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The Healthy Wealth Experience - Where Financial Success Meets Personal Wellbeing
Host Chris Hall combines 30+ years in finance with wellness expertise to help entrepreneurs and professionals build wealth without sacrificing their health. From investment strategies to money management, we offer advice to make financial success more sustainable.
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Chris Hall (00:06)
Hello and welcome to the Healthy Wealth Experience. I'm your host, Chris Hall. And today I have a very special guest. I have Rich Franklin. He is currently the vice president of One Championship. You may recognize his name. He had a really prolific career in the MMA where he was the UFC middleweight champion at one point. And I'm super excited to have him. Him and I have known each other for a while now. And I think that he is going to really be entertaining for you guys out there, especially if you like MMA.
Rich Franklin (00:26)
excited to have.
Chris Hall (00:34)
Alright Rich, thank you so much for being on the show.
Rich Franklin (00:36)
Good to be on it's good to see you again. It's been it's been a minute man. So it'll be it'll be fun to catch up regardless
Chris Hall (00:39)
Yeah, sure as.
Yeah, Rich and I got introduced to each other by a mutual friend. And we, at one point, were working on a software that would do sports betting for UFC. It was back, or any other martial arts, mixed martial arts. And it was something that we worked on for probably, what, six to nine months?
Rich Franklin (01:01)
Yeah, yeah, was a project that we dove into quite a bit and we were ahead of the curve a little bit at that time and we just, never got to the completion stage of it.
Chris Hall (01:10)
Exactly and then right about the same time we were like ready to roll out It was like I think fan duel just turned that little lever on and we were like, oh no, so Yeah, so that was that was a long time ago So well, so you have a really cool story and I mean, I'm sure that people who are watching this they saw your name So they clicked on it and they're gonna do it But for those that don't know, you know a little bit about you Tell us a little bit about your story because it's a really cool story
Rich Franklin (01:18)
There.
Yeah, I live in Cincinnati, grew up in the Midwest, lived all over this town, grew up in a poor environment, which at this point in my life, I've done enough traveling. I've been to 70 countries. I've been to developing nations and I've seen what real poverty looks like. So for me to talk about being poor in the United States, almost feel guilty even saying that, but no, just grew up in, we moved around a bunch as a kid. And so in this area, I grew up playing sports.
I wanted to be a professional football player, did not have the God given talent for that sport and ended up going to college. was the only child of my parents that decided to go to university and became a teacher. But all the meanwhile, I had been training in martial arts because most people that are familiar, at least am I familiar with me and my career will ask, how do you transition from being a math teacher to a professional fighter? And it's just one of those things where I had an opportunity to pursue a dream.
And any kid that growing up, like most boys that are growing up in the U S they, they dream about being a professional athlete. so when that option came about, I was in the fourth year of my teaching career had been, training through high school and college. And, and, so I seized an opportunity and that ended up being very successful and quite lucrative for me and, ⁓ retired from teaching and more years ago than I'd like to admit publicly on this forum. But, ⁓ but yeah. And then.
Eventually rose the ranks, became the middleweight champion for the UFC. And I've been working in the industry ever since. I've been with my current company, One Championship now 13, maybe going on 14 years, something like that, which is the longest I've ever been with one single employer. Even when I was with the UFC, I had a 10 year career with them. Technically was never employed by them. I was a subcontractor, but I just, you you have this life where you, bounce around a little bit. I only taught full time for four years and another part time for
three and a half or four years. this is now officially the longest I've ever been in a single place, Yeah.
Chris Hall (03:28)
That's awesome. Now I
have to find out, of course, like what position did you play when you played football?
Rich Franklin (03:33)
Left out. was left out of every single game. That's that's the God's honest truth for real. I was a late bloomer growing up. I graduated from high school. I was probably 100 and like 6 foot 157 pounds soaking wet and and then by about midway through my sophomore year of college. I remember coming back to one of my high school football games. I ran into my coach and he looked at me and he goes what the heck he said. You look like the guy that ate Rich Franklin would happen to you and so.
Chris Hall (03:35)
left out.
Rich Franklin (04:01)
Within about a year and a half of graduating, I went from about 157 pounds to about 200 pounds and just looked like a completely different human being. so, you know, and that was through a lot of weight training and my martial arts training that I was doing as well. And I just found like during all that training, had the ability to like, had a knack, I had a good learning curve for martial arts, but I just, a skillset there that was obviously I had a better,
better chances of becoming professional in a sport like that. And when I started training in martial arts, it was not my intention initially to become a professional fighter. I've just got into that when I was, as high school sports was fizzling out, I got into martial arts just as something to do as an activity because I'd been involved in athletics my entire life. And so my senior year when I was turning in my equipment for football at the end of the year, it finally dawned on me that this is the last time I'm gonna play this game because
I'm not going to get any offers from any colleges. So yeah, I didn't start a single game my senior year. I got a little bit of playing time here and there, enough to letter. But yeah, so I was a split in defensive end, on contained defense. I had a good understanding of the game, just, yeah, I could have used maybe another 70 pounds or so to play those positions. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Chris Hall (05:12)
Especially defensive end, yeah.
Did you wrestle in high school at all?
Rich Franklin (05:17)
Didn't actually and it's interesting the high school that I went to we had we had one of those we had one of those wrestling Coaches that when I was in high school, I remember looking at him Vance Reid He he looked like a ⁓ an action figure and I remember thinking like man when I'm that guy's age I want to be built like that So he made quite the impression on me We well, you know and that's the whole thing man, like I think that coach Reid had that effect on me But he came to me my junior year. I wasn't interested in wrestling at the time, which is just crazy given the
Chris Hall (05:32)
That's what you look like. You look like an action figure right now.
Rich Franklin (05:45)
the profession I decided to pursue. And I really wish that I would have wrestled for him for two reasons. Number one, he was a really good coach. And number two, I would have learned things for free in high school that I literally had to pay for later. so Coach Reed came to me and he said, look, quit this football nonsense. You need to come wrestle for me. He's like, I can build you into something. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. And I ran into him recently. I was at a funeral.
He's just one of those guys, he's a coach. So when he walked up to me, he put his hand on my shoulder, he's like, come here son. He's like, I need to introduce you to some people. And I'm just like, okay coach, what do need me to do? He has that effect on people, man. He's a good dude. But no, I never wrestled. He takes me over and introduced me to these people. He said, let me tell you about my greatest failure in life. This is Rich Franklin, said, not being able to convince him to wrestle for my high school team, because by reputation, the people that I'm being introduced to in my hometown know who I am.
Chris Hall (06:21)
Right.
Rich Franklin (06:38)
⁓ It just it's funny to hear him talk that way like this is my greatest failure I could could not get this kid to wrestle on my team
Chris Hall (06:42)
Right.
Yeah, one of the greatest MMA guys ever and he couldn't get it couldn't get you to wrestle in high school. That's great. Yeah.
Rich Franklin (06:50)
I just wasn't interested my junior year. I
was blinded by football. I grew up playing that sport since I was eight years old. And so that was my dream,
Chris Hall (06:58)
So, where you go to college at? University of Cincinnati, right?
Rich Franklin (07:02)
Yeah, UC grad. did my undergraduate and my graduate there as well. And they had a really good, at the time they had, it may have been the actually the highest ranking education program in the nation. They had a really good five year program there where you basically graduated with two bachelor's degrees and you were midway through your master's. So I was able to finish all my degrees then.
start teaching and then by my second year of teaching I had finished my master's degree as well. So when I decided a couple years later to leave the teaching profession and pursue professional fighting as a career, I at least had a good backup plan at that point in time that I actually when I left my school I tried to take a sabbatical and they laughed at me. They're we don't grant sabbaticals for fighting that's not how this works. And so we had a good laugh about that but
Chris Hall (07:44)
Ha ha!
Rich Franklin (07:47)
I thought, well, you know, I'll just take a year off and try this and maybe it'll be fun. But I could always come back to this career. So I could have always gone back to teaching if I, if I wanted to, I had that in my back pocket as a, as a backup plan. So it was a really intelligent way that I had kind of approached life at that point in time.
Chris Hall (08:03)
Now, so you were training like at a local dojo or a gym or something like that, and then it was just like, hey, do you want to go participate in this event? Is that kind of how that went?
Rich Franklin (08:11)
Yeah, you at that time you have to understand the history of mixed martial arts in the US. You know, the first UFC was the year that I graduated from high school, so nobody had ever seen. I didn't grow up watching this kind of fight and I was already training in martial arts, but you know I grew up in the 1980s generation where you had traditional martial arts, right? Like you know you were taking Kung Fu or Taekwondo or I was I was in. I was in Sean Rukarati.
Chris Hall (08:35)
karate.
Yeah.
Rich Franklin (08:36)
Yeah, that's
what was taking is a Okinawan based Okinawan Shorn Rokurati Matsubashi Ryo. And when I saw these fights, it just kind of opened my eyes. So then my training, I started to adapt my training because again, I got into martial arts to do to for something athletic to do, but also it was kind of a kill two birds with one stone mentality in the sense that I could keep myself athletic, but simultaneously learn how to defend myself in case I ever needed to fight.
And when I saw the first UFC, was just like, okay, learning how to fight on the ground, this is going to become important. And so then my training started just diversifying into all these other arts. started doing some jujitsu and then I started wrestling a little bit. And, ⁓ and then just really started to branch out from there. But we were at that time, there weren't tons of resources. you know, if you're familiar with the ranks in jujitsu, for example,
we didn't have any black belts here in Cincinnati. Like the thought of black belts outside of a city like maybe New York or LA or possibly Chicago was just pretty much unheard of. And so we had a blue belt here, which was in comparison at the time in 1995, that was a big, big deal. now it would be crazy to let a blue belt teach a class because everything's just leveled up, right? And so the resources that we had, particularly here in the Midwest to try to
Chris Hall (09:45)
Nah.
Rich Franklin (09:52)
As I think about it from this perspective now to break into that industry from a competitive perspective is crazy. It's crazy that we were actually capable of doing so. And Ohio's been quite a hotbed for MMA. The first generation of fighters that came out of Ohio, had Mark Coleman and Kevin Randleman and all those guys from Hammer House. They were tied to like Mark Kerr and
And you know, there was this group of guys that came and they kind of, think those guys kind of paved the way for Ohioans. And then I was touted as that first generation of true mixed martial artists, because at the time that that generation one was competing, was wrestling versus boxing or jujitsu versus kung fu or, know, it was, was, was art versus art. No. And so I was, I was my generation of fighters was referred to as that first generation of real mixed martial artists.
Chris Hall (10:32)
It wasn't mixed. Yeah.
Ahem.
Yeah. then so what do you know, what did you feel like was your biggest strength in mixed martial arts? And like, what was your like the one that you're like, man, I really needed to get better on that.
Rich Franklin (10:53)
Wrestling was my weak spot, truly. And there was a time when I looked at my jujitsu game and I had good stand up and I had good ground game. wrestling is key because wrestling is the linchpin that allows you to decide where you want the fight to be. If you're a really good wrestler and you want the fight to be on the ground, then you have the ability to put it there. Or if you're a really good wrestler and you want the fight to be standing up, you have the ability to either get back to your feet or stop it from going to the ground.
So for me, that could help you dictate where you wanted the match to be. So having good standup and good ground game, if I ran into somebody that was better than me at standup, well, I may not have the ability to get them down. So I had to make adjustments in my game. I think the strongest aspect of my game, honestly, and this will come to a surprise to a lot of people because they expect some sort of physicality is my brain because I'm a very strategic thinker. And so.
My standup was strong. That's where I started and and I relied on that physical aspect of my game But it was the way that I actually approached mentally I approached the sport thinking about what for example a chain is only as strong as its weakest link so when you're early in your career assessing the weakest link in your chain and Having that kind of mindset that is that is part of what? propelled me into success later on is Identifying like hey, here's where I'm lacking. Here's where I do well
strategizing in my fights, understanding those kinds of things, and also thinking about all the X factors, the other variables that people don't think about when it comes to competition. I can go in the gym and train hard, everybody trains hard, but when I speak to young kids, I say like, what makes you different than the kid you're wrestling this weekend at the meet? Like what makes you different? You've been in the gym training every day after school for two and a half hours. Guess what? So has he. So what makes you different? It's like, do you think he's going to bed on time every night? Is he out on Friday night with his buddies?
Is he possibly drinking? Is he eating junk food when he shouldn't be? Is he watching films when you could be watching films? Like what are your X-Factors? What are you doing that your competition's not doing? Because just training hard, it doesn't cut it. There has to be something above and beyond that. I think, you know, me being, having that, that left brain math mind, analytical mind, being a math teacher, like really helped me in my career to analyze like how to approach everything that I'm doing, like a
like a general that's going into war and unfolding a grand strategy. And I think that was my greatest tool.
Chris Hall (13:13)
Yeah, yeah, no. I mean, that's hitting me right here in the heart, man, because I think about, coach football. I coach a lot of kids. My kid's a senior this year. He's a national recruited long snapper, which is a very technical position. I just, oh, did you really? Oh, that's great. That's very cool. Yeah, I just think about the same thing you're saying is with all these kids I'm coaching, I'm like, man, are you?
Rich Franklin (13:28)
That long snapped actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chris Hall (13:38)
Like what are you doing when you're not on the field? Because like everybody's on the field, right? Everybody's in the gym for weight room class and stuff like that. But you know, I'm stunned at and again, I was very similar to I played college football at a smaller school. But like I remember, like I watched so much film that I could walk up to the line of scrimmage and go, the ball's coming right here. And you know, the quarterback would just look at you like, how do you know that, you know?
But I watched so much film that it just became second nature to pick every part, play a part, and know just by formation where they would be. And I'm stunned at these kids nowadays who consider themselves to be really good athletes who don't watch film. Everybody's on huddle right now. And so you can, as a coach, go in and check huddle and see how much kids are watching film. And I'm talking about people who are potential Division I athletes who have zero hours of film study.
Rich Franklin (14:24)
wow, okay.
Yeah, yeah. And the idea of thinking I'm that good because I mean, look, you understand how the game works. You play peewee football. There's this many kids and then it moves into like high school and then it moves into college and then it, you know, and then it moves into the pros and it keeps funneling and funneling. And don't get me wrong, there's always those generational talents that just can get away with being lazy athletes, so to speak. They don't have to put in that extra work. But those people, they're just yeah, they're far and few between man. And when you look at
Chris Hall (14:30)
like it's bananas, so.
I met a few of those guys.
Rich Franklin (14:57)
when you look at some of the goats of the game, guys like a Michael Jordan or a Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, I was listening to this interview about Peyton Manning. I can't remember who the player was. was a defensive player. And he was talking about how Peyton Manning would study so much that he knew the wife's names of all the players that were on the other side of the line of scrimmage. Yeah, and he'd be like, you know.
Chris Hall (15:15)
I've heard that.
Rich Franklin (15:18)
as he's calling the play and he'd be like, he'd be like, you know, down set. He's like, Tina burns, Tina burns. And this guy's like, why are you yelling my wife's name? Like, and he's like, just talk about how he's just like throwing people off and, and, how Peyton would do that kind of stuff. But you know, studying the game, studying your opposition, you know, that's on a weekly basis, man. So, you know, it's like, it takes time to do that kind of stuff, to be at that kind of level. and
Chris Hall (15:26)
Ha ha!
Right.
Rich Franklin (15:43)
It's those kind of things that may it's it's not just Peyton's ability to throw the ball obviously, but his ability to walk up to the line of scrimmage, understand what defense is there, know when to call the audible, what audible to call, psychological warfare with the lineman on the opposite side of the ball. All that stuff is key in becoming successful because I mean you're talking the NFL man. Everybody that makes it there. The good you're good. I don't care if I don't care if you got drafted and played a year in the NFL and was cut like.
You're an amazing athlete to be able to do that. That's the 1 % of the 1%. Exactly.
Chris Hall (16:12)
Yeah.
Elite elite now. Do you feel that same?
That's the same way that that has I mean probably in the beginning It wasn't that way in mixed martial arts, but I mean as time went along I'm assuming that more of the competitors now are in that same mindset where they have to do the extra they have to learn their opponent's weaknesses and You know study film and things like that
Rich Franklin (16:35)
I don't know that they do think that way. I meet young athletes all the time. They want to come in the gym and bang it out and hit hard and train hard. It's like, what films did you watch on this guy? I've had amateurs and low-level pros that I've worked with at the schools where I trained. I'm like, well, what film do you have on him? They're like, I don't have any film. like, well, why don't you have any film? Why aren't you watching film?
Chris Hall (16:38)
Okay.
Rich Franklin (16:58)
Why am I not your head coach? And I'm the first person that's saying like, where's the film on this guy? Let's look at it. And I had, I mean, I had coaches in my camp. Fortunately, my entire coaching staff was really good at breaking, breaking film down, you know, and when I started working with Matt Hume up in Seattle, he, he was so good at breaking film down that I even got to a point where I was like, I do not want to watch any more film, man. We would, we would spend an hour and a half breaking down a minute 45 fight.
Chris Hall (17:02)
Right? Right?
Rich Franklin (17:23)
And it's like this fight lasted a minute and 45 seconds and we've been watching it for an hour and a half. Like I'm good on film tonight, coach. Let's move on. And but then you you learn. You learn really quickly. You're looking for nuances and but that's the game. I'm not, you know, you're in I'm in a sport where I don't have to be the best fighter in the world. I just have to be a better fighter than the guy I'm facing on a given night. That's it. So I need to study that guy. And and you know, because things could change.
Chris Hall (17:23)
Right.
Rich Franklin (17:50)
Two weeks before the fight, he gets hurt and then I have a whole new opponent. And guess what? I got to erase that and redo all the stuff that I was doing because stylistically, the new person that I'm fighting might be completely different than what I was preparing for. So you can't just general prep for that stuff if you want to be at an elite level. In the TED talk I did, I used the 2012 men's speed skating, 500 meters men's speed skating event.
as an example of what it takes to be elite and how it's just micro differences because in that year, I can't remember the name of the three guys that won gold, silver and bronze, but in that year, all three skiers or all three skaters were from the Netherlands. They all skated for the same team. And the difference between first and second place was one one hundredth of a second. That is a slight break in concentration where you suddenly decided to turn your head because
Chris Hall (18:37)
Wow.
Rich Franklin (18:42)
something caught your attention in the stands or anything that minor can cost you a hundredth of a second. And the difference between first and third was 16 hundredths of a second. And first and third place were twin brothers or at least brothers. I think they were twins, but they were definitely brothers. So you had three guys skiing for the same country, the same team trained by the same coach. Two of them were brothers and the first and second place was only a hundredth of a second. And it's like, that's the difference between gold and silver in that sport.
Chris Hall (18:55)
my gosh.
Rich Franklin (19:10)
So the guy who got silver, he'd have to ask himself like, you know, did I have an itch on my nose that I felt like scratching mid race that messed up my stride or was there that one Friday night that I decided to have a beer instead of, you know, whatever, like whatever that thing was that could have cost him a hundredth of a second, he probably went home with that silver medal and identifying what that thing or those things could have been that cost him.
Chris Hall (19:18)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a bananas like when you think about those kinds of times. Yeah. So like one of the things that is a theme for you to is that, you're very entrepreneurial, right? So ⁓ when we were trying to do the the betting platform, we were trying to do that. I know that you had your own clothing line. ⁓ Right. Correct. American fighter. Yeah. And so like what?
Rich Franklin (19:44)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yep.
Chris Hall (19:57)
Like what takes you from like being a high school teacher and then you had the I'm assuming you you had a decent income. mean I know teachers don't get paid as much as they should for sure but then you like had to kind of scrap that and say you know I'm just gonna go take a chance on this and I can only imagine that MMA wasn't really paying that much at the time. So what like what drives a guy like you to go like hey listen I've got this great W2 job but I'm gonna go try this.
Rich Franklin (20:15)
No.
I, you know, so when I was my father's only child to graduate from college and my dad went back to university late in life, he's one of those guys that just barely graduated from high school and then woke up one day at like the age of 38 and said like, I don't wanna work in this chemical factory anymore. So he went back to university and it took him almost 10 years or something like that to.
graduate from college. He and I graduated, ⁓ I graduated both in 97 and 98 and my father and I graduated the same year. I can't remember which year it was, but essentially like we finished university at the same time. And he was so proud of me for, yeah, for having a college degree. So when you fast forward four years later, when I told him that I'm going to quit my profession that I just spent my entire life working for to go pursue a career in fighting, which
Chris Hall (20:56)
pretty cool.
Rich Franklin (21:09)
was in a sport that wasn't even fully established at the time. The idea of that was just crazy. in the young man's mind, and even when I look at it now at this age, looking back, I would look at my kid like, what are you crazy? Even the best fighters here, they don't even make that great of money. And even if you succeeded, it's like, what is this gonna get you? But I was just a young man who wanted to go conquer the world and climb my Mount Everest.
Chris Hall (21:21)
you
Rich Franklin (21:35)
The thought of money or I'm giving up this job, again, I had my degrees, I could always go back. So even if I spent a year or two years just pursuing a dream and it didn't pan out for me, I could have always gone back to teaching. And so in my mind as a young man, I'm like, well, why not take the chance? rather to have tried and failed than to have never tried, right? So I did that and fortunately the sport at that time
Chris Hall (21:41)
True. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Rich Franklin (22:02)
was poised and I was positioned in the right place because if you go back to that spot in history in MMA, you had senators like John McCain calling it human cock fighting. And that's how they saw this, just these brawl room brawlers, bar room brawlers that guys with tattoos on their head and shaved heads and just that stigma was attached to it. And then suddenly,
Chris Hall (22:15)
Brutal.
Rich Franklin (22:26)
you have this kind of boy next door high school teacher that you can market that, ⁓ is actually really talented in this sport. So I had this trifecta of variables that were necessary for success. I had the skill needed to win. I wasn't too hurtful on the eyes to look at for video, for interviews and I could speak fairly well. And these things are important. They're, they're, they're really important. And so I had, I was that perfect storm of what they needed at the time because
Chris Hall (22:45)
Right.
Rich Franklin (22:53)
they needed someone with some credibility that could present the sport well. And I fortunately did well for the UFC in that manner that I didn't need, I've never been formally media trained. I never really needed any real media training. And I think that I had a good fan base because I give quite a candid interview and people, when they listen to you speak, when you're very candid about things, then there's a likeability there.
because I'm just genuine in my interviews. If you ask me a question, I'm not sugarcoating or trying to hide anything or whatever. Just like, yeah, if I have some fears, I'm gonna talk to you about my fears. And I open up so the fans felt like they really, really got to know me. And it was all those things, plus the sport at that time was just positioned, and then it started to take off because I headlined, where my career took off was when I headlined, and most people forget this, this.
They don't forget the match, but they forget that it was the headliner of the finale of the first season of The Ultimate Fighter. Chuck and Randy coached, the teams fought each other, Stefan Bonner and God rest his soul, and Forrest Griffin had this epic, epic battle that was the co-main event to the point where the winner was gonna get a contract, but it was so epic that both of them ended up earning a contract. And then my fight followed that.
And my fight was a good fight with Ken Shamrock and it was the old lion passing the torch to the young like yeah and who was a household name.
Chris Hall (24:09)
Ooh, Ken Shamrock.
He's a local guy. He's from Northern California.
Rich Franklin (24:16)
Yeah, I love Ken man. Every interaction I've ever had with him has been been great. And so winning winning against Ken was a bittersweet for me because when I was watching the UFC in the first years in 93 through whatever, Ken was the guy that I rooted for because he was in that initial tranche of fighters. He was what I would consider the first mixed martial artist of that tranche, a shoot fighter who was practicing.
a bunch of different things. And he looked apart. looked like a Roman gladiator, right? Like walking out. So I always gravitated towards Ken and then, you get, you get to fight. I get to fight my hero one day basically. But that the UFC had had put themselves in a position where they were ready to take off. And that that event was at the Thomas and Max Center in UNLV out in Las Vegas. And it was on Spike TV. It was the first event that they had they had that was on a major cable network television.
station, not not pay-per-view. And it from that point on, it just the sport hit another stratosphere. So I went from I went from very quickly making very little money to making really good money. And I went from signing pieces of paper called progress reports that kids didn't want to take home to watching kids stand in line for four hours to get my my autograph on a different kind of piece of paper. And it was to see that happen to me.
overnight, like what seemingly felt like overnight was just an insane journey to have to go through.
Chris Hall (25:43)
Yeah. Now I know that like I don't know here is a good question. The movie Here Comes the Boom with Kevin James. Is that is that loosely based on you? Is that based on you? Did they did they have you consult on that movie? Like it feels like it's very like walk sort of side by side with your story.
Rich Franklin (25:56)
⁓
Yeah, you know, so now I mean, like, I'll just, I think you hit the nail on the head. And if you can watch that movie and, and not say that it was, that it was somewhat based on my life, then you would have a hard time making the case otherwise. So, but no, it was like Kevin and I know Kevin and Kevin and I were really good friends at the time. Still, I would still consider Kevin a friend, although we don't go back and forth very often, but
Chris Hall (26:03)
Did I just bring up something bad?
Rich Franklin (26:28)
⁓ But he's a guy and he actually had me in the movie. did a cameo that he turned into a speaking role and ended up getting cut from the movie because that wasn't the direction that they were going. But nonetheless, like, yeah, when I watched that movie, I'm like, really? Like, come on, you know, so. But, you know, I don't really care.
Chris Hall (26:45)
I do think it's like part of like the story is that you are such a likable character that they said let's make a movie about a likable character and it was so easy because you had already done it. You know what mean? That's why I think they were like, hey, we don't even have to write this stuff. It's just written.
Rich Franklin (26:58)
Yeah.
Well, so the interesting thing about that, now that you brought that up, is that there was a time where we had sold my life rights to a Hollywood writer for a script for them to actually do a movie on my life. And all this stuff, much like the sports betting that you and I were working on, it was a race on these things to see who could get what done first. And then once Here Comes the Boom came out, it kind of just fizzled my life rights movie.
But I remember that when I had given my life rights, and so I had sit downs with the writer for the movie, for the script, and I did interviews, a couple of my friends did interviews, coaches, whatever, my mom, and I learned in that process that you had to be careful about how candid you are in certain interviews because things can...
be portrayed in a way that is because they have the right to pretty much paint whatever picture they want when they own your life rights. And so as I was reading the treatment that was written up for this, I remember calling the writer and saying like, why are you writing this? I can understand there are certain things in a movie script that need to be altered because of things like timeline, for example. But otherwise, I don't understand why certain details were switched and
they had basically kind of collapsed my brothers all into one character. I have three brothers and they all became one character. And in the character that they created wasn't very favorable. And I remember thinking to myself, I'm going to have to explain to my brothers how this happened. And, and, and there was just other details. And I remember saying to the writer, said, man, my story is so interesting that you don't have to do this. Like you can literally write an accurate story.
Chris Hall (28:24)
⁓
Rich Franklin (28:45)
And if you gotta play, if you gotta finagle the timelines a little bit, understand that makes sense. But yeah, I was mortified. I thought like, man, I guess so much explaining to do to people because it's just gonna make certain things look certain ways. And so I was actually kind of glad that they didn't end up doing a movie on me anyway.
Chris Hall (29:00)
Did that ever come out that you said that fizzled out? Okay.
Rich Franklin (29:04)
Yeah, it just
fizzled out once once here come the boom came out it really kind of like Suppressed any any you know a movie came out about a teacher even though that one was technically fiction But a movie came out about a teacher who went on to fight in the ufc So we didn't need another one
Chris Hall (29:18)
Okay.
Okay. So now, you're so let's let's fast forward in your career. And you know, you've ⁓ you were the champion. And how many fights did you do as a champion?
Rich Franklin (29:30)
Four, I think. Three titles, titles, three titles, three time winner, yeah.
Chris Hall (29:32)
Yeah. Okay.
Okay. That's awesome. And then, so when you, when you did lose the belt, did you continue on after that or was that your retirement?
Rich Franklin (29:43)
No, I kept fighting. Fortunately for me, God blessed me with a current career where I maintained main event status my entire career. Once I lost the title, I was still always either a main event or a co-main event on the card. Because I was just, at that time I had garnered a reputation of it didn't matter whether I was champion or not. Fans knew that when they watched my fight that they were going to see a good fight. So for example, when...
Chris Hall (29:50)
you
Rich Franklin (30:04)
When they were doing, I can't remember what season it was, like Ultimate Fighter season 11 or 12 maybe. And it was Chuck and Tito were the coaches. And there was this huge rivalry between Chuck and Tito. They just did not like each other. Tito ends up getting hurt with about a week left in the filming of the Ultimate Fighter. So I get a call from Dana at the time. And I was in my kitchen cooking when I got the call. And he said, hey, he explained the situation. Tito's injured and we need somebody to step in. Now Chuck and I were friends and
the MMA industry, it's a small industry, you get to know people. And he says, will you be willing to fight Chuck? And I said, Chuck's my friend. I'm like, is Chuck willing to fight me? And Dana said, this is not an optimal situation, but Chuck understands that business is business, and so we need to do what we need to do to salvage this thing, and you're one of the few people that we can call that will put up pay-per-view numbers and sell tickets. And so I was like,
I was like, all right, if Chuck's cool with it, then we can fight. And so that ended up being at the time we set a record for like the fastest selling, like the fastest sold out arena. They put the tickets on sale and within like 11 minutes, the event was sold out. It was up in Vancouver. It was something, don't quote me on the time, but the point is that it was fast. And so there are moments like that in your career where you're like, oh, that's pretty cool that I was capable of my name and my reputation as a fighter, even though
Chris Hall (31:09)
Wow.
Yeah.
Rich Franklin (31:24)
even though was a non-title fight, that I was capable of doing something like that. The fans knew that when they bought a Rich Franklin pay-per-view that it was going to be a really good fight.
Chris Hall (31:34)
right there, we're see something special. Yeah. So what, at what point did you decide that you were like, hey, I liked doing this, but I think I'd like to do something else. Like what kind of went off in your brain that made you go like, I think I'm gonna move on.
Rich Franklin (31:36)
Yeah.
I, you know, as when you're in a sport like this, it's, it's difficult to consistently stay on top, like consistently. And so towards the tail end of my career, you I, I'm losing, you lose a fight and win fight or two, you lose a fight, win a fight, lose a fight. And I'm getting to a point where I was being utilized to fill into spots like the Chuck fight and other fights where I was like last minute replacement.
put here, moved from this card over to this card, moved up two more weeks so that I had two less weeks of training. And there was a point in my career where I told the organization, listen, I need to take some time to myself. And now I'm getting beyond my mid thirties. And so you can feel that your time is running out. You have very limited time. And then I get a call from the organization, like, hey, we need you to fill in for this match.
I can just remember just being so worn out. I walked into the gym on the first day and I was like.
two hours, let's go. And when you start a camp like that, that's, you're just assuring yourself loss. And so for me, fortunately, by the time that I was, by the time that I retired, I was mentally ready to leave the sport rather than physically being forced out of it and still, and not to say Chris, that I don't, I mean, I have days where I think about, I could, I could take another fight. That'd be cool. It'd be fun. You know, I'm still like,
I'm still in good shape and I'm older now, but, and, but, you know, it's like, I could do one more. That would be, it'd be fun. I miss it, but I wouldn't want to do it. You know, 24, three, you know, 24, seven, three 65. Like that's not, and so, but you know, know, old habits die hard. I'll still go to the gym sometimes and I spar and I'll grapple. And, but at the end of the day, I just, I was at a point where mentally I was ready to check out. Like I've, I've, I've had my fill and much of that is that now when I go into the gym and train, I train.
I have that, that true martial arts mentality where I'm sharpening the sword and today I want my sword to be sharper than it was yesterday. And tomorrow I want my sword to be sharper than it was today and so on and so forth. And when you have that kind of mentality, once I retired from my career, I was no longer training and thinking about how, like how, do I create a game plan to beat this guy rather than how do I make myself a better version of me? And I wasn't thinking about,
things like I need to win this fight because I'm up for contract renegotiation or I have a big sponsorship deal riding on this. Like all the business that is attached to the fight career. you know, it's like, I have the tiger, the song, Mr. Boberson, you trade your passion for glory. Like that's what ends up happening because the focus starts to become on the business aspect. So when I retired, I took some time away from training even. was just like, I'm good and
Chris Hall (34:16)
you
Rich Franklin (34:26)
I don't know how long that lasted, six, nine months. And then I got back in the gym one day and I started training and I thought, man, this is awesome. Like I'm back to square one now. I'm right back to where I started. I'm in the gym and just enjoying training because I want to be a better version of myself today than I was yesterday.
Chris Hall (34:41)
I love that. And then we touched on it for a second, but you as an entrepreneur, you started American Fighter. That brand, you started before your championship, correct?
Rich Franklin (34:51)
Yeah, actually the brand was started by my business partner, Jeff Adler. then he, actually I met him because I taught a seminar at his school and then he decided to sponsor me with the clothing brand, which was called Damagewear Inc. That was the actual business name. And then we were looking at the clothing and the t-shirts that he made and I was wearing the t-shirts. And I mean, at this time, this is pre UFC and I didn't love the t-shirts, but it was...
one of those things where it's like, I'll pay you a few hundred bucks to wear my t-shirt. And so this is the first sponsorship I ever got. And then as time progressed, I said to Jeff, said, Jeff, listen, man, I was like, these t-shirts, they're kind of, let's think of something better. So he and I collectively just, it seemed like overnight came up with the idea of this American fighter brand and that initial shirt we made had that stamp that looked like American pie, the movie stamp, like it had that same kind of font. And it was just us like,
ping ponging ideas back and forth off of each other on a 15 minute conversation and suddenly just popped. And so both of us contributed to that. And then from there, that brand was born and we built that brand into, into really a MMA brand that was fortunately at the time, the rules and your ability to wear your own stuff, because now the UFC has their merchandising deals where you have to wear the sponsored gear from Reebok or whoever the
the ongoing sponsors, but you could wear your own brands. And so my brand got a lot of exposure through me competing, which really helped. And so it helped grow that brand really quickly at the time.
Chris Hall (36:20)
You couldn't go anywhere like in a group of people. If there was a group of 30 people, one of them was wearing an American fighter shirt, like guaranteed.
Rich Franklin (36:27)
Yeah,
it's cool. The clothing line, we end up selling the clothing line to Affliction, the Affliction group of clothing. So they own several different brands and it wasn't a great deal. there was a whole backstory on that. I don't want to get into the drama of it, but nonetheless, it's pretty interesting now. When you walk into stores like Buckle, they still sell the brand. So sometimes I'll be walking.
down like in a mall or something, I'll see a guy that has an American fighter shirt on. And I'm like, that guy has no clue what that even means or where it came from or there's numbers on the shirt. Like those numbers have meaning to me because they're indicative of my life. the people that are wearing the clothing have no clue what any of that stuff means anymore. So, but it's kind of cool being like, yeah, I started that.
Chris Hall (37:02)
you
that. like in that
in like one of the cool things I thought about the American fighter brand was like it was like almost like wearing a tattoo. It was like very like you know I mean it felt like you were like a guy who would wear sleeves you know that's the kind of like the look that it kind of gave off and it was a very tough look but like you know like a guy like me you know at the time I was you know professional pharmaceutical rep.
You could wear that on a Friday night, but you didn't have sleeves and you could be still quote unquote professional. Well, it's nowadays you can be professional, but your whole body tattooed, you can still be considered professional. But at the time, ⁓ it was a nice segue for people who wanted to kind of just be a little bit tougher on the weekend or something like that. It was cool. I always liked that brand.
Rich Franklin (37:54)
Interestingly you The the word you use was tattoo because I actually ran into a fan that had my that had my picture like this Tattooed on his had tattooed on his leg with the American fighter logo underneath it and my signature Which was like the it's like man when somebody else has your tattoo on on like then you've made it and I remember when I saw it I looked like I said you do realize that's permanent right like it doesn't come off He's like, no, because I'm a big fan. I was like, that's awesome
Chris Hall (38:08)
That's cool.
Yeah.
If anybody listening knows who that guy is, I need that posted on Instagram with the healthy wealth experience tagged in it. Absolutely. have to see that.
Rich Franklin (38:30)
I have a picture. ran into him at, funny thing is I've run into him like twice, but I ran into him at the Cincinnati airport one time and he goes, you remember me? said, I know exactly who you are. I'm like, you got that tattoo. It's not took a picture of his leg. So I got a picture. I can, I can forge you over the picture. Yeah.
Chris Hall (38:45)
Yeah, please do. Yeah, we'll make sure to get that
on the Instagram, on the social medias. That'll be fun. So when you retired, obviously, did you have a role in the UFC at all or did you kind of go straight to one championship?
Rich Franklin (38:57)
No, I went straight to one. ⁓ the UFC told me, you know, there are several times where they said, Hey, when you retire, we will have something for you. And so when I retired, had gone down to Singapore to teach a seminar at a martial arts school. And I met the powers that be at one championship at that time. And they said, Hey, when you're done competing, if you'd be interested, we would be interested in hiring you to work for our organization. And I was like, yeah, I I would entertain that idea.
And so when I retired, it kind of became a bit more realistic. Well, the UFC had told me that they would have a job for me. And so I wanted to basically get their blessing if I was going to leave or just see if they had a job. so when I told them that had a job offer, they said, no, they didn't really have anything of meaning for me. And so they said, no, go ahead and go ahead and take the, take the role. And so I started working for one championship and I've been working for them ever since.
Chris Hall (39:45)
And for those that don't understand ⁓ one championship, can you kind of give us a synopsis on what that is?
Rich Franklin (39:51)
man, so largest sports media property, largest Asian sports media property in the world. we we're in, we do events on the other side of the planet. So we're based out of Singapore and we've done events in pretty much every major city on the other side of the planet, Middle East, all the way down through Asia. And we've had a couple of events here in the United States. And and so, but the nice thing about
one championship, like the differentiating factor. Number one is when it comes to MMA, we use a slightly different rule set than all the, pretty much any other organization on the planet. We use a whole different judging system. We don't judge with a 10 point must system like you do in boxing where each round one boxer gets a 10 and another boxer gets something less than a 10. It's the same kind of scoring system that they use and it's called the unified rule set.
And so there's that difference. And then we have a couple different rule differences. For example, we allow knees to head of grounded opponent. so on top of that, within the shows, we don't do just mixed martial arts. We do kickboxing, Muay Thai, some grappling. And so the show itself is actually a bunch of mixed martial arts. And I wasn't a fan of that at first. Like I thought to myself that if I come to an event and I want to watch MMA fights,
I'm here to see MMA fights. I could care less about a kickboxing match. But then after I saw how entertaining many of the matches were that we put on, became a fan of the formatting of our show really, really quickly. And so we do Muay Thai matches in the same four ounce gloves that we use for ⁓ MMA. So it makes for really exciting standup matches. the show itself is just, a much different format than some of the stuff you would see here in the US.
Chris Hall (41:23)
Yeah.
And then, but people in the US can watch it, correct?
Rich Franklin (41:30)
Yeah, we actually so each we have a we broadcast on prime every month. We have one Friday fights or one fight night on prime.
Chris Hall (41:41)
that's the one thing about the one championship stuff that I thought was like really cool is that you had other things. And I know that people kind of get locked in to like, hey, this is like what I'm here to watch. But like a perfect example, what you had said with the other things was like.
If you like football and you haven't seen an arena football game and you are missing out because that was so fun to watch. It's like watching hockey with football gear on it. It's explosive and fun and really kind of brutal in a way. So I feel like that's probably the same way you go to, you're like, I like MMA, but am I going to like Muay Thai? Yeah, you're going to like Muay Thai.
Rich Franklin (42:01)
Hmm.
Especially
the Muay Thai that we have because the more like I said, it's in the four ounce gloves So it when they walk out it looks like an MMA fight but there's no ground and and the level of striking the these guys that compete in Muay Thai on the other side of the planet like the level of striking is infinitely far beyond what it is in in MMA, it's crazy because that's all they do and so you see really clean entertaining fights with good striking and four ounce gloves, so the
Chris Hall (42:22)
Thank
Rich Franklin (42:48)
The stoppage rate is quite high as well.
Chris Hall (42:51)
Right,
right. And they're stopping him while they're standing up. That's got to be, that's some brutal hitting right there. Yeah.
Rich Franklin (42:55)
Mm-hmm. Yeah Yeah, I mean you'll
see you'll see guys you'll see guys get clipped with a combination and then as they're falling because some of these guys are so quick it's like you're falling down and you're getting you're getting caught with a with a with kick on the way down to the ground because the combination was just like pop pop pop pop and then they followed up with the kick as he's going out and it's like boom just like it just adds injury to insult Exactly. Exactly. It just it was already moving and so just it's like I said an insult injury there, you know
Chris Hall (43:14)
Yeah, but they can't let go of the kick because it's already in the combo.
So what's next for you?
Rich Franklin (43:24)
You know, I'm, with this company and I'd like what I do in, you know, I've been in this industry for man over 30 years now. And so I've built a lot of equity in this industry and, and I like what I do. And so I'll continue being here. My, my main role for one championship is building. I'm working with the regulations here in the United States with different athletic commissions. And so.
we, like I said, we use a different rule set. So with that comes all the, the regulatory aspects of the sport and working with those commissions on this side. So that's primarily what I handle for them. I do a little bit of commentary as well, which is enjoyable. I don't love prepping for the commentary cause it's a lot of work. It's a lot of film study going back to film study, but, but I do enjoy being on TV and, and, and talking about the fights.
But you have to prep if I want to sound like I know what I'm doing when I'm on the air, I have to prep for it. So but I do enjoy doing the commentary as well. And so I have a good I have a good thing going. I like where I am in life. don't I've I tell you, Chris, I've been grinding my whole life and I watch like many people on that will be watching this or any other podcast for that matter. You watch these guys who have accomplished amazing things in this world and they're just like grind, grind, grind like David Coggins, right?
And I'll just say this, like I've been grinding my entire life. And I'm at a point now where I understand the value, the true value of time. I'll tell a story to your listeners really quickly so that you don't think that life is all about grinding. During COVID, when all the travel bans were happening and all the weird rules and you could only have like three people to a house.
I don't even know what it was like here in the U S completely because I was over in Singapore, but Singapore was tough because it's a very small country. Singapore geographically is half the size of the greater Cincinnati area geographically. And so they, they had lockdowns when they called them circuit breakers over there. Cause it sounds more friendly to more euphemistic way of saying lockdown. And somehow I was able to maintain travel through all this. have videos of me.
where I was literally the only person in business class on a 737 or 747 that was carrying at most nine passengers. And it's crazy. And when I arrived in Singapore, I would be quarantined. So the government had commandeered these hotels and used them as quarantining facilities. And you had to do a two week quarantine. then you on the back end of the two week quarantine, you had to be tested for COVID.
Chris Hall (45:37)
Mm.
Rich Franklin (45:52)
And if you, if any antibodies or anything showed up, then you were quarantined for another two weeks. And this could end up happening perpetually. Fortunately I had two weeks and that was it. And so the last time that when I was still living in Singapore, I had made a trip to the United States and, and I had dinner with a friend of mine. We were supposed to get together a couple of times that didn't have time, but the last day that I was in town, he and I had dinner together, me and two other buddies, actually bill, one of them was bill and you know, and then it was, it was another good friend of mine and.
Chris Hall (46:16)
yeah, yeah.
Rich Franklin (46:19)
and my buddy mojo and so that was the last night I was in town and he said, Hey man, you know, I said, Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't have much time to get together these last two weeks. He's just, when I'm popping in and out of town and I got to make time for my mom and everything else. And he's like, that's okay. Don't worry about it, man. He said, look, when, when all this travel stuff ends and I can get to travel again, he said, I'll use some of my buddy passes and I'll come down to Singapore in a couple of minutes and visit you. I'm like, bro, that would be great. So I hop on my plane.
seven hours later in the morning and I fly to Asia and I get, I'm in my government quarantine facility. And then two days later, I'm on my second day of my quarantine and I get a call from Bill and he says, Hey, Mojo died. And I'm like, what? And so lo and behold, ended up, he's a few years younger than me. He was 42 years old at the time and he died of heart attack. And, and I'm sitting there and I'm just completely in disbelief. And I was sitting in this hotel room and I couldn't leave. I'm stuck there.
And I thought to myself, like, what am I doing? I can't, I can't get this two weeks of my life back. And I like, and my buddy just died and I turned 46 that year. My dad was 56 when he died of a heart attack. And I thought, I only have 10 years left on this planet. Truly like possibly like that's a possibility realistically. And if I knew that would I be sitting in this hotel room? I was like, absolutely not. So at that point time, I decided I'm moving home from Singapore and I want to get back to this side of the planet where I'm around my family and
Chris Hall (47:27)
Hmm.
Rich Franklin (47:38)
my friends and all the people that have been in my life. And so I moved back here. And since I've been back, don't get me wrong, I'm one of the most, like you can't, I'm 51, you can't be like, look like this physically and not be a regimented person. So I'm very regimented, but I've also learned that grinding, grinding, grinding costs you. My career as a successful athlete costs things. There is a cost associated with it.
And at the time, the cost was worth it to me. But as I get older and I look at my time, I appreciate being able to sit in a chair next to a plant like this and just, you know, just sit here and enjoy the sunshine that's in the background. when I get off, like literally when we're done here, I'm going outside and I'm rotating the tires on my truck. I'm not taking it to a shop. just like, I'm gonna jack this thing up and do it myself. Cause I just, need to get my fingers a little greasy today. Cause that's going to make me feel a little manlier. And, and so, you know, I've learned to.
Chris Hall (48:16)
Right.
Rich Franklin (48:32)
appreciate the downtime that I have. And that's the stage in life that I'm in. I work for a company. I want to do something meaningful for this company. I want to help grow this company and I want us to make a splash in the United States. And I want to be a big part of that. And I want that to be part of my legacy as well as the belts that I've won. And there's great projects that I've done for this company. I ran a travel show when I was living overseas. That was really fun project to manage. And I did a really good job with it with my team. I had an amazing team.
And I'm very proud of myself for doing that. I'm like, I'm as proud of myself for doing that as I was for winning a world title because I was doing something that was just completely out of my, I wouldn't say comfort zone, but out of my area of expertise and, and executed way above expectations. And, but now I'm like, I want to do meaningful things, but I also want to have this good balance in life where I can, I can appreciate my time and spend time with the people that I love that love me and that are important in my life.
And so that's the phase that I'm at. I'm not, I'm not hungry right now to start 15 different businesses and be working sun up to sun down and, barely have enough time to eat my meals. And I'm constantly eating and drinking my protein shakes while I'm driving down the road. Like that's my entire life. I like being able to sit at my kitchen table now and be like, you know what? I don't have to rush out the door. I'm going to sit and eat this meal and enjoy it. Cause I'm not, I'm not going to, I'm not going to slay 15 dragons at the same time. Yeah.
Chris Hall (49:27)
Yeah.
Right, right.
You know, it's it's it's so intuitive to what you're saying. I'm I'm 53. I'll be 54 in January. And so intuitive. What you're saying is that and I feel the same way. One of the reasons I started this podcast was because I'm a financial adviser and I deal with people's wealth all the time is what I had noticed was that people don't they don't pay attention to their health as much as they can or or or they're grinding, grinding, grinding, building wealth, building wealth.
but they're not building health. And then you get to a point where like, OK, I'm retired. It's like, OK, but you can barely move. It's like, oh, I want to travel the world. It's like you have a walker, you know what mean? Or you have a wheelchair. Because I mean, if you go to Europe, it's a million steps. You've got to be able to go up and down steps if you want to go to Europe. And so that was one of the reasons I wanted to put this together. Asia's the same way.
Rich Franklin (50:21)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
AC2
Yeah, I mean, it's just like things that are handicap friendly in many countries. I you have like cobblestone streets, much like in Europe that are not necessarily Walker wheelchair friendly and and many buildings don't have handicap ramps to get into. It's just not it's not a thing there. It's not not thought of the same way. so it's the same way. But I mean, that's what it boils down to is the quality of life that you have. And so I spend time investing
Like I'm at this point right now where I spend time investing in my company, doing meaningful things. I spend time investing in myself, which is a different kind of investment than I did when I was fighting professionally. And I spend time investing in other people. I started a Bible study at my house months ago now and I do one every other Thursday. It's a Bible study for men and I love doing it. And the amount of prep time that I put into that thing is ridiculous. And I'll have 20, 25 guys at my house every other Thursday. Had one last night.
And it's just, it's a really good time. And so I enjoy doing that, enjoy taking time out for the things in my life that I didn't have the time for when I was younger, because I was so busy running around that now I do. And you learn as you get older, you start to appreciate those things. But at the same time, like you said, you need to take care of yourself because if you're not investing in your wealth, the way that we age as human beings is like the last five years of your life will age exactly like the first five years.
When you look at a baby, a newborn baby doesn't look anything like that at say 30 days old. Like a 30 day old baby doesn't look anything like a one day old baby. And a six month old baby doesn't look anything like a 30 month, 30 day old baby. And a one year old baby doesn't look anything and so on and so forth until you get to about five. And then that trend starts to slow down a little bit. And it takes a little bit longer to see those major changes. But the back end of life is the same way, you know? And so it's like,
I'm not trying to live. I don't want to be Methuselah. I don't want to be the oldest man in the Bible. All I want is I want to just run across the finish line and collapse. I don't want to have to be carried across the finish line. And so I'm at this point now where I have the time and I can enjoy things. If I want to go to Europe, I could. I don't have that desire right now. I've done so much travel in my life. I'm good not getting on a plane. But I have the time now. So for example, when I went to the gym today,
Chris Hall (52:32)
You
Rich Franklin (52:54)
I went to the gym and worked out when I was done working out a friend of mine and I we got lunch together and there was no part of me that was rushing to be like, ⁓ I have this thing to do and I have that thing to do. had I had this anchored today that I needed to do. normally it's like, hey, can you get lunch today? Rich, it's like I can squeeze in 35 minutes, but man, we got to hurry. then it's like, yeah, it was good. It's good seeing you high five it out and maybe next time. And then I'm moving on to the next thing.
And in that situation, you never have the time to actually be present because you're always like, what's next, what's next, what's next. And I've just gotten to a point where I'm just like, I enjoy being present. And so, you know, I try to get myself to the point where I'm never, I shouldn't say never, but rarely rushing. like to, you know, I like to have the time to be in the moment that I'm in.
Chris Hall (53:29)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I think that to kind of just add to that, think it's so well said. But the addition that I would add to that is you're investing your time somehow, right? So what are you investing it in? Spirituality, health, fitness, wealth, those are all things. But I think it's like people talk about work-life balance. I want to rewind that and say, what are you building?
Like what's the building gonna look like when you're done? Because I think a lot of people are so busy putting bricks together that they don't have any idea what they're building. And then they get to the point where they built it and they step back and they go, I didn't want that at all. you know.
Rich Franklin (54:17)
Well,
not only that, because you're correct about that, but I found this in life is that I'm building like I'm building towards a retirement. there was a day where I retirement to me looked like my home here in Cincinnati and then a home in Costa Rica. And what retirement was, was my ability to be able to travel back and forth whenever I wanted. So I could go, you know, I'm going to jump on a plane and go down to Costa Rica. I'm there for the weekend and I come back home or
I decided to go down there for the next three months and then I come back home and I could just, you know, intermittently just decide whenever I wanted to go. And now that I'm at that point in time, I've gotten to, I'm getting close to that and I'm, and I think I don't, I have no reason to be in Costa Rica. That's not if, even if I had a clear vision of what I wanted to build and I was building towards that, I've gotten to the point now where similarly to the person that you were talking about,
We're like, this is not what I wanted. I'm like, well, that's not what I want because my desires have changed. And so I've just learned that, you know, I can have this amazing view behind me and I live in a fairly congested area, north of Cincinnati. And, but the, property that I have, feels like when you're on my property that you're on 50 acres. And, and I mean, I have, I have deer that come through my backyard every day, coyotes and just all this wildlife. And I got turtles in my pond back here.
Chris Hall (55:13)
Mm-hmm.
Nice.
Rich Franklin (55:34)
And just,
it's a, it's really, really cool. It's really cool. And I could sit on my Adirondack chairs. the weather's gorgeous today. Like we had, you know, it's getting to that time of year where our nice days are starting to run thin. And I think that's part of the reason why I felt like rotating my tires today. Cause I can be out in the warmth of the sun and enjoy it before it sets. but, but yeah, just to sit out on my chairs and be like, you know, I'm gonna drink a protein shake and I'm just going to sit here and enjoy nature for.
a half hour. And so you start realizing that the things that you enjoy, mean, go look at a guy like David Beckham now, he has like chickens and he plants and does farming and right. Like who would he, do you think the 25 year old version of him would have ever thought that that was what he would be interested in doing at this age? Right. And so as you get older, those desires change. And what I've found is that I, as I get older,
Chris Hall (56:14)
Right.
Rich Franklin (56:22)
I mean, for example, today, this I thought I had today. I have a 79 Bronco that I saved up for, you know, I bought this Bronco, really nice Bronco, and it's out in my garage. And today I walked out, I was just like, you know, I might end up selling this Bronco, because I just don't need it. You know, so I can drive it, I don't know, 15 days next summer or something, you know, whatever, like whatever I do, because it's a Sunday, you know, go get an ice cream kind of car. And I was like, I don't need a car like that. And so,
Chris Hall (56:36)
Yeah.
you
Rich Franklin (56:47)
then the money that it takes to buy that thing, it's like, I don't even need that money because I don't even want that item anymore. I'm just as happy sitting on my chair as watching a few deer cut through my yard. It brings me joy. So you just find that when you're hungry for that, for grinding, grinding, grinding, go make that money, go make that money. You got to build your empire. I'm like, by the time you get to living in that empire, you're going to realize that some of the things you thought that were important when you were 25, they're not that important.
Chris Hall (56:55)
Yeah.
Right? That's great advice. I love that. Now I have to ask you because you do look like an action figure. I know how many days a week do you work out? How long do you work out when you work out? And then like, what's kind of like the typical Rich Franklin diet?
Rich Franklin (57:13)
Thank you.
Okay. So the reason why I look the way that I do is probably 90 % nutrition. I have the mentality. This is what I people all the time. I'm not counting my steps. I could sit down all day long. I am what I consider, I'm a lion. So you watch a lion in the Serengeti and the lion just kind of chills like this all day. Like, I'm just chilling. And then he's so lazy that he lets his women do the hunting for him, right?
Chris Hall (57:46)
you
Rich Franklin (57:50)
until they can't make the kill. And then finally, he's like, he's like, okay, hold on. Let me just get up and be king of the jungle for a second. So he goes and he makes his kill, takes him however many minutes he eats, and then he goes back to laying down. And that's the life of a lion. And so the lion is the lion when he needs to be. And so for me, I'll go into the gym and I grind. When I'm at the gym, like I work hard, really hard. But then I come home and I'm like,
I don't need to work hard because I just I was at the gym today for an hour and 15 minutes or hour and 20 takes me a little bit longer now because it takes me longer to get warmed up but you know I'm there and it's like so I spend 15 minutes on my warm-up five on my cool down and it's an hour I'm just on it and so I'll lift three days a week I grapple two days a week my grappling is primarily anymore it's a it's a lot of drilling and I use it primarily for dexterity just to make sure that my body can continue moving that way
the same way that people use yoga for flexibility. cause you know, we'll warm up like we warm up. And before when I'm warming up to getting ready for jujitsu, like I'm doing cartwheels. I half of my, half of my friends that are half my age can't, can't do a cartwheel, let alone any of the guys that are my age. So you start, know, you're doing cartwheels and somersaults and front rolls and back rolls and, these things, like as you get older, they become more more important. So that's the primary use for that. I have bags down in my basement.
Chris Hall (58:43)
Absolutely.
Rich Franklin (59:07)
And so I might do bag work once, maybe twice a week. And then occasionally, for whatever reason, old habits die hard. And I just want to go into the gym and beat up on some guys that are half my age. I don't know. Maybe it makes me feel feel better about being 50. I don't know. But but no, I mean, for what I do, I do love sparring and stuff. So and then I will I'll go in. I'll go in and do that occasionally. Just it's fun. And I'll kidnap side. I do like working with some of these younger guys.
Chris Hall (59:20)
Ha ha ha ha!
Rich Franklin (59:32)
And I'll tell you, like I can, I can feel the torch is passing, right? Like it's like, can feel that torch is passing. you know, I have three strength days a week where I'm getting resistance exercise in a couple light days where I'm grappling and primarily dexterity. My wind might get up a little bit, but not much. And then I usually push my cardio, um, two, maybe three times a week at about 45 minutes of bag work in. And I do that primarily because I love it. Like I like doing that kind of stuff. My nutrition on the other hand is very strict. Um,
Chris Hall (59:56)
Right. Right.
Rich Franklin (1:00:00)
you know, if you keep talking to me, I'm going to be let pass due for a meal. So, I'm saying that kiddingly, but I'm, I'm two meals deep today. I really am due for a third meal here. I'll probably hit a protein shake when, when we're done. But, I had some, some ground beef this morning with a little bit of mustard, no carbohydrates. And my, then I had a 20 ounce rabbi for lunch with no butter, just salt and pepper and a plain baked sweet potato.
Chris Hall (1:00:20)
Mm.
Rich Franklin (1:00:24)
Probably for my next meal if I don't do a protein shake I'll end up doing a little bit of white rice with some lean ground beef mixed with an avocado and I'll put a little lemon juice and sea salt in that and so the point is is that I keep track of the amount like there's a certain amount of protein that I want to hit in a day and that's based off of my my desired muscle mass on my body and and you know then the carbohydrates so if you if you want to maintain leanness
Chris Hall (1:00:44)
Mm-hmm.
Rich Franklin (1:00:49)
It really boils down to carbohydrate manipulation. So on days where I expend more energy or I work out harder, I'll eat more carbs. And on days where I'm a bit more sedentary, carb is a fuel food and I eat less of it. And so, yeah, and then I'm probably eating about 4,200 calories a day. In order to maintain this, like I have to eat calories, proper calories. So I don't need things like Doritos or drink sodas. I've probably in my life, in the last decade, I probably had like
Chris Hall (1:00:59)
you
Rich Franklin (1:01:16)
two legit sodas. And I would, I can't 100 % verify this, but I would say that they were more than likely like root beers or part of a root beer float or something on a cheat day. And yeah, and so, and the amount of junk food that I allow myself anymore is quite limited and it's usually clean. Like I'm the kind of guy that's like, I'm craving something sweet today. And I'll be like, you know what? I'm gonna go to the store and get some fresh mango. That sounds really good. And that, you know, don't need like a hostess snack or a
Chris Hall (1:01:38)
Yeah.
Rich Franklin (1:01:43)
piece of tiramisu, like a nicer dessert or anything. Like typically I could just eat a little bit of fruit and that satiates me. So yeah, I keep my nutrition really clean and that's what helps me keep my body fat in single digits.
Chris Hall (1:01:54)
Yeah. Well, I mean, we're, definitely have talked for more than an hour and I would be respectful of your time. And I want you to get that protein shake, but I have one more question that I have to ask you. So when it comes to the carb, I appreciate it. so my, the one thing that you used when you're talking about nutrition and fighting and grappling and all things like that, the one thing I never seem to be able to find a good answer on, you know, you're, you're fighting at an elite level when you're fighting, right?
Rich Franklin (1:02:03)
Go ahead, hey listen, I'm not in a rush man. I'm literally, I'm just being somewhat playful.
Chris Hall (1:02:22)
I mean, if you've never gotten on the ground with somebody for like half of a minute, like you have no idea what three minutes on the ground looks like, it is grueling. And ⁓ so what do you eat before a match and how soon before? Like in other words, do you load up on carbohydrates but you do it like six hours before, three hours before? Like what do you do to prepare your body nutritionally?
for a match if you have a match like at seven o'clock at night, what's that look like?
Rich Franklin (1:02:51)
Yeah,
I mean, I just eat normal, whatever I normally eat during the day. so carbohydrates are part of my, my breakdown, I probably, if I were to break down my nutrition, because I don't weigh things out, but I have this rough estimate. When I go to eat at a restaurant, for example, when I go in, I don't look at the menu and I'm like, give me the number three, that sounds good. That's not how it works for me. I'm like, okay, hold on. I can get, so they have steak, but that steak comes with mashed potatoes. But I saw over here that this has steamed rice with it. So I'm going see if I can substitute the steamed rice in.
Chris Hall (1:03:10)
you
Rich Franklin (1:03:19)
And I'm piece meowing things together because in my head I'm going I need this much protein, this much carbon, this much fat right now. And that'll vary. It just. Yeah, I do. You know, it's funny, like I have friends that will test me like, OK, man, on your food scale in your kitchen, because I don't ever use it anymore, they'll be like, put eight ounces of ground beef in the food in the bowl and let's see how close you are. it'll be like and they'll they'll they'll look at it be like seven point nine ounces. They're like, it's like, how do you do that? I'm like, because I've been doing it for years. Right. So.
Chris Hall (1:03:25)
You gotta memorize. You know what that looks like on a plate.
right.
Rich Franklin (1:03:46)
you roughly know and you don't have to be that strict. The reality is that if you're working out a little bit and you're eating nutrient dense foods, you just eat until you're full. Like I eat until I'm full and then, know, and I'm so accustomed to eating food all the time that it takes quite a bit of food to fill me. And so when it comes to competition for me, it doesn't really matter if I, so when I was in high school, we had the sponsors of the high school team that would make us a pasta dinner.
every Friday before the game. we would load up on all this pasta, which I guess kind of helps because Friday night football games, they're, you know, they're two hours long. I have a match that lasts 25 minutes. I can barely burn through all my, you know, all my, all my sugar, my blood glucose and, and whatever reserves I have, like I can barely burn through that in 25 minutes.
When it realistically, mean, I will eat carbohydrates. Don't get me wrong. But I'm just saying like, it's not going to make that much of a difference because I'm not a marathon runner who's going to be just out putting for the next two plus hours. but a typical meal for me would just be whatever I normally. And so a little bit of rice, a little bit of ground beef, throw a little bit of avocado in there and make sure, you know, some lemon juice and sea salt and make sure that I'm eating that far enough ahead of my competition that my body has had time to digest it.
so that I'm not getting that heaviness in my gut. Because you know, like if I'm grappling and like somebody throws my legs over my head and my diaphragm is all compressed, my ability to breathe and it's like, oh my God, this heaviness in my stomach, because it's full of food. You don't want that feeling. So it's just about making sure that I eat with enough time prior to my competition, that it feels like it's gone through my body. And for me, if I've eaten 45 minutes before a competition, because it's no different than when I'm going to the gym.
Chris Hall (1:05:06)
Right.
Yeah.
Rich Franklin (1:05:30)
If I go to, I went to the gym today and I just made sure that I was done eating my meal with about 45 minutes ahead of the time of the gym so that I don't have a bunch of food in my stomach when I'm in the gym trying to move weight and run up and down a turf pushing sleds.
Chris Hall (1:05:42)
Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I know my son, usually eats like blueberries or strawberries or pineapple or something about two hours before, you know, he actually is competing. Just try to get a little more sugar in the system or whatever. But like in football.
Rich Franklin (1:05:55)
I would say,
I would say that's probably too soon because his body's already metabolized it and it's either it's either utilized it for energy or like started started storing it at that point in time. So like what I would do like if he's if he's gonna if he's going to want sugar for football like dates or or honey and man I would just like 10 minutes before he's about to go on the field just hit that honey because it's straight glucose and it goes straight to the bloodstream. Now and I would just
Chris Hall (1:06:05)
Okay.
great advice.
Rich Franklin (1:06:21)
I would hit one of those a quarter maybe like that's.
Chris Hall (1:06:23)
I noticed like, know,
in a lot of these, like, I noticed a lot of teams, like not our team does it too, but a lot of teams, like at halftime, they're eating like the little peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, like at halftime. Cause it's like just sugar, you know?
Rich Franklin (1:06:34)
Yeah, exactly. Because that's,
I mean, really that's it. It's like, you know, you should, you should have enough sugar in your system for that, for, you know, the first quarter or the first half. Uh, if you wanted to hit like some honey beforehand to give you a little amp, great. But what happens, like you go into halftime and you got that 15 minute law, right? Or 20 or whatever it is in high school. And, and then, so it's like, well, you know, I'm going to need a little, little pick me up, pick me up on the backend. And so I'm going to eat this peanut butter and jelly.
If you really just want to pick me up, all you need is the sugar. The peanut butter's just gonna be heaviness during the game. But yeah, I could be down with a protocol like that as well.
Chris Hall (1:07:09)
Well, I really appreciate your time. I've had such a good time talking to you. I'd to do it again. I will put in the show notes the next Amazon Prime One Championship fight. I'll make that in the show notes and if there's a link directly to that, we can get that linked in there. And I'll also link to One Championship so people can check that out. ⁓ Is there any other things that you would like me to direct people to, ways to get a hold of you or anybody else?
Rich Franklin (1:07:30)
Awesome.
My Instagram handle is Richace Franklin. You just look up Rich Franklin. I do Instagram and I do Facebook and that's about it. And I'm not super active anyway so you know like you'll get the occasional thing here and there but I'm really I'm much more fun person than I am online I'll put it that way. Dude it's just I always tell people man I'm too busy doing the fun crap in life that other people are posting about. It's like I was too busy doing that thing.
Chris Hall (1:07:51)
You are fun in person, that's for sure.
You right?
Rich Franklin (1:08:00)
You posted a picture of the Grand Canyon? Yeah, because I was walking through it at the time. were too busy taking a photo and you never got to walk through it. So I'm just, I'm that guy. Yeah. So, but no, I'm not telling anything. I'm just here for a good time, Chris.
Chris Hall (1:08:04)
Right.
Enjoying life.
Thank you, Rich. I appreciate you being on the show. And ⁓ I just really enjoy the talk we had today. And again, I definitely want to do this again. So once we get maybe some sort of event for one championship, where we can maybe help promote you cross promotion or something like that, that'd be great.
Rich Franklin (1:08:31)
Hey, the fortunate thing is you know how to get a hold of me, so you know where I'm at. Cool? Yep.
Chris Hall (1:08:33)
Yeah, that's helpful. So all right. Thank you so much for your time. And thank
you all for listening. And please make sure you know the drill, like, comment, share. That helps us with the algorithm. It helps us get our reach out and we can help more people. So thank you all for listening. Have a great day.