Joe Rogan & Rampage Jackson talk about Cro Cop & Fedor

Joe Rogan and Rampage Jackson discuss Cro Cop's kickboxing skills, Fedor's legacy, and Rampage's health struggles before their fight.

Key Takeaways

Cro Cop is regarded as one of the most dangerous and skilled kickboxers to transition successfully to MMA.
Fedor Emelianenko remains a legendary heavyweight with a fearless fighting style and is part of the GOAT conversation.
Rampage Jackson faced significant health and training challenges before his fight with Fedor but maintained a strong work ethic.
Negotiations for Fedor to join the UFC fell through due to co-promotion demands and complex business issues.
Proper medical diagnosis and training adjustments are critical for fighter performance and health.

What the video covers

Rampage Jackson praises Cro Cop as one of the hardest kickers in MMA and recounts memorable fights and moments.
They discuss Cro Cop's transition from kickboxing to MMA and his wrestling defense improvements.
Fedor Emelianenko's fighting style and dominance in his prime are highlighted, including his stand-up skills against Cro Cop.
Rampage shares insights on failed UFC negotiations with Fedor and the demands made by Fedor's management.
Rampage reveals his health issues due to a misdiagnosis of hypothyroidism and the negative effects of the medication Synthroid.
He describes his intense training with TJ Dillashaw, Juan Archuleta, and coach Kyle, including heavy cardio and strength exercises.
Rampage explains how carb-loading before a fight caused unexpected weight gain and doubts about competing.
Despite challenges, Rampage fought hard and clarifies misconceptions about his training and performance.
The conversation touches on the toughness and seriousness of Fedor's team during negotiations.
Rampage reflects on his respect for Fedor and desire for a rematch under better conditions.

Chapters

Why did Rampage Jackson struggle with his weight before fighting Fedor?

Rampage was misdiagnosed with hypothyroidism and put on Synthroid, which caused weight gain. Additionally, carb-loading before the fight made him bloat and gain more weight unexpectedly.

What made Cro Cop a dangerous fighter according to Rampage Jackson?

Cro Cop was dangerous due to his powerful leg and head kicks, excellent takedown defense, and explosive style that translated well from kickboxing to MMA.

Why did Fedor Emelianenko never join the UFC?

Fedor's management demanded co-promotion rights and control over UFC Russia, which the UFC found excessive, causing negotiations to fall through.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

But, you know, Crocop is a really good kickboxer, too. He beat Crocop. Yep. I don't want to talk [ __ ] Crocop is like my big bro, but I was real proud of him to beat Crocop because Crocop is dangerous, man, with those leg kicks, those head kicks, every kick. He's one of the hardest kickers ever.

Speaker A

There's a picture of him when he fought Heath Herring. Did you ever see that fight?

Speaker A

Oh, yeah. He kicked him in the body, him in the body, and his body is like his shin is like halfway into his body. It's a horrible picture.

Speaker A

And especially it's that left one, which is, you know, he said, "Right kick hospital, left kick cemetery." Yeah.

Speaker A

Yeah. Crocop was Crocop was the [ __ ] Oh my god. That's Josh Barnett. That's the Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was a good one.

Speaker A

That's one of the Look at that other one down there. Oh. Who is that? Is that Sean O'Malley? Oh my god. Look at that kick. Who did he kick there?

Speaker A

Good lord. Good lord. That is a liver all day. I mean, that is deep in the liver. That's crazy.

Speaker A

That's it. The upper left-hand corner. That's the one. Look at that. I mean, that shin is That is a perfect body kick.

Speaker A

Wow. That's deep into the body. The first time I met Crocop was when I fought K-1. Prior to me to K-1 because it was like my last fight of my contract. They thought I was going to get knocked the [ __ ] out and renegotiate for less money. And I didn't expect for Crocop to like me. They put us in the locker room together. And he was over there playing cards and stuff. And this Japanese reporter came over to me. I was on the ground like stretching, you know, warming up, whatever. And I had my chain on the ground, which is crazy because I never laid a chain down. I don't know why I was on the ground. And the Japanese lady came and she was like,

Speaker A

"Oh, what? Why do you got this chain? What does this chain mean?" You know, I guess K-1 didn't know anything about me because I was coming from Pride. And I put the chain on. I said, "Oh, I'm a dog."

Speaker A

And I started, I started, I started humping. And Crocop died laughing. Then ever since then, he liked me. Every time I see him, he'll come and I can make him laugh and stuff. He was a cool guy.

Speaker A

He's a cool guy. He's a very cool guy. He's one of the first guys that came from kickboxing that did really well in MMA because he was so explosive.

Speaker A

Yeah. Like a lot of those other guys like Peter Aerts or Ernesto Hoost, I don't know if their style would have translated because they would just set you up over time and Ernesto would be chopping at the legs and hit you with shots and but he had good wrestling defense.

Speaker A

Mhm. Antonio McKee said he was training with Cro Cop teaching him wrestling.

Speaker A

Really? Yeah. And Antonio McKee is one of the best wrestling coaches. He's one of the best MMA coaches out there.

Speaker A

Well, he developed very good takedown defense and that's what made him so scary. Yeah.

Speaker A

Because if you have to stand up with that guy, yeah, which shows you how good Fedor was in his prime because those two fought in their prime and Fedor was walking him down.

Speaker A

Yeah. Stand up. And the stand up, I mean, that was a primarily a stand up fight.

Speaker A

Fedor gives no [ __ ]. He was a wild dude, man. Even though he beat my ass, he's still one of my favorite fighters.

Speaker A

Yeah, one of mine as well. Yeah. I think, you know, when you look at the great heavyweights of all time, it's so hard to say like who's the greatest of all time but you got to have him in the conversation.

Speaker A

Yeah. I wish he would have come to the UFC though. I wish they would have got to, got close. Got real close. They had some meetings but apparently the people that Fedor had running with him, the people that were running his business were, you know, they wanted a lot. You know, they wanted like co-promotion with the UFC. They wanted... They didn't... It wasn't just like give us some money and, you know, I guess the UFC was willing to give him a lot of money but they were like, "No, we want co-promotion."

Speaker A

Yeah, that's too much. They wanted to be a part of the... They wanted to take over a little bit of the... Yeah, I heard rumors they wanted to have like rights to UFC Russia or some [ __ ].

Speaker A

There's a bunch of different things. You'd have to talk to Dana but I remember it was enough so that they had to beef up security.

Speaker A

Like they were worried about how the negotiations went south. Wow. Yeah, they got nervous.

Speaker A

It was a weird time. Those guys that were with him, they were serious dudes.

Speaker A

Wow. Yeah. I would like to fight Fedor again. You know, that was my last fight. And I wasn't me. I was very unhealthy, but I didn't like... Why were you unhealthy? What was wrong?

Speaker A

Because I got misdiagnosed with hypothyroidism? Yeah, so I was on this medicine. And the medicine was making me fat. And I was training hard, and... What kind of medicine did they have you on?

Speaker A

I forgot the... I forgot the name of it. But I had been on it for... Synthroid?

Speaker A

Yeah. Mhm. And I had been on it for a while, and then I started training with TJ, TJ Dillashaw.

Speaker A

Mhm. And Juan Archuleta, and they took me over there to coach Cowell.

Speaker A

Oh. And that guy's a genius. Yeah, he's a genius. He's like a scientist. So, he looked at my blood, and he looked through everything, and he was like, "You don't have a thyroid problem, do you? Something wrong with your T, your C3 or T3, whatever the [ __ ] he said, but you don't have a thyroid problem, and that medicine you take is [ __ ] you up."

Speaker A

Mhm. And I just quit the medicine. I said, "I knew it was the [ __ ] medicine." But he said, "Hey, I don't suggest you just quit cold turkey. You don't know how your body is going to react."

Speaker A

Mhm. And then I said, "Fuck this. This medicine [ __ ] me up. I'm quitting it." And when I got to Japan, one of my coaches told me, "Oh, you got to carb up before your fight. You got to carb up." Because he noticed I wasn't eating carbs.

Speaker A

And I listened to my coach. I'm a very coachable fighter. And I just got bloated overnight. I wasn't even looking that big when I got to Japan. And I just [ __ ] blew up. And I said, "Fuck it. I'm fighting. I'm not pulling out of this fight."

Speaker A

You were thinking about pulling out? I... Yeah, when I saw myself in the mirror, I was like, "What the [ __ ] is this?"

Speaker A

That's when you thought about pulling out? Really? Yeah, yeah, because I was fat. Because I trained, I trained hard. I know I noticed I wasn't losing weight for the fight, but I was heavyweight. I wanted, I always want to get my weight down, look good, but I got down under 265.

Speaker A

And I was training really hard. People thought I didn't train. People thought I threw the fight.

Speaker A

And I was training hard. It's the hardest I ever trained, but I wasn't doing a whole lot of sparring and [ __ ] though because when I was training with coach Kyle, it was the hardest training I ever did and it's so hard that you have to take the rest of the day off and the next morning. Because it's like so... it's heavy cardio, right?

Speaker A

Yeah, it's crazy. We were throwing 100 lb medicine balls at each other.

Speaker A

100 lb?

Speaker A

100 lb while we were bouncing on a bosu ball. Jesus Christ. With TJ Dillashaw and Juan Archuleta. I don't know if you know Juan Archuleta.

Speaker A

Yeah. You know how small that guy is? They got that coach Kyle had us flipping tires up a hill like 200, 400 lb tires. I never flipped a tire before. This [ __ ] used to flip his tire up the hill, run down and help me flip mine.

Speaker A

That's how strong that little [ __ ] is.

Speaker A

Yeah, he's strong as [ __ ]. He's a great wrestler.

Speaker A

Yeah, great wrestler. And they have you on that spin bike, like a hard spin bike type of thing for like an hour. Like it's... Bro, it was torture. But I was like, "You know what? I'm going to do this [ __ ]. I'm going to train really hard." And at the end of the day all this [ __ ] [ __ ] up. So I cursed those two specialists that I saw, two different speciali...

Speaker A

have to take the rest of the day off and and the next morning. Because it's like so it's heavy cardio, right?

Speaker A

Yeah, it's crazy. We were throwing 100 lb um medicine balls at each other. 100 lb?

Speaker A

100 lb while we was bouncing on a bosu ball. Jesus Christ. With um with uh TJ Dillashaw and Juan Archuleta. I don't know if you know Juan Archuleta. Yeah. You know how small that guy is? They got that uh coach Kyle had

Speaker A

us flipping tires up a hill like 200, 400 lb tires. I never done I never flipped a tire before. This [ __ ] used to flip his tire up the hill, run down and help me flip mine.

Speaker A

That's how strong that little [ __ ] is. Yeah, he's strong as [ __ ] He's a great wrestler.

Speaker A

Yeah, great wrestler. And they and they have you on that that that spin bike like a hard spin bike type of thing for like a hour. Like it's Bro, it was it was torture. But I was like, "You know what? I'm going to do

Speaker A

this [ __ ] I'm going to train really hard. And and at the end of the day all this [ __ ] [ __ ] up. So I cursed those two specialists that I I saw two different specialists and and they didn't do [ __ ]

Speaker A

They said, "Oh, you got to be on this medicine for the rest of your life." Mhm.

Speaker A

And the second one uh after I after I saw coach Kyle, I went to somebody and they did a um what you call it? MRI on my on my on my thyroid and they were saying that it's not enough data yet to know if

Speaker A

if you damage your thyroid from getting and putting a lot of uh rear naked chokes.

Speaker A

Oh really? They said it's not enough data yet cuz I asked them cuz have you ever been in a rear naked choke and you fight so hard and your throat hurt a little bit, right? Yeah, they I asked them about

Speaker A

that. He said, "Yeah, it's not it's not enough data yet. You guys haven't been doing this [ __ ] long enough for us to know." Oh, that makes sense.

Speaker A

I'm good. I'm good.

Topics:Joe RoganRampage JacksonCro CopFedor EmelianenkoMMAkickboxingUFC negotiationshypothyroidismtrainingfight preparation

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