King of the Cage

And when you look, like you and I do, with an objective eye at Raul Rosas Jr., we see the same thing, which is, "God, if you added this little piece to this transition, it'd be so much easier.

If he did this little thing that you develop, you know, fighting in King of the Cage, you would be smoother at this thing." And he doesn't quite have all that.

The question I have- Can you learn on the job in the modern UFC? That, that's, that's...

And once again, with Gable Stevenson and, and, and, you know, various other fighters, it's the same thing.

I would get all these big fight deals and they would always fall through last minute.

Like I almost fought Aaron Witherspoon, I think, in King of the Cage.

I almost fought Kid Dale and like all these people that were like really high and I'd be right on the cusp and something would always happen.

So I was like, I'm going to make it.

But Panama Lewis was the trainer that did this.

So has it happened at a King of the Cage or a show in Russia? I mean, maybe.

And I can't even say for sure because I'm not.

So what I mean is, in the UFC, they seem to be pretty... tight run ship so what happens is let's say goes is the fighter and I'm in his corner and I'm in this corner and a few other guys are in this corner we'll say Danny Segura and Nolan King while Danny let's goes hit mitts and Nolan's maybe getting the bucket ready right making sure he's got all of you know his mouthpiece and his robe or whatever right his venom gear i go in there they send me into goes his opponent's locker room and i witness the wrapping of the hands along with a commission official so let's say i went and fell asleep the commission official unless he's a part of the whole you know the the whole uh stick then

It had the best fighters.

WEC, IFL, Affliction, King of the Cage.

I mean, how in...

There was, I think, more leagues back then than there, than there are now.

And, uh, I think, um, we had a little...

I- I- I was defending my King of the Cage title, another one of these random fights, and, uh, I...

So I had a training camp coming and, and Shawn Tompkins invited Gray up to Canada, and Gray said, "Hey, there's another guy in our weight that's cool, and, you know, you wanna, you wanna bring him up, too." So Shawn Tompkins brought m- me and Gray up, and, uh, Joey Varner too.

Not Jamie Varner, Joey Varner.

You know, the one that Forrest Griffin, and Nate Quarry, and all those guys were on, we didn't even know what, uh, weight class.

Th- and they weren't talking about weight class or nothing, they just said, "Send in a video." I remember I sent in a video to them, and Joe Silva and somebody else, I can't remember who it was, got back to me and were talking to me.

And I kept his number and, you know, f- throughout the years I would get ahold of him and be like, "Hey, if I can get out of this King of the Cage contract, would you have me?" And he'd be like, "Yeah." And I'd seen him...

John Alessio fought for, for the UFC before I got in, before I was even on the show, and I would talk to him then and see him and everything.

But I, I knew you before you got into Strikeforce, 'cause you fought a teammate and friend of mine, Tony Johnson.

At King of the Cage, yep.

At King of the Cage, and that's when I was like, damn.

'Cause Tony could wrestle back then.

Yep.

I understand that, but there, there, there are obstacles in our sport that, that are, are particularly, uh, glaring, and if you wanna be in the UFC and you're from a territory, right? And Br- Brave would fall into that, to use them.

Uh, King of the Cage and Gladiator Challenge at one point would have fallen into that.

Cage Fury still to this day.

LFA still to this day.