Joey Diaz is very funny Cuban-American stand up comedian. Over the years we got the chance to watch him in some recurring roles including in the series My name is Earl and movies such as The Longest Yard and Taxi. But even though he is a good friend of both Joe Rogan and Eddie Bravo he wasn’t always able to come out and say he’s started doing bjj.
Since he has become a blue belt his passion and humbleness has been widely documented but this time he chose to share just how he started his bjj journey.
He got promoted to the rank of blue belt by Alberto Crane.
That first trip to the dojo, was it Joe’s influence that got Joey to try bjj?
“I did it on my own.” – Diaz says adding ” I was too embarrassed to tell anyone about it. Then a couple years ago I got to 480 pounds and I knew I had to do something so I went to the Y at like off hours so nobody would see me f**king working out and s*it. But then I moved to the valley so I joined the kickboxing school and UFC had really kicked in and I’m getting all these f**king kids that grease their hair and do steroids and kick the shit out of me and I go: “Are you a fighter??” and they go “NO, I’m a fireman” then why are you f**king me up like this? And I went home and I’m like what am I a p**sy? “
And what really got him to take his fitness seriously is the possibility that he could get jumped while out with his daughter:
“What if I’m with my daughter and somebody jumps me and I’m on the floor and I can’t f**king breathe. No. I’m going back. So for 6 months I went back and I didn’t tell nobody I was terrible. “
He’s still quite humble about bjj
“Listen man, I’m still f**king terrible but guess what? I was terrible when I was doing comedy for the first 5 years, it’s something you have to hang with. Just keep showing up. You know you’re gonna get beat up .. but at the end you’re gonna f**king have something that nobody else is going to have the experience.”
And as for what’s a typical class for him:
“I sit in the back huffin’ and puffin’, my suit don’t fit, my pants fall off, but I keep f**king going and that’s it. “
You can watch the entire interview of Joey CoCo Diaz talking to Hot Ones below.
