Issue 133
October 2015
Bryan Callen discusses his bromance with Brendan Schaub and what makes The Fighter & The Kid podcast so successful
The Fighter & The Kid is one of the web’s biggest podcasts. Its MMA-flavored content and variety of guests mixed with the ironic, sometimes ridiculous and always entertaining conversations between comedian Bryan Callen and UFC’s Brendan Schaub have made it an internet phenomenon.
Bryan Callen
Leading Man
“I’m a dirty talking comedian and he’s a cage fighter. That’s a strange combination,” Callen tells FO, as he tries to explain the show’s success. “But we speak the same language and we crack each other up. The goal is to only do and say what makes us laugh and only to talk about what’s interesting to us.
“I was the one who came to Brendan after interviewing him for my podcast, The Bryan Callen Show. It was me, him and Joe Rogan. Brendan had Joe and I laughing our asses off and I was like, ‘This guy’s a fighter and he has two professional comedians in their 40s, who’ve been doing standup forever, laughing their ass off. What’s going on here?’”
The 48-year-old realized the way their personalities bounced off each other could be the footing needed to create a hit podcast and take the internet by storm. The folks at Fox Sports agreed and gave their show a home.
“We’re different but similar enough to create something worth listening to, that’s the idea. It’s chemistry. The show wouldn’t work without either one of us. We do try to be as honest as possible. About who we are, about how we feel and you can’t be afraid to look stupid.”
Before ‘The Kid’ built his career on stage and as an actor on the big and small screen, he wanted to be a tough guy. Not the cigar-smoking mobster type, nor the whisky-sipping bar-brawler type. He wanted the athletic toughness you see in the Octagon. But when he knew that dream wasn’t realistic, he jumped into standup, which, in some ways, requires cojones just as large as a fighter’s.
“I was always interested in making people laugh and I always wanted to be a tough guy, and because I wasn’t a tough guy I had to make people laugh. I’ve always admired fighters and I’ve always wanted to be a fighter myself,” he says. “I started karate and wrestling and judo and all that stuff and if anything I learned how tough I wasn’t. And I just ended up making fun of myself, I guess, and that’s kind of how it happened.”
He’s not the only one. Callen’s close friends, Joe Rogan and Schaub, also love to poke fun at him, especially when the subject turns to the ‘prestigious’ taekwondo national tournament he claims to have won in his youth. But when FO asks him about his appearance at ‘Master Kim’s Taekwondo Championships’ he can’t wait to elaborate.
“I’d be happy to tell you a little bit about that,” he says enthusiastically. “It was the American Taekwondo Championships, Iowa, 1984, and I won in the black belt division
“It was full contact. You could kick to the head, you could punch in the face and, yes, I won. That’s right, I have a gold medal somewhere. I can’t find the gold medal, there’s no record of it on Google. But just know, my front kick and my back kick are nothing to be messed with, even now I’m 48.”
You could be forgiven for taking this with a pinch of salt, like Rogan and Schaub do, but video evidence has surfaced of Callen executing a beautiful spinning back-kick, so perhaps his claims of martial arts expertise aren’t as far-fetched as they first appear.
But there’s one set of skills that all three personalities undeniably share. Earned through years of defending against the dangers of the fairer sex, ‘The Fighter,’ ‘The Kid’ and Rogan all possess ‘chicken head’ black belts, which makes them adept at spotting ‘crazy’ women.
And if you want to learn the secrets of this ancient art, there’s only one way. “You have to take my workshop,” Callen jokes. “It will probably cost you about $3,500 – it’s a lot of hands-on work. I teach exactly what to avoid and how to read signs called ‘crazy.’ When you’re chasing skirt you gotta know who you’re dealing with, who’s crazy and who’s not crazy. If you can figure that out you’ll have a good life.”
The asking price may be a bit rich for your blood, but there’s still plenty of wisdom to be downloaded each and every week.
Fighting disciple
Old-school MMA fanatic
Despite fulfilling the funnyman half of the MMA-comedy combination on The Fighter & The Kid, Callen knows combat sports. He’s been a follower for as long as the UFC has been around and continues to revel in the weekly drama.
“You can never stop evolving in this sport because there’s always some killer coming along,” he says. “If you have any doubts about that, ask Cain Velasquez. How’s he going to solve that big problem called Fabricio Werdum?
“You take a couple of years off, man, there’s killers waiting in the wings. It’s just an unforgiving sport.
“But it’s entertaining, I love to watch Nick Diaz because he’s a fighter through and through. If you tell him to watch out for that left hook, he’s not going to watch out for it. He will eat it and come back with his own. That’s what I love about him.
“My favorite fight was probably Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson. I was cageside and it was mindblowing to watch Gustafsson shock everybody.”
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