would you ever no hell no right no no not now I'm 57 there's no way I'm fighting anybody now dude you're in shape I did agree to fight Wesley Snipes like 20 years ago yeah there was what happened well he you remember what happened with him with taxes yeah of course he went to jail right yeah so I think they were trying to figure out a way to make money to try to pay the government off and the UFC um uh they contacted well this guy Campell m who is one of the original producers of
the first UFC before zua bought it he he I he knew me because I worked for him at the time I was the postf fight interviewer in 1997 and 1998 and that's that was when I first started working for the UFC I started again as a commentator in 2001 so in 19 you know 97 when I knew him he knew that I did martial arts he knew I was obsessed with this and then so he contacts me like I guess it was like 2004 or five or something like that somewhere around then and he says
this is going to sound crazy but uh Wesley Snipes wants to have a UFC fight and he wanted to fight jeanclaude vanam and we didn't think that that would be compelling and so we offered some other names and we said what about Joe Rogan and he said yes and I said well what do you mean like when are we talking about like how because I've been training I was brown belt and Jiu-Jitsu and I'd been training kickboxing still I was regularly training and so I would had to really ramp everything he was kind of a
martial arts guy right he's a martial artist but I don't think he's ever had a fight and I don't think he has any ground game and that's a giant problem no you would have gotten a hold of well also I was a n mean I I competed nationally in Taekwondo for five six years traveled around the country like and I had three kickboxing fights I was a good standup fighter like and I I can kick very hard I'm very good and even then then I was even better cuz I was in my 30s so what
happened he didn't want to do it as time reason you just said you would have killed him as time went on I think he kind of understood that it was a bad idea I think initially he thought he who knows it could have been been chemically fueled these these conversations with him the desire to have it was chemically fued then he up but I trained every day I trained for six months would have annihilated I was kickboxing with Rob Cayman in the morning and I was doing Jiu-Jitsu and I was exhausted prepping for the Wesley
St fight or just didn't we were in negotiation so the first negotiation was 50/50 we're going to split it 50/50 this and that blah blah blah and I said okay great and then a couple weeks went by I had lawyers involved the whole thing and then it was like Wesley wants 6040 and but this time I'd already invested so much time training I go okay I just give it to him I'm like I'm gonna this guy up I go just give it to him just give it to him and then it got to a point
where just give me a half a million dollar I don't care what you give Wesley I go I give me a half a million dollars we and we agreed on that I said I don't care what you give him just give it to him I'm going I'm going to strangle this guy I'm going to get a hold of him and there's not going to be a goddamn thing he can do about it I was convinced and I was like it so was Wesley convinced obious knew that but it was so engrossing like it took up
all my energy in my time like I my mind shifted into like what it was when I was younger and I was fighting it was wild it was weird like I became like a different person for like a like almost a year so like when you hear the name Wesley Snipes now what anity there's not like a little part of your brain that still flips and no no no no no no no no no it's I think he did a smart thing I think he did a smart thing by not doing it it's just so
interesting and and uh the the idea that you got to experience a version of what it feels like to prepare to fight someone because people just don't get it right well I had fought a bunch of times you know and and when I was younger I mean it had been more than 10 years since my last fight but I knew what it was like I knew the experience I knew what training and preparing was right like and I also knew that like I was like legitimate brown belt in Jiu-Jitsu i' been training Jiu-Jitsu for but
it was like I think he had had this idea that he was going to be able to hit me when I was trying to take him down I was like dude I would happily stand up
