But Neil Not much, man.

Just, uh, resting up, getting ready for the next week.

Almost there.

Almost fight time.

I recently saw a video of a brawl that broke out between you and some of your teammates during a sparring session at King's.

Ever made.

Tell me about how important that is during a grueling fight camp.

Um, and it's nice to goof off, man.

Sometimes you need toe.

You need to just joke around and relax, but well, basically, it was for Bree.

Show man.

He's a big kid.

Any time he's around, we, uh, we all turn into kids.

He kick Calvin or something.

I don't remember.

Now, look a broad like that.

So I ended up hitting him because, you know, I was Callie was my partner.

At that moment.

He was sparring with Marv inventory.

I was born with Calvin and assumes I kicked them.

They looked at each other, and then they looked at me, and then they came by and us not look.

All right, let's do it.

Fun tires move.

Fun times.

Um, the last time we saw you in competition was against Tiago Boys is USC Denver.

You got the dominant win.

But afterwards, you seem like you were really satisfied.

Tell me about your thoughts on the performance.

All right, if the fight if you don't finish the fight, it's definitely I'm gonna be satisfied with the performance.

But, uh, I was grateful that it was dominant.

You know, I was able to dominate every aspect, uh, that, uh, that fight, but would have been better to have a finished.

There were some little details I missed.

I didn't capitalize on and I wasn't able to finish the rear naked choke a couple of other submission.

So I like to give back and fix those Before that victory, you went through a two year period of lingering injuries and unfortunate events.

During that time, what pushed you to stay confident and move forward?

You know, fighting is the dream.

And, ah, there's that period was really tough.

There was even times were I was thinking about retiring, especially after the one of the price was like 40 seconds.

And, you know, if my chin can't can't hold up, there's no point in fighting.

You could be the best fighter in the world.

But if you're not there, you can't.

Can't really do this.

And, um uh, but I spent a lot of having my scripture.

I prayed a lot.

And during that time, um, and I just felt like God was saying, No, you still need to be here.

You know, I'm not You're not down with this area of your life.

So I went back out there and I tried it again.

And on top of that, I got a lot of the injuries out of the way, which has been really, really helpful.

After that fight, you visited the troops overseas.

You got attacked by dogs.

I saw that you worked with the bomb squad.

How was that experience?

I mean, that's gotta be one of the best experiences I've ever had to go out there and, you know, one training with them.

I was I was pretty much ready for that.

That's what I thought.

All I was gonna be doing is going out there training with them and just keeping them company.

But it ended up being so much more.

I got to visit all the troops and what they do.

Uh, how they do it.

That kind of walk me through everything and just the hospitality.

It was really special for me.

Uh, I get another chance to do that.

I would definitely jump on it.

I now your next fight coming up his versus Drew Dover at UFC Wichita.

The guy has some momentum that he has built over the last couple years.

Were your thoughts on this matchup?

I think Drew's real Ah, he's a real tough test.

You know, Uh, I've seen him fight.

He's even fought my teammates.

Ah, I'm not the guy.

He's a good fighter.

He's a good fighter all around.

And, uh, if I If I don't bring my a game, uh, I'm not gonna be able to win this fight.

This game is about inches right, and you possess a two inch reach advantage over Dover.

How vital is that against another southpaw?

To be honest, I didn't realize I had a two inch reach advantage, but it's gonna come in handy.

The thing that Dover is, he's, um he's really, really good in the pocket.

He's got some good takedowns, I and, uh, controlling the distance like every fight.

But I think in this by my more important trolling distance is just gonna be, um is gonna be key to the victory You and Kelvin Gastelum or in camp concurrently.

How helpful was it having himto work with every day before he left to Australia?

Callen was awesome.

Toa have you You gotta understand.

Calvin is South Paul.

He's a similar height.

Similar, uh, reach and just, uh, kind of have a similar body type and then power wise.

I think Calvin is just It's just the beast of a man.

So it was great to getting to work with them for this.

I think it was really useful.

I'm grateful for that.

Definitely, definitely good to have killed it in the camp.

Last few fight camps have been unpredictable, unpredictable, with pullouts.

Has that affected your approach leading up to this fight on March 9th?

Uh, it kind of started to ah, in general and how I approach bites.

You know, I haven't had the same opponent from the beginning to the end.

So for in the last, like, three flights, I think so.

What I've tried to do is just focus on me and what I can fix with my game and where I'm I'm, uh, what I'm missing in my game and and what I could fill in with the details.

And that's really what it's been.

My wrestling I can sharpen in here or my jujitsu.

It's lacking here.

Whatever Aiken make better.

That's what I focus on.

What do you see as the intangibles against rude over?

Ah, tricky question, Uh, going into that, it's almost going to pour into the game plan, if that makes sense.

But, uh, I'm just gonna stick with the distance.

Controlling the distance is really good aqui of this, right?

I know you headed out to Denver three weeks out.

Are there any plans of getting out to Wichita earlier than usual?

I looked at the elevation there.

I believe it's like 1000 feet.

I don't think I'm gonna need to go out there early.

I'll probably just go out seven days.

Normally, it's like five days before the fight.

But I'll just go seven days just just kind of settle in and get used to the place.

Your teammate.

We mentioned him earlier.

Kevin Gastelum.

He went all the way out to Australia for USC to 34.

It must have been very disappointing for the team, Of course, for himself.

And you never got the fight for a title.

What did you think of that situation and him carry around the belt at the event, man, what a bummer.

I mean, I can't imagine being in his position, you know, doing all the work he did.

I remember when I spoke to him.

When he got back, the first thing he mentioned was man, I did so many sprints.

I woke up so early, I did so many sprints.

And I could feel for him because right now I'm going through that every this morning.

You know, I woke up at six.

Yeah.

Got a bad.

Get ready.

Drink some coffee.

Okay, let's go do sprints.

Nobody.

Nobody does that for fun.

I don't I've never met anyone who wakes up in the morning and best friends.

And then you got to go to re arresting practice.

You gotta go this practice.

So I know how hard is camp was and not having the bonus of fighting at the end of that camp.

To show all this progress, I it must have been very difficult.

I can't say I've been in his situation, but I But I know it must have been very, very difficult.

And as far as him carrying around the bulb, You know, uh, I don't blame him.

Well, look at Whitaker.

Know I like whatever.

I think he's a great fighter, but he doesn't seem like he's.

Ah, very consistent.

I think you fight like, once a year.

And what that being said, I think Kelvin Kelly really felt like he deserved that bad day, especially.

He's like, Hey, man, I worked so hard for this.

I'm gonna put this on and and I went along with it.

And at that point, uh, no one's gonna tell him.

Different is track work the worst part of fight, Kev?

Gotta be, man, I I'm I'm not a natural runner.

I'm I suck at running for one, and then everybody's like, all every one of my coaches, my conditioning persons like you got to get out there.

You gotta do run.

You gotta sprint.

You gotta do this.

So that's gonna be I'm trying to think if I don't conditioning in general, you know, I'm one of those guys.

If you put me on a mat you put, You know, you have me do minutes for I'll do that for days.

I enjoy grappling.

I enjoyed hitting man's I enjoy spine.

I don't enjoy working out for you if you tell me.

Hey, you got to do 100 pull ups today and blah, blah, blah and so on and so on.

And I don't really have too much motivation to do that unless I do have a fight.

Unless I am looking that group.

Besides that, I mean, once I'm retired, I always told my conditioning coach, man, I might never see you.

And so we gotta figure something out.

One last thing before I let you go, I was always wondering, you know what are on the fighters playlist?

You know, what do you listen to, you know, in the car, in the headphones?

Would you got bumping that you could recommend to the people that are listening or watching, uh, like Fort Minor a lot Allison toe for minor?

Quite a bit.

Recently, I started listening to Lauren Dangle.

I'll probably walk out to one of her songs.

I'm big fan of her.

Walsin there.

I like country music.

George Strait, You guys like country music.

You gotta listen to George Strait.

He's he's a man, but yeah, I'm kind of all over the place.

It just depends The dependable boom.

And I guess that's why I just tossed on my shelf.

What, And and let the music play.

All right, March 9th.

You have C on ESPN plus four.

Wichita, Kansas.

Thank you, but no for your time.

And good luck on your fight, sir.

I'm pleasure.

Thanks, guys.

Figure.