Unbreakable with Jay Glazer: A Mental Wealth PodcastWelcome to Unbreakable! A mental wealth podcast hosted by Fox NFL Insider Jay Glazer. On today’s episode, Jay goes deep in the jungle of Phuket Thailand for a real raw conversation with UFC Legend Mike Swick. Swick opens up about his insane battle with stage 4 cancer which he ultimately beat by pushing his body to crazy extremes, fasting for two weeks, starving the cancer to death. Given 1 year at most to live Mike took the fight of his life into his own hands!
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This is Unbreakable with Jay Glacier, a mental wealth podcast build you from the inside out.
Now here's Jay Glacier. Welcome into Unbreakable Mental Wealth Podcast with Jay Glazier. I'm Jay Glazer and man, I'm so excited to have my next guest on. This is a brother mine, somebody who continues to inspire me every day. And if you're a fan of the UFC, you know who he is. He was on the very first season of The Ultimate Fighter. His name is Mike Swick. Mike Quick Swick, Ato, brother.
How you doing. That's so good to see you.
Last time I saw you, you were beating up my trainers here in Thailand.
So not only has Mike had a very prolific UFC career mix Marshal Art's career, but he also opened the most prolific training center in the world aka Thailand. Folks. I got to first of all, I got to go out there and train when I went on my Mind, Body, Spirit journey a few years ago, and Mike, I don't know if you know this, one of the reasons I picked Thailand to go to for thirty five days in this journey was because of you.
Oh wow. Ye.
I was in a. I was in a dark, really bad place, and I wanted to go somewhere were so different than what I was doing here in America. And I was looking at Bali, and I was looking a couple of other places in Thailand, and because you were there, I was in such a weird paranoid Stay. If anything goes down, at least I have a friend here.
Man. That means a lot to me. It really does.
It's pretty cool, man. And it's funny too, because of that time, I only told three other people I was going out there. I told the Rock because that fucker has a plane that could reach us, and then Brandy Gatour and Jay Huran because those crazy bastards, those expendables will get on that plane to go save my ass. So Mike, you know, Mike is obviously is a fighter, but he's a fighter in a much different way as well. And you know, when I was out in Thailand the first time, he told me what he did to overcome what he got hit with. And it's you know, happens since. But I want Mike to explain this, and look, I usually the show by asking our guest, give me your unbreakable moment, moment that should have broken. You could have and didn't, and as a result, you came from the other side of this tone was stronger forever. But Mike's last several years have been unbreakable moment after unbreakable moment after unbreakable moment, and Mike, I'm gonna let you lead into us. Mike is a cancer survivor now several times over. Like I said, he's a fighter, and he took a different fight to cancer.
Yeah.
I mean I have a lot of unbreakable moments in my life, but uh, I think the most would be definitely when the doctor diagnosed me with cancer and I heard that stage four come out of his mouth. That's that when the hair stand up on the back of your neck a little bit and you're just kind of.
Like, wow, that's a lot for one day.
What kind of cancer was it?
I had lymphoma, lymphoblastic lymphoma.
Yeah, and it was the most aggressive kind, the same one that got Rumble Johnson. And uh, you know the thing is is it's like my brain works in such crazy ways. It's like I don't I never see an end. I never see a no, I never see a you can't do. I never see you're gonna die. I never see I can't. I can't. I can never see that end, you know, because I'm programmed to find an answer to everything. So it's like it was like shock, and I was scared and like, you know, I didn't want to have cancer and all that, and it was gonna be a big pain in the ass to deal with. But like you know, they they they ended up saying I have probably based on like the chemo and how much of cancer it kills, about a year. So if you know, everything is about what they expect and there's options and all this kind of stuff. So basically I had like a year I could guarantee I could live and all that. But like for me, it's like I had a fight, you know, and then you know, so if you give me a fight, you know, it's not like I died instantly from a car accident or something like that.
So I assumed I was pretty lucky right from the start. You know. It's like I have a fight here and my opponent's in my body. You know.
It's like it's not like I can make my my In the UFC, I was fighting guys at their best, you know, they were they were like, you know, completely nourished and like trained, and like I can actually affect my opponent in my body. So I was thinking, like, you know, what can I do to make cancer weak? And I was looking at the holistic, you know, evidence of people who were research and evidence of like what they were doing and how they were how they were fighting cancer, and then the medical side with the chemo and and just doing medical and people that did the mix of both, and I just kind of formulated my own planks. I don't listen to anyone and follow everyone's different and like, I want to be the owner of my life and the boss of my life, and so if something happens, I wanted to be my fault. If I die, I want to be my fault. If I make a mistake, I want my fault. I don't want to die because somebody else made a mistake, or or somebody else was trying to make money, or somebody else was trying to do whatever. So I had to like put all this information I was gathering together, and I just I remember I asked, I said before, but I remember I.
Asked the doctor.
I was just like, so I know I know cancer. I know enough about cancer to know that cancer is like a broken cell. It's not a healthy cell. It's broken, right, So it's not as strong as your good cells, which is why when you do chemo, it kills those cells, but it doesn't kill your good cells. So I'm like, I'm fight then a weaker opponent already, and I'm like, so in my fate and my life depends on how much of this cancer I can kill with the chemo. So like in my head, I'm like, the weaker I can make this cancer, the more it's gonna die, the more I'm gonna live. Right, So I was like, have you ever you know if At first, I said, if if I was to start myself to death and die, like, what would would technically would the cancer die before me? Or would I, you know what, I die at the same time as the cancer or would it matter? And He's like, well, technically, you know, theoretically the cancer cells would die before you would die. So then from that point on, it was unbelievable.
That's where your mind went through read.
Well, from that point on, it was like there was no doubt in my mind I was going to beat it because it was just like I will literally starve myself to that point if I have to to get my life back.
You know, we're talking about your life. You know.
It's not like a gamble with like some money or like a job. It's like to live in, you know, on this earth. So I told the doctor, said, well, I'll just starve myself and then week in the cancer and then when the chemo comes, we'll just blast it out.
You know. Of course, this is how I talk, you know, and the doctors.
You're doctor's like, who the fuck is this guy?
Absolutely not. He's like, you've never done chemo before, and he says.
You don't even know what the hell you're getting yourself into. And he's like, you know me before, Doc, you don't know who you who?
Can't for getting the.
Coming and try to fast a couple of days and you know, do all this kind of stuff, and like you're gonna fast and not not you know, feed yourself for a few days, and like, you know, coming to chemo, it's gonna have a strong effect on you because you don't have.
No healthy body. You know, your body's gonna be not.
Healthy and you're gonna be weak, and you might not even survive a month more or less a year. So I don't advise like a twenty four to forty eight or seventy two hour fast at all.
And I'm like, no, no, I'm talking about like a two week fast, Like I'm I'm gonna damage it.
I mean, I know you can go like a month without food, So I'm thinking about going like, you know, like really damaging it, like not starving myself like I said, like to death, but like almost, but like you know, making making some progress and and and and making sure because if I eat these certain foods that they always say, like cancer doesn't eat this food, and this is alkaline, and you know you can have natural sugars and not regular sugars and and and you know alkaline diet. But at the end of the day, cancer does eat a little bit of everything. So in order for me to really hurt cancer, I really had to not eat nothing. Like that's the only way I could really one hundred percent guarantee cancer is going to be getting, you know, weaker. And so he said, you know, not to do it, and made me promise I wouldn't. And I was like ninety eight kilograms and it was like a one hundred ninety five pounds something like that. And I said Okay, cool, let me just go home, he said, I need to start right away, but chemo was covered in my neck. You know, you can see that tweet that I made at the time, and I said, let me see, I have a couple of weeks and talk to my family, get things organized, everything straight, and I'll be back.
And then I just went home and.
Just didn't eat for two straight weeks, and and like, I was like, just that alone, to be honest with you, was like hard, I'll be honest.
Yeah, of course I.
Never asked it for even a day before.
I've never in fasted half a day, and like and not eating for for for.
Two weeks, I lost twenty five kilograms.
Over twenty five kilograms, I lost, uh fifty by the time, well because I got sick in the hospital because the chembo poison my stomach, and then because we'll get into that. But either way, my lowest weight was one hundred and forty five pounds of six foot one, so I didn't weigh that much except when I was like maybe fifteen years old or something like that, and I was I was forty five or no, no, no, sorry, I was.
Like three years ago. So I was like forty two UC.
Of seventy right, so you would cut from whatever. So yeah, you were right.
That's why I see these guys now that missweigh by a pound and give up their purse and I'm just like, what, dude, I lost like sixty pounds.
Almm, come on bro, So yeah, I showed back up before you.
Get before you enter this. I mean, I can't imagine not eating for two weeks. I when you see me right now, I can't imagine not eating for two hours.
But the picture on my Instagram if you want to see what a bubblehead looks like, because it before and after on my Asteragram, you can see how big my head really is.
How hard was that fight of the inner fight of man you starve and just just have one meal as opposed to no, we're not doing anything. We're beating this for two weeks.
Oh, there was no doubt. I'll tell you where the mental part came in.
But it wasn't because of that when it comes down to find for my life, like I didn't care, like there was no there was dealing with the pain because you get to a point where you just can't sleep and you're just like your organs feel like there. I don't know for sure what was happening, because you know, when you don't eat, all kinds of things happen. But I felt like my organs were kind of like sort of shutting down a little bit or something pains all in my not even externally, but like internally pains, and like I was getting a little scared, you know, but it already jumped out of the plane, you know, as we say, we skydiving, and you have a parishue like once you're out, it's like there's nothing you can do. You might as well enjoy the ride and hope your shoot open. So to me, it was like, you know, I was in control. I felt good about that, you know, I'm doing what I wanted to do, what I made my mind to do, and what my brain told with me was the best option. But then it was getting to a point where it's like, man, I may this may be it, you know, because I am pretty weak, and I may I may have like build up more than I can chew doing this. I knew I was gonna kill the cancer. I just didn't know if I was gonna make it too. And so I showed up for the doctor and for my appointment two weeks later, and I was like sixty eight kilograms from ninety eight, and then the doctors just paniced. They thought the cancer was killing me because it had aggressive cancer, so they were freaking out and they were like trying to rush me into the thing. I'm like, no, no, I start myself, you know I did. This is not the cancer, this is me. And I thought that was pretty crazy. And I got in there and I still didn't eat until after the first day of chemo. So I wanted the chemo to be the first thing in my body instead of food, so that the cancer would just be like so hungry.
It's like, ah, something's in my body, but it's like poison.
And unfortunately that works against me because my body, my stomach was completely empty and like I had nothing in there.
So the chemo's acidic.
I started eating the lining of my stomach and so I got really sick, and it started like it caused like all kinds of like problems to my organs and my my stomach. And so the first week of chemo, I got you know, I was losing more. I lost another like five six seven eight pounds something like that, because I was just like, yeah, it was brutal, but I started myself. For the first day of chemo, I did vegetarian. The second day, which was your off date, and then this is one day I'm on one day off, and then for the next chemo day, I starved, vegetarian, star, vegetarian, star, vegetarian star.
For the first week.
By day eight, I had no symptoms of cancer all my all my lips were not swollen. And now now the doctors are like bringing other doctors into the room to like my neck and like look at my blood results, and they can't believe the results, you know, like then how much cancer I killed? And then as it turned out, I started eating normal after the first week and the next three weeks. You know, it was still tough getting myself back because I've never done I've never been a vegetarian either, you know, and so I was like, that wasn't fun.
I don't like vegetable.
And so then after that, apparently after the first month, I killed ninety five percent of the cancer.
So it worked and I survived something. That's good, right, Yeah, that's good.
Yeah, So tell me the during that again, because if you have no food, you also have no food to your brain.
I wasn't thinking, like with the most clarity.
Well, after you, how were you whose name? Was it getting bad? When you, you know, have an argument for yourself. How are the crazy roomans in your head and dealing with that?
Yeah? That was pretty crazy. Yeah.
It affects you where you don't need for two weeks, and then it affects you with the chemotes too. So when you're not eating for two weeks and then you go through chemo and you're still kind of starving yourself off and on, I would say I would highly not recommend that for anyone. But at the same time, it's like it did save my life, you know. So it's like, you know, it's it is what it is, you know, Like I cannot a doctor. I'm i gonna ever tell people what to do. But it's like I will say that, you know, from what the doctors. I guess the best thing I can look at, factual and the legit is how the doctors acted because they were in shock. So I surprised the doctors and their reaction told me I did the right thing. And so I can't say everyone can do that, and maybe they can do less, maybe.
They can do whatever. I'm not sixty seven. They're you know, seventy eighty.
Like some of these patients and they can't handle that kind of you know, situation. But I would say and also in my opinion, I think I learned that I think there's a lot of people dining in cancer because of they're not doing kind of what I did. They're not preparing for chemo and preparing for a battle and actually you know, fighting hard. You know that I'm fighting hard enough, and the doctors aren't helping them because the doctors don't tell you none of this stuff. The doctors are feeding sugar and like you know, they want you to you know, these guys were.
Just charitable, trying to help you.
They'd be helping people and like helping children, you know, starving families and like in Africa, like doing water wells. These guys are they're making money. They went to school to make money. You know, they're they're looking at you as a number. So their job is to scare you and then tell you what to do, and then you do it. Because it costs a ton of money, Like the chemo was like for my insurance, I think a lot of stuff was covered, but the chemo, it'll only cover like ten percent.
I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah, really, yeah, yeah.
It's it's a sad situation to know. It's like I don't even think it anymore. I know for a fact, because as you said, I kept getting it back. But it was like they would let me do chemo until it would show up on the test that's clear. But I would have micro sales in my body. So if I did one more chemo session, I would have been okay.
But they didn't let me do it. They said, you're clear, we'll check in three months. And of course it came back.
So they knew I was a young, strong guy that can handle it, and they wanted to keep me in this chemo cycle. This this pendulum, you know, this is you know, osculating back and forth, you know, thing as long as they possibly could get money out of me.
So it sucks when you figure that out.
And and and then you know the fight from there, I had to like start tricking the doctors and seeming worse than I was. They would keep the chemo stronger because they mixed the chemo right, so they make it weaker throughout as you as you need it less to keep it from like doing the damage that they should be doing. And it's pretty it's pretty sad. But yeah, I told him I was way worse than I was. I was like, yeah, I tried to make it yeah, because at first I was like, yeah, I'm strong, I'm good, because I wanted to convince them that I'm like, you know, beating it and I'm doing good and like and then I'm like, well, this isn't going to work like psychologically with these guys. They want this kind of like you know, added so they want to see that I'm strong and they can do like ten more chemos on me and stuff you have. I think I've done like almost six hundred hours so far of chemo. Six hundred hours of chemo.
Yeah, for sure. It was just under I think. Yeah.
So then I figured out I've started playing like a little bit worse off and and and then they made the chemo a little bit stronger, and then I think they accidentally beat it so here here the last time I went, they were telling me I had to do like three more times in stem cell therapy to ensure and I played it off so well on that last chemo, like I've had no, no, nothing, come back since then, So I feel very confident since since my my cancer is very aggressive, it would have definitely had signs by now.
So I feel pretty confident. I'm in a good state right now.
Plus I'm like over one hundred kilograms and like working out and like feeling gray.
So that so that.
Was a several years ago, but it has come back since.
You because yeah, this recently it came back, and so I had to. I'm just coming off another chema like a few months ago, and where are we now, the first time that has stayed away one hundred percent? Like where I feel the most confident that I really beat it and I'm good. Worst case, I always have stim cell to kill it for sure, but that's like a big obligation, you know, hospital for six weeks, and like you know, I'm working hard at aka time. I'm building all this stuff and I'm doing so much stuff. It's like being gone for that long as like a last resort, especially since it's so it's such a slow growing thing and it's not a high priority. Where I'm at right now, my blood works perfect, my health is perfect. I know everything about my body now because of all these tests they ran so it's like I'm actually really healthy for my age compared to most people, especially someone that's never been tested for anything.
So I feel very confident.
How do you keep so you get a scan again and man, the test show cancers back. How do you Because I know beating a lot of beating, this is is staying positive ya right, So how do you how that intermountabile you stay positive when it's such a gut punch that it comes back.
Yeah, you know, like I just found positive things in my life. So it's like ak Tiland's been a big help.
You know. I built that from scratch, from like a jungle, so it's like a lego. It's like, uh, We're gonna.
Talk about that a little bit because I want people know about this pledge. Yeah.
So it's like to start from a jungle and then to be able to walk through two acres of this place just completely build and and it all came from my head, you know.
I drew everything and built everything.
So it's like I could just walk through that place and I do it every day, and it's just like that is like a real posit thing. And like as of right now, like you know, since uh, you know, since having the cancer. It's been such a success. It's like I knew either way, you know, I had, I had my my legacy to live on, to my family, to my kids too. They can see what I did, you know, and like, you know, it's helped a lot of people. It's created a lot of success for people. People love it. They come from all over the world, and so it's like, it's great to be able to have done something where I can open up my creativity and visual vision and uh and be able to build and create something that's also you know, successful for other people as well successful for myself.
Give me something else about that flank dem you haven't told me and we may not know about that was like, oh man, this was whatn't expecting this.
Do you mean like a physical or do you mean like that just about oh oh oh, the well the mental side you think you're talking about. Oddly enough, the mental side was when I was doing the best because at the end to what happened was you do you stay in the hospital for the first month and you do chemo every of the day, and if I get sick because my my my white blood cells is so low.
Where where where's the hospital? Which country?
Bang Cock because they have really good they have really good dogs.
That yeah, and uh and and so three weeks in my my girlfriend at the time you met her, My girlfriend at the time had left to come back, you know, to go get some things from the house and come back. And so three weeks. And it takes three weeks for your hair to start falling out. And then now you're feeling like some real like like your body is like so skinny, and the key most taking effect. So you're feeling the worst. Your body's feeling the worst. Your hair's falling out, like you know, this is like the worst like feeling and look of you, of yourself and my my, my girl came back and she was in the room, and we were in the room for like a while, and she just kept complaining about being sick. So I called the nurses in and they checked on her and she had COVID, so she brought COVID into the hospital to my room. I would have died if I got COVID, so luckily they tested her and got her out of the room immediately, and I didn't get COVID. So I spent my last week and in the hospital in Bangkok by myself so I don't want anybody else seeing me in the state or whatever, you know, except her. And so when I would get up in the mornings, just like I was already beating it. You know, doctors had already been so surprised I had no symptoms of cancer. You know, I was doing fantastics, and my progress was great.
You know.
The hair the hair was falling.
Out because of the chemo, the way it was gone because of me, you know, and my body was aching because of the chemo.
Nothing was really from the cancer.
But every morning when I when I walked into the bathroom and turned the light on and I saw myself, it was like I was looking at a skeleton like death, you know, like it was like even though you know you're okay, in fact, you should be happy because like you know, it's looking like you're going to beat this thing.
Now.
It was so tough to just from that point on to continue because you've been there for three weeks already, and now I had to go out of the bathroom for seeing myself and then just you know, live with that feeling in my mind, and I'm stuck in this room, just going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Like a like a cell, you know, like a prison cell. It's kind of like I have a private room, but it's like it's only so big, and all you can really do is think, you know, there's not much else to do.
And yeah, that was the that was the part that was like it was like really it was putting me at like rock bottom, I think, like mentally.
But by the time I went home, I was like, I don't think I could have taken too many more days of that, to be honest, it was tough. I was hurt really bad, and like, yeah I was, I wasn't doing so good.
Do you think that because you have a background fighting it allowed you to fight more?
I think because I like, I have this part of myself that's kind of can turn on that savage side, and that made me the fighter who I am. So it's not the fighting itself, it's just kind of like that side of me. I lost my father when I was young, and then due to all these different circumstances that happened I as a kid, I got this like real savage side of me that like, you know, I don't see nose and I don't see you know, when I put myself on the line, and I'm trying to negotiate or do things, or gamble or achieve something. I put my life on the line every single time. I'm not afraid to gamble everything all the time, every time, and people can't match that wage.
So I went all the time. And that's how I built that k Thailand.
If you think I came to Thailand and built what Thailand voted as the number one movie ties school in time for the last four years, being a Texas boy with no movie timee fights, you can imagine how many battles I had.
Coming up.
You imagine how many people didn't want me to have the best movie high school in Thailand and get this kind of like exposure that I'm getting. So I've had a lot of battles, but nobody has been able to match that that kind of wager that I'm willing to do each and every time I step up to the plate.
And so I think that's what helped me.
So now since I've been at ak Thailand, you've built it up more described Herry real quick one. You describe exactly how big it is, how just it's such a profound place. It's incredible. But then I want you to kind of take it through some of the business lessons you've learned along the way, then you could have now taught Mike Swick that was first starting this journey.
Well, I was building business when I was a kid, so I mean I started out like with a landscaping and then like a pressure watching business in high school. I've always worked for myself, so like I was always doing business, and then I've built a seven figure business when I was in the UFC. Before I got in the UFC, and then during my UFC career, I was running a print shop and I turned into one of the largest print shops in northern California.
So really I was failing.
I always say I was failing through my way, you know, through my career because like you fail to learn, right, So I was getting all my failures out of the way early so that I could win when it mattered, which is now at the end of my life when I'm like, you know, I need to enjoy and sit back and coast and not have anyone tell me what to do, not have any boss, not anybody anything, and then have a free you know, freedom and a free schedule to be able to go.
Do what I want to do.
When I want to do it and not have to ask permission or be told, you know, what to do. So I was building business back then, and then all through the UFC it was like it was just I knew that was a stepping stone for me to help me get into circles I needed, because I've been coming to time for over twenty years, and I knew if I wanted to do anything entirely and I have to be inside with some very serious circles here to have the connections to be able to survive. And I knew that if I was a fighter, that's one way. If you're an Alpha mel you know, if you're a fighter, if you're a military guy, I know you support the military troops too. You know, you can get into circles real easy and that in that regard if people know you from fighting and stuff like that. And I knew that from doing overseas military support tours during my UFC career, I did the most of anyone I think in the world.
I did like over twenty.
Overseas tours, including two tours in Iraq, two tours in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Africa got kicked out of Actually I'm banned from Jibouti.
Big deal.
But wait, hold on, hold on, why are you band from Jibouti.
Because I filmed too much.
It was before we got Osama and like they were like they attacked our van and they were like they were how Osama bin Latin Shirs and all this crazy stuff, and like some French foreign legions came to like rescue us, and then all we had on the base in Jibouti was like these these Puerto Ricans that were like representing in the US.
And so it was like the French.
Foreign legion and Puerto Rican American like soldiers and they were coming and they rescued us, and I feel all this stuff and like put on YouTube and like they got the country got really pissed off.
Yeah, and so and I was in.
Ramstein in Germany with the Wood of Warriors and I've been to Walter Reed and Washington multiple times the Booted Wars. I never support war, you know, but I supported the troops because these guys are Yeah. I came from Texas and I was a poor, poor Texas kid growing up, and it's like all my friends were like looking for adventure and looking.
For this, like see the world, get a free education.
You know, and they sign up and then now they're doing convoys and like I can get their rights blown off and stuff. So I'm like, they thought we were cool because we were fighters. So it's like, man, if I can go and inspire these guys and spend my time with them. So between every UFC fight, they did sometimes maybe two three tours of two weeks each, multiple camps. These time, I did over twenty two, like over twenty I think it was twenty two overseas military support tours.
So yeah, it was uh so.
Go back to that way to go back though, we're talking about when you describe ak A Thailand, describe it to everybody, tell us how how many.
It's so what I did, I don't do anything the same as everybody.
Unbelievable.
I don't do anything the same as everybody else because I found, you know, if I want to do something different and be different and do something incredible, it's never like something that everybody else does. So I've always been different my ideas. I was always the crazy guy with the crazy ideas. So what I did was I basically when I was built Akay Thailand, I wanted to come to Thailand and build a fight gym. But it's like everybody just naturally thinks if you build a fight gym, you have to build a fight gym for fighters because it's a fight gem. But a lot of people want to they watch fighting, they're into fighting, they love fighting, they're enthusiasts, and they want to come come to train with fighters too.
But who wants to really train with fighters if they're not a fighter, right, So.
I wanted to open that door, and I wanted to create the first fight gem not for fighters, and so I built it specifically high high class, high level and the largest in the world and resort style. But it's basically the most exclusive sports combat resort, fight fight resort in the world, and it was built for non fighters. But we do have fighters, and we do have you know, basically, we do havelf a fight team.
And what I do now is I just took me three years and to set this up because Fight Club, the movie really inspired me for this.
I know how savage people can be that aren't fighters, like Carpenter's businessmen entrepreneurs. So I set up the scene called fight Club Experience. And what we do now is we have a program where you can sign up and come to my gym and like, no matter who you are, as long as you haven't fought before, I guarantee you that you come to our gym, you get trained that you can do it in a month, two months, however long you want. And then we put you on a broadcast live across the world on my own broadcast Aktalan dot tv and then my app in the app store, Apple and Google, and so we broadcast the fight live.
And you actually get a fight.
In front of a pack ti stadium in a movie time match as a real match. It gains a real person, you know, similarly experiencing you. And so these guys get to come to my gym. Now we've had so many we just posted on Instagram the other day. And so these guys are like working in these offices, you know, cubicles and stuff, and like you know there maybe their kids don't look up to them like savages and stuff off and like they're coming to Thailand and they're fighting and they're winning. If you look at our website, they're winning every time. Like they're they're knocking people out and like they're savage. You know, I've always said you're not a fighter because you say you're a fighter, you know, saying you're a fighter because you're either a fighter.
Or you're not, you know. And so it's like you can't just call yourself a fighter and be a fighter, you know, you have to have it in you.
And there's a lot of guys that do regular jobs that are just as savage as fighters, and so I love watching these guys come to Thailand.
But we have carpenters. We had, like I said, we have.
Also I want to explain this, how many rings do you have?
Well, in my wood Tide Jim is the largest in the world, so we have the largest indoor of matic uh climb control. How we have two oversized seven point two meters rings and seven thousand square foot stadium sized multi area surrounded by jungle that I've built.
So basically there's.
How many cakes, like the whole area to more than it was like, no.
No, there's not two rings, but we have all the bags everywhere else.
And then we have another MMA facility, We have a way ages facility, we have a restaurant. The whole thing is a school as well. Then we have the pool side now that I built. So basically I built an underwater pool underwater fight gym. So I built a ten meter by twelve and a half meter by ten meter pool saltwater.
It's like two thousand and.
Six hundred square square feet and it was all hand painted in three D by artists in Thailand. Took them forty five days to paint it to look like an underwater sunk in fight gym at the bottom of the ocean.
We even even.
Posters and like the wood, the doors and the like, all this stuff like this, and then we filled up with water. We trained in that and then we would white sand around it as like a cafe, like we got bamboo furniture.
We got an alpha tower, which I just created.
What I was saying, towers like a you know, Ninja warrior.
The towers like an alpha tower.
So it's basically when I got cancer, I wanted to build a flagpole, and they allowed me to put the flag only a certain hype, so I had to put on top of a facility.
And so I said, okay, what if I built a tower. So I built the tower as high as I could.
They would let me build the tower, and then I put my flag as highs with let me put on top of the tower because I wanted everybody that doubted me and to try to stop me in Thailand to see this flax. I wanted to be as high as humanly possible. It's like twelve feet long and like so when I was in the hospital with cancer, I designed this one of a kind, like because I wanted the most attention to go to this flagpole and see my flag.
I designed this. It's a staircase. It's like a staircase that's.
Going up, you know, fifty four feet eighty eight stairs, and it's it's for running, you know, for exercise.
We have also pulled up bars that go along the side. We've got ropes to go up the side so we can do circuits on it. Plus it's also a viewing platform.
It's ocean view so you can see all the islands and the ocean and all that. And then we also have it's a nice place to sheet to the basketball court. We got a custom basketball court. We do trick shots from the top into the basketball who.
At one point you're gonna put like lodging there. Have you done that yet?
I'm gonna do lodging because this is like my master It's a two acre of property, and I wanted just to be covered in just awesome facilities, facilities or one of a kind that don't make sense. The pool is one of a kind in every way, basketball courtse even one of the kind.
The ice pass one of a kind.
Everything that I've done, having my podcast studio there as well. And that's it's two acres full like it's like a campus, the whole thing.
I mean, it takes a while to watch, as you know.
I want people to get this too, because so I went out there. It's about ninety eight degrees and one hundred percent humidity and it's brutal. So training and that is that's training. That's different. Your lung's gonna get used to it. Mike and I were gonna, you know, he's gonna put me to his coaches. We'red to train a little bit. And he and he realized you used to say, Jay, do you want to do like what everybody else does, which is it's just too human here, just we'll do we'll look good for cameras. What fuck you, Mike? Am I doing that? We're doing fucking three minute rounds. He's like, it's hard, man, I ain't gonna lie it it's hard, but it was no way I wouldn't fucking do it.
It's it didn't know you were gonna be all NFL to training like hell, you know, like you stocking me out there like after it man, So I was like, all right, cool, let's do it.
Yeah, if you're gonna be out there, you gotta fucking do it.
Since we since we built the gym to the higher standard for everybody where the as he gets the celebrities and there's a lot of celebrities that wanted to and weskleafand posted a video from Aka time and he got more views than like his last six months on most of his reels because people want to see a different side of some of these celebrities being like alpha and stuff.
So we just had sense she'll see there.
We had Riis Kalifa, the now Boys, you know, a bunch of guys that were coming through there and uh so dealing with those guys, you know, we yeah, I usually Steve Aoki was just there for a couple of weeks or I'm sorry, for a couple of days, and he was doing the same thing. He had his first moos High session with us and with all the celebrities. I'm like, you know, you know, we can make you look good and unless you trained a few you know, a few rounds, a few minutes or something like that, if you don't want to go hard because it is hot, it is humid, and most of the time these celebrities go hard and with I know you know firsthand because you train.
Him as well seven years.
This guy can fight, man, This guy.
Seriously can seriously not only training.
I'm saying, this dude can fight like I want. I want.
I want to get him in like an actual stadium fight like. This dude can seriously fight.
Bro.
I've told people like I've traveled Randy get Her for you know, fifteen years whatever, never hurt me in the body, Chuck Oddell fifteen years, never hurt me in the body. Whis Khalifa hurt me to the body. You gotta be fucking kidding me. The way he turns his hips and I don't know what it is about him. He's got me twice now, I'm like, motherfucker, but he you know, I think Wiz has guys like that. We've trained a lot of these, you know, performers. They have no ego in it because yeah, I think they're choreography. They were able to put six, seven, eight steps together. We're not. We're usually I Max had three or four and I'm trying to you know, I'm trying to fucking go for broken on a lot of it. They could see things and put together all the pieces together way better than we can. If you take your ego out of it. It's like a golfer who's trying to hit the ball way too hard. It doesn't but if you just let your technique go, you're gonna swing through the ball. That's what makes them different. But Whiz is different than all of them.
No, He's amazing and is a great guy.
And the thing is, that's why we went a lot of the fights, like I told you about, from these average people, because.
Like they're students of the game. And I felt same thing.
Like when I was fighting in the UFC, I was a striker and when I had to start learning jiu jitsu, I didn't want to be in the white belt class. You know, I already had like multiple MMA fights and all this and I'm sitting there with white belt on, you know, trying to work my way up.
Tick.
I finally got, you know more more rank, but it was like, it's the same thing with all fighters. They don't they don't want to stand learning the basics and and and go through the process, whereas everybody else, including celebrities, like with especially, they're taking it in and soaking it up and they're learning the basics and then when they get in the ring, it works shockingly enough. Like could be a great example, could be you've never seen Kabe do like a complex move in his life, Like he's never done a flying arm bar, He's never done like some crazy move. He sticks to the basics and he's an absolute master at it, you know, and you can't stop them. And so yeah, it's that's that's the difference of regular people, I think and the celebrities that come through there, and they trained so hard, and it's so good for me because it's like I spent half my career with fighters, and like you know, hearing about how they're going to be in the UFC or asking me about my UFC career. It's great coming to work every day and being able to be around people that are like all different and from different jobs and different like areas and network differently and all these different people and it's.
Really cool to like, you know, for a postfight like life.
I couldn't have a better life than being a beautiful island, living a beautiful villa.
Go to my gym here, it's like this is great for me.
Well, I'm gonna come out back out there and see you here.
Definitely a few months ago, I guess you posted a video again Savagery right there.
I love the place. But like I said, man, I'm proudy man, I appreciate you being my brother. Yeah, I want to tell you that. I know I never told you that you're the reason why I went out there, and that place saved my life, like Thailand saved my life. Being able to learn from these time monks. I I how to love myself up and you know, gratitude lists and breath work and meditation got me back with my now wife Rosie. From place saved my life. So I appreciate you brother.
Well, I want to say too, like honestly, like I know you won't believe this because you think I'm just giving this back to you right now, but like I actually thought about you because we talked a lot, you know about that your book and then the box and all this stuff and and the people you affected, you know when you get conversation about it. But you know, we talked about and when I was going through my rock bottom times as well, like like you thinking about what you you know, seeing how happy you are and how how professional you are and how how good you do your job. And then especially the people that we talked about and how they do their jobs and what they do and the things they went through. It really did actually believe it or not give me some inspiration help me keep going, because.
I'm like, I'm not the only one, you know, like you know, I.
Might be in a different circumstance, a different situation, but like you know, don't give up mentally, like you know, don't, don't you You're too fucking strong to Like can I say that you're too strong?
Thing you're talking to? Of course?
Okay, you look in the mirror and see the stuff, and you've been through all this to let yourself you know, you know, this talk we had entirely I meant a lot more than you think.
Man, it really did.
And so I returned the gesture to you because you definitely got me to that next level as well, and it could have had a huge effect on me.
Finding this cancer.
I appreciate that. That is the coolest thing I could hear. Man.
You took the step. Man, you know, you took the step. You wrote the book.
You you were an advocate and came out and like you did a lot of things that a lot of us haven't done. And the impact that has is huge, you know, like you know, And so it's like I think, I don't think you realize and that's why I told you, but I don't think you realize how much of an impact that that that is to to especially with our talks and everything that you were very inspiring for me and helped me out a lot.
To hear that from a brother, man, that's everything, and that's where people were afraid to open up about this. Like by opening up and talking, it turns friendships into brotherhoods. Mike Slick literally the ultimate fighter. I appreciate you joining us, brother.
Thank you so much. I've been waiting to be on your ship for so long.
