>> When we go to the dojos there, we all get thrown by people that never come out to be world champions. They're just in the mix or they're going through three years of university, and then they go, we had a guy that came in. He was business guy, he came in with his suitcase and his tie up like that, and he's in his lunch hour.

He's in his lunch hour, so we've got to be quick. >> Yeah. >> So he comes in and he goes through, he's working his way through the whole of the British team. We're all lined up, right? Ten minutes later, he's just tying his tie up like that, and back to work like that.

Imagine him sitting behind his desk in his computer. >> Yeah. >> I'm glad he didn't get out. >> Who do you think wins, Yamashita? >> I think Yamashita, but- >> Wait. Do you think Yamashita will be steady in there? >> I think so. >> Strong words. The following is a conversation with Neil Adams, a legend in the sport of Judo.

He is a world champion, two-time Olympic silver medalist, five-time European champion, and often referred to as the voice of Judo. Commentating all the major events, world championships, and Olympic games. Highlighting the drama, the triumph, the artistry of the sport of Judo. Making fans like me feel the biggest wins, the biggest losses, the surprise turns of fortune, the dominance of champions coming to an end, and new champions made.

Always speaking from the heart. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. Now, dear friends, here's Neil Adams. You are a five-time European champion, world champion, two-time Olympic silver medalist. Let's first go to the 1980 Olympics. Where was your mind?

What was your preparation like? What was your strategy leading into that Olympics? >> That was my first Olympic games. My preparation was a little bit different to how it was the '84 and the '88 Olympic games. I'd done part of the preparation as well for '76 Olympic games. I wasn't quite old enough for those, but I was first reserve.

In 1980, I'd had four years build up, and I was hungry, and I was one of these young athletes, and I see them so often now that was developing and full of, I won't say I was full of myself, but I was certainly confident of my ability, and I wanted to conquer the world.

I'd had a couple of really tight matches with the current Olympic world champion. I knew that there was possibility that I could get there for the '80 Olympics. Building up to the '80 Olympics was quite interesting because I was coming through the weights, and I was halfway in between the 71 kilos weight category, and the higher weight category of 78 kilograms.

I'd got third place at the '79 World Championships, the weight below. For the whole year at the higher weight category, didn't want to lose a contest, so I'd beaten everybody in the world. Then I had to make decision as to whether to drop to the weight below because I was seeded in the weight below.

It was a different seeding then. So I decided to drop into the weight below because I was seeded in the top four, and as it happens, I think it was probably the worst decision I made. Well, simply because it was the only contest that I lost was the final of the Olympic Games in that year.

>> So you're a young kid, what, 1920 at that time, full of confidence, vigor. The decision to cut weight, how hard was it for you to cut weight to the 71 kg division? >> I've got to say that it was the hardest because as I was going up, I was, it was 73, then it was 74 kilos, 75, so I was moving through the weight category.

It wasn't like I was stuck in the middle and then I dropped the old time to compete. It was literally going up in weight by a kilo every month. Then by the time I came to a month or two before the Olympics, it was really hard. Fought the European Championships at the higher weight category and won that.

So everybody that was on the Olympic rostrum at the Olympic Games was on my rostrum at the European Championships. So was it a mistake? Yeah, because I didn't have my diet sorted out, my nutrition was appalling. It wasn't as readily available as it is now for the nutrition. I would say that if anything lost me that final, other than the fact that I was fighting somebody who was terrific.

He was an excellent, brilliant athlete. But it definitely didn't help that my nutrition was not very good. >> So you lost to Ezio Gama. There's probably a lot that we could say about that particular match. Maybe let's zoom in. What were your strengths and weaknesses judo-wise in that Olympics?

You said you haven't really lost a match, you won the European Championship leading into it. But if you had weak spots, okay, you already said diet, but specifically on the mat in terms of judo. >> I think that none of the fights lasted time going into the final. So I won fairly quickly and every match by Ippon way before time.

>> Do you remember how you won the match? >> I won them by throw, a couple of throws for Ippon and then arm lock for Ippon. Semi-final was an arm lock against the East German Kruger. I was flying through. >> What were the throws? Do you remember? >> Tai otoshi, uchimata, my favorite Toku was my favorite throws.

Then jujikotami as well, which was a jujikotami roll against an East German who I'd beaten before, but always had a really tough match, but I managed to beat him well. >> So you had a beautiful exhibition of Japanese type judo in the first two matches. >> Yeah. >> You threw people and then you also did the nawaza, you on-barred a person.

Great. So you're going into the final. What are the weaknesses going into the final against the Italian? >> Like I say, taking nothing away from him as a great athlete and a brilliant judo man and left, which wasn't good for me. That was definite no, because I hated fighting lefties, still do.

But I'll tell you why in a minute. >> Great. >> It's one of those. But I think as I went through the contest, we had an eight-hour break from the semi-final to the final. They took us back to the Olympic Village. Then we had to come back in and then we had to start a warm-up again.

I lost my momentum. I had to start again. I didn't. I just didn't. I had a job to get going. I got halfway through, started to rescue a dying match and I was one step, half a step behind all the way through. So never really got into it. >> So why do you hate fighting lefties?

Lefties are, we should say, over-represented in terms of the higher ranks of judo. I don't know why that is. >> Well, the thing is about a lefty is a lefty will have more opportunity to fight right-handers. Because 70 percent of the population are right-handers, 30 percent left, so they get to fight more right-handers.

It's just a fact that happens. So the thing that they hate is fighting left against left. They don't like it left against left. Whereas a right-hander will go right against right. But the opposite is awkward for me because just simply I like to go onto the sleeve and then I like to dominate the grips.

But the actual angle of the opponent wasn't what I wanted. So I had to work hard, really hard against it. >> What happened in that match? >> It was a split decision in the end. So to lose an Olympic final on a split decision is pretty, it's something that's still on my mind.

I think that it's a strange one because I can still wake up that one and four years later at the Olympics because I was silver medalist at the Olympics four years later as well. Yeah, it still haunts me. >> Do you sometimes wake up and think like, "Man, I should have eaten better." >> Yeah.

>> Or maybe like a specific grip, that you're like, "I shouldn't have taken that grip." >> I do. I mean, the diet side of it, it's difficult to really admit that, isn't it? That you went to an Olympic games and the one thing that you really sucked at, was one of the most important things now at world level sport, where you've got the nutrition, we've got it.

You would think that most people have got it sorted, but there's still people making mistakes. There's still people that haven't got it totally sorted. >> Then there's people like Travis Stevens, who I think doesn't care. He'll just have atrocious nutrition and he just makes it work. I think the way he spoke about it is, you can't always control nutrition, so it's best to get good at having crappy nutrition.

>> It's a good way of looking at it. Maybe that's what I did. >> Exactly. Do you remember what you were eating? We're talking about like candy or? >> Yeah. Well, I got a sweet tooth, but it wasn't really. I mean, I didn't have a lot of money at that particular time either.

The diet wasn't steak and good nutritional salads and things like that. I did what I thought was best without proper advice. The crazy thing is that I had such good advice as well. When it came to fitness training and things like that, we're quite ahead of our time and we really had it nailed as far as the conditioning was concerned.

The Judo training as well was a way in advance because I was a good trainer and I trained more than most. I can honestly say that. It probably got me away with a lot. >> Where was your mind for mental preparation? Going into that Olympics, you said you were confident, but is there some preparation aspect behind that confidence?

>> I think in the early days, I didn't think I was going to lose. I never thought it was possible to lose. I think that I went into every contest expecting to win. When it didn't quite go my way, I didn't lose that many contests. The only ones I lost were in the final of the World Championships or in the final of the Olympic Games.

I didn't lose that many. I never lost a European title. I had seven golds at the European Championships, five seniors, two juniors, and 20s. I never lost the final. Then I only lost two on a split decision. I didn't lose that many. My attitude was that I wasn't going to lose and I couldn't lose.

I was always surprised when something happened. >> In Neil Adams, A Life in Judo, written in 1986, you wrote, "Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to win. It wasn't the ordinary feeling that children have when they take part in their first primary school sack race on a grass track or even the keen determination of a young swimmer prepared to train early in the cold winter mornings in order to make it into the countryside.

With me, the desire to win was and still is as much a part of me as my arms and legs. In other words, it wasn't something I learned as I grew older, but rather it was deeply rooted in me. Perhaps this competitive instinct is the greatest difference between my public image and the view from the inside." So people see the kindness, the warmth you have, the charisma, the excitement, but there's this big drive to win inside you.

So what's behind that? Can you just speak to that drive to win and how that contributed to your- >> When I look back now- >> That's a lot of years ago, we should say. >> It is a lot of years ago. >> Is that true or were you just being poetic?

>> It's not far off. >> Okay. >> When I think about it now, because I'd like to think that I'm a different person now, and since I've calmed down, I see athletes now and I see them, they're arrogance, they're walking, it's a strut. It's a confidence, isn't it? As we're older and as I've become older, I've calmed down.

But it doesn't matter what I'm doing, it's still that will to win. I'm much better at masking it now if I don't, but it still bothers me as much. >> You're talking about, I don't know, even just stupid silly things like a game of pool, or something like this, or just anything.

>> Yeah, I'm still trying to win. My son, he loves to play me at bowls because I'm useless, and I just can't throw a straight ball. He loves playing me at that, but it bugs me that I'm not better. There are certain things that I do, it really bugs me when I'm not good at it.

I guess it's one of the reasons that, long after I'd finished competition, Judo, people still want to train with you. Even at an older age, even now, if I do a seminar or do you want to still go? Can I feel it? One of the things that's in me is that all the way up to 40 years of age.

From 30 when I finished competition up to 40, I could still train with the best, and I could still go with anybody. Then when 40 hit, things started to fall off a little bit. I used to get either my hips or my legs and my knees. I realized that I had to pick my practices, and that rankled as well, and I had to then just calm it down a little bit.

Otherwise, I was going to be injured, and it's not a good thing when you get an older and you've still got the same competitive mind. But things change. >> So still there, you get on the mat, probably even now, you get on the mat with the world champion, you're still the current world champion.

There's still a little part of you, could I still toss this guy? Kids these days are soft. >> I did. Well, some of these athletes, I give you a prime example, is Ilias Iliadis. He is a monster. You just, of course, you couldn't, because just at 60 something, you couldn't.

But you like to think that you could. >> You could, you never know, you got to find out. >> You know what you would do? What you can do is you can cause them problems, and they feel it immediately, but you'd last a minute. >> So you've trained with Ilias Iliadis.

>> I've gotten a chance to train with him as well. He's a really nice guy, really great guy. >> He trained with me. We were training together. Every hotel that we used to go into, we'd end up in the gym together and we'd train. This one time he was in there and he just wanted somebody to grab and grip hold of him.

So we ended up doing this grappling in the middle. The people doing weight training and the different things, watching these two madmen doing, I'm glad we weren't on a mat at that particular time. >> Yeah. >> But good fun. >> What do you think about that guy? He, like you, achieved a lot of success when he was young.

>> 17. You imagine that? 17, 18 years of age, and he's able to compete with the men. There's not many men can do that, and it doesn't happen very often. It happens later with the men. Often, they're not physically as developed as they. So for me, for example, I fought Nev Zorov, who was World and Olympic champion.

He was the current World and Olympic champion. They sent me to the European Championships senior at 17. That doesn't happen very often, and I pulled Nev Zorov. So I fought Nev Zorov and I had him really worried, because he expected without a doubt to come out, throw this kid and junior.

>> He was thick and shredded like he's a man. >> He was shredded. There's a picture of him in his judogi, and his judogi is just cut, and he looks the business. There's me in this baggy. Skinny kid inside this baggy thing. The thing was, is that the more he tried, and the harder he tried, and the more he panicked, the further it went away from him.

Of course, he got the decision at the end, and deservedly, but I worried him. For me, that was a massive step forward, because a year later, I was starting to fill out, and two years later, I was competing for the Olympic title. >> I don't know if I remember, but Elias Eliadis is interesting, because even at 17, I feel like he was doing big throws, like literally lifting them with his hands.

>> Just rips them out of the ground. I was saying to Nikki, my wife, and she said, "What would you do now, that was different than the way you did then?" I never had any pickups. That's not what we did. But you have a look at the young Ukraines, or the young Russians, or the young Eastern Bloc Mongolians, and they're ripping people out the ground.

It's just different style of judo, and it just looks different. But now they're starting to do traditional style judo as well. >> So can you speak to that, what are the different styles of judo? So for you, you mentioned Uchimaru, Taira Toshi, these, how would you describe them? They're like these effortless, less lifting off the ground, and power, and strength, and more timing, and position, movement, momentum, all this kind of stuff.

That's more traditionally associated with Japanese judo. 'Cause for Japanese judo, the traditional judo, you're supposed to throw people in a big way without much effort. >> And of course, 1990 we saw the introduction of all these Eastern Bloc countries. There were so many more. I mean, it was Soviet Union when I was competing, and then of course in 1990, everything changed.

And then there were so many more of them out there, different countries, that their wrestling styles were introduced into judo. Put a jacket on them and let's get into judo. So judo kind of changed shape. It changed shape from this upright standing, and having to know the technicalities of how to get a body that's weighing 40, 14 stone or whatever it is up into the air, and using the momentum, and the balance, and the direction, and the skill to do that, and knowing how to do it, and how to use movement.

And then you get the wrestlers, and the leg picks, and the double legs, single legs, double legs, and it kind of, by 1995, judo was bent over. And so it was the IOC that went to IJF, International Judo Federation, and they said, you gotta change this, or we're just gonna have one wrestling style.

It looks like wrestling with judo, with judo jackets on. So you either change it, or we're gonna take one of you out. - By the way, we should sort of clarify, when we say people are bent over, that's usually how you see freestyle wrestling. Wrestlers are more bent over to defend the legs and so on.

And traditional judo, people are more standing up because that's the position for which you can do the big throws and all that kind of stuff. But I think the other case to make for banning leg grabs is, a lot of people are using it for stalling and not for beautiful big throws and all that kind of stuff.

So it's not just not to make it different from wrestling. It's also like you want to maximize the amount of epic throws and dynamic judo and exciting stuff to watch, right? - Win by judo, not by wrestling. And I think that the ones that were shouting about it were the wrestlers, right?

Because they like to compete with both. They want to do both. They want to do their wrestling matches and then come into judo. So basically, I mean, what we've said is, they learn to do judo and there's nothing stopping you then from doing both, right? But not from the other way around, all right?

So rules always dictate development. They'll always dictate which direction it goes. So if you introduce a rule that states that you cannot dive at the legs and just pick up, then you'll have to do it standing up. And also it increases the possibility of defense with the hips because actually good defense judo wise, standing up is with the hips as opposed to sticking your arms out and then sticking your backsides out there just to defend.

All right, so if you attack me and I move my body in the wrong place, so I'm in the wrong place at the right time, so you don't hit the right target. And then also I use my hips. So again, it's a form of judo that was being lost.

So now we've got it back. - So let's go there. Let's speak about judo as if we're talking to a group of five-year-olds. So what is judo? What are some defining characteristics of judo as a sport, as a way, as a martial art, as a way of life, all that kind of stuff?

- I think when you say it is a way of life, I mean, I think the great advantage that we have in judo, my young grandson, so I got two little boys that are three and a half years of age. They love going to our dojo. They love it.

So dojo was the first word that they used. It was one of the first. So when they come to see us, to see my wife and I, it's like dojo. It's not grandma, granddad, it's a dojo. So dojo, they take their shoes off going into the dojo. So they have respect for where they're at.

And I think it has that kind of feeling that like I tried to build my dojo with a feeling of reverence. It's kind of almost peaceful. So if I'm not religious, I'm not a religious person, but I like going to old churches because when I go into an old church, doesn't matter what the religion within the church, but there's a reverence in there.

- Reverence is a good word. It feels like a really special place. No matter which dojo you go to, it's just you bow and there's a calmness before the storm of battle or whatever it is. (laughs) - And respect, you know? - Yeah, respect. - I mean, look at the respect.

We were just talking about it just before we came on air. We were just saying that we very, very seldom do we have a situation where there is animosity other than them fighting, you know? So I'm not saying that they don't fight each other because sometimes it does turn into a brawl.

And at the end, two people bow off and show their respect. You know, and one of the things that, you know, like so a champion, I see people winning events and they're good judoka or they're excellent. They win world championships, might even win the Olympic Games. But a great champion for me is somebody who treats, who does the right thing when they lose, you know?

So when you see them lose, that's when you see the true them, you know? And actually that was one of the biggest things that I had to really cope with, you know? So when I lost the Olympic Games in Moscow and also the one in Los Angeles, the hardest thing is when the microphone's in there and you've got to be respectful and nice and the hardest thing is to smile.

But actually some of the great champions, you know, they'll go, "That's just one match." You know, I remember we've got one great champion, Agbeg Nenu, she's a five-time world champion, she's an Olympic champion. She's favorite as well to get this Olympic gold medal. French. What a great champion she is, you know, because she lost one of the matches.

I mean, she'd come back and she'd given birth, come back after giving birth and everybody was going, "Well, well, she," you know, but then she lost one of the matches on the way through and she said, "Oh, don't be upset. "You know, it's just one match. "It's just one contest, you know?

"Next time I'm going to put it right." And she did put it right and now she's back up there and she won the world title back. So, you know, these are great champions for me. - Yeah, I mean, that's the right way to see it, but it's also tragic to lose the Olympic Games, you know?

- Twice. (laughing) Yes, it is tragic. And I do have sleepless nights. - I mean, that's the magic of the Olympic Games. Anything can happen. And your 1980 Olympics were very different from the 1984, but if we just linger on the '80 and just your, when we're talking about how much you wanted to win, do you love winning or hate losing more?

- I hate losing more, but I love winning. When I won the world title a year later and I had no doubt when I went in that day that I was going to be world champion. No doubt. - So you won the '81 world championship. - At the higher weight.

- At the higher, the 78. - Yes. - KG. Actually, can we go there? What was going through your mind? You ended up armbarring a Japanese fighter. I talked to Jimmy Pedro, a friend of yours, somebody who said you were a mentor to him for many years, and he told me a bunch of different questions to ask you, but he said that was a really special time.

That was a really special, dominant run you had, and especially finishing with an armbar against a Japanese player. So take me through that. What do you remember from that? - I think that it was, so my weight was better. I didn't have to lose weight. That was one thing.

So the nutritional side wasn't as important, but probably it still wasn't as good as it could be, mind you, in nutrition. Although it was getting better, and I was trying to eat the right things at the right time. But I still trained really well, and I was so confident going into that world championships that I could win it.

I had no doubt in my mind that I was gonna win, but obviously, corner of your mind, you're thinking just don't make mistakes. But this is the incredible thing, is that once you start to ask you, once I see contests change direction when I'm commentating, so I can see somebody who's in there just going forward, just trying to win, and that's a difference to somebody who's trying not to lose.

And there's two different ways there. So sometimes when you, so when I was world champion, then I had a period of time where every time I stepped out there, I was really afraid of losing. And I think that that's what happens later on in your competitive career. The great champions managed to come through that.

Teddy Rene is one of those. He just, he puts it out there, and he keeps beating them, so they can't take it away from him. It's fantastic. - So stepping on the mat every single encounter, you're trying to win. You're looking for the grips and the intention to throw big, even when you're ahead on points, all that kind of stuff.

- That's a really good point, is that if you go ahead in a match and you look at the clock, it depends when you go ahead. So sometimes you can go ahead in the first minute and you've still got three minutes to go. So I see the ones then that go into, I don't wanna lose, 'cause they go into defensive mode, and then sometimes they can lose it on penalties or something can go wrong, and the other one comes on strong and then they can sneak the contest.

And so it's really difficult, but when I was coaching, I was trying to always encourage that positive attitude for the full four minutes, five minutes then. - I've competed a lot in Judo and Jiu-Jitsu. I've always hated that part of myself. When I'm up on points by a lot, you look at the clock and it's what you do.

When you look at the clock, it's a minute and a half, you're really tired, and you kind of quit. You just defend. - Yeah. - And I hated that part about myself. It's like that-- - You're saying don't do it. - Yeah, well, as opposed to just go out in Judo, that's for a big throw, just keep going for the throw.

In Jiu-Jitsu, it's go for the submission. Like throw caution, like win in the real way versus on points, and I hated that part of myself. I mean, mostly underneath that is cowardice induced by exhaustion. - Exhaustion's the one, isn't it? - Yeah. - But it is, isn't it? It's a mindset as well.

- Yeah. - So actually trying to get your mind positive all the way through. So I mean, if you listen, when I commentate to Noah, is I say I hope that they don't change the mindset and that they keep on, and they are going forward all the time, and actually they're then more difficult to catch.

We had one just a couple of weeks ago, and he lost in the final second of the contest. Lost the final, he was the only one to score. He got penalized all the way up. Two seconds to go and stepped out of the area, and you know, but he went like that, thinking the bell was just going, and the bell went one second after he actually stepped out.

So he got penalized, lost the match, and lost all of the points for qualification. So it was, you know, that's paying high price. That's paying high price. - Yeah, I mean, there's a thin line between triumph and tragedy in those competitions, but especially at the Olympic Games. So let's just stick on '81 World Championship.

What did it feel like to win that World Championship? Like, and also getting an armbar as a Japanese player. Jimmy told me your arms were exhausted. - Yeah, I mean, you just, the thing is, is sometimes, you know, when you're going, when it's competitive as well, you know, ours is a different intensity to like, do you just, where you can take time a little bit.

Ours is, bang, it's transitioning from standing down. You've got 10, 15 seconds to go in there. You go in a hundred percent. It's a bit like running, you know, full out for 10 seconds. Like, and then you've got to decide then, especially if they're defending it, whether you let it go, because when you get up and your forearms are blown, you know, and you've got lactic acid in there and you've still got to grip up, because remember, ours is about gripping as well on the jacket.

So if you can't grip up, then you can't gain the advantage, then they can throw you, you know? So you have to decide. So I had a massive attack on him and we changed directions four or five times and then I wasn't going to let him go. But I still, you know, when I was turning him there, I had to decide, am I going to go all out for this?

And just, or, you know, like, there has been occasions when I've kind of released it to just, you know, if I've got a minute to go and just lock out, yeah. - So what you're saying on the feet, there was a change of direction on all different kinds of attempts and then you went to the ground and that's, so what was that?

Do you remember that decision of like, okay, am I going to finish this? - Yeah, I knew it. I just, as soon as I climbed his back and then I thought he's not going, he's not going, I'm not going to let him up, you know? So I was just changing.

- A little voice in your head. - A little, something in my head was going, don't, don't, you know, just stick on him. And then it's always about pressure on the arm and I just, you know, and of course he was like that, you know, defending, you know, he was almost total bridge trying to get out of it.

- Did it start in turtle and then like, did you flip him? - It started in turtle because I did an attack, came back out of the attack and then he went onto his front and then I was on his back and then I started the whole time. - Start opening and you just went for it?

- Just, I was, it was an automatic transition. So, I mean, the transitions are what we teach, you know, because the ones that are quicker down with the transitions are the ones that catch it. That's our (indistinct) You know, our groundwork is the transition from standing down to ground.

It's very, you know, we don't have a situation where you can kind of work your way in. You are in or you're not in, you're standing, you know? So, you've got to make sure that you're in. And so, I had, I was just on his back like a leech and I never let him go.

- So, you see, I mean, yeah. So, that's where the arm bars, that's where the attacks on the ground, which is called Niwaza happens in the transition. - Yes. - At that level, at that high world-class level? - Yeah, I mean, he was no muggy though. I think he'd just got third place in the all Japan championships, which is all weight categories.

So, he wasn't a mug, you know, he was strong and I'd fought him once before and I knew he was a lefty as well, which was really awkward for me. - Did it feel good? - Better for me than him. - Did it? - It did, it felt amazing, you know, because it was almost like all these things, disappointments and everything had kind of come to this one point where I was at last kind of champion of the world.

It's everything I said as a kid, that I had no idea how difficult it was going to be. You know, so as a kid, as a 14-year-old kid, I remember saying, "I'm going to be world champion. "I'm going to be the best in the world." I had no idea how difficult that was going to be.

- Well, there's wisdom to that, right? Like there's power in stupidity of youth. - I like that. - Right? - Yeah, it is. - Just like I'm going to be a world champion, I'm going to win this without knowing how hard it is. And then once you go after it, you're trapped.

You're going to have to do the work. - Yeah, well, I mean, you see it a lot with parents as well. You know, parents, "Our little Johnny is amazing." And he's this, that, and the other, and they have no idea what's out there. I remember the very first time I stepped out, 1974, into the European cadets.

And I remember that we were fighting. I'd only ever fought in Great Britain. I was the top, you know, I was unbeaten in the juniors, kids, and went out there and there were these different fighters out there that were treating me with total disdain. And I remember thinking, "How dare they?" You know, and I realized when I came back from that event, there's other people out there.

There's just a whole, you know, and there are different levels of, you know, the majority of people are just not informed as to what's out there and the different levels that there are out there. - Do you remember like a certain opponent that for the first time you felt like, "Holy shit." - Yeah.

- There's pop, like somebody's just gripped you up and you're like, "This is, there's another level to this game." - Ed Zio was, Ed Zio was one of them. And I fought him, you know, and I beat him in the European championships. I beat him in, you know, two times and then lost to him in the Olympic games two months after I'd beaten him in the European championship.

- Wow. - Yeah, yeah. That made it even more difficult, right? - That's literally your nemesis there. - Yeah. - Wow. - So that made it more difficult. And so Ed Zio was one and getting hold of, I remember getting hold of Nishida of Japan and he had me going up and down and I just, I thought, "Wow, this guy is amazing." You know, and I'd never fought, first time I ever fought Japanese in a major tournament, you know, and I felt the danger.

I always talk about the danger when we go out to Japan to train. I could go probably months without getting thrown in training here in Europe and I go to Japan and, you know, everybody's throwing you, you know, and that's difficult to accept. And the reason that that kind of danger and that kind of feeling of danger is something that puts a real edge on, you know, and so that was first time when I got hold of Nishida, I thought, "Oh my God, you know, this guy, you know, "didn't matter which way he was turning like that, "he'd be stretched out." And I thought this, I wanna do this, you know, and then I ended up fighting him again in Japan.

- So that feeling of danger is really interesting. It's like I've, you know, did Ran Dory with a lot of world-class people from different parts of the world, including Ilyas Iliadis, and like there's certain part, like Eastern European Judo, you feel like you're screwed the whole way through. Like the gripping, you really feel it in the gripping.

- It's the gripping that does it. - But with Japanese, like really good Japanese-style Jidoka, you don't, it's like, it's a terrifying calmness, or at least the experiences I've had, you don't really feel it in the gripping. You just feel like anywhere you step, you're getting thrown. - It's a different.

- It's a different thing, isn't it? - It's a different thing. - So, I mean, mine was kind of a mixture. I liked it to be a mixture because there was, the gripping is definitely the key point. So if you get a high-level guys that are gripping up, and I always used to put this to the referees when we were doing referee seminars when we first started them.

And I'd say, how many, because like they would referee to their understanding of the match. So they were penalizing for certain grips that were, and actually, so as an ex-athlete, high-level, I would say, have you ever gripped up with high-level? All right, because if you haven't, you need to do it, because then you will understand why they do certain things with the grips, because these guys are like, when somebody grips you and you think, you know you're gonna go, when Iliadis puts his arm over your back, all right, and you know you're gonna go up and over.

You know you're gonna go over, you know, that's it. - It's a cool feeling. It's like whenever-- - Not for me. - I understand, but it's like, I mean, 'cause it's not, it feels way more powerful than it should. - Yeah. - It's weird. I don't know, you want to attribute it to strength and all that kind of stuff.

I mean, people say you have like immense upper body strength, but it's probably something else. It's like technique, it's some kind of weird-- - It's a mix of everything. - Just like something hardened through lots of battles and Randori and that kind of stuff. - Yeah. - But it's cool that humans are able to generate that kind of power.

It's cool. - When I was, '84 Olympics, but I'm just gonna go there now just quickly. But there was, we had a freestyle wrestler. He's American actually, but he had the English nationality. So he competed for Noel Loban, his name is, and he competed for Great Britain. He got third place at the Olympics in '84, but he was training.

We were training at Budokai and he was training. He came to do some judo and put jacket on. And of course he was training with some of the lower levels and he was really handling himself well. And then he said, "I need to feel." When we did Randori, so he did some Randori with me and I immediately thought, I gotta catch it.

I gotta stop single leg and double leg 'cause he was really quick, right? So strong as well, 90 something kilos. He was like, you know, he's a big guy. So I caught his sleeve, immediately caught and controlled him and then he couldn't start, right? So he said, "I needed to feel the difference." So then I thought, I better reciprocate this.

So I said, well, you know, so we did the Randori and I threw him a couple of times. He said, "I'm really glad we did that." So then I said, "I need to feel the difference as well." So we take the jackets off. So we took the jackets off and he was a nightmare.

This guy was a nightmare and like a monster, you know, he was like single legging me and you know, it was just totally different, you know? So it was like the jacket makes a massive difference, huge difference to something, you know, and people think it's just a jacket that we're wearing, but it isn't, it's our only tool.

- Excellent. - Yeah, and it's control. I mean, it's a way of establishing control over another body and it's a whole art form and a science. And I don't even know if you understand it really, you understand it sort of subconsciously through time. - Yeah. - 'Cause like there's so much involved 'cause pulling on one part of the jacket pulls other parts of the jacket.

- Yeah. - Like the physics of that is probably insane to understand. - It's absolutely insane. And then, you know, they changed the rules for a little while and they changed the rules so that you couldn't hold, you know, that certain grips were not allowed. You only allowed a certain amount of time and there were a lot of penalties from it, you know?

And then, you know, they had some of the X fighters into the referee commission. And so we were pushing for, just let them grip, you know? Because that's our game, you know? That's what makes us different. You know, again, if grip up with somebody like, so they were on about Teddy Rene.

- Yeah. - Teddy Rene comes out, takes the sleeve. - Yeah. - Big arm over the top and then, you know, he throws people, right? So they were saying, yeah, but stop, you can't stop him doing it. This guy is six foot nine and he is built like Garth, you know, he's like, and not only that, he's skillful as well, you know?

And he's got that mentality of a winner. He has got that mentality of a winner there. He just wins important matches. - And he goes over the top of the grip. Do they, where's that land now in terms of rules over the top? 'Cause those are some of the most epic, awesome types of grips.

- Yeah. - Just like over the top, just big grab. - Yeah. Well, as long as they throw from it, so they can take any grip, as long as you move them and then catch them, kind of action reaction, really, you know, as long as you catch them on the move, then you can do it.

- So as long as you're not using it to stall or that kind of stuff. - Yeah, you can't block out. - Yeah. So like, for example, if I've got dominant grip on you and I just block out and I just stop you attacking me, so then what? I get you three penalties, get you off, and you haven't done an attack.

So you've got to stop that. You can't have that. - Yeah, yeah, definitely. You were the favorite to win the 1984 Olympics, but you got silver. I watched that match several times. You probably have it playing in your head. So there is a nice change of direction by your opponent, German Frank Wonecki.

- Yeah. - It was a fake right uchimata, and then to a left drop seoi nage. How did that loss feel? - Devastating is not, you know, is not enough, really. Because, you know, the strange thing was, is coming into that Olympics, I was tired, really tired. So my mental state wasn't the best, wasn't certainly the same as it was coming into the previous and I remember thinking I just need to get this over with and then I'm gonna have a break and just have a rest, you know, and that's totally the wrong attitude.

It's just not good for going into an Olympic Games. And so I was coming in there with a different mindset and I remember every match that I had, I was winning well, but I was winning with a struggle. You know, it was really not, I'd fought Novak and I was pretty of France, who was one of the strongest physically.

That was in the quarterfinals. I beat Brett Barron by an ippon, I armlocked him. I won my first match by ippon as well. And then Michel Novak, I was fighting a France and I was lucky to win it. I was up, I would scored on him, but I was like starting to defend and just everything that I talked to you about, you know, and then just about held on and then I won.

And, you know, so him and I were talking afterwards, like some years afterwards and he said, "I was close, wasn't I?" I was, "Yeah, but not close enough." (all laughing) I didn't mean it. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - But I had to say it, right? - Of course, of course.

- And no, he was right. You know, and it was one of those, so it's through to the semifinal. I fought Lesac in the semifinal of, and I'd fought him in the semifinal of the Worlds as well. I'd never gone time with him. You know, I'd never, I'd always beaten him fairly easily and with by ippon and that went time.

So I was, you know, I was just glad to get it done. And I was in the final then against Frank Winnicker of Germany and I'd beaten Winnicker before, but he was just a young German coming through. And when I started the final, I was, I thought, right, I've just, and I started all my techniques just that little bit off.

Nothing was coordinated, just, it was just, I can't really explain why it was just a little bit off. And I see it so often now with a lot of the guys that are going for second, third Olympic games. And I see their technique just not quite there and they're struggling.

And I know when they're, you know, I know what they're going through and I kind of empathize with them. - Well, you were, it felt like you were dominating that final. - I dominated it, yeah, I was winning. Yeah, I was, and actually, if it had gone another minute and a half, it would have been all over and I would have been Olympic champion and it would have been done.

He wouldn't have batted an eyelid, right? 'Cause he would have fought me really, really well. And he would have, you know, we talked about it afterwards and he said it was just my good day for me, you know, and he knows, he was very respectful. This guy is very respectful.

- He was surprised almost. I mean, not almost, he was very surprised and celebrating like a surprise. - Jumping up and down like, you know, he just, and you look at that, can't you go, well, it was a nip on, but, you know, would I have got it back?

I don't know. I think that actually taking the pressure off, 'cause that was another thing as well, pressure of being favorite, you know, and I see that with a lot of them. And, you know, the great champions, the ones that keep coming through, Capellic. There's a guy, you know, he can look very ordinary and then comes the big tournament and he'll win it.

- The tragedy of the Olympic Games. I mean, you were the favorite and just like that, like split moment, you lost it. - Split moment, devastated. And lived it probably, not every day, but you know, Nikki, my wife will tell you that woken up in sweats and, you know, and I think they contributed as well because I had a period of my life after where I was drinking too much.

And, you know, and I think kind of when I look back, kind of led into that kind of dark period of my life, you know, and I never ever, ever, you know, did it go through my mind, anything else, but it definitely affected me. And I was on a downward kind of spiral in a lot of different ways and would still, even, you know, we have an amazing marriage and we have an amazing family and everything's great, but I still wake up sometimes and I'll say, I've just dreamt, you know, that, and it's the same reoccurring dream where I'm trying to get somewhere and I'm trying to put it right, you know, and I've got this chance of putting this Olympic final right, you know, in this dream, I've got a chance of doing it, but I can't get there and the traffic's stopping me or something stops me and I, you know, and then I wake up and I'm sweating and I just, and you think, well, after all this time, that's not possible, but it is, and it happens.

- Yeah, I mean, in the match itself, there's that feeling, for me just watching it, like you're going for throws, you're almost getting there with the throws and it's almost like he's going for a kind of crap Uchimata and then you're just like, you're stopping, you're blocking it, and all of a sudden, I mean, that's the beauty of the Olympics, he finds it in himself to switch.

- Yeah. - And that, like, against a favorite, against sort of the great British Judoka, just finds the perfect drops in Auggie. - Well, you know, his team doctor and coach, he came up to me afterwards and said, "I'm just really sorry." And that's all they said is, "I'm just really sorry." They were sorry because, you know, obviously, the obvious sadness about that, you know, and of course, everybody takes their, you know, I went actually two and a, was it three weeks later, the German Open.

So he had to compete in the German Open three weeks later. So I went over to fight him and beat him in the final of the German Open. And it didn't do anything for me 'cause it was a much tighter match. He was a lot closer. He had a lot more confidence coming in.

So he fought me a lot differently. And then it was me pulling it back and just managing to win in the final. And I thought, well, that might appease, it appeased nothing, didn't do anything. - When you give your whole life to judo, just, and your love of winning, that's crazy how much the Olympic Games mean.

- It means so much. And I think, you know, but I've got to, and I've got to say this, and this is honestly, you know, if it meant that if I'd have won that Olympic Games and it had to change my life into a different direction, which I probably would have not competed in the '88 Olympic Games then, all right, so if it had changed my life and then I didn't have, I didn't meet my wife and I, you know, didn't have my family that I've got now, there's no, you know, I wouldn't swap that, what I've got now for anything.

- Well, part of the demons that you've gotten to know because of those losses is part of probably the central reason that made you the man you are, a legend of the sport. You could have been not that. 'Cause an Olympic gold is just an Olympic gold. - Yeah, and it is, isn't it?

You know, and I think that there's a lot of Olympic champions and world champions that win and then are forgotten. And I said to Nikki, I said, my wife, I said, I don't want to be forgotten and I want to be remembered. So if I'm going to do anything, anything I do, if I'm going to do commentary or whatever it is, or coaching, I want to do coaching to a high level.

And I want to commentate at a high level. I remember the first commentary I ever did, it was terrible. And I just thought I've got to do better than this. And I thought, I just, I need to do it well. And I've got to do it professionally. - So in the book, "A Game of Throws," you have a chapter titled "Lessons in Losing." So what are some of the lessons here?

What are some of the deeper lessons you've pulled out of losing? - I think great champions are made up of the people that handle it in the right way. And you could say, well, I don't like losing. And you know, and you could throw your dummy out the pram and you can be a bad loser in front of everybody.

And actually people pick up on that very, very quickly. You know what it's like in broadcasting, right? Somebody has a bad word to say about somebody and yeah. And it, but actually the ones that endear themselves to you are the ones that handle it in the right way, the correct way.

It doesn't mean that you've got to like it. I didn't like it. And I thought that I handled it certainly in later years in the right way. And I like to see athletes do it in the right way. You know, and I think that it's a make or break situation.

It's not all the contests they win, it's the one that they lose. And then how they pick themselves up and handle themselves after. So I think that that is a big one for me. And also, I mean, I went through, you know, obviously a later divorce and that was difficult on my son, really difficult on Ashley.

And then I was, and I think that some of that was the fact that I was, you know, kind of, I wasn't drinking all the time, but I was drinking in excess at the wrong times, you know? And I think that that's what a lot of people do. Sometimes is that they use it for the wrong reasons, you know, and I used to hear it.

I hear it now all the time, you know, and is that, you know, I need to knock the edge off and I need to just forget. And I need to, you know, and you need to be in a fuzzy place for a while. And I had a lot of time in fuzzy place and I needed to get rid of that, you know, and I needed to clear my head.

- Where was that place? Some of the lower points in your life that you've reached mentally? - I think, you know, definitely, you know, the fact that my marriage, first marriage didn't work, you know, and that was, you know, it's a mix of things that, you know, between us.

And then, you know, so that's not where I wanted to be at the time. And the effects that it had on my son, and it took a long time for him then to come around and to trust me again, you know, and to have belief. He always had belief in me, but to trust me again.

And then I think that that was low. And I think that, you know, when I look back is that a lot of my bad decisions were when I was in that fuzzy kind of haze and that it got progressively worse. That got progressively worse to the degree where it was, you know, trying to hide it and trying to hide how much.

And I was kind of a functioning kind of drunk. You know, I think you could probably say that. And I, you know, I was functioning. I was still able to, I was still training most days, crazily enough. You know, I was training to kind of mask it and cover it.

And that was probably my savior that I was still, you know, 'cause I remember I said to my wife, I said to Nikki, "I'm probably the fittest. "If I'm, you know, a drunk, "then I'm a fittest drunk in the world." She said, "Yeah, you probably are actually." You know, I was in great condition for a drunk.

- So the fuzzy haze, where was your mind? Did you have periods of depression? - I had periods of depression. I can honestly say that my depression wasn't that bad. Although I did, you know, when it's like anything that gives you an up, you know, it gives you an even bigger down, doesn't it?

You know, and so I hated that feeling and also hated myself for letting it happen because I have got this really, it's a bizarre, I don't know whether you can call it a power, but I have the ability to be able to say, "Stop." And I can just, and that's what I did in the end.

In the end, there was an incident when I was working for Belgian Judo and there was an incident, it was Christmas. It was, I tell you exactly the day. It was 20th of December and me and a Belgian coach, we got absolutely hammered. But we were at the wrong place and he got noticed and so I remember they pulled me up in front of this board and I looked down at these guys and half of them were people I didn't want to be in that situation with.

You know, they're not people that I respected and they're not people that I trusted. So I said, "If you're gonna sack me, sack me, "but I'll promise you now that I will just, "this is it, I'll stop. "I'm just gonna stop." I've decided. On the way back in the car, I rang Nicky up, my wife, and I said, "Whatever you hear now, whatever, "I'm just gonna stop." So that was it, stopped.

- You just saw the moment and said, "Stop." - Stop. - So that fuzzy place, what advice could you give to people how to overcome that dark place, the depression, whether it has to do with drinking or not? - I think if it's to do with drinking, all I can say is that the two days or a week into not drinking, you'll feel different.

You know, it'll make a physical difference and you'll like that physical difference. And then from a mental perspective as well, because I think that you have a massive downer. And I think that that must be because of drugs as well, because I had a situation with my brother. He was like professional wrestling and the drugs was an element there.

And so I'd never touched a drug or even seen one in my life. But I'd let the alcohol side go too far and then decided never to do that. So then I guess I had people ringing me up, saying, "How can we stop?" So when they say, "Can I have a word?

Can I discuss something with you?" And I know then what they wanna discuss with me. And the thing is, is that I would say, if you stop, then feel the effects of it and it will make a difference to your everyday life and that will make a massive difference.

And I think about anybody who kind of is down all the time is to find the cause of what's pushing you down, you know what I mean? And try and attack that. I mean, because it's never... Somebody once said to me, they said, "Whatever you got, we've got something special.

I mean, we have a great life and I've had a great competition record." You know, it could have been better, but it was great. But I've had success with my business and we're still out there and we have a great life. We travel all the world. And there's people out there that would live in your house at the drop of a hat, wherever you are.

They drive your car, no matter what car it is. Some people haven't got a car, you know? And whatever food you're having and you're moaning about food, right? Somebody out there that would take that and gladly eat that, all right? So there's always somebody worse off than you. And I think that we tend to sometimes, you know, look at the things that we haven't got rather than the things we have got.

- Yeah, it's a skill probably to be grateful for the things you have, exactly as you said. And sometimes the little things like food and cars and all that kind of stuff, just to have gratitude for. And family, all this kind of stuff. But it's still, you know, having talked to a bunch of Olympic athletes, there is a, you know, when you give so much of your life to winning and then you lose, sometimes even when you win, but when you lose at the very top, it's a tough, tough, like tough thing to go through.

- The most difficult thing, I think, for anybody is when they have to decide when to stop. - Yeah, yeah. - You know, and all of a sudden, and I see the ones that are going to second Olympic Games and then third Olympic, and the ones that are there and they're holding on and they're in their thirties now, different to when they were 19 years of age, you know, 30 something is different to 19.

And then what are you going to do afterwards? You know, and then how do you become just a normal person? You're never going to be a normal person as such, but I think you've got to do normal things, you know, and then you've got, I remember the first time that when I finished competition, I had good sponsors.

This was, you know, 40 years ago, but I had two really good sponsorships, Vitamin Company and also Judo Gi Company. And I had a car and, you know, I had money. I just, and I was going all over the world. I was successful. And then I stopped and they took everything back.

They took my car. They did, and they did it within two weeks as well. They stopped my funding. They, you know, and the Vitamin Company said, thank you very much. It's been a great, you know, we've done well by you. Bye-bye. - This was after your last Olympics. - '88 Olympics.

- Yeah, '88. - You know, when that finished and then that was it, you know, and then it's right, okay. First time I had to go in there and buy a track suit and a pair of training shoes. - Yeah. - Wow. - Yeah, those are different. Sitting there in the evening by yourself.

- So you go from seven days a week or six days a week going into the gym and, you know, you're working out the dojo and then you, then you don't have to do it. You know, and that's why you get a lot of, when they finish competition, they finish that 30 to 40.

It's still, I mean, Ilyas is still doing it now. He's still in there and he's still, you know, because he can, right? Okay, and it's natural. And I did exactly the same. And then, like I say, you just get to an age and you just think, well, I'm just gonna kind of take a step back.

- Which is why, like, there's certain athletes like Ryo Kotani, never stops. It just dominates for 14 years. Probably one of the winningest athletes in judo. - Yeah. - Seven-time world champ, two-time Olympic champ, medaled at five Olympics. So it's always impressive. - Never stopped. - Never stopped. So that's an option, if you're like the greatest ever.

- Be interesting, wouldn't it, just to see what they're doing now, you know? Because at some stage, you have to get a normal job. - You do have to stop. - You do have to stop, you know, at some stage. You have to decide what you're gonna do, you know?

And we, you know, it's either into coaching, the judo is either to coaching, or if you're not in coaching, then it's into something to do with the media. And, you know, I was lucky that I, it was just by accident, really, with the commentary. Somebody said, "Would you do a voiceover?" So I did this voiceover, and that was back in 1982, I did that.

- So you've been commentating since 1982. - I did some voiceovers. I wouldn't call it commentating. But I did some voiceovers, and then I did some, we did some different European Championships, World Championship kind of events, and I did the voiceovers for it. And the way that it was done, that it was more narration.

And so it kind of turned into, then somebody asked me to do an event, and when you listen to the intonation of the voice and stuff like that, it wasn't like it is now. But I guess that's just something that developed, as I, you know, because then it was coming from the heart.

And I started to get excited and just do my thing, and it was just me, really, it was just my style. - Well, I've listened to your commentary from a while back, I don't know if it's the '80s, but it's still there. - I think it's timing as well, isn't it?

It's like, you know, you get your timing a bit better, and know when to go in, when to come out, when to say something, when not, you know? And I think that in the early days, I tended to think, I tended to want to talk all the time, and you don't have to do that.

- Also knowing when to shut up. - That's the key, isn't it? - Yeah, part of the drama is in the silence, building up to the setup and the throw and all that kind of stuff. But also, you're very good at, while radiating passion, being very precise and specific about the details of the throw and the setup, and why something worked and didn't, so.

- Yeah, I think there's two kinds of commentating. You can commentate what you see, and then you commentate what people can't see, you know? And so if you've got somebody that is not really understanding of what's happening in the inner part of the game, so it might be a technical thing, or it might be the tactical part of the play here that's going on, and if you can introduce that as well, then you've got an advantage.

- Quick pause, I need a bathroom break. - Okay, good stuff. So we just took a little break and went to judotv.com, which is, I guess, an IGF website. IGF is the organization behind a lot of the big judo events in the world. And I just signed up. You should sign up too, it's great.

- Absolutely, sign up. Cheaper the price, cheaper the price. - Yeah. And you can watch basically any match from the Grand Slams and go back through history, I guess. - Yeah, I've gotta say, Lex, I mean, everybody, there's still people saying to me, "Oh, we need more judo on television." They've got judo on television every other week that they can access.

All of the top people in all the top events, and it costs $100 a year to access everything. And they can play all the videos. I mean, we've just accessed this here, the Paris tournament, and we're gonna have a look at Teddy Rene, but it's cheap at the price.

So we're now at Paris Grand Slam 2024, Teddy Rene final. By the way, it's super cool. Like, you click on the draw, and you can just look at any of the matches. You can go to the bottom of the finals. You can go- - Yeah, to any one. - Any one of them, that's so cool.

That's really well done. Really well done interface. Anyway, let me at first ask the ridiculous big question. Who do you think is the greatest of all time? Is Teddy Rene in the writing? - He's the greatest judo winner of all time. Of that, there's no doubt. You know, I mean, he is.

And I think if you asked him whether he was the greatest judo man in the world of all time, he would say, "No, I'm not." You know, and he's not the greatest judo man. There are people with, you know, more beautiful judo in some ways, although he's got great technique, but he is the ultimate winner.

- 10-time world champ. - Yeah. - 10-time gold medalist in the Olympics. I guess two-time bronze medalist. He's probably going, is he's going to Paris? - Yeah. - He's going after it again. So he's right here. I mean- - He's right there. You know, this was just a couple of months ago.

And then last week he was out again and he won again. - You think he gets gold medal this time? - There's people getting closer to him, right? 'Cause he's obviously, you know, he's age-wise and the amount of time that he's been there, he's obviously somebody that is starting not quite at his best as he was when he was younger.

But he, like I say, he still puts it on the line. He lays it on the line every single time. And then not only does he lay it on the line, but he beats them all, you know? And last week he just beat Saito, who's a young up-and-coming Japanese fighter.

And he beat him in the final. It was close and he did well. There are certain people, the smaller ones actually, not the taller ones, 'cause like, you know, we're saying about the big arm over the top that he likes and the dominant grip that he likes. There are people that can give him a hard time.

Now, if at the Olympic Games he has two or three of those on the trot, it might work against him, you know? And it's by no means an absolute certainty that he's gonna win the Olympic gold medal. But he's gotta be one of the favorites, top favorite. You know, no matter what happens now, Teddy Rene is the greatest winner that, you know, and if you asked the great Yamashita, he would say the same.

You know, there's nobody that's... You know, and Yamashita was unbeaten in international competition. And I trained with Yamashita a lot over a two-year period and got to know him quite well. And he was one of the greatest of all times. You know, for me, he was one of the greatest judo men.

And I'm talking about from a technical point of view, from a spectacular judo point of view, understanding the fundamental principles of how techniques work. Sometimes having, you know, different techniques that work for you, you know? So if one doesn't work and one particular direction doesn't work, you can change the direction completely.

- In case people don't know, Yamashita is this legendary judoka, heavyweight. Teddy Rene, heavyweight, that's plus 100 kg. So he- - He would've caused him all sorts of problems. - Oh yeah, that's cool. Who do you think wins, Yamashita versus Teddy Rene? - Yeah, so I think Yamashita, but you know- - Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Do you think Yamashita beats Teddy Rene? - I think so. - Strong words. You think so. You think so. Yamashita is on the shorter side, right? - Yeah, and he finds it more difficult with shorter people, you know? And so it would've been a very interesting confrontation. And I think if you asked Yamashita, he would probably say, you know, that Teddy Rene, he's very gracious.

He's really gracious. It would be really good. It would've been an unbelievable matchup. And I've gotta say this, that, you know, Teddy Rene is the greatest winner of all time. - Competition-wise. So it's interesting. Both of them, maybe you can correct me, but have this Osorogare, which is kind of a trip that I never understood.

- Yeah. - Like, it was a very tricky thing to do, right? It's very easy to do maybe as a white belt. You roll in, you can understand, but like to do it at the high, high, high level. - You see any of the top guys now, especially if they're second time out, you know?

So like, they might catch somebody by surprise. They come out and they go, bang. And you go, that was amazing, right? But if they fought again, 10 minutes later, you go, you're not gonna catch me with that, right? You got a different situation here. And so it's slightly different, but the best fighters adapt like that.

And they're able to see a situation, feel the situation, and they attack once and then go again and attack second, third time. And in the third time, they make it work. - Yeah, both Yamashita and Teddy Rene with Sorogare, they'll just like hit it over and over in the match.

- Yeah, sometimes it'll hit first time and it won't go. And then you make a readjustment of the way in. It's a little bit like, I mean, if you take a really easy way of understanding it, is if we're shooting at a target and all of a sudden you start moving that target, you know, it's different hitting a moving target, but it's also different hitting a moving target that's trying to hit you as well.

And that's our game, right? So we're not only trying to throw a moving target, we're trying to throw a moving target that's trying to throw us. So that makes it even more difficult. - Yeah, there's a few folks who you know what's coming. It's like over and over and over, it's the same attack.

Anyway, with this Uchimada, it's like, it's different. There's not many people like that, where it's like the same attack. I mean, there's other attacks also, but they'll just go after the same thing over and over and over. - When I watch great athletes, most of them can throw over both flanks.

Not always going left and right, you know, although our sport always, I mean, the Katters are always demonstrated left and right. So like, if you demonstrate, if you do something on one side, you know, then can you demonstrate it on the other side, right? Okay, so can you do it equally?

No, but you do it differently, right, on the other side. So, you know, when I'm teaching, I don't teach left and right. I teach, so if I was teaching you to do a technique, first thing I'd do is say, I need you to take the sleeve and lapel, all right?

So I'd let you decide what was left and right, okay? 'Cause often what happens is we impart on people, whether they're gonna be left or right when we start teaching. You know, you get a lot of teachers do that, all right? And they'll say immediately, what do you write with, left or right hand?

And it's no indicator actually as to how we do judo, 'cause I'm left-handed and I do more predominantly right-handed because I lead off my strongest hand. And actually most people do, you know, so actually left and right is a bit of a trap sometimes, you know, when we're teaching.

Better to get, you know, because we can go, so my point was is that a lot of people can go both flanks. So they'll do something over this side and something over this side. - But in a way it was one-sided. - He was one-sided, but he could switch it.

So he had a Shinagi as well on the other side. So he could switch it if he had to, yeah. - And by the way, your opponent in '84, was he righty or lefty? - He was a righty. - So that drop left, say, oh, where did that come from?

- Well, I mean, again, it was, you know, he could have probably, in other contests, he'd hit me with it several times and I'd just stopped it, you know, and just at the wrong place at the right time for him. Right place in the wrong time for me, right?

- That's life, you know. - Yeah. - All right, let's watch from tight over there. - This is final of Paris tournament. And this is against the Korean. The Korean had had a great day, actually. - Again, shorter. - Again, shorter. So he does find that difficult. Have a look at Teddy Renner.

Teddy Renner is trying to catch the sleeve. He's after the sleeve and then the right arm over the top. That's the key point for Teddy Renner. And of course, what he has done, if he can't always catch the big Osada Gary over his right-hand side, he's been doing something to the opposite side.

And the Korean just went for a drop sale. And Teddy Renner blocked with the hips. And he's, he's a big boy. - Like I say, he has difficulty always against somebody smaller dropping with the sea and Aggies. - Has Teddy Renner ever been thrown for Ippon? Do you remember?

- I've never seen him thrown for Ippon, but he was thrown last week for a nice technique and he's being caught more and more. - So it's getting close. - Yeah. And Tseyev in the final of the world championships, they had a strange situation there where Tseyev was a technique down and then pulled off a counter and they didn't count it, but then they overruled it.

Unfortunately, I was commentating at the time and I went for a score for Tseyev. And anyway, they overruled it. And then they awarded a second gold medal to Tseyev. - What can you say about Tamerlan Basaev who also gave him trouble? - Yeah, Basaev and Tseyev are the two that could possibly go to the Olympics.

So that was a close one there from Renner. That was closest that he'd actually been. - Oh, wow. - So didn't have the sleeve and he relies on the sleeve greatly. Big support there in the French, in the crowd. - And also maybe can you explain the penalties for stalling?

- Yeah, so if they don't attack, if they've got a grip and they've got sleeve lapel or they got two hands on, if they're too passive and they don't attack, if they've got dominant sleeve grip, they don't attack. That was quite close as well from the Koreans. So the Korean here you can see is having a real go.

The penalties will come if they don't attack at the right time. Step outside the yellow area, they'll get penalized as well. That... - That's dedication for... - Absolutely, I mean, it was really close, wasn't it? They had a nice little coach, Gary, there from the Korean. And if they touch below the belt line with the arms, so if they can, they're not allowed to grab the legs.

They've stopped grabbing the legs. - Wow, the Koreans really going... - Koreans having a real good go at it. - I guess every single person in that division is probably training for Teddy Renner, right? - You think Teddy Renner's been there a long time. He's got another guy here in the final of the Paris tournament.

He's got 18,000 people watching him. They're all on Teddy Renner's side. They want him to win. And the Korean's out there on his own with his coach. - But also the pressure on Teddy Renner. - Amazing pressure. We interviewed him after this. And he said, "I've got pressure." People go, "Well, is he gonna do it at the Olympic Games?

"Can I do it in Paris?" He wanted to go to Paris. I mean, really, I mean, the last Olympic Games should have been it, shouldn't it? Should have been the final one. But he's gone, "No, I've got to do another four years." Two penalties are on the board already for the Korean.

That Korean is really having a great go at Teddy Renner. - A bit of a lift on him. He's going after it. (laughs) - He's really going after it. You know, it's an amazing effort there from the Korean. And he's getting some last minute information. I don't know if you've ever seen his coach stood next to him like that, but it's amazing.

He's six foot six, and he's about four foot six. (laughs) He's a real kid. - But full of passion. I love it. He's like screaming. - So a golden score. - How does golden score work, can you say? - So a golden score. So if it goes without any point on the board from a throw or a hold down or arm lock strangle, then it goes into golden score.

So two Shidos on the board apiece. One more mistake now, and it's gonna be all over. - Oh, wow. - And that's it. Teddy Renner just manages to turn it on the Korean. And that went really against the run of play, didn't it? - Yeah. - 'Cause the Korean did better, you know.

But you know, Teddy Renner is a winner. - Yeah. - And he says, right, okay, let's have more cheering. (laughs) - Finds a way to score. - And I have to say, you know, that even when he loses, you know, he's always graceful. - Yeah. - He doesn't like it, but he's graceful.

- Yeah, there was so much love there, celebration. It was great. It's great to see. It's great that he's doing it again, going after it, chasing the gold medal again. - Well, he's chasing the gold medal. It's gonna be in Paris, which is gonna be even, you know, more fantastic.

You know, he's already the greatest. You said, you know, what has he gotta do to be the greatest? He's already the greatest competitor Judo's ever known. And that was even, you know, with the great Tally, you know? So Tally was amazing as well. - Are you part of the commentating team for Paris?

- I'm part of the commentating team, but it won't be for IJF because it's independent broadcast. - Have you ever had an athlete sort of come up to you and ask like, why'd you say that? Or like disagree with your commentary? - Do you know, I've gotta say that 99%, 99.9% of everybody is so grateful that I've commentated their fights all the way through.

They know if they've messed up. So if I say something and I'm never disparaging, really disparaging, you know, but what I will say is, you know, it was a great throw by the other guy or it was a great match. And if they made a mistake, so if they walk out, they know that I will say something that will, you know, mean something.

So nobody really moans about it. I try and talk the truth, if I can. - So who else would you consider as some of the greats? So I personally just, 'cause I love the standing Sanagi, Koga. So there's like, you know, the number of times you won the world championships and the Olympic games, but there's also like how you won and how you won into fights and what you did.

You know, it's not necessarily about getting gold medals. It's about how you fought and how you represent the sport. And there's certain athletes like Inoue and Eliade that are going after the big throws. - Only after they don't wanna win by Ippon, you know? And I think that that is the difference is they're the ones that come out there.

And it's a bit like, you know, when Tyson stepped out there, you knew what you were gonna get, you know? And if they went toe to toe, if Tyson had somebody going toe to toe, somebody was gonna get knocked out. And, you know, we got the same in judo when people go head to head and it's an open match.

And I often talk about an open match. I say it's an open match. They're both trying to score. Somebody is gonna get scored on. Somebody's gonna go, you know? And that makes it exciting. And it's when they come out and they close up, you know, then that's not an exciting match.

- Is there a case for Ohno, Shohei Ohno, three-time world champ, two-time gold medalist? - I think that, you know, judo-wise, he's gotta be one of the greatest because he had such versatility. He had, he could go right and he could go left. He could pick up, he could go to the ground as well.

He won a lot of his earlier matches on the ground. I think his empathy, you know, and how he presents himself sometimes, he falls down. And I think that hopefully that should come with tutoring and, you know, of how to be a great champion after, you know, it's not just about what you do on the mat, but what you do off the mat as well.

- So to you, a great champion is the whole package of how you present yourself when you lose, how you represent yourself just off the mat. - Yeah, I think it's how you present yourself afterwards, how you are with people, how much you can help people. I mean, people, kids, and, you know, they look up to these great champions because they want to be like them.

So the worst thing is when you get somebody that's a bit of an arse and they're not presenting themselves in the right way. So I like to see somebody presenting themselves in the right way. And I think that it's something that can be taught. It's something that normally comes with a little bit of experience, a little bit of age, you know, and I like to think that I'm a little bit different now than I was when I was 19.

Not that it was bad, you know, I just think I was just, you know, I see it often now, you know, just full of beans. - You're a beautiful work in progress. What about Nomura? Did I hear Nomura as three-time gold medalist? - Never lost an Olympic fight. So there's nobody-- - There's something there, right?

- Yeah. Nobody ever done that, you know what I mean? So that's gotta be, it has to stand, he took two years off in between every Olympic games and came back, did the right amount of events to qualify for, not only did he, having to qualify, he had to qualify through Japan.

Now Japan, remember, have got the greatest depth. So they got people coming through all the time, you know, and then he had to win the Japanese trials. I mean, we had a four-time world champion from Japan. This is when world championships was every other year, and this is Shozo Fuji, and he was the greatest middleweight of all time, and never got to participate in the Olympics because he lost the Japanese trials twice in two Olympic, you know, possibilities.

So, you know, he had to qualify for Japan and then go to the Olympic games and then do it there, you know, so sometimes some of the best people in Japan can't get outside of Japan. Look at the situation they had with Abe and then they had Maruyama. Maruyama was, you know, and Abe were both the best by far in the under 66 kilos category.

This is for the last Olympic games, and they sent one to the world championships, one to the Olympic games, and they both won gold medals, you know. - Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's why the All Japan Championships is, like, legendary. There's these battles, yeah, with Yamashita and all of them.

- Well, Abe and Maruyama, they had a trials in the Kodokan. It was 26 minutes, I think it was 26 minutes it went. They were battling it out for 26 minutes. - That's great. If we can just go to, you've trained in Japan, what are those randoris like? What's that training like?

- I touched on the danger. That danger of being thrown when you get hold of somebody or somebody gets hold of you. And I often reflect, I often talk about it when I'm commentating, you know, 'cause I can see immediately. You know, it's easy, isn't it? You know, if we're in the commentary chair, or if you're in the coach's chair, and you don't really understand totally, absolutely what's going on when you're being, somebody's being outgripped, and when they're in danger of being thrown.

I mean, you know, if you're in danger of being thrown, the first thing you do is stick your backside out and defend by, you know, by not being in the position they want you to be in. All right, and so that's danger. You know, you feel the danger. And so in Japan, that was the place I used to go to train because I felt the danger, and so my defenses would be heightened.

And so somebody that was, I went two years, one Olympic cycle, I went two years, two months without having a score on me in any competition. And then I went to one competition in the European championships, which I won, and I was struggling all the way through it, and got scored on three times in my pool of, you know, like my first pool of fights, and I was devastated.

And I actually nearly lost the whole competition because I was more mortified about being scored on three times when I hadn't been scored on for two and a half years. I had this thing in my head about two and a half years, I've, you know, and then all of a sudden, right, I'm not unbeatable.

And then you just, and you go, and I was almost lost it, completely lost it. Just so fortunate. Couple of things went my way and just came out, and I scraped and scratched my way to the final and won the final well, all right? But that was my best match, but I almost lost it.

- Well, what do you do with the fact that if you go to Japan and you're getting, you're saying danger, like you're probably getting-- - Getting thrown. - Getting thrown in Japan. - Yeah. - What does that do to your ego? - Well, again, it's my, you know, that was a winning ego that had to adapt.

I remember we went to the Keisyo, which police dojo one time, and they wanted to see the, they created this groundwork competition because they wanted to see me do the juji, like how I went in and how I, yeah, the armbar, right? They wanted to see how I did it from underneath or over the top.

And you'd just, they created this event. - Study the creature. - Yeah, they started it. So, and then winner stays on competition was happening at the Keisyo. So I did about seven, I think, seven in. And then my coach came in and said, "No, it's finished. That's it now, it's finished." You know, suddenly we realized what was going on.

And I was going, "No, no, no, no, don't stop it like that." You know, and it was one of those moments where, you know, the boot was on my foot, you could say, you know, rather than the other side, the other way. 'Cause I had been to Japan in situation.

I remember as a 16 year old, I got such a drumming from one of the Japanese guys, older students, and he had a gold tooth. And so he was gold tooth to me, you know, and he was my nightmare. And I remember kept coming out to fight him because he kept throwing me and I was crying and I was upset and I was like, and then that was another occasion where I got dragged away and I said, "No." So I wanted to go back and fight him.

And I went back to the same dojo every year to fight him. He was on my mind. Morning, noon, night, he was on my mind. - Gold tooth was on your mind. - Gold tooth was on my mind, you know. And-- - You ever get him? - Two years later, I was, two years to me from 16 to 18 was totally different.

18 years of age, I was pretty competitive with him. And it was like, you know, I was standing up with him. 19, he was in the groundwork competition. - And that's when the switch happened. - Switch happened, you know, because I just, well, because I remember getting the arm lock and he didn't put it on immediately.

I needed it to last, it had to last. - Sure, it had to last. - I spread it, the whole thing lasted as long as I could possibly get it. And it was a long memory as I was looking down at him. - And now he has nightmares about you.

- Now he has nightmares. - I wonder what nickname he has for you. - I don't know, I'm hoping that he remembers me as-- - He has a photo of you. - You know what, he probably doesn't say, just back of an eyelid, doesn't say a thing about it.

- Well, I mean, can you just speak to that training with those folks, you know, you said crying, just the frustration of being thrown. - Yeah. - I mean, how do you, it's such a beautiful part of the process of becoming great. - Yeah, I think it is just something that you're, you know, that doesn't happen at this level.

You know, we were talking about levels and then at this level, it never happened. And then I went out in my first European cadet and all of a sudden I wasn't this top guy, I was in the mix. And then I had to work myself to the top of that mix and then to the top of the next one, you know, 'cause I went to the European Senior Championships and, you know, again, you're not the top and, you know, you work your way to the top of that.

And I think it is a frustration, you know, but I think it's that kind of hatred of losing and also being able to, you know, being out of control. I think that the first time, first Senior European Championships I fought, I fought Nevzorov, but he was only one of my contests.

Then I had to fight a Frenchman for third place, but he totally outgripped me. And I remember I was more upset, though I won the contest, I was more upset that he totally out, he did outgrip me and I was more upset. And then I fought him a year later and outgripped him.

All right, so it was one of those, you know, it was a learning process all the way through. - Yeah, that like frustration is like, whatever that does to your soul, the building up afterwards is what actually makes you better. It's fascinating. And you think there's in Japan, just killers there, they're like, just the world doesn't know about, they just- - Yeah, there's world champions in the dojo.

You know, there's people that never make it out. You know, I remember we were training like so, and everybody that goes to Japan, all my friends that have been world Olympic champions, right, they all know what I'm talking about. They know exactly what I'm saying, is that when we go to the dojos there, we all get thrown by people that never come out to be world champions.

You know, they're just in the mix or they're going through three years of university and then they go, we had a guy, we had a guy that came in, he came, he was a business guy. He came in with his suitcase and his briefcase like that, he's got his tie up like that.

So he decides he's gonna come in and he gets changed and he's in his lunch hour. He's in his lunch hour, right? So gotta be quick. - Yeah. - So he comes in and he goes through, he's working his way through the whole of the British team. We're all lined up, right?

He's just working his way through the whole of the British team and I knew it was my turn next. So I get hold of him and I throw him immediately. And then it was what we were talking about when it happens in the first few seconds of the practice.

So then I had four minutes of him coming at me and I'm going up into the air and I'm twisting off and I'm like that. And then like everybody's laughing at the side of the mat or the whole British team, he's gone through the whole British team and then he, 10 minutes later, he's just tying his tie up like that, you know, and back to work like that.

You know, imagine him sitting behind his desk in his computer. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'm glad he didn't get out. (laughing) - Hopefully he listens to this. - Hopefully. - Anybody else I didn't mention as part of the greats that just kind of jumped in? - Kashiwazaki Sensei is my favorite of all favorites.

He is what I would call a judo genius. I don't know if you can get him up here. Can we get him up? - Yeah. - So going to 1981 World Championships and I'll talk you through the great Kashiwazaki. He was one year in Great Britain and he was a guy that was so much a genius.

All right, so you want the final of the under 60, 65 kilograms, there, the one at the top. This is him. He is two weight categories below my weight category that I won the World Championships. Same year, I won it. So this is, it's not, I'm not sure if this is going to show his final of.

- This is the highlight. - I know, so watch this. This he did in the final of the world, right? - For people just listening, he did an incredible sacrifice throw. - Yep, and then he was on top for the Naoise and renowned for his groundwork and he was on top against a really strong Romanian guy.

All right, so his transition was just phenomenal. - Yeah, let me go back and look at that, what just happened. - So he's just showing you. So he does this coachy thing just to create space. And it's his follow through into groundwork that is best of all. And then the Romanian, really strong, like I say, he'd gone all the way through to the final of the World Championships, winning most by Ipon, I think, the Romanian.

And he's defending really, really well here. And you can see that how persistent. He knows exactly what he wants. He's just got to get his leg out. Now watch, he'll tie the arm up and then he'll pull the top leg towards him. And then he'll push the bottom one off.

- Always working. - With both feet, always working, always working. Readjust the balance, still one leg trapped. Final of the World Championships, good referee because he's refereeing something here that's happening, that's going to decide as to whether. So he doesn't call it to stand it up at all. Watch him pull the top one now and he'll push the bottom one.

- There's a calmness on his face. - Calm. - Which is great to see. - Calm, pushes the bottom leg, leg out, job done. All finished. This is him again. Watch this, this is another technique that he does. And then just, again, sacrifice directly in, directly into the Newaza.

- Transition is everything, isn't it? - In judo. - Yeah. - Well, in anything really, but judo especially pays off. - Yeah, I mean, because we haven't got that long. I mean, we had more time here. They've just brought more time back. So we've got more time to transition in and to get the situation that we want and to get the attacking situation that we want.

Because, you know, I remember I was teaching in America to some jiu-jitsu guys and they were saying, "Oh, we'll never give you our back." And I said, "With judo rules, certain situations, "it happens that, you know, when we try and do throws "where we're facing away from our opponent, "you know, so like, for example, Cienagis, "if they fail, then the back is there, you know, "and that's how we get the back.

"And it's a different situation, you know, "than going on your back in the guard situation, "totally different." - Well, there are Travis Stevens, I don't know how familiar with his judo, but he's a really interesting example 'cause he competed at the highest level in jiu-jitsu as well. And his idea, he's a big Cienagis guy.

And he basically threw all of that away. - In the jiu-jitsu? - In the jiu-jitsu. Like he took the sport from scratch for what it is. So he almost never did a standing Cienagis, Cienagis at all in jiu-jitsu. - No, because it would leave his back all the time, you know, if it failed.

- Yeah, if it failed. - But he wouldn't have the same kind of grip on the judogi or the karate, the jiu-jitsu gi. - Yeah. - A little bit different. - And so you have to kind of consider the sport, the art of it, and also the competitors, the styles and the culture of the sport, if you want to win.

If winning is the most important thing, then you're like, "All right, well, let's, you know." - No, but you learn the game, don't you? And that's what he did, he learned the game. You know, and I think that is credit to him, you know, and that's why I was saying about wrestling, you know, the wrestlers.

I mean, good to learn the judo, and for what it is and the mechanics and how it works, and then learn the wrestling. I mean, I do the commentary as well for the freestyle, and I will be at the Olympics for the freestyle and the Greco-Roman. So, and I love the freestyle, absolutely love it.

But freestyle is freestyle, judo is judo. I like to see people doing judo. - Yeah, but there's a rhyme to the whole combat thing. They're all, I mean, the body mechanics, it's all like fascinating echoes of each other in interesting ways. The details are different, but there's still two humans clashing.

- Yeah, we've got some amazing crossovers with people like the Mongolians have come in, the Georgians, I mean, the Georgians do massive pickups and different techniques. And if you ask the fighters where they're grabbing the legs, a lot of them would say, some of the wrestling styles, the Georgians and the Mongolians might say, "Yeah, I'd like to be able to take the legs." But a lot of them just adapted.

You get Iliadis, for example, he just adapted. So he thought, "I'll take my arm over the top "and I'll just rip them out the floor that way." You know what I mean? - They're still doing the big lifts, they're still doing the big gripping, but they just don't grab below the legs.

It's weird, they figured it out. - And they figured it out like that. - Yeah, you would think it'd take a long time. No, it was like a month. - Yeah, no, exactly. - The highest level, which is crazy. So you mentioned jiu-jitsu a little bit. What to you is an interesting difference between jiu-jitsu and judo that you've observed?

Because you're one of the greatest ever on the ground in judo. And so jiu-jitsu is primarily focused on similar type of stuff on the ground. So what to you is an interesting difference there? - They're a different approach, different time scale to them, and they have a different way in.

So ours comes from a standing position directly in. We've got a time scale on it. So we have to, like the catch, what I always talk about the catch, because in judo terms, if you don't get the catch immediately, then the referee won't see the transition in and also the continuation from plan A, B, C, D, if something builds.

So we have to build it. And we have to build it quickly. And I think in jiu-jitsu terms, you have more time to build. - Yeah, there's a kind of patience, like, "Oh, if this doesn't work out, I can try a different thing." With judo, there's like an urgency.

- There's an urgency. - And there's a ref watching skeptically. So you better show that you're making progress. - You've got to show the progression. And that's why I always had a plan A, B, C. You see there with, that was 1981 there, the great Kashiwazaki had a progression.

Everything was, he knew exactly where he had to be. It was feel, that wasn't by accident, it was trained. And I think that that transition there and taking control of somebody's mistakes. So somebody might have made a mistake or not hit properly, or your defense has caused them to make a mistake, and then you take advantage of it.

And that is the difference. - So one of the side effects of that, I don't know what the chicken or the egg, but judo people on the ground are much more aggressive. So probably because of the urgency, but just like there's an intention behind the progress you're making. I think jujitsu is more relaxed.

There's more a culture of just finding places to relax and think of different control and positions and take your time. And as a result, it's much, much less exhausting. So you can go for much longer. It feels like judo is exhausting. - It's that 10 second blast, isn't it?

You know, it's like doing sprints all the time. You know, and that is really hard. And that's a special kind of condition you need. And you need to be able to catch it and know when to go and when not to go. And I think also, I was gonna ask you, you think it'd make a difference?

I mean, certain jiu-jitsu, you can't just throw yourself on your back, you know, into the guard. You have to throw into the situation, you know? So you have got, I mean, I know Roger Gracie, he decided that he was gonna learn judo. He saw the importance of being able to throw for the transition in.

And so he came to the Budokai and he was learning off Ray Stephens. And, you know, they were doing really a lot. - Yeah, well, he's a fascinating study because he does the most basic stuff. And he does it-- - But does it well. - Like we did, like another level of well.

It's like Yamashita. Everyone knows what's coming with Roger Gracie. But he just does it anyway. I guess the best people in the world, it's crazy. He's like, everybody in jiu-jitsu at White Belt learns the techniques he's using. And he just does it. - Amazing, isn't it? But he has about 1,000 ways in?

- Yeah, yeah. And in the 1,000 ways, there's in the details. So it kind of might even look the same to people, but there's, I mean, he finds a way to choke people. So he's on top of them mounted in a sort of judo pin position. And, you know, everyone knows what's coming next against the best people in the world.

And you should be able to defend it, but nobody can. It's crazy. - I think there's the power element as well. You know, that you don't realize how, you know, when somebody is directed in a particular way, then you have that kind of element of absolute power. You can only feel like when Roger's doing a technique.

I think that you would only feel it if he did it on you, you know, then you can feel it. It's not something that happens, you know, like so tricks is one thing, but actually being able to do something really well from a power point of view, you know, it's like you say, he only does those few things, but he does them really, really, really well.

- Yeah, I don't know what that is about. Actually, judo pins is a very interesting case study as well because people are able to feel so heavy. One of the things judoka are able to do is pin extremely well. - Yeah. - And it makes you realize that it's not about the weight.

It's about some kind of technique that makes people feel like they weigh 1,000 pounds. It's about weight distribution and change of balance. You know, a lot of people don't realize that there's huge changes of balance on the ground. Massive, you know, you know what it's like. I mean, you know, you're a jujitsu man and, you know, the detail of the techniques is what really interests me.

You know, I mean, I'm always looking small ideas, you know, I'm always looking at the jujitsu and I just, it fascinates me. You know, I would have done jujitsu for sure, but I wouldn't have forgotten the judo way in to the techniques. You know what I mean? I think that you've got to differentiate the two, but I would have loved the jujitsu.

I would have absolutely loved it, you know, but it wasn't as prominent then, you know. Where the newasa came from, it came from a mistake, me getting beaten in a particular contest. And I went, I'm not going to be beaten again on the ground. (laughing) That's how it happened.

- Yeah, well, yeah. The story of your life is like a loss creates, the Phoenix rises. - Well, it was 1978 and it was, you know, it wasn't a mistake. It was a particular movement and I was fighting weight up from my normal weight, but I stayed in the same position for one second too long, got caught and- - Choked?

- Sengaku, yeah, triangle. Triangle, triangle. - Triangle, wow. - And I said, I literally, just the same as I said to you when I said, I'm not going to drink anymore. I came off and I said, I'm never going to get caught on the ground. - Yeah, never going to lose on the ground ever again.

- And I never lost in my whole competitive career again. - Oh, wow, but yeah, I shouldn't mention that there's nothing like a pin from a judo person. I don't actually know if people in jiu-jitsu have made sense of that, like loaded that in. - But it's not part of the game, is it?

You know, the pin, it's submission. - Yeah, but, you know, control is part of the game and nobody controls a human body the way judo people do on the ground. Like, they have understood the science of control and I think that control is extremely useful in jiu-jitsu as well.

It's just that people don't, 'cause there's so many other domains of exploration, but the-- - That's interesting. - I mean, just, especially when you apply jiu-jitsu to the fighting setting, so mixed martial arts, that control, that side control, that pin control is really, really, really important. But then you add punching to the thing and it becomes-- - That puts a whole different thing on it, doesn't it?

- I mean, there's an alternate history where you would have been part of the early UFCs if time was a little different, you know? Maybe a few years later. 'Cause your style of judo and jiu-jitsu and the transitions and the aggression, all of that would have worked really well in the early UFCs.

- I'm sure I was being set up at one stage by one of the graces. And that was when he was winning all the matches. But he came, him with a couple of the cousins to one of my seminars. - Nice. - Yeah, and he was one of the first ones, wasn't he, that, that's how I loved to see the kind of UFC because it was different martial arts, different skills.

And, you know, I mean, he'd get close and he'd just choke 'em out or arm lock them or, you know, arm bar them. And that was, that was brilliant. You know, that was, for me, that was a revelation. That was how I saw it. - Yeah. - And-- - It's a fascinating science experiment, which aspects of different martial arts work well and not when they clash together.

And it did turn out that Newaza worked well. - Was the key, yeah. It was the key, wasn't it, yeah. - Yeah, it was a big missing link in our conception of fighting. It's the neutralizer of size and a lot of other components. And it just blew people's mind.

Like, okay, it's not just about size. It's not just about big, big guys swinging hands. It's a lot of other components. And the groundwork is really, really important. And of course, there's a fujidoka that succeeded in the UFC since then, which is always interesting how they adapt without, you know, when you take off the gi, how can you still throw people?

How can you still do control? How can you still take advantage of the transition on the ground? Ronda Rousey's a good example of somebody that took advantage of that. - Yeah. I think one of the biggest things for the judoka is we've never, you know, there's no strikes. And I think that's the biggest shock, if you wish.

You know, when you get one-- - Punched in the face. - Yeah, punched in the face. And you're not used to that. You know, that's not what we're used to. - Some people are able to get punched in the face better than others, yeah. - For sure. Then again, there's Ronda Rousey who doesn't need to get punched in the face.

She just gets in close, throws a person, armbar right there. - Yeah, and Kayla. You know, Kayla's one of them as well. - Kayla Harrison, that's another incredible person. She could've probably been just winning Olympic gold medal after Olympic gold medal, but chose to-- - Whatever, you know, she decides.

I mean, Ronda as well, you know, whatever they decided to do, they're great athletes. Yeah, they hate losing. I don't know anybody that hates losing more than those two. - Yeah. - They don't like it. - And Kayla Harrison, like, I don't know anybody that works as hard as her.

That's a crazy, crazy, crazy work ethic. Well, let me ask you about training. Again, Jimmy Pedro said he learned a lot from you. He learned how to do a tai toshi and the armbar jiu-jitsu. But he also learned from you training methodology. So what's he talking about? He told me about this.

What's your approach to training throughout your career and as it developed? - I always wanted to train harder than anybody else. I still train now every day. If I don't train, do something. I do an hour of my physical work and I still go on the mat a little bit.

You know, I'm 65 now. So I'm not doing really heavy stuff on the mat. But I still like to train. And when I was 21, 20, up to 30, I was one of the best trainers. But, you know, Jimmy Pedro was one of the best trainers as well. He was one of the, he's one of your dream athletes.

You know, when Jimmy Pedro stepped through your door and he was just a kid. You know, he was like, he was just young when he stepped through my door. And I had a lot of full-time trainers. So I had up to 20 really good athletes that were training hard.

And I only wanted hard trainers. Give me 10 that trained hard rather than your one prima donna that, you know, you're skillful, the one that, you know, could do it. I just, I wanted 10, you know, or 20 really hard trainers because you can do so much with them.

You can make champions. You can make them world champions. You know, if you've got somebody that was a special talent and they wanted to work hard, then you had a special athlete. - When you say hard trainers, what do you mean? Are these people that just, like, every single day are able to just grind it out, do it around the door, do the training, do the boring things, just keep coming back?

- Yeah, when the going gets tough, you know, and I think that was him. He had a special mentality and, you know, and the thing is, you see, when you've got him in your dojo, all right, even when you're tired, when somebody's tired and when, you know, what an example to the others.

So he'd pull the other ones in as well, you know? So I had somebody that when everybody was tired and everybody was sick of it and everybody just wanted, you know, and he'd still be there, you know, so they had to do it. So that was, for me, a win-win, you know?

So I had all the Americans, actually. I had Bobby Berland and I had Michael Swain and I had Ed Liddy and I had them all coming to visit me at different times. Jimmy was there, you know, they wanted to be the best. In the end, we had such a great club atmosphere, they wanted to come for the hard work.

And they knew that if they came, they were going to be dragged out and we were going to do physical training and it was physical training like they hadn't done before, but it wasn't just a physical training, it was the judo and the skill side of it as well.

And so I always had a great empathy with the US team, Olympic team. So a lot of your Olympic medalists have been through with me, you know, and so I'm proud of that because we had, you know, some great times and they're still great mates now. And so in New York, in a couple of weeks' time, I'm going to have everybody who's going to be there.

They're all coming in. - All old friends. - All old friends. - And new friends. - What's a tough week look like at your peak? Physical training, randori, is there days off? Are you training like twice a day? - Twice a day. So we do the preparation training, we do the running, we do the weight training, we do the skills in the morning as well.

The skills is, for me, one of the biggest advantages that any full-time trainers can have. Because what happens is, is that with most clubs, you're trying to fit everything into that hour and a half or two hours, you know, you fit your skills, you fit your physical training and your sparring and your, you know, everything's in there, all grouped in.

So the biggest advantages of having a full-time group is that you can split your skills and your skills lay your foundation. So the biggest advantage is being able to work specifically on things without having to worry about getting to do your free, you know, your randori or your sparring, or then you gotta go out for, you just do the skills.

- Well, when you talk about skills, like what is, say your specialty is Itai Toshi, what, are we talking about Uchikomi doing a bunch of fist, working with bands, are you doing throws, are you actually just having conversations about like specific, like tiny details of throws, like what does skills mean?

- All those things about doing your repetition practice, making sure the repetition's correct, you know, there's good repetition. - So when we say good repetition, does it, Uchikomi, when you're just fitting the throw versus doing the throw, where do you land on the value? - And getting it moving, you know, so one of the biggest, most important things is getting it moving.

If we do something static, again, it's that static target, you need to get it moving. So you need to do a repetition and also you need to do a correct repetition, because if you're doing a hundred repetitions that are not correct and repetition's under pressure, too much pressure without somebody overseeing those skills to make sure that you correct the skills.

'Cause if you're doing a skill, if you're doing it 99 times incorrectly, all right, then repetition doesn't make perfect, repetition makes permanent. So you're gonna make it as perfect as you possibly can. So actually that skills group there is the most important thing. And what I used to do is oversee it.

So I'd oversee it to make sure that it was done properly. - So you're watching the footwork, you're watching the gripping, and then just constantly adjusting people. - I'll give you an example. Jimmy Pedro, Jimmy was one of the hardest when he was 19 years of age, right? So I was, he always asking me to practice, always.

So he's always on me all the time. So I'd do groundwork with him. And could I put him on his back? No, I was all on him and he'll tell you, but he was just, wouldn't go. He was just, he was gonna be great, without a doubt. All right?

So I wanted everybody on with him, everybody. So everybody went on with him, and so it only improved their game and it improved him. And then with small technical things that have stayed with him that we were doing, with the Juji Katami that was passed on to Kayla, and then gone on to Ronda.

And it's all small things that I can see sometimes that it's passed on. - What about the Tai Otoshi? He said he learned a lot from you from that throw. - And he does it differently. - And so I should mention that's one of the trickier throw. I mean, I still don't understand Tai.

- It is a tricky throw. - I don't understand. So for people who don't know it, boy, how would you even explain it? It doesn't make any sense. It's when you just look solo, the movement you make is quite simple, but how you get person to be off balance, how you actually get them to be thrown.

And when you do throw it successfully, it looks like a whipping motion that's effortless. It makes no sense. - It makes no sense. Other than it's every technique starts with the hands. So it's what we call Kazushi, and you're pulling somebody off balance, getting them moving, pulling them off balance.

Tai Otoshi means body drop. So it's basically two legs across your partner's body. I've got my back to you, all right? And I've already pulled you off balance with my hands. And then I'm going to just flex my legs up just as you're coming onto my back. And then you're going to go over.

You know, if I coordinated all right, if it doesn't get coordinated right, then you're going to come right on my back and try to rip my arm off, you know? So yeah, I've got to get it right. - What was, if you can convert it to words, some secret ingredients that allows you to pull it off at the highest levels, the Tai Otoshi?

- The hands start every technique. So getting the repetition right, first of all. So you need to get the repetition right, you need a good partner. So actually training your partner to react in the right way is just as important as learning the throw. So actually what happens is, you know, we could get a lesson of beginners.

We teach the throw and then go, right, off you go. And 90% of them will get it wrong because their partner's not reacting in the right way. So half of it is to get the person to react as they should. So if I was doing it with you, you and I, first thing I'd teach you to do is to react the way I want you to react.

And then I'd react the way that you want me to react. All right, so then we'd have success with it rather than you leaning back in the wrong way or resisting or frightened you going over. So, you know, so actually that's why nine times out of 10, people get the technique wrong.

- It's actually fascinating to me 'cause in the United States where I came up, Judo, I mean, the level of Judo is not comparable to the level of Judo in the rest of the world. Of course, the Pedro Center is an exception to that. - Certain athletes, yeah. It's a certain athletes, like when I trained recently with Jimmy Pedro, it's like even like the 16-year-old kids are just all deadly.

So it was terrifying. But, you know, I remember the Russian national team came through Philadelphia. And one of the things that really impressed me is just how much easier Judo was, training Judo with them. They moved correctly. As like Uke said, as the people getting thrown, every aspect of their body movement was correct in terms of it felt right to be throwing them, to be training with them, everything about the gripping, about the position of their hips, about the shoulder, everything.

It was fun. It was easy. And like, and I always felt like I was learning. So I think all of that is loaded in, I guess, into proper training. So you're developing through the throws, you're developing the right technique. - Yeah, you have to develop between, you know, I always had training partners that I trained with up to each Olympic games.

And we worked together for the, we did the skills together. And then we, you know, we worked together in order to make techniques work. And we got it moving as quickly as we could. And one of the worst things that I see is, and I see a lot of YouTube stuff with coaches.

- Here we go. - Ah, don't even start me on that. Don't even start me on that. But, you know, you're laughing because you know what I'm talking about, right? - No, I'm actually laughing 'cause I'm enjoying you talking trash. But you're talking about technique. - Yeah, just, well, you know, the coaches and their clipboard guys, you know, with the clipboards and the stopwatches.

And, you know, they got these kids running up and down the mat and then doing Uchikomi of something that's technically incorrect, you know, 10 times. And then running up and doing another 10 at the other side, you know, and actually mixing everything together. And it's just a mess, you know, just technical mess.

- That said, some of it is conditioning type stuff that you were doing. So what is like the hardest type of physical conditioning you were doing? - Probably ran too much, you know, when I was a kid. If I could go back now, I wouldn't run as much. And I ran hard and I ran strong.

And I remember doing London Marathon one time and I said, "I'm never gonna do it again." I've never. But I ran, you know, and I was trying to, the problem was when I did the London Marathon is I was trying to beat three hours. - It's that desire to win again.

- It's totally insane, you know, it was insane. And I went out through half marathon in what I thought was a good time. Anyway, I got to 16, 17 miles and totally blew and-- - So you went out too fast. - Yeah, I went out too fast. - And then you just-- - I died, absolutely.

- Just. - I died, I got in, I crossed the line. I remember seeing this bridge over there, right? And the bridge, it was the finishing line over the bridge. And I had to get, it was the longest bridge I've ever, ever walked over. It was like walk, run.

So I got over the bridge and I took one step over the line like that. And there was a guy over there and he was trying to rush everybody through, you know, and he was going, "Come on, come on, come on." It was people behind me, "Get, get your hands off me." (both laughing) - Yeah.

- "Get your hands off me now." Like that, 'cause we're gonna fall out, you know? And I couldn't move, I couldn't move. I was white. And-- - It was amazing that you made it to the finish line though. - I did, I got over there. And, you know, yeah, Donald Duck passing me was a tell.

- Oh, there's a person dressed as Donald Duck? - Donald Duck, yeah. But the thing was, I still crossed over 338. I crossed over 338, but I lost 38 minutes in the last four miles. - So that bridge, longest bridge ever. So you regret the run? - So anyway, I would do the running a little bit differently but we ran, we ran hard.

We did the weight training, we did good weight training. It was all conditioned. So, I mean, it was never the same training all the time. So it was always, we'd have certain phases building up. It was scientifically done. It wasn't just out there, run, weight training, judo, same judo all the time.

It was always pretty scientific. - Good variety. - It was a good variety and it had buildup and it had a speed phase and it had a power phase and it had, you know, like a base condition. - What about the Randoi? Was there a method to the madness there?

How much Randoi did you do? - A lot. So the most important thing for me, I mean, I see now that there's a lot of people out there that are not getting enough Randoi. They're not Randoi-ing enough. And there's a lot of sports science people and they're running and they're weight training and they're doing it all to death.

And there's not enough judo. And the only ones, you know, like you have a look at some of the Eastern block countries that are getting together, they're having these mass camps and the Japanese, they have, you know, just massive people that they can do there. They're doing probably 50, 60 Randois a week.

- Wait, what? - 50 or 60 a week. - Wow. - The average person is getting together. I mean, when I was doing Randois, when I went to Japan, it was just purely for 60 Randois a week. - How much is each one? How long is it? - So they were five minutes then.

They're four minutes now, but-- - That's a lot, especially given the level of the competition there. - Well, you can do it in Japan because it's fairly light. If they throw you, they throw you. You throw them. - So there's like a level of, like you're moving at like a close to a hundred percent, but the actual power and the force is not quite-- - Different in Korea.

Korea was harder. It was more physical. So you couldn't do 50 Randois in Korea. You'd die. Yeah. So you'd do 30. - 50, 60 Randois, wow. - But you need the Randois, and so I chased the Randois. So I chased them into training camps. I traced them all over my country.

So I was getting 40 to 50 a week in my club, and then I would go to training camps and add more. And I honestly don't think that they do enough now. A lot of countries. - Somebody who doesn't know Randoi is live training, so. - Yeah, sparring. - Was there a few people you remember that were just like really tough to go against?

You mentioned Gold Tooth. Is there others like it? - Gold Tooth was pretty horrific. - Yeah. (laughing) Oh, you got him in the end. - He was pretty all right. I got him in the end, and yeah. - Is there like, I suppose I should say not just tough, but just good training partners that you like?

- Great training partners. I remember when Nishida, and Nishida was, I mentioned him earlier, said he was one of the best. I mean, he was just such a great technician. So I would go there to his dojo, and he'd ask me to practice. And he'd always, he'd finish the practice, and you know that he would always say, "Another one, we'll do another one," right?

So you'd go, "Oh, yeah." Because you had to make out that you weren't that bothered, that you had to do another one. So you do another one back to back, and then he'd go sometimes, "Let's do another one." So you'd end up doing 15 minutes with the same guy who could possibly throw you at any time, you know, and that was hard, you know?

But I remember those particular guys, and there were plenty of those. - What do you do with the exhaustion that you're feeling in those? Like, how deep did you go in terms of like-- - You have to dig deep. And I think that that was the great thing about having certain, like European training camps were more physical.

So I remember that we would have European training camps where you'd fight Germans, and then the Dutch, and then the French, and then the Russian, or you'd have all sorts of different styles and people there to fight. And that was something then you'd have to dig in at a different place, come out of there.

- Well, where do you go mentally when you, how many times have you gone there, or like you're really in deep waters exhaustion-wise in competition, actually? - Competition, it's happened. You know, so sometimes you go past where your forearms are absolutely blown. I remember the final of Czech tournament that we had and fought a Frenchman in the final, and my forearms were so blown, I couldn't shake his hand, you know?

And then I remember they were solid, absolutely solid, and they had lactic acid in them. And I remember I stood on the rostrum this, and they were giving me things, and I couldn't grip them properly. So I was saying, put it under my armpit or, you know, chin, like that, I was trying to hold this.

I couldn't hold anything, you know? So there are times when I really had to go really deep. I remember fighting two East Germans the same day, one of the competitions, and the number one and the number two East Germans. And that was another day where I had to really dig deep.

- That's the fascinating thing about some of these tournaments is if you get, if you go full distance on several matches in a row, the way you're seeing in the finals are two people that have like fought a lot that day. - Yeah, and we have golden score now, you know?

So we see a lot of guys, you know, that going into golden score, and they've done one contest in four minutes, and then they go another four minutes, and then, you know, we've had some go into a third four minutes. This is all back to back. It might be in the first round.

It might be in the final, you know? And we've got some now that are coming out, and you can see the stats, and the ones that win in golden score. So we got a Japanese Hashimoto. He's the Japanese representative now, instead of Ono, 'cause Ono's finished. So Hashimoto's coming out.

He was in a tournament last week, and he went-- - Is there a good one to look up? - Yeah, just have a look at him. So Hashimoto's in white here, all right? And there's a great example there. Well, I'm glad we got onto that, you know? So, I mean, he has got great technique, Hashimoto.

- Effortless, effortless. - There's the Tai Otoshi, all right? So you can see exactly what we're talking about there. Great timing. And again, you know, sometimes he backs them up to the edge, and then he'll wait for them to come back in, towards, they don't want to step out to get a penalty.

- I guess that's a cross grip Tai Otoshi. I didn't see that wrong. - Yeah, cross grip, different grips. Oh, great examples there. Just what we were talking about. (laughing) - Making it look so easy, wow. - So he's gonna be their representative at 73 kilograms. Look at him, back him up again, and again, just catching him as he pushes back.

- So push, push, push, and then-- - Yeah, action reaction at his best there. And a slight change of direction, he sometimes goes down onto his knee there, which is Si Otoshi. It turns from Tai Otoshi, which is springing up, to Si Otoshi that's going down. - Oh, the title of the video is, his Tai Otoshi is a work of art.

- Yeah, this is him at his best, showing him doing what he does best. But he had to go three times into golden score last week. And dig deep. And lost one of 'em, I think. - But you're still going at it. You talk about all those training sessions.

Nikki, your wonderful wife, told me that you were looking, you were going all over, like from target to target, looking for workout clothes. 'Cause your luggage got lost. 'Cause you had to get a workout in. - Yeah, you know what, I just, I realize that if I'm a miserable git, right, then she'll get me into the gym, you know, so.

And the thing is, is that I'm better if I get in there for an hour, and I just do something. At least 30, 35 to 40 minutes cardio, and then I do some weights. And more high repetitions. It's not so much heavy weights now, but more functional stuff. - I mean, you travel all over the world for the commentary of these competitions.

So is it sometimes a challenge to figure out how? - Well, you know, during COVID, then they closed all the gyms. But we were still going out. We were one of the first ones out. The judo was some of the first out. The competitions were behind closed doors. So we were in the hotel.

The gym was closed, so we couldn't use the gyms. So we had to look for other ways that we could work out. So most of the hotels that we were in were high-rise hotels. So we were in the steps. We were doing the steps right the way up, you know.

So I started it, and so I started off with me going up, and then one or two of the others and the referees started to go up with me. So in the end, we'd have this trail of people going up the steps and down, and every place we went to, we had the steps.

So yeah, that was an interesting situation. So we were sick of steps in the end. - What advice would you give to beginners, people starting out in judo, how to develop their game, how to find the beauty in the sport and the art of judo? - If you put 10 people in a room and said, "Right, get on with it," you'd have mayhem, right?

And I think that whatever sport you're doing, you need good instruction, good teaching, and a good club atmosphere, you know, somewhere that's not so intense that winning is the only thing. And I think that if you look at 90% of the people that practice martial arts are doing it for pleasure, so they wanna get pleasure.

So you need a club that's got a bit of a mixture. You know, they've got a direction to go into competition if they want, and then the rest, it's for fun and to enjoy it, but with really good instruction, because with really good instruction and a good foundation and a good base, you get more enjoyment because you have more success.

And let's be honest, you know, the more success we have with something, the more we like it. - Yeah, and great technique is a way to really discover the beauty of the art. And so great teaching is really important there. - Great teaching is so important. - What does it take to get from the early days when you started judo to world-class level?

- I think that with most, I mean, you do hear, don't you? You know, if somebody's been doing judo for eight years and then they're in, and I think it happened, one of the French, Chameo, she went to the Olympic Games in 2012 and she'd been doing judo for eight years, but then she started to lose, you know, so she had a relative success early on and the Olympics was one of them.

She got a silver medal, but then she went off the boil and then she came back and now she's been there for, she's still competing, and she's been there for well over 13 years at the very top. So I think that, you know, any foundation, it's like anything, if you lay a really solid foundation, generally it lasts longer.

- Yeah, but that foundation, again, is that technique or is there, what does it take to build that foundation? - I think technique, you get away with murder, you know? With technique, you can get away with, you know, having bad condition, you know, but I mean, you get found out in the end, but you can, you know, you can go out and you can win certain things by doing really nice technique.

But I think if you've got the mixture, if you've got the whole package, then you can, you know, go the whole way. - So for people who somehow don't know, you've commentated some of the greatest judo matches ever. You've done Grand Prixs, you've done all these events, Olympics, championship, everything.

So what, just looking at the history of judo, what like stands out to you? What events stand out to you? What are some good memories that popped to your head? - I think, you know, some of the Paris tournaments are amazing because the crowd, they're there. You know, they're on the mat, they're all judoka, they're all, they're well-educated to the sport.

Every time somebody twitches, you know, they're very biased towards their own, which is kind of you expect. But, you know, sometimes I haven't been able to hear myself speak. And that's very unusual. You know, you've got the headphones on and you're blocked out, you know. And like sometimes Teddy Rene's been walking out there and the crowd are going crazy and they're on their feet, you know, when somebody twitches and, you know, and then you get the crowd silences.

We had one of those last week. You know, everybody's cheering their man and then bang, their man goes over. - Yeah, and there's silence. - Silence, nothing like that. And of course we were commentating, we were going, that was a bit of a crowd silencer, you know, but yeah, that happens.

- Yeah, that is a surprising thing that, at least it was to me, that Paris and France is really big on judo. - Massive. You know, and there's always surprises. You know, it's like Paris is great. In Japan for the Olympic Games, the biggest surprise was Ono getting beaten in the team event.

Now Ono's the greatest judo man, pound for pound, probably one of the best. And he won the Olympic title. And then they went into the team event against France and Ono lost to a, he's not run of the mill German, but the German, you know, it wasn't certainly Olympic title-esque.

And beat Ono. - Yeah, well the team stuff is fascinating. - Yeah, it's fascinating, yes. - It changes the dynamics of the whole thing. - Yeah. - And it's, I mean, it's funny you say Paris, it really makes it really big deal that this Olympics is being held in Paris.

- And they'll be the team to beat, French team. Because they have the best balance of the weight categories. They have the best balance with their people that are world and Olympic champions and qualified men and women. So three men, three women. They have the best balance out of anybody.

- And an educated audience. - Educated audience, home grounds. - It's gonna be awesome. - It's gonna be mad. - It's gonna be super fun. - It will be super fun. - You nervous? - Yeah. - All right. - Do you get nervous? - I get nervous, I get nervous.

- I do as well, I get really nervous. - I'm nervous right now. But given, especially 'cause it's the Olympics and you don't want to, you want to celebrate people properly, right? And it's like, it's everything for them. - Yeah. - And a lot of people, especially like the finals matches, it'll be watched millions of times, the highest of stakes, all of this.

- Played over and over. - Yeah. - And I find that with mine, I'm now a little bit more careful. So I'll celebrate a massive throw and then have empathy to the one that's been thrown because it's not the best feeling in the world. Especially in Olympic finals. - Yeah.

- Can you imagine that? - Yeah. - Must be terrible. - Must be terrible, yeah. - Just reflecting. So now I have a bit of empathy there and I just, I try and say the right things because they always do come up to me and say, you commentated my fights.

- Yeah, you're the voice of the biggest triumphs and the biggest tragedies for these athletes, for the world that watches and admires these athletes. - No pressure. - You're the voice. Don't screw it up, yeah? - Don't screw it up. - Your voice is in my head when I watch these, you know, it's fascinating.

It's fascinating. But you're a master of it. It's a huge honor that you would talk with me. Thank you for everything you've done for the sport of judo, for the Olympics, for just sports in general. Just celebrating greatness in all of its forms. Thank you for talking today. Keep going.

I can't wait to listen to you in Paris. - Thank you for having me. - And it's just been an honor to be here with you. - Thanks for listening to this conversation with Neil Adams. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Miyamoto Musashi.

There's nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists. Seek nothing outside of yourself. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)