The Game Changers

So he stabs, I step in in the same way.

Now my hand slides down. And where are we at?

I've been teaching fighting techniques

To government agencies for more than 15 years.

Including the U.S. Marines, U.S. Marshals,

U.S. Swat teams, and U.S. Navy seals.

He's gonna stab me. I go here and then I go here.

And then I could go here, or here.

Nearly, all the techniques I teach

Are banned in the sport of mixed martial arts.

I can control the direction

Of the muzzle. You guys see that?

These are some of the most effective

And damaging moves you could use

In a real life situation. Be it in self-defense...

If I'm here.

- ...On the street... - I twist you round

And I, then I knee.

...Or in war.

Straight into the trachea.

Now you're gonna knee. Step back and then rip.

And the gun comes out. Good.

This is life or death for these guys.

And I'm honored to share this knowledge.

let's see your muscles, James. Let's see your muscles.

- oh, yes! - go on, do it again.

And again! That's right.

that's it. Power.

James, he was a very lively child.

Quite hard to control.

James!

his teacher said to us,

I'm finding it difficult to cope with him

Because he is so, um, not aggressive,

He is so...

- Lively, really. - ...Lively. Yes.

I think that's probably the better word.

So I took him to one of the training sessions

Of kyokushinkai,

Which is a very hard style of karate.

It's a bit more controlled and structured.

It calmed him down.

From then on, he took the karate to heart.

Bruce lee was his hero as a child.

And he had big posters in his bedroom.

Like a lot of boys,

I dreamed about becoming a kung fu master

Who could fight off bad guys in any situation.

but when I was a teenager,

I got attacked on the street and beaten up,

Coming face to face with the reality

That all those choreographed karate routines

I'd spent years practicing, were completely useless.

Then I found out that the same thing

Happened to Bruce lee when he was my age,

Launching him on a quest, the search for truth in combat.

Lee went on to study a wide range of martial arts,

Taking only the best parts of each discipline.

His philosophy was simple.

Research your own experience,

Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless,

Add what is specifically your own.

armed with this philosophy,

I vowed to follow in lee's footsteps.

Fifteen years and five black belts later,

I was given the opportunity to put my training to the test.

- oh, good combination by Wilks! - -good combination!

Johnson trying to fight back though!

Nice knees by Wilks!

- Johnson is in trouble early. - -Wilks is attacking.

One hook in and he's got the choke.

He's got one arm across.

- The hand! - he's up and around now.

- He's gonna tap! - It's all over!

- It's unbelievable. - James Wilks

Is the ultimate fighter.

With seconds to go!

Outstanding performance by James Wilks!

James Wilks from Leicester, England

Is the ultimate fighter.

Then, I got injured.

I was sparring with a future heavyweight champion

And tore ligaments in both of my knees.

Unable to teach or train for at least six months,

I spent more than a thousand hours

Studying peer reviewed science on recovery and nutrition.

Looking for any advantage I could find

To get back on track as quickly as possible.

That's when I stumbled across a study

About the roman gladiators.

the gladiator graveyard

From Ephesus is the only one

With a significant number of individuals buried there.

Archaeologists recovered

The remains of at least 68 gladiators.

There have been more than 5,000 bones

Analyzed for the study.

We found in the cross section of the bone,

Very high bone mineral density,

Which indicated intense training and high quality diet

To build up strong muscles and strong bones.

This diet gave the gladiators a nickname, hordearii,

Which means beans and barley muncher.

We know different food sources give different amounts

Of strontium in the bones.

High strontium levels in vegetarians.

Low strontium levels in carnivores.

If there is low strontium in the sample

The flame will stay blue.

If there is high strontium levels,

It will change from blue to red.

The gladiators were predominantly vegetarian.

This totally blew my mind.

The gladiators were highly prized fighters

Who got the most advanced training

And medical care in the roman empire.

To think that the original professional fighters

Ate mainly plants went against everything

I'd been taught about nutrition.

and now, ladies and gentlemen,

The one and only, superman.

James, does superman eat meat?

- Yes. - He does?

- Yeah. - Oh.

Could you tell us what sort of foods you eat

At teatime when you come home?

Nearly the same as dinner but egg and...

Lamb chop.

Do you think all the other children

Should eat those sort of foods?

Yes!

- In order to get strong. - Hmm.

"the notorious" Conor McGregor.

Even in the UFC,

This idea, that meat makes you tough

Had become a focal point

For one of the most anticipated fights

In the history of the sport between Conor McGregor,

The world champion in two different weight classes

And Nate Diaz,

Who accepted the fight with only 11 days' notice,

After McGregor's original opponent pulled out.

McGregor was a big meat eater.

It's steaks every day for me. Steaks for breakfast,

Steaks for lunch, steaks for brunch.

Grass fed, massaged beef, all day long.

Diaz was on a plant based diet.

eat your vegetables.

And McGregor had a field day with it.

This man, let's see, let's see, can he fight.

I'm a lion in there.

Your little gazelle friends are gonna be staring

Through the cage looking at your carcass

Getting eaten alive.

McGregor was just feeding off a stereotype

That was pretty much universal.

You hit like a vegetarian.

I was curious to find out

If there were any other elite athletes following

A plant-based diet.

The first I found was Scott Jurek,

One of the greatest ultra-runners of all time.

Scott built his career running extreme distances

Over brutal terrain,

Conquering the sport's most prestigious races,

Including the badwater ultra-marathon,

A 135 miles through California's Death Valley,

With temperatures reaching a 130 degrees.

I was training for the western states

One hundred mile race

The super bowl of ultra marathon racing.

And that's when I was transitioning

To a plant-based diet.

I remember doubting myself,

Even up to a week before the race, like,

"maybe I should have eaten meat."

But I led that race from start to finish,

And won it for seven years in a row,

And there was no question

That the plant-based diet was fueling my victories.

When I met Scott, he was gearing up

For the greatest challenge of his career.

- ...Inviting me over. - When I'm moving,

I'm definitely gonna be eating.

Having already mastered single-day endurance events,