moving our head. So my training partner, his job was to jab me and it was not to make me look good.

His job was to jab the hell out of me and hit me with every single jab. My job was just to defend myself using mostly like head movement, parries, catches. And he must have had me defending jabs for what felt like an hour, but it's probably, you know, 90 seconds.

And at the end, he's quiet and he goes, very nice. And that felt like getting my hand raised after a pro fight. I got him saying very nice. I was like, yes, because just, you know, 10 minutes ago he had chosen me again and I performed horribly, at least up to his standards.

And I was made to do burpees in front of everyone. So this is me as a 36 year old man, you know, having to do burpees in front of a bunch of 17 to 25 year olds where, you know, most of the fighters at the gym. So yeah, he's a very serious and focused, not only athlete,

But a coach, and an interesting part is he had mentioned Kobe as an example because he was talking about takedowns for MMA. And this was in the gym. So I hope your listeners will enjoy this because it's kind of like some insight that they otherwise might not be privy to.

He always is against shooting from too far away and wrestlers shooting from too far. So he says, look at Kobe. He punches his way into a takedown, especially when he was in his prime and able to execute takedowns much better. He says, get your head in their chest and then shoot.

Because then if you fail, let's say on the double or single, you can clinch with them. But when you shoot from 10 feet away with your head down, your back bent, kind of like Ben Askren was doing in later parts of his career, you're committed to that takedown.

You better finish that takedown or else you're going to be in a bad spot. Um, so he was a big advocate of punching to close distance to get to your takedown because he was not a decorated wrestler. Uh, he's not some amazing wrestler. People think because of his MMA strategy that he's like some very accomplished wrestler.

He is not. Um, he was, I would say by his own admission, he'd say he was a pretty average wrestler. Um, but he really studied MMA wrestling. And one thing that I see him working, working on a lot, which I knew he would use against Leon and he did was shifting. And he constantly will, you know,

fire punches and shift into Southpaw and shift back into orthodox to cover distance. Whereas his opponent is moving back and, you know, let's say in the Southpaw stance, we'll just move back. Belal will shift a lot. So he cuts off the ring in the cage that much better because he utilizes a lot of shifts,

which I feel like maybe a lot of people at that weight class don't do. We famously see fighters like TJ Dillashaw and Dominic Cruz constantly change and shift their stances. And Belal is really, really good at that. I was concerned because when he beat Wonderboy, it was in the smaller apex cage.

So it was easier for him to take Wonderboy to the cage, take him down, put him up against the fence and take him down. This being a main event in a pay-per-view with a bigger cage, I did have some concern.

I was curious as to how he would close the distance on Leon, but he has been working his boxing a lot. And I think we saw that. And he's using a lot of MMA boxing. So he's not just going to a random boxing gym. He's training with Horacio, who's a guy who fought in the UFC,

who understands MMA and the dynamics of MMA very well. So they kind of adapted his boxing as best as they could for MMA. So I think he's just his tactics, his game planning, his footwork. And his toughness, really, he's just very tough. He really is. And I know that's like a broke, everyone is tough.

He truly is tough. He's a workhorse. He's always working after practice. He's always sparring. Like if he's doing kickboxing sparring, he's sparring with people who are better than him in kickboxing. He's just... He's not afraid to quote unquote lose in practice, which I really admire.

Oftentimes, again, he'll spar with people who are better than him in a specific discipline. And you see him improve day by day because of how that humility. He's willing to get beat in practice in order to do well when it counts, which is, you know, of course, in competition.

So it sounds like the story of this fight is Muhammad had these tactics and his strengths to collapse that distance between him and Leon so fast that Leon didn't have enough space or time to not only back up, but back up and evade. He ended up only having time to back up,

which then meant he ran into the fence and Muhammad could then grab him. And once Muhammad grabs him, I think most would agree that that plays more into Muhammad's game than Edwards' game. Absolutely.

And I think, you know, watching the first fight, I believe that there's a clear improvement in Belal's balance, just overall balance as an athlete and a martial artist. Leon was outstriking him in their first bout. And some folks will say like, oh, he was outclassing him on the feet. That might be accurate.

Belal's balance, I feel like has improved so much. So he's always in position to do something. He's always in position to strike or shoot or clinch. He's always has his feet in a good place. So it's like the little things like that, like balance that, you know, it's not glamorous to work on your balance when you're.

20 pro fights in, but his balance is far better than it was. And that gave him more options than before. And I think Leon was surprised by his willingness to strike from the outside in order to close distance. Belal landed a few really clean punches, a good uppercut, many good jabs from what I remember.

And I think that caught Leon by surprise. I think Leon expected Belal to be more of a Ben Askren type of fighter in this. Like, okay, I just got to shoot, or I got to grab his leg, or I got to clinch by all costs. I think he expected a more desperate attempt to close distance,

whereas Belal had a very measured and tactical method to close distance.

So how would you describe Muhammad's striking style? Because it's not typical striking orthodoxy.

No, not at all. It's not pretty. It's not like aesthetically pleasing, whereas Leon is very sharp. His striking is pleasing to the eye. It's beautiful striking. Belal's is effective and his punches are quicker than folks would expect. So he's not, again, it's strange because he's not a fast athlete.

There are people in the gym who are faster than him for sure. He's not a super athlete, but his hands are pretty quick and he uses punches. He uses volume punching when, when he feels he needs to. And I think that can disrupt the rhythm of a striker like Leon.

Leon, you know, if you give him time and space. He will devastate you with high kick like he did to Kamaru Usman or sharp punches or knees. So Belal's goal, I believe, humbly speaking, was to disrupt his rhythm, to disrupt his balance, and to be full of surprises so that Leon, by the end of the fight,

instead of initiating or even looking for specific counters was more like hey okay what's below doing what is this i didn't expect this combination i didn't expect this long you know uh loaded up uppercut from this angle i didn't expect uh you know this take down at this time below's timing

is very awkward, and that serves him very well in fights like this. Whereas a great striker like Leon, they want to pick up your timing, they want to find patterns in order to create ways to disrupt your timing and mess with your patterns. And Belal was kind of all over the place, punching, locking up, shooting, slams.

It was an awkward pace, and I think it was tough for Leon to get his kind of momentum going. And he said after the fight, like, I felt slow and I felt this and I'm sure who knows what was going on. And, you know, he's a great and wonderful and very skilled fighter.

But it seemed like Belal was able to just disrupt his pace and Leon couldn't even get into a groove, so to speak.

So let's talk about how important it is for Muhammad with his style to find the right coach and team, because we know a lot of coaches will try to train Muhammad out of that style and fit him into an orthodoxy. So finding an appropriate coach who won't do that and not only won't do that,

but will help you blossom in your own unique style is really hard.

Absolutely. That's something I really respect about Belal. He's been with VFS for six years. I believe he originally started off at a good gym called Chicago Fight Team. He went to Rufusport for a while. He was living in Milwaukee for a while. I believe he was roommates with Jared Gordon, if I remember correctly.

Belal is somebody who will travel. He's been committed to to mixed martial arts for a long time and will not just stay with a coach out of quote-unquote loyalty, which can be horrible for all sorts of reasons that you're very good at explaining. He looks for the best fit And even now, the team he practices at,

which I see him at the gym, which is VFS, he still has training partners and coaches from other gyms. So he will pick and choose. It's not just, OK, I'm at this gym. So they're coaching staff. They're my corner. No, I want this guy from this gym I used to train at because he understands me.

But I want the head coach from this gym. And of course, he has his longtime mentor, Lewis Taylor, who won the PFL tournament. and won the million-dollar tournament for PFL, that is his MMA mentor from the beginning. And he's been by his side since Belal started fighting at 23 years old.

He got a pretty late start to MMA. He didn't start training mixed martial arts, I don't believe, till he was about 23. Before that, he had just some wrestling. So Lewis Taylor has been an integral, integral part of his progress. And I think when he found Mike Val,

that was the perfect missing piece because Mike Val is more of a striking coach, but unlike a lot of striking coaches in MMA, which is folks, okay, today's combo is this. And now today we're going to work this. He focused a lot on footwork, angles, shifting tactics. His practices are really, really great.

I learned a lot from, um, from going there because it's kind of like at the cutting edge of MMA. You don't feel like you're stuck in a time machine from 2005, like a lot of gyms I visit, the same drills, the same this tough rounds and brutal sparring.

No, it's actually the sparring there is relatively light as compared to other gyms I've been at. For example, I went to Rufus Sport where Belal used to train. I saw somebody get knocked out in sparring and the coach, which was Duke Rufus,

just had two of his guys drag him out of the room like he was a dead body. Like, hey, get this guy out of here. He's knocked out. He's wasting space. So the sparring at VFS is not like that. It's actually very controlled. They have a full cage in there. So people like Belal,

when they have fights coming up, are getting so much time in the cage, moving around. And Mike Val is a really, really, really, really good coach. And I think he's a good coach for Belal, for what Belal needed to become an elite level fighter.

And we can't forget to mention how... Muhammad has been recently, the last several years, training with Habib Nurmagomedov, Islam Mahachev, and their team as well.

Absolutely. And when you hear him talk about those guys, he says that they're on a different level. He will say that Khabib beats him up all the time. And that's so interesting to hear it because Belal's a champ at 170, Khabib is at 155, although he's quite a bit bigger now. Yes, I see him now.

He's enjoying life, which... as he should, all the tiRamysu he can eat now. Belal says Khabib beats him up. He says there are things like rounds don't matter. Like if you're mounted and the round ends, no, you got to get out of mount. So if it takes you 20 minutes to get out of Khabib's mount,

that's what it's going to take you to get out of mount. So I think the balance between the very technical training at VFS and the grueling, mentally tough, exhausting, and brutal training with Khabib that is also very technical because Khabib is very technical and a very skilled fighter. I think the balance of those two, it's been incredible.

And you're absolutely right to point that out, Sam, because the progress he's made since training with khabib and islam uh has really been incredible his mindset his his ability to wrestle in mixed martial arts improved tremendously since working with those guys

Yeah. The main thing I noticed is his ability to hold people down got a lot better after that.

You're right. What a great point. And that's something Khabib was exceptional at. And yeah, Belal's skills on the ground, control on the ground, you know, Belal's never been a very heavy striker in terms of the ground and pound. He stays busy. He stays active. But you're right.

He used to take folks down and they would pop back up. And now he is good at pinning. Right. And that's like underutilized aspect of grappling. We we kind of in jujitsu or in submission grappling kind of laugh at the pin. Ah, that pins don't work. That's just in wrestling.

But being able to keep somebody in a bad position in MMA is extremely important. So, yeah, his ability to pin and to keep somebody underneath him and carrying his weight and tiring them. out is really, really important.

And going back to the point about finding a coach, people think starting martial arts is about finding a coach and having them mold you, but it's really not. You also have to find a coach you're comfortable with who accepts you for you, even politically, because like you said, right,

we don't want to get too much into identity politics, but our identities are political. So it's not about being molded, but finding the right fit. You have to fit with your coach and they have to fit with you. This also applies to the gym culture as well. Maybe that's what makes your gym so great, right?

Even though you don't try, there's a sorting mechanism that happens where people have to fit the culture. And I can't imagine Muhammad finding the same success he has or even staying with MMA this long unless he found people who accepted his Palestinian identity, who weren't going to be Zionist, and also let him fight as himself.

You're absolutely right. Mike, the coach at VFS, is amazing. Just a cool guy. I mean, he's a really nice guy. For the practices there, you have to like, you know, of course you have to try out because it's the pro and amateur team practices. I remember when I went there for the first time,

the room was filled with Bellator, PFL, UFC fighters, and he still made time to talk to me after, talk to me about me joining the team, like gave me the okay. Just a nice, pleasant guy. No tough guy attitude. He kind of lets everybody know be who they are.

In some gyms I go to, Sam, there's kind of a personality that's shared amongst the members. Like they imitate the coach. And I can think, I wish, I already talked some crap about Rufus Sport, which I hope I don't get beat up for. So I'll be quiet.

I mean, if people do some Googling, they could find a lot of horror stories about Rufus Sports and lawsuits and even death manslaughter case. Yes. Fighters, even tough, tough fighters famously leaving, even they thought it was too toxic and abusive there. So you could look into all of that. It's all on the internet.

Hopefully it hasn't been all like deleted by now because a lot of these outlets have gone out of business,

but there's stuff there. When Pat Berry leaves your gym because it's too toxic, that's really saying something.

Yes.

Absolutely right. That says it all. Yeah. No, you're right, Sam. What's cool is that there's a lot of folks from all over the world. Mike Bell will bring in fighters from Chile and different countries in South America because he has a strong connection there. They'll stay with him. He'll take care of them. They'll be there for months.

What is his martial arts background? Muay Thai. Really? Yeah, Muay Thai, believe it or not. mike val is a muay thai guy he went to thailand to train uh he he has good like he does like the almost like the roger mayweather style mitt work so i know he's he's

boxed and has experience uh boxing but i know his his love and first love in terms of martial arts is kickboxing um he used to help train folks at jackson's he used to help train like you know cowboy uh year Rodriguez was his first like a student who you know uh came to prominence

And I think that helped build his ability to kind of branch out on his own and create his own gym was Yair Rodriguez. But yeah, he's a kickboxer. Really cool guy. He runs with his fighters. He hangs out with them all day. He's a family guy. He has kids. And he's just a down-to-earth guy.

I mean, there's no pompous attitude. There's no arrogance. He's just a very humble guy. He doesn't even have a dynamic presence or aura. When he's in the room, if you didn't know any better, you'd think he was somebody's uncle there hanging out. Just a really low-key, nice, sweet guy. Tough coach, of course, but a nice person.

A really nice person.

Muhammad has put on a similar performance in his last 10 fights now. He really turned the corner after his Jeff Neal loss. Why do you think Muhammad is so difficult to fight and beat?

That is a great question. I think Muhammad is obsessed with with being the best and for that, that doesn't mean just building up his own ego or watching Andrew Tate videos repeatedly or something like that to become mentally tough. He is truly obsessed with being the best and that means Spending as much time learning as possible.

He is a student. And that's the, that's the number one thing I'd get from. So he's a student. He defers to other people that people would consider lesser fighters all the time. I've seen it myself. Um, he has a, a good friend of his, um, a Moroccan kickboxer named Adeel Benjalani. He shouted him out after the fight.

um, he has, maybe this guy is not on the level of Belal as far as MMA, but has a good kickboxing background. And Belal always defers to him when it comes to kickboxing. Uh, his friend Horatio, he fought in the UFC and was not very successful in the UFC.

Belal defers to him when it comes to, uh, boxing and boxing for MMA. So he knows, he doesn't just say, he doesn't throw people away or dismiss people because they're not at his level. No, he understands when somebody is knowledgeable about something, even if they themselves are not able to put it into practice as athletes or competitors,

he's really good at finding people who are knowledgeable and he will listen to them. And that's a really cool thing because a lot of fighters who I've seen who have much less skill and much less success than Belal, once they reach a certain point, they only listen to somebody who they, like their head coach or

a top five level UFC fighter. Belal is not like that. He's very honest with his own abilities and he seeks out experts and listens to them and doesn't listen to them in a mindless way where he just, you know, He analyzes everything. He's a true student. He really is. He's a student.

He's someone like you, how you are a student. You're always watching. You watch different sports, and you watch movement, and you put things together. He's like that. He's not quite a Sam Yang yet, but he is on his way. He really likes to understand movement, balance. timing.

So I think his just obsession with always learning and never just following old protocols or repeating old habits. He's always evolving. And when you see his loss to Jeff Neal, just his striking, his defense against striking in that fight. It's night and day, and that is a testament to his continued progress.

And I feel like he's going to continue to get much better as a fighter because knowing him, he is not going to be satisfied with this. He's going to be watching this fight thinking, I could have possibly finished the fight here. I should have done this with my boxing. That's just kind of how he is.

So I think we're going to see continued growth from him as he continues. Now, that's not going to say he's going to win every fight, but I do believe we will see a better version of Belal. But unlike other fighters, he's not going to fall in love with his striking enough to ignore or abandon his wrestling.

Whereas some fighters, you know, they land a few good punches and they're like, okay, all of a sudden I'm a striker now. No, Belal knows where his strengths are and he plays to those strengths while continuing to develop his other skills. the training room does the guy ever get tired you know he's a really active guy he

likes playing sports he likes basketball he likes running like on his off days he'll run these like famous stairs that a lot of fighters go to in the chicago area i think he's just it's very similar to clay guida clay guida was a very act because

i trained with clay guida years ago and he was just very active outside of training he was active he's always moving doing something playing moving whether even if it's something like fishing he's still moving walking around running oh let's play soccer let's i i asked uh clary's brother

jason guida because jason was not like that and he said yeah clary would always like go from wrestling practice then go play soccer with his friends and go play basketball these people just love moving and love being active. And I think Belal is very similar.

Belal's not the type to sit at home and read for four or five hours. He likes to engage and move his body. And I think that helps him just being a very active person. His body is used to a certain workload. Yes, used to a certain workload. Because again, on days that

I would suggest to somebody that, hey, you should probably rest. He'll go and run hills and then do mitt work on top of the hills.

Yeah, you said off day that he ran stairs. I'm like, wait, that's not what off day means.

I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm always shocked. I'm like, wow. Let's say I saw him at the gym. doing rounds and rounds of this type of work and then I'll see him on his rest day and I'll be literally running stairs and then doing mitt work once he reaches the top of the stairs.

I think he is truly obsessed and of course there could be a downside. Of course there's overtraining to the point of damaging your body. I don't know how he feels, like how his body feels or how tired he is, but he is always in shape. I've never seen him like exhausted in the gym.

I've never seen him like collapse on the ground. I've seen many high level fighters who folks would be surprised. I've seen them collapse, you know, from just sheer exhaustion at the end of the practice. I've never seen Belal do that. Never.

Now let's talk about the heavyweight interim champion, Tom Aspinall, in a rematch against Curtis Blades. Blades has this reputation for blowing the big fights, and it happened again. For Aspinall, the majority of his wins have come from first round stoppages. Give me your thoughts about this pretty short fight.

Yeah, you know, Blake Curtis, I actually know way better than I know below. I used to Curtis and I both used to train at Midwest Training Center in Schaumburg and we both even had the same manager for a time. I used to sometimes give Curtis rides home from work and we talk and.

uh you know he's still such a nice guy he like still he didn't go big time on me when he started to fight in the UFC still follows me on Instagram and we're Facebook friends and keep in touch really nice humble guy Curtis gets excited when

he lands a punch and when he landed that punch on Tom he started throwing hooks and Tom was throwing straight punches and straight punches will get there faster than hooks and I believe now looking back that once Curtis hurt him with a punch, that he should have immediately took him down while he was disoriented.

Because they were clinched, right? Yes. He hurt him. Instead of falling down, Aspinall grabbed him to clinch and recover. And so there was that sequence.

And that's kind of like the Achilles heel of Curtis. I think he is physically capable of being champion. I think he could have beaten Tom. I sincerely believe that. But I think tactics and also falling in love with his striking.

I didn't want to admit it, but when I was mentioning folks who kind of fall in love with their striking. Curtis was the first person that came to mind because I do remember when Curtis' striking was abysmal. And this was even at his pro career. Even to the point where me as a bantamweight,

I used to spark with Curtis standing up and not die, which shouldn't happen. Now he would kill me, of course. Trust me, I'm not delusional about my abilities. He would kill me. But that's how rudimentary his striking was at a certain point. And this was while he was at a professional level, a low-level local level.

But when he moved to Colorado, he found fantastic coaches who really did develop his striking. And I just feel like he got too excited about his striking, whereas that wouldn't happen to a Belal. Belal is hyper-focused. He is very realistic with his abilities.

And I think Curtis felt like he could knock out Aspinall, which, of course, potentially he can. At heavyweight, anyone can knock out anyone. So he's not wrong to think that. But I feel like he was wrong not to play to his strengths, which is his wrestling on the ground. He has vicious elbows, vicious ground and pound.

He could stop the fight at any time with his ground and pound and his elbows. And I wish we would have had a chance to see that because Curtis is far better than what he showed in that fight. And so his striking was just not on the level of Tom's and, you know, props to Tom, who's

Great punching. He followed through with very good killer instinct. Stayed completely aggressive. Did not give him a chance to recover. And yeah, I like Curtis a lot. He's a really great guy. And I feel like he could do well if he focused on his strengths. Use your striking to get the fight to the ground where you excel.

And hopefully he makes those adjustments. I think he will based on a few comments he made after the fight. He admits, hey, I got excited. I landed a decent punch. And so I started swinging. He's a better boxer, so he's throwing crisp, straight punches, throwing hooks. He landed first. Curtis Chin is okay,

but it's not the greatest at heavyweight, so he is susceptible to getting knocked out when getting hit clean, which, again, at heavyweight, I feel like that could happen to anyone if your name isn't Mark Hunt.

Yeah. And something you mentioned earlier about Muhammad against Jeff Neal, how Muhammad, his balance wasn't great. And that's something I noticed in this fight with Curtis Blades is when he threw a punch and then Aspinall countered him with a straighter, shorter punch. He landed the first one, but it wasn't like a super strong punch.

And then the overhand came right after, but Blades lost his balance and he was already falling over. So I'm sure he was stunned, but he wasn't like knocked out. It was the second punch that should have knocked him out. But then in the replay, you realize it missed because Blades had lost his balance.

So going to your point, right? Having good balance not only gives you opportunities for your own offense, but in this situation, having good balance also helps you stay on your feet and eat a better punch.

You're right. And something you'll notice with Curtis is he now has this footwork style, which is impressive for a heavyweight where he's kind of very light on his feet. He bounces a lot. But again, I think that's the issue when you teach like, okay, this is how you move.

Well, sometimes it's better to have your feet connected to the ground, right? You'll have better balance with your feet flat. I'm not saying people shouldn't be on their toes, but I'm thinking it should be situational. When I teach, I always teach that your stance isn't a fixed thing.

It's not like, okay, here's my stance and either we go down like this or we win like this. No, your stance should change based on the situation. So once you get hurt or something, you know, you should root yourself to the ground. Curtis has good balance.

He used to be flat footed and be connected to the ground and this wouldn't happen. Now he's kind of fallen in love with this bouncing, almost like he's a lightweight guy, you know, in and out. And when you're hurt, that's very difficult to do, especially when you haven't been doing it since childhood,

when you kind of learn this movement as an adult. And, yeah, I agree. His balance definitely – or lack of balance while he was hurt definitely led to him losing that fight for sure. That was definitely a big factor.

Yeah, because at heavyweight, especially somebody as big as Tom Aspinall, even if you're not out, once they get on top of you, their weight is on top of you. Heavyweight is really hard to get back up because another big heavyweight is on your back. And if you're flat –

they probably can pound you out just because you just can't move. They're just too heavy. It's your own body weight and their body weight on top of you. But to your point about balance and how maybe back in the day he had better balance i think a great point

is his first fight with francis and ganu where his striking was terrible but man he was eating some of and ganu's best punches like you know just eating them right i think he it finally got stopped for like what like his face was too swollen or something like that yeah yeah as a poor striker

Because he had better balance, because he was more rooted, he was able to eat better punches than now as a light on his feet, better striker, he can't eat those same punches.

You're absolutely right. And when I see a lot of his training now, it's a lot of very complicated combinations that involve a lot of It'll be like a 16 strike combination with a shift with this. And it looks very impressive, but again, it's more aspirational in my humble opinion.

It's something that's like, here, look what I can do. But is that the most effective way for you to fight? So sometimes our aspirations, I want to fight like this. I want to look like this. That can almost be a setback in a way rather than, okay, Or at least when the coaching should, and again,

this isn't just to pick on Curtis, this is just a general thought. I feel like we should teach folks that when you're hurt, you need to be rooted to the ground. When you're fresh and you want to move, go ahead, move and be confusing and use feints and fakes. When you're hurt,

you need to be connected to the ground because the less good your balance is, the more likely you are to fall or to get hit and be knocked down. And like you said, Once a heavyweight is on top of you, I mean, a lot of people were saying it was an early stoppage.

I'll always take an early stoppage over a late stoppage. I always am concerned about the health of the fighters. So I don't want to see Curtis eat 30 unanswered punches on the ground. And yes, I agree. As his striking increased in ability,

he did lose a little bit of that ability to be flat-footed and connected to the ground, and that definitely played a part in his loss for sure.

Yeah, looking it up again, in his first fight against Francis Ngannou, it was a doctor stoppage. So it wasn't that he was knocked out. He was just too beat up, and the doctor wouldn't let him get out there again. But I was like, man, this guy has an indestructible chin. That's what I used to think back then.

And maybe he's a little shop-worn now also, but I think now, knowing what I know, having sparred so much, having trained a lot of people too, balance really helps you take a punch.

Absolutely. Absolutely right. Yep. I mean, even when you think of the guys like Mark Hunt, you know, think of his footwork, right? Flat footed, great balance, low to the ground. It's much easier, right? It's much harder to, if you have like a tennis ball or a pencil, one is much easier to snap, you know,

with force and balance. Curtis Blades kind of upright on his toes, bouncing. Yeah, it's much easier to knock somebody down who's moving like that. You're absolutely right.

Let's talk about Paddy Pimblett versus King Green. This was another short fight. Green was the favorite, but didn't look like it in this fight. What happened?

I was really shocked at the takedown. I wanted Green to win I wanted King Green to win because i love watching him fight because i love fighters in the ufc who have a unique style it's not the cookie cutter okay average or mediocre boxing with some low kicks and some decent you know high school

level wrestling and a purple or brown belt in jiu-jitsu like there's kind of like a So many fighters, they kind of fight in a very certain, specific way. And I love fighters who are unique. And I love watching King Green's footwork. And I love fighters who fight with their hands down because it requires a lot of

creativity and a lot of skill and a lot of good timing and head movement. So I'm just very confused as to why he shot that takedown. um i don't know if he did it to prove a point but immediately when he shot he was immediately put in that triangle choke within seconds and i was like you know

screaming at the while i'm watching the fight why why did you shoot um just a horrible tactical decision i thought based on the jared gordon fight that if King Green were to use distance to use his jab to be frustrating i think he is a superior striker to Paddy

And I thought he could have won a decision just by outpointing him, just, you know, popping him with jabs, moving out of range, kicking at his knee, jabbing, fainting fake. I thought he could have put on a beautiful performance. And I know he is capable and could have. But we're talking about tactics.

That was probably the worst thing he could do was to shoot that double leg takedown from that distance against somebody who is far better than him.

um at most aspects of grappling i think and you've probably felt this every time you've sparred whether it's striking mma or grappling but sometimes there's a certain inertia there's like momentum right you're like man i probably have to put in very little effort to finish this takedown because i'm kind of like falling towards this guy anyway

Right.

Like, I think it kind of happened off of a trip, but there was gravity. And then it did look like Paddy wasn't in a good place to sprawl. And he actually wasn't. Right. Right. So Green was like, yay, this is a freebie. I have too much momentum instead of fighting that momentum. Right.

And using discipline where I'm going to stick to a game plan. You're like, fuck it. I'm going to get this takedown for free because I have all this momentum coming into it. I barely have to put any energy into this. Right. And Paddy was like, I can't fight this takedown because I'm in a bad spot.

I'll just go for a guillotine. And then he did. And then he transitioned to the triangle off of that because he had King Green's arms tied up in a way that gave him access to that triangle. Right. Because the arm was tied up. Right. So he basically already wrapped up and had an arm.

He just had to get the legs over. Maybe you could speak to that. Have you ever felt like, oh, we're already kind of like flowing and rolling this way. He's kind of falling backwards. I'm kind of falling forward. Let's just go for it and see what happens. And sometimes that works out great.

And then sometimes so much momentum is going, you can't even stop yourself. And then you just end up in a triangle or something.

absolutely you know or you you know you shoot and you get swept immediately because you you know put too much effort you're like i gotta get this shot and then boom or

you know a hip toss foot sweep oh my it happens all the time i think foot sweeps cannot happen unless you just over commit to something because you're like i'm

feeling this you're exactly right i've i've had this happen to me so many times so i understand Bobby doing this. I know in hindsight, I know he has to be or pardon me, King Green. He has to be kicking himself watching this footage. Like, why did I do this? But you're right when you're in the moment.

It might have felt right. And King Green is a fighter who goes on feel, right? His whole style is about how he feels at that particular moment.

And I don't think he respected him either. So he's like, worst case scenario, whatever he does, I could get out because he sucks.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Because confidence is such an important part of King Green. He wouldn't be as successful as he is if that confidence wasn't there. But... Again, that may be an overconfidence, right? Not understanding that Paddy is formidable on the ground and is very aggressive on

the ground and does look to finish on the ground and has submitted quite a few people in mixed martial arts. So I wish we could have seen a longer fight. I would have loved to see how that would have played in the second and third round. I do believe King Green is very capable.

of beating Paddy um and i was just hoping for a longer fight i love watching King Green's style i love watching his unique approach to mixed martial arts it's it's fun it's refreshing it's creative and uh i hope we see more fighters have kind of these dynamic

flowy styles because it's just beautiful to watch and it's inspiring but yeah just the bad technique at a bad time and that's the game sometimes you know I like him and I hope he bounces back from this because I really enjoy I've been enjoying

watching King Green for a long time he's one of my favorite fighters in the UFC actually I love his footwork I love the bravado it's just very inspiring and it's very fun to watch That's the danger of flow, right? You could just flow yourself right into a triangle. The mission. You're absolutely right. Yeah, that's very true.

Whereas somebody like Belal would never, he doesn't care about that flowing, right? He's like, no, I'm not putting myself in this position. I need to be in an optimal position at all times. Straight to business. Straight to business.

Exactly right. Then there was Gregory Rodrigues versus Christian Leroy Duncan. This was a fun but brutal fight.

what did you think of this fight brutal was is the right word um Rodrigues is such a imposing fighter he seemed much bigger he seemed physically stronger um he seemed pretty comfortable on the feet and he was very aggressive um his opponent had some

slick elbows and the timing of his elbows was really really cool to to see but just a brutal fight and uh Props to his opponent for surviving all three rounds. There were several points where I'm like, oh, that's it. He's done. And his ability to prevent being submitted or TKO'd was really, really impressive.

But Rodrigues, he's a sleeper. I didn't pay too much attention to him before this fight. I know he's a good fighter, but Yeah, just very strong, very aggressive, constantly going for either takedowns or attacks. And with his jujitsu, I mean, the fact that he's so fearless on the feet,

it's a really unique thing to see somebody that talented on the ground also be that brutal on, on the feet and that aggressive, uh, on the feet. It's the opposite of somebody like Demian Maia, right? Like, okay, I got to get you to the ground.

And my whole game is about getting you to the ground and then you're done. But on the feet, you're not in any danger. And now we're seeing a lot of jujitsu athletes. Uh, you know, Jacare was one who had, you know, would go for it on the feet, very aggressive and,

could knock you out and that's always a dangerous style that that type of style is very dangerous to deal with where you're in trouble on the feet you're in trouble on the ground and i'm a physical fighter i'm very strong my wrestling is decent

these fighters are really tough to deal with something i want to clarify for listeners because i recently had this talk with lma practitioners i work with which was that being a professional fighter doesn't automatically mean you're a technician Being a fighter, more than anything, means you're tough and you're sticking with this.

And as far as qualities, toughness is the most important quality. How this relates to this fight is because regardless of who the striker is supposed to be, A grappler can get on even terms with most strikers because most strikers won't be technicians. They will just be tough.

And if you can get competent in striking and you're extremely tough and durable, you're on par with most strikers you will face. There is this assumption that if your primary art is striking, you will eventually become Anderson Silva the longer you train. No, you won't.

So how did Rodrigues hang with a tough striker and also beat them up striking? Because he also became a tough striker. You really don't need years of training or have to start as a baby to become a tough striker. That's just the reality. So being a striker longer than your opponent is only meaningful if you are way

tougher and more durable than them and or you're a technician. I tell LMAs all the time not to be afraid that someone's going to bust the matrix on them, even if they've had a lot of amateur or even pro experience.

Having fought a lot just means they're tough, but they most likely won't levitate and end up behind you. If they are like Anderson Silva, they'd also already be fighting in one or UFC or in Thailand or something that in a point Muay Thai competition.

So there is this fear like, oh my God, they've been training longer than me. Like they're going to be like, yeah, because of the things you see in a movies or people like Anderson Silva, you think everybody's going to be Anderson Silva. And it's like, no, you could get really far just by being tough.

And that is the easier path. And so a lot of people. who are fighters are tough and a slight groove of them are also tough and a technician.

What a great point. What came to mind immediately was Floyd Mayweather's toughest fight in the later part of his career, which was Marcos Medana, who gave him a much tougher fight than a more skilled fighter like Miguel Cotto or even Manny Pacquiao. Marcos Medana, by virtue, of course, having skill as a professional boxer, but

toughness a lack of fear and a brutal and powerful overhand right gave floyd a lot of problems and roughing him up in the clinch and throwing elbows and you know you already fired her i mean he's tough he's super tough and floyd didn't intimidate him

And in their first bout is what I'm referring to, he gave Floyd an extremely tough fight. But I mean, if you watch them on the mitts or watch them sparring, it's night and day. Floyd is far superior in terms of technical striking skills. So what a great point. You're absolutely right.

That's something that, yeah, that's a really amazing thing. I'm going to share that with my students as well because you're absolutely right. What a fantastic point.

Yeah, I think maybe you don't have this fear, but a lot of up and coming and beginner and novice martial artist fighters, they have this fear like, oh my God, this guy is going to be like Anderson Silva and I'm going to be like styled on.

And it's like, no, man, if they do beat you, it might be like they just eat punches way better than you. And, you know, like they just get you into a firefight and, you know, it just is what it is. But there's a reason why there's only one Anderson Silva, you know,

it's like they're diamonds in the rough. You're not going to run into them like all the time like that. Right. And I think people are afraid of that. And so they needlessly scare themselves.

That's a fantastic point. You're absolutely right. And we kind of ignore how important toughness is at this level because you're right. I mean... Belal is a great example of that he's not nearly as technically proficient as Leon and has been striking far less than Leon has but he was finding success on the feet

because he was tough fearless aggressive and wasn't intimidated so yeah you're right I'm thinking about all the fights that your principle applies to and it's such a great point you're right if you're a

pressure fighter and you come forward you have to be fearless because just by the type of style you have you will be eating punches more than somebody who's like more evasive or whatever it's just the nature of it no matter how defensive you are

you're just walking towards their fists that is a style that will afford more punch eating right so you have to be fearless so of course Belal Muhammad to even implement the style he has to be tough and fearless because only those type of people can do that like somebody who breaks easily somebody

who's always injured like Dominic Cruz he cannot do the style if he just walks over I think he has a good chin but like his legs or his body would break right right Now let's finish out by talking about the last fight on the main card, Arnold Allen versus Giga Chikadze.

Ramy, tell me what you thought of this fight.

I really enjoyed this fight. I enjoyed Chikadze's striking. I loved how quickly he could fire kicks as if they were jabs almost. I really liked the fact that he kept moving the whole time. You could see he had a clear strategy as far as footwork. And Allen is a very tough fighter.

Again, I think Chikadze is the more technical and skilled striker. So that goes to your point. Allen was fearless and continued to press and move forward and did eat some big strikes, especially in the first round. So even though he'd lost, I really enjoyed watching I loved his kicks, his timing, his straight right.

I loved how he doesn't telegraph his strikes. They're kind of just there. Boom, there's his strikes. And I like watching that as somebody who enjoys striking. But it was an impressive fight. on both ends. And that's why I always enjoy watching the lighter weight fighters so much more. I mean, they're just much more skilled, much sharper.

I learn more by watching them. And of course, I'm a smaller athlete, martial artist myself. So perhaps there's bias, but I truly believe that. the most skill you will see is going to be at the lighter 155 and below is where you're going to see the true skill in mixed martial arts at its highest level. I mean,

if somebody like Henry Cejudo was a heavyweight, there's nobody who would be able to beat him, right? With that power and that footwork, I mean, he'd be unstoppable. So I really enjoy... What did you think about the shift in Alan's tactics after the first round? He seemed almost discouraged and a little bit like not mentally defeated,

but you could tell it was getting to him. But then he went on to win the fight. What adjustments do you think he made or what tactics did he adjust to pull out the win?

So I was going to say that, like you, I really enjoyed this fight because of their styles and how both fighters approached this fight and how they adapted. Chikaze is touted as the technician or what I call the matrix-like fighter. But beating him strategically for Arnold Allen was ultimately really simple, right? By the second round,

he really figured out, hey, I just walk forward and to the right and I just make Chikaze work and he's going to get really tired and I'm going to eventually get close to him and start hitting him. And that's what happened. And I think the adjustment wasn't a tactical one.

I think it was a psychological one where he just had to hear from his coaches or to himself what wasn't working in round one. If you just stick to it, it's going to work round two and three. And I think that's what happened. It's like, maybe I should change tactics. You know, it's the opposite.

Sometimes people feel like I need to make an adjustment when I go into the next round. Whereas this one is more like, no, it's stick-to-itiveness. Just stick to what you're doing and trust it. And trust is such a hard thing because when you don't trust, you just want to constantly change.

And maybe the game plan is working, just not yet. You just need to give it time, right? And I think that's what ended up happening is it's the same game plan, but when maybe less tougher fighters or people who don't have the same mentality as Arnold Allen would have given up on it,

Arnold Allen didn't give up on it and it eventually paid off. That was my read of it.

Ah, that's really interesting. Cause you're right. Chikadze had a, there was a urgency in his footwork. He really wanted to maintain distance and you could see because when Arnold Allen got close to him, he almost ran backwards, right? Or ran or circled extremely quickly.

So you could see that his strategy or what he found in the fight was that I need to keep distance and strike from the outside. And I remember, uh, Alan's coach for us saying you need to throw multiple punches because the sharper striker, especially when he's counter fighting, it's easy. You throw one strike. Okay.

Wherever you're open, that's where I'm going to fire. Right? So for us said you need to throw like two or three punches, right? Because of the sharpshooter from the outside, that's what they want. Whatever it is you throw, there's some sort of opening there. Um, and so you're right. Alan being more aggressive and closing distance, um,

That pace and that footwork is very tiring. It's like he's running, and I don't mean running in terms of he's afraid or scared. I mean literally, in terms of movement, his body is running the whole time. So he's in a constant state of movement, which is fatiguing. And Alan is... He's very, very tough.

I remember the Max Holloway fight. I mean, he's a very tough fighter. He's not afraid of taking punishment or taking punches. And once again, that goes back to your point from earlier that the less skilled striker in Arnold Allen was able to defeat a much sharper striker, in my opinion.

If they were to compete in a kickboxing match, I think Chikadze would win. But I really like how Arnold really pressured him. And sometimes when you see the less experienced striker after the first round, then they become more tentative, right? Because they're like, okay, well now I don't want to get hit by these shots.

So let me just stand back here. And then they become easier prey for the more technical striker who's comfortable fighting from the outside. But yeah, that pressure was very tough. for Chikaze to deal with. And I want to see more of Chikaze. There's probably some great matchups for him at that weight class.

I really like his fighting style. And maybe he was the one that needed to change tactics. I wonder what he could have done differently because I believe that he could have won that fight had he adjusted. But right now, I'm sure you have an idea what adjustment or what could he have done to potentially win that fight.

I don't know if it's a tactical thing. I want to talk a little bit more about what Allen was doing well, which was so simple because the commentators, they always love talking about, they need to cut off the ring and Arnold Allen's not doing a good job cutting off the ring. He's just following him.

And it's like, you know, cutting off the cage, cutting off the ring is not the end all be all. And sometimes you don't even want to cut them off. Why? Because if you don't cut them off and don't trap them, you give them all this room to move, to run, right?

And if you give them room to move and you keep giving it to them, they're going to keep running themselves ragged and tired, right? So if you cut them off, they're not going to get tired. If you let them escape, they're going to keep getting more and more tired. And then even without cutting them off,

you'll still be able to start punching them because they're dead tired. Something you brought up about how they were doing kickboxing is going to be completely different. Even though they never shot a takedown that never went to the ground. Because kickboxing, three rounds, three minutes, right? And so here's the thing.

Somebody can seem tough or they can seem one way or another in the first three minutes. But in kickboxing, you never see what they're like after the three minutes. What are they like in five minutes? The first three minutes we know. The two minutes after that, kickboxing will never show you. Right. So...

If Arnold Allen fought him in kickboxing rules... he won't get the chance to find that out about Chikaze. So it will be a different fight. So if they fought a kickboxing and Arnold Allen lost, you would just think Arnold Allen sucks. But it's because kickboxing didn't afford Arnold Allen to show you what he could do

to him in the minutes after the third minute. So that's another aspect.

You're absolutely right. And the extra two minutes makes a world of difference. And I remember when I had my first pro fight, the five minute round, as opposed to The three-minute round in amateur MMA, it was night and day. I mean, I was completely exhausted after the first round.

The first time I went past the first round, I was exhausted. And it's, yeah, you're right, because it's easy to start sharp. And in kickboxing, that's why you see that high pace and that high volume, because three three-minute rounds for a well-conditioned fighter, you can maintain that.

But you're right, three five-minute rounds is very, very difficult for anybody, especially at that pace. So Yeah, that's very true. And I never thought about that in terms of cutting off the ring and chasing. So by chasing Chikaze, Arnold Allen allowed him to tire himself out.

Whereas if he were slowly and methodically cutting off the ring and slowly limiting his movements and his options... Chikadze would have had more energy to throw powerful strikes, which could have ended up obviously to Arnold's detriment. So that's a really great point.

And I feel like that's the type of thinking and analysis we need in mixed martial arts. And I feel like that's sorely missing, right? And that's a really, really, really good point. And I feel like That's why, you know, your students are lucky because just being a thoughtful coach and really thinking

of martial arts and fighting in this way. And sometimes it's the simple things like what you just said. It's so simple. Why don't we all think like, why don't we all think like that, right? Because we're taught these things. same general principles hey cut off the ring don't chase uh you know you're gonna

blah blah blah you're gonna give him room to circle out and okay well let's give him room to circle out he's gonna get tired by constantly circling and pivoting and

moving that's a fantastic point it's path dependency we're adopting and projecting strategies from boxing which is three minute rounds to five minute rounds and a much bigger fighting area So if you let somebody escape in boxing, right, it's a smaller surface,

so they're not going to get as tired and they only have to escape like that for a shorter duration. So you can't see the real payoff of letting them escape. Whereas in MMA, you can't see that. Absolutely right. Length makes a difference. The material conditions make a difference.

And so with Chikadze, you asked me about what he would do different. And I don't know if it's a tactical thing. I think it would be a tall task for a coach or a trainer because now you're trying to deal with partially how he's been conditioned because he's conditioned for three,

three minute rounds and his body and his mind has been conditioned for that for years, maybe his whole life. And if he did point karate before that, the rounds were even shorter. So he's always been used to shorter durations. So how do you change that this late in the game?

But also, Chikadze reminds me a lot of Edson Barbosa. He's a great kicker, but he has a lot of nervous energy. Yes. Which means he'll be super fast in round one, which is the good part of fight or flight. But then fight or flight makes you really tired and has you backing up a lot in the

cage later on if you don't finish somebody, and that's what happened. It's not just about what Shikaze can do on the back foot. I'm sure he can do everything on the back foot. I'm sure he can even fight in the pocket and probably does in the gym all the time.

But when you're in fight or flight, you lose half the stuff you know, so it doesn't matter. You lose a lot of your executive function. Fight or flight can make you lightning quick in round one, right? You could see sometimes how like even the more scared fighter, the one we have to try not to hurt,

they might accidentally hurt you because they're so fired up, so excited, so much in that fight and flight response. They might just explode at you and hurt you because they couldn't even control their actions and their movements. It was too quick. It was all that nervous energy. But you look like a different person in the later rounds,

especially when there's psychological pressure. Pressure is just not this physical me coming forward. It's also psychological. And Allen put that pressure on him. Backing up is psychological, and it takes a lot of composure to back up and remain calm and fight. Anybody can back up and fight nervous.

But backing up and trying to stay calm and then picking your shots, even Leon Edwards couldn't do that. So I have a question for you now. As a coach, what do you do? Maybe not with a Giga Chikaze who's so conditioned, right? That's a different task because he has so much to unlearn,

but somebody who's just starting out who has a lot of nerves or fight or flight. How do you deal with that in your gym?

Yeah, that's a great question. I try to get to the source of the nerves. Is it the simple fact that they are afraid of getting hit? If so, that's a perfectly reasonable fear, right? No one... wants to get hit so if it's that they're afraid of contact and they're afraid of

getting hit or maybe it's that they see i notice some people see getting hit as a failure on their part like if they get hit during sparring they did something wrong and they messed up and they're so hesitant so some folks are perfectionists some

folks are there's just fear which is a reasonable fear um i do a lot of different things that I think one will kind of get people used to seeing strikes come at them and also let them know that you can do okay, you don't always have to move back and move away.

So we do like fun things like we do something called like the Ali game where, you know, you put your hands down, and your training partner is at a safe distance where they can't actually hit you. But they throw punches at you. And you know, it's, of course, they're not trying to hurt you.

And sometimes they're even the punches are six inches away from you. But you just have to continue dealing with the visual of punches coming at your face. After a while, because the game has to be played with your hands down, you can't cover up. After a while, you see people start to relax, move their shoulders.

They start to pull. They start to slip. Even intuitively, they start kind of moving. And so it kind of shows them. And then we do that game. Okay, now you can have your hands up. And then I noticed that now... That fear and that anxiety, it's not it's not as prominent because they've told themselves, hey, I'm OK,

I'm fine. And even if I do get hit, it's not that big of a deal. So we kind of progress from there and then we'll add, OK, now your partner can, you know, actually tap you. Like, so if you're open, you're going to get just tapped. And they realize that.

The fear of getting hit is often worse than the actual strike itself. It's our anxiety about the strike that I think is the worst part to deal with. Because, you know, when you fight, you get hit, you know, oftentimes you don't even feel it. The adrenaline takes care of it.

You could tell like that was a big punch or that was a heavy strike, but there's not the pain that we would expect as, you know, somebody watching fighting or not understanding what it's like. For me, personally, a lot of it is the fear of getting hit or sometimes it's even the fear of looking

stupid if I get hit, if I really wanna be honest, right? So I try to find out why are there these nerves and how can I address the source of it? Because there's usually some way we can address it. Is it they're afraid of contact at all? In that case,

it's my job to get them more comfortable with that first very light contact and to build up their confidence so that if you want to be a Chikadze type fighter and you constantly want to move and circle, perfectly fine. But I want them to know that if you get...

put up against the cage and there's no way to move, you have enough defensive ability where you don't have to panic. And that's where I see with a lot of fighters who depend on distance and space is once that distance and space is taken from them, there's a sense of panic.

And so I feel like they've been playing too much to that strength of maintaining distance and they do need to spend some time being uncomfortable. Just like, you know, a wrestler in mixed martial arts should spend time on their back and getting out of mount and being taken down because

some wrestlers when they are taken down they're in a state of panic and they will do something you know fundamentally wrong like they'll turn on their stomach for example right because they just i need to get up i got taken down so i feel like

that's a such an open-ended question i do try to because we have small classes at my gym and it's my private we have a certain amount of people who could train each class because i like to focus on each person i try to kind of figure out what is causing that anxiety and that fear

And it's my job to figure out that puzzle. What can I do to make them more comfortable? Is it a flinch reaction where they're always closing their eyes when anything comes at them? Then we're going to play different games and do different stuff. They're going to work with me.

And I'm going to get them more comfortable with the visual of strikes coming at them. Because this might be a very tough person who can take the actual contact, but they are afraid of the strike coming at them. So those are two different things. I found myself in that boat. If I got hit, I'd be okay.

But when the punches were coming at me, I was terrified. Like, oh my God, this is overwhelming. It's intense. And so, you know, in a lot of gyms I've been to, when you're like that, like, okay, we need to do a lot of hard sparring. And that's silly because I'm not trying to condition my brain.

I'm trying to be more comfortable when strikes are coming at me. So I feel like it's our job as coaches to make the students more comfortable in bad situations and let them know that you're actually practicing going to be okay once we've developed a certain amount of skill.

And it's actually our anxiety and our fear that is causing this very strong reaction to the strikes coming at you. Because I've seen very few people come in and just be okay with getting hit. I mean, everyone, almost everyone starts off with a really strong flinch reaction.

You know, they look away, they close their eyes, they reach their hands in front of their face. These are strong you know uh instincts we feel because for example closing our eyes that's to keep us safe when there's a sandstorm right like these are evolutionary things that

are ingrained in us and it's tough to to defeat them and they serve a purpose you don't want somebody to be completely calm when something dangerous is you know near them right you want them to have some sort of fear So that's something I feel like I'm always trying to devise, you know,

new and fun ways that take away the pressure and without being like, oh, you're a coward or you're you're fearful of this. So that just means you're not brave. I don't think that's the case. I just think that there's a it's a puzzle and I try to find a different way for

each person to address the root cause of that fear and that anxiety. How do you keep the fire alive for training? I really emphasize fun rather than performance. And I used to emphasize performance more. So if I had a bad day and let's say sparring, or I got tapped out by somebody who has less experience,

or an amateur fighter beat me up, and I'm a pro fighter, I should be able to beat up the amateur. If I would really just It would ruin my day. It would make me hesitant to go back to training. And now I emphasize fun. I emphasize having specific goals like, okay,

today I really want to work and see if I could pull off this technique. Or I want to see if I can work southpaw the whole session and feel comfortable. I give myself these ideas. little mini goals that only i know about and i try to meet them and that way even

if i do get beat up okay if my goal was to you know spar six rounds in southpaw and uh you know let's say not get taken down even if i'm beat up and blah blah blah okay i sparred six rounds in southpaw and i didn't get taken down so i i i did well

today i'm proud of that um but the main thing now i feel like at this stage of my martial arts journey is I want to play and I want to have fun. And as an adult, there's so few opportunities for us to play, right? Cause it's seen as childish to, to play.

I can't go to a playground and swing on the swings. I'll probably get the, you know, the police called on me. I don't have any kids. So I, I have to find, you know, for me, martial arts is my, it's my plate. It's the way I enjoy myself. It's the way I don't play instruments. I can't sing.

I'm not a great dancer. This is how I express my creativity. This is how, you know, in a shadow box, that's me being creative and expressing myself. So I just try to perform martial arts so that it's an authentic representation of who I am as a person.

And I find it to be easier to maintain that than to, okay, today in sparring, you know, to have fear-based goals. I can't get tapped out today, or I'm not going to get, you know, outstruck by this person. Then you're just driving to the gym with a sense of dread and fear and anxiety.

And you have disappointment when you don't meet those, those goals. So I noticed when I have fun, when I'm enjoying the movement, even little things, Sam, like when I'm enjoying the music, you know, I always update our playlist. We have thousands of songs, different playlists. I try to enjoy everything about the gym. I try to

make sure I'm enjoying the music, moving, that I'm feeling good, that I'm enjoying the footwork that i'm doing i just try to i am more of like a flow like a King Green uh type of martial artist at this point and i'm just having so much fun

developing that sort of style like my movement my i try to have my fighting style mimic my personality and i just for me it's like almost like uh felt you know sounding pretentious or anything it's like uh i try to be an artist i'm trying to

create something i'm trying to create something cool that i that i enjoy and that i'm I'm proud of. And when I look at training through that lens, rather than this like win or loss, fail or succeed, good or bad type of mentality, I have more fun and I actually end up training more.

So therefore, even if my goal is to become better at martial arts, I am becoming better because I'm training more and I'm enjoying it and I'm not skipping out practices because I'm afraid of getting my ass kicked. I'm enjoying it. Even if I get my ass kicked, I'm still enjoying the training and that keeps me coming back.

I really do look forward to every single training session. The only things I don't look forward to is dealing with a one-on-one client that I'm not a huge fan of spending time with. I'm like, okay, here we go. you know, got to pay the bills. And that's when I'm not fully enjoying myself.

But when I'm teaching a group class or sparring with my students or rolling, I'm truly having a blast and I'm enjoying myself and I'm not taking it too seriously because it's hard to take my performance at PSE seriously when you factor in what my people are going through right now. It's tough

Oh man, I really should have got that armbar today and be stressed about it for two or three days. It just seems silly. So yeah, I'm very lucky to be in the position I am to be able to play and have fun and to move as a career. And I never want to take that for granted.

And as soon as I lose sight of that, as soon as it stops becoming fun... I'll do something else. I do this because I love it. I remember Sakuraba saying that I do this because I love it. And that always stuck with me. I do this because I love it.

And as soon as that stops being true, I'll find something else I love and I'll, I'll do that too. I'm not attached to this as this is who I am. I remember when I, lost my first pro fight I you know I'm three in one as a pro and I remember when I

lost my first pro fight I felt like part of my identity was taken away because I put so much of my identity in the fact that I was a up-and-coming undefeated pro fighter and then when that was done it was like well who am I now I don't even know

who I am I'm somebody who lost I'm a loser and you know when you have that fragile of an ego and your happiness is based on you know the result like that Every fight is miserable. Everything is miserable. Because you're like, okay, if I win, I'm okay. Dodge that one. If I lose, I suck.

And people are going to lose respect for me. And people are going to be disappointed. We just put so much pressure on ourselves. And I think, okay, in 100 years, who's going to remember anybody's record? Who's going to remember in 200 years, anyone going to care what Anderson Silva's amateur MMA record was? None of this is really...

that important in the end of things we only we care and that's something my friend alias who you know who's my jiu-jitsu coach he always tells me before i compete in grappling he's like Ramy just so you know as a reminder you're the only person who

really cares whether you win or lose this match he's like we're just proud of you for getting out there and competing and testing yourself And that's the kind of message I try to pass to my students because it's very easy to get burnt out if you take winning too seriously and you take losing too seriously.

You're going to burn out. That's an exhausting way to approach martial arts. But if you think I'm having fun martial arts, perfect. If competing is fun for you, then compete and do it. If you're miserable every time you compete, I don't know if you should be doing something that makes you miserable all the time. I think

You should maybe train and spar and maybe even be a coach, but why put yourself through this if you're not enjoying it?

This should be fun. What are things you want to see from non-Palestinians who want to support Palestine?

I want to see normalizing the Palestinian ability, the right Palestinians have to defend themselves because it's so interesting that Everything, any human being on this planet has the right to defend themselves but Palestinians. And of course, I'm biased because I'm looking through everything from the lens of a Palestinian, but... We cannot defend ourselves without being called terrorists.

And that's something that has been the same since I was a child. So with all this progress and all this new information, all the things we know that even quote unquote leftists will deny Palestinians their right to defend themselves, which means that Palestinians are destined to live under subjugation and under colonialism.

um for for eternity right that's that's if we cannot defend ourselves and fight for our freedoms like everybody else can like you know the the same folks who will uh glorify rightfully so, by the way, things like the Nat Turner Rebellion and the Haitian Revolution, right? Because they're so far removed.

So it's easy to be like, oh yeah, I fully support the Haitian Revolution. Well, what happened in the Haitian Revolution? Do you think it was like a ping pong game and the Haitians won? No, they had machetes and they cut off people's heads, right? For their liberation.

But when Palestinians fight and use fighting as a tactic for their liberation, we're demonized. And I feel like it's it's such a double standard. It's rooted in racism and Islamophobia and Orientalism. Right. So I guess it's like these weird others that are savages and prone to violence. It's not the case.

Palestinians fight because they have to, not because they want to. They have to fight. If they don't, we wouldn't be here anymore. So I would like folks who are non-Palestinian to normalize talking about Palestinian armed resistance. I don't just mean nonviolent protest, which is wonderful, but Palestinian armed resistance is important and non-Palestinians have much less

risk when it comes to advocating. Palestinians can be put in jail. for advocating for Palestinian resistance because every single Palestinian resistance group, whether they are the Marxist PFLP or the more religious Al-Qassam brigades are all considered terrorist groups by the United States government. Every single one, regardless of what their philosophy is, their tactics are, their mentality,

their goals, they're all terrorists. So when Palestinians advocate for our armed resistance, we are terrorist supporters by definition, and that can have serious consequences, including to people I know personally who were targeted, put in jail, for even being suspected. Long story, and I'm happy to talk with you more. Actually, no, I can share this. Very quick story.

A friend of my father's, he was sending money to the south of Lebanon. He was sponsoring soccer teams. He was helping kids get into raising birds. This guy was like the nicest, sweetest man. I've met him many times. Really great. He's a Shia, Lebanese Muslim. And so, of course, the U.S. government accused him of supporting Hezbollah monetarily.

They said the money he was sending there was going to Hezbollah because the area he's from, which is the south of Lebanon, is an area where Hezbollah is a dominant force, both in terms of armed resistance and in terms of politics. They are a political party with members in the Lebanese parliament.

So they did not get him on quote-unquote supporting terrorism, but they said the money he was sending, oh, he didn't claim it. So they put him in jail for some tax evasion stuff when they couldn't get him on the charge they really wanted to, which was supporting terrorism. So this nice,

sweet guy who was literally buying soccer uniforms for kids in Lebanon, I know this for a fact, was put in federal prison because they wanted to say he was supporting terrorism. So that's how dangerous it is to advocate for any sort of indigenous, specifically Arab armed resistance. You can be put in jail,

you can be put on a watch list, you could be in Guantanamo Bay, you can be who knows, and all the other things that your listeners can imagine can happen. Um, so I feel like non-Palestinians should help us and let's remove this silly and racist and bigoted and outdated way of thinking that Palestinians who defend

themselves and defend their families and their communities are somehow terrorists who have this innate hatred for somebody based on their religion or ethnicity or what have you, which is not the case. Um, I, I really, really. want that. And I don't want Palestinians to also say, or sorry, non-Palestinians, I see this a lot.

They feel like all the resistance groups in the area from Hezbollah to Hamas are all like Iran's proxies and just do whatever Iran says. Like they have no agency. Like the Palestinians fighting in Gaza have no decision-making abilities. It serves the West to make Iran the boogeyman, the great evil of the world, which is silly.

Compare what Iran has done in the world to what the U.S. has done in the world, and it's not even comparable. And this goes to talks like you and I have talked about, Korea and how Korea is demonized. I'm talking about what we call here North Korea.

What has North Korea done as compared to what the United States has done? Yet we demonize one side and we... think what the us has done is okay so it's just i feel like a lot of people say like i support palestine i just don't like the violence or i support palestine but

i don't support hamas or i support you know lebanon i don't support hezbollah that's fine you can have your opinion but we can all agree that palestinians have the right to defend themselves and if they don't have the right to defend themselves they're not human because human beings have the right to defend themselves

When I teach self-defense workshops, I tell everybody you have the right to defend yourself when you're uncomfortable, when somebody's invaded your space. You don't have to go with the traditional way of thinking like, oh, somebody has to punch you first and then you could begin defending yourself. No. Self-defense begins when you are uncomfortable.

It could be asking somebody to... move from your space, that they're too close to you. It could be asking somebody not to use a slur or, you know, a negative way to reference you. That's self-defending yourself. Everybody has the right to self-defense and so do Palestinians.

And we should stop demonizing when indigenous and brown and black folk defend themselves because you see that every brown, black or indigenous group that defends themselves are called terrorists, whether they're Black Panthers, whether they're indigenous Americans here. whether they are palestinian fighters whether they're marxists or muslim or

whatever the case may be they're all terrorists and as soon as we eliminate this outdated racist way of thinking the better will be for all of us but it will actually help keep palestinians safe um so just advocating for the palestinian ability for to defend themselves and to use armed resistance i feel like it's

really really important that we don't fall into neoliberal stuff and really start demonizing the Palestinians who do decide to take up arms to fight their occupiers, which is a right, and it is also lawful. It is lawful for any occupied people to take up arms to fight against their occupiers.

So why we are demonized and called terrorists, it's beyond me. And I feel like a lot of quote-unquote Palestine supporters are actually aiding in that and making it more true making it seem like yes palestinians do not have the right to defend themselves because you hear a lot of i support palestine but i

support raza but there's always a but or an asterisk and i feel like that needs to end just because you don't agree with the tactics it's more likely that you don't understand the tactics and you don't know how many times non-violent methods have been attempted by palestinians including as recently as 2018 the great

return march of Gaza where Palestinians marched towards the border of Gaza to say, we want to enter our occupied homeland. Most people who live in Gaza are not from Gaza. This includes my grandmother, who her family Most of them moved to Gaza after the Nakba. They're not from Gaza.

And so most people living in Gaza are displaced already. And they wanted to just walk to show like, I should have access to my parents' home. I should have access to my family's home. I should have access to my olive trees. I should have access to our apricot trees and our orange trees that we've had for 800,

900 years, a thousand years. And when they did that, what happened? They were sniped, they were shot, medical workers were killed, children were shot, disfigured, limbs were lost. This was during a nonviolent movement. So nonviolence has been attempted many, many times by Palestinians. And unless you fully understand the many ways that Palestinians have tried to fight

against the occupation, both violent and nonviolent, will you understand that it is correct for Palestinians to defend themselves. And not only that, but anybody who is criticizing Palestinians would do the same thing if they're in their shoes. If right now some...

people rolled up and were attempting to, you know, take your home by force, we would defend ourselves. Everyone would, we'd grab whatever we could and we defend ourselves because that's our, that's important to us. It's important to defend the people we love from people who are trying to harm us. And that's what Palestinians are doing.

And there's no reason to demonize them. And if you do. In my humble opinion, as a Palestinian, you are no ally of Palestinians. And in fact, you are serving Zionism because a lot of them pair at the same talking point. Oh, yeah, we love Palestinians. We're just against insert group name here or whatever.

that's a Zionist talking point. That's something literally Benjamin Netanyahu says, Oh no, we, we care about the Palestinians. It's just, we don't like this armed resistance group. That's all. That's who we're focused on. They're bad. We could all agree that they're bad. Right. And of course the Western liberal will say, yes, absolutely. They're bad. And, uh,

That's something you could tell I've gone off on a rant here for quite some time, but that's something I'm very passionate about, especially considering the circumstances, because without Palestinian armed resistance, we wouldn't have any leverage in which to negotiate. When you see the occupied West Bank, they have no leverage.

The fake pillory and the fake puppet President Mahmoud Abbas has no leverage at all. Whatever the Zionists want him to do, he does it because there's no force behind him. There's no threat behind him. But guess who does get leverage? Guess who does negotiate with the Zionists?

Hamas and other armed resistance groups negotiate with the Zionist entity because they have force behind them. They have power behind them. And I really want folks to understand why Palestinians use the tactics that they do. Lastly, it's very interesting that Aaron Bushnell, the soldier who, you know, set himself on fire out of protest,

was seen as a hero. But I also want folks to think about what about Palestinians? who choose to end their own life in a drastic way. And this doesn't happen much anymore, but it happened a lot in the 90s and the late 80s. They were seen as like, oh, look at these religious fanatics,

how weird and how disgusting it is to do this and to who would do that. But yet when An American soldier does it. He's a hero. We make posters. We chant his name, make t-shirts. There is no difference. There's no difference at all, except where they come from, the name, their skin color, what they look like.

So I just, these are thoughts that I've really had. And thank you for giving me a place to share them. It's not like I could say these things on, uh, in too many places. And I know Southpaw is a safe place for a Palestinian to express themselves. And, you know, I really thank you for giving me, uh,

the opportunity to share that.

And I just want to add that the lives, the people who are affected by colonialism, imperialism, and the US military, like the ones you mentioned, Palestinians who died They're not just as worthy as U.S. military personnel who show some sign of remorse. They're more important because, yes, you should have remorse, right?

But there is this thing on the Internet amongst leftists where they always elevate and uplift people. the former oppressors who thought better of it than the people they oppressed. And that really needs to stop. Like, if you started a podcast and there was some former military white person who started a podcast,

that white person would have magnitudes greater followers than you, right? That's real. And That mentality that you're talking about, that I'm talking about, that is what we're talking about. That's what needs to change. You're exactly right.

That's so true. Because, yeah, we'll listen to how many times have we seen clips? Oh, look, this guy, you know, went to Iraq, killed a bunch of innocent people and now regrets it. And then we give him a platform and he's almost seen as a hero. Now, yes,

I am glad that he's realized that what he did was wrong and he was literally murdering folks for no reason. But guess who else knew that? All the Iraqi people that were getting killed, that were screaming at the top of their lungs, hey, what's going on here? This is wrong. You can't do this to us.

But their words do not matter. They are not at the same level as an American soldier who now regrets what he's done. And yeah, you're absolutely right. It's ridiculous. And I feel like if we claim to be in support of certain groups, then we have to listen to those people.

And some of the things that they might say might make us uncomfortable, but that's okay. That's because of our conditioning. That's because of the culture we live in. It's okay to be uncomfortable. And if you actually listen to Palestinians, you will understand why everything they do. You will understand the why. You will understand it.

We've been explaining it for seven decades. There's literature. There's interviews. You could read Hassan Canafani. You could read Leila Khaled. You can find out everything. We share it with the world. Because Palestinians truly thought that after the Nakba happened, they thought the world would intervene after a few short years.

They thought, oh no, the world isn't going to let this take place. Once we tell them what's happening, they're going to help us. The whole world will band together to help us. And unfortunately, that's not the case. And even now, when we see exactly what the state of Israel is doing to Palestinians,

there's still not a strong intervention from the world to stop this. So Palestinians are left to their own. Their own tactics and their own methods, and they are doing the absolute best they can. And I support everything. uh that palestinians are doing to fight against their occupiers because it is just

it is right and history will prove that palestinians were right and in 30 40 50 years everyone is going to say that they you know agreed with these tactics just like muhammad ali was you know everyone hated him when he was alive now he's a hero martin luther king was hated now he's a hero

The same will happen with Palestine, but I don't want it to be too late. I don't want Palestinians to be genocided and gone and gone from this earth for people to say, you know what? Wow, they were right. You know, let's build a statue. Let's build this museum. Let's do this.

That is not what I want, but people will see. History will prove that Palestine was in the right in everything that it has done to defend itself against the Zionists.

And listening to things might make you uncomfortable, but it's a privilege to be uncomfortable because other people are unsafe and in danger. So be uncomfortable. That's the least you can do. Exactly right. So if this episode, this podcast made you uncomfortable, good. Share what others make other people uncomfortable.

Ramy, tell people where they can find more info about your gym.

Oh, thank you, Sam. My gym is Phoenix Sports Empire. If you'd like to see what we're up to, we have an Instagram, Phoenix Sports Empire. You can visit us at phoenixsportsempire.com. If you want to see my unhinged political ranting, you can follow me. I'm Ramy the Giant on Instagram. And yeah, I love talking to the Southpaw community.

And I really can't thank you enough for giving me another opportunity to be on your platform. Thank you, Ramy. Thank you, Sam.

To access the complete Liberation Martial Arts curriculum and contribute to the sustainability of this project, consider upgrading your membership. Find other ways to support us here. – Sam

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(I write daily about martial arts and other topics from a liberatory perspective. If you like my work, please support me on Patreon or Substack, or make a one-time donation on Ko-fi. Find Southpaw at its website. Get the swag on Spring. Also check out Liberation Martial Arts Online.)