#941 - Greg Fitzsimmons

Joe Rogan (0:00)

We're just, we're about as lucky as human beings ever get to be.

Are we live? Audio-wise, we're live, podcast-wise. Greg and I were just talking about, Greg, for people who don't know, Greg Fitzsimmons and I have been friends for like 28 years.

Greg Fitzsimmons (0:18)

28 years.

SPEAKER_3 (0:20)

Dude, we're old as fuck.

Greg Fitzsimmons (0:21)

God damn, we're old.

Joe Rogan (0:24)

We started out as raw open micers, almost exactly at the same time.

Greg Fitzsimmons (0:29)

Yeah, but I was dreaming about it since I was a kid. When did you think that it might be something you want to do? Because I was grabbing microphones when I was fucking eight, telling jokes into them.

Joe Rogan (0:39)

No shit, that's awesome.

No, man, it wasn't until I was like 21, like right before I did it, like maybe 20 or 21

And one of the reasons for it is a guy, still a good friend of mine, his name's Steve Graham, he was an ophthalmologist, and he was this guy who was just this, he's such a fucking wild man. Like I've met some people that sort of pretend to be wild men. This guy is the wildest dude I've ever met in my life, but a super smart, super nice guy. And he was on the US Ski Team, okay? And when he described his ski run that he did to make the team, he said like at any moment in time I would have crashed. At any second, he's like I was barely hung on the whole way and had this ridiculous time that I could never do again. And he was like laughing about it, but dude had like, I know I'm gonna fuck this up, Steve, if you hear this, I think he had 25 knee surgeries on his knees.

Greg Fitzsimmons (1:31)

No shit.

Joe Rogan (1:32)

Yeah, his knees were insane. Yeah, his knees got to the point where they had to resurface them. So the top of his knees, he doesn't have any cartilage anymore. So there's a steel cap that they put on the top of his knees and then there's like this artificial meniscus in there and it rolls up and down and he has like a very limited range of motion with his knees.

He's in his, man, I want to say he probably is 60 He still spars all the time. He's almost legally blind. Like he has to have, like he's been hitting the head so many times.

He has to have these things that go over his glasses so he can see better because he's had a bunch of eye surgeries.

Greg Fitzsimmons (2:12)

Hitting the head from skiing?

Joe Rogan (2:13)

From sparring.

He still spars all the time. He's super fucking smart, but he doesn't care. Like he's like, I'm just here. He goes, I'm not here for a long time, I'm just here for a good time. He'll laugh at you. Like he used to be a flight surgeon. He's a fucking animal. Where's he from?

I think he was originally from upstate New York. He's one of the very few people that told me a UFO story. And I had to go, whoa. Because this dude just doesn't make shit up and he's done everything. He's a maniac.

When I met him, he was learning taekwondo, immediately became obsessed, wanna start fighting, immediately. So while he was a resident, okay, he was going through his residency for ophthalmology.

SPEAKER_4 (2:51)

He'd be sitting on the toilet.

Joe Rogan (2:52)

He told me he was sitting on the toilet, eating lunch, and he fell asleep while he was taking a shit and his pager went off.

Greg Fitzsimmons (3:02)

That's the guy you want heading to the operating room when you're laying on the table.

Joe Rogan (3:05)

He's a student at the time.

Greg Fitzsimmons (3:06)

The guy's still got a fucking dookie in his cheeks. He hasn't even had time to wipe it out.

Joe Rogan (3:11)

You were always on call, you were always working. I had two friends that went through their residency. My other friend was a Korean friend. His name was Jungsik. And Jungsik, he actually won the Nationals. He won the US. National Championship while he was in medical school.

Yeah.

He was a beast. And he was never like a really physically talented guy. He was just unbelievably determined and super smart. It's not that he was physically inept, but he didn't have any amazing attributes. Like some fighters just have amazing physical attributes.

Greg Fitzsimmons (3:43)

Well, plus he could already count to 10 in Korean, so he was like a head of the class.