Ryan Bader: I Knocked Out Fedor in 35 Seconds, The Wrestling Mindset & Brutal Weight Cuts

What happens when a two-division MMA champion who played Mark Coleman in The Smashing Machine sits down to talk about wrestling mindset, brutal weight cuts, and fighting Fedor twice? This week on The AJ Buckley Show, AJ sits down with Ryan "Darth" Bader, the former Bellator Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight Champion whose journey from small-town Idaho to fighting legends in Japan is packed with wisdom about discipline, competition, and what it means to push through pain when everything is on the line.

Ryan opens up about growing up in St. Mary's, Idaho, moving to Reno at a young age, and working construction with his dad and grandpa every summer starting at seven years old. He shares the story of his father's go go go mentality, never sitting still, always building something or hunting or fishing, and how that work ethic shaped everything he became. Ryan talks about falling into wrestling at seven years old, the love hate relationship with the sport, and why he loved that there was nobody to blame but yourself when you lost.

AJ and Ryan dive deep into the wrestling mindset, the mental fortitude it takes to cut weight every single week in high school and college, and why that generation of wrestlers like Chad Mendes and Cain Velasquez came into MMA with a different type of grit. Ryan reflects on his time at Arizona State University, training alongside Cain Velasquez who was the heavyweight on the team, and watching four guys from that one squad end up in the UFC. He talks about Cain's unbelievable gas tank, the pressure he brought in every fight, and the heartbreaking story of what happened with his son and why Cain is still in prison fighting for parole.

Ryan walks AJ through the moment after college when he realized he still needed competition, working a desk job for four months and knowing he couldn't do it, and the decision to start training MMA. He shares the story of his first fight on the res with Tommy Morrison as the main event, throwing punches and manhandling a guy at 185 pounds, and walking out thinking he was the greatest fighter in the world. Ryan also opens up about fighting in a bullfighting ring in Mexico, getting on The Ultimate Fighter with a video submission, and the moment CB Dalloway put in a good word that changed his life.

Then comes the Fedor story. Ryan walks AJ through the pressure of fighting Fedor in the finals of the heavyweight Grand Prix, sitting in the cage for 10 minutes during the Russian and American national anthems, and