The Ugly Truth Inside the UFC & Why Hard Work Beats Talent - Brad Pickett

I was shitting myself, telling me there's got to be a lot better things to do for life. He didn't find fighting until he was 25. It was the gym in East London. He went on to compete in the WEC and the UFC.

And UFC president Dana White called him one of his favourite fighters to watch. Ladies and gentlemen, for the thousands attending and the millions online, the one, the only, Brad. Hickey! The time I walked to the cage, I was like, I was a beast.

I was so on. I was ready. He was only 16 at the time. Have a word for yourself.

And I remember just like, and he battered the crap out of me, gave me a bleeding nose and just absolutely humiliated me. I'm like, and I just remember straight away after the session going, I need to learn this. But when I retired, playing a boxing match, won it with two punches, didn't get punched. See you later.

And then retired again. I was at one point could be the first UK UFC champion. What have you learned about that? Well, I could just go sit on the beach, but that's not me.

I don't earn the F you sort of money where I can just do whatever I want for the rest of my life. Take us back to the decision to hang it off. I'll hang it a bit. Brad, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. So full circle, I was at your last fight, so it's a real full circle, weird moment to be set across. That's got to be nine years ago. I think so, yeah.

I remember Jimmy Manor was the main event. He was. Yeah, lots happened since then. A lot.

Since then I've had another child, make it two. I've opened up my own gym, now I'm a full-time coach. I coach a lot of athletes, all levels kind of thing, but also at the top, so I have a few UFC athletes and stuff like that. Nice, nice.

So we always set the podcast off the same way, I'd be interested to see how you answer it. Right. Who are you and what problem do you solve? I am a now full-time professional MMA coach and I solve confidence, you know, like people have helped people with confidence in certain situations.

And then usually when people can solve something, they've got experience there themselves. So what's your journey with the confidence been like? obviously once I learned how to look after myself in any way, shape or form, one, I honestly did it just for fitness to start off with. But once you have that confidence being able to look after yourself, two things.

One, people leave you alone by default. A bully would only go pick on someone who they think is an easy target. If you're not an easy target, people can leave you alone, for one. And two, I used to kind of the type of person I'm.

I used... my skill to be a bit more of a vigilante where I'd look after people who couldn't look after themselves. And I kind of like try and diffuse situations and most of the time I could. Were you always quite confident as a child Brad?

No, I kind of put myself very much like my son now, my son Buddy, who's 10. When I was that sort of age, I was a bit of a crybaby. It's strange. I was a tough kid in a way where impact wouldn't hurt me.

But let's say if you accidentally hit me hard as an accident, I'd be fine. I'd be like, okay, no way, it's fine. But if you hit me half as hard, but you meant it and you'd be mean, I'd cry my eyes out. I was like that kind of very emotionally, very emotional when I was a child.

And even playing football and that growing up, my main, also didn't get into fighting until later on in life, because it wasn't really around when I was growing up. My main sport was football and cricket and, Stuff like that. And when I was playing no sports here, I'd say I was like a little cry baby. Someone would attack me, I'd die.

And I just remember weird, it was like a weird thing where I was about 16, I think, and I switched from normal school to college. And I went to college, complete new circle of friends. And I just thought, I want to stop being a pussy. And I'm like, I just started playing football and I started tackling people hard.

I was like, I actually enjoyed this. This is pretty good. And I completely changed my footballing style and I've become like a bit more of Dennis Wise. And I got way better football because of it.

And I was like a hard tackler, you know, throwing myself around the pitch. And I just loved, I loved that. Okay. I'm actually quite physically not so much of a melt.

And I actually enjoyed it. When you think about that, so like that change of like different environment, what was it about that that made you decide, I want to change completely? People didn't know me. I wasn't like tied with my same brush I've always had, you know what I mean?

So I could just be wherever I want. It was a completely new set of friends. I could just be who I want to be. And I didn't like the way I played football before, really, obviously.

And then I enjoyed, loved it when I started tackling people hard, getting tackled hard, didn't mind it. You know, I loved being way more physical. You know, it actually gave me a bit more of a buzz. So where's the join from football, I love football, I love being physical, to then martial arts?

So my first kind of combat sport I'd done is when I was playing football, I used to play football for a good team like Rush and Diamonds, and like another team called Rawlstown, and to... Outside of playing football, I wanted to get fit, and I just knew that boxing was a very good level of fitness. And I remember going boxing, and just going boxing for a few months just to get the fitness and enjoying it. And then I remember doing a bit of sparring, absolutely hated it to start with.

But then, I mean, let's see, I actually hated the thought of sparring because I was like, yeah, getting a bit nervous. And then when I did it, I'm like, loved it. And then they yet again said to me, oh, I don't want to have a boxing match. in my head saying no but somehow I was nodding my head when I was saying no uh and uh I ended up having a boxing match and yeah again even I remember this even to this day I was I'm not a fighter in a way where it's not natural to want to go punch someone in the face you know like for me it's just not a thing I've never punched someone in the face in a normal walk of life if I unless I But I remember like, being, thinking really technical, before the fight, throwing a jab, cross, and thinking about all the technical side of things.

Going into my first fight, and then, going into, thinking about that, and the guy just came out and cracked me as hard as he could, splattered my nose, right, and I'm just like, and then, I don't remember nothing else, and the next thing I actually remember was me just, getting like, pulled away, and him being out on the floor, and, and, me winning and I had no idea what happened. So since that fight, I've always asked people to record my fights. Back then it was VHS obviously.

So we'll go with fights. This was like, I just saw red and yeah, obviously you're not supposed to see red, but I just didn't have no idea what went on. But then from then you learn how to control your emotions and stuff like that. And yeah, so that was my first kind of, putting the air into combat sports.

In a weird way, I kind of, when I was just boxing, I liked just the natural respect you get from people. People just like naturally, all right, mate, how's it going? Like, just because they know you're tough. And I know it's not, it's not, shouldn't be the be-do-and-end-all, but it's like, I just like the people, yeah, again, would leave me alone or people who are quite tough would respect me because of what I did.

And I kind of liked that kind of feeling, you know. Wow. So that first fight was a boxing match? Yes.

And then what's the link to MMA when you're coming? Okay, sorry, yeah, that's a really good question. So our boxing machine at the age of 19 to 21, and this is when I was playing football. Football was my main thing.

I ended up rupturing my ACL playing football for a Sunday morning team where I should have been playing for, just because I weren't getting games for Russian Diamonds. I wasn't getting any dead games. So I just started playing football Sunday morning, which I should have been rupturing my ACL, got released by my club, so blah, blah, blah, blah. Started playing for a different club called Rawnstown.

It was in Dr. Martin's League, I think it was at the time. I can't remember. No, what was it?

Anyway, it's not a bad standard, but nowhere near the level I was playing before. And I still try to do that, but obviously the level was completely down. Then I tried to get back into boxing when I moved back down to London. And I found it a bit boring, in a way.

Also, this is where I went to Peacock Gym in Cannonsound. They would always look after the younger ones, rightly so. I was like 25 at the time, sort of thing, and I'm walking through a boxing gym, they're not going to give me any attention, they want to look after the young kids. I get it.

But then I remember seeing a guy called Lee Remedius. Back then, this was like a guy, which was a pioneer of UK sports. back in those days. And I remember seeing him in Peacock gym, he was training and I was like, oh man, this looks really cool, what was this?

What are you doing? And I also watched the UFC, because as a kid, like growing up, there was a film called Bloodsport, I don't know if you've ever seen it, with Van Dammen. And it was like the early, Kumite where like it'd be a Kung Fu guy versus a sumo wrestler as a wrestler versus a boxer And it was like there was like that and that's what the early UFC was So I was fascinated always like who would win their fight surely in ninjas the best no one's going to be a ninja. That's literally in your head.

If you knew someone who's done ninjutsu, you'd be like, I'll stay away from that guy. He's a ninja. And you're like, you always put those things in. But when you see all these different martial arts come into practice against each other in the early days of the UFC, I was so fascinated.

It was like, Man, who would win? And you saw, like, early days, there was a guy called Hoist Gracie. He was like a skinny Brazilian guy with a gi on. And you're thinking, what's this guy going to do when you see some jacked guy wrestler out there come in muscle-bound?

And you just take the guy down and submit him. What the hell? And that's where I fell in love with early UFC. And the first guy I kind of said, I met with a guy called Leo Medias.

And I went, where do you train? That sort of stuff. And there's another guy on my council estate where I grew up in East London, a guy called Del Edwards. He's still alive to this day.

A very good friend of mine. He used to train in a place called Elite Fighting System in Ellinville and Castle. I remember he used to get on my bike, cycle there, I was just like, man, this is so... I remember my first ever session.

I'm being now about 25, 26, kind of proud. I used to box. I get out of myself, you know, kind of thing. I remember going to this gym and there being this young kid called Mark Baby Smith.

Mark Baby Face Smith, that was his name. And I'm like, he was only 16 at the time. I'm like... me, have a word for yourself.

And I remember just like having, and he battered the crap out of me, gave me a bleeding nose and just absolutely humiliated me. I'm like, I just remember straight away after the session going, I need to learn this as a life skill. Cause I, I mean, being quite proud, I kind of have someone out there, a 16 year old kid, be able to do that to me. So I'm like, I need to learn this just for life skill.

Cause back then it wasn't really a career path at all. So I'm like, yeah, I just need to learn this. And that's what kind of started my journey. I was there, elite fighting system and just doing it for a bit of fun.

And then it just took off kind of thing, you know? So with your career at that time, was it just pure football and training or was there anything else going on to bring in money? I was 26, I wasn't earning money playing football. So I used to work.

Well, okay, try and... cut a long story short when i was growing up my my parents were quite famous cobbler cobblers like made shoes used to make shoes for like elton john and stuff like that and um that's why i grew up in london i was born in white chapel i lived on brick lane uh i was then we went to victoria park we lived there we had our own little shoe shop there with a factory out the back shop there and we used to live above the shop and mom used to make shoes for like Really, a rich guy, Indian guy called AJ Kelsey, spoke to my dad because he was kind of highly known in the industry.

I asked him, who can he recommend to go to India, set up a load of shoe factories, teach people how to make the shoes, and so on and so forth. And my mum and dad, oh, do you fancy a change? And they said, oh, let's go. So when I was eight years of age, I moved to India.

I lived in India. Wow. Yeah, it was a mental time. So I lived in India for two and a half years.

I remember being there and going to a school, local school there. No one spoke English, not even the teachers. I remember just going into school, no one spoke any English. And I'm like, what am I even doing here?

I used to walk out the classroom and just go play with stray puppies in the playground. Wait till school finished, go home. And my mum, after, it took about three days to my parents to realise no one spoke English. Cause they're like, what are you doing?

I'm like, I'm just playing with puppies, mum. So they ended up finding an American boarding school So I went to an American boarding school called Woodstock up in the Himalayas, up near Nepal. So I went there. So just me and my brother went up to a boarding school up there.

And we was up there. We lived in India, that area, for like two and a half years. And then we moved back down to England. My parents didn't want me growing up in London, thinking I'll get myself into loads of trouble.

So we moved to a not actually a nice place, a place called Weldon, which is like near Corby. But I went to a school in Aundel. I went to Aundel school. Not that there's a very famous private school there.

I didn't go to that one. I went to the public school. in Aundel and that's where I had, kind of in the Midlands. That's where I had my teenage sort of years.

That's where I played for Russian Diamonds because that's where they were in Rawlstown. And then when I was about 21, I moved back down to London, lived with my brother and gone back to my job. So I went on a massive vacation. That was good.

My job, because of fashion, my brother worked for Diesel, and he was in fashion right there, so I ended up working for Diesel myself. Worked for Diesel for a few years, and then from there I worked for another company called Maharishi, which is like, used to do the combat sort of trousers with the dragons on and stuff like that, and then I worked in Floral Street. I kind of liked the job, it was quite a very sociable job. Went to loads of nice parties, got nice clothes, it was quite cool.

And then from there I went to work in the head office, which was in Old Street. And it was a bit of a desk job for me. And I was getting itchy feet. I didn't want to sit at a desk every day.

So then also in this era, I wanted to become a stuntman. I was like, you know, I'm going to become a stuntman. So one of my disciplines kind of just all coming in line was doing martial arts. So I could do martial arts as well, that's a discipline.

So all this sort of, like I say, back in those days, MMA wasn't a career path. So I was like, what can I do to make work? So I was trying to maybe become a stuntman. And to do this as well and train, I had to like have a normal job.

So to get out of the office, I went and just become a laborer and I just started working cash in hand or like just working per day when I want to work. And then other days go do my discipline, go do a bit of horse riding to get my discipline and that sort of stuff. And then, kind of fighting just kind of took off and I started fighting a bit more and oh man this is quite cool and doing well in fighting so I then I'm like okay right I could maybe just fight and it took a long time kind of thing I had to work and fight for a long long time and then it got to the stage when I started earning enough money to not have to work a normal job Zach Thompson, do you ever get sick of calling kebab houses and nanas when you're trying to speak to qualified decision makers?

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If you're looking for great qualified data, then you know what the solution is. Prospio.io. I mean, I want to find out if you ever did any big stunts, but like that, let's dig into the discipline side of things because for somebody that's focusing on being a stuntman, you're thinking, right, it's going to help my career.

What advice would you give to people listening now they're thinking about pursuing a skill, whether it be like a combat or another kind of skill, when it comes to applying discipline to themselves? What have you learned about that? It's tricky because obviously when you're young, your goalposts can change all the time. One minute you want to do this, one minute that's the trend, this is the trend.

But... So I would say to succeed in any work of life, you have to have a good work ethic. And you can adapt that to anything you do. You have to have, you know, I'm always a punctual, I'm up early, I'm in the gym early, I'm there early, I put the work in.

I'm always a hard working person. So, so cliche to say, hard work always beats talent. You know, like 100%. And natural ability, sometimes things come too easy to you so you don't build up that work ethic.

Where if you have someone who has a good work ethic and is quite talented, that's when you get really good people in their field. So it's one of those ones, just apply yourself and put the time in. A lot of times I think as well, people always look for quick... quick results in anything they do.

If it's dieting, you want quick results. If you want to get fit, you want to see it quick. A lot of it's time put into anything, any craft. Your podcast, you didn't do this, and it was amazing straight.

It takes time. And the more you put into your craft in anything you do, the better you're going to become at it. The more hours you put into that craft. This is why, also I say, it is quite good to do a job that you...

like because then it doesn't feel too much like a job if you go into like a sandwich factory packing sandwiches I did that when I was young just to earn some money it wasn't fun, but still I took that job seriously and I applied myself seriously within that job because that's what you should do as a person because you never know, people in that sandwich factory may go work for Audi or whatever you want to do and then you go to that and they think, well, you work really crap at that job.

See, I always say, apply yourself to no matter what you do, professionally as much as you can, but try and find a craft that you enjoy, like doing, like a hobby, that you like doing that, you have to keep turning it into a job. And then sometimes you may need a normal job to support that idea, Work, because money's important, unfortunately. So I had that job there to support your dream until your dream could overtake. Like I did, I used to work a normal job until fighting took off as well.

So, yeah. So if you put us back in the era that you came up in, in MMA, there's no smaller weight classes in the UFC. And I imagine money was even less than it probably is now. So could you put us in the shoes of what the opportunities were, how they came about, and how much money you might have been able to make?

For me, my first fight, I fought for free. I got a free table, like this size, just for my friends and family to watch me fight. Then I even remember when I got to the stage where I was at Cage Rage, that was the big show back in those days, Cage Rage British Champion, I was earning like 500 pound a fight. But what I did, which I try and also install it into my athletes that I have now, you have to build some sort of brand.

You can't be just a good fighter in this day and age. we have them in abundance, you know, you need to have a bit more. So you need to see yourself as a product. How can I make myself valuable?

I made myself valuable because I had a good, like, image of my walkout kind of thing, my attire. And then also I understand to be... valuable to a promoter, I need to sell tickets. So I used to sell a good amount of tickets, 150, 200, 300 tickets for fights, you know?

So a promoter would be like 100% I want him on that card, not only because you're a good fighter, but he makes me money. So then you like, if my, I always say to my fighters now, if there's, say you used to fight each other, right? I'd win. Yeah, I'd win.

Okay, right. But say you sell like 200 tickets and you only sold 10. You get injured, I would do whatever I can to find you a fight because you've sold 200 tickets. Right.

So I need to get you a fight. So I will work day and night. I'd even probably put one of my best friends in there to fight you because I need you to fight. you get injured you sold 10 tickets i just grabbed that fight then so that's just where there is important business it's business people don't understand i just want to be a good fighter it doesn't work like you have to understand the business side of fighting because it's very big in boxing boxing is all about selling tickets you have to sell tickets you don't sell sell a certain amount of tickets to take out your fight purse you know so they say it's about you need to understand the business side of things so going back to what we said before is in It wasn't really a career path for me because, yeah, again, they didn't have my weight classes.

The only time it become somewhere where I wanted to go was the WEC, which was like the biggest, well, it was owned by the UFC, but it's where all the smaller weight classes were. But that was in America. And it was very hard for an English fighter to fight in America because visas and visas, Of course you can do it, but that was a big expense on the promotion. At the time it used to cost them quite a lot of money to get a visa.

I remember getting my shot in the WC. What helped me is my best friend and best training partner at the time, Mike Brown, was the WC Februaryweight Champion. here was my in kind of thing, where I got to speak to them and speak to them. And they were all there saying, oh, when are you gonna get Brad on?

So I was chatting to them a lot. And then I remember they offered me a fight on two weeks notice. And I went, yep, I'll take it. But then they couldn't get the visa for that time.

But just because I said yes, like I was like, they were like, okay, next time. So they ended up signing me and I made my WC debut. And that's when it was quite cool. This is where it was nice to be able to travel from the first fight in the WC, traveled to Vegas where, when I got to any sort of level of fighting where I could travel around the world, I wanted to fight in certain places.

Vegas, 100%. So making my WC debut fighting in Vegas was amazing. And also I won that fight by a very, very rare submission at the time was a Prove-Your-Nectie. And I got like a 10 grand bonus for submission on a night.

I was well happy. It was a great, it was a great, when people say, what is the best moment of your career? I don't have a singular moment, but I have, moments for him. I quit and I was one of them making my WC debut in Vegas in the Hard Lock Casino, winning by a proven necktie and getting 10 grand bonus, which was amazing.

I just want to go back to the brand building bit. Yeah. So I think, like, Dan Hardy, when I think of Dan Hardy, I almost, like, see him before. Yeah.

You know, like, the image of him, the silhouette of him. And I think it's the same view with the cap on and the braces on. Like, you know Brad Pickett almost before, like, before you see him. When did you realise that was important?

Yeah. I'm not stupid, it's entertainment sport, right? It's like if you're a comedian and no one's laughing at your jokes, you're not going to be in the job for a long time. So I also understand, for one, I need to be involved in exciting fights, I need to put on a show, because at the end of the day you're an entertainer.

Yes, it's a sport, but it's an entertainment sport. So I had to put on good fights, but then also you need to have someone to remember you. So when I got into fighting, when I was boxing, my mum said to me, oh, you got it from your granddad. He died when I was four, so I didn't really know him, but I remember looking at him and seeing pictures of him, and he used to wear braces and a trilby hat.

And he used to, in the day, work as a roofer, doing roofing at night time. He used to do bare knuckle boxing just to earn some extra money for the family. So I'm like, cool. That's my image.

I'm going to wear a truby hat and the braces to pay tribute to my granddad. A lot of people got it mixed up because my nickname was One Punch as well from boxing. I was being Mickey One Punch from Snatch, but I was around before him. I like to think Guy Ritchie stole that character from me.

But those people used to do it after my fights in Cageway. Oh, well done, Mickey. I'm like, My name's Brad, don't worry about it. But yeah, so I understand that it is very important to build a brand.

Because you need, even like you say, Dan Hardy, you'd be like, I've made that guy fight, who's that guy fight? The guy with the red hair, the mohawk. You'd be like, cool, you need to stand out. And also in this day and age, it's a lot harder because in the UFC, you're uniformed.

you know, now I think they've changed a little bit. Well, I used to always, when I first started, wear yellow shorts, you know, like, you know, so, and you can walk out, now you have to walk out in Venom gear, you have to wear the, the, the, the, the, the branded stuff walking out, so you can't have my Trilby hat and braces, and come out of what, when you're reading a newspaper, that's what I used to do, and it, you can't put that sort of show on, where, where, I remember watching early UFC sort of days and early fighting.

There was a guy called Genki Sudo, a guy from Japan, and he was such an entertainer. Like, so entertaining in the way he fought, but also he used to breakdance on his ring entries. He used to have, like, six or seven people with him, and he'd be like a proper... Like, Pris-Nazim Mohamed, you know, you go back to those sort of ring entrances, like, oh God, what's he doing this time?

Oh, he's coming down on the throne. Like, those sort of things. Re-enters, for me, is a massive part of the show to get yourself across and people to relate to you. I mean, the fight can be boring sometimes.

But if they go, oh, yeah, the guy came in on the flying carpet, you'd be like, wow, okay, cool. Things like that is, and you've got to understand some people will remember that over the fight. So it probably feels different in this day and age, obviously, like with the way that social media like TikTok and everything so instant. If you're giving advice to young fighters on building a brand and one of the things was like building that following that you can sell tickets to.

What advice would you give to them today? Honestly, be yourself for one, because like it's hard to. Sometimes people can create a character to try and, like, put on... But a lot of people, like...

Because obviously we have someone like Conor McGregor, right? So he's changed the game massively in multiple ways. Some for the good, in my eyes, sometimes for the bad. Where he was always himself.

I fought in the cards with him many times, you know, like... And we've had a lot of chats and stuff like that. And he's always himself, you know, like, he's himself. He's very charismatic.

When he's... He's the only sort of person I remember who would do a press conference and I'll actually wanna listen. What's this guy saying? He's just had that kind of voice, always had it.

And you see now a lot of fighters try and mimic that. And it doesn't come off very natural. It comes across very fake, bland and yeah. So I say one, be yourself.

Try and also find the audience, you know, like outside of fighting that you can pull into fighting and makes yourself a bigger brand. if you're massively into gaming then have a gaming community bring some people into that or if you're into anime then you have that sort of thing so I always like don't just think about I need to bring anime fans into the sport you'll become a bigger asset if you're bringing people outside the sport into your sport so you want to make yourself popular not just inside the sport itself I want you to like and subscribe.

Don't hurt him, John. Please don't hurt him. You've got to like and subscribe, and if you do not like and subscribe, I'm going to kick his head in. Please do not allow violence in the facility.

Like and subscribe, and we can all go home safe. And you mentioned McGregor there. And one thing I think of is like the talk, like the self talk and out loud, you're like, he believes it. Like he believes he's gonna win 100% of the time.

So we've sat here with like, we say with people that used to do like coaching with Ricky Hatton, stuff like that. And one of the things we talk about is like the self talk before a fight. So when you think back to some of your like early fights, what was the thought process before you go in? What story were you telling yourself?

I was shitting myself, telling me there's got to be a lot better things to do for a life, you know, what am I doing with my life? I should be, I could do something else. You talk yourself out of everything. But backstage, I was a mental midget, you know, like I hated it, I hated being backstage.

I was so, it's like waiting for a death sentence, you know, like I'm saying, it's not natural to want to go get punched in the face. Have you ever been in any altercation at any point? It is very nerve wracking. And that's with someone who can't fight.

Imagine now I'm going into a situation where someone's been training for months to punch my head in. It is very nerve wracking. 100% it is. So I didn't like it at all.

I hated the backstage. But when I walked out and I got the crowd, I'm like, ah, okay. And then by the time I, like, cliche to say, by the time I walked to the cage, I was like, I was a beast. I was so on.

I was ready. But backstage, I hated it. I couldn't sit still. I was pacing up and down.

I hit a bit of pads. I'm like, leave me alone. I'm like, it's like, I was... very antsy, like, and I hated it, but when I walked out, I loved it, you know, like, just the crowd, everything there, and also, I was just, stupidly, and I always have been, so competitive in anything I did, like, I don't want to lose, no way, and as well, I always say this, I was never, I was a bad loser, where I hated losing, but I wasn't a sore loser.

I never made excuses. Like say me and you played me at chess right now. I wanna beat you. If you beat me, I'd be like, okay, well done.

I'll come back and I'll beat you. I'll get you, you hold on to this. And I'll be competitive, love that. Sometimes, uncomfortably competitive, you know?

But I'd wanna come back and beat you. But I was never like, oh, you beat me because I had a migraine, or you beat me because my toe was hurting. Or like, I never make excuses. But I hated losing.

You know, it was, yeah, always. And that's the thing with team sports. I grew up always with team sports. And in team sport, you get the best player on the pitch and you can lose the game.

You can be the worst player and win. You know, one-on-one sport. It is so mentally challenging. Even if you think about something like tennis, me versus you, I have no one else to blame.

I can't blame the left wing for not passing the ball, the goalkeeper for letting one in. I can't blame no one else, it's just me. So a one-on-one sport is so mentally challenging, but then you bring the physical aspect of MMA into that, it's the hardest sport you can do. In my eyes, I've done every sport you can think of, nearly, to a certain degree.

is the hardest sport you could do. So as an athlete, when I was growing up, I was like, good as well. It's the biggest challenge, you know? So I always enjoyed the challenge, and it's been like, I say, when I was back in the sport, when I was trying to, when I was growing up with the sport, I had to educate most people.

Like most people play, Is that legal? Can you do that? And I'm like, no. I never used to say I'm a cage fighter because I hated what the view that would give to someone was a cage fighter.

I used to say I'm a professional athlete. And I'm like, okay, what sport do you do? I go, I do mixed martial arts. And I'm like, oh, what's that?

And then gets to the stage where I have to try and explain and then go, Cage fighting. Ah, cage fighting. Yeah, right. But for me, it's like, I'm an Olympic athlete.

I do boxing, I do wrestling, I do judo, I do karate, I do all these things. It's like being a decathlon of martial arts. I have to be, can't be just, if I was the best wrestler in the world and fight, I could get beat. I could be the best boxing guy, get taken down.

You have to be, good at a certain good degree in all these things. So that's why I have to be like, it's like Usain Bolt would win the 100 meters, but in a decathlon, he's not gonna beat the high jump. So you have to be, you can't just be good at one thing, you have to be good at multiple things. And that's why, again, being an athlete like I was, where I was good at, sports, not the best at all sports, but I was degree okay.

That's why I thought I thrived in this sport. And also I kind of think mentally, I was quite mentally tough person since the 16 year old switch. Mentally tough person, I think. The mental side of sports is the biggest thing that people overlook.

It's, you have to have, no matter how good you are, if you don't have the right mindset, you're not gonna succeed. You know, like you have to have the right mindset to be able to endure, you know, things can't always be your way. I've seen so many fighters who are so good in the gym, so good in the gym, and go to a fight, and just like, I'll be like, what is going on with this guy? And I've seen the polar opposite.

I've seen guys who are not that great in the gym go and fight. And I'm like, who's that guy? Because when it's real, you either fight or flight. You have to do one of those two.

And some people really rise to those occasions, and some people crumble. One of the fights you had in the WBC was with Demetrius Johnson. Correct. Who's arguably one of the greatest of all time.

True. And you beat him. Yes. And I was watching yesterday, you beat him with wrestling.

Yeah. Which is like gonna be unheard of, like English guy coming in wrestling the American. How, for maybe for people who are looking to learn a total new alien skill, how did you get yourself into wrestling and make sure you learn enough to beat someone like that? For one, that was quite, yeah, it was quite a big thing for me to really out-wrestle Mighty Mouse.

But I didn't out-wrestle him as in wrestling. How do I explain this? MMA is his own sport, right? So if I had a wrestling match with Demetrius, it would have beat me 100%.

But wrestling for MMA is completely different. Striking for MMA is completely different. Grappling for MMA is different. Don't get me wrong, a lot of things translate.

If you're a black bone jiu-jitsu, of course you're good on the floor, but when it's MMA, like a punch you in the face while you're doing stuff, it changes the goalposts. Yeah, again, in MMA, wrestling-wise, you wrestle at such a low stance, and your hands are bad. round your legs to protect your legs. If you did that in a fight, you'd have to punch you in the head.

So your hands got to be up here. So now your hands are up here, I can get on your legs more. So I'm throwing punches, your hands come up, I can get in on your legs. Also, if you're throwing punches at me, I could level change, time your level change.

So for me, wrestling, I was very good at wrestling for MMA. I learned how to wrestle, for MMA and I've become very good at wrestling in MMA. So it is completely different. Don't get me wrong, I think a lot of things translate.

But I was good at MMA wrestling. And I also remember after that fight, I remember there's two other really good fighters, Chad Mendes and Uriah Faber. And they both fought on that card as well. And I remember going backstage and Mike Brown, who was in my corner for that fight, Uriah Faber and Chad Mendes went up to him and went, by the way, where did Pickett wrestle?

He goes, he's from England. He's never wrestled in his life. And they're like, so shocked. But yeah, because it was quite a shock for me completely out of wrestling, Demetrius Johnson.

Wow. So what's the transition then from you're a WEC fighter and then you're a UFC fighter? How did that journey progress? For me, this is where my life became a lot easier, right?

Where, because I was fighting, I was fighting in the WEC, which was... the UFC for my weight class, if that makes sense. So when I say I was ranked number 10 in the world, and I'm fighting number five in the world, in the WC, if I went to the UFC, it's the same people. It's exactly the same.

So when people, when I used to be at home, and people would go, oh, when are you gonna fight in the UFC? Okay, right. So I kind of fight in the UFC, but I fight in the smaller weight classes. I fight for a show called the WC, which is owned by Zufa, which owns the UFC, but it's where they put the smaller weight classes.

And they're like, all right. So now when he made it so much easier for me when people are... Do you fight in UFC? Yes.

Literally, because the competition was the same. When I was ranked number 10 in the, or number five in the WFC, when I moved to UFC, I was ranked number five in the UFC. So like, it just translated. The whole weight class moved into UFC.

So the only thing that honestly changed was the color of my gloves and what it said on it. WFC, it just said UFC. The competition was the same. The other thing that did change was the limelight.

You obviously got way more eyes on you and stuff like that. So, and the purses went up. That might get in a bonus. Like I said to you, I got, I had four fights in the WC.

I hit four bonuses. Each one of them were 10 grand, right? It's still a lot of money. I went to the UFC.

My first fight, I hit a bonus. I got 70 grand. So it's a big difference from hitting bonuses in the UFC to the WBC. So that's the big change.

Financially, an eyes on you was the only rule change. Competition was the same. You spoke earlier about the losing and the competitive nature. I guess, what is the flip on that?

So if you're winning and you're getting all of this money and probably fame and success, what happened to Brad and his ego throughout that process? Honestly, I was always very much a grounded person. I always have. Also...

I'm also like a realist. Also, I know that I was earning great money at the time. Also, I'm not going to earn that money for the rest of my life. So I have to be smart with my money.

I've done the right things. I bought houses and done that kind of thing that now I'm okay and uncomfortable. But yeah, I'm still working now. Of course, I've got a job that I love.

I have my own gym and I'm coaching other fighters. But I could just go sit on the beach and do nothing. One, that's not me, but I don't earn... that the F you sort of money where I could just do whatever I want for the rest of my life you know like there's only a few few people who actually do that um but yeah for me I was always Brad you know I used to I don't think fame and money changes people.

It just brings them more into the limelight. So if you're a dick at some point and you're more in the limelight, people are gonna see you being a dick a bit more, right? Anyone could be nice, anyone could be a dick. But if you sometimes you're a bit more of a dick and the camera's on you all the time, you're going to be caught up being a dick.

But if you're a nice person, majority of the time, you've got nothing to hide. Yeah, so that's me. I was just me. I just kind of find I'm quite down to earth, quite normal.

Yeah, so it didn't bother me, like any line, I didn't get it. Oh, Brad Pickett, UFC now. Yeah, I didn't, I don't like that, no. And then when you reflect on your career with the UFC, do you think, is there anything looking back now that you wish you'd done differently or handled differently?

Any situations? Not particularly, because whatever choices I made throughout my life has put me where I am here now today. And I'm very happy with my life. A lot of people measure success in loads of different ways.

like very materialistic what car do you drive what house do you have that kind of stuff what clothes you're wearing that's what he's very materialistic you know for me i value my life into what i have is my family i have two beautiful young kids have a lovely wife i've been my wife 17 years you know love her to bits you know i can't wait to see her have a great time we have a we're a great unit we're great parents we're all to our children actually, and people say to me, what about your kids?

What do you want them to do? I do not care. I don't care if my son's the smartest person in the world or the sick as shit. or really good at sports or bad at sports.

All I want to do is him to be a nice human being. That for me is gold. Anything else on top is a bonus. You just want to be a good kid, have good nature, you know, like caring.

I think that will get you further in life than most things nowadays. A lot of people will tread on people on the way up, I get that, and some people see, I don't know if you've seen the Manistee and that sort of thing. You get people like that where a lot of young people think that's what I need to be. it's not, you know, like being a good person could get you far in life and like surround yourself around those sort of people, you know, and I say I'm happy with my family and I have a very loving family and I think I'm a very good dad and yeah, that's what makes my, I think I'm one of the richest men in the world with what I actually have to this day, you know.

Don't get me wrong, I say money is always important, very, it is. Money is just a tool. It doesn't give you happiness, but you can use it to do good things, 100% if you're a good person. So if I had loads of money, of course I could go on nice holidays and create great experiences for my children.

But I also could do that without loads of money. I can still do that and do great things with my kids. And like, you know, like two kids in a really poor background could still have a great time with the family and do great things. Money, but you can, don't get me wrong, you can do better things with money, but it's not the bead all and end all of happiness.

It's just a tool to make you happy. Talking about the competitive nature, obviously always been involved in sport, can you take us back to the decision to hang it up and not be an active fighter anymore? This is always a bit, this is a tough one. Because I do, I hate this when people go, oh that guy should retire.

Oh man, he hates to retire. It's such a personal thing, right? So it's so hard, especially as an athlete in anything you do because you're sure identity. So most people, when you're, say in football or cricket or you know, or even MMA, in most sports you retire probably 30 to 40, that's sort of age bracket, right?

Then what? When you're 30 to 40 in any other aspect, you're either the CEO of a company or you were a tradesman. Now you have your own firm. Now you have other people doing the work for you.

You're normally established at that age. So then being a fighter and go, you've got to start again. Okay, what now? What am I gonna do?

You're like, shit. Like, you can't work, you're gonna have to work for the rest of your life. You know, like, so like, if you've not done things on the way up to lean back on, What do you do? So like, it's hard.

So I remember me when I was fighting, I was like, I'm quite transparent. My life, towards the end of my career, I was on like 45 and 45, 45 grand to show, 45 grand to win. So I was earning like potentially, and also with sponsorships, over 100 grand a fight. What else am I gonna do?

Like I could earn 100 grand here just for having a fight and that's all I ever do. I'm going to do this, 100%, well, I'm going to do this till the wheels fall off. That's what you're going to do in your head, you know? So like, It's so easy for me to now say, this guy should retire.

But okay, cool. What am I going to do now then? So it is a hard thing to retire. But most people, when they do retire, is either through losing their job, they usually cut you or some of this, or a bad injury.

Same in football. It's either a bad injury or the club releases you and you go down. But for me... I retired, when I retired, I got kind of really glad the way I did it.

I did it on my own terms. I sort of, like I said, people are motivated You have to be motivated to compete. People get motivated by different things. Sometimes people, it's their family.

I want to fight for my family. I want to fight for money. I want to fight for fame. I want to fight for competition.

I was always that one. I always was competition driven. I wanted to fight the best people in the world. I wanted to be the best.

I was always that guy. and trying my best to get to number one. So when I started seeing myself going down rankings, and I remember I had quite a few, what I'd say, title eliminator fights in my career, and I kept on falling over at the final hurdle. And I remember...

Obviously I had that win over Demetrius Johnson and he was at that time, moved down a weight class, went to flyweight and he was like, this is where the classroom has to go. Unbeaten at flyweight, it was amazing and that sort of stuff. But I'm like, I've got a win over that guy. What if I went down on weight class?

I could potentially fight him and be number one in the world again. And I'm like, that's what I want to do. So I remember when I fell over, kept him falling over the head of a flyweight. Sorry, I abandoned him.

I'm like, I'm going to go down on weight class and try and fight Demetri Johnson. This was just as I got married as well. And like, so I went on my honeymoon. I was on diet, I was dieting.

I changed my lifestyle around. And for me to make Bantamweight was not easy. It was a complete lifestyle change. Like, I remember I got like a Dexter scan before my first flyweight fight.

I was six weeks out before my fight. I was 6.3% body fat, all right? And I still had 20 pounds to lose.

So like it was not easy. And then you realise how much food affects your mood. Because I was always the guy in the gym having a laugh, pantsing someone out. And I was walking to the gym training.

Finished. Cool. I had, just had nothing, I'm not, it was like a miserable in a way where I take my mood out on people. That's one person I'm not.

I don't take my mood out on people. But, like, I just didn't have the energy to have a laugh. So, it was, But, yeah, again, the carrot on the end of the stick is I wanted to be number one in the world. So that was the drive for me.

So I went down to that weight class. I won my first fight at flyweight. Then I lost my second fight. And then my third fight at flyweight, I lost a split decision.

In my head, I won that fight. It was terrible. The guy ran away the whole time. This is what I hated about that weight class.

Because people were smaller than me and faster, they just ran away. And I was just like... I hated that. I used to always be, if you watch me fight, in bar and burner fights, I liked it.

And then while I'm fighting, people were just running away from me. Doesn't matter what I understand as a tactic, but in my head, it's like, if you put me and these people in a cage and there was no time limit, and he gave one of us a key, I will come out. I don't know what time it will be, but I'll get hold of this person at some point and then I'll finish him. But at the moment, they're just running away.

So they just learned a way to win over 50 misses by avoiding fighting. So once that happened for the second time when I lost the split decision, I was like, I'm just going to go back up a weight class. So I went back up a weight class and that's when it became a job. for me yeah again good job earning great money but it was a job i kind of lost that little bit of that you know i saw myself not going up rankings and then that's when i decided you know what i'm gonna hang my gloves up i think i'm done with it it became a job and i didn't have the hunger as much and i thought to myself i'm gonna retire so i like the way i retired because Most people, when they retire, it's like, ah, they retire, and it's normally an impulse move.

I end up, I'm retiring, and then two weeks later, they come back. You know, like, that's what happened multiple times. Oh, he's making a comeback. But when I retired, I wanted to make sure that this was my decision, I'm comfortable with it.

And also, if you know I was retired, you said you can't, you know I was, that's about to pick his last fight, let's go support him. It become like a more of an occasion and an event. And like, it celebrated my career in a way. And, And yeah, so I'll explain this, this weird and morbid way to explain it.

It's like going to your own morgue. Or what's it, your own, what's it when you die in? Wake. Wake, it's like going to your own wake and being alive.

Because people say loads of good things about you, your weight getting there, and this and that. But I was still alive. But I had everyone, Dana White, all the people I looked up to, say lovely things about me and my career, what I've done. And I saw, get to see all of this.

And it was like, it was nice. It was good. And I remember like that, my whole camp was so emotional. Because my last time I was going to go to American Top Team and do a fight camp.

It was the last this. There was a lot of last for me. So it was such a very emotional fight camp for me. My last weight camp, my last...

I didn't miss that to be honest, but my last fight week and that sort of stuff and the UFC was so good to me that week. They made me like a paper, I've got it in the gym, like a paper with everything, because I used to come and read the paper, with everything what people wrote about me, wrote about me and stuff like that. It was really good, you know. It was quite a very emotional week, but it was good.

But then also what happened within the fight, as well as you saw, in my head, I was winning the whole fight, and then to the last round, I was still winning, and then he hit me with a high kick, and dropped me, the ref stopped the fight, I thought it was a bit premature, especially because I was winning the fight, but, it just shows in this life, there's not always a fairytale ending, is there, you know, like, if it was a fairytale ending, I would have won that fight, got on my horse and steed, and galloped off into the sunset, but, life's not always fairy tales.

So it was a harsh reality that this is a real thing. And also, it was a reality to me that it was time for me to hang my gloves up and I made the right decision because what he kicked me with, honestly, back in the day, I'd have ate that like a biscuit and been like, cool, let's go again. But that kick then dropped me. So I lost my...

my durability later on in life, which happens to a lot of fighters, but I've become a bit more vulnerable towards the end of my career. And I hated that. I used to go into every fight just didn't give a crap about getting punched. And that made for exciting fights because I didn't care.

I felt... I felt invincible, you know, I was just rock and soccer robots, let's go. And then towards the end of the career I was getting dropped in some fights and it just changed my mindset a bit. I'm a bit vulnerable now.

I hated that. He took me away, that's why I'm glad I retired. But when I retired, I actually did have one bare-knuckle boxing match afterwards, you to pay tribute to my granddad. So obviously, like I said, the story of him being a bare knuckle boxer, so I got offered to do a bare knuckle boxing match.

So I had one bare knuckle boxing match, won it with two punches, didn't get punched, see you later. And then retired again. Do you find, I wonder this with the style that you had, when you're coaching, you know, if you're giving someone advice like Nathaniel Ward or something between rounds, and you're going like, just fucking take it easy a bit or grapple him or don't get in a barn burner, do the other two rounds you can go like, what are you on about? You used to do it all the time.

No, really, because there's never a question of what I say, because otherwise there'd be consequences. No, I'm very... I like to think I'm a very good coach, where everyone... you have to approach different situations and different people.

You have to have, for me to be a good coach, you have to have a lot of emotional intelligence. You know, you may need that slap in the face, like, what are you doing? Let's go. And you may need that little cuddle, like, come on, everything's okay.

What's going on? And sometimes you need to slap one day and cuddle the next. You know, you need to understand the situations, you know. But, But also, I do understand the fight game.

And for me, I was a very aggressive fighter. I usually push forward anyways. Because going back to what I'm saying, I think psychological, you've got to be looking to win a fight. There's a lot of psychological things I used to do within fights that I felt.

done me well where I'd always want to end around on top because if I'm getting up and the rest pulling me off you, so psychologically I've been pulled off you. You may not mean nothing to that guy, but I used to always G myself up with things like that. And like, if I'm tired in my corner, I won't show it one bit and I get up in my store and I start bouncing up and down. So if you look over at me, you'd be like, holy shit, this guy's in shape.

I could be gassed, but I'm gonna not show you any weakness. So things like that, I, Those sort of mental things I like to translate into my coaching and give people what I call the mental edge of fighting, which I think is very important. And then just talk to us a little bit about that coaching thing. So what was the set up?

Where did the seed come from? This is now the end of one chapter. The future looks like this. Yeah, so basically when I was fighting, I used to train in a place called Team Titan, which is in North London.

But then when I used to do my fight camps, I used to travel out to the American top team and train there. So obviously half my time I spent here in England, half my time I spent in America. So when I wasn't in camp, I'd be back home. So when I'm back home, I'm training, but also I'm coaching, I'm helping other guys.

For me, I went to America because the level of fighting in the UK wasn't there. And I needed good training partners to help me raise my level. So I went to America. But if I come back home and I help these guys get to a better level, it helps me out in return.

So I always came back in my culture to help people out, want them to get better, and so on and so forth. And sometimes people back home will come out and travel to America with me and will go get training. The level of us go up. to the stage now where I have multiple guys who fight in the UFC and do really well, guys and girls, to be honest, and they don't leave my gym.

because I built this structure and I had this sort of regiment of how we train back here now, because I've been away, I've done that and learned this sort of technique. So now the level of the UK has risen. Now we have multiple UFC champions, but back in the day, no, Bisping was the first and that was ages until he won that, you know? So like there was talks about, I was potentially at one point could be the first UK UFC champion, you know?

But that's when the level of the UK was so much lower. But now, like I said, we have multiple UFC champions now. And some now, really good fighters coming through, who have never gone abroad to travel. So you don't have to now uproot and leave to a different country to be able to pursue the sport.

Brad I've absolutely loved this conversation I've learned so much from it so thank you for joining us we always ask the guest to leave the audience with one question that they could ask themselves so if I'm sat at home listening now what's one question that they could ask themselves Have you maximized the amount of hours you had in your day to your full potential? Because I say this because everyone has the same currency every day. Everyone has 24 hours. What you do with 24 hours to what I do could be completely different.

So you need to always maximize your 24 hours. Beautiful question. Brad, if people want to find you, if they want to follow you, what can they do? Or if they want to come and train with you?

You can come training me if you want to. And I say my gym, we cater for all levels, kids, beginners to the highest level. So no matter what part you are in your journey, my gym's always open for everyone. It's called Greybury and Top Team.

It's based down in Morden towards Mitcham. It's on Morden Road. If you go to the, check us out on the internet or go to GBTT underscore HQ on Instagram or you want to follow me on Instagram, it's at oneone underscore punch. that's me on things.

So I'm one of those people, if you message me, I'll answer. Amazing. As we know. I'm always very responsible.

If you take your time out of your day to message me, I feel polite to message you back. You know, I saw you once in Liverpool Street, when like years ago, you were still fighting, and I'd just moved to London, and I saw you in Liverpool Street, and I tweeted you. And I said, I would have come and said hello to you, but I was scared you would prove your neck time, you're right. And you messaged back straight away and said...

No, I'm very responsive, yeah. But now, weirdly, I'm not onto it anymore. Do you know why? Why?

My account got hacked and I can't get it back. So, yeah. So if anyone knows how to get it back... Yeah, please give my account back.

Someone just hacked my account and I can't get it back. Also, I had a Facebook fan page. That got hacked as well and I got the hack.