Taken from JRE MMA Show #142 w/Matt Serra, Din Thomas, and John Rallo:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/322ZqvmHZTp8FJ37OUnflf?si=bde90b2aa3674396

When the UFC came on the scene, it's like, look at Jiu-Jitsu,

So then, all of a sudden, everything started coming back around.

So that's when Longo's like, told you, cocksucker.

make me- Look at their little skinny man.

I'm sure you still do, but you really did then.

It was 1 of those things were like watching George tap to strikes In this situation.

of people the crazy thing was, you know again you were known as the jujitsu champion.

You were known as 1 of the best jujitsu guys ever to come out of America.

So, for you to see knocking guys out like that was wild.

When I had to fight, thank you, first of all, thanks.

When I had to fight Karol Parisian, I took the fight, I was healthy, but when I first got the call, a few weeks before that, a couple weeks before that, I had a torn meniscus.

So when they asked me, I'm like, I could run.

I go, the feet to floor didn't feel good.

So I felt like it's gonna tear off if I did that.

And I think that truly helped me because It's weird because I got tied in that fight And I very rarely get tied and I truly believe is because I did not Mimic the fight with the feet the floor sparring

That's a That's a different kind of wind that you need to do it.

It's like wrestling, it's up and down, up and down.

1 of my few times in my career I got winded.

And it was Cairo, he's probably 1 of the worst guys to get winded with, because that motherfucker had a good gas tank.

So I almost knocked him out in the beginning because all that boxing play, I just did nothing but hands for that fucking thing.

And I was really getting used to rolling and coming back and landing and Longo was happy with it.

He was taking me into Brooklyn to work at Lou Negley's school too in Brooklyn.

And I was getting fresh faces and I was really starting to feel good and get the timing that I never had with the standup.

So where I fucked up with, I had him hurt, I had him up against the fucking thing, he got a fucking judo grip inside my fucking pants.

You see me go to the ref, he's got a grip.

That got me into the tough house, which led to good things.

The 1, when I got him hurt, I didn't line that shit up.

I was just fucking, so when I hurt George, Longo pointed to that.

He goes, when you hurt him, manage your distance.

Keep your distance, manage and line it up.

And a couple of things Longo had me doing, he had me having a fucking ball, like a medicine ball, kinda, It was rubber, but it was heavy and he would have me just throw it if each it during the circuit training Yeah, even if the sparring 25 times, that's his fucking head Longo really made me believe that I could fucking stand with this guy he goes They think you're gonna try to get him down You're not gonna try to get him down and I remember looking at that Jeff Munson fight and that cemented it I go dude cuz you wasn't gonna do that right?

I'm not gonna do that I go I'm So I didn't know I was gonna knock him out, but I knew that I had a very good chance of doing it because I was hurting guys with the 60 ounce gloves.

And Longo's like, look man, he's fucking hitting.

He goes, they're standing up, he's doing some karate shit.

The stuff he was doing standing at the time long ago had guys feeding me the exact shit It was weird.

It was some matrix shit cuz then in the fight I remember 1 point he did a high kick a low kick a high kick.

I remember just being like being being It was a good it felt like a good day of sparring, you know?

And by the way, everybody out there, don't watch the rematch.

When you went into the rematch, were you injured?

The word was, before the rematch Matt had hurt his back and that I'd heard that you'd hurt your back

well, the thing is this I This is what happened.

So this was New Year's Eve when I was out with my back.

So they fought New Year's Eve, I know, because we did a watch party at MSG, you know, and they fought, so I didn't know who I was fighting at that point.

So then, my back was out, so then George beat Matt, so now I was fighting George.

I was gonna fight Matt as my first title defense So now I was gonna fight George, and then I fought George so my back was out on What is that?

about yes the very same injury I talked about earlier because I was supposed to fight no Yes, that is the that is the same injury.

That's when they fought So that I had to fight George in April.

So that's months there for me, but I had to go through a camp.

Yeah, but if you have herniated discs and

I wasn't walking then, but I ended up getting the weight off and being able to fight.

I wasn't, well, I was walking, but how about this?

When you bend over to brush your teeth, I wasn't able to do this.

Yasha, I'm giving him a shout out because he gave me an epidural in the city.

I didn't want to say it unless you gave that to me in I guess January so

what does that do that just kills the pain

it got I don't know what it did exactly But it got me back.

That's what they do when they have babies.

It Provides anesthesia that creates a band of numbness from your belly button to your upper legs It allows you to be awake and alert through labor as okay, so but it's also it's not that there's also an epidural for back Back injuries, but we're all Google that Epidural back injuries.

It must be like some sort of a pain blocker.

Yeah, so anesthesia's injection, injecting anesthetic into the epidural spine around your spine so it can stop pain signals.

Did it affect your movement with the epidural?

want you to say this because you should make an excuse.

you as a human being like what was it like?

The I'm gonna say this is what I'll say the epidural it took me a little bit to get back Into into being able to train properly, but you got to think I Got to that fight.

I got I got I it wasn't my fucking best my best camp, but I got there and I showed up and I took my shot and I signed the dotted line and I feel George was so on point that night.

It was around the time of Talladega Nights.

So I did a thing where I go, he should just drink his red wine and shut the fuck up.

I was doing some, I was calling him Frenchie, but it was all from the movie.

But I feel George was so on point that night That if I had my even if I wasn't fucking tip-top I think I probably it probably would have resembled him and and and and Nick Diaz would be like so I I didn't like that I got I stopped you know what I mean that that that tortured me matter of fact when I was gonna fight Frank Trigg there was pictures of Frank Triggs face photoshopped on George saying I remember reading a thing who else thinks that Frank Triggs gonna wrestle fuck Sarah anyway so just like I told Crone I had to get I had to kick somebody else's ass because I didn't like the way that second fight went.


Speaker 0: The Jirogan experience. When the UFC came on the scene, it's like, look at Jiu-Jitsu,

Speaker 1: fuck everything else. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 0: So then, all of a sudden, everything started coming back around. So that's when Longo's like, told you, cocksucker. I go, okay. So Longo had to

Speaker 1: make me- Look at their little skinny man. Look at you. Look at this. Oh my God.

Speaker 0: This is all thanks to Ray Longo.

Speaker 1: Oh, look at that right hand. Dude. This was the craziest. You had some crazy power, Matt Serra. I'm sure you still do, but you really did then.

Thanks, buddy. Dude, look at that. Boom. Boom, I mean, it was freaky power. It was 1 of those things were like watching George tap to strikes In this situation.

I mean this was Wild wild upset

Speaker 0: had a house full

Speaker 1: of people the crazy thing was, you know again you were known as the jujitsu champion. You were known as 1 of the best jujitsu guys ever to come out of America. So, for you to see knocking guys out like that was wild.

Speaker 0: When I had to fight, thank you, first of all, thanks. When I had to fight Karol Parisian, I took the fight, I was healthy, but when I first got the call, a few weeks before that, a couple weeks before that, I had a torn meniscus. So when they asked me, I'm like, I could run. I go, the feet to floor didn't feel good. The wrestling I couldn't do.

So I felt like it's gonna tear off if I did that. But I could do some jujitsu. I could run and I could box. So we did a lot of boxing for that. And I think that truly helped me because It's weird because I got tied in that fight And I very rarely get tied and I truly believe is because I did not Mimic the fight with the feet the floor sparring

Speaker 1: right

Speaker 0: into it so you know when that's it. That's a That's a different kind of wind that you need to do it. It's like wrestling, it's up and down, up and down. And I didn't have that. 1 of my few times in my career I got winded.

And it was Cairo, he's probably 1 of the worst guys to get winded with, because that motherfucker had a good gas tank. So I almost knocked him out in the beginning because all that boxing play, I just did nothing but hands for that fucking thing. And I was really getting used to rolling and coming back and landing and Longo was happy with it. He was taking me into Brooklyn to work at Lou Negley's school too in Brooklyn. And I was getting fresh faces and I was really starting to feel good and get the timing that I never had with the standup.

So where I fucked up with, I had him hurt, I had him up against the fucking thing, he got a fucking judo grip inside my fucking pants. You see me go to the ref, he's got a grip. And by that time He weathered it. I still had to shoot my load, got tired. It went the way it went.

That got me into the tough house, which led to good things. But, 2 things. The 1, when I got him hurt, I didn't line that shit up. You know what I'm saying? I was just fucking, so when I hurt George, Longo pointed to that.

He goes, when you hurt him, manage your distance. Keep your distance, manage and line it up. And that's what we did. And a couple of things Longo had me doing, he had me having a fucking ball, like a medicine ball, kinda, It was rubber, but it was heavy and he would have me just throw it if each it during the circuit training Yeah, even if the sparring 25 times, that's his fucking head Longo really made me believe that I could fucking stand with this guy he goes They think you're gonna try to get him down You're not gonna try to get him down and I remember looking at that Jeff Munson fight and that cemented it I go dude cuz you wasn't gonna do that right? I'm not doing that.

I'm not gonna do that I go I'm So I didn't know I was gonna knock him out, but I knew that I had a very good chance of doing it because I was hurting guys with the 60 ounce gloves. And Longo's like, look man, he's fucking hitting. He goes, they're standing up, he's doing some karate shit. It's not that big. Listen, I love George.

And he's better. The stuff he was doing standing at the time long ago had guys feeding me the exact shit It was weird. It was some matrix shit cuz then in the fight I remember 1 point he did a high kick a low kick a high kick. I remember just being like being being It was a good it felt like a good day of sparring, you know? And by the way, everybody out there, don't watch the rematch.

No.

Speaker 1: When you went into the rematch, were you injured?

Speaker 0: You never, well, who's Matt? Because the word was there.

Speaker 1: I'm going to just tell you the word. The word was, before the rematch Matt had hurt his back and that I'd heard that you'd hurt your back

Speaker 0: well, the thing is this I This is what happened. I was supposed to fight Matt Hughes.

Speaker 1: Right. And that's when you hurt

Speaker 0: your back. I hurt my

Speaker 1: back. Yeah.

Speaker 0: And then I was out. And then that's when they fought. Matt, this was New Year's Eve. So this was New Year's Eve when I was out with my back. So they fought New Year's Eve, I know, because we did a watch party at MSG, you know, and they fought, so I didn't know who I was fighting at that point.

So then, my back was out, so then George beat Matt, so now I was fighting George. I was gonna fight Matt as my first title defense So now I was gonna fight George, and then I fought George so my back was out on What is that? The 31st of December.

Speaker 1: This is the very injury you were talking

Speaker 0: about yes the very same injury I talked about earlier because I was supposed to fight no Yes, that is the that is the same injury. I was supposed to fight Matt. That's right. I ended up fighting Matt eventually,

Speaker 1: right?

Speaker 0: But that's what it was. I'm trying to think of the timeline. So this was the December What is it? 20 31st? That's when they fought So that I had to fight George in April.

So that's months there for me, but I had to go through a camp.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you have herniated discs and

Speaker 0: you go

Speaker 1: to a chiropractor,

Speaker 0: he's doing voodoo on you. Yeah, you making it worse? He's hanging you by your neckless. I wasn't walking then, but I ended up getting the weight off and being able to fight. I wasn't, well, I was walking, but how about this?

When you bend over to brush your teeth, I wasn't able to do this.

Speaker 1: I was a fucking mess.

Speaker 0: Yeah, I was a mess.

Speaker 1: For how

Speaker 0: long? It was, my black belt, Dr. Yasha, I'm giving him a shout out because he gave me an epidural in the city. You know Yasha. An epidural.

And I know

Speaker 1: you had 2 epidurals before

Speaker 0: that fight. I didn't want to say it unless you gave that to me in I guess January so

Speaker 1: what does that do that just kills the pain

Speaker 0: it got I don't know what it did exactly But it got me back. It got me back to being

Speaker 1: what I do

Speaker 0: Epidural it's just it's more. It's a surgery thing. It does not always work either. It helped me. I was afraid.

I wasn't coming back. And he got me back. But that's what they

Speaker 1: do with women when they give birth.

Speaker 0: That's what they do when they have babies. That's 100 percent. I've had

Speaker 1: it for sciatica.

Speaker 0: I've had the shots.

Speaker 1: It Provides anesthesia that creates a band of numbness from your belly button to your upper legs It allows you to be awake and alert through labor as okay, so but it's also it's not that there's also an epidural for back Back injuries, but we're all Google that Epidural back injuries. It must be like some sort of a pain blocker.

Speaker 0: So that was January.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so there it is right there. Epidural steroid injections. Yeah, so anesthesia's injection, injecting anesthetic into the epidural spine around your spine so it can stop pain signals. So that's what it is.

Speaker 0: It's just stopping the signal.

Speaker 1: But your back is still weak. Yeah, it's still fucked up.

Speaker 0: 100%.

Speaker 1: Did it affect your movement with the epidural?

Speaker 0: No. I'm gonna, this is what I'm gonna say. I don't

Speaker 1: want you to say this because you should make an excuse.

Speaker 0: I'm just asking

Speaker 1: you as a human being like what was it like?

Speaker 0: The I'm gonna say this is what I'll say the epidural it took me a little bit to get back Into into being able to train properly, but you got to think I Got to that fight. I got I got I it wasn't my fucking best my best camp, but I got there and I showed up and I took my shot and I signed the dotted line and I feel George was so on point that night. What a fucking night that was too, man. That was fucking insane.

Speaker 1: That was

Speaker 0: 50,000 people, right? Chance of fuck you, Sarah. Longo doesn't speak quietly. I couldn't hear him in between rounds. Chance of fuck you, Sarah.

All I hear is fuck you, Sarah. You know what it was? It was around the time of Talladega Nights. So I did a thing where I go, he should just drink his red wine and shut the fuck up. I was doing some, I was calling him Frenchie, but it was all from the movie.

And I loved George. And it was, you know, I was a kid too. It was, you know, whatever it was. But I feel George was so on point that night That if I had my even if I wasn't fucking tip-top I think I probably it probably would have resembled him and and and and Nick Diaz would be like so I I didn't like that I got I stopped you know what I mean that that that tortured me matter of fact when I was gonna fight Frank Trigg there was pictures of Frank Triggs face photoshopped on George saying I remember reading a thing who else thinks that Frank Triggs gonna wrestle fuck Sarah anyway so just like I told Crone I had to get I had to kick somebody else's ass because I didn't like the way that second fight went. It felt horrible.

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Matt Serra Reflects on His Fights with Georges St-Pierre