Name: Chad Mendes Announces Un-Retirement, Transition to Bare Knuckle Fighting
Uploaded: 2021-08-04T17:29:26.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Chad Mendes Announces Un-Retirement, Transition to Bare Knuckle Fighting' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-04. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Chad Mendes Announces Un-Retirement, Transition to Bare Knuckle Fighting' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-08-04. Transcript available.

The Joe Rogan Experience.
Do you want to talk about that thing that you might be doing?
Yeah, let's do it.
We've got a big announcement.
Push this microphone in front of you.
That's it.
You just get it.
Yeah, you go.
Like that.
So tell me, what is this announcement?
What's going on?
So I just signed a big contract, bro.
I'm coming back to fighting.
Oh, no!
Yeah!
In the great words of T.J. Dillashaw, daddy's home, bitches.
But I'm not coming back to MMA, man.
I know that I've been seeing a lot of people's comment,
and they're kind of hoping that I am.
But I'm coming back to boxing, man.
I want to try something different.
Now, you're coming back to regular boxing,
or are you going to do bare-knuckle boxing?
I think we're going to throw some bare-knuckle in there, bro.
Just mix it up, get real crazy.
Now, I've seen you.
You're working out a lot.
You're hitting a lot of mitts.
Were you doing that before, or did they contact you?
How did this come about?
I mean, this is actually something that's kind of been in the works
for probably a year now.
Really?
You know, it's just, for me, look, I just turned 36 in May,
and we were just talking about still having that desire.
Like, when I left the UFC, I was just about to have my first baby.
You know, I had a lot on my plate.
There was, obviously, I had just lost.
But even going into that fight, I had started a company,
was working on a few other companies,
and there was a lot that I was more excited about
than competing at the time.
And, I mean, obviously, we know that this sport is so brutal.
Like, if you don't have 100% mindset into it,
you're going to get fucked up, you know?
And it's, for me, I was like, look, dude,
I'm going to take some time off.
I'm going to, or just end it here.
I have other things going on,
and we'll see kind of what happens in the future.
So, I decided to retire, talked it over with the wife,
and that was, you know, what the game plan was.
So, fast forward two and a half years later,
you know, obviously, I still have that desire.
And, obviously, my baby girl is bigger now.
We are pregnant with a second.
And I just started thinking, like, man, I'm getting older.
I don't want to get into my 40s
and then basically still have this desire to compete
and be like, it's too fucking late, you know?
So, I'm like, let's start talking to some of these guys.
I've always wanted to box, you know?
Coming off of wrestling,
my style even in the UFC was boxing and wrestling
were probably my two favorite things to do.
Like, I absolutely loved boxing, sparring,
when I would be training through training camps
and then, obviously, wrestling, too.
But I always wanted to try and compete
in some type of boxing competition.
And so, Bare Knuckle actually reached out to Faber
and was like, hey, do you think Mendez
would ever be interested in this?
And I'm like, I mean, I probably never thought
about anything Bare Knuckle before,
but, you know, boxing definitely would be fun.
Let me ask you this about Bare Knuckle.
Why do they have those, like, really thick wraps
that go all around the hand but just expose the knuckle?
Mm-hmm.
And it's not mandatory on anybody.
Like, I see some guys where they just tape their hand.
Right.
But I think a lot of people do that for wrist support.
Right.
Like, you know, obviously, you punch, like, a bag with no support in your wrist
and a lot of the times it folds.
But didn't Joe Riggs get his eye cut because of one of the – when he fought Lombard?
Didn't the wrap actually scrape his eye?
I heard that, yeah.
And it's, you know, I think that this is an organization that's still very
brand new
and they're probably still working all these kinks out.
But, I mean, I'm probably going to tape the shit out of my wrist just for the
reason of support.
But, yeah, I think that's something that's, you know,
it's definitely a possibility of getting cut on that stuff.
Do you know when you're fighting?
October 22nd.
Oh, Jesus.
It's coming up.
October 22nd.
Do you have an opponent?
No opponent yet.
But it's Chandler, Arizona is what they're saying.
What weight?
155s.
Okay.
So you're not going to have to cut.
Nope.
That's what I told them.
I said, look, dude, I – we had just talked about –
Yeah.
I don't want to cut much anymore, you know.
Obviously, I'm getting older.
It's harder.
It's going to be hard as hell to make 45s.
But if I can go 55s, I would greatly appreciate that.
And they're like, no, that's actually better.
You're going to have more opponents to choose from.
So I think that's what we're going to do.
How many rounds?
They're five.
Five two-minute rounds, which I think is –
Why are they doing two-minute rounds?
I don't know why they're – maybe just – I'm not sure exactly what their
thought process
on that.
But, I mean, I love that.
I'm an explosive athlete, obviously.
I think this – I'm pretty much built for this style of fighting.
You know, I can get in there.
I can be fast, explosive, quick, powerful, and, you know, it's a quick round.
I don't have to, you know –
Pace yourself.
Pace myself, grind out those five-minute rounds.
I can just get in there and knock someone's head off and be good.
That's going to be a big difference for you, right?
Going from five-minute rounds to two-minute rounds?
To two-minute rounds, yeah.
Dude, I've been hitting mitts for two-minute rounds, and I'm like, I feel like
I just started.
Right, right.
I could go – you know, I feel good.
It feels great.
Are you training two minutes, or are you doing longer so that you feel like two
minutes is nothing?
We're going to mix both in, and my thought process on that is even when I was
training for five-minute rounds, we do five-minute rounds.
I don't – we would do more of them, but I want my body, my mind to get used
to exactly what it's going to feel like because of that reason, like, holy shit,
it's already over.
Right.
You know, so I need to know, like, you know, basically where I'm at in the
round, you know, and I want to get used to that.
But I'm definitely going to do some longer stuff, too, or we'll do, you know,
like 10 two-minute rounds.
So you're basically just doing more of the exact same thing to where it's, you
know, you hit those five, and it's like, shit, I could go another full fight
here.
So how long did you have to think about this before you decided to do it?
Well, like I said, it's been a whole year process kind of going back and forth.
My wife absolutely hates it.
She's like, you're fucking nuts, but, you know.
She married a fighter.
Yeah, I know, and that's what she's got to – she's got to remember that,
right?
But, no, man, it's definitely something we sat down and had to figure out
because it's, you know, it is something that's pretty brutal.
And my argument to her was this, like, a UFC glove, maybe a quarter of an inch
of leather, half inch of leather over my knuckles, I mean, the concussion's not
going to be much different, if anything.
I think we're obviously dealing with a sharper object hitting you, so cuts are
probably going to be a lot more prevalent.
But as far as the concussion of, you know, getting hit, you know, I don't think
it's going to be much different.
I also don't have to worry about a baseball bat head kick going whipping
through and cracking me in the dome either or a big knee.
Someone kicking your knees out.
Yeah, uh-huh.
So, you know, there's a lot of other things in the MMA game that I think are a
lot more dangerous.
But, you know, for me, it's just it had to make sense, obviously.
The numbers they were throwing out in the beginning didn't make sense for me.
I have, you know, other businesses that are doing really well right now that
are something that I can do for the rest of my life and not have to ever fight.
But I have that itch to get in there and compete still, and I might as well do
it now while I'm still in my prime and I have that opportunity.
Because, like I said, when I start hitting 38, 39, you know, maybe these
opportunities have come and gone and nobody even really cares to see me fight
anymore.
Or, you know, I just don't feel good enough to get in there and do it.
So, it's interesting how they're going after so many former UFC fighters.
I mean, it's smart, right?
These people are already famous.
You know, they've got Paige Van Zandt, Hector Lombard.
You now, who else is over there?
I know Leonard Garcia.
Who else?
Rochelle.
She just fought Paige.
Is it Ostevich?
Rachel Ostevich.
Most of it, yes.
Yeah.
Did you already say her?
Sorry.
No, no, no, I didn't say her.
So, they're doing a smart thing where they're getting popular fighters who are,
you know, known for UFC fights mostly.
And then just introducing the bare knuckle world to them.
And I know it's growing, right?
I mean, people are paying attention now.
They're watching a lot of fights.
Yeah.
I know Forbes just did a write-up saying it's the fastest growing combat.
That sport in the world right now.
You know?
Well, I always thought that, like, it was weird that you could elbow somebody
in the face.
You could head kick somebody with a bare shin.
You can knee them in the nose with no pads.
But your hands are covered.
Yeah.
With a pad.
I was like, but I used to say, like, why don't we just go bare knuckle?
Because, first of all, to make grappling more realistic, like submissions, you
could sink in chokes and stuff much easier.
But then I saw Chris Lieben versus, who is it, Dakota?
What's his name?
Anyway, Chris Lieben's face got destroyed.
It was crazy.
The cuts.
And I was like, oh, maybe bare knuckle's pretty fucked.
It is.
And I think that's, you know, you're going to have a lot of blood, which
probably makes it pretty entertaining for a lot of people.
But, yeah, cuts are definitely going to be there.
I mean, like you said, elbows, though, in the UFC, like, you throw up against
the cage and elbow somebody or even off their back and you're on top dropping
elbows.
I mean, those cut probably more than knuckles, I would imagine.
But, yeah, I think you get hit a lot more with punches than you do with elbows
in a fight.
And that's probably where more cuts would come in.
How many of these things are you going to have?
Man, so here's the situation.
I'm still under UFC contract.
Really?
I still have fights on my UFC contract.
So, you know, there still is a possibility that I come back and maybe I want to
do one or two more UFC fights after this.
We'll see.
I'm going to get in there.
Is the UFC giving you a green light to do this?
Is that how it works?
Yeah, uh-huh.
Interesting.
So, which is super cool to you.
I mean, they basically could have just said, fuck you, you're not competing
anymore.
Well, they kind of said, fuck you to George St. Pierre when he wanted to fight
Oscar De La Hoya.
Well, that's because it's Oscar.
I know, but come on, man.
That's a great payday for George.
I know, I know.
And in fact, some of that stuff was in the works for me.
Like, we taught, I was, my name was thrown in there with Oscar.
Really?
Yeah.
Which would have been freaking cool just to say you get in there and box a guy
like Oscar.
But, yeah, they wanted nothing to do with any of that stuff.
So, you know, for them to let me go.
Yeah, UFC and Oscar do not get along.
It's Dana and Oscar do not get along.
Yeah.
What is the source of that?
Do you know?
I don't know, but I always see them talking shit to each other.
It's so dumb.
Yeah.
But.
So dumb.
Yeah.
Like, you know, why?
What is, what's happening?
I don't know.
But luckily, the payday I was talking about getting with them is what I'm
getting in bare
knuckle now.
And, you know, obviously it would have been cooler to say that I'm boxing Oscar
de la
Hoya, but.
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Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips.
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Chad Mendes Announces Un-Retirement, Transition to Bare Knuckle Fighting

The Joe Rogan Experience.
Do you want to talk about that thing that you might be doing?
Yeah, let's do it.
We've got a big announcement.
Push this microphone in front of you.
That's it.
You just get it.
Yeah, you go.
Like that.
So tell me, what is this announcement?
What's going on?
So I just signed a big contract, bro.
I'm coming back to fighting.
Oh, no!
Yeah!
In the great words of T.J. Dillashaw, daddy's home, bitches.
But I'm not coming back to MMA, man.
I know that I've been seeing a lot of people's comment,
and they're kind of hoping that I am.
But I'm coming back to boxing, man.
I want to try something different.
Now, you're coming back to regular boxing,
or are you going to do bare-knuckle boxing?
I think we're going to throw some bare-knuckle in there, bro.
Just mix it up, get real crazy.
Now, I've seen you.
You're working out a lot.
You're hitting a lot of mitts.
Were you doing that before, or did they contact you?
How did this come about?
I mean, this is actually something that's kind of been in the works
for probably a year now.
Really?
You know, it's just, for me, look, I just turned 36 in May,
and we were just talking about still having that desire.
Like, when I left the UFC, I was just about to have my first baby.
You know, I had a lot on my plate.
There was, obviously, I had just lost.
But even going into that fight, I had started a company,
was working on a few other companies,
and there was a lot that I was more excited about
than competing at the time.
And, I mean, obviously, we know that this sport is so brutal.
Like, if you don't have 100% mindset into it,
you're going to get fucked up, you know?
And it's, for me, I was like, look, dude,
I'm going to take some time off.
I'm going to, or just end it here.
I have other things going on,
and we'll see kind of what happens in the future.
So, I decided to retire, talked it over with the wife,
and that was, you know, what the game plan was.
So, fast forward two and a half years later,
you know, obviously, I still have that desire.
And, obviously, my baby girl is bigger now.
We are pregnant with a second.
And I just started thinking, like, man, I'm getting older.
I don't want to get into my 40s
and then basically still have this desire to compete
and be like, it's too fucking late, you know?
So, I'm like, let's start talking to some of these guys.
I've always wanted to box, you know?
Coming off of wrestling,
my style even in the UFC was boxing and wrestling
were probably my two favorite things to do.
Like, I absolutely loved boxing, sparring,
when I would be training through training camps
and then, obviously, wrestling, too.
But I always wanted to try and compete
in some type of boxing competition.
And so, Bare Knuckle actually reached out to Faber
and was like, hey, do you think Mendez
would ever be interested in this?
And I'm like, I mean, I probably never thought
about anything Bare Knuckle before,
but, you know, boxing definitely would be fun.
Let me ask you this about Bare Knuckle.
Why do they have those, like, really thick wraps
that go all around the hand but just expose the knuckle?
Mm-hmm.
And it's not mandatory on anybody.
Like, I see some guys where they just tape their hand.
Right.
But I think a lot of people do that for wrist support.
Right.
Like, you know, obviously, you punch, like, a bag with no support in your wrist
and a lot of the times it folds.
But didn't Joe Riggs get his eye cut because of one of the – when he fought Lombard?
Didn't the wrap actually scrape his eye?
I heard that, yeah.
And it's, you know, I think that this is an organization that's still very
brand new
and they're probably still working all these kinks out.
But, I mean, I'm probably going to tape the shit out of my wrist just for the
reason of support.
But, yeah, I think that's something that's, you know,
it's definitely a possibility of getting cut on that stuff.
Do you know when you're fighting?
October 22nd.
Oh, Jesus.
It's coming up.
October 22nd.
Do you have an opponent?
No opponent yet.
But it's Chandler, Arizona is what they're saying.
What weight?
155s.
Okay.
So you're not going to have to cut.
Nope.
That's what I told them.
I said, look, dude, I – we had just talked about –
Yeah.
I don't want to cut much anymore, you know.
Obviously, I'm getting older.
It's harder.
It's going to be hard as hell to make 45s.
But if I can go 55s, I would greatly appreciate that.
And they're like, no, that's actually better.
You're going to have more opponents to choose from.
So I think that's what we're going to do.
How many rounds?
They're five.
Five two-minute rounds, which I think is –
Why are they doing two-minute rounds?
I don't know why they're – maybe just – I'm not sure exactly what their
thought process
on that.
But, I mean, I love that.
I'm an explosive athlete, obviously.
I think this – I'm pretty much built for this style of fighting.
You know, I can get in there.
I can be fast, explosive, quick, powerful, and, you know, it's a quick round.
I don't have to, you know –
Pace yourself.
Pace myself, grind out those five-minute rounds.
I can just get in there and knock someone's head off and be good.
That's going to be a big difference for you, right?
Going from five-minute rounds to two-minute rounds?
To two-minute rounds, yeah.
Dude, I've been hitting mitts for two-minute rounds, and I'm like, I feel like
I just started.
Right, right.
I could go – you know, I feel good.
It feels great.
Are you training two minutes, or are you doing longer so that you feel like two
minutes is nothing?
We're going to mix both in, and my thought process on that is even when I was
training for five-minute rounds, we do five-minute rounds.
I don't – we would do more of them, but I want my body, my mind to get used
to exactly what it's going to feel like because of that reason, like, holy shit,
it's already over.
Right.
You know, so I need to know, like, you know, basically where I'm at in the
round, you know, and I want to get used to that.
But I'm definitely going to do some longer stuff, too, or we'll do, you know,
like 10 two-minute rounds.
So you're basically just doing more of the exact same thing to where it's, you
know, you hit those five, and it's like, shit, I could go another full fight
here.
So how long did you have to think about this before you decided to do it?
Well, like I said, it's been a whole year process kind of going back and forth.
My wife absolutely hates it.
She's like, you're fucking nuts, but, you know.
She married a fighter.
Yeah, I know, and that's what she's got to – she's got to remember that,
right?
But, no, man, it's definitely something we sat down and had to figure out
because it's, you know, it is something that's pretty brutal.
And my argument to her was this, like, a UFC glove, maybe a quarter of an inch
of leather, half inch of leather over my knuckles, I mean, the concussion's not
going to be much different, if anything.
I think we're obviously dealing with a sharper object hitting you, so cuts are
probably going to be a lot more prevalent.
But as far as the concussion of, you know, getting hit, you know, I don't think
it's going to be much different.
I also don't have to worry about a baseball bat head kick going whipping
through and cracking me in the dome either or a big knee.
Someone kicking your knees out.
Yeah, uh-huh.
So, you know, there's a lot of other things in the MMA game that I think are a
lot more dangerous.
But, you know, for me, it's just it had to make sense, obviously.
The numbers they were throwing out in the beginning didn't make sense for me.
I have, you know, other businesses that are doing really well right now that
are something that I can do for the rest of my life and not have to ever fight.
But I have that itch to get in there and compete still, and I might as well do
it now while I'm still in my prime and I have that opportunity.
Because, like I said, when I start hitting 38, 39, you know, maybe these
opportunities have come and gone and nobody even really cares to see me fight
anymore.
Or, you know, I just don't feel good enough to get in there and do it.
So, it's interesting how they're going after so many former UFC fighters.
I mean, it's smart, right?
These people are already famous.
You know, they've got Paige Van Zandt, Hector Lombard.
You now, who else is over there?
I know Leonard Garcia.
Who else?
Rochelle.
She just fought Paige.
Is it Ostevich?
Rachel Ostevich.
Most of it, yes.
Yeah.
Did you already say her?
Sorry.
No, no, no, I didn't say her.
So, they're doing a smart thing where they're getting popular fighters who are,
you know, known for UFC fights mostly.
And then just introducing the bare knuckle world to them.
And I know it's growing, right?
I mean, people are paying attention now.
They're watching a lot of fights.
Yeah.
I know Forbes just did a write-up saying it's the fastest growing combat.
That sport in the world right now.
You know?
Well, I always thought that, like, it was weird that you could elbow somebody
in the face.
You could head kick somebody with a bare shin.
You can knee them in the nose with no pads.
But your hands are covered.
Yeah.
With a pad.
I was like, but I used to say, like, why don't we just go bare knuckle?
Because, first of all, to make grappling more realistic, like submissions, you
could sink in chokes and stuff much easier.
But then I saw Chris Lieben versus, who is it, Dakota?
What's his name?
Anyway, Chris Lieben's face got destroyed.
It was crazy.
The cuts.
And I was like, oh, maybe bare knuckle's pretty fucked.
It is.
And I think that's, you know, you're going to have a lot of blood, which
probably makes it pretty entertaining for a lot of people.
But, yeah, cuts are definitely going to be there.
I mean, like you said, elbows, though, in the UFC, like, you throw up against
the cage and elbow somebody or even off their back and you're on top dropping
elbows.
I mean, those cut probably more than knuckles, I would imagine.
But, yeah, I think you get hit a lot more with punches than you do with elbows
in a fight.
And that's probably where more cuts would come in.
How many of these things are you going to have?
Man, so here's the situation.
I'm still under UFC contract.
Really?
I still have fights on my UFC contract.
So, you know, there still is a possibility that I come back and maybe I want to
do one or two more UFC fights after this.
We'll see.
I'm going to get in there.
Is the UFC giving you a green light to do this?
Is that how it works?
Yeah, uh-huh.
Interesting.
So, which is super cool to you.
I mean, they basically could have just said, fuck you, you're not competing
anymore.
Well, they kind of said, fuck you to George St. Pierre when he wanted to fight
Oscar De La Hoya.
Well, that's because it's Oscar.
I know, but come on, man.
That's a great payday for George.
I know, I know.
And in fact, some of that stuff was in the works for me.
Like, we taught, I was, my name was thrown in there with Oscar.
Really?
Yeah.
Which would have been freaking cool just to say you get in there and box a guy
like Oscar.
But, yeah, they wanted nothing to do with any of that stuff.
So, you know, for them to let me go.
Yeah, UFC and Oscar do not get along.
It's Dana and Oscar do not get along.
Yeah.
What is the source of that?
Do you know?
I don't know, but I always see them talking shit to each other.
It's so dumb.
Yeah.
But.
So dumb.
Yeah.
Like, you know, why?
What is, what's happening?
I don't know.
But luckily, the payday I was talking about getting with them is what I'm
getting in bare
knuckle now.
And, you know, obviously it would have been cooler to say that I'm boxing Oscar
de la
Hoya, but.
Catch new episodes of the Joe Rogan Experience for free only on Spotify.
Watch back catalog JRE videos on Spotify, including clips.
Easily, seamlessly switch between video and audio experience.
On Spotify, you can listen to the JRE in the background while using other apps
and can
download episodes to save on data costs all for free.
Spotify is absolu