Daniel Rodriguez has finally revealed the bizarre legal maneuver that helped him escape what looked like years behind bars in a Mexican prison.

On the Joe Rogan Experience, the UFC welterweight contender opened up about the nightmare that began after he was arrested with 27 kilos of marijuana while crossing into Mexico after defeating Kevin Holland. ‘D-Rod’ confessed that when he was first thrown in jail, he assumed the situation would be resolved within a few days.

“You know, I got into jail that night, and I was thinking, all right, I’m just going to be here for the weekend,” Rodriguez told Joe Rogan. “I’ll get out Monday, go to court.

“And they’re like, ‘No, we’ll see you in a month.’ I’m like, ‘A month? You know, like, why?'”

That’s when events took an unexpected turn. During the episode, Joe Rogan looked into Mexico’s marijuana laws and found out that, while personal cannabis use has been generally decriminalized for citizens, international tourists continue to face a considerably riskier legal situation. And that’s exactly why Daniel Rodriguez and his legal team devised a stunning solution.

According to ‘D-Rod,’ getting dual Mexican citizenship, as a result of his Mexican ancestry, was part of the procedure that eventually led to his release. When the JRE pointed out that Mexican residents have a different legal framework for cannabis possession than tourists, Daniel Rodriguez admitted that the distinction became a major factor in his case.

“So you became a citizen so the law was less for you?” Joe Rogan asked.

“That was a ton of stuff that we had to do,” Rodriguez replied.

As expected, the UFC commentator immediately called it a “crazy loophole” and even mocked it.

“Now, that is a crazy loophole,” he said. “Now everybody should become a citizen of Mexico.”

The entire affair lasted eight months and completely wrecked Daniel Rodriguez’s career at a time when he should have been at his peak in the UFC. But now, ‘D-Rod’ is prepared for the biggest opportunity of his career.

Just months after being released from prison, the No. 15-ranked welterweight will headline UFC Belgrade against hometown hero Uros Medic in his first UFC main event.

It’s a stunning turnaround for a fighter who, less than a year ago, had no idea when he would be free again. In fact, he even had to make a deal with a cartel leader just to survive the prison environment.

Daniel Rodriguez tells Joe Rogan his bizarre prison survival story

As crazy as Daniel Rodriguez’s legal escape sounds, it might not even be the wildest part of his entire ordeal. During the same conversation with Joe Rogan, the UFC welterweight said that survival in the prison system was like something out of a movie.

What started with him being recognized by a prison guard eventually led to him forming an unlikely alliance with one of the most powerful inmates in the facility.

After spending days jammed inside a miserable processing cell covered in bug bites, ‘D-Rod’ believed the only way to improve his living conditions was to bribe a corrupt guard thousands of dollars. But before that could happen, another inmate took a serious interest in him.

“The guards came and pulled me out and put me into a completely different section — the third floor in the second building,” Rodriguez said. “So I go up there, escorted by guards, and there is this curtain covering the tier, and I’m like, ‘What the f— is going on?’

“I get in there and they pull me to this dude, and he’s like, ‘Oh, you’re a UFC fighter?’ It turns out he’s the head of a cartel—a cartel leader. And he wanted to show me and tell me how they were running things.”

According to ‘D-Rod,’ the man had a television, a PlayStation, and almost every convenience imaginable while running operations from within the facility. That arrangement ultimately changed Rodriguez’s entire prison experience.

“This dude had it made, TV in his cell with a PlayStation, all the amenities you can think of,” he continued. “And (he) told me he runs it here and says, ‘This is our home.’

The cartel leader charged the UFC welterweight $3,000 to share the cell, but the bond quickly evolved into something far more unusual.

“I got the feeling I was his protection,” he added. “We would go to the yard, and he’d tell me to walk with him. I got the impression that because I was his cellmate, I got his back, and he’s got mine.

“I really trusted him, and that’s a hard thing to do in jail, but you catch vibes off people real easy.”

For eight months, the UFC fighter and the cartel leader looked out for one another, which Daniel Rodriguez says helped him survive one of the strangest and most difficult chapters of his life. Looking back, it almost seems incredible that the same man who navigated cartel politics in a Mexican prison is set to headline a UFC event.

However, that is exactly where ‘D-Rod’ finds himself. After everything that has happened in the past year, stepping into the Octagon against Uros Medic might actually be the least stressful challenge he has faced.