Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: My guest today is six foot five, one hundred and
Speaker 1: eight en kilos and one of the most feared heavyweights
Speaker 1: in the UFC. Rando, the Balkan Bear. Perachic grew up
Speaker 1: in Adelaide with an absent father in prison, a single
Speaker 1: mum working two jobs, and a childhood full of bullying, anger,
Speaker 1: and pain. He didn't know how to handle it all.
Speaker 1: He got expelled from school, worked as a bouncer in
Speaker 1: some of Adelaide's roughest pubs, got stabbed, bottled, and attacked
Speaker 1: with machetes and still found a way to turn it
Speaker 1: all around. In this episode, Brando and I have an
Speaker 1: honest conversation about depression, faith, fighting and what it actually
Speaker 1: takes to become one of Australia's top UFC fighters. Have
Speaker 1: a listen, Brando the Balkan Bear, Peris Chick. Welcome to
Speaker 1: our Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Gary, Well, I'm excited to have you. I'm a bit
Speaker 1: of a combat sports fan, so you know, to have
Speaker 1: a UFC fighter heavyweight, but that on the podcast very exciting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's great to be here. Obviously, not
Speaker 3: many people know who I am. Yeah, I've already been
Speaker 3: in the USC for the last eight months, so yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's been a ten year long journey and we've just
Speaker 3: really started.
Speaker 1: So you're starting to make a name for yourself. You
Speaker 1: have three fights in the UFC and two first round
Speaker 1: t ks and the third fight was the second round
Speaker 1: t K.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The last fight was probably my best fight.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: The first fight I had had some adversity, some nerves,
Speaker 3: the second fight the same thing, and then the last
Speaker 3: fight I just fell at home.
Speaker 2: You know, I really felt like the UFC has right belong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, your number one fan, Andrew Carpenter, made of mine,
Speaker 1: made of yours. And Andrew's been on the podcast, has
Speaker 1: solicited that does a lot of work in the child
Speaker 1: child protection space. A really good fellow. But he raves
Speaker 1: about you.
Speaker 2: Oh mate.
Speaker 3: We just did a charity event in Adelaide, and it's
Speaker 3: just he was actually my spirring partner back in the day. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so it was amazing to have him there. He's always
Speaker 3: supported me and yeah, we we actually raised a lot
Speaker 3: of money because of him and his connections. He says
Speaker 3: it's because of me, but he puts so much effort in.
Speaker 3: We had nine days to prepare and yeah, he's a champion.
Speaker 1: No, he's a good and put it in perspective. He
Speaker 1: claims that he taught you everything you know about fighting,
Speaker 1: So he does. He did.
Speaker 3: And I remember when I first started, He's to kick
Speaker 3: me on the groin every single spiring session.
Speaker 2: So I actually hated sparring with him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but yeah, I think there was a bit of
Speaker 3: a what do you call it, I don't know, rivalry.
Speaker 3: Two big guys were just going at it. I didn't
Speaker 3: have much technique.
Speaker 1: Well, getting in there early before you get experience and
Speaker 1: get the drop on it. Okay, so you're six foot five,
Speaker 1: one hundred and eighteen kilos or what you sit at
Speaker 1: when you're fighting, I'll say, a scary looking dude, and
Speaker 1: you fight for a living. Gentle giant, A gentle giant.
Speaker 1: Most people's perception of a person that fights for a
Speaker 1: living is a little bit different. I'm going to put
Speaker 1: you on the spot right from the start and ask
Speaker 1: you a hard question. I think it's a hard question.
Speaker 1: Who are you describe yourself? How would you describe yourself?
Speaker 3: You know what, that's actually a very hard question. Yeah,
Speaker 3: who am I I'm just me. I am who I am.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to be better every day. I'm not perfect human,
Speaker 3: I'm having a experience and yeah, I'm just trying to
Speaker 3: be the best person I can be. So I'm a
Speaker 3: kid from Adelaide. I grew up in a very sort
Speaker 3: of European upbringing, walk you want to call it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know. I live with my grandparents and my mum
Speaker 3: had a little hobby farm. So country kid. Always loved
Speaker 3: martial arts, loved Bruce Lee, loved Mike Tyson. So I
Speaker 3: was always fighting, and every time my grandparents had people
Speaker 3: come over the house for dinner or lunch, I'll be
Speaker 3: kicking them in the legs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll be trying to fight them. Yeah.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you know, I'm just a kid from Adelaide
Speaker 3: chasing his dream and I found a little bit of
Speaker 3: greatness inside of me and I'm just trying to nurture
Speaker 3: that and become someone special.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, isn't it. A lot of people go through
Speaker 1: life and not find what rocks their boat or their
Speaker 1: what their journey is. But do you seem to be
Speaker 1: very laser focused on what you want to do now
Speaker 1: and where you're heading.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think everyone should find their purpose in
Speaker 3: life and just go for it. I don't know what
Speaker 3: my purpose was. I was a very lost youth kid,
Speaker 3: and I just I don't know. I feel like I
Speaker 3: had something great inside of me, Like I felt like
Speaker 3: I could be someone, and even though people around me,
Speaker 3: where it was family of friends, told me I couldn't
Speaker 3: and I was nobody. You know, they call me stupid fat.
Speaker 3: I just get bullied a lot. I just didn't believe it.
Speaker 3: I was like, no, I'm special, like God put me
Speaker 3: here on this earth. I'm here for a reason.
Speaker 1: Well, to have that belief in yourself is important. And
Speaker 1: there's one I've heard you say that about yourself. Don't
Speaker 1: mistake the kindness for weakness. I like to find that
Speaker 1: an interesting saying. Explain what you mean by that.
Speaker 3: I've always been like a kind hearted person, even as
Speaker 3: a kid, and I think that made me a target maybe,
Speaker 3: and I think people take advantage of that. You get
Speaker 3: a lot of narcissists and manipulators and just nasty people
Speaker 3: that want to use you and they see your kindness
Speaker 3: and they take it for weakness. They try to take
Speaker 3: and take and they try to Yeah, like I've just
Speaker 3: experienced it throughout my whole life, always been bullied and
Speaker 3: always try to treat people how I want to be treated,
Speaker 3: and sometimes people just take the piss. So, you know,
Speaker 3: even in school, man, I was in year eight, my
Speaker 3: first day of a year eight, the year twelve, try
Speaker 3: to pick on me, you know, and I was like
Speaker 3: bigger than them. I was like, I don't want to fight, guys,
Speaker 3: I don't want to fight, and you know they started,
Speaker 3: I had to finish it. Yeah, I was protecting myself
Speaker 3: so that happened throughout my whole life. And yeah, so
Speaker 3: I'm a kind man, I'm also a dangerous man. When
Speaker 3: I was younger, I didn't know how to control it.
Speaker 3: And that's why mixed martial arts saved my life because
Speaker 3: now I can control it. If I get in a situation,
Speaker 3: I can diffuse it, I can walk away.
Speaker 2: If I have to, I can run away.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's it's people, especially young men, who don't
Speaker 3: know how to control their emotions.
Speaker 2: That's when it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to talk about that, like
Speaker 1: the fighting arts that I'm a big supporter of that
Speaker 1: to keep kids and it doesn't have to just be
Speaker 1: the boys the girls out of trouble because it teaches
Speaker 1: them at a skill that makes them discipline and then
Speaker 1: they learned to control it. Just rewinding to the bullies,
Speaker 1: you would see some of the toughest men on the
Speaker 1: planet now in the world that you're moving in the
Speaker 1: in the UFC, A lot of the tough guys or
Speaker 1: the bullies that we saw at school, they were hiding fear.
Speaker 1: That's my take on it. And I saw it when
Speaker 1: I was in the cops, so i'd see people that
Speaker 1: were muscled up and covered in tattoos, and underneath it
Speaker 1: was a little boy that was scared and that quite
Speaker 1: often makes them go down that path for being bullies
Speaker 1: or heading their life up in the wrong direction. Do
Speaker 1: you agree with that.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent?
Speaker 3: I was scared. I was scared my dad. I went
Speaker 3: to jail when I was younger. He never came home.
Speaker 3: So I had the fan for myself. I had to
Speaker 3: protect my mother, and you know, I had a lot
Speaker 3: of fear, and I've seen a lot of things in
Speaker 3: my younger days, and you know, I didn't trust people
Speaker 3: that much. And what between the corner of a dog,
Speaker 3: it's going to buy y Yeah, you know, so I
Speaker 3: think a tough man and I respect men who can
Speaker 3: control all their emotions, who can protect their family, be kind, loving, compassionate,
Speaker 3: you know, play with their kids, their daughter.
Speaker 2: Their son.
Speaker 3: And also like a tough man isn't someone who beats
Speaker 3: up their kids or their wife or other people acts
Speaker 3: you know, strong and a strong man is someone who
Speaker 3: sometimes has to back down and walk away, you know.
Speaker 3: So you know, my father, in my opinion, was a
Speaker 3: weak man, and you know, I still respect him. And
Speaker 3: he did the wrong thing. He paid the price because
Speaker 3: he paid that price. I didn't have to. Maybe I
Speaker 3: would have.
Speaker 1: You think you learn a lesson from from your father's
Speaker 1: father's mistakes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. You know, I never understood why. I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't get a chance to ask him
Speaker 2: what he did.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, all I know is that he went
Speaker 3: away and after that we never had a relationship. I'll
Speaker 3: go visit him in jail as a kid, and that
Speaker 3: was my sort of youth.
Speaker 1: That's hard, isn't it, Because I speak to a lot
Speaker 1: of people that had actually ended up being in jail themselves,
Speaker 1: but the memories of when they're a kid and their parents.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it was both parents in jail, And there's a shame,
Speaker 1: there's confusion, there's a whole range of things that can
Speaker 1: fuck you up in as a young kid developing. For sure,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit more depth about your childhood.
Speaker 1: So you know, the Balkan bear, what's the background?
Speaker 3: So, yeah, my dad's side is full croation, my mom's
Speaker 3: side is half creation, half bosling. And yeah, I just
Speaker 3: grew up like I love fishing, love hunting. I used to, like,
Speaker 3: you know, bite the heads off of fish, and like
Speaker 3: just I was a crazy kid. You know, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I just the way I fight as well. It's pretty ruthless,
Speaker 3: pretty relentless, and there's not much emotion. If you look
Speaker 3: at my face, it's sort of a killer. So when
Speaker 3: you see a bet ripop rip open, a salmon or
Speaker 3: a moose, it's got no emotion. And that's how I fight.
Speaker 3: So my uncle gave me the name many years ago
Speaker 3: and it just stuck stuck with you.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy your childhood?
Speaker 3: I did very beautiful mother, grandparents, and I was actually
Speaker 3: very fortunate. When I was actually growing up, I thought
Speaker 3: I had a ship children. But now I look at
Speaker 3: it and I compare it to other people's I'm like, wow,
Speaker 3: I was actually very lucky. I grew up on a farm.
Speaker 3: I rode motorbix, had animals. I had very loving grandparents
Speaker 3: and mother. But I was an angry kid and I
Speaker 3: sort of ran away from home as well. And yeah,
Speaker 3: when I look at it now, man, I had a
Speaker 3: great childhood. Where do you reckon that anger came from? Oh,
Speaker 3: just my dad leaving, not coming back, not wanting to
Speaker 3: be around me. I could understand it. Like when I
Speaker 3: don't have kids, I'm not married, I haven't got a partner.
Speaker 3: But when I see my mates with their kids, I
Speaker 3: look at that, I'm like, how could you leave that?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Like to me, it's just weakness. And I saw my
Speaker 3: dad recently actually, and it was good to see him.
Speaker 3: But it's a long time between drinks and try to rekindle.
Speaker 3: But I've got my own life and he's got his,
Speaker 3: and yeah.
Speaker 1: It would be hard. What about schooling. You said you
Speaker 1: were bullied at school, Well, I would suggest the bullies
Speaker 1: might have came at second best. Many times did you
Speaker 1: start bullying other kids? Did it was it behavior that
Speaker 1: you were bullied? Or did you have enough emotional intelligence
Speaker 1: and empathy not to be a bully? Were you?
Speaker 3: I mean, I can't say no or yes, But like
Speaker 3: I basically bullied the bullies, you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 3: if I saw the older kids picking on someone else,
Speaker 3: I would bully them.
Speaker 2: Two rights that make it wrong.
Speaker 3: So really I was a bully myself because those kids
Speaker 3: were picking on someone else, I was picking on them.
Speaker 3: So I did the wrong thing as well. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I never I never really started anything directly. It was
Speaker 3: always sort of I was defending myself. I was defending
Speaker 3: somebody else. So I could have done better.
Speaker 1: Well, we all could do better. I got into a
Speaker 1: lot of fights when I was a kid at school
Speaker 1: because I was fairly quiet, and people think, okay, well,
Speaker 1: he's not not reacting. I should have reacted at the
Speaker 1: start and resolved the issue earlier. But I'd let it
Speaker 1: build and then then yeah, then unleash. And that's probably
Speaker 1: not the most sensible way of doing things. Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: school in education? Did you buy into education? Were you?
Speaker 1: Don't laugh? I got to ask this question. I'm a scholar, right, professor, Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you see much sense in or you're more interested
Speaker 1: in riding bikes around the farm and fishing and just
Speaker 1: doing what boys do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually did enjoy school. Yeah, but because I
Speaker 3: got bullied so much, I hated it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I was still to this day dyslexic. I
Speaker 3: struggled to read and write and I had a real
Speaker 3: bad starter kid. So yeah, school was very hard for me.
Speaker 3: And when I was a kid, I only spoke Croatian,
Speaker 3: and then I struggled to English, so my family only
Speaker 3: spoke to me in English.
Speaker 2: And now I don't even know one language.
Speaker 1: I don't know creation, I don't totally confusing. Well, you've
Speaker 1: had all the all the boxes ticked to get but
Speaker 1: we didn't.
Speaker 2: If I was fat as I was fat as fuck
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: So it's just the bully's dream, yeah, and coming in
Speaker 1: don't poke the bear though, Yeah, no, I could imagine.
Speaker 1: So did you getting yourself into trouble in school?
Speaker 3: Well, my first third of year I got suspended. The
Speaker 3: year Tools picked to me. I had a big fight
Speaker 3: with them. They picked me because someone sprayed wog on
Speaker 3: some year Tools car and they blamed me right, and
Speaker 3: they just they were surrounding me and they just wanted
Speaker 3: to fight. So I was like, let's go, and then
Speaker 3: just started just started fighting and I was the one
Speaker 3: to blame. And yeah, I got suspended. So my mum,
Speaker 3: you know, a single mom, she was working two jobs,
Speaker 3: she had two kids, and she put me in a
Speaker 3: good school. You know the only reason I went to
Speaker 3: that school was because my best friend Nick, who went there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and she was going to put me just in a
Speaker 3: public school, and I didn't want to be around those
Speaker 3: type of people. I wanted to go to a better
Speaker 3: school because I knew, like, if I'm around these people
Speaker 3: who they literally go there, they're selling drugs, they're doing
Speaker 3: all kinds.
Speaker 2: Of bad things, So I didn't want to be around that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know it's important, isn't it, Because you are shaped
Speaker 1: by your environment as a kid, and if you get
Speaker 1: dropped into an area like that, you want to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gravitate towards where the popular kids are or what's
Speaker 1: going on, and you can go down the wrong path.
Speaker 1: Did you have any good role models? You're like your mom.
Speaker 1: You speak highly of your mom, your grandparents.
Speaker 3: My grandparents amazing, very hard working people.
Speaker 2: My mom.
Speaker 1: Did they immigrate over to Australia? Did they? Yeah?
Speaker 3: They immigrated in the sixties, I believe, or maybe seventies.
Speaker 3: So it's funny though, because I always had this picture
Speaker 3: in my head, you know, the Croatians wogs. They come
Speaker 3: at one suitcase on a boat and they start this life,
Speaker 3: and you know, they worked very hard. But I thought,
Speaker 3: you know, their bloody chucking bodies off the boat and
Speaker 3: you know, like it was like a three month journey,
Speaker 3: you know. Yeah, and last last week when I saw them,
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, yeah, we had two pools and it
Speaker 3: was a great all the future can imagine it. So
Speaker 3: like you came on a cruise ship, that's what the
Speaker 3: boat I was picturing in my head.
Speaker 1: Right, So you brought into that, I bought into it.
Speaker 1: I look, I think full credit to them, like, regardless
Speaker 1: of how they got here. And there's some tough journeys
Speaker 1: of people finding that finding the country they want to
Speaker 1: live in. But anyone that uproots from a country and
Speaker 1: then starts a new life, it's gutsy, isn't it?
Speaker 2: For sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Imagine, Sorry, I actually did it myself. Well, you
Speaker 1: went over the New Zealand, didn't you? Yeah, over the Walklan.
Speaker 3: So I literally had one suitcase, jumped on a flight,
Speaker 3: went to a new country and knew nobody. So I
Speaker 3: sort of like, if my grandparents can do it in
Speaker 3: the sixties or seventies, I can do it, okay. And
Speaker 3: that was actually a big help for me because it's
Speaker 3: hard to leave you your hometown.
Speaker 1: Most definitely, did they did they rain you in at all?
Speaker 1: Did you get any any good advice from people going
Speaker 1: you can't solve these problems with your fists or what
Speaker 1: was a what was the sort of.
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 3: Not many words, but the actions, the actions over the years,
Speaker 3: they told me a lot of integrity, respect and just
Speaker 3: very hard, loyal, humble people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they swear a lot. That's where I get
Speaker 2: it from.
Speaker 1: That's a descriptive word. Sometimes it helps, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Think the actions really just played a big role. And
Speaker 3: I had a lot of morals as a kid, and
Speaker 3: my friends even today like, yeah, they're great people because
Speaker 3: I chose to hang around great people.
Speaker 1: When did you leave school?
Speaker 3: I've got to expel from your ten Okay, what happened there?
Speaker 3: Have a guess mate?
Speaker 1: Oh no, you weren't fighting.
Speaker 3: Well I had to fight, right, I had to fight,
Speaker 3: And there was a full circle moment because before my
Speaker 3: last fight, yeah, it was sixteen years since I went
Speaker 3: to school, and the last tie was at school. I
Speaker 3: got arrested by two cops and I got expelled, and
Speaker 3: then sixteen years later, I get greeted to a school
Speaker 3: by two cops.
Speaker 2: I'm doing a speech in front of all these kids.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, that's a big turn around, isn't it?
Speaker 3: And I hate public speaking like podcasts and stuff is okay,
Speaker 3: But to stand in front of a classroom of kids,
Speaker 3: you know, I actually got very nervous, more nervous than
Speaker 3: I would for a fight. And because I'm dyslexic, I
Speaker 3: had to memorize my whole speech. There was no notes. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was all in here, and I had twenty four
Speaker 3: hours to prepare. So I started the speech. It was
Speaker 3: supposed to be like, you know, introduced myself, and then
Speaker 3: I was like, I never started a fight, but I
Speaker 3: never walked away from one. That's my biggest downfall. What
Speaker 3: do you think I said? I never started a fight,
Speaker 3: I never finished one. That's my biggest downfall. And all
Speaker 3: the kids are like, you know, and I'm there for
Speaker 3: anti you know, like punching coward punch campaign and I'm
Speaker 3: talking about I didn't feel a fight.
Speaker 2: So that was my biggest downfall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well look you've got to get the message out.
Speaker 1: But yeah, get the speech speech, So all of that,
Speaker 1: but that coward punch, I know, Danny Green did a
Speaker 1: lot of I know Danny and he's done a good
Speaker 1: man that very very good man. It feels very strongly
Speaker 1: about it. But also the parents of the young kid
Speaker 1: that was assaulted here we've had on the not just assaulted,
Speaker 1: was killed by the one punch and where that campaign
Speaker 1: started from. And it's a good message.
Speaker 3: It is because it is a coward cowardly act. And
Speaker 3: I've been hit many times from behind. Yeah that's why
Speaker 3: actually never went out really as a kid or a teenager. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was working security a lot, and even as a
Speaker 3: security guard, people come up and they.
Speaker 2: Used to call it a dog shop.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know what I mean, They're coming from behind
Speaker 3: and they'll creep up on you and then yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I've been bottled as well. So for vodka bottle that
Speaker 3: knocked me out. Yeah, I woke up in a puddle
Speaker 3: of blood.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it needs to be called out for what
Speaker 1: trying to kill someone. Yeah, it's shameful. And even the
Speaker 1: idiots that don't even comprehend it, someone could die like
Speaker 1: where the campaign sated from, hit from behind and hit
Speaker 1: your head on the on the concrete.
Speaker 3: And I think we need to educate the youth though,
Speaker 3: because even as a youth, I wasn't aware you could
Speaker 3: kill someone from a punch. Yeah you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: I really like I was naive. So I had many
Speaker 3: fights on and like in school out of school, on
Speaker 3: the field, off the field, I paid a lot of
Speaker 3: rugby and football.
Speaker 2: And when I think about it, like, man.
Speaker 1: You realize how lucky you're.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know I could have been. I could have
Speaker 2: killed someone.
Speaker 3: I could have gone to jail, I could have ruined
Speaker 3: my whole life for just what a bit of ego,
Speaker 3: a bit of frustration.
Speaker 2: Man. The gym saved my life.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, yeah, well that that there comes that
Speaker 1: discipline that I talk about. And I still around boxing
Speaker 1: gyms and kids heading off in the wrong direction and
Speaker 1: come in there and they are in fights all the time,
Speaker 1: and you think, and you speak to the wider public,
Speaker 1: and they don't understand the oncept that, Okay, so you've
Speaker 1: got a kid that's in trouble for fighting, and you're
Speaker 1: going to bring him into a gym and teach him
Speaker 1: how to fight, and that's going to solve the problem.
Speaker 1: They see as you're just teaching him to fight. But
Speaker 1: what I found is that the kids, once they learned
Speaker 1: how to fight, and they also learned they couldn't fight
Speaker 1: as well as they thought they could, which is always
Speaker 1: funny when the tough guy comes into the gym and
Speaker 1: thinks he could take anyone out because he just gets
Speaker 1: cranky and he gets lit up by this little five
Speaker 1: foot two, small blow. It looks like an accountant, And
Speaker 1: so it teaches them that, yeah, there's a discipline. But
Speaker 1: the discipline also I think points him in the right
Speaker 1: direction for life. And sometimes it doesn't work. But the
Speaker 1: majority of people I see that dedicate themselves and we're
Speaker 1: talking fighting. It doesn't have to be that. Any discipline
Speaker 1: that sort of works for them can change their life.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think hitting now and had there.
Speaker 3: Even jiujitsu jitsu is an amazing thing and I've see
Speaker 3: a lot of kids now doing it. And when I
Speaker 3: have kids one day, that's the first marshal, last time
Speaker 3: and get them to do you know, and then you
Speaker 3: get into kickboxing mma, you know. I love jiu jitsu.
Speaker 3: Jiu Jitsu is actually the first martial art actually did. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so that's that's like when you can control your body
Speaker 3: and control someone else, like you don't have to hit
Speaker 3: them to control them.
Speaker 2: That's a very powerful thing.
Speaker 1: That that is a powerful thing. And people that might
Speaker 1: understand what we're talking about here, it's more of a
Speaker 1: controlling discipline that you can put people in a lock
Speaker 1: or an armbar or something and contain them without the
Speaker 1: actual hitting them where they can collapse and hit the head.
Speaker 3: I mean, there was even a few security guards back
Speaker 3: when I was with security that actually killed people because
Speaker 3: they put them a headlocks, you know, and they didn't
Speaker 3: they didn't know what they were doing, and they kill people.
Speaker 2: So just to know when someone's you know.
Speaker 3: People like I put people to headlocks before, and they
Speaker 3: don't know how to tap, they don't know how to
Speaker 3: stop it.
Speaker 2: They'll just try to pull it in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the cops, I came across a lot of people
Speaker 1: bounces as you want to call them, or security people,
Speaker 1: and that there's good ones, there's bad ones, and you
Speaker 1: see the ones and not just security. I'd see it
Speaker 1: in cops to the ones that were always involved in
Speaker 1: a punch up or in the salt, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the times it was because of the way they
Speaker 1: spoke to people. And I saw that with some people
Speaker 1: working the doors, Like there's a different way of speaking.
Speaker 1: If you've got a bloke that's turning up there and
Speaker 1: causing trouble, there's a way that you can speak to
Speaker 1: them without escalating. But if you're yeah, if you're looking
Speaker 1: for a fight, it's very easy to get one if
Speaker 1: you're standing on the door, for sure.
Speaker 3: I think every security guard or bodyguard or whoever I
Speaker 3: should be doing some kind of martial arts should learn
Speaker 3: how to control themselves emotionally because when I was doing it,
Speaker 3: I started at eighteen, I finished about twenty one, twenty two.
Speaker 3: I still wasn't in control of my emotions. So I
Speaker 3: always try to talk to people and I always try
Speaker 3: to go down that route.
Speaker 2: By then, when it kicked off, it kicked off, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And I got put in the worst pubs and clubs
Speaker 3: in Adelaide, you know.
Speaker 1: And there would be bad.
Speaker 3: They actually called us a clean up crew. So it
Speaker 3: was me and two big Nigerian guys. One was a boxer,
Speaker 3: one was just like a friend of mine, and we
Speaker 3: would our boss will put us in these clubs, these
Speaker 3: pubs and they'll be bikeis norms, and they would always
Speaker 3: go there and cause trouble and we'll just have to
Speaker 3: clean get rid of them, and they then go down
Speaker 3: without a fight. So I've been stabbed, got stabbed there
Speaker 3: from behind. I turned around and like I heard his footsteps.
Speaker 3: He was trying to get me in the in the gut.
Speaker 3: I've been bottled. Yeah, I've been attacked with machetes, hammers.
Speaker 3: So when when it's time to go, you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, many knives poured on me and like Razor blades.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a it's a tough, tough way to make.
Speaker 3: A living, it is, and it's very dangerous and I
Speaker 3: respect them. But yeah, a lot of people don't last
Speaker 3: that long in the industry, so there's always new people
Speaker 3: coming in. You know, you get you get three days
Speaker 3: of training and of course and then you get your
Speaker 3: license kind of thing. I'm pretty sure that's still how
Speaker 3: it is, much if.
Speaker 1: You sort of the cleanup crew. Because I see some
Speaker 1: people that are put on the doors, and yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't judge a book by its cover, you know that
Speaker 1: as well as I do. Some people can look after
Speaker 1: themselves and they don't look like they can't. But you
Speaker 1: see some people naively think it's like just telling kids
Speaker 1: to behave It's not like that. It can get very ugly,
Speaker 1: very quickly on the door, especially the wrong type of establishment,
Speaker 1: and when the if the Bikings turn up or someone
Speaker 1: else turns up like that, they're looking to make a
Speaker 1: name and they don't respect being told what to do.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've seen a guy a glass as woman
Speaker 3: with a full a sort of glass like this, yeah,
Speaker 3: right in front of me, and my first instinct was
Speaker 3: to lay them out. You know, and that poor woman
Speaker 3: her health faces just you know, so when something like
Speaker 3: that happens, it's hard to control yourself, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I saw a lot of things, man, Like I
Speaker 3: had a guy that got stabbed in the arm and
Speaker 3: hit his artery in vain, and I don't like blood.
Speaker 3: That was traumatizing and I was trying to cover him
Speaker 3: up and blood squirting out everywhere. I can still see
Speaker 3: it in my head, you know. So it's pretty horrible.
Speaker 2: It's nasty, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like that. But that's how Yeah, as a homicide detective,
Speaker 1: if I turn up the jobs where someone's been stabbed
Speaker 1: once and you're not thinking they're going to die, but
Speaker 1: it hits the wrong place, and yeah, that's the that's
Speaker 1: the consequences.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you would have seen a lot of horrible things
Speaker 3: in your time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, a lot of horrible things. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people think, like there's all different types of murders,
Speaker 1: you know, the serial killers or contract killings, that type
Speaker 1: of thing. A lot of times murders happened stupid things
Speaker 1: like you've described. You know, someone gets into an argument
Speaker 1: over the way he looked at the person or whatever,
Speaker 1: and yeah, I punch and they're dead.
Speaker 2: How did you do with it going through those things?
Speaker 1: I think when you when you're doing the job, like
Speaker 1: you carry the emotion like I don't think you're a
Speaker 1: good homicide detective. And if you've got empathy for the
Speaker 1: victims and understand what's gone on, but you've got a
Speaker 1: job to do. Because I've spoken to a lot of
Speaker 1: homicide cops since I've left the police, and they're all
Speaker 1: all the same. Like when you're doing it, if there's murder,
Speaker 1: you called the murder, so your focus. You've got a
Speaker 1: job to do, so you don't really carry all the
Speaker 1: emotion because you step by step trying to solve it.
Speaker 1: When you get home, sometimes you sit at home and
Speaker 1: it sort of goes, yeah, that was pretty heavy. Or
Speaker 1: other times, because you're on call a lot, you sit
Speaker 1: there and you think, fuck, I hope the phone doesn't ring.
Speaker 1: I just you're seeing home, relaxing and knowing that if
Speaker 1: the phone rings, you could be end up in some
Speaker 1: horror scene and doing what you do.
Speaker 3: But would you have like a constant anxiety or like
Speaker 3: expectation for things have happened?
Speaker 1: I think you get used to the chaos, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense that you do it so much. It was
Speaker 1: just that was your norm. And I think I was
Speaker 1: lucky that I just had the ability to leave it,
Speaker 1: just chill out. And you know, we're talking coming in
Speaker 1: here about training. Training helped me a lot, Like, no
Speaker 1: matter what pressure I was feeling at work, I'd gather
Speaker 1: a gym and get someone light me up, kick me
Speaker 1: in the head or whatever, and you concentrate. You're concentrating
Speaker 1: there and that was sort of an outlet. That was
Speaker 1: a relief. But yeah, each person deals with it, deals
Speaker 1: with it differently. But I think the thing is you've
Speaker 1: got a job to do. I think about the ambos
Speaker 1: because in the policing, like a homicide for twenty years,
Speaker 1: went to a hell of a lot of homicides, But
Speaker 1: when I was in uniform for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: went to some fatal accidents. They're bad, Like, yeah, there,
Speaker 1: and that could happen to anyone normally with a homicide, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is happen because that happened. Then you see an accident,
Speaker 1: you think, geez, anyone in your family, anyone that you love,
Speaker 1: could end up end up that way. So yeah, pretty
Speaker 1: pretty heavy in that regards, but yeah, it's life. Isn't
Speaker 1: it You see that side of life.
Speaker 3: Like mentally is would you say a lot of paramedics
Speaker 3: or detectives go through mental health because mine, my step
Speaker 3: does a detective and I've seen with him. He goes
Speaker 3: to work, stuff happens, he comes home, he can switch off,
Speaker 3: but I can still see that sometimes it affects him. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it'll be very hard to switch off. That's why I
Speaker 3: respect police and hire and ambulance paramedics so much because
Speaker 3: they're literally heroes, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, hero is a word that's used often. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are some heroes in there, the sacrifices, sacrifices they make,
Speaker 1: but it's you. We're not conscripts in the police, and
Speaker 1: that you choose to do it. There's the reason you
Speaker 1: do it. Some people as a calling, I know the
Speaker 1: way I describe it. When you've been in a heavy situation.
Speaker 1: You come home and let's say it's come home and
Speaker 1: the family's there, and do you want to go out
Speaker 1: for dinner? And you've been making one decision after another,
Speaker 1: bang bang bang, and some of them are life threatening decisions.
Speaker 1: And yeah, because you can make really quick decisions when
Speaker 1: you've been operating in that place and they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: what do you feel like? Do you want to do
Speaker 1: tai or should we go Indonesian or whatever, And it's
Speaker 1: almost like you get very short with it. You just
Speaker 1: I don't care, let's just do it. It doesn't matter. Or
Speaker 1: other times you come home and it might be Christmas time.
Speaker 1: I did plenty of murders around Christmas time and everyone's
Speaker 1: celebrating and talking, and it's hard to just sort of
Speaker 1: jump into that sort of happy environment when you've just
Speaker 1: come from something else. But yeah, there's different different ways
Speaker 1: of dealing with it, but I think we all pay
Speaker 1: a price in some way. But yeah, we choose to
Speaker 1: do it with a mental On the mental side of it,
Speaker 1: you you struggle with mental health issues as a young fella.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the past.
Speaker 1: I have comfortable talking about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what what what are we talking about there?
Speaker 3: I mean as a kid, I was pretty you know, depressed. Obviously,
Speaker 3: I didn't know I had depression from a very young age.
Speaker 2: As soon as my dad went to jail basically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, probably from eight to twenty two, twenty three,
Speaker 3: and even up until a couple of years ago, there's
Speaker 3: been it's been off and on so it's something that
Speaker 3: I've had to deal with my whole life. And that
Speaker 3: could come from a lot of things. Could come from
Speaker 3: tidal trauma, could come from the bullying family situations. But
Speaker 3: you know what, end of the day, it's it's probably
Speaker 3: self inflicted as well. I used to do what my
Speaker 3: dad didn't, just blame everybody else. I didn't take responsibility
Speaker 3: for my life and I said, it's.
Speaker 2: His fault, it's her fault. And I had to grow up.
Speaker 2: I had.
Speaker 3: I didn't have a male role model. My my grandfather
Speaker 3: was a very good man, but he wasn't telling me
Speaker 3: how to be a man.
Speaker 2: He wasn't teaching me. He was like, well, I was always.
Speaker 3: Working with him in the in the on the boat.
Speaker 3: He had a poor controller on the farm. So he
Speaker 3: taught me so much. But I didn't have a man
Speaker 3: there saying hey, like this is what you're going through
Speaker 3: I know to talk to. So a lot of it
Speaker 3: I bottled up. I thought I was crazy. You know,
Speaker 3: I've got a bit of ADHD as well, so you know,
Speaker 3: being dyslexic, man, I got a whole I got a
Speaker 3: whole things, you know, like with some ship, I'm dealing
Speaker 3: with some ship and yeah, it's it's it's been hard,
Speaker 3: but I'm thankful to be here and I'm getting better
Speaker 3: every single day. And as a man, I'm proud of myself.
Speaker 3: Like I remember when I was twelve years old and
Speaker 3: I looked in the mirror. I was this fat kid,
Speaker 3: no friends. Everyone sort of I thought hated me. Not
Speaker 3: everyone did, but a lot of people did. And I
Speaker 3: looked in the mirror I saw this man standing there. Yeah,
Speaker 3: big strong, here's a fighter. And after my last fight,
Speaker 3: I saw that reflection. I just remembered. I'm like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, look where I'm that man.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's been a crazy journey and I wouldn't take
Speaker 3: back a single thing. Yeah, everything happened in my life
Speaker 3: so I could be here today and be the person
Speaker 3: who I am today. So actually, I'm thankful for everything.
Speaker 3: I'm thankful for my dad going to jail. I'm thankful
Speaker 3: for even all the depression, and I've had suicidal attempts before,
Speaker 3: so all of that's made me who I am and
Speaker 3: I appreciate life. I've got a great family, I've got
Speaker 3: beautiful friends, and I've got a really good relationship with God.
Speaker 2: So that's that's the biggest thing for me.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's all come together. The fact you mentioned
Speaker 1: there that, yeah, blaming others, I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of victimhood that goes through the world at the moment
Speaker 1: where we're all looking to fine blame. It's not my fault,
Speaker 1: it's because of this. Is because of that where you
Speaker 1: sort of take ownership and go, okay, well there's only
Speaker 1: one person that can turn this ship around, and that's me.
Speaker 1: I think it's a good, good thing. Sometimes easier said
Speaker 1: than done. Did you get professional help? Did you have
Speaker 1: people speak to you at any stage?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, no one's coming to save me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, Dad is not coming home.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so for me, it's as a kid. I
Speaker 2: will spend the recess.
Speaker 3: I can't remember what they call morning break or whatever
Speaker 3: it is. I just spend that in the counselor's office
Speaker 3: and they'll make me sit there and just like just
Speaker 3: sit there.
Speaker 2: I'm like, why am I being punished? You know what
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, it's for your own good. So I
Speaker 3: also get treated really poorly, and that wouldn't help. After
Speaker 3: I left, after I got expelled, I started working all
Speaker 3: different kinds of trades, and then I started meeting different men,
Speaker 3: and I would always ask some questions, but hey, how
Speaker 3: do you deal with this?
Speaker 1: How do you do with that emotional question?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Telling you how to build something?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you know, how do you do it?
Speaker 1: And said what's this about?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like deep questions. I'm like, what do you think
Speaker 2: about life? Like? You know?
Speaker 3: And then I've got a lot of good answers from
Speaker 3: a lot of good men, and everyone's played a role
Speaker 3: for me to be here later on in life. Like
Speaker 3: now I see a therapist sports psychologist that really helps
Speaker 3: me with my mental and that's actually leveled up my
Speaker 3: game massively. I see hypnotherapist who is basically just someone
Speaker 3: to talk to and we go through you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of you know, fighting tactics and visualization and do
Speaker 3: my own research, Like I read a lot of like
Speaker 3: storicism books, and I read the Bible. I think there's
Speaker 3: a lot of wisdom in the Bible. And I sort
Speaker 3: of anchored myself with God and when I fight, there
Speaker 3: is no fear because I'm only scared of God.
Speaker 1: And did you with your religion did you find that
Speaker 1: later in life or is that something that was in
Speaker 1: part of on your very early.
Speaker 2: It was always there. I just got lost and.
Speaker 1: Realized, Yeah, and it works for it works for you.
Speaker 3: It works for me, yeah, ye, and I always just
Speaker 3: my life has been so crazy. There's so many things
Speaker 3: like I really shouldn't be alive, you know, and many
Speaker 3: times I think God intervened, right so, and even just
Speaker 3: the people I've met along the way, you know, like
Speaker 3: I don't believe in coincidences. So my fight, for example, yeah,
Speaker 3: everything my debut fight, everything was going wrong. My mate
Speaker 3: passed away at the start of the year. This is
Speaker 3: your first UFC, this is my first YU fight.
Speaker 2: So my mate passed away at the start of the year.
Speaker 3: The whole year was shiit fucking broken ribs, you know,
Speaker 3: couldn't get fights. And then yeah, before my fight, broke
Speaker 3: my ribs again. I have a twenty week long camp.
Speaker 3: I probably trained.
Speaker 1: Two weeks, okay, so well prepared.
Speaker 3: A lot of pressure, the biggest moment in my life,
Speaker 3: and I kept seeing signs and I just kept that faith,
Speaker 3: like if it's if what is for me is like,
Speaker 3: I won't miss it, you know. If God is for me,
Speaker 3: then who can be against me? That's what I was
Speaker 3: telling myself. And then I get in New Yors I
Speaker 3: get a contract. I'm like, wow, the fight lens of
Speaker 3: my mate's birthday, you know what I mean. And that
Speaker 3: was a big emotional thing for me. Always family was there,
Speaker 3: and yeah, I knocked him out in the first round,
Speaker 3: and I just had I was having dreams and it
Speaker 3: was It.
Speaker 2: Was a crazy experience.
Speaker 3: But I literally, like my coaches, my teammates, they're looking
Speaker 3: at me. They were worried for me because I couldn't
Speaker 3: train properly.
Speaker 1: Well, you had busted ribs at that when you went
Speaker 1: in the fight. That's very painful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean for me, I just I just pushed
Speaker 3: that pain aside and I said, if this is for me,
Speaker 3: then I'm going to win this. And I just put
Speaker 3: all my faith into God. And I literally went in there.
Speaker 3: I wasn't even fighting mate, Like something took over me
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 2: Just raised got my hands raised. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Stooism and reading about that. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of good, good messages in beliefs, isn't it.
Speaker 2: There is there is.
Speaker 3: It's like my sports psychologist David Neath, He's got a
Speaker 3: great book it's called Mindset, and man, he's changed my life.
Speaker 2: He's changed my game.
Speaker 3: He's worked with Israeli Sonja and all the city kickboxing people.
Speaker 1: Lots of world champions come come out of there.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So he's a great man. And I had dinner with
Speaker 3: him recently. It was just nice to catch up.
Speaker 2: We've been.
Speaker 3: You're doing sessions for the last two three years to
Speaker 3: see where I was and to see where I am now.
Speaker 3: It's night and day and so because of that man as.
Speaker 1: Well, and it's there that role model all mental that
Speaker 1: I think we all need in life. You need a
Speaker 1: sort of pathway to stay on the right right track.
Speaker 1: So that sounds like your life could have gone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you described your childhood and I'm just making notes
Speaker 1: here and didn't know what you've turned out, I'd be thinking,
Speaker 1: I know where this is heading. Your old man's gone
Speaker 1: to jail, you're getting done at school, and you're hating
Speaker 1: the world, You're hating yourself. It's a pathway that a
Speaker 1: lot of people end up ending up inside or worse,
Speaker 1: you've had self harm thoughts and all that. You'd have
Speaker 1: to be feeling, like really down at that point in time.
Speaker 1: And when you look back now, can you even comprehend
Speaker 1: that was a state of mind that you're in.
Speaker 2: Man, I don't know what I was thinking.
Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people who do do it, yeah,
Speaker 3: they will take it back straight away. I truly believe
Speaker 3: that because I've lost a lot of mates to suicide
Speaker 3: and it just affects everyone, you know, it's not just you.
Speaker 3: Like I'm just so glad that I never never went
Speaker 3: through with it or something stopped me. So David Neith
Speaker 3: said this quote to me one of my first sessions.
Speaker 3: He says, an unexamined life is not worth living, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. So if you don't do the
Speaker 3: inner work, and that's I think that's Socrates. Yeah, if
Speaker 3: you don't do the inner work and you don't fix
Speaker 3: the flaws that you have, it's like, yeah, it's you're
Speaker 3: going to live a miserable life. And I didn't do
Speaker 3: the inner work when I was younger, and truly, I
Speaker 3: think that's that's what put me down that road. Like
Speaker 3: I think we all have greatness inside of us.
Speaker 1: This like the philosophy that you're talking about this and
Speaker 1: the way you're living your life, has that been born
Speaker 1: out because of the pressures you put yourself under in
Speaker 1: the fighting? Does that make you examine yourself more.
Speaker 3: Hundred percent I'm just a kid from Adelaide where I
Speaker 3: started from, Like I was a mess where I am now,
Speaker 3: Like I'm not perfect. I'm still learning as I go,
Speaker 3: as I go through life. I'm blessed even be here
Speaker 3: like on this podcast or speaking to people.
Speaker 2: I don't know what.
Speaker 3: I'm doing, mate, I'm just I'm just I'm just giving
Speaker 3: life a go. And you know, I'm just trying to
Speaker 3: help some people out there, maybe so they can avoid
Speaker 3: going down the path that I went down. Maybe they
Speaker 3: can skip the depression side of things, or maybe going
Speaker 3: to jail, or just believing in themselves and going for it.
Speaker 1: Well, what I like sitting here with someone that the
Speaker 1: world would have to accept as a tough guy like
Speaker 1: you fighting the UFC, and yeah you're a hard man,
Speaker 1: but you can talk about your emotions and I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you were saying you were looking for help from some
Speaker 1: blokes and you ask them. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people suffer a lot of pain because they have
Speaker 1: not got someone to talk to and bounce ideas as blokes.
Speaker 1: You know it, I know it. I could we could
Speaker 1: be best mates and you know, you could go how
Speaker 1: are you feeling and go, I'm not real good, and
Speaker 1: I go, oh, you want to be Yeah, it can
Speaker 1: be that challout of the conversation. So the fact that
Speaker 1: you can sit here and talk about your emotions and
Speaker 1: your journey, I think it is pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think look a lot of responsibility. Now I'm
Speaker 3: in the limelight a little bit. I've got a bit
Speaker 3: of a platform. I guess you can say, yeah, I
Speaker 3: didn't think I would have one. And I just get
Speaker 3: some many messages from from blokes well who need help.
Speaker 3: So I take this on as a responsibility to sort
Speaker 3: of talk about my feelings. It's fucking hard, mate, It's
Speaker 3: it's hard to sit here in front of you. I
Speaker 3: just did a Better Blokes podcast and I cried in
Speaker 3: front of them. You know, I wasn't expecting to open
Speaker 3: up about things, and but I've got feelings.
Speaker 2: I'm a human.
Speaker 3: People see me as this strong guy and you know,
Speaker 3: usc fighter.
Speaker 2: You know, people call me.
Speaker 3: They call me the Russian Killer now because I just
Speaker 3: know for that guy, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 3: I'm I'm just myself and like some days I cry,
Speaker 3: some days I laugh. But every day I wake up
Speaker 3: is a blessing and we get another chance. So why
Speaker 3: not just fucking enjoy the day, give her everything you
Speaker 3: got because you might not wake up tomorrow. And I've
Speaker 3: seen that with my mates, So I just I want
Speaker 3: to help as many people as I can.
Speaker 1: Well, you're on the on the pathway to doing that.
Speaker 1: And let's just explain the uf SO a little bit too, people.
Speaker 1: So it's the Ultimate Fighting Championships. It's mixed martial arts
Speaker 1: and the UFC is the brand name, the most well
Speaker 1: known and people listening to this podcast, it'll come out
Speaker 1: after the UFC fight was at the UFC two point
Speaker 1: fifty was at the White House, So if anyone's going
Speaker 1: to get some attention, that's Donald Trump and his crew
Speaker 1: over there. But that's what we're talking about. You're in
Speaker 1: a cage or in an octagon. Can you just tell
Speaker 1: people that don't understand what the UFC is all about,
Speaker 1: what it is about, and then we'll talk about what
Speaker 1: you're aiming for, which is to become the World Heavyweight Champion,
Speaker 1: which is quite often referred to as the most dangerous
Speaker 1: man on the planet or baddest man on the planet.
Speaker 1: So tell us a little bit about the UFC and
Speaker 1: your journey there.
Speaker 3: So, the UFC is the biggest fighting promotion in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and when I was a kid, I had no friends.
Speaker 3: I used to rent DVD from Blockbuster and I used
Speaker 3: to watch Ultimate Fighting. Yes, love it as a punch
Speaker 3: a pillows to put the mattress against the world and
Speaker 3: start like boxing it. And yeah, I had dreamed twenty
Speaker 3: years ago to be in the UFCA. And I always
Speaker 3: had this feeling aside of me that I can be
Speaker 3: a world champion. So I didn't start training then. I
Speaker 3: started training when I was twenty four years old. That's
Speaker 3: considered fairly late. Yeah, and even that's just a testament.
Speaker 3: Like when people tell you too old, don't believe him.
Speaker 3: I was getting told I was too old at sixteen
Speaker 3: years old. But my uncles and family and friends and
Speaker 3: man like I just I should have listened to them.
Speaker 3: But everything happens for a reason, and I think I
Speaker 3: came to it at the right time in life. But
Speaker 3: the UFC, it's you know, if you're a fighter that's
Speaker 3: mixed martial arts, that is Ultimate. There's lots of other promotions,
Speaker 3: but it's nothing like the UFC. It's watched by over
Speaker 3: a billion people around the world. It's the biggest growing
Speaker 3: sport in the world. I think, yeah, yeah, and when
Speaker 3: you're a USC champion, you are the baddest man on
Speaker 3: the planet, especially at heavyweight.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is like now I'm ranked number fourteen, so people say, oh,
Speaker 3: you're the fourteenth baddest man on planet. No, mate, I'm
Speaker 3: the baddest man on the planet right now. Just title yet,
Speaker 3: haven't got the title yet. Yeah, he's holding it for me,
Speaker 3: So give me a year, two years, I'm going to
Speaker 3: hold that belt and I'm going to be the first
Speaker 3: Australian ULLC heavyweight champion.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a lot of people that believe believe in
Speaker 1: you and believe you're right. I'm not going to question
Speaker 1: you when you see yeah, no, you've got it, got
Speaker 1: my vote. You fight in five minute rounds. Title fights
Speaker 1: are over five rounds. Other fights are over three rounds,
Speaker 1: so people think, oh, oh, that's only fifteen minutes or
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes. Just tell us, well, you have ended
Speaker 1: some of your fights very very quickly. But tell us
Speaker 1: what sort of training and preparation you've got to do
Speaker 1: to get to that level. To get because you get
Speaker 1: a contract with the UFC, and what you've got to
Speaker 1: do to get to.
Speaker 3: That level ten years to be an overnight success. It
Speaker 3: took me ten years ago, see, and I'm just starting now.
Speaker 3: I'm learning on the job. When I was fighting on
Speaker 3: a local scene, it was very hard to get fights.
Speaker 3: So I'm still fairly in the experience. I'm literally learning
Speaker 3: as I go.
Speaker 1: And in the fight game, regardless of the type of style,
Speaker 1: if someone's hasn't got the rankings but he's very good,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't want to fight them the
Speaker 1: person because it's in the no win situation. You might
Speaker 1: get you might get put to sleep. And yeah, by
Speaker 1: someone that hasn't got the reputation. Is that why you
Speaker 1: were having trouble getting fights? Definitely on the local scene.
Speaker 1: Let's hope that it's not like that in the UFC.
Speaker 1: I don't believe it will be because everyone in the
Speaker 1: UFC is you know, they think they're the best, and
Speaker 1: that's how it should be.
Speaker 2: I think I'll be.
Speaker 3: Any man on the planet right now, even with two
Speaker 3: broken hands, like, I'm confident in myself.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so we're talking like Cyril Gain Tom aspinall.
Speaker 2: I'll fight. I'll fight them next week.
Speaker 1: You've got the sitting here. If people are listening to this,
Speaker 1: there's one one or your left wrist in a cast
Speaker 1: and your right ones also broken. Yeah that was from
Speaker 1: your last fight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the first minute and a half of the
Speaker 3: first fight. So the first round, I three fractures in
Speaker 3: my right hands, ligament damage, and then probably a minute later,
Speaker 3: my left thumb broke and I had to get the
Speaker 3: ligament reattached. So but I still fought for I think
Speaker 3: another six minutes after that. Yeah, So every shot I
Speaker 3: felt it just a joel and pain, but I wanted
Speaker 3: that more than him. It was a very tough dude
Speaker 3: and very solid head. I hit him over one hundred
Speaker 3: I think it was one hundred and eleven punches I
Speaker 3: landed on him.
Speaker 1: So yeah, then look, people, people, and I know that there's
Speaker 1: going to be people listening. So it's brutal. It's a brutal,
Speaker 1: brutal sport. What's your come back to that when people
Speaker 1: throw that up at you.
Speaker 3: I mean, it is a brutal sport based of sport,
Speaker 3: And it's a hard one for me to answer because
Speaker 3: for me, it's my life. It's something that I truly love.
Speaker 3: Fighting is my love. You know, I haven't got a
Speaker 3: partner or a wife, but I love fighting. I'm obsessed
Speaker 3: with it and it saved my life. I'm very loyal
Speaker 3: to it. I want to do this to today i die. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to be able to. You know, there's
Speaker 3: gonna be a time I have to walk away from it.
Speaker 3: But all my friends now are through fighting. All the
Speaker 3: love of my life and the joy is through fighting.
Speaker 3: So as brutal as a sport as it is, it's
Speaker 3: a beautiful sport. And it is an art and that's
Speaker 3: what they call it, mixed martial arts. Like I am
Speaker 3: an artist and I get to help people. Now I
Speaker 3: get to travel the world. I was a kid from
Speaker 3: Taparu Adelaide, which is like a rough sort of place
Speaker 3: back in the day, and now I'm flying around the
Speaker 3: world speaking to people like yourself. And man, we went
Speaker 3: to the Creation Club, King Tommy. It's a creation club
Speaker 3: here in Sydney. I just popped in randomly. Everyone recognized
Speaker 3: me and they're all coming up with photos and speaking
Speaker 3: to me, giving me gifts.
Speaker 2: And it just blows my mind.
Speaker 3: So I couldn't have that doing with tructural glob or security.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and I think in terms of the brutality,
Speaker 1: you train for it, like you don't you're not picking
Speaker 1: someone from the street. There's a dedication and I don't
Speaker 1: think people can fully comprehend how much training goes into
Speaker 1: getting you ready before you step into that that cage
Speaker 1: that everyone's there consenting. It's not it's not bullying people
Speaker 1: on the street. So you're an athlete, you're competing, and
Speaker 1: people would say to me, how how you do some
Speaker 1: sparring with a friend, How could you do that? I say,
Speaker 1: it's the same as playing tennis with a friend. It's not.
Speaker 1: It's not personal. You're testing, testing your skills, and what
Speaker 1: sort of attitude do you go into the fights with.
Speaker 2: I mean my first UFC fight, Yeah, I was scared. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was scared.
Speaker 3: Everything was against me and I was sort of even
Speaker 3: against myself at one point, just sort of the doubt
Speaker 3: creeped in and the fear, and I really.
Speaker 2: Just I gave it to God.
Speaker 3: I just surrendered to God and I said, just whatever
Speaker 3: you will will be done. My second fire, I was
Speaker 3: more confident for at the O two arena in London. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the whole crowd was against me, which I prepared for mentally,
Speaker 3: and that was a cool experience because in the end
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 2: Give a fuck about the crowd.
Speaker 3: I didn't didn't care about my opponent, and I had
Speaker 3: a great performance and I was finding my groove.
Speaker 2: In my last fight.
Speaker 3: I found my groove and like, I know I can
Speaker 3: do this and I will do this, and it just
Speaker 3: like I'm learning on the job. Yeah, every fire, I'm
Speaker 3: learning new things.
Speaker 1: And yeah with the with the training you relocated. You
Speaker 1: said over to New Zealand to City kick Gym in Auckland.
Speaker 1: What made vaded you to do that? And did you
Speaker 1: just turn up on the n ounce and go, hey guys,
Speaker 1: I'm here and walk in there to tell us set story.
Speaker 2: ISRAELASNJA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a style bender.
Speaker 2: Style bender.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is the reason why City kickboxing is known. Yeah,
Speaker 3: here's the reason why I have a career. And obviously,
Speaker 3: like I've did a lot of work myself, and you know,
Speaker 3: I always had this dream. But the fact that Israel
Speaker 3: was fighting on the local promotion, he's a fury, you know,
Speaker 3: and then I started fighting in that promotion. The fact
Speaker 3: that he got in the USC as a kickboxer and
Speaker 3: did well, that was a motivation for me. So there
Speaker 3: was always his motivation from Israel, he sort of led
Speaker 3: the path for me. He opened the door and I
Speaker 3: ended up performing in front of him at King of
Speaker 3: the Ring.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I won my first.
Speaker 3: Fight, got knocked down my second fight. He comes up
Speaker 3: to me after the fight. He's like, hey, bro, amazing fight.
Speaker 3: You got so much skill and talent. Keep going. I
Speaker 3: want you to come to the gym tomorrow. I was
Speaker 3: about to retire after I lost that fire.
Speaker 1: I'm like, nah, okay, you at that tipping point that
Speaker 1: maybe this is not for me. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was twenty seven years old. I couldn't get fights regularly,
Speaker 3: wasn't training properly.
Speaker 1: And you would be making stuff all money.
Speaker 3: I was paying to fight, you know. I worked hard.
Speaker 3: I had sponsors. Every file. I would have to pay
Speaker 3: my opponent or pay for flights or accommodation. So it
Speaker 3: was costing me money. And I was sleeping in the
Speaker 3: gym back in Adelaide. I wasn't sleeping at home. I
Speaker 3: was sleeping in the gym. But he opened the door
Speaker 3: for me. He gave another chance. And then when I
Speaker 3: met him, he said to me, I actually sparred him.
Speaker 3: I'm like, bro, where's their gloves?
Speaker 2: He was like why.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, well, spa, you know, and we ended
Speaker 3: up sparring, and you know, we had good rounds together
Speaker 3: and he's like, bro, I want you to come help
Speaker 3: me for my next fight.
Speaker 2: It's against Alex Pereira.
Speaker 1: That's cool.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, that's amazing, and you know, we
Speaker 3: shook hands and he said he was going to help
Speaker 3: me out, fly me over and put me up accommodation.
Speaker 3: I said, you know what, I thank you, but I'm
Speaker 3: going to do it myself. I don't need your money.
Speaker 3: It's just a privilege to come and train with you.
Speaker 3: So then I went back home. My grandfather had a
Speaker 3: stroke and he wasn't looking good and my grandfather was
Speaker 3: like my father, yeah. So I said to Izzy, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: I can't come until my grandfather was better. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 3: I'll see in the future. Israel fought Alex. He lost
Speaker 3: that fight. Yeah, And then I think a few months
Speaker 3: passed and then my grandfather eventually got better. I messaged him.
Speaker 3: I'm like, hey, bro, I want to come for your
Speaker 3: next camp. If I'm still invited, He's like, come over.
Speaker 3: So I was there for the next camp and I
Speaker 3: stayed ever since. And that was November fourteenth, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: And it was that when he was training for the rematch.
Speaker 3: The rematch, yeah, Alex, and then he brought me over
Speaker 3: to Miami and then that was my first insight sort
Speaker 3: of to the UFC, and they're just changed my life,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: And like Israel, he was well, the biggest star in
Speaker 1: the uf here, drew the crowds and an amazing champion.
Speaker 1: I know you speak highly of him. You see the
Speaker 1: public persona of him, and there's an arrogance and that,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot more depth to.
Speaker 3: Him than what would you say in the arrogance. Well,
Speaker 3: I haven't seen that. So for me, Israel is just.
Speaker 1: I think I'm probably hanging on to when he beat
Speaker 1: Robert Whittaker when he turned up here and I was
Speaker 1: supporting Robert Whittiker at that time and I was just
Speaker 1: shattered after it. But he beat him fair and square,
Speaker 1: and I know they're good mates now. So I would
Speaker 1: imagine there's.
Speaker 2: Rob's a great dude.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, He's just an absolute gentleman, isn't he? But
Speaker 1: that so with Israel, but there was I probably I
Speaker 1: call it an arrogance, but I suppose that's what he's got.
Speaker 1: The ring entry on that particular fight. He just came
Speaker 1: out and he was dancing like Michael Jackson and just
Speaker 1: I think that's confidence. Brother, Yeah, all right, well I
Speaker 1: termed it arrogance because he beat my man. I hear
Speaker 1: you say good things about him. What is it about
Speaker 1: him that you like and you call it like a
Speaker 1: mentor you described how he helped your career, But what
Speaker 1: is it about him as a person. He's just a
Speaker 1: good human. I've seen that time and time again. He's
Speaker 1: never changed. You know, you might say arrogance, but I
Speaker 1: say confidence because that's how even I am.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 3: There's people who have different perspective of perspectives of us.
Speaker 3: So there's people out there who love and adore me.
Speaker 3: There's people out there who think I'm a wanker. There's
Speaker 3: people out there who maybe are hurt in the past.
Speaker 3: So everyone's got a different view on someone. So for me,
Speaker 3: my experience of Israel is he's a fucking good human
Speaker 3: and a good bloke. And he's always helped everybody I've seen.
Speaker 3: He's always stopped for photos, has always given his time
Speaker 3: and energy, and man, he has helped me. He's helped
Speaker 3: me of our teammates, he's helped the gym grow, the coaches,
Speaker 3: so for me, like he is a good role model
Speaker 3: for me and here's my friend, you know, and I'll
Speaker 3: do anything for that guy. So yeah, I believe still
Speaker 3: that he.
Speaker 2: Could be a champion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we see if he wants to, if he wants
Speaker 1: to do it, he'll do it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And you know the thing with fans, they're very fickle.
Speaker 3: A lot of people come up to me, they praise me,
Speaker 3: you know, majority of I don't take it on board
Speaker 3: because I know if I lost, they'll be talking shit.
Speaker 1: That's see. That's a cruel thing of the fight game,
Speaker 1: isn't it. You see when when people are winning, there's
Speaker 1: a entourage, support, fans, and when they lose, it's silent.
Speaker 1: So I saw that in some gyms that I trained
Speaker 1: that where people were on the on the up like
Speaker 1: a rising fighter, and then when they lose, you just
Speaker 1: see all of a sudden, people seem to forget about them.
Speaker 1: It's a cruel sport like that, isn't.
Speaker 2: It's a cruel sport.
Speaker 3: It's a learning sport, and we every time we step
Speaker 3: in that cage, we have potential to not walk out
Speaker 3: of it the same. So that's why man. But when
Speaker 3: people say why do you do this? I'm doing it
Speaker 3: for myself. I'm doing it for my family, but I
Speaker 3: do it for God. I do it for God, and
Speaker 3: that's that's what I anchor myself in. I don't care
Speaker 3: about the fame and the money.
Speaker 2: Mate.
Speaker 3: I just flew on a jet. Couldn't give a fuck.
Speaker 3: It's a fucking plane, mate, you know.
Speaker 2: What I mean. It's an expensive plane. But I really
Speaker 2: don't care.
Speaker 3: And I'm glad when I was younger, I didn't have
Speaker 3: much because now I appreciate just like living in an event.
Speaker 3: I wake up, you know, and today's a good day.
Speaker 3: No one's died, beautiful, get to go to the beach,
Speaker 3: have a coffee. I get to train, build my body.
Speaker 3: That's joy for me. Money and fame and attention and
Speaker 3: likes and shit like. I wouldn't have social media if
Speaker 3: I don't have to have it, but I need it
Speaker 3: as a business. And you get to meet good people.
Speaker 3: So it's there's.
Speaker 1: Good and bad with the fighting side of things. Like
Speaker 1: people look at it and think a lot of it's physical,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot more to it than You talk
Speaker 1: about your mind, coach, and I think you do breath
Speaker 1: work as well. Tell us about the preparation is more
Speaker 1: so than physical because a lot of it is the
Speaker 1: mental preparation and the going in there with the right mindset,
Speaker 1: because as you said, you walk into that they shut
Speaker 1: that cage, you might come out the same person. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the consequences that you're dealing with. Especially in the
Speaker 1: heavyweight where you fight heavyweight division, they're big hits. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look at the last fight with Cyril Gan and Alex Perera.
Speaker 3: I mean he was going to hit behind the head,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure Alex is not gonna be the same
Speaker 3: from that fight. You know him, I see the repercussions
Speaker 3: now straight away, but when he's older, I mean it
Speaker 3: will come in. He's had a lot of fights, and yeah,
Speaker 3: I know, I take the serious and it's my life.
Speaker 2: It's not a hobby, it's my life.
Speaker 3: It's a lifestyle because I know every time I get hit,
Speaker 3: I'm losing brain cells. I'm doing this to make a
Speaker 3: future for myself and also for my future family. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm just a high school dropout, I guess, and I'm
Speaker 3: just trying to be the best that I can be.
Speaker 3: So when it comes to this sport, I'm very serious
Speaker 3: and I'm here to protect my health. So if I've
Speaker 3: got to hurt somebody to protect my health, then I'm
Speaker 3: going to do it. And that's that's the brutality of
Speaker 3: the sport. Yeah, it's kill or be killed.
Speaker 1: But the consent comes in with it too, So the
Speaker 1: brutality of it when the two folks that step in there,
Speaker 1: or the women are fighting as well, two people that
Speaker 1: step in there understand the consequences and it's agreed to
Speaker 1: and yeah, so it's a lot fairer than a lot
Speaker 1: of other situations in life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's the thing, Like, it doesn't matter if
Speaker 3: I win or lose. I'm always going to shake my
Speaker 3: opponent's hand. Yeah, I'll say a little prayer for him,
Speaker 3: I'll give all my love and yeah, whether we talk
Speaker 3: after that, that's you know, it doesn't really matter. But
Speaker 3: I don't want to hurt anybody. Yeah, I just want
Speaker 3: to win. So if you sign that contract to fight me, yeah,
Speaker 3: I know you're going to try to hurt me. I'm
Speaker 3: going to protect myself. But yeah, it's it's a beautiful sport.
Speaker 3: It's it's a it's a it's a career and I
Speaker 3: love what I do.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, look let's take a break. We've only really
Speaker 1: only scratched the surface. There's so much I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to you about, and yeah, sat down to talk
Speaker 1: about the UFC. But the more I'm talking, obviously there's
Speaker 1: a lot of depth there and a lot of thought
Speaker 1: behind what you're doing and what your plans are. So
Speaker 1: we've got a hell of a lot more to talk about.
Speaker 1: We'll take a break now and and come back to
Speaker 1: the part too shortly. Thank you Jesus