00:00 (dramatic music)
00:03 Most people aren't decent human beings.
00:05 A lot of people, when they see an opportunity
00:11 to take advantage of somebody,
00:12 just because it's gonna lift them up
00:16 or they think that it's gonna be fun, they'll do it.
00:19 I was that easy target until I wasn't.
00:22 I just partially dislocated my shoulder,
00:27 they pushed it back in.
00:29 I was having a hard time moving.
00:30 I'm looking at my coach,
00:31 he's like, "You really want me to go back out there?"
00:33 You know, my coach picked me up, smacked me,
00:36 told me, "No excuses.
00:37 "You're about to win.
00:38 "Now go out there and win."
00:39 Now that my coach put that in my head, I was waiting for it.
00:41 I saw it coming, caught dude's legs midair
00:45 and got to take down in overtime
00:47 and got my hand raised and won.
00:49 Then I went and won the next one
00:50 and then the next one and then the next one.
00:52 Ended up placing at this tournament.
00:54 I go out there, I'm wrestling in a skin-tight thing,
00:57 you're gonna see no excuses right across my back.
01:00 You're gonna see that and you're gonna be inspired.
01:02 (upbeat music)
01:09 Coming up in the foster care system,
01:16 I'm not gonna get into it,
01:17 it's not my favorite subject to talk about,
01:19 but growing up in that system,
01:22 it's hard for a kid, especially like me,
01:26 to find somebody that can see the way I do
01:29 and understand things the way I do.
01:32 And as a kid, your voice isn't being heard.
01:35 So when I'm coming up,
01:38 I didn't have a lot of people in my corner
01:40 to help me and help me move forward.
01:42 I had to figure out a lot of things on my own,
01:44 from just trying to figure out my own food situation
01:47 to figure out if I'm gonna be at that house that night
01:50 or if I'm gonna be at a group home
01:52 or I'm gonna be out on the street, I don't know.
01:54 And on top of that, I had to figure out how to
01:57 do my own cooking, I had to figure out how to cook,
01:59 I had to figure out, I didn't have somebody
02:01 to show me how to do things.
02:02 I taught myself how to ride a bike.
02:05 There's a lot of things that you would think
02:06 you would have somebody there to teach you, but I didn't.
02:10 So my type of mindset that I got from that was,
02:15 when I was 15, I was actually 21.
02:18 I used to be a wild cannon, man.
02:20 I'm telling you right now, I used to,
02:22 if you made me mad or looked at me funny,
02:24 I was throwing hands, man, instantly.
02:27 And that's just how I used to be,
02:28 'cause I couldn't trust nobody.
02:29 I had grown so cold to everybody around me.
02:32 My mom has had, she had a hard life herself
02:35 growing up with our family.
02:37 She was one of those few people that,
02:39 when I was just saying that,
02:41 when there was nobody that understood how I see
02:43 or could understand why I do the things I do,
02:46 she understood.
02:47 So she helped me figure out how to control my own urges
02:51 and my own emotions.
02:53 I never had support like that.
02:56 Growing up through wrestling and all the things that I did,
02:58 I never had a single person for 12 years straight
03:01 ever show up to a wrestling match.
03:03 My mom showed up and I showed out
03:05 in one of the first 13 matches of my senior year
03:08 as a wrestler, consecutively, before I lost one.
03:10 And that first loss was against
03:12 one of the best guys in the state.
03:14 (upbeat music)
03:24 I actually ended up dropping out of college,
03:26 if I'm gonna be honest about that,
03:27 'cause I couldn't stand going to school.
03:29 You know, school is not a place for me
03:31 where I could open my mind's eye,
03:34 broaden my scope of what I could do.
03:35 As that door was closing, another one opened
03:39 and I found myself in California
03:41 with like 30 bucks in my pocket,
03:44 talking to one of the best Bellator teams on the planet.
03:47 And that's how I met all my teammates,
03:48 who I call my brothers.
03:51 (upbeat music)
03:53 I'd find out what works, what didn't work.
03:54 I'd try a hundred different things
03:56 and if one thing out of those hundred things worked,
03:59 I'm gonna drill a thousand times.
04:01 And so I got to the point where I found out
04:03 my two, three, four things that worked
04:06 and I started doing it consistently over and over again.
04:08 I'm considered a headlock specialist.
04:13 Nobody stops my headlock,
04:14 'cause I found out what I'm good at.
04:16 My coach, his name is Antonio McKee.
04:19 He's probably one of the most decorated
04:20 MMA coaches on the planet.
04:22 Over the years, I've got to learn lessons from people,
04:27 like just learn wisdom from Mike Tyson,
04:29 learn like striking from Mike Perry,
04:32 learn skill from Anderson Silva.
04:35 Taking away little bits and pieces
04:39 from all these all-time greats
04:41 and converting it and turning it into my own thing,
04:44 which leads me all the way up to December
04:46 after five years of training.
04:47 I remember last year, I was at practice
04:49 and my coach for five years told me no.
04:52 I was like, "Coach, when can I fight?"
04:53 No.
04:54 "When can I fight?"
04:55 No.
04:56 Wouldn't even tell me why,
04:57 but when can I fight?
04:58 No.
04:59 And then last year he came up and was like,
05:01 "You wanna fight?"
05:02 I wanted a unanimous decision.
05:12 I'm about to gun as hard as I can to be a world champion
05:16 and if anybody gets in my way,
05:18 I'm gonna knock your ass out.
05:19 I'm gonna stand over you and I'm gonna smile
05:21 and I'm gonna point to God and I'm gonna point to my mom
05:23 and I'm gonna keep it going.
05:24 You know, there's a saying,
05:33 once you wrestle with everything else,
05:34 then life becomes easy.
05:36 I think I proved that point when I won all these titles
05:38 in track and field.
05:39 Train every single day, seven days a week
05:42 for two months straight, never knowing the sport,
05:44 came away a two-time state champion
05:46 and a four-time placer.
05:48 I won the 100 meter state championship.
05:49 I won the 400 meter state championship.
05:51 I got third place in the 800 meter.
05:54 I got second place in the shot put.
05:55 Track season is dependent on Paralympics.
06:01 So like now we got Paris 2024 coming up.
06:04 So he's probably gonna start training sometime in summer
06:08 and preparing for track.
06:09 So the goal is to try to line up a fight before that,
06:12 you know, get another fight under his belt.
06:14 When the world or an individual challenges him,
06:20 like, "Hey, you can't do this," you know,
06:21 or your disability defines you and why you can't do this,
06:24 he's gonna come out and show the world otherwise.
06:28 It stems from like his belief in himself
06:30 because the world tried to break him down
06:32 and without that self-belief,
06:33 he wouldn't be where he is today.
06:34 So I think his competitive nature mentality is special.
06:38 You see it with the greats of the world
06:40 and any respect to feel anyone you consider a GOAT.
06:43 So I put him up there and, you know, as a legend,
06:46 the persona of who he is.
06:48 The world's gonna keep moving
06:52 whether you get up or you don't get up.
06:54 So it's up to you to make that decision, to stand up.
06:58 And if you fall down, stand up again.
07:00 If you fall down, stand up again.
07:02 I can't tell you what you can do to better yourself.
07:10 Only you know that.
07:11 But I can tell you,
07:13 I can talk to you about the type of mindset
07:15 you need to have, which is an ironclad mindset.
07:17 And I can talk to you about what it means to fall down
07:21 and how to fall correctly.
07:23 So when you do fall, it doesn't hurt as much
07:26 to when you try to get back up.
07:27 When you fail at something, don't look at it as discouraging,
07:31 look at it as a learning moment.
07:33 And then take whatever you can from that
07:35 and then go try again.
07:37 Rediscourage about anything in life.
07:38 Take from the things that discourage you
07:40 and look at yourself and be like,
07:42 what can I do that's gonna benefit me from all this?
07:45 No matter who you are, what walk of life you come from,
07:49 you don't need legs to leave a footprint on earth, man.
07:51 You don't need anybody's approval
07:53 to leave a footprint on earth.
07:55 Sometimes you just have to go out
07:57 and do what makes you happy.
07:58 And that could lead to something glorious.
08:00 (upbeat music)
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