The Johnjay Van Es Podcast
From the mastermind behind one of the most popular morning shows in the country, Johnjay Van Es brings his signature blend of curiosity, humor, and fearless honesty to the podcast world. If you’ve ever had a question on your mind but were too afraid to ask, don’t worry—Johnjay’s got you covered.
With hilarious, jaw-dropping conversations, amazing guests, and the inside scoop on everything you actually care about, this show is a wild ride through the stories you’ve never heard and the truths nobody else dares to say. Whether it’s celebrities, trendsetters, or just the most interesting people on the planet, nothing is off-limits, and no question is too bold.
Come for the interviews. Stay for the insanity. This is the podcast you’ll be talking about. Don’t miss it!
The Johnjay Van Es Podcast
Before The Rock Played Him: Who Is Mark Kerr, The Smashing Machine?
MMA legend Mark Kerr’s true story of addiction, redemption, and resilience is raw and unforgettable.
From underground fights in Brazil to an upcoming biopic by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Mark Kerr’s life is the stuff of legend and pain. Known as “The Smashing Machine,” Kerr dominated early MMA with raw power and chilling instincts, but his greatest fight was outside the cage: battling addiction and finding redemption through sobriety and fatherhood.
In this episode, he opens up about fame, loss, recovery, and the surreal full-circle moment of The Rock portraying him on screen.
It's a story about grit, grace, and what it really means to win.
okay, so welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 2:This is a little bit different today, because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show so where did you get your scan for your heart that told you you had that much calcium?
Speaker 1:oh, dude, it's. It's a new thing. It's simon med, it's called the. Clearly there's only one in the state. It's called the. It's a special. I've done a bunch. I'm going back in november, it's like. It's like the mri or whatever on steroids. There's nothing like it so. So there's there and I said I can sit you up with them.
Speaker 2:So here's, here's why I'm asking, because the phillips is the phillips cat scans like phillips. The company, um, my, my buddy, has a facility at paradise valley hospital, um, and that's where I got it, and it takes four minutes, oh you told me about that thing, yeah and it does that whole body scan and it's just like dude, here's what you gotta do.
Speaker 1:You gotta go see my doctor. She's gotta go see her. Just go see her. Just give me, give you her number. You know what I?
Speaker 2:don't know why I I thought, man somewhere in my you ever do this. You ever start like thinking you did something, oh, all the time, and then you go. Oh shit, I thought I sent that text, so that's where.
Speaker 1:Good. No, no good, because I didn't want to be like ah, the doctor was there and she also has a.
Speaker 2:I've only seen her once because she's you remember she told you she's slammed, she's I can't the like, the proof, the empirical evidence of like there's something bigger going on and maybe I just don't know, it, can't see, it can't feel it can't touch it, but all this stuff's getting pulled. You know, I usually call it the DJ effect, cause it's like I call him gravity, like he's so big and what he influences.
Speaker 1:I know dude, because he just posted you the other day.
Speaker 2:And literally it's like I can't keep up.
Speaker 1:Like your life is crazy, like we're getting you on the uptick right now huh. It's going to be out of control. Like, in six months you're going to be going 100 miles an hour and then when it wins an Oscar like I believe it will win an Oscar then it's going to be. Then they got to do a part two. Do you know how it ends? Did they have it at the? Do you know how the movie of your life ends?
Speaker 2:Well, maybe it can end in here. Have you seen the movie yet? So I, I watched uh like an 80 percent, uh, complete version back in january and so it was missing, like some of the music, some of the cgi stuff. Um, they ended up having some additional scenes in there and, uh, like back in may, my son went to new york city and watched the complete version of it, oh okay. And so he got an opportunity and I talked to him right afterward and he just, he was just beside himself.
Speaker 2:He's like you know, if anybody's a bystander that can validate something or invalidate it, he's like dad, he's like dj's got your hand movement to your walk. Really, oh yeah, your hand gestures, speech pattern, you know, and you imagine, like, when you, when you act for emotions, you need your voice, and so to change your voice that's not that bass baritone that dj has yeah it. It takes an additional level of understanding of what you're doing. And I didn't understand it because, because, like it was explained to me, like hey, acting comes from your voice, you're like oh yeah, I mean it's you know he's like, I think for your role, what I've seen from the trailers, he's get, he's become you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like he's not screwing around, like when they say cut, he's probably still you, he is you know what I mean. So that had to be kind of weird for you. Were you there? Did you ever see him as?
Speaker 2:you, I so, I. So this is what's interesting is that, um, a lot of what the producer, dave copeland, ended up doing is trying to schedule me when it wasn't those high emotional points, because it would make it even more difficult for him to get into character from there. And so they had they brought me up prior to production beginning and then they brought me up for fight week, which was really cool. They had all the scenes of like you know him in him in the ring when I was in Japan and they had you know his stunt team and everything work it was. It was so cool. I mean, it was like it's like I got to do like fight week with DJ and the stunt team and you know, go through all these series and understand you call him DJ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most of us know him as the Rock. Maybe Dwayne, did he say, call me DJ.
Speaker 2:So here's what I figured out, so persona-wise, when he's the rock, he's completely a different person. Okay, like, like legitimately a different person. When he's away from all of that, people call him Dwayne or DJ. Okay, just because it's, he's not the rock. Right, that's just a persona, right, like when he's him and I are sitting here, it's completely a different person. That I don't a lot of the public doesn't get a chance to see.
Speaker 1:Sure, it's usually he's usually he's in character, he's in gear and he's on. He's got to be on. Oh my, if you see him, he's on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you got rare opportunities to chill with him oh, absolutely, and this is what's crazy about it and I didn't understand this. So when vince mcmahon was still still with the WWE prior to TKO buying them last year, dj hadn't done any WWE events for 13 years because he didn't have that good a relationship with Vince McMahon. The second TKO bought the WWE, vince McMahon got removed from the board and they put dj on the board and dj did wrestlemania last, so that's why he came back and did that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense, and so he?
Speaker 2:my feeling is he needed that outlet where he can get up and call people crackheads. And you know, he got up here friday night smackdown and he like I heard on the news today that Glendale, Arizona, is the crystal meth capital of the world he goes what is wrong with you people and it's just like he needs that.
Speaker 1:That's offensive. It's really Tucson.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:He's got the wrong zip code. He's got the wrong.
Speaker 2:So he needed that type of outlet to be able to not be perfect all the time. I mean I couldn't imagine, I know I couldn't imagine having the feeling like you needed to be on all the time, perfect all the time. You couldn't say the wrong thing, I mean, it was just.
Speaker 1:And then when he does try to do something nice. Sometimes it backfires, it does right. So yeah, it's, it's a tough, it's a tough situation, but I want to jump around for a bunch of because you know you're one of the few people that I can talk to and we, you know, we met that one time you came over to my house, but what's funny is you and I were both going 100 miles an hour for 30 different topics and I think we were the only people following each other.
Speaker 2:Nobody else could hang no, they were just going all over the place.
Speaker 1:I really connected to you. I thought it was awesome so. I want to jump back, go back to like when you found out. How did you find out Dwayne the Rock Johnson is going to play you in the movie of your life. How does that happen?
Speaker 2:So to 2019, in the summer of 2019, pre-pandemic pre-all that I get a random call from william morse agency wme saying that this guy, brad slater, wants to talk to me and I I take it as a like at this point in my life. It you know how many years ago is that?
Speaker 2:six years ago I I don't take it seriously okay and so I go, well, okay, like I'll call him back. And I get on the internet and I'm like, I'm like looking at the number, I'm like, oh, okay, and now my curiosity's up, right. So I so I call the office, get a hold of secretary, that put me through, and the crazy part is, uh, brad slater, who's been dj's agent for 13 or 14 years now. He went to uva.
Speaker 1:No way, yeah, oh, I love that, yeah I take back the crack comment yeah, the crystal meth so here's the other thing that's crazy.
Speaker 2:So when he graduated from uva, he he worked at William Morris in the mail room. Okay, Worked his way up. So here's what's even crazier. I met with him 20 something years ago when I lived in California. I was at the peak of my fighting and a friend of mine says we need to figure out if you can go Hollywood. And so he scours the earth and he comes up with Brad Slater working in the mailroom. We meet at the Cheesecake Factory near Beverly Hills Mall and Brad, like, looks at me and he goes I don't know, I'm in the mailroom.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you want me to do? Like I can't do anything. What he does do is he sets up a meeting with the other agents and the other agents explaining what I did for a living and what I wanted to do. They looked at me like dude, right, there's something wrong with you, right?
Speaker 1:and so back then, when you first heard about ufc or ultimate fighting or stuff like that, that was kind of like what's happening, yeah you didn't quite get it right right, right like like most people, they explain it like they're.
Speaker 2:Uh okay, like they didn't understand, maybe they had to tie it in a fight club.
Speaker 1:They did fight club oh my god.
Speaker 2:You know what we used to get all the time. Oh, is it like tybo? You know it's like billy blanks.
Speaker 1:You know I'm like, oh my god, I'm like so he sets this up with, brad sets it up, yeah, and he says to you hey, we're thinking about making this a movie. Yep, and here's who he goes.
Speaker 2:Who owns your rights was the next question, and I said good question, I I don't know. I know that x, y and z and I like pointed him in the direction that I thought he needed to go. And he goes. Okay, we'll be in touch, and and that was kind of it. Okay, 2019, then what? 2019, and then it's a miracle how all this happened. So 2019, call it July 2019. I get a call from Brad at the end of September 2019, and he goes. We got you right. I'm like, okay, like you're kidding me. He goes, dj's going to make an announcement at the UFC in Madison Square Garden, right At the BMF, you know, and he's going to make an announcement he's going to star in and produce, and da-da-da, the movie, and so that was like November 2019, and he makes the announcement and then the whole world falls apart, right, right. And so at that point, you know the thing that was going through my head but are you going?
Speaker 1:holy shit, the rock's gonna play me in the movie like I didn't even, didn't even let it he's literally the biggest action star in the world. Like by by, like by far about some up-and-comer guy. No, this is no man no, it is.
Speaker 2:So. This is what's crazy about it. So, uh, we, we connect on the phone prior to him, like I think it was the day before he's gonna announce it at madison square garden press conference, right. And so it ends up being this um, like, the conversation I had with him was almost transactional. You know, it's like okay, here's what I'm gonna do, you don't need to do anything, I'm gonna announce this. And with him was almost transactional. You know it was like okay, here's what I'm going to do, you don't need to do anything, I'm going to announce this. And it was just just transactional conversation. You know, very, very to the point.
Speaker 2:And, uh, so he makes the announcement and I go from like, I think at that time I had maybe like 1100 Instagram followers and like, all of a sudden, it's like 23,000. You know, within like you know a couple of weeks, and I'm like, oh shit. And then the pandemic sets in and from the whole pandemic and everything I don't even really think about it, because I know everything when everything sank in and it was like, oh shit, the whole world's stopping stopping. You know, I didn't even put any more thought into it or anything like that.
Speaker 1:Wait, I want to jump around to a bunch of different things. I want to get into your mindset back in the day when you're in your prime and you're in the smashing machine before a fight. Yeah, Do you have a routine? Did you have a routine Like, were you in the zone? You know how they always say Kobe was whatever. Did you have a routine Like were you in the zone? You know how they always say Kobe?
Speaker 1:was whatever, yeah, yeah, if you got a fight at 7 pm, how are you prepping all day mentally for that?
Speaker 2:Routines were a huge, huge, huge part of it. You know ate the same thing pretty much the night before. All of it, same place. You know it was a fight in Japan it was the same meal. It's called shabu-shabu. You know, it's this frozen beef that's sliced real thin and you put it in boiling water to cook it and it was like, oh, it was the perfect thing, because you loved it, or was there a dietician that? Said, yeah, it's a protein.
Speaker 1:Like back then were people into that?
Speaker 2:Like were like you gotta eat. They were. It was just from for for the industry, uh, for fighting for for, like, high level sports training, right, right, there was just a lot of information coming on board. Um, I think it was like the transition from the dark ages and and the light. It really was right, right, right, um. And so there was like hey, here's, here's, a better look at what's going on diet-wise, internally, all this other stuff. So I was trying to stay in the forefront of that. I was trying to go okay, what do I need to do? How do I need to manage it? Because I wanted to. You know, more than anything else, I wanted to be a professional. Right, you know I didn't want to be a sideshow or, like you know, traveling circus. You know like, oh, here comes the fighters. You know it's like the rodeo clowns. You know I didn't want to be that. I wanted to be a professional.
Speaker 1:So you're eating right, you're doing your routine. Yeah, what about, like, like, I'll take you back a long time ago A friend of mine I was just starting in radio and this friend of mine got a job to direct the Denniser show on hbo random show. Yeah, sharon stone was a guest and I got to go watch and the whole meeting. Before the meeting thing started, no one was allowed to talk to dennis miller. No right, and you hear stuff like that you think what a jerk. Yeah, but I get it now.
Speaker 1:Yeah because, he's got to go on stage and if he has the interaction with someone that says, hey man, you sure look stupid. All of a sudden that's in his head, yep, and he's like wait a minute, I gotta go be on. I don't want any negative. So now, as I do a radio show, I'm not like that, but I try to keep all negativity out. So here you are, about to fight. You probably got to visualize oh, you do so. Do you want some punk coming up to you and saying, hey man, like you know, like did you?
Speaker 2:have I, I did so the, so the for me it's uh, it's just narrowing my focus.
Speaker 1:People around me knew when I started to just shut things out and shut things out.
Speaker 2:That's what you mean. So you did that. Oh yeah, I mean it was a huge, huge part of it, because I can even look at myself on film now and not recognize myself, just because of the look, the intensity, because you were locked in oh my God. It was like people would tell me they'd go.
Speaker 1:That doesn't look like you that looks like that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Give me goosebumps, I mean it, it, literally, it, it's so it. The crazy part is and I've said this before in interviews that I could smell you if you and I were fighting and we're standing in a seven meter by seven meter ring, which is big. If you were standing all the way across on the other side of the ring, I could smell you and, and the reason why I say that is that there's different types of smells that I figured out, like there's a nervous smell which is this pungent, hormonal like smell that you go and I could smell that and that's like predatorial, like awesome, like literally it's like, and immediately when, when we started fighting, I wanted to make you bleed, because that's another smell that's added in, where you can smell the iron in the blood dude that's like it's so it's so crazy because I didn't understand all this until I stepped away from like oh shit, that's what it was.
Speaker 2:You know like hearing and smelling and just this whole intensity of of, like it's another level of of animal, yeah, and if that got out to your competitor, that would probably deflate them, if they knew.
Speaker 1:If you just looked at and said like if you're fighting right now and this interview got out, it was like mark her can smell you you're done, oh my god in here. The competitor would be like oh, my god, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like that's what I think would happen because you have like, like if you go in a sauna, right, and you're relaxing, it's a completely different smell, Like it's just water and salt in it. You add hormones into that stuff because your, your adrenals are kicking in cortisol, all this other shit. You, I'm just telling you, you walk in the room and I'm getting ready to fight you. I know what the hell's going on. Did someone teach you that? No, it was just. It was this. It took me stepping. Like the next day after a fight, or a couple days or a week after a fight, I'd go like what was that Like I couldn't like, because it focused me, Like it would give me another level of focus of like, like you're almost like whiffing it in your nostrils to smell it. Man, it's so wild because you're such a nice guy.
Speaker 1:So if you were fighting now the Mark Kerr from then now, do you think you'd be crushing it in the UFC?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'd have to hit another gear. I look at the guys now and I go I would have had to found another gear in my training to be able to be as competitive as oh dude in my opinion.
Speaker 1:I was watching some of your old fights. I think you would kill everybody today yeah I don't think. I think you would kill everybody. Yeah, I think that the way you were fight, the way you like, broke shoulders and faces and stuff with the guy that left the ring that one. Oh my god, yeah, oh my god, man, that you know what that I just talked about this the other day. I said that's the guy that left the ring.
Speaker 2:That one fight, oh my God, yeah, oh my God, man, you know what? I just talked about this the other day. I said that's one of those fights where I never read Back. Then it was blogs, right. And so blogs are just starting and the blogs, like my trainer, boss Root, he goes dude, just stop, stop, stop with it. Stop reading them. Yeah, stop stop with it, stop reading them. Yeah, stop reading them. And then I happened to read just a series of them where, like, kerr can't fight more than one minute. His last four fights haven't lasted more than this amount of time. And so it was this huge fight in the Tokyo Dome and I'm like, okay, all right, and I kept him in the ring, this dude in the ring, for 23 minutes, 23 minutes, minutes. And and by the end of it he just he wanted out. He just he dove out of the ring, dove out of the ring and I'm like pulling back in the ring, going no, no, no no, no, no, no, no it's just it's.
Speaker 2:It's one of those where it just it's like another. Like I said, it's just another level of animal. You know. You know most people understand, like you know, if I went after your kid, if I went after your family and there's something physical, you have a gear in you, sure that you can get to right. But to access it willingly without having that kind of stress where I'm just competing is that what you did?
Speaker 1:did you think of somebody hurting somebody in your family?
Speaker 2:no, wouldn't be hurting somebody, but I just, I you know what used to just absolutely just solidify it for me is going. If you and I went in a room and they said one person has to come out, I'm coming out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah like that, you should play squid games exactly, geez dude.
Speaker 2:So I I mean it was like this, like I knew that factually for myself going. I don't care what I have to do, I don't care if it takes me an hour or 10 hours, I'm coming out of that room.
Speaker 1:Okay, does this come from your childhood? Is it your dad? Is it a coach, like? Who gave that to you? Like I saw this. Did you watch the Last Dance with Michael Jordan?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm like when I watch, like I don't know where he got that.
Speaker 1:Like it's like you have that too.
Speaker 2:So I think a lot of that is, you know, oh man, it's really difficult to define like the moment right, and it's really difficult to define like the moment right when I realized that A lot of it, believe it or not, came from my mom. Okay, my mom just had this, you know, like you know, not pressure, it's not, it's not fair to call it pressure. I call it belief now that if I, if I won one NCAA championship, that I that I could have won two, or I should have won three. You know, she had this just belief in me and that push in belief just allowed me to get to other parts, like competitiveness, Right, and understanding like I can compete at the highest level in in any sport. You know, I really felt at that time I sucked at basketball, though that's one of those.
Speaker 1:That's why I wrestled, you know so 96 is the whole olympic thing right and then and by that, at that point, it's just wrestling yep and when did it start the punching?
Speaker 2:so punching started. Um, in 96 was one of those really just whack years like my mom had terminal cancer, you know she died in september and I had already been approached, uh, by this guy here in arizona. Uh, to um. He's like hey, I can get you in the ufc if you don't make the olympic team and most of us were, we know dan severin was then in the UFC. If you don't make the Olympic team and most of us were, we know Dan Severin was in in the UFC. Don Fry was in the UFC at that point and, um, I said, no, I'm going to spend the summer with my mom, you know. And Mark Coleman took the offer that was given to me and started fighting in the UFC. And then, um, after my mom passed, I literally was like you know, um, after my mom passed, I literally was like, you know, I'm just gonna go as fast as I can, as hard as I can, for as long as I can, and I'll clean it up when I'm done.
Speaker 1:So mom, passing to that, flip a switch.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah I mean it was, it was difficult, you know, you know what's interesting. Um, so I had this mentality of like I'm just gonna put my foot on the gas and just whatever mess I create, I'm just going to clean it up when I'm done, right. And so that's when I started fighting. My first fights, for my mom passed in September. Uh, january or January of uh 97 was my first fight, wow, right.
Speaker 1:And so never been in a fight, never been in a fight.
Speaker 2:Nothing came. Came to this guy. Uh here, this guy here and he started training me, Said listen, your athleticism, your wrestling skills, that If you can make everybody wrestle you you're going to beat the brakes off them. Oh wow, Okay, Right, so it's not really about fighting, it's about dominating somebody with your style to make them have to wrestle your style, fight your style, once you get them on the ground, done, done right, because you've been, you've been training your whole life for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now it's a couple blows yep, so a lot, a lot of what makes wrestling unique in the sport is wrestling um I say this kindly. I say you know, wrestlers can hold you where you don't want to be held for as long as they want to hold you there, and you can't do a freaking thing about it. That's what a wrestler, a really good wrestler, can do. And so you're punching them. Oh my god, you're, you're putting so much, so much pressure on them. Like people don't understand what it's like to have another human being hold somebody down and then not be able to do anything about it and you're getting mauled right. You know it's like. It's like you want to know what a bad day is, right?
Speaker 1:you know it's not getting cut off in traffic, it's, it's having a rest of all you down in malia so wait, at this point, in 96 or in January 97, had you already experienced broken bones, pain, all this stuff.
Speaker 2:So through wrestling I had experienced a lot of that. I mean wrestling I so. So I've I've broken bones in my foot. I did that when I was fighting, but I haven't like broke a femur broke, you know. I've fractured stuff, but I've torn and ripped just about everything, like a torn transverse abdominals was probably the worst, and it was like I hemorrhaged to the point where my sack swolled up like yay, big from all the hemorrhaged blood from my transverse abdominals. Was that from a punch? No, that was. That was my. That was, uh, getting trying to get ready for the 96 Olympics.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was even from wrestling yeah. Oh wow.
Speaker 2:So I mean I've torn, and then in fighting it's been, you know, like partially torn calf, partially torn this ACLs yeah, I mean, it's a series of stuff where you you know it took forever for my hands See how big my knuckles are. Yeah, you know it took forever for my knuckles to calcify enough where I could get in and punch with smaller gloves and not have that stop me from punching hard you know, because you never go back into a fight when you weren't.
Speaker 1:Your body wasn't healed yet, and one um, yeah, there's been a couple.
Speaker 2:There's, there's been a couple where I'm like you know, fighting in japan was it was difficult because they didn't care. They, they, literally you could, you could go to them and you go, hey, listen, you know what? My, my dog died, my house burnt down. You know I, I, you know, ruptured, ruptured this, ruptured that. And they go okay, well, we'll have you on the fight card. They didn't care, they just cute story.
Speaker 1:Exactly, you know, you were telling me earlier, before we started rolling about the the hall of fame speech.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you have to give a speech?
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, and someone's helping you write it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so how? How is that going? What it like can you do?
Speaker 2:and you said you're getting very emotional reading. Oh my gosh, man, it's just so this is and the rock's bringing you out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the rock's doing the induction, the introduction, and uh, oh, my gosh man. So jay glazer he's a friend of mine. He said, hey, listen, I'll help you write it. And I talked to him right before coming here and he's like hey, here's what I want you to do. I want you to take these people in your life that have had the biggest influences and just come up with like a line that sums it up right. And so I'm sitting there texting him and I get to like my brother and I just start like I got tears rolling to the point where I got snot that's just string drooling down to the ground because your brother was he supported.
Speaker 2:Oh my god man yeah, I'm the youngest of five kids, oh man. So you know I'm the baby and my brother, michael, who's, you know, 12 years older than me, you know, like I tell people go, when he was a senior in high school, I was in kindergarten, you know. So that disparity, he's always been just a big influence on my life, right, you know? And like I'm writing, like um, you know he's always been my hero, you know, whether he knew it or not, you know, and you know I've always aspired to be like him because he has resilience beyond anything. Super successful guy, you know will he be there?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, he doesn't know what's coming, so he might.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, my gosh man. It was just, you know, like trying to figure out what to put in the words that can sum up somebody's impact on my life. It's just really hard because I'm like I just want to go, dude, I love you man. You know, just like you know, in my son, you know, I've been sober seven years and, um, my mom passed away september 3rd 1996, and my son knows this and, uh, you know, seven years ago I was drinking on that day and he's like dad and I you know, I know you need to drink today because your mom passed away would you stop tomorrow? And a lot of that's like thinking like I'm just going to give him another empty promise, right like, yeah, yeah, I'll stop, buddy, and the next day there's just something different september 4th, september 4th, my sobriety day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. I know that because I told you you were asking me oh, my god birthday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh my god, that's. Right that's the day, oh my god man yeah, again, this is like we're probably always supposed to meet soon.
Speaker 1:I know, I know there's so many different things about hold your son. Now he's 20, does he fight?
Speaker 2:uh, he boxes, he loves boxing. I mean to the point where it's, like, you know, three, four years ago, he here in his room, like you know, one o'clock in the morning, like video rolling, you know, and it's open the door and he's like watching boxing videos. He's watching and he's just like dad, dad, dad, you know he's watching footwork and he's watching handwork. He's watching all. I mean he really appreciates the art behind it because he's tried to get really good at it and realize how, like, when you watch, like Mike Tyson or Oscar De La Hoya or Roy Jones Jr or some of that Muhammad Ali, it's like it's incredible, in the movie does he exist?
Speaker 1:in the movie.
Speaker 2:Nope, nope.
Speaker 1:They don't bring up kids at all in the movie.
Speaker 2:No, it's just. You know what I call the movie. I call it a pocket of time. Okay, so it's a pocket of time. Okay, so it's a pocket of time because it's just one of those where it concentrates on that period of time where, you know, I was 11 and 0 um, I was the number one ranked mixed martial artist in the world, you know at the time, and it's crazy yeah just even that fact sometimes just goes straight out of my head especially since that wasn't what you were.
Speaker 1:You were wrestling I was a wrestler, yeah, have you seen anybody, or anybody that, whose ass you kicked like?
Speaker 2:oh my gosh, yeah, yeah, oh, my god, my. It's so funny because part of part of this hall of fame speech is to understand is that you know, give people a little peek behind the curtain. So my first fights, the last. I'd fight three times in one night. No weight classes, no time limits, bare knuckle. You're allowed to do everything except bite and eye gouge. Dude, that seems so crazy.
Speaker 1:It's beyond.
Speaker 2:Like somebody should have just said like do you understand what you're about to do? Right, like, do you really get it? And when I was down there in Brazil because it's in a basement of a hotel in Sao Paulo, brazil, even more to like Hollywood screenwriter Right, right. And the last guy I fought was the guy everyone was there to see. His name's Fabio Gugel and he's a Pan-American jiu-jitsu champ. You know, on the level of Hoist Gracie, on the level of any of those guys, jiu-jitsu-wise right, 185, 190 pounds and I'm 260 pounds, 270 pounds 590 pounds and I'm 260 pounds 270 pounds and I I mauled him for 15 minutes.
Speaker 2:Is he the? Was that where they cut? They gave you the smashing machine time. Yeah, yeah, makina, debater it's. It's uh portuguese for the, the machine that smashes.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, and so but that's where I got the name.
Speaker 2:That's where I got the name and so for 15 minutes I fractured his orbital so his orbital bone gets caved in. I'm headbutting him, I'm trying to. I can't understand why in the world he's not quit it, just it still to this day. It's so. It boggles my mind right like what is going on in your head, that you just can't go. Okay, I'm gonna tap out and just tap, because you're not winning why no? Because everybody in that crowd was cheering for him. Was cheering for him oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:wait, is that the fight where the whole crowd wanted to kill you, yeah, and then he had to get on the mic and say no, yeah, that's crazy. I hope that's in the movie, oh my.
Speaker 2:God man, it's part of it.
Speaker 1:They better put that in the movie. Oh, my God oh yeah, they have to, because that's why they called you Smashing Machine.
Speaker 2:So here's the crazy part. Him like can't believe, like I'm just mystified, like how you even held up for as long as he did. And then the next day I get a call from his wife, who speaks english, and she says fabio wants to have you to the house. And I'm like, oh my god, I'm like uh, okay, like almost like do I have a choice, you know? And she's like no, if I want to say, have the house, we want to have you up for lunch. And I'm like, oh my God, man, here, it is Right, I'm going to go up there.
Speaker 2:All that stuff last night was like not now, we'll get them later, and so and so. And so she's like, give this taxi driver this address and they'll bring her. And so we go up. I go up to the house and his wife cooks this just amazing lunch and I sit down with Fabio she interprets the whole entire time and I have this just incredible conversation with him. Yeah, that's so first class. Oh my God, for me that set the standard of how I was going to carry myself. Right business, right, right like.
Speaker 1:Do people know that? Like that's can't be in the movie, right, unless you share?
Speaker 2:it. No, it's. It's not because when they made the movie.
Speaker 1:They didn't come talk to you and say they probably went off records.
Speaker 2:They went off a lot of what was already captured on with the documentary and stuff like that. And then they you know it's it's artistic license to kind of tweak things, to do it, but they tried to stay on point for a lot of it, um, and so part of that story is just like I, I, I understood in that moment that that ring was a completely different place. Right outside of that ring, you were a gentleman, you carry yourself with integrity, dignity, honor, honor code, that you just that, that I don't care what happened in that ring. The second, we're outside it, we're good, and that was like a show, because, because I'd experienced that and for him to share that with me was just this miracle.
Speaker 1:So you took that. Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you ever do that to somebody else? Did you ever? Whoever ever beat you?
Speaker 2:And yeah, I mean there, there there was. There was moments where afterward, you know, like after I've gotten beat, where I've gone in a locker room of the person that's beat me and I sat down and just you know, because you share, because no matter what, it's this shared experience that very few people get a chance to experience, right, if you got beat.
Speaker 1:Did you ever go back? Okay, why did I get beat? You know what I? I think I I had a beer last night. I probably shouldn't have that beer, or you?
Speaker 2:know what I mean? Is there, you ever do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah, you ever go, I could beat that guy, yeah. So what do you? What was it ever for?
Speaker 2:you a lot of it was, um, you know, through training camps you end up with like, like I had barometers during training camp, like you know, if my weight was too heavy I wasn't training hard enough, if my weight was too light I was over training. If I was, you know, doing this and doing that. There are certain barometers like Like Boss Root knew where, like certain practices, if I'm consistent with him, he goes, he's good. Just, I don't even worry about it, he's good. So I know, going through some of it, like I didn't have the intensity or the focus that I needed, not in the fight, it was in the eight-week training camp. You know there was these pockets where I just wasn't there. I was there physically, it's like in.
Speaker 1:Rocky. Yeah, Rocky was like also when he got really famous, he was like I got a picture and he was like he wasn't in the zone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then he has to go. You know, carry logs and hit deep snow and do his shit you know, so you know, so you know there's there's a lot of looking back and I think every athlete does it. You know this day, you know the game, I remember all the games I lost, right. I remember all the fights I lost, right, right, and they'll go. What about this win? And I go? Ah, okay, whatever yeah yeah, it's, it's.
Speaker 2:It's the ones where you know I and this, a friend reminded me of this he goes you know what A lot of what life is built on is who you are after you fall flat on your fricking face, face plant and you have the balls to get up, dust yourself off and go at it again. Yeah, that's fantastic, that's what that's what that's what life is life is right.
Speaker 1:I mean, look at where you are now and what you've been through yeah, I mean that's tough. You said seven years sober that by itself. Getting sober had to be. Was it tough?
Speaker 2:it was difficult because you know a lot of, a lot of what happens with recovery is that it's just such a, it's such a level of insanity I mean the insanity of like, like, uh, they say in recovery. It's like I can't pull into my consciousness with sufficient force the humiliation or the embarrassment of a night before. So last night I could have went out and been an absolute asshole, got a dui, got arrested, all this, and then the next day I can't pull that into my consciousness to go ah, better not drink.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow you know yeah and so that's gone.
Speaker 2:And then I'm like yeah, let's go out and drink again and be like dude so was it, drinking was also the pain.
Speaker 2:Meds it was pain meds at first and then it cut it, migrate not kind of migrate, it migrated into alcohol, and it's just one where it's just like, at the core of that there's there's in recovery. You know, for me personally it's uncovering all these little like okay, yeah, I had a great childhood, my parents did the best they could. But really, when I say had a great childhood, yeah, there's shit that just not good, yeah, but that, that stuff, those pain meds, are powerful.
Speaker 1:man, I saw that documentary or this.
Speaker 2:if you're watching a show called dope sick, oh, about the, about the family that owned the pharmaceutical company and how everyone's getting addicted and all the people that died for it.
Speaker 1:Unbelievable and to know that's real.
Speaker 2:And you went through that, yeah, and came out, which is rare, uh, which is you know part of um, uh, like, sitting down with the ufc, a guy named chris um I always butcher his last, I call him crass mark. He's head of everything that's non-live production for the ufc, for all their different platforms, and we sit down on a couple months ago we have a meeting about some stuff they want to do and stuff like that, and he goes redemption, that's. That's because a lot of people go down that path. They don't come back right, they don't come back right. Like I cause a lot of people go down that path. They don't come back Right, they don't come back Right.
Speaker 2:Like I have a handful of friends that overdosed and are dead, and it's that, it's it's. You know, there's not a do over, you know, and it's one of those things where it's like you know, if I was out doing opiates now, I I'd be dead. It's just how I'm built. I don't have that internal stop button. You know where I can go. Oh, I've had enough, I'm a little dizzy. You know, it's just this button where it's like more, more, more.
Speaker 1:So then, what now? Are your like hobbies? What do you do? What do you do to do you still, do you punch a bag still?
Speaker 2:what do you do to do you still? Do you punch a bag still? No, you know what? I'm actually started doing that like. Like I was in california over the weekend and whenever I go out there, uh, my buddy jay, he's like we got to spar and I'm like okay, so we put gloves on and we do like four rounds of sparring and it's usually he's he's a southpaw, which is even worse for me, but usually it's a couple of head punches, dysthymia, and I'm like, okay, I can do that like once a month and I'm good. You know, uh, last year I got back on my mountain bike and I started mountain biking a ton.
Speaker 1:Cause you seem like you're in pretty good shape. Yeah, I, literally I was surprised, how, when, when I was like I'm breathing, okay, yeah, dude, I went through this boxing phase and there is something this is going to sound weird, but that feels really good about getting punched. It does Right, it is.
Speaker 2:People don't get it. When I was done, I was like that was freaking awesome Right.
Speaker 1:I mean it must be us.
Speaker 2:John Jay, you got hit 57 times I know I was great, let's go.
Speaker 1:I'm not kidding you, I loved it yeah.
Speaker 2:It's strange because, Jay, when we talk about it, it's just that he's like I need to be hitting the face a couple times. I'm like okay, I can do that for you.
Speaker 1:You know you being at the top of your game and 11-0 and UFC and the ufc and everyone knows who you are. And in this cold thing back then 25 years ago, did you meet any celebrities? Were there anybody?
Speaker 2:oh my gosh, oh my god, I know you you want to be like that so, uh, you know what the biggest freak out was?
Speaker 2:this is awesome. So, uh, in the tokyo dome and I'm the last fight, I'm the the main event for for the tokyo dome and, uh, I'm shaking things out getting ready. The referee's about to ring the bell and I look over and I go you are kidding me. Eric clapped in his sitting freaking ringside. It was this outrageous deja vu, like am I seeing what I'm seeing and I'm just getting ready to fight.
Speaker 2:It was probably one of the few times that actually I paid attention to things around me, but it was like this introduction, this new sponsor, and it was like the stuff going on in the ring which which had this delay. That's normally not there, you know, and I'm like son of a and the crazy part is two days later, when I flew out, he's at the airport, so I got a picture with him. No way I got a picture. I go, hey, you might not remember, but you know I was the main event, and he's like oh yeah, absolutely, you know. And so it's one of those little surreal moments where I'm like I was actually, like it was cool for me hey, in the movie emily blunt plays your wife, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, but that's not who you're married to now.
Speaker 1:No, but your relationship with your ex solid um, it's gotten better over the years.
Speaker 2:You know there's a lot of a lot of dysfunction, just you know, because there's a lot of drugs and alcohol, and you know.
Speaker 1:But when I watch, the trailer like it's this love story and then it's this drug abuse story and that's all you get out of the trailer. Also, you get the rock's gonna win an oscar. Yeah, kind of what I get, yeah. So I was curious to how. So at the end of the movie or at the end of that part of your life, that chapter in your life, is she what? What's part two? Part two what happens with?
Speaker 2:her. So you know, we had a kid together. I have a 20 year old son, his name's bryce and and that kept us together for a little bit longer, but the level of dysfunction between us was just. You know, she had, like my ex-wife, she she had a really difficult growing up.
Speaker 2:Her mom, by the time she was 22, had three kids you know as a waitress, right no man in the you know type thing. And so she's the oldest of the three kids and so she developed all these you know caretaking characteristics and stuff like that, and so a lot of that was, you know, part of the relationship and it just got to a point where we couldn't function. It was so disruptive to bring up a kid. Does she live here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, she does, she does? Does your son live here too? Yeah, oh, that's yeah, thankfully. Thank you get remarried.
Speaker 2:Uh no, no, and that's a crazy part. It you know she's, she's, she just is not willing to like even look at a relationship is that because she's still in love with you, like you guys have like? That might be part of it. Like my son says yeah, you know my mom's still in love with you, right? I'm like okay, yeah, you know like I still love her. Sure, she was 23 years, right? I mean I'm I'm in my 50s, so she, she was almost in my life for half of my life.
Speaker 1:Does she like that Emily Blunt's playing her? Oh, she loves it. I mean, it's Mary.
Speaker 2:Poppins, right? Oh, my God man, it is like Emily is like the second. I got to do a zoom call with her. After I was done, I go oh, I got a new favorite person. You know, she is just such a um, incredibly intense person, but intense in a way that's like so interesting because she's a question asker, you know, like talking or she's like digging, she's like emotionally digging for that little nugget that she needs. But when you, when you look back, when I was looking back on the conversation, I was like, oh, she's, she was digging, you know, and then she finds that little thing and then she'll, you'll talk about it. And then she finds that little thing, and then she'll, you'll talk about it, and then she's, she's just looking for these little nuggets, like did she?
Speaker 1:portray your ex pretty well.
Speaker 2:She yeah, she actually said so. Dawn didn't really want to have any participation in in this whole thing Because her experience through the documentary and all the different stuff, she didn't feel she was represented um, how she wanted to be. And me trying to tell her you're represented how you were, not how you wanted to be right I get it yeah and so emily said hey, I'm gonna give you a voice.
Speaker 2:Did emily talk to her? Yeah, finally, she's like, okay, I'll talk to her. And so emily said, hey, I'm gonna give you a voice. Um, you know, I'm gonna be your champion. You know, and it was like this in every single thing that she has said, uh to dawn, she's done like I'm gonna be your champion, I'm gonna be your voice, all of that is done.
Speaker 2:Happy with the finished product, yeah she, she flew out with my son to new york and saw the finished product and dj flew from california out just to talk to him for an hour. Wow, yeah man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that rock guy man oh man, he, just he's, isn't wild the rocks playing you in a movie. Oh, I still can't. They can't feel real ever.
Speaker 2:It doesn't like it doesn't you know, like back when 2019, when he makes the announcement, I tell people, I go here's the crazy part is, I had his cell phone number for four years and I didn't call or text him once, right? So he made the announcement 2019, and then all this shit happens, right. And then you go here we are in the fall of 2023 and finally there's this, like I'm gonna call brad slater, his agent, see what's going on. And I call brad and he's like man, your ears must have been ringing. I was like what? And he goes yeah, I can't tell you. And I'm like you can't tell me what. And he goes DJ needs to tell you, he'll text you tomorrow.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, my God, I was like Brad a thursday. And uh, and so the next day, on friday, I get a text saying, hey, I'll call you over the weekend. I'm like, okay, great, so friday, saturday, sunday, no call. Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday. I get a text saying I'll call you over the weekend. And then it's Saturday, and then it's Sunday. And now I'm like what the in Sunday afternoon I finally get you available. And I'm like, oh my God, he calls me and we spend like an hour on the phone.
Speaker 2:And it was this, totally like. I told you the first time I talked to him was transactional, right that time when I talked to him in 2023, completely different dude, like, like, there's this whole migration of like of from that transactional this is what I'm going to do to like. Hey, it was. It was just a different, totally different vibe and it was like hey, this, you know, here's where we are. Pre-production's already started. We got the green light. He goes somehow, someway. My team found 12 weeks for me to shoot this and for him to carve out 12, I go, he knows what he's doing three years from now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's also not a hundred million dollar blockbuster budget movie. It's one of those small budget movies that wins Oscars. Yeah, it's about the acting in this movie it is.
Speaker 2:It's about storytelling Storytelling you know in that, in that, so it was just just complete, and it was like these calls, these calls, these Zoom calls. And then it was like, right after the new year in 2024, benny Safdie reached out and he's like so I had this beautiful conversation with him, and then Emily, and then it was this buildup, and then I'm sending the production team like everything I can find from that time frame. So they made duplicates of rings, watches, um, necklaces, uh clothes.
Speaker 1:Oh, because when I see the videos of you back then I see the trailer. He looks just like you. It was weird too. He's about the same age as you. Now he is right he's.
Speaker 2:He's uh three years younger. Four years, so would they cgi his face or or no, oh my god man, they ended up getting and I'm I wish I knew this. I'm gonna figure out who it is. Makeup artist wise.
Speaker 2:He's like an academy award-winning makeup artist guy yeah and they're like here's because this was from benny, benny goes. I don't want cgi, okay. I don't want stunt doubles. I don't want, you know, all these different things that normally you see in a movie, where when you go back and look at it you go, yeah, stunt double. I can tell that.
Speaker 1:That's why they cut, that's why Tom Cruise does all his stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah because it allows the filmmakers to really dial into certain scenes. And so the cool part was they're like're, like, hey, here's, here's for makeup artists. The prosthetics need to stay on for wrestling around, for punching, for sweating, for all this different stuff. They put the call out in this one. One person answers the call I can do it, you know and like holy shit. And when you look at him you go holy shit yeah, yeah, no, you do, you do especially.
Speaker 1:You look at the old videos of you, you know, in 1997. So my sister is in the hollywood world, yeah, and in 1997 she was working on a show. It was called the series, was called the secret world of, and it was different things and one of it was the secret world of professional wrestling. And she asked me if I would go undercover and it was for TLC, the network TLC. So I was like, yeah, sure. So they sent me to some somewhere in Kentucky, I think, and I go to this wrestling school.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:And I'm undercover. They don't know that I'm a radio personality, they don't know that I'm like cameras following me. And it was the most painful thing. It was so legitimate the athleticism of being a professional wrestler. And at one point, before they put me to school, they put me in another room and they asked me what do you think about wrestling? And I was like wrestling is fake, it's so stupid. And the wrestlers were in the other room watching on the monitor, oh my God. So when they came to take the class, they kicked my ass so hard the soup. I got video. It's on tv still. And I remember the next, the next, I don't know how long, but I wasn't. It was like literally. You know, people said I got hit by a truck. It was like my body felt like I'd hit by a truck. I can't imagine what you went through all the time like the pain, the pain, which is why you're taking the stuff you're taking. Yeah, I mean that's crazy dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you learn to compartmentalize some of it, but some of it is like you know, I go like a toothache, right, Like you can go, okay, I'm going to concentrate, so I don't concentrate on my tooth, right, right, right, but the body's still responding to a fucking toothache, right. So I mean you, just so mentally, you can compartmentalize some of it. But I mean, the reality is like, when you want relief, you want relief that's mad.
Speaker 1:Mad respect for, oh hey, speaking of your wife, what about your new wife? Oh man, now where'd you meet her and how long ago do you?
Speaker 2:so I met her oh gosh, she. She first moved here in 1999 and got a job at la fitness in tempe, which I believe is still there same location, same spot. First house I bought was on the border of chandler and tempe. It was mcclintock and Ray Road. Okay, closest gym is Tempe LA Fitness, and so I started. I was working out there, uh, training, and she got a job there. So I met her way back then and through just her involvement in fitness and fitness equipment and all that stuff, we've crossed paths for the last 20 years and, uh, a mutual friend of ours, uh, when the movie was being announced in 2019, said, hey, you, you might want to help mark out, you know, because fran had a personal trainer and she'll, she's text me. She's like, hey, why don't you come train with me? And I'm like, uh, no, like, what?
Speaker 2:like, like such an odd thing right on the smash yeah, at the time I was a, you know, wasn't in good shape, was just you know my, my buddy was like going dude, you need help, you need help like to get in shape to get in shape, to get your body sober, um, I just gotten sober.
Speaker 2:Okay, I just gotten sober. I've been sober like a year and something and okay, um, so it ended up being where I had so much resistance to it. And then finally I'm like you know what, screw it, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go might as well. And so I started working out with her like one time a week, then it was two times a week and it was like three, and then it was four. I started getting in good shape and then we would work out together. She would go her way, I'd go my way, and then it was like one. After one workout I'm like you know, like hey, you hungry.
Speaker 2:And she, she's like, okay, yeah, I'll go out to eat with you. And we just started talking on more of an intimate level than just being training partners together. And then it was, it was like that one date and it was like, hey, you know, you want to watch a movie, you know. And it was like, okay, so you know, at her house hanging out, and then it was just slow process, like I tell everybody I was completely broken when I met her, like completely broken, you know, as a person. I had just gotten sober, so I'm just figuring.
Speaker 2:That's why she's been with you that long yeah.
Speaker 1:Also, you know, a little side note that maybe people don't know is that your wife adopted a dog from our dog rescue 10 years ago.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that's what's crazy about this, Isn't that crazy? Too man.
Speaker 1:That dog. I remember we rescued that dog because I thought so much of your wife, because that dog was so beat up. It was such an old beat up dog which the dog's still around.
Speaker 2:Still around, which is crazy.
Speaker 1:I thought this is amazing. This woman wants to adopt this dog. It showed so much heart. She's such a she has so much empathy. She does, she rescued you and, oh my god, man, she takes you're like a rescue human totally, yeah, I tell people I go this.
Speaker 2:This gives you an idea, like the first six months you're dating. Like fran likes to do big things, so she gets this huge log cabin house in big bear, california. Um, so we're gonna spend christmas up there. She skis. I hadn't skied since I've been like a kid and so I'm like, yeah, I'll go skiing, even though I know I'm never getting on the slopes. You know it's like, so we go and spend this time at the log cabin and the first night, um, this beautiful log cabin, she's down in the master bedroom and I am in the bedroom the furthest away from her, like I'm on the second floor in the bedroom. All the way in the back. I said that's how broken I was. You mean like you were afraid, afraid, didn't, unsure of myself, all this other stuff. Like had you?
Speaker 2:guys, not been intimate yet no oh, and you, and it was gonna go down that night oh, it was like that trip was like and I'm like, I'm like I, just, I I really didn't have um, I didn't have any, like my head was so cloudy with all this stuff. I mean, you come out of a relationship that was with my ex-wife. There was a lot of stuff that followed me out of that relationship, you know it just. You know, like um, being intimate, you know, like all the things surrounding that, that I put in my head all this other stuff, and it was just really one of those things where it's like, wow, you know, looking back on it, going man, I, I, I didn't know, I was really that fucked up, you know.
Speaker 1:So did you ever get?
Speaker 2:therapy. So, yes, yeah, I mean part of part of unpacking a lot of this stuff is to understand my family of origin, right? Uh, the dysfunction that went on when I grew up, you know? Um, a lot of what happens with alcoholics is they adopt certain behaviors to cope with stuff that went on as a childhood. But when you say your dysfunction, you grew up.
Speaker 1:What was that?
Speaker 2:My dad was an alcoholic, you know there was a youngest of five kids, so there was a lot of, you know my dad. You know, on again, off again, working, you know. So you know, I mean, we've had government cheese, we've had cheese blocks, we've had, you know, government substance. I mean as a kid, like one of my memories is, like you know, at the grocery store, food stamps used to come in a book, you know, and my mom filling the food stamps out to buy the food and the people behind me going, oh God, you know, cause they had to wait an extra second. My mom filled these out and just like that sticks in my head as a kid and all these little things of like of how we grew up and some of the shame shame I adopted from that, of how we grew up and some of the shame shame I adopted from that.
Speaker 2:Um, and then when you have a dysfunctional family that has addiction in it, you know as a kid, to cope with stuff, I just was the agreeable kid, you know, cause I didn't want conflict, you know. And then as I get older and I get into my teens, you know, I become this defiant, rebellious, cute kid. That's like you know, come on, and those are the two personalities that that that run my life as an adult, which both of them suck at it, you know. So it's called adult child of an alcoholic and dysfunctional family. It's it's called aca work, and so you kind of look at these things and it allowed me to identify of like, okay, when I'm, when I'm behaving in those patterns, that I can identify them. I don't have to participate in them. It allows me to have a better, healthier relationship because I can connect with you on a different level so are you at peace with yourself now?
Speaker 2:I'm more at peace than I've ever been in my entire life. That's awesome. Like we're saying early I, I gave up on vanity. Yeah, I don't care.
Speaker 1:Well, you know what's funny is so when you came over to my house a couple weeks ago and it was like you were in jeans, tennis shoes, a white t-shirt stretched out, covered in paint you were covered in paint and sweaty. You came over to my house, right yeah, then I saw you a couple days later like on tv doing something. Yeah, you were like all shirt tucked in, clean washed. I was like, yeah, that's not the dude, it was at my house dude in my house is legit like kind of like right now I mean you look great now, but I mean this is the real, you right it is.
Speaker 2:I like I think you're awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate that I'm so glad to have because, um, it was about a year ago where tyler, who runs this podcast, said to me hey, do you want to interview Mark Hurd? Do you know who he is? The Rock is doing a movie on his life. It was about a year ago and I said right, the Rock is doing a movie on his life, good one, everyone says that type of thing, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it's such a long process, yeah, whenever someone, someone might be interested in doing it. And it's because I've seen how it works in hollywood today. I've seen how a song someone goes rihanna's really interested in this song and then the songwriter's like, oh my god, rihanna's gonna do my song and it never happens. It goes, it goes for years to all the different channels and then rihanna's like I don't want to do it, someone else does and it never happens. So when this really happened, I was so excited for you and I had never met you yet.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. It was awesome, it was so cool.
Speaker 1:And then when you see the Rock and then you see you, holy shit, he becomes you. Yeah, he's freaking nuts man. You know he ended up isolated, like.
Speaker 2:So this is the feedback that I get from everybody around him, right, Everybody that's familiar with him, that's worked on film with him and that's familiar with him, that's worked on film with him and that's done all that. So normally when he does a movie and it's a big block of time he has his family up with him, he has his daughters up with him and his wife comes up, and all that completely opposite, in vancouver, you know, obviously, airbnb and and uh, hyram, who, who's his ex-brother-in-law? Uh, who's one of the producers? Hiram Garcia, danny Garcia's brother, who's his ex-wife? So, anyways, he brings himself up there, isolates himself. He treats it like a training camp. So he gets back in like boot camp, where it's like he gets up, gets his meal in, gets to the gym, works out, goes to set makeup on end of meet character. End of night, home to the gym, works out, goes to set makeup on end of meet character, end of night home, get up, repeat, you get it. I mean it's like when I'm in training camp, like when I was in training camp. It's literally it's exactly what you do Up at 6 in the morning, first meal in first workout.
Speaker 2:At 8 o'clock, you know, second meal of the day, right, and then it's workout again that afternoon to get whatever else you needed to get in that day.
Speaker 2:And then you had this block where it's like eat again, and then, if you had physical therapy, massage therapy, whatever you're doing, and then, if you had to, if you missed anything during the day, at the, at the end of the day, that's your block to make it up, right, right, like this morning I didn't get, you know, an hour cardio, and then I needed you get it at night, you know, or an hour cardio, oh, you do. So what you, what we figured out during the time, is that, um, what worked best is is a condensed, um, condensed intensity, so you didn't want to drag it out over an hour. If I can get this intense half hour, I'd take that over an hour cardio every day of the like, running or what, like, uh, you do. Intensity of of like, um, that's one jump rope, bad bag work where you can actually get your heart rate to pop and then bring it down and pop, bring it down what's the?
Speaker 2:hardest workout you ever done? Do you ever? Oh, our, our circuits? Oh, really, yeah, it's got it's. Actually.
Speaker 2:I just talked to this guy the other day. His name's tr goodman. He had this, I think a pro camp in california and he trained, uh, hockey players. So this is back 25 years ago when, um, heart rate training no one really knew about it, and all this other stuff and and he would do a functional training which no one was really doing. You know, um, it just wasn't what was going on in the gyms and so he would.
Speaker 2:He had three different circuits you'd have a speed circuit, endurance circuit and a strength circuit and you did it for an hour and he had you hooked up to a heart rate monitor, where he had the monitor on his wrist and literally. So one of the big deals I talked to him the other day about was when your heart rate gets to 185, 190 beats a minute, you're on the borderline of wanting to throw up Right. Your breathing gets erratic if you don't regulate it because you're trying to get air. So when your heartbeat gets there, you can train yourself to have this slower rhythm of heartbeat by controlling your breathing, by actively recovering, so you can still put out this effort and still recover. But 25 years ago this was like at the forefront.
Speaker 1:That dude's ahead of his time. Oh my God, he's not every gym you go to.
Speaker 2:They have some kind of functional training, some kind of heart rate thing. I mean, every piece of cardio equipment you got has got heart rate on it, you're right.
Speaker 2:You know. So back then he could walk you through in your head. Because when your heart beats that high, and he'd make you look at yourself in the mirror and he would whisper, like behind you. What are you telling yourself? Damn, like what story right now are you telling yourself? Because he knows for a fact, if you're doing like, if you're doing presses, so he'd have like straight bar, and then you do like a burpee, like a, like a, like a, throw your legs out, come back up, pull the weight up, pull it over your head back down, he knows your heart rate is going to spike, right, so he would literally be behind you. What are you telling yourself? Because at that point, when your heart rate gets like that, your head creates a story of like dude, this hurts man. Like what are you doing to yourself? And just stop, you don't need to do. I mean, tell me right, or you can have your head tell you something else. Yeah, bring it on, motherfucker right, bring it on.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. You gotta psych yourself out. Yeah, it's, a lot of people take the easy way out. A lot of people don't want oh god, because it because your body's telling you to stop. Your mind's got you gotta listen to your mind. Yeah, I guess your body can take a lot more way more than you ever ever think right.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like watching some of the guys compete now in the ufc. You're like like holy crap, man, they hit a gear that you look at and you go, wow, that's exceptional yeah, but when you fought it was bloody oh, it was nasty.
Speaker 1:Hey, do you know what the rock is gonna say? Have you guys talked about it?
Speaker 2:oh, my god, he left me a blurb on. I'm telling you, on saturday I was saying like he, he, so I get done. You know, we're hanging out at the beach in malibu and I'm just trying to decompress before this week and and, uh, so we get back, uh, to jay's house and um, I met, like he leaves voice text, so I get a voice text. I'm like, oh shit, I didn't even listen, I didn't you see it come in right, and so I listened to it and it's just this, just this great encouraging like. And then he gives me like two lines and he's gonna say at the induction and he goes. Okay, I think I need to go work out because he goes. I need to get in the mindset and he goes, I'm gonna work out, he goes. If you need anything, you know, reach out to me and just I mean, so what do you respond with?
Speaker 1:thumbs up. Oh my God man.
Speaker 2:So it took me a day. It took me a day, uh, to send him a voice text back and the voice text, I think for probably two minutes of it. I'm just crying snots and boogers, man, I mean I can't help it. It's just like. It's just like dude. You, you don't understand how much you've Like. It's just like dude. You don't understand how much you've changed my life.
Speaker 1:My life has already changed, right, but how much he's added to it that I never saw coming Like he also knows who he is and the power he brings 100%, and the fact that he's talking to you and he knows that. So, yeah, and he's very humble. We've had him on our show before. He's always been amazing, he, he and he's very humble. We've had him on our show before. He's always been amazing, he, he, he. Although he did come after me on Twitter one time. He did. Yeah, he told me to sit down, shut up and eat breakfast. Ooh, hey, I made some joke about a movie he made.
Speaker 2:In fact, it was so viral that the news came over the news, showed up and asked me a comment of what the rock said about me on twitter I was like uh it's the rock man. I think it's awesome. Yeah, oh my god, the rock's making fun of me.
Speaker 1:Tell me to shut up and eat my breakfast, yeah, that's actually really cool yeah, I gotta find it. I shouldn't send it. Oh my gosh man, yeah he.
Speaker 2:He ends up being just, you know, like a, a human being that actually knows, when he reaches in and touch someone's life, that it's going to be different I mean his story by himself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to become who became who became is an amazing story too. You should play him, I thought about it I'm glad you came and jumped on. Oh my gosh man this is.
Speaker 2:You know what, man, this is one of the things that where I've been waiting to do this because I've been here long enough in in phoenix. You know, I've been a fan of yours forever. Oh, thanks, man. You know, it's just one of those things where it's like, if you, if you live in phoenix for any length of time, you know, I've spent hours and hours and hours listening to your show.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that you know because it's just one of those things where it's like you're, you're um, you know forever, you, you're ingrained in this, you know yeah, I'm proud to do it, proud to be here, proud to be a zony yeah, thanks brother. So this is what's crazy about life does the rock?
Speaker 2:know this. Yes, yeah, so, um, I'm living in santa monica and I'm working out at gold's gym in venice not muscle beach, gold's gym, where mike o'hearn works out. Yeah, yes, I worked out with him and I'm working out at Gold's Gym in Venice, not Muscle Beach Gold's Gym, gold's Gym where.
Speaker 1:Mike O'Hearn works out.
Speaker 2:Yeah yes, I worked out with him last year there you go, so DJ's working out there and it's just like going to the office, right. So when you go to the gym, like I would go to the gym, it's like going to the office for me, right. And so, anyways, we bump into each other a couple times and, uh, he actually says, uh, we bump into each other again and he's like, hey, um, I'm sorry, you want to go to lunch. And I'm like, yeah, I said that'd be awesome. So we actually go down to the firehouse, uh, and we have lunch. I've been there, the place is great, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:So we go down and have lunch and he's asking all these questions Does he know who you are? He does, he does. And he's going hey, you know, I know you fight in Japan and stuff. Do they pay you? Good? And we start talking about like pay. We start talking about like what it is to fight, what kind of obligation, what kind of time obligation, and all these questions and and um, we have this great lunch, we exchange numbers. He's like hey, if you ever need anything. I don't understand at the time that vince mcmahon had sent him home from the wwe uh tour. He had a torn PCL in his knee and he wasn't performing to the level that they expected him to perform to. They hadn't pushed him to be the rock yet he wasn't over as the rock. He was the Brahma bull, I think. Okay.
Speaker 1:Right, I saw that in the documentary Right.
Speaker 2:And so what I don't get. At the time he had already talked to Ken Shamrock, who had fought in Japan, and he talked to a couple other people. He doesn't know if he's going to continue to pro-wrestle, because at that point Vince McMahon was paying him $150,000 a year and he was traveling 325 days out of the year. He told me he goes, do the math, right, he goes. I was paying to be on the road, right and so. But he wasn't a heel yet. Nope, right, okay, they hadn't pushed him over as a heel, right, as being the rock right persona, right. And so he's thinking at that time that that's he. He's gonna have to change direction because he's got a kid now.
Speaker 1:So he's thinking about going to go fight yeah, in Japan.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, ok, yeah, so did you remind him of this story, did he remember?
Speaker 2:Oh, he remembers it, he remembers it.
Speaker 1:One hundred percent. So there's there's so much more behind him playing you in the movie. Oh, there's such a great story behind.
Speaker 2:Oh my.
Speaker 1:God, it's almost like you can make a movie of the making of how this came together.
Speaker 2:You can, you can wow, that's so crazy. It's. It's because you, you again, you think about like the bigger picture of stuff. Right right, eight billion people, nine billion people on the planet, chance, I mean, that's that. He's there 20 years ago, no more than that. It's uh. So 20, it's like. Is that 20 years ago? No more than that. It's so. It's like, yeah, like 24, 23 years ago.
Speaker 1:Wow, Did you check the 660 exchange numbers? Did he have the same number that he had? Oh no, he's gone through Rock new cell.
Speaker 2:So I found an old I don't know if you remember it was like God man, one of the manufacturers.
Speaker 2:It's like a phone that looked like a little phone where digits are here, a little tiny screen, and then you flipped it open and it was a bigger screen on the inside the keyboard I found it and I actually do have a number for him way back when, and it's just one of those things where I was like pulling numbers out of it going, oh shit, I had this person's number, this person you know that'd be cool if he put that somehow in the movie where mark kerr meets the rock so part of what the ufc is doing is they're doing a story about this story. Oh really, that's great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, god, there's so many levels, that's so oh my god, it's inception it's it's like you know we laugh about it and going I'm so glad you did pro wrestling, bro. Like, so thankful, like, because at that moment you imagine like okay, I got a kid at home, right, right, and him feeling responsibility of like, okay, I'm on the road but I'm not making enough. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1:He knew who you were before he was who he was. Yeah, and he asked you to lunch and you said, yes, yeah, so at the time you're the star and he wants to pick your brain. Yeah, and then you do that. Yeah, and then he hits the stratosphere and he's the biggest movie star in the world and now? So when the project of your life came up, he clearly knew who you were already. Yeah, I saw when he made the announcement. He was so excited to make the announcement that he was doing the movie of your life. Like he's a fan, he's a fan of the sport and he knows that you are a historic figure in this. Yeah, so the respect what boy that makes me like the rock already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes me like him a lot more, yeah man, that's so cool yeah, I. I mean, it's another level of just trying to wrap my head around how all of this really folded on itself and part of what you were saying earlier. Some people they go. Oh yeah, yeah, I sold my movie and it never gets made. You hear Dustin Hoffman going. Yeah, it took me 30 years to get this movie made Right right, right, right right.
Speaker 2:And it's just like when he literally said in October well, november, he's like November 2023, he's like, hey, this thing's moving forward.
Speaker 1:Also there were other people. They were going to make a movie about you with other people, right? Yep, jean-claude.
Speaker 2:Van Damme.
Speaker 1:Jean-Claude Van Damme, but he wasn't going to play you.
Speaker 2:The other dude from Spartacus was going to play you Exactly, manute Bennett. Yeah, manute.
Speaker 1:Bennett Well, he wouldn't have been. I mean, he looked good, so I've talked to Manute since then.
Speaker 2:Really, manute Bennett, manute Bennett, incredible, incredible guy, like really incredible, in case he goes. You don't understand me getting ready for that. Even though it didn't happen, it changed my life yeah, I think he trained for five months he goes. They changed my life he got huge, he goes humongous dude oh red it, and it's just one of those things where I'm like this has got so many stories behind the story. Right, that's it.
Speaker 1:It's like there has to be other, there has got to be behind the scenes. Someone has to tell this story. Yeah, that's so great, but the fact that this guy, they were going to make it and then Jean-Claude didn't show, is what they're saying, right? So then, five years later, it lands on the rock's lap. Yep, like that's crazy. Yep, and it's gonna be such a big movie. Oh, it's gonna be. It's gonna be one of these types of movies. Yeah, win all the awards.
Speaker 2:They do they do so you got to be ready, dude.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, a year from now you're gonna be like can you take down that podcast I did with you, please? Who's? This is mark curse people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna, exactly, I'm gonna have people. I'm gonna have people, but, yeah, be careful. I be careful. I got people, yeah, exactly. So what are you doing now? Me and my wife have a company called Absolute Wellness. We, I say we, she's the one that does it. She's really good at designing, like, fitness centers for multifamily. She does it for all vertical. So, um, she supply. She designs, supplies, implements and installs fitness equipment. She deals with sound. She deals with design how to design a space where it's healthier, um, like a home gym, or even if you have a hotel your own gym, yeah from your own personal home gym to a hotel yep, yeah, wow, yeah, wow, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it's pretty diverse what she's able to do. She's been doing it for 23 years and she's really got a formula for it. What is it again? It's called Absolute Wellness, like com com.
Speaker 1:All right, yeah, very cool. Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today, because this podcast is a spinoff of our radio show.
