0:00 [Music] welcome back to JK out of the closet today we have Nick JK out the closet is it isgs on coming out it's a series where we talk about the five most pivotal moments of our lives and how they got us to where we are today and today we're starting with Nick and how he started his amateur career and how that was a pivotal moment for you yeah absolutely so like I After High School I was kind of lost I was like I don't know what the ████ I'm going to do with my life you know um I was like I want to go into business whatever the ████ that means right like you go to school I went to passing City College and I just was like man I don't know what the f I'm going to do you know and I I was craving like physical activity I was like I don't want to just lift weights I want to I like playing sports and I was like hey you know what I should learn how to
0:51 defend myself this at this time I was dating Tiff already and I was very insecure I was a very insecure man I still am to this day I think it's genetic I've heard it's genetic insecurity is genetic that's what I hear I don't know how true that is but that's what I hear so you know part of me felt like yo I really need to learn how to like and and honestly this is like 17-year-old brain Nick it was like if a guy comes up and steps to me and I'm with Tiff or something I can't defend her honor there's nothing I could do you know like I'm not going to be able to defend myself at 17 were you pretty like physically like fit in any way you know I like I played like I swam and I play water Po in high school you know whatever kind of can't do a water po move to a bully can you yeah you want to go to a pool you want take this to pool I'll drown you in a pool dude talking about a useless skill you know kind of uh and part of me just felt like yeah I want to do something else like phys physicality and training
1:41 was always something I really wanted to do and I was like man I should learn how to go fight you know I should learn how to do this and I had got in a fight in like my senior year in high school and I was like yo this is tight this is sick you got into a fight your senior year in high school what was that like it was just like you know it was like a bunch of dudes like there was like all the state testing and we had to um the seniors wasn't a part of it so all the boys were like hey let's go to so and so's house let's get some gloves on start fighting each other and ████ oh I remember those yeah you know like every like high school kind of had their own version of that and uh I did that and I was like and I I fought this dude that I didn't really like that much in high school and um it was very liberating you know like it felt great and it was cool you guys went all out did you heard him like we we we did MMA we did MMA in some guy's front yard like out the dino somewhere and we had MMA gloves and I
2:31 and I had like a karate background so martial arts was a big part of my life early in my life so I was like okay cool like and that was something I always felt like I was comfortable with but like I wasn't really that good did you kick them yeah I kicked them a lot how do you get how I kicked them I kicked them a lot real quick how do you have a martial arts background and then feel unconfident about protecting Tiff what where do that break down for you oh you know what because like you know I'm I'm a very at the time I was like 12 pounds right and you still like when you get in a fight like that afterwards it's like oh ████ like that could have gone so wrong too like at least in my head that's what I thought and the more I started training the more I was like yo like I want to do this like I was training with some buddy in his front yard and just hid pads terribly and then I was like oh I should go train and find a gym so that's where I found fight Academy that was the first gym I went to and at the time going in like I just thought like
3:22 you know you're so cocky you think you know everything I thought I was going to be the ████ Prodigy of the gym everybody was like oh this guy is guy this guy's Got Talent we got to groom this guy to be the World Champ you know and I thought I was like oh yeah he's going to be discovered yeah no honestly like I that's what I really thought yeah because I was like oh I have a background and all the fighters that I like growing up like George St Pierre right he was like the he was the Michael Jordan of the sport at the time did you have a black belt in karate I did in in Shoon right but he did kyok no no but you have a black belt in sh okay like but I got when I was like 11 so it's like doesn't ████ matter you know but it's real to me damn it and so you're not suppos to in my head in my head I'm George St Pierre you know what I mean like I'm on the same path you know and I'm going through I go to the gym the first day of practice it was
4:12 just hard it was just so it was the hardest thing the the five minute jump rup at the beginning of the I was like I want to quit this is so ████ hard the toes the jump rope hitting your toes you're like this sucks like all right go kick the bag and you watch all these videos of how cool it is you kick the ████ bag for the first time and you're like oh God God I got to do this all ████ day I got to do five minutes of this right you're just kicking it back for 5 minutes and that extrapolates over the the first like 6 months of training and I'm just getting injured I'm getting ████ I'm getting like blisters on my bottom of my feet where I'm like it literally I couldn't walk it just hurts so bad and in my head I'm like dude there's no ████ way I could do this like the whole entire time I'm like this is awful this is not what I had in my mind this is and I had paid the year membership up front and it was like all the money I had right how much
5:03 does that cost it was like ████ like 1,500 yeah like 2,000 or 1,500 bucks or damn you went all in I went all in I was like cuz in my head I'm going to be George St Pierre right yeah it's a steal yeah it's it's a it's a bargain I'm be World Champ it doesn't matter it's kind of good you go all in though cuz then you're like fully committed I might as well go if you pay month to month you can quit anytime exactly and and that was the only thing that stopped me from quitting I was looking at I was looking at like how do I get out of this frugalness yeah I was like how do I go to the the gym manager and say if you month to month it would you have quit probably yeah yeah but even then I was too afraid to talk to the front desk person and ask for a ████ refund was he intimidating yeah so you stuck with it because of fear 100% sick and also too and but also too it's like I such a ████ reason to stick with it I love not even just just that but like that was
5:54 one of them but but mainly was like dude I had put all my eggs in this basket and I don't want to quit now like that's what it really was like I know I'm going to be ████ unhappy with myself and that was the hardest thing to like just keep pushing forward but anyway so it was like that was like the early stages of it um and I was like I was a total rookie everybody was beating the ████ out of me like just the first day of sparring I did my coach was like yeah you should go do sparring and I was like oh cool that's like a a little step up in the progression like oh cool I'm not this ████ idiot anymore I can go to the sparring with the pros right I go to the sparring with the pros and usually like when you get someone who's really like a newbie and really excited like I want to be a ████ fighter I want to go you go all right let's see what you got you want to see kind of what kind of heart they have you know so you make them go spar with the guys and back then it was a lot more hardnose training and
6:44 it still is now I'm not saying it's different but it was like everybody trained like neanderthals everybody just beat the ████ out of each other in the gym and it was just like didn't care how little you were and I was the smallest guy in the gym and I was going to train with the pros and they all every single one of them like dropped me beat the ████ out of me gave me a bloody nose something like ████ me up and then once again it just it just constant appears of like okay I got a little bit of progression and then you just get smashed into the ████ ground and then you sit there like to the point where you feel like you're going to cry bro like you're like I got my ass beat so hard by gr this is still year one oh dude this is like the first like three years like like as far as like that path right um so it was just a lot of those those moments and then I was just getting injured all the time and then on top of me getting injured I go home and
7:34 my mom's like what the ████ are you doing and I told her I told her I was like I joined a karate gym you told it was a karate gy I don't know why for in my head you have random black guys and stuff and like just ████ Cuts I just be limping i' just be like you know ice packs on me all the time and just be being miserable tired falling asleep everywhere I just it was just like I was not physically conditioned cuz you my whole four years of like Athletics was in a in a cool so it's like I have no gravity I've literally like been in space for 4 years right so like ISS he's like I'll ████ you up in the water and I wasn't lifting weights either so then you go to a sport where bone density bone density is very important and I I had I had bird bones dude I just wasn't built for this at the time and at the time nobody told me to lift weight if you saw a picture of me you're like oh
8:24 who is this 14-year-old sparring with like grown ass man like that's what I look like well how soon did you develop cauliflower Year dude in the first 6 months really cam you look like a straight Pro exactly so it was just like bro I can't get so like they could handle it he has cauliflower ears so you know what's so funny is like they would always say like uh guys in the gym would be like you know when I first got my CIF fire they say oh if you have CIF fire ear that means you're a good Grappler right if you have CIF fire ear and you're a kickboxer that means you're a bad kickboxer cuz you don't CU you keep getting hit in the head I got my cifl ear from initial just having big giant ears right and then just getting like Guillotine and getting choked out a lot that's what it really was and then how it really formed into this was cuz I got punched in the side of the head by my buddy Kenny right so I got both like I'm a bad kickboxer and I'm a bad Grappler
9:14 and I just getting ████ up and it was just awful right eventually I got to the point where I put in my time and my effort and in my head I'm just taking L's what kept you going for so long because I wanted to prove like part of it was like I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it but then I just loved it like I I just like okay the technique of it and and like once you get your first like Taste of progression of like say like throwing a Muay Thai kick right like a round kick it's like it's it's pretty hard to learn initially especially I came from a different background so like the mechanics really different so it took me a lot and my coach was like what the ████ is wrong with you like you do it this way like that's how you would coach right and so then when you first get it the right way and it feels proper you're like oh ████ this is kind of tight like this is what it's supposed to feel like ah okay so have a reference point of what not to do how not to do it and then how to actually do it and obviously you've
10:05 mentioned me before impressing your coach was big Yeah well yeah yeah he was a big dude he's big well no it was big for you it was important for you as a motivational oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and this was like I had different coaches up until this point and like each coach was it's kind of crazy like my first muai coach he was really mean really scary but I think I needed that at that time like if I didn't have that I wouldn't have learned as efficiently as I did but anyway I got to to the point where they were saying hey why don't you to take a fight and I was like I didn't have the balls to be like um how many years has this been over this was like s months in months seven months in so and and I'm getting beat up by everybody so on my head I'm like what the ████ you want me to fight bro like I can't even throw a two-punch combination without getting ████ almost koed you know so in my mind I'm like dude okay
10:55 ████ and then the day before I I think the fight was like a like a a Saturday or something thing it was a full on MMA or was it just it was a Muay Thai fight it was a smoker so like sometimes you get a different guy from a different area and they're like hey you want to fight you're the same weight class all right cuz a lot of times they didn't have commissions a lot what why is it called smoker what does that mean because it's not there's no like athletic commission regulating it so it's just like hey how much do you weigh you weigh 140 you weigh 140 okay how many years experience okay how many years okay let's fight right so it was like an easy way to get going yeah honestly so um the whole time the day before the fight we go train at this Pro gym right another scary all the guys that that trained there all giant Yol ████ caulif fire yaked like and they I'm soed spar with these guys and I'm like ████ dude this is crazy and then while we're training
11:45 there this one guy that had tagged along with us he was like yeah I want to come Spar and my coach was telling this gu like this is like a pro gym like you're you're pretty fresh I don't think you should come he comes anyway he starts sparring he get suplexed on his head and he's and he and he's convulsing on the floor and I'm sitting there we just finished sparring and I'm going to go fight the next day and I'm like watching this happened and I'm like what the ████ like where am I dude like what is going on like this is crazy cuz I was just practiced this guy has a seizure just from this is like you know I'm still really green so this is just like dude okay all right am I going to be like Spar like my God this the Coliseum yeah exactly so fast forward to my first fight I do my first fight um and I think I just knew that I had to be just really tenacious and I just had to run for it and just ████ throw the kitchen sink
12:36 and it it was like an entertaining fight right and right after that everyone kind of like in the gym looked at me very differently like I was like almost invisible and then I had the fight and then everybody was like wow like you're on the map now yeah cuz you cuz you won yeah cuz I won right but it was also just like a crazy fight like the guy was we're going back and forth all time like it was just wild it was an exciting you did a lot of exchanges and I think a lot of people just wasn't they weren't expecting that from me at the time right so and and it just gave me like a little bit a lot of confidence and a lot of like validation that okay I'm on the right path and all this hard work of me just eating ████ for like seven eight months was kind of worth it right and like that feeling of after you finish a fight where your body just is all ████ up and you're just like limping around but part of you just feel so accomplished you're like Karate Kid yeah really happy with yourself that like oh
13:26 ████ I did something that I didn't think I was going to be able to do at all and I was able to face it even though I was as scared as I was but I couldn't have done it if there wasn't a team of people like pushing me and like dangling the carrot in front of me and making me do that so it was one of those things where if I didn't have that I wouldn't have never done that you know so it it was it was proof for me that if I just keep my head down keep working hard I could uh push forward and get this this this dream that I had for myself what makes you go okay I did that I accomplished that I fought that guy I won now I can transition into trying to be good at this yeah it was just like well it's like anything it's just like a random test that you get because every fight is like the next fight is your most important fight no matter what
14:17 right so it's like okay you got this fight all right let's do another one and then the next guy fought was a smoker again but this guy was a lot more experienced and I had no idea he was like he was like 8 and0 ho and all my training Partners had seen him and sparred with him before and um they knew that he was really good but they didn't want to tell me it right oh cuz it'll get to your head yeah cuz I'm such a ████ head case and I knew but what one isn't the smart thing to be like hey let's let's pull Nick out wait till he hit to someone that's more evenly matched experience level probably probably it's just old school huh like ████ it we'll see what happens and it was just like we're already here we wait in let's just go see what happens here already ████ yeah honestly yeah damn um so going back to your question it was it was just like you're not really thinking about like obviously you're thinking about trying to get better always but while you're prepping for a fight you're just throwing everything at
15:08 the wall you're just trying and then through the through the uh attempt of you know getting your conditioning up getting your spine around you just get better just by just doing it more in more volume right that's what it really was and like you think there's some secret like especially in retrospect at the time you're always like looking for like how you have anxiety about how you can get better all the time cuz you know if you're not pushing it it's your ████ brain it's your body on the line and you could really get hurt and then you invite people to come watch you fight and you just get beat up in front of your ████ that was another big motivator I was like I can't get beat up in front of ████ I'm supposed to protect her yeah and I it's crazy I had Deja Vu about that fight like which one the first one or the second one the second one where I fought this like 8 and0 guy or whatever so what happened with that fight it was like I had deja vu where this dude
16:00 cracked me like three four times and he knocked I'm blind as a bat like I'm like -6 out of like 20 or something like that so he knocked one of my contacts out oh ████ and he clo like he gave me a black eye and I couldn't really see I don't mind and the first exchange right and I remember like he cracked me so ████ hard I grabbed him and I clinched him and I just was like oh my God this guyy ████ trying to kill me I remember looking over into like I remember looking out in the ring and this is the deja vu Moment In My Head head right I'm looking out and I see like my three buddies my buddy Francisco my buddy Frank and Tiff and they're all sitting there and they're just like they're like whoa yeah yeah tripping the ████ out and it's like this is not looking good you know I was I was eventually able to win that fight I won by on points um I think I just got the guy tired it was very helpful the guy
16:51 threw up in the ring right in the ring like after that Rose your hand and the winner is and like this is the middle of August we're in some backyard some ladies gym in a backyard one of like the ring was Tiny so it's like no matter where you go you're going to you have to ████ fight was it like some Street beef ████ kind of and then one of the walls was a mirror it was just a mirror so I'm throwing this guy into a mirror brother what what the WWF dude it was just a wild ████ stage and then it's like a street fighter stage yeah and then I think I got a little concussion afterwards or heat exhaustion or something cuz I was like thrown up I had like major headaches I couldn't see that well and then but then again what kept me going was like everybody in the gym like and especially at that age you're craving that like that validation and all the hard work they doing you're like yeah I'm a ████ man and became my identity did
17:42 this guy actually knock you out in that fight no he didn't so you didn't lose by knockout no I won him on points but it was a close decision you beat him I beat him on points yeah wow so your first two fights you're two and0 now you beat a guy that was 80 when you were 1 but anytime decision fight decision decision I'm a decision guy um but anytime you win something it's always like that's not good enough it's like oh this is just a ████ ████ like this is just a a smoker fight this is not a real amateur fight it's not sanction it doesn't mean anything it's not going to go on your record right so you're always like dangling the carrot in front of you oh so these two fights were not on your actual record that we it was just like it was just like big moments for me to especially transitioning into like this role of like okay now I've had fights I'm a fighter now right you know like I I've I said I was gonna do this and now this is what I do this is this is who I
18:32 am this becomes your sole purpose that becomes my sole purpose right going into something as like oh I'm just here to try it out see what happens and then the I got some of these fight I did some of these fights and then you just feel like all right what's next I'm a fighter now I'm George St Pierre on the same level but yeah that was pretty much like early on and it it gave me a ton of confidence at this stage and it's something I was I was really lacking and it kind of it helped me be like more comfortable my skin a little bit like it helped me be like a little more talkative a little bit more jokey jokeing and how I really want to be which one's the hardest fight you've ever had probably that one mentally that was the hardest one yeah cuz we were like it was in the middle of August it was like 100 ████ degrees there was 20 fights that day I was the 20th the last one the last one what the freak oh
19:22 dang and it was just I was just so tired I didn't want to be there I just was like you know dehydrated and then when that dude beat the ████ out of me I really had to like go oh ████ what am I going to do like I was like really fac with a moment like and part of me wanted to quit part of me wanted to be like if he hits me again I'm going to ████ drop to the ground fake injury no for real like cuz and but in reality like in any kind of competition or like combat sport there's you always have an option for that that's always on the table you can get cracked with something and be like ah I'm good Ah that's it and and not like it's a bad thing or or a good thing but I think for me I was really proud of myself that I wanted to ████ quit and I was scared but I just kept doing it you know and that was kind of the theme of just me even starting this whole gym thing how many of these fights took place where they're not on your record just those two oh really okay wow
20:12 cuz after that I started transitioning to to do more M that's what we're going to talk about uh next time next time on the next being anma fighter yeah but if you had to wrap up for everybody watching this right now how would you say fighting like as an amateur prepared you for being a professional well I hate to correct you I was never a professional unfortunately well well you trained you trained like your co co coach yeah no but but what I'm it it's just like this is just the necessary framework for anything I think in life like skill-wise right it's like and going back to what BART was talking about earlier about how you're saying you're talking to all these doctors after they got a med school you're like how do you stay motivated to do this you're like oh you got to really love it no matter how tired no matter how ████ hard it is because in any and this is what I learned too as I got
21:03 older was I thought this would be easier path for me in a lot of weird ways because I was in my head it's like fighting is a natural skill to me I felt like martial arts and movement was like something I was good at I was athletic I could do this you know but it still requires like all your dedication all your focus and it's it's less about your skills and attributes and more about your mindset and how you push forward and that's what I really learned through that time and you could be the most talented guy in the world but if you're not willing to put yourself in a fire and test yourself like really really test yourself cuz that's what all these fights are or anything like it's it's the raw version of can I get through this obstacle and can I prepare for this and get through it like that's what it really is and a lot of times fighting
21:53 just gives you anxiety it just dude you don't want to fight once you get someone's name that you're going to fight you're like dude ████ this I don't there's that feeling but at the same time the duality of is like I'm going to ████ this guy up but you also want to R part of you wants to run away from it so it's just like having GSP used to say he used to cry like in the warm-up room cuz he's just having like a straight panic attack he's so ████ scared he's I don't want to ████ do this and he's like literally the UFC champion and he's like crying before every single fight and and the more I realize that it happens to everybody yeah it just made you feel like oh this is that's what that's the whole game that's that's what it is it's not like when you become GS cuz at the time when you're an amateur you think the guys are at the highest level they don't think like that you think GSP scared no no ████ way and
22:43 then you you kind of put them on a pedestal but in reality it's like you have to sit in it and you have to face it you have to be able to be comfortable with it and and and still keep your feet moving forward towards whatever goal you have because you know I think for me my instinct is just stay still and not Mo and be like well I got this far but that's it like I'm not going to do this anymore I'm not going to subject myself to any more pain and torture whatever that may be for you but I think that was always my kind of like default I think it is for most people but that's why something like this and having Community to push you forward and having people to believe in you a little bit go was like oh okay all right I can't do this like okay there's also that funny cliche about like you know your biggest opponent is you but it's like in Combat Sports your biggest opponent is your opponent so so like if you're if you're on a pedestal then the guy you're fighting is probably on a pedestal too but even in
23:35 fighting too like that's such a like a theme that happens all the time but even if you have an opponent in front of you it's still you can't beat that guy until you can manage your own emotions and manage everything in what's going on here before you even go out cuz like you said you could quit anytime you want anytime yeah it's always on the table you get hit with one big shot and you go and just crumble against kid and sometimes that does happen sometimes you get an injury and you can't come back from that so you could quit right now you quit right now I quit JK
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