[Podcast quick facts #3] Joe Rogan Experience - "Big" John McCarthy

Podcasts - a double edged sword. Several years ago, when I've discovered them, I was blow away. New information daily, during shopping or commuting. Isn't that awesome? I don't have to read all those loong articles anymore and can spare some time like this. Well, over years, so many cool podcast emerged, my lack of time problem is back. It's hard to listen to them all...If you have the same problem, I'm here for you :)

In these series of posts, I'll be summing up the latest interesting podcasts I've listened to, so you can save up some time for another ones.

Joe Rogan Experience - "Big" John Mccarthy

After leaving a MMA referree job after 20 years and joining Bellator as a commentator, he joined Joe Rogan on his podcast to talk it all. He's a BJJ blackbelt and used to train with old Gracies. In this podcast, he offered the priceless insight into early MMA days, rules creation, Gracie family structures etc etc.

Here are the points I've found interesting:

• By many people, he's creditted for creation of the term Mixed Martial Arts - MMA. When he was discussing rules with some commission, he was asked what sport the rules are actually for. He was ready and came up with this term. He saw the term in some paper/article from 1980's.
• In the early UFC days, the term MMA was still not around at all so they continued to call it NHB fights (No holds barred). This was Joe's remark.
• He's a BJJ blackbelt since 2007 and when younger, he used to train with the "gold" Gracies generation like Rickson or Royce.
• He's seen many Gracie Challenges and he said there were 3 stages of intensity. If the opponent was considered weak, Gracies would put them against some student of theirs. If opponent was considered good, one of Gracie brothers would fight them themselves, but without punching. Instructions were "Take him down and submit". If an opponent didn't believe after 1st round and wanted one more, the second round instructions were "Beat him up."
• He was part of many early days meeting regarding unified MMA rules. In the beginning, elbows and throws were supposed to be banned. After putting together an hour long video of safe throws from Olympic games judo and wrestling matches, he managed to get throws legal.
• He thinks 12-6 elbows should be legal as they have much less power then e.g. wheel kicks and kicks in general.
• He also made the decision to get rid of headbutts
• He says that Dana is a workhorse but Lorenzo Ferttita was the real genius behind the project
• When Ferttitas were 40 millions down, they decided to invest 10 more into The Ultimate Fighter TV show, which basically got MMA into mainstream (Griffin vs Bonnar finale fight)
• Selling UFC to the new owners for 4 billion dollars was another genius move. He personally thinks UFC as a company is worth only half a billion.
• John was also doing a lot of powerlifting when younger and there were times when** he was 310+ pounds heavy.**
• The controversy in Nunes vs Pennington fight at UFC 225, where Pennington was forced to go back after the 4th round despite expressing her unwillingness to do so is according to John a very bad decision from the corner. He says that once the mind is not there, even lucky punch won't help.

Picture source

My current podcasts

On my current to-listen list are these podcasts. If you find here some overlap, you might want to keep an eye on these series :)

• Joe Rogan Experience - martial arts, diet, lifestyle, health, important people, mix
• CryptoBasic Podcast - all about cryptocurrency news
• The Raspberry Ape Podcast - brazilian jiu-jitsu
• London Real - discussions with "people worth watching"
• This Week in Tech - tech news

Thanks for reading!Martin

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