JRE MMA Show #23 with Alexander Gustafsson

Alexander Gustafsson (0:00)

Come down here and hunting sometimes.

Joe Rogan (0:01)

Yeah, man, come down. Lot of wild pigs out here.

Alexander Gustafsson, ladies and gentlemen, we're live. Good to see you, buddy. What's happening?

Alexander Gustafsson (0:10)

Good to be here, I'm good, I'm good.

Joe Rogan (0:11)

You just recovering from shoulder surgery? Yeah. What'd you have done?

Alexander Gustafsson (0:15)

I was wrestling. I wrestled in practice, I got taken down, believe it or not. And I actually slammed. And I landed on, I was trying to post with my arm, and I was slammed, so just felt something in my shoulder, basically. And it didn't hurt at first, I was trying to stand up, and I felt it was just a mess in there. And after that, I went to hospital, and from there, I've been rehabbing.

I got a plate inside.

Joe Rogan (0:43)

Oh, wow, a plate.

Alexander Gustafsson (0:44)

Yeah, I took it out now in like, end of last year. But I had a plate for a couple of months, yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:50)

What was the extent of the injury?

Alexander Gustafsson (0:54)

Nothing was broken. It was more like the collarbone, just dislocated, ripped apart from my shoulder. So they had to put it back in, put the plate on, three screws down.

That's the first real injury I had for my whole career. I had bruises, stitches and all that, but this is the first real, as I'm probably in my back, but.

Joe Rogan (1:12)

Pull this thing right in front of your face there, so it's under your Viking beard, it's getting muffled up. So were there tendons torn or ligaments?

Alexander Gustafsson (1:22)

Yeah, ligaments, everything just torn apart.

Joe Rogan (1:25)

So they stitched it all back together again, put a plate in there.

Alexander Gustafsson (1:28)

Yeah.

And now I've just been, I've been rehabbing. I feel fine, I'm 100% now, so I'm in training.

Joe Rogan (1:34)

So how many months was it?

Alexander Gustafsson (1:36)

Well, this happened in August, and I took away the plate in the last year, and I've been rehabbing for a couple of months. So yeah, I have six months totally, maybe.

Joe Rogan (1:50)

Oh yes, when you grabbed the bow and you were pulling it back, I'm like, maybe I shouldn't have him do that, because that's like, you know, that kind of movement is like bench pressing.

Alexander Gustafsson (1:59)

Yeah, but I'm fine now, I'm good, I'm good. It's all good. But that bow was powerful though. I didn't expect that.

Joe Rogan (2:04)

Yeah, it's no joke.

Alexander Gustafsson (2:06)

It's good.

Joe Rogan (2:07)

That's real shit. Oh yeah, yeah, it's definitely good back training if you wanted to work on those muscles. They're very specific.

Alexander Gustafsson (2:14)

100%.

Joe Rogan (2:15)

Yeah, but so when you do that, do you go through, are you doing like platelet-rich plasma and all sorts of different therapies to try to like accelerate the healing?

Alexander Gustafsson (2:27)

Well, I had done my physical rehab. I'd done a lot of like, I don't know, they were in English, but a lot of acupuncture. Acupuncture. Yeah, a lot of massage, a lot of rehab and lifting small weights.

Really boring stuff. I hate that stuff.

I hate it so much, but you just have to do it. It's just tiny weights. I started with that, and then I've just been increasing, and that's it. Boring as rehabbing.

Joe Rogan (3:02)

You know, obviously I'm a big fan of yours, and I was very worried when, after the Glover to share a fight, which I thought was like your masterpiece so far in your career.

Alexander Gustafsson (3:13)

Appreciate that, thank you.

Joe Rogan (3:14)

Well, it's just, you've always been a very, very good fighter, but when you see a guy hit this new level, and that's what I felt like you were in the Glover fight, I was like, Jesus Christ. Like that combination that you finished him off with, that was some video game shit.

Alexander Gustafsson (3:27)

That was crazy.

Joe Rogan (3:27)

It was like for yourself too, right?

Alexander Gustafsson (3:29)

Yeah, no, it was just standing there. It was just standing there, and I just, he had my show, he had my uppercuts.

Joe Rogan (3:35)

Yeah.

Alexander Gustafsson (3:35)

I had uppercut, worked all night.

Joe Rogan (3:37)

It was crazy.

So then when I heard that you were injured after that, I'm like, ah, shit. Like you were just catching your stride. It was just a perfect performance.

Alexander Gustafsson (3:46)

No, I know, that's what I felt, because I felt like, like you said, I had everything's going. I had such a flow in training, in life, generally. Everything felt really good.