JRE MMA Show #67 with Kevin Lee

Joe Rogan (0:00)

Yeah, two, one.

Kevin Lee, what's up man, how are you? It's good to see you smiling, good to see you happy.

Kevin Lee (0:07)

Yeah, yeah, you know, gotta give you some thanks even for doing it.

Before the fight happened, I had kind of already had in my mind, I'm like, okay, it's been a year since we last kind of did this, and it was right after the Barbosa fight. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna get through the fight, and then I'm gonna do this.

The result wasn't exactly what I wanted, you know what I mean? And it made me hesitant about doing it, but I was like, this is the story, you know what I mean? And this is, as I said, kind of like was upset at myself for a few days. Eventually, I just kind of got over it. And I'm like, you know what? I said I was gonna do it before. I'm not about to be no sore ass loser.

Joe Rogan (0:46)

Well, like I said, I love you whether you win or lose. I'm just, you know, it's a giant part of the game.

Half the game is losing. Someone has to win, someone has to lose. If you watch a fight, someone's losing. Unless it's a draw.

Kevin Lee (1:03)

And I figure it's all about how you approach it and how you take it into the next fight. And really when you look at it, I mean, it sucks. It really does. And I hate it.

Like, it's something that boils up inside of me. Like, I go over, I replayed a fight a million times in my head and I just hate losing and I hate that feeling. But it's just the reality. And it's like, it's just real life.

And it's nothing you can do about it.

Joe Rogan (1:29)

There's nothing you can do once it's over. The only thing you can do is learn and grow.

Kevin Lee (1:32)

Exactly.

Joe Rogan (1:33)

And the guy you fought is a stud. I mean, you fought Rafael Dos Anjos. He's a fucking legitimate world champion fighter.

Kevin Lee (1:39)

Yeah, when I was approached with the fight and kind of start really diving into it and really looking at him, I'm like, I always liked a really big challenge. And that one was definitely one, you know, he had already had a lot of fights that went five rounds.

He had fought, he's fought pretty much everybody. You know, Kamaru Usman was his last fight, Kobe Covington, he had fought Khabib. He had already fought like a lot of top, top guys and for five rounds. So I knew what type of challenge it was. It's just, I hold myself at a high esteem. So I was like, you know what, I'm just ready to do it.

And the fight itself was good, but either way, I'ma learn from it and grow from it. And I still got a whole long, long road ahead of me.

Joe Rogan (2:23)

So. You do have a long road ahead of you, but as we were talking about, that long road could sneak up on you real quick. And before you know it, you're 37 years old trying to figure out if you still want to fight. Yeah. It happens to guys. I've seen it happen to guys.

Kevin Lee (2:36)

Yeah, so I feel like if you approach it smart, you know what I mean? It could still get done, which is what I'm trying to do. Right. I kind of already knew that I needed to make some changes and do some things different, even before this fight and before my last one too.

But I just was like, okay, I'm gonna just get through this one and then I'll do it. And now I'm gonna get through this one and then I'll do it. But that's kind of a big wake up call to just like, all right, it's time to get outside of the comfort zone and kind of do something different and kind of do what I already know I gotta do.

Joe Rogan (3:09)

What did you think was gonna happen in the fight and what was surprising?

Kevin Lee (3:13)

I didn't think that he would be able to keep the pace for sure.

But what surprised me was how smart he was and how he beat me tactically, more than anything, is when I was going, he wasn't doing. And he kind of, he controlled the pace better than I thought he was going to. I thought once I set that pace, that he was gonna be right there with me. But then as it got going, I started to realize, oh, he's not really expending much energy.