JRE MMA Show #108 with Stephen Thompson

Joe Rogan (0:16)

What's going on, man? Glad you're coming in.

Stephen Thompson (0:18)

Thank you, man. Appreciate you having me. Glad to be on with you.

Joe Rogan (0:21)

Long time coming. Should have had you in a long time ago, but it's just, you know, schedules, time, things.

Stephen Thompson (0:27)

We had planned on it like last summer or something like that. It was one of those things, but then obviously.

Joe Rogan (0:32)

The COVID.

Stephen Thompson (0:34)

The COVID, the vid. Yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:36)

But dude, you're still rocking at the top of the food chain. It's amazing.

Stephen Thompson (0:42)

I'm saying, people will say that I'm too old. I'm 38

Joe Rogan (0:45)

Well, look at your victory over Vicente Luque, and then look what Luque just did to Tyron Woodley. You're still at the top of the fucking food chain, because that was real recently that you beat him.

Stephen Thompson (0:56)

Yeah, it was. I mean, it was, what, a year, it was two years ago.

Two years ago, I beat Vicente. But yeah, man, people saying I'm too old, and I guess once you get knocked out one time, you just, they throw you to the side.

Joe Rogan (1:10)

That's people that don't understand the human chin. It's just a fact. You can hit with the perfect shot.

Stephen Thompson (1:18)

It wasn't even hard. It wasn't even hard. I've been hit harder. Tyron hit me harder.

Jake Ellenberger hit me harder. This was just right on the button.

Joe Rogan (1:26)

It's crazy, isn't it?

Stephen Thompson (1:27)

To be honest with you, it was like a relief being knocked out.

I mean, I've got close to 80 something fights with Kickbox and MMA together, and I've never been knocked out. And it was always one of those, you know, going into a fight, this is gonna be it. This is gonna be the time I get knocked out. This is always going through my head.

And now that it happened, it's not that bad. It's really not that bad. I would rather get knocked out than get just the crap beat out of me for five, five minute rounds.

Joe Rogan (1:58)

Have you ever been knocked out in training?

Stephen Thompson (1:59)

No.

Joe Rogan (2:00)

So that was the only time ever in your whole career you've been knocked out. And it was a wild punch, too. The fact that he caught you with a Superman punch.

Stephen Thompson (2:06)

I know, man. The memes after that were hilarious. I don't know if you saw it, but it was funny.

Joe Rogan (2:11)

You gotta think, though, you've dished it out so many times.

Stephen Thompson (2:14)

I know.

Joe Rogan (2:15)

You know, through your kickboxing career and MMA. I mean, there's so many times you've flatlined people.

Stephen Thompson (2:21)

And then yeah, I get knocked out by a guy in a lighter weight class. My dad, my family is pretty rough. They bring it up as much as they can.

I was in the hospital that night, and my dad's doing like a Facebook live thing, cause you know, we had a bunch of karate families and karate kids there. We pretty much sold out that arena. Greenville, South Carolina, I mean everybody was there to watch me fight. And then I get crushed or I get knocked out. And then, you know, everybody's want to know how I am. So I did it like, it was probably 2 a.m.

Did a Facebook live and my dad's just eat me alive.

Eat me alive. I mean, yeah, I got knocked out. He's like, yeah, buy a smaller guy too. And he just let me have it. But yeah, that's how it is.

Joe Rogan (3:07)

It is what it is. You know, you took it really well in terms of like the way you reacted in social media and the way you reacted when you were asked about it, you know, showed poise.

Stephen Thompson (3:19)

What can you do? I mean, you can't just sit there and cry about it.

Joe Rogan (3:22)

No.

Stephen Thompson (3:22)

Yeah, it bothered me for a while that, you know, why did I not see it coming? I normally see this stuff coming.

Joe Rogan (3:29)

Do you think you were relaxed when he hit you? Is that what it was?

Stephen Thompson (3:31)

I think it was definitely a distance thing. Cause when I had sidekick, I watched it over and over and over again. I don't remember any of the second round.

I don't remember any of it. All I remember is getting up off the stool, looking across the cage, and I seen his bloody nose, he's banged up. And I'm like, all right, time to pick it up. I'm gonna finish him this round. This was going through my head. That's all I remember. And I got knocked out five seconds left in the second round.